Deep Trouble Read Online Free Page A

memory. Bucky had been shouting at her. Odd, Bucky was a sweet-natured, easygoing man. Not one for yelling overly.
    “Shannon, wake up!” Whoever it was shouted until Shannon wondered that grit didn’t cascade down off the ceiling.
    “Yes.” As she said it, Bucky faded from her foggy mind and another face sporting a heavy moustache took his place. “Yes, I’m here.”
    Rolling over, her stomach threatened to rebel. She fought the sickness, stretched out to look over the edge of her cave opening, and got hit in the face by a rope. It settled around her head, and she was well and truly lassoed.
    He saw her and dropped as if his knees gave out. Her rescuer was near a cave opening on the level below her. “You’re awake.” He grabbed the lip of that cave and struggled to stay on the narrow ledge. “Thank You, dear Lord God. I’ve been so worried.” Like he’d knelt to pray. Or maybe he’d collapsed, and since he was on his knees anyway, he included a prayer. He swiped his wrist across his face, almost like he was wiping away tears, but the setting sun cast him in shadows, so she wasn’t sure. Then his shoulders squared and he stood, looked up, and smiled. “Sorry for roping you.”
    She was so happy he was there she’d have let him lasso her and slap a red-hot branding iron on her backside. “That’s okay. Gabe, right?”
    “Yep. I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He made a small grimace. “Yet.”
    That sounded ominous. Which made her ask, “Have you figured out a way to get me out of here?”
    “Maybe?” He sounded like he was apologizing. It all boded very poorly. “I’ll need your help.”
    That would be her pleasure. “What do you want me to do?” She pulled the lasso off her head.
    “Don’t drop it!”
    She hung on tight. It felt as if she were connected to the world again. She couldn’t help the lift in her spirits, though she still didn’t see what he wanted her to do. “There’s nothing to tie this to up here.” Her chin wobbled, but she fought the urge to cry. She’d wasted enough time and salt water on that.
    “I know. You said. And I looked in a cave down here and didn’t see a thing that would work.”
    “So, what do you have in mind?” Her fingers curled around the rope so hard her knuckles turned white.
    “Uh, well, I’m open to other ideas.” He grimaced again.
    “Such as?” Shannon was open to ideas as well.
    “I thought maybe you’d have them.” He gave such a tiny shrug from where he stood about twenty feet below her that she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been riveted on the man.
    Thinking, thinking, thinking.
    She’d always done well in school, and this situation she’d gotten into notwithstanding, she’d always considered herself intelligent. “Nothing comes to mind.”
    “For me neither.” His dark eyes almost seemed to beg for forgiveness. “Except one thing.”
    Dark hair hung from beneath his hat. He seemed very tall, too, though honestly it was a little hard to judge from her position. He had a droopy moustache and broad shoulders, and she found him almost stunningly attractive for the shallowest of all possible reasons—he was here. She’d have thought a warthog was cute.
    “So what do you want me to do?” she asked.
    “I want you to slip that noose around your waist and snug it tight.”
    “And pull you up?” She shook her head. “What would be the point of that? I doubt I’m strong enough to hold it while you climb, and besides, if we were successful, then we’d both be up here together. Our problems wouldn’t be solved at all.”
    So far a cute warthog might also be a bit more help.
    “No, I don’t want you to pull me up.” That small flinch again. Hard to tell what his expression really meant. His mouth was covered by the moustache; his face was tilted almost straight up to be able to see her. Maybe she was misinterpreting it. Maybe he wasn’t flinching and grimacing. Maybe it was just because she was so overwrought that