Page 67 of In Too Deep
“Then at least you tried.”Her fingers tightened on his arm.“And at least you’re alive to bring help back.Staying here because you’re afraid to leave us isn’t noble, it’s just…it’s just all of us dying together.”
Noah stared at her and saw the terror she was working so hard to hide.
She was asking him to leave her in the dark, alone, with a seriously injured boy and water rising somewhere behind them.
She was asking him to trust that he could find his way back through the maze.
She was asking him to do the one thing every instinct in his body was screaming against.
“No.”The word came out raw.“Don’t you understand?”His hands moved to her shoulders and gripped tightly enough to bruise.“I can’t leave you.I love you.”
The words hung between them in the darkness, finally spoken after all the weeks of careful distance, of measured politeness, of pretending he didn’t feel what he felt every time she looked at him.
Meg’s eyes widened.Her lips parted on a sharp inhale.“Noah?—”
“I know what I said before.I know I told you to go to Pennsylvania.I know you deserve someone without so much baggage, without all this grief.”His voice cracked.“But heaven help me, I do love you.I love your heart.The way you can’t leave a patient untended even if you met them thirty minutes ago.I love that you see me, know me, and still care for me despite it all.I love that you’ve seen Star Wars more than fifty times but would watch it again in a heartbeat.I love the way you laugh and the way you taught me to laugh again.And I can’t lose you.”
“Then don’t.”Her hands came up to cup his face, her palms against his stubbled jaw.“You have to trust that I can keep myself alive until you come back.”
“What if I can’t find a way out?What if?—”
She pulled him down and pressed her lips to his.
It wasn’t the tentative kiss like that first one in the canyon.
It was desperate and fierce and tasted like fear and dust and the certainty that this might be the only chance they’d ever have.
Her fingers curled into his hair, and the feel of her hands on him—solid, steady, alive—nearly undid him.Every word he’d never been brave enough to say clawed its way up his throat, trapped behind the desperate press of his mouth against hers.She held him close and pulled him to her.
He wrapped his arms around her and crushed her against him.He was holding on too tight, but he couldn’t stop.Couldn’t loosen his grip.Like if he just refused to let go, he could somehow keep the world from trying to take her again.Like he could make her safe through sheer stubborn will alone.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Meg kept her forehead pressed against his.
“If you really love me,” she whispered, her breath warm against his lips, “then you have to do this.You have to go and find us a way out.”
Noah’s hands slid from her back to frame her face, his thumbs on her cheekbones.He brushed away the tears on her cheeks.“Meg?—”
“Promise me.”Her voice was steady now and stronger.“Promise me you won’t give up out there, no matter what happens.Because I’m going to be here waiting, and I need you to come back to me.Do you understand?”
He leaned in and kissed her again.Softer this time but no less intense.All of his love and desire burning beneath the tenderness.He tried to tell her everything he didn’t know how to say—that she’d changed him, that she’d made him want to survive when he’d been ready to give up, that the thought of her waiting was the only thing that might be strong enough to pull him back from whatever darkness waited out there.When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers for one more moment with his eyes closed.
“I promise.”His voice was rough.“I’ll come back.”
She nodded.Her hands slid down to squeeze his before letting go.
The loss of her touch felt like losing something vital.
He forced himself to step back and start thinking like a ranger instead of a man watching the woman he loved prepare to be left behind in the dark.He pulled supplies from his pack and sorted quickly.“The water should stop rising once the rain stops.But if the storm picks up, you may need to move to higher ground.”
“There is no higher ground in here.”Meg gestured at the smooth walls.“This is it, Noah.This is as high as we can get without you.”
The weight of that statement settled on his chest like a physical thing.
He was their only chance.Their only hope.
If he failed, if he got lost or couldn’t find a way out…
Meg stood and crossed to him.She wrapped her arms around him and held tight.She pressed her face against his chest.
