he didn’t! If you knew he’d had the highest score in all of Burke, you’d probably be ten times as hard on him for darn near failing two subjects this past quarter. Jason is a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid! Why, he’s probably smarter than you and your ex-wife and me put together. Which is why it’s so terribly sad to watch him throwing all his potential away because he thinks he’s so totally unloved. He’s intelligent, yes, but he’s still not mature enough, emotionally, to see what he’s doing. But you are! Which is why I’m actually feeling rather glad we’re stuck here—not that I want to be here much longer, of course. Now that you’ve told me more about Jason’s background, your own background, maybe I can really make some progress with him.”
She subsided against the seat once more, as if she’d just realized she’d said too much. “If you want to, that is. And if you promise not to go running to Jason and tell him you know about his SAT scores. Because if he thinks I ratted on him, I’ll lose what little ground I’ve gained with him this past semester, and—well…”
“You don’t have to explain that one to me, Cassandra,” Sean admitted, his anger draining away. “I’m very much aware of the term, and would never rat on you.” Then he looked at her again, envying Jason for his ability to bring such animation, such genuine interest, to Cassandra’s face. “You really like him, don’t you.”
Her smile lit up the night with twice the voltage of the continuing lightning strikes. “Oh, yes. He’s a great kid. Funny, intelligent, inventive. But always with this underlying sense of sadness about him, you know? It’s like he’s this clumsy, eager, half-grown puppy with big sad eyes. I just want to hug him sometimes.” She shook her head. “He’d have a fit if he heard me say that!”
“Yes, he probably—listen! Listen closely. Did you hear that?”
Cassandra sat up straight, turning her head from side to side, as if activating some inner radar. “Did I hear what?”
“I’m not sure,” Sean said, turning the ignition key to the accessories position again and pushing the button that lowered his side window, so that he could see out into the darkness. “Some sort of whooshing noise…like something’s on the move out there again.”
And then he saw it. Saw the mountain moving, sliding toward them. Again.
“Damn it all to hell!” He closed the window, turned off the ignition and made a grab for Cassandra, cradling her body tight against his as a wall of rock and mud slammed into the side of the Jeep.
The sound went on forever. The slam of rocks, the oozing, sucking, rushing sound of ground giving way and turning to a river of mud. Boulders hit the side of the Jeep, rocking the vehicle on its chassis, grinding it against the guardrail as it lifted and began to slide downhill along with the mud.
Sean employed his long legs to brace himself against the floorboards and used one hand to pull on the headlights, something telling him that, even if they tumbled down the mountainside, maybe the Jeep’s battery would last long enough to allow the headlights to serve as a beacon for possible rescuers.
If the Jeep wasn’t buried ten feet deep beneath a mountain of mud.
If one of the boulders didn’t come crashing into the Jeep at window level, ripping off the roof and killing the two of them instantly.
With Cassandra’s head buried against his shoulder, he looked out the front windshield, watching the area the headlights illuminated, seeing the melting mountainside even more clearly with each new bolt of lightning.
They were going forward, parallel with the roadway, sliding down the mountainside toward Grand Springs one lurching, heart-stopping yard at a time, the Jeep kept upright only by the strength of the guardrail.
The screech of metal against metal, the Jeep’s frame scraping along the guardrail, sent sparks into the air and turned their wild ride into a bizarre, frightening, macabre amusement park adventure.
And then he saw it. A boulder so big it was higher than the roof of the Jeep. Wider. Wedged between the guardrail and a huge, overturned tree.
And the Jeep was heading straight for it, swept along at about thirty miles an hour—or so it seemed to Sean—held against the rail like one of those tin rabbits that circle a dog-race track.
“Hold on!” he shouted over the escalating noise…the rush of rain…the rolling thunder that slammed and reverberated inside his chest…Cassandra’s single scream, which cut straight into his heart.
Chapter Four
It was like a head-on collision with a brick wall, and the hood of the Jeep folded up like an accordion even as Sean threw himself across the front seat and on top of Cassandra, knowing he had to get himself away from the steering wheel, which could otherwise have ended up halfway through his chest.
He stayed very still, trying to decide if they had reached the end of this latest storm-induced journey, listening to the relative quiet that followed, watching for lightning, then silently counting one one-thousand, two one-thousand, just as Cassandra had suggested.
Yes, the rain was beginning to slacken off.
Yes, the storm seemed, at last, to be moving away from them.
But the mud remained, and the danger was still with them. There could still be another slide.
Slowly, he began to realize that Cassandra was lying quietly beneath him—quietly, but with her arms wrapped around his back in a death grip, her body pressed against his, her teeth chattering.
“It’s all right, Cassandra,” he breathed quietly, soothingly, whispering the words through the tangle of her hair, his lips against the warm skin of her ear. “It’s all right. I promise.”
She swallowed. Once. Twice. He could feel the movement of her throat, sense her fear, hear the small catch in her throat as she took several deep, steadying breaths. “Just hold me, all right?” she asked after a moment. “Please. Just hold me. Keep telling me it’s going to be all right.”
The smell of her perfume teased at his nostrils. The warmth of her body, fitting so perfectly against his, set off warning bells in his head. She held on to him with all of her strength, all of her desperation, all of her very reasonable fear.
Because they could die out here. One more large slide and the guardrail was sure to break away, or they’d be buried alive under the mud and boulders.
He knew it. She knew it.
And lying to her, saying everything was going to be “all right,” didn’t mean squat.
She probably knew that, too.
He pressed his lips against the side of her throat, tasting her, trying to soothe her, divert her attention away from what might be the inevitable tragedy that awaited them. “I’m here with you, Cassandra. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
God! She felt so good. So alive. And he needed to feel alive.
He allowed his mouth the liberty of another kiss, and then another, tasting the sweet skin of her throat, easing himself backward slightly, moving his body lower along the length of her, so that he could lift his head.
Lift his head…and look down at Cassandra
