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So Rafe and Brooke disappeared from her sight. Genny stared hard up at Geoffrey and clutched the blanket tighter around her shaking shoulders.
They really didn’t take that long. It only seemed like half a lifetime.
And then Rafe was there again, looking down, finding her, giving her his crooked wreck of smile. “We found one.”
“A ladder?”
“Yes—you said something about your ankle?”
“I sprained it. It hurts, but I can get up a ladder.” By God, she would do it no matter the pain. Her ankle would hold her. She’d drag herself up by her arms alone if she had to.
“We could wait,” he suggested.
Brooke said, “I can call and find out how long they’re going to be.”
“No! Get me out of here, Rafe.”
Brooke caught Rafe’s eye again. “When she gets that tone, you should do what she wants.”
“Listen to your sister,” Genny warned. “She knows how I am. And I want out of here. Now,” she added, just to be perfectly clear on the issue.
“All right, love.” He disappeared from her view for an instant. And then he was hoisting the ladder into the well. It was of weathered wood, an old harvest ladder, wider at the base than at the top. “Get up against that side there, underneath where Brooke is. I’ll ease it down to you....”
“Wait.” She drank the rest of the water and let go of the bottle. Then she tied the corners of the blanket around her neck. “All right.” She limped back against the slimy wall. “I’m ready.”
He lowered the ladder into the well, dropping to his belly in order to ease it as far as he could with his long arms. “Can you reach it?”
She stepped forward to catch it—and let out a moan when she put too much weight on her bad ankle.
“Gen. If you can’t do it—”
“Do not tell me what I can’t do. I will do it.” She got under the ladder, keeping most of her weight on her good leg, and she reached up and wrapped her hands around the side rails, about a foot from the base. “It’s long enough. If I can get to the top, you can pull me the rest of the way.”
“All right.” He sounded doubtful—probably about her ability to climb with only one good leg—but he didn’t try to tell her again that they should wait. “Have you got it?”
She stepped back again, taking care not to let the groan of pain escape her lips. “You’re just going to have to let it go. I’ll try to guide it down.”
“Good, then.”
“Now,” she said.
He let go. She bent with it as it dropped. Slivers speared her already injured palms and pain sang up her leg. She gritted her teeth and did what she had to do, bending to follow the ladder down. Muddy water splashed up into her face.
“Are you all right?” Rafe called to her.
She armed the water out of her eyes. “Fine. Yes. I’ve got it.”
“Ease it up as close to the wall as you can. And then lift it, and drop it hard. You need to be sure it’s planted firmly at the base.”
Her ankle ached every time she moved it, but she managed to lift the ladder and shove it hard into the muck. Once that was done, she grabbed a rung and gave it a tug. It seemed stable. She looked up at Rafe’s face above her—and thought of that night at Villa Santorno, when she’d told him about the baby.
There had been a ladder involved then, too. As well as a twisted ankle.
He frowned down at her. “It’s all right to wait....”
Not a chance. “I’m coming up. Ignore the groaning. I am not stopping. Are we clear?”
“Nine steps,” Brooke called down. “You can do it.”
“And I’m right here to pull you out.” Rafe held down his big hand.
Genny started climbing. Every other step was an agony. But it was funny about pain. The closer she got to Rafe’s reaching hand, the less the hurting mattered.
By the time she reached the top with her hands, she was putting her full weight on her bad foot. She kept going, stepping up one rung and then the next, until her upper body was beyond the ladder and she had to press her torso against the slimy wall of the well, trying to distribute her weight so that the ladder wouldn’t topple away beneath her.
And then there were no more steps. She eased her hand upward on the muddy wall, reaching for Rafe’s fingers.
“Careful, careful...” He whispered the words. She saw only his face, his reaching hand, heard only that “Careful,” so tenderly whispered as he lured her upward.
He reached. She reached. She had both legs on the top rung. Inches to go before he clasped her hand and brought her up out of there.
