Chapter Two
Paige had to admit, she loved exploring and she didn’t get to do as much of it as she liked these days. Too many hours spent at her desk in front of her computer, working on her dissertation.
So she was thrilled in a way to have an excuse to go traipsing through this old mine.
As a highly trained scientist—chief gemologist to her family’s worldwide jewelry company, with a master’s in geology and hopefully soon a PhD—the idea of discovering a gemstone believed to rival the Hope Diamond was thrilling in a way that had nothing to do with saving the family fortune.
It was the kind of discovery anyone who traveled the world exploring and truly loved the various, extraordinary substances the earth, over time, could yield would have dreamed their entire life about making.
Few scientists ever got to experience the thrill of such a find.
Paige wanted it so bad she could taste it.
Her heart was thrumming so fast it was like a roar in her ears as she stood at the entrance to the mine once her adorable cowboy was gone.
She put down her big backpack, then took out her helmet with her LED light and turned it on, leaving it on the ground to provide some light in the recesses of the overhang that guarded the mine’s entrance. From her pack, she pulled out an old pair of coveralls—because exploring was a messy, often cold business. She’d worn her hiking boots in, put one small, spare light around her neck on a cord and another in the smaller pack she’d carry in, along with a small length of rope, spare batteries, power bars and granola, some water, a small notebook and a camera.
Her hair was already in a long braid, which she tucked inside her coveralls. Then she put her helmet on with her LED light wrapped around it. Making sure the light was on, she was ready.
Paige took a breath, let it out slow and off she went into the dark, cool quiet of the old mine.
Travis couldn’t believe she went into that mine alone!
He’d hung back, waiting once he’d gotten over the ridge, and there she’d come, a hat tilted low obscuring his view of her face as she hiked over from the ranch’s boundary nearest the park.
Looking very efficient, he might add, once he’d crept back close enough and gotten down nearly to ground level so he could watch. She snapped on her light in the deep recesses of the overhang. She suited up, checked her equipment—she’d come prepared, at least—and then seemed to disappear.
He’d been sure there had to be someone else with her, that she wouldn’t go inside the mine alone. He’d wanted to catch her companion, too, so he’d waited.
He’d been here when a bunch of archaeologists had explored the mine last year, photographing and documenting the ancient drawings and carvings on the walls called petroglyphs. He had gone inside with them a few times to see what all the fuss was about.
None of the archaeologists had ever gone into that mine alone!
And yet today, there she went!
“Damned, stupid woman!” he growled. His horse gave him an odd look. Travis shook his head. “Not you, Murph,” he told the horse.
He climbed into the saddle and headed for the mine, thinking he just might have her arrested for trespassing. Maybe it would make anybody else think twice before trying what she just did.
He needed to put a stop to this nonsense before anyone got hurt.
At the overhang, he tethered Murphy to a small tree and fished in his saddlebags for an oversize flashlight so he’d at least be able to see a bit in front of him, took off his hat, shook his head and swore some more about lost diamonds, family feuds, treasure hunters and women.
He got to the mouth of the mine and headed after her. The entrance was nearly tall enough that he could stand up without hitting his head.
Nearly.
Apparently the miners weren’t quite six feet two inches.
If he hunched over a bit, he could stand and walk. The entrance sloped down, but only slightly, nothing too taxing or too dangerous here.
He had the flashlight on but pointed at his feet, not wanting to warn his little trespasser she was about to get caught.
About fifteen feet in, he came to a vertical shaft that went down twenty feet to the next level and another horizontal shaft.
He’d gone this far before, just not alone. The makeshift ladder attached to the mine wall was metal and had been checked and reinforced just last year, had held his weight just fine then.
Travis hoped to hell he caught her somewhere on the horizontal shaft at the twenty-foot level.
He sure didn’t want to have to go any farther and allowed himself to mutter some more about stupid legends, ancient curses and women.
He climbed down the shaft, then stood on the horizontal shaft as it opened up both left and right.
Did she know she wasn’t alone by now? Had she heard him? She didn’t have that much of a head start, and he would hope she was being more careful and moving more slowly than he was, since she hadn’t been here before.
At least, he didn’t think she’d been here.
Travis stood there, listening, finally hearing a clank and then a muffled curse in the shaft to the left. He hoped she was at least as frustrated as he was and liked the idea that he might scare her half to death, coming upon her this way in an abandoned mine.
If he did, maybe she wouldn’t do anything this stupid again.
He crept along, the light out now, going by the feel of the cool, rock wall against his right hand. He caught a glimpse of light, then of what she was studying.
One of the petroglyphs.
An eagle.
He could see it in the light from her helmet, but had only a vague impression of her, sturdy boots, baggy coveralls and a helmet, her nose practically pressed against the rock onto which someone maybe as long as five thousand years ago had carved an eagle.
He was sure she’d come after the diamond.
So why was she studying the drawings?
Travis backed out of the shaft quietly, slowly, wanting to know what she’d do next.
Finally, she started making her way back to the center of the twenty-foot level. From there, it was either explore the passage to the right or descend again.
This time to a hundred feet.
He thought it was downright creepy being that far underground under solid rock.
Surely she wasn’t going to do that.
He waited just down the right-hand passageway, peered around the edge of the wall and there she was, checking out the vertical shaft that descended to the next level.
“God almighty!” he muttered, then walked over there and grabbed her around her waist and picked her up as she knelt on the ground peering into a hole, seemingly comfortable as could be, with an eighty-foot drop beneath her.
She screamed so loud he thought she might bring the walls down around them, and he lifted her up in the air and held her there, her body curled up in a ball, mad as hell. She kicked out with her feet and got some leverage against the opposite wall, sent him tumbling back and hitting the wall behind him none too gently.
He held on, one arm around her waist and one managing to get a grip that flattened both arms against her body.
When she finally stopped screaming, he muttered into her ear, “Hush. There’s no place to run, and I’m sure as hell not letting you climb down any farther into this mine.”
She stopped struggling, finally. She had lost her helmet at some point and its light was now shining down the passageway to the right, so