The B Girls - By Cari Cole Page 0,61

it? You have to get it together. If I managed to rappel down that hole, you can manage to navigate a little tunnel."

A slightly hysterical giggle bubbled up out of Lucy's mouth. "Little is right."

Mae propped her hands on her hips and cocked her head. "Now look here, your Aunt Belle is counting on us to get to that Declaration."

Yes, Belle was counting on her, but fear this big tended to overwhelm everything in its path. "Two words--cave in."

"Two more--kid-napper." Mae punctuated the last with a clap for each syllable.

"That's one word," Lucy pointed out.

Mae sighed in exasperation. "Fine, if we're not going forward let's go back. We have to get Jane out of here too."

"I didn't say I wasn't going," Lucy said. "I just need a little time to work up the nerve."

"Good. That's good," Mae said.

Lucy thought she sounded like she was talking to one of her teenagers after they'd told her they planned to save sex for the wedding night. She wasn't ready to throw in the towel yet. Jane had broken an arm and refused to let them quit. The only thing stopping Lucy was fear and that wouldn't change in the next few minutes or even the next few hours.

She pictured Gary telling her she'd become a boring drudge. That did it.

"I can't quit. We have to get the Declaration today. Let's see if we can make it through," Lucy said.

"I'm not sure we'll be able to get through wearing our packs," Mae said as she made a test foray into the opening. Sure enough, her pack snagged on the top of the opening even when she flopped on her belly.

"We can't leave them behind," Lucy said. "We don't know what equipment we might need. Not to mention the water and batteries."

"Why don't we use some carabineers and attach them to a piece of rope. We can pull them behind us," Mae said.

"Sounds like a plan." Maybe not the best plan but at least Mae was still capable of logic. "You can pull them and I'll be able to push if necessary," Lucy said.

Mae cut a piece of rope from one of the bundles dangling from her climbing harness and started to rig her pack to it. Lucy shrugged out of hers so Mae could rig them together.

"I hope this mess doesn't get caught on anything. I'm probably not going to have a lot of room to maneuver in there," Mae said as she locked the final carabineer onto Mae's pack.

"If we can get through the packs can get through," Lucy said. She clipped the carabineer Mae had attached to the other end of the rope to a loop on her harness. "Let's get this over with."

"Ready?" Mae said.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not ready. I'm about to present myself to that hideous hole like some kind of human sacrifice."

"Not too late to go back."

"Just go before I lose my nerve."

Mae dropped and crawled into the crack.

Lucy shuddered and held a last second debate with herself. In the end, she decided she couldn't live with wimping out now.

She dropped and followed Mae into the hole.

###

Lucy tried to conjure an image of a magical underground world as she crawled into the crack of doom behind Mae.

She tried to channel Lara Croft--brave, adventurous and more than capable of saving Belle from one scholarly kidnapper.

It didn't help. She still knew she was a soon to be divorced, (nearly) middle-aged woman with bad hair and no sense of style who on a good day could achieve a true meditative state for ten minutes max.

Her heart pounded, she was breathing way too fast, and she was seeing spots. She was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. At least that's what she thought it would be called since she'd never had a panic attack before now.

"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to die we go. We're idiots in over our heads. Hi ho, hi ho, hi ho."

Jane's singing brought Lucy up short. It was only in her head. A bubble of hysterical laughter popped out of her mouth. That is exactly what Jane would be doing, making some sick joke about this nightmare.

The imagined off-key version of the dwarves' song did the trick--a happy, animated vision of the cave popped into her head. Walls gleaming with polished gems, nice smooth passages and her fellow dwarves in fine voice.

Lucy shuffled on and held on to the vision. "Find your happy place," she said to herself. This was all