Chapter 6

She found herself suddenly face down among the rocks, her head lower than her feet, and pain lancing up her arm from her wrist. Dazed, she lay still, while waves of pain shot through her. After a few seconds, she began to think again, and her first thought was, God, what have I done! How will he ever get us home if I’m bunged up too? He doesn’t need any more trouble.

As she thought this, she realized that Vincent was calling. "Catherine? Catherine! Answer me, please! Are you all right?"

She raised her head and gave an answer, albeit a weak and breathless one. "Yes. Yes, I’m all right. Wait…" Her head downward position on the rough slope made her breathless. She tried to raise herself, and gave a little scream as the extent of her injuries became more obvious. "Ah-h-h-h!" Then, knowing he would have heard it, "I’m OK, I’ll be there in a few minutes." She turned herself over painfully, and managed to sit up. "I’m coming, Vincent. Sit still!"

She raised herself stiffly to her feet. It seemed that she had injured a good many portions of her anatomy in the fall. She moved slowly and laboriously down the pile to the crutch-to-be, which had rolled down several feet below her. Carrying that burden had become a real difficulty, since among her injuries was a painful left wrist. With that hand curled protectively against her chest, she began to move again, hauling the beam fragment behind her with her good hand. There was one more rock mound to cross before she rejoined Vincent. To her exhausted and agonized sight it looked twenty feet tall, but she started grimly up the side. There was no choice. It had to be done. With one more reassuring call to Vincent, she began the climb.

><><><><><><><<><><

By the time the job was done she was at the very end of her endurance. She staggered over the last of the rocks, dropped the piece of wood, and followed it to the ground, where she subsided gracelessly into a huddled heap.

Vincent was there at once, with a cool wet cloth to wipe her face. Gently he coaxed her head up so he could carefully clean the tear-tracked dust from her cheeks. Then he turned his attention to the rest of her. "Catherine, tell me, where does it hurt? I see that your wrist is injured, is that right?"

She nodded, turning her face up of her own accord as she held her wrist out gingerly. "Uh-huh."

He took it very gently in his hands. "This is going to hurt. I’m going to check the bones."

She let her breath out explosively as he examined the wrist, and tears started in her eyes, but she didn’t make a sound.

"I don’t think it’s broken, although I’m sure it feels as though it is; but it’s badlly sprained. It’s starting to swell, we’d better get it bound up." He tore a long strip off the edge of one of the blankets, and bound the wrist securely. When that was done he turned his attention to her other injuries. "Catherine, what’s this?" He pulled aside her jacket and exposed a bloody smear that extended the whole length of her shirt from underarm to waist.

"Oh! I must have cut myself. I didn’t even feel it at the time; I guess I just hurt all over." She paused for a moment, then raised her head to give a small wry smile and said, "I didn’t notice it until you pointed it out. Now it hurts."

"It must." Gravely, he pulled her jacket off her shoulder and began to unbutton her shirt.

"No, I can take care of it, Vincent!" Catherine pulled the unbuttoned top of her shirt together. No more problems, please! her tired mind cried silently. He doesn’t need anything more to feel guilty about! But of course she couldn’t take care of it. She had only one hand, and she was so exhausted that she felt ready to pass out. Even as she spoke she knew he’d have to do it.

He sat back. "You look to me like you’re right on the edge of unconsciousness. Did you hit your head? Are there any bruises?" His attention turned to her head. After examining it and checking her eyes, he was satisfied that her unsure grasp of consciousness was due to exhaustion, not a concussion. "I think you’d better let me take care of you, Catherine. Please, just let me help. I’ll be very careful, but we must treat your injuries." He returned to his task of unbuttoning her shirt, and she gave up her objection. She was just too tired.

Under the shirt she was wearing only a tank top, which he lifted up without hesitation, exposing her breasts and a jagged cut running from the edge of her breast for about two inches diagonally down her right side. "Oh, Catherine." He was very much concentrated on the injury, so much so that Catherine found herself hoping that he wouldn’t find this exposure of her body an occasion for guilt. He mopped the injury carefully with a wet cloth, and as he got a clear look at it he shook his head. "I’m afraid that this is going to require stitches." He looked up at her with sympathy. "I’m sorry."

"It’s OK. Just let me lie down. I…don’t think I can sit up…much longer." She was fighting a black cloud that kept descending over her field of vision.

"Of course. Here’s the blanket. Lie down."

She collapsed gratefully onto the blanket. Vincent helped her to turn on her left side, and she let herself gray out, trusting to Vincent to take care of her. In three minutes she was in a hazy half-sleep, in spite of the pain of multiple scrapes and bruises

Vincent hitched himself along the ground to his pack, where he removed the small first aid kit, then returned to Catherine, still half-crawling, half-sliding along the ground. The injury to his leg was going to be enough of a problem; he meant to keep off it until he had to use it.

Catherine seemed to be asleep. That’s good, he thought. She won’t feel everything I have to do. The stitches will wake her up, though. He began to clean the wound.

He was not so concentrated on the injury as Catherine had thought. As he gently stroked the skin of her breast to clean the blood away he became aware of the softness of the skin under his hand. When he saw the nipple rise to a firm peak, stimulated by his stroking hand, he suddenly comprehended exactly where his thoughts had gone. His hand froze in horrified awareness. Thank God she’s asleep! was his first thought, followed by an appalling one - Does it make the offense less that she doesn’t know about it?

The parallel to the incident on the balcony that still haunted his memory was too close. Suddenly the whole enormous load of shame and guilt that he had ignored during this time of emergency fell on him with petrifying force.

In his mind he was again looking through the balcony door at her half nude body, flushed under the influence of her sexual arousal. Once more he felt that irresistible rising tide of excitement flow through him, and to his horror his body also relapsed into those unforgettable moments. His penis rose to press painfully against the fabric of his jeans, while his hands still touched the skin of her breast, as soft as velvet and beautiful as a lily.

Even while he deplored with all his strength the emotions that tore through him, his hand lingered on that soft skin, that target of his most fevered dreams. Sweat rose on his brow as he struggled with himself, trying with all his strength for the will just to withdraw his hand. And his will, that instrument honed over years of self-control, won out; his hand fell back to his side, and as control returned slowly, he exhaled a long sigh of relief.

But his trial was not over. The wound remained, and he must care for it. Muscles in his jaw knotted as he strove for a controlled return of his hand to her body. Slowly he resumed the cleaning of the wound, and as he did so a measure of distance from the sexual aspects of the task returned to him. Gratefully, he relaxed slightly and immersed himself in the job of sewing up her wound.

Catherine had been oblivious during the moments of Vincent’s inner ordeal, but the first piercing of the needle woke her to awareness of pain. "Ow!" She jumped under the needle. Then as she came to full consciousness and realized what he was doing, "Oh…sorry…Ow!" She jumped again.

Vincent shook his head slightly, apparently immersed in the job before him. "Just try to lie still if possible…" He looked up at her for a moment. "If not, I’ll try to compensate." He smiled slightly, and returned to his job. His iron control had returned with a vengeance. He felt every prick of the needle as she did, and inside of him was a maelstrom of anguish at the pain she felt, but the job at hand must be done, and to sympathize too greatly was to magnify her discomfort. So he was matter-of-fact, and she responded by trying her best to be the same.

"OK. I’m trying…" As the operation progressed, she held valiantly still, but when he looked up at her a moment later, two tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"Almost done…one more...there!" As she heard the words, her whole body relaxed. Her sigh of relief was more than matched by his. When the light bandage with which he covered the wound was in place he pulled her tank top down quickly and closed her shirt, buttoning it up carefully

"Eight stitches. You were very…gallant." His task finished, Vincent leaned back and looked at her soberly. "You are a brave woman, Catherine. I…admire your courage." The words he longed to say were tightly reined back, but the tender longing look on his face was, to her eyes, enough to tell her that he adored her.

"Oh, Vincent…" She leaned forward slightly.

He leaned away immediately. The burden of guilt that he carried had become heavier in the last half-hour. As he gazed at her, his longing more apparent than he realized, it occurred to him to wonder how long he could carry that burden. Soon…soon, he must lay it before her and accept the consequences. She had said there was nothing to forgive, but…nothing? A betrayal of her, and a betrayal of his own honor…nothing? How could he tell her? His shoulders slumped, and he looked away from her, toward the failing light in the cavern. Twilight was fast turning to night.

"You must rest now, you’re injured and totally exhausted. I’ll make a new bed; you must be as comfortable as I can make you. I’m apprehensive for you, Catherine. You have driven yourself past what is safe for you. Close your eyes and rest, while I make a bed and get us something to eat." Without his conscious control his hand came up to touch her cheek gently, and was withdrawn quickly. "Rest."

She lay back on the blanket and closed her eyes, glad to rest without thinking any further. Vincent would take care of it, whatever it was. Her side and her wrist both ached abominably, but she slept almost immediately. The hours of unaccustomed physical labor and the tension of their fight for survival had indeed pushed her past safe limits.

She half-woke sometime later to find herself cradled in Vincent’s arms, warm and safe, her aches dwindled to a dull discomfort. With a deep sigh she slid back into sleep.