“What? Where?” Caroline’s heart was still in her throat, her own breathing shallow and quick.
“Everything. It’s all right, just get me out of here.”
Five minutes later Shannon was lying in the large bed, the covers drawn up over her nakedness. Caroline was wrapping the last of the gauze around her elbow, its whiteness a stark contrast to the red, raw skin. “There, that should do it.” She secured the last piece of tape.
Caroline looked into dark eyes slightly glazed from pain and medication. “Try to get some sleep.” She had an overwhelming urge to kiss Shannon’s forehead like her mother used to when she was sick.
She stopped herself as she started to lean toward her.
“Thanks.” Shannon’s voice was barely a whisper. As she fell asleep, Caroline gave in to the need and placed a light kiss just above her eyebrows.
• 119 •
• 120 •
Descent
ChaPTER FiFTEEN
Caroline watched the rhythmic rise and fall of Shannon’s chest for the next several hours. It felt like her heart stopped every time she relived the scene of Shannon missing the turn and tumbling headfirst into the stand of trees. Due to the JumboTron at the finish line, all twelve thousand people in attendance saw it as well. The eerie quiet after the screech of horror was nerve-wracking until Shannon waved from the litter she was carried on. She was taken immediately to the on-site clinic. Caroline had no idea of her condition until after she received the third place medal and practically bolted off the stand in the direction of the first aid tent. She was stopped before she could enter, but the man on the door told her that Shannon was conscious and all of her limbs were moving. Caroline almost collapsed in relief.
She couldn’t help but notice Shannon’s body both when she was in the tub and as she helped her into bed. She was thin almost to the point of being skinny, every muscle defined and hard. She had a tattoo of an abstract female bike rider going downhill on the outside of her right calf and a series of symbols on her left. Her breasts were small and Caroline’s palms tingled as if remembering just how perfectly they fit in them.
No matter how much she wanted to forget, various things over the past ten years reminded her of Shannon and at the oddest times.
A flavor of ice cream, a movie title, even the words to a song flashed feelings of warmth or pain through her gut.
Caroline had no idea what she was doing here, in Shannon’s room.
Well, she did, but why was the question. Other racers she knew had
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been injured, some more severely than Shannon, and she never felt the unrelenting need to see how they were. She needed to verify with her own eyes that Shannon was all right. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her riding shorts and shirt. She had dropped her safety gear off at the trailer and found Fran to tell her where she was going.
They were supposed to meet back at the Shimano tent after the awards ceremony and interviews and head back to the hotel together. But Fran nodded her understanding and Caroline found herself at Shannon’s door soon thereafter.
As she watched her sleep, Caroline thought back on their conversation earlier in the week. What was Shannon trying to do?
What was her intention? What did she want from her? She admitted she hadn’t given her a chance to say much, but laid into her instead. She didn’t realize that she was still angry and hurt over the way it ended between them. Good God, it was ten years ago and she was seventeen at the time. What did she expect? Some sort of nice, neat closure? It had been anything but. And why hadn’t Shannon called? Caroline had asked herself that question hundreds of times over the following year, each time imagining what she would say to Shannon when she did.
She had called Shannon until the numbers wore off her phone.
She used mutual friends to get in touch with her, but for two weeks all they were able to do was trade voicemails. It was frustrating and when they finally did connect their conversation was forced and stilted.
They used to talk about everything, but during that last conversation they had almost nothing to talk about. It was amazing that at seventeen how quickly things went from great to over. Caroline buried her hurt in training and driving herself to exhaustion studying for her Ph.D.
And now here she was. Five feet from the woman who at one time meant everything to her—or at least she thought she did. But that was a lifetime ago when she thought Shannon was the love of her life. That they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. But when she had heard via the rumor mill that Shannon was with someone else, she knew it was simply a teenage thing. Here one day, gone another. So what was she doing here now, hovering over Shannon’s every breath, worrying herself sick that she would be okay? While Shannon slept she had watched her, looked at her, and fought the urge to touch her.
• 122 •
Descent
The feelings that overwhelmed her all those years ago came back in tidal waves, one after the other. The joy, the happiness, waking every day knowing Shannon Roberts was in her life. It felt as if those years between never happened, that they were still together, finishing each other’s sentences, knowing what the other wanted almost before she did, holding each other tight in passion. What in the hell was she supposed to do now?
v
Shannon was falling, faster and faster down the hill until there was nothing under her but the thin air between her and the ground some eight feet below. She was suffocating and every muscle on her body screamed in agony as she struggled to sit up. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay, Shannon. You’re safe.” A familiar voice seeped past the thick fog of her subconscious. The darkness came again, ending her tormenting dreams.
When she woke again, this time more fully awake, Shannon didn’t move, giving herself a chance to gather her wits. She hurt. God, did she hurt. Her left arm throbbed and it felt like her entire left side was lying on hot coals. Her head pounded. The light coming in from the window was the soft rays of dawn.
Cautiously, she turned her head, waiting for the pain to subside before focusing her attention on Caroline, who was in the chair beside the bed. She was curled on her right side as much as possible in the rocker recliner, her hair falling over one side of her face. She was wearing a terrycloth robe with the emblem of the hotel near her right breast. The front gaped open revealing her chest and the swell of her other breast. Her feet were bare, her toenails polished bright red.
Shannon smiled at the sight, the nail pedicure a complete contradiction to the mud and dirt of mountain bike racing. Then it all came back to her with agonizing clarity. She had somehow missed the last turn and remembered falling but nothing after that until the bright lights of the first aid tent. They had poked and prodded, x-rayed her from head to toe and, finding no injuries other than a severe case of road rash, had let her go. She had to fight like hell and sign a dozen
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forms releasing the clinic from responsibility if complications arose, but Shannon was determined not to spend the night in the local hospital.
She remembered getting back to her room and running a bath when Caroline arrived and wouldn’t leave. Shannon’s body flushed with heat as she remembered Caroline climbing into the tub with her, her hands gently stroking her back, the feel of the erect nipples when she lay against her. Shannon moved in reaction to the sensation and couldn’t stop the moan of pain from escaping her parched lips. Caroline was instantly awake and alert.