The building shuddered again. Heart pounding, she gripped the next step and crawled forward. The walls had crumbled and bent in places, so she couldn’t stand up. Instead, she had to keep crawling like she was in the ever-shrinking tunnel of an underground cavern. She didn’t dare look down or she might lose her nerve.
“You’re doing great, Harper.” Heath’s words echoed through the stairwell. If only he could have made this climb along with her.
Just a little farther and then she should be at ground level. That didn’t mean she could get out. She risked a glance down and couldn’t even see Heath or James. Harper slid beneath splintered drywall to continue on the path, only to find the stairs didn’t go all the way.
They had torn away from the wall and what might have been a door.
Her flashlight flickered and went out.
Oh no. Her heart tumbled.
Above her, voices sounded. And through an opening in the wall, light. Hope surged.
Could she make the jump from her perch on the twisted metal stairs to the railing next to the wall? She sucked in a few breaths, then propelled herself forward. She grabbed the rail, but her palms were moist and she started to slip.
“Help!”
Strong arms reached toward her. “I got you.” Hands gripped hers and pulled her through the opening. People cheered as a man lifted her to her feet.
She sucked in a breath as she wiped sweat and grime from her eyes. “There are two men down there. Heath and James.”
“Harper!” Emily cried out from across the street where onlookers watched.
The man who had pulled her from the building handed her off to another guy—a firefighter? He urged her away from the building toward a waiting ambulance.
“No, I’m staying. I have to wait for Heath!” He has to make it out. “Will you please let my sister over? James was her date tonight. He’s down there too. He should be coming out.”
Her bones ached. Her limbs screamed. And her heart pounded. Come on, come on . . .
Emily ran across the street and hugged her. She cried in her arms. “I thought I’d lost you. I never would have left you behind if—”
“It’s okay. You had Dawson. Where is he?”
“A policewoman is watching him for me. He’s sitting in the car with her. But what happened? How could you survive?”
Harper’s mind felt like it would collapse in on itself before this was over. “Uncle Jerry saved me. Showed me to a blast shelter. After the last bomb, the owners had insisted on building a safe room in case of a terror attack. The problem was that we were almost trapped in there.”
A man assisted James from the building, drawing Harper and Emily’s attention. The crowd cheered.
James bent over his thighs to catch his breath and pointed at the building. “He’s still down there.” James shook his head. “The stairs collapsed, so I don’t know how he can get out.”
“What?” Harper grabbed his collar and shook him. “And you left him down there?”
“There was nothing I could do. I didn’t see him behind me when it collapsed. I just had to crawl out as fast as I could.”
Emily pulled Harper to her and hugged her. “It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not. It’s not going to be okay.” Harper sobbed into Emily’s beautiful sequined dress.
All because of Uncle Jerry. But Emily’s speech had somehow turned him. He’d saved the people he’d initially planned to kill. He’d saved Harper and James and . . .
Emily gently turned Harper and pointed. “Look.”
Harper was afraid to look. She was afraid to hope. Finally, she glanced to the opening as Heath climbed out. Clanking and crumbling resounded as a plume of dust rose from what had been the stairwell. There must have been enough material left that Heath had been able to climb out. The building wasn’t done collapsing though.
“Back. Everyone stand back!” Firefighters pushed Emily and Harper away from the building. Screams resounded.
Harper didn’t want to leave Heath again. She turned to run toward the building. A cloud of dust rose to the sky like a miniature mushroom cloud.
A man caught her up in his arms and carried her away.
Heath!
Once they stood at a safe distance, Harper spotted her sister and James. Everyone except her uncle was out now—and safe, though maybe not sound.
She leaned into Heath. “I thought I’d lost you.”
He hugged her long and hard. She never wanted to let go. “I’m so sorry, Harper.”
But she did let go so she could face him. “What are you talking about? What are you sorry for?”
His eyes glistened with pain. “I did this. Every time I try to fix things, I make them worse. I thought things could be different, but I see now that nothing has changed. I brought you here so we could get away from what had happened. But I brought you right into the thick of it. You almost died.”
Oh, Heath. “You have it all wrong, Heath. First, you got me those tickets to see Emily—that meant everything to me. You listened to my heart. You knew what I wanted. It was . . . so romantic, even though I’m not sure you meant it that way.” Harper seriously wanted to kiss the guy, but she had to finish so he would understand. Harper knew his insecurities all went back to his mother—if he hadn’t begged her to come back, she wouldn’t have died in the fire. Or so Heath believed.
“You brought me to the right place at the right time,” she said. “I was able to help Emily. To save her life and get her out. I wasn’t the only survivor. And something else. I was able to talk to my uncle and hear his last words. He was a sick man. Sick in the head and sick in his body. And then you came for me—you risked your life and came in search of me . . .” Tears choked her next words. “I told myself I was too broken to love. People die and leave loved ones behind to suffer with the loss. All I could think about when I thought I would die in that bomb was how much I wanted a chance with you, Heath McKade.”
He lifted her face. Dirt and grime smudged his skin. She doubted she looked any different. Bright blue eyes stared out from behind his dirt-covered face.
“What are you saying, Harper?”
She couldn’t answer him. Why had she said any of it?
He peered into her eyes like he would comb through her mind and heart until he found the answer.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know you’re still afraid. I was wary too. But I’m not anymore. I’m done holding back. Harper, I don’t want to scare you off before we’ve even had a chance, but I could love you, if I don’t already. We can take it slow though—that is, if you want to take that chance with me.”
She didn’t want her decision, her words, to be the result of the traumatic series of events that had brought them together. But as he said, they could take their time.
“I already told you I want that chance, Heath, but how can we explore this? You live in Grayback. I live in Missouri.”
“For now.” He eased her chin up and planted his lips against hers, gently, but with the promise of so much more. She had no physical or emotional energy left to fight what had grown between them, and that was probably a good thing.