Pulled In

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

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DARCY WOKE UP WITH a startle, rubbed her eyes, and yawned. The woman scrambled for a few seconds and then sat up with a groan. Her muscles protested loudly. The enclosure of rocks created a narrow chamber, and Darcy had slept in an awkward position, with her knees gathered to her chest.

Darcy tried to accustom her eyes to the dark, and only then she realized that something had interrupted her sleep, so she decided to go out and see what happened.

Darcy began crawling toward the mouth of the cave. She already knew that side of the cave as well as the back of her hand. She had crossed it several times by then.

The water had dug the narrow passage in the rocks along the time. There wasn't too much room to move, and it narrowed even more in some places, so Darcy scratched her elbows, arms, and knees, but she persevered doggedly.

Darcy had stumbled onto the opening of the passage at dawn and crawled for over fifty paces before the makeshift cave widened enough so that she could lie down in a fetus position. She had fallen asleep like a log.

Darcy wriggled through the passage and reached the exterior wall of the cave only after a few minutes this time. She had acquired enough practice. Her muscles screamed, but she clenched her teeth and endured.

When she reached the exterior mouth of the tunnel, Darcy glanced at the sky. She realized that she had virtually slept all morning and a good part of the afternoon. Various noises had woken her up several times during the night, and Darcy had crawled back outside every time to see what was going on. She was worried that Emmett had found her.

Now that she reached the mouth of the cave, the noise that had disturbed Darcy’s sleep became distinctive. Hooves eating the ground sounded closer to her location, and their thunder pounded louder in her ears.

Darcy glued herself to the rocky floor. The opening wasn't broad enough, and Darcy’s line of vision was abysmal, but she could listen at least.

"Where the heck is that cursed woman?" a rusty voice inquired with irritation.

Darcy recognized the timbre of that voice, and her heart stopped for a moment. She couldn't put a name on it, but it was clear that Emmett's men had found her.

"You should know," another man's voice answered with obvious irony. "You were supposed to take care of the woman if I remember correctly."

A string of crude curses followed, and Darcy cringed, but she kept quiet. That man's irritation didn't promise anything good for her if they found her, and she prayed that he didn’t discover her position.

"Where the hell did she go?" the first voice asked with bewilderment. "We've looked practically everywhere."

"Are you asking me, Frank?" the second man replied. "Maybe she got eaten by a bobcat or a bear," the man advanced the idea in a hopeful tone of voice.

"We'd have seen a trace or something," Frank countered in a frustrated tone of voice.

"With that rain last night, traces might have disappeared," a third voice intervened.

Darcy noticed with amazement that the voice belonged to a very young man. She didn’t think the boy was even twenty.

"Shut your mouth, kiddo," Frank barked. "We’d have seen the traces of her steps in the mud," he retorted.

"Not really," another man said, and now, Darcy recognized Gabe's voice.

She wouldn’t forget Gabe. The man had f*******n Darcy to go out in the garden the previous day.

Gabe’s eyes betrayed the man’s brutishness. He even had the mug of a thug, and his slanted black eyes had looked at her as if she were a bug he wanted to squash under his foot. The man’s blatant disregard for another human being scared her witless.

"It depends on how much it rained after she had passed along the trail," Gabe drawled. "And if she got to this rocky area, there's no way we can find out where she went from here. We shouldn’t have sent the dogs back to the ranch, even if they’d lost her trail at the stream," he observed in a hard tone of voice now, and his words betrayed a mute reproach for his mate.

Frank swore again, apparently in agreement with Gabe's last assessment. Frank’s voice showed that what Emmett would do if they didn't find Darcy terrified the man.

The woman didn't intend to make their job easier, so she didn't move a muscle, afraid that she would give her position away. The men had chosen their master, and she didn’t care about what happened to them. In her opinion, they deserved everything that came their way.

"It's already after four," the younger man said. "I think we should grab something to eat and continue our search later. I haven't swallowed anything since morning," the boy complained.

“I don’t see why we have to starve,” he pointed out.

"We don't have time to eat, boy," Frank’s voice whipped the young man.

"Why not?" Gabe intervened. "It's not like we'd waste too much time if we stopped and had a bite. I suppose you've brought something with you, Dean?” he inquired.

Darcy’s heart froze. She was famished and couldn’t bear the thought that they would eat right there, nearby to her hide-out. Besides, she didn’t know how long she could hold the same position.

"I haven't thought of taking any food with me," the young man admitted.

Gabe looked around at the men and noticed that all of them shook their heads.

"Good thinking, people," Gabe observed with irony. "We'll have to catch a cottontail. We’ll make a fire and roast it," he concluded.

"We don't have time for that," Frank snapped. "God knows where the woman has gone by now, and I don't want to lose my head for a light skirt," the man snarled and then spat with disgust.

"No one will take your head if we stop for a bite, Frank" Gabe waved his comrade’s worries aside with indifference.

"The men won't say a thing about our break to Driscoll, will you?" he turned to the rest of their party and pierced them with a black gaze. "Keep in mind that you'll also get into trouble if he hears that we stopped our hunt to eat," Gabe warned them in a sharp tone of voice.

Darcy noticed that two of them seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, but then they nodded.

"So then we’re on the same page here," Gabe concluded. "Let's find ourselves a cottontail or two," he signaled them to follow him. "Two or maybe even three would be better. We won't fill our bellies with only one," the man threw the words over his shoulder with ugly laughter.

Then he galloped down the slope toward the grasslands, and the men followed him. The clatter of hooves filled the air, and Darcy held her breath, full of hope.

Darcy kept her position at the edge of the cave for a while. She didn't dare to move from there until the men had departed and left the area.

She listened hard until she couldn't hear their voices or the gallop of the horses anymore. Then she ventured to look around from behind the surrounding rocks.

Darcy noticed that the sun had already reached the west side of the sky. However, there wasn't anyone nearby, and she sighed with relief.

For a moment or two, she had feared that the men played with her, misleading and letting her believe that she was safe.

Darcy also thanked the heavens that the men hadn't decided to build that fire there and cook their meat. She was famished and wouldn't have borne the smell of freshly fried roast. Her stomach was growling only at the thought of food.

The woman crawled out of the so-called cave. Once she got out in the open, Darcy stretched in spite of all the aches tormenting her body. She massaged her calves energetically to restore blood circulation in her limbs and felt tickles everywhere.

Somewhat recovered, Darcy decided to go around the group of rocks covering the cave and reach the other side of the hill. She had her lips cracked, and her throat parched, so she hoped to find some water along the way.

The woman started up the hill again, clinging to bushes and grass in places where the ascent proved difficult. She began to pant in no time at all, and her t-shirt stuck to her back. A coat of perspiration glowed on her face and chest. Blisters already covered her feet in the aftermath of the previous night's hike, and every step was pure t*****e.

Darcy glanced up at the solitary peaks braving the sky and understood that the ascent wouldn’t be easy. However, the woman locked her teeth and continued climbing.

An eagle shot through the skies, gliding graciously above the butte. It disappeared beyond the rocky tops, and Darcy envied the bird and its smooth journey.

The woman’s stomach growled, and she tried to move her thoughts away from food. What she needed most was water.