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‘You will crawl through that.’
Amanda looked incredulously at Upgrade. He had to be joking.
He waved her forward. He wasn’t joking.
Amanda did as she was told with deep trepidation. What if the great block slipped off the jacks? The thought of entombment sent spears of horror through her. She tried to calm herself with the assurance that at least she wouldn’t be alone. He followed her into the narrow space, pushing her towards an impenetrable darkness.
She could feel her throat choking up. She thought of Aida. How the two lovers had sung together after their entombment was beyond belief. That was opera. This was real life.
Then there was no rock constricting her passage. She swept her arm around to make sure. There was nothing in touching distance. Very cautiously she rose to her feet and stepped forward into a sense of timeless, eerie space.
She heard Upgrade straighten up behind her. Then there was a click and in the glow of torchlight she saw for the first time what her father had discovered.
Only then did she understand why it had haunted him for the rest of his life!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE illumination refracted from thousands of millions of facets of the crystal lining the cave, protruding from the walls in flower-like shapes, feathering down from the roof. It was like a magical fairyland, sparkling with ancient mystery and the promise of riches beyond belief.
It was entrancing, enthralling, and as the torch swung in an arc, it magnified the effect of being encased in a fantastic prism that bathed them in glittering rainbows. It was all her father had described. More. The memory of it must have been burned into his mind...an inescapable torment, impossible to forget.
Tears welled into Amanda’s eyes. To have the enormity of this discovery suppressed and disbelieved when he knew all along he had seen what she was seeing now... ‘It’s true,’ she whispered in an agony of apology for the doubts that had sometimes clouded her faith in his claims about the neodymite crystal caves. ‘All true.’
She turned blindly to the man who had brought her here, instinctively reaching out to him in the darkness behind the torch. ‘I can’t tell you how much it means...’
Her heart was so full she could not find the words to express all she felt. She stumbled forward and half fell against him. His arms swept around her, holding her to the strong, warm solidity of his body. She couldn’t help it. She wept, overwhelmed by this resolution to years of striving...trying to console her father, trying to bolster his cause with her belief, trying to work her way to proving the truth, once and for all.
‘Thank you,’ she choked out. ‘Thank you for doing this for me.’
‘No man could have asked more of a daughter,’ he said softly. ‘Your father has a right to be justly proud of you.’
‘But I’d never have found it without you.’
‘You had an unquenchable belief. Such beliefs move mountains. You would have found it, or lost your life striving for the unattainable. I merely took it into my head to save yours.’
‘You’ve been here before. You must have been.’
‘Once.’
‘Before the entrance was sealed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you decide to share it with me?’
The hand on her hair moved to her face, feather-light fingertips caressing her cheek. ‘Would I be a true companion to you if I let you suffer the pain of never knowing what you wanted and needed to know?’
His lips brushed her fringe aside and pressed a kiss on her forehead. ‘I want your mind to be at rest.’
His hand dropped to the soft swell of her breasts. ‘I want your heart to be content.’
His body moved more intimately against hers. ‘I want you to be at peace with yourself, and with me.’
Amanda was transfixed by the beautiful simplicity of his words, the sweet transmission of giving implicit in his touch. It rippled through her body, washing away the lassitude of deep fatigue, stirring anew the deep womanly needs that called out to be mated with this man.
She felt his physical response, the hardening thrust of his flesh against hers, the sense and urgency of his youth pulsing from him, reaching out to her, wanting. Her mind danced with a wild singing of yes...oh, yes, I want you...yes...and her heart took up the refrain with a rapid tattoo of affirmation.
He expelled a deep sigh and turned away from the tempting contact, his arm curling around her shoulders to hold her close to his side as he moved forward. ‘I will show you all there is to see,’ he murmured, his voice strained with the necessity to complete the task.
