Too anxious to be polite, Cassidy released his pent-up frustration in a rush. “Dammit, Gallagher, I’ve had it with standing around with nothin’ to do but watch other men work. That’s my kid down there. They’re doin’ my job.”
“Right now your job is taking care of your wife.” Though calm, Bren’s voice carried a ragged edge of fatigue.
“Karen doesn’t need me to hold her hand.” It was foolish to wish she did, Cassidy thought, his gaze searching for her small, quick form all but swallowed up by his yellow slicker. He saw the slicker first, and his favorite Stetson covering that mass of curly brown hair that she kept short because it was easier to manage that way. Soft, gold-spun hair he’d always longed to see brushing her shoulders—or his chest when they made love.
Outlined in the eerie blue glimmer of the propane lantern, her face was wan but composed as she bent over the table, calmly applying a large gauze dressing to a stocky firefighter’s forearm. Several other men slumped against nearby rocks or sprawled on the ground, waiting their turn to be patched up.
Chiseling away a mountain of granite chip by chip was tedious, spine-jolting work, but the crew didn’t dare dynamite or even use hydraulic equipment for fear of injuring Vicki in the process. But using pickaxes and chisels in such close quarters had its risks, too, mostly to the men doing the work.
At least Karen was busy, while he had nothing to distract him from his dark thoughts. As though sensing his gaze, she turned her head to look his way. Though a good fifty feet stretched between them, he felt her compassion reach out to touch him. Something gave way inside, leaving him feeling more vulnerable than he could handle.
Sick inside, Cassidy studied the worn toes of his working boots, grimly working to drive his stampeding emotions back into the sturdy mental corral where they belonged.
Damn, but he was tired.
“Straight talk, Bren,” he grated as the other man tossed his cup into a trash container near the canteen. “What are Vicki’s chances of…” He had to take a moment to corral yet another unwelcome surge of emotion. “What are her chances?”
Gallagher squinted skyward “If another storm doesn’t move in, floodin’ us out, I’d say your daughter’s chances are damned good.”
“Keep me posted, okay?”
Bren nodded. “You got yourself a deal.” With that, he snatched up his helmet and headed toward the tunnel.
A rustle of brush had Cassidy turning suddenly to find his wife hurrying toward him. “Cassidy, what did Brendan say?” she asked in the rushed, almost breathless tone she’d acquired over the years as her schedule had become more and more crowded. “Is Vicki all right? How much longer before they have her out of that horrible hole?”
Cassidy knew enough about the caprices of nature to realize just how much Bren hadn’t said. At the moment, however, he didn’t see any reason to share his private dread with Karen. It was bad enough for her as it was.
“Bren figures three hours, maybe less.”
Karen stared at him in stark distress. Tiny droplets of the moisture-laden air clung to her hair, and wispy curls clung to her neck and cheeks. “Three hours?” she whispered in aching disbelief.
“Honey, they’re working as fast as they can.” That, at least, was the truth.
“It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?” She looked tired and worried and terribly fragile, but it was the misery in her eyes that ripped at him in ways she would never understand.
“These guys are the best, Kari,” he hedged. “They know what they’re doing.”
“I’ve been talking to her every few minutes so she won’t be scared, but she didn’t answer. I don’t know if she…” Her voice broke and she bit her lip.
He knew the words she wanted him to say, the promises she was desperate to hear, but he couldn’t make himself lie. Instead, he started to reach for her, only to be interrupted by the approach of Vicki’s sitter.
The fourth of six sisters, Wanda June Peavy lived on a nearby ranch with her parents and grandparents. She had been Vicki’s companion and substitute mom for the past three years, ever since Karen had graduated from medical school and started at Vanderbilt Memorial, first as an intern, and now as a resident.
“Is…I mean, I saw Mr. Gallagher talking to you,” the distraught girl said in a trembling voice when she reached them.
“He thinks it won’t be long now,” Karen hastened to reassure the girl whose face was now tear-stained and ashen.
“It’s all my fault, Dr. Sloane. I told Vicki to stay back from the edge, but I was trying to see if the clouds were moving back toward us. I heard Vicki scream, and when I t-turned back to look, she was g-gone.”
“Stop blaming yourself right this minute,” Karen declared in a fierce tone as she took Wanda June’s cold hand in hers. “I know how stubborn Vicki can be when she’s got her mind set on something.”
The teenager blinked hard. “I should have been watching her closer.” She dropped her gaze and shifted her booted feet. “I keep thinking, if I close my eyes and wish hard enough, I could make this all into a dream and everything would be okay when I woke up. But…I can’t ever make it go away.” Casting an agonized look at Cassidy, she burst out, “You hate me, I know you do! And I don’t blame you. I deserve to die!”
“Don’t ever say that again. Don’t even think it,” he rasped, his voice rough. “Accidents happen.”
“But—”
“Enough!” He reached out to enfold Wanda June in a clumsy bear hug, his big hand awkwardly patting her back as though she were six instead of sixteen. When he lifted his head to look at her, Wanda June offered him a watery smile.
“Okay now?” Cassidy asked when the sitter’s breathing evened and the trembling eased off.
“Yes, I think so.”
The girl lifted her head and took a step backward. “Honey, you need to rest,” Karen told her gently. “Why don’t you go on home?”
“I’d rather stay here until…you know.”
Karen drew a breath. “Okay, but I want you to wait in the truck where it’s dry.”
Wanda June nodded. “Call me if…when…?”
“I will. I promise.”
Karen watched until Wanda’s slender silhouette blended into the darkness, then shifted her gaze to Cassidy once more. “Thank you for that.”
“For what?”
“For helping her to forgive herself.”
“She’s just a kid, doing the best she knows how. I knew better, and I let Vicki go out in this weather, anyway.” Because he’d never been able to say no when she’d sugared him the way he’d taught her to sugar her pony.
“Cassidy, don’t.” He jerked free of her touch. “Let it be, Karen.”
“No, not this time.” Karen took a deep breath “You couldn’t have known that cave was there. No one knew, not even the old-timers. And a mud slide can happen anytime, to anyone.”
“But it happened here! On land I thought I knew as well as my hand.”
“Cassidy, what happened was a freak occurrence, a one-in-a-million accident. If you need to blame someone, blame Mother Nature, because it’s not your fault any more than it’s Wanda June’s.”
“Bullshit. We both know it’s because of my weakness that our daughter is down in that cold hellhole, fighting to stay alive.”
“Stop beating up on yourself. You were on the other side of the ranch when she fell. Besides, you’re the strongest