Page 43 of To Claim His Highland Bride

Both men looked at each other for a heartbeat before shaking their heads. “Ye’ve been beside us durin’ all our troubles. We won’t abandon ye now.”

“As long as that is your choice,” Marcus replied. He would never forgive himself if these brave men died in this earthquake. He’d already lost too many of his crew needlessly.

“It is,” Rob Roy said, his voice determined. “The sooner we find the missus, the sooner we can all leave.”

“Agreed.” Marcus turned back to the stone, feeling each ridge and valley in the oddly shaped formations. Rob Roy and Mack moved several paces ahead and studied the wall as Marcus and Bryce did.

“I found something!” Rob Roy called out, before he jumped backwards as several large boulders crashed from the ceiling to fill the space where only a heartbeat ago he had been standing.

“What was it? What did you find?” Marcus rushed forward as soon as the stones settled.

“’Twas a gap in the stone.”

Marcus climbed on top of a boulder and peered through a small crack in the stone. “Rowena! Can you hear me?” Her name bounced off the stones and echoed back to him. Dust hung in the air as the earth stopped shaking. “Rowena!” Fear and horror and panic coiled in his stomach. Why didn’t she answer?

A bleakness like nothing he’d ever known before tugged at his heart as a wash of memories tumbled through his mind. Rowena standing on the deck, looking out over the sea, or when she’d emerged from the waters of Dunvegan with seaweed in her hair, or when she stood next to him in the chapel, looking lovelier than he’d ever remembered when she pledged to love and honour him.

“Please,” he pleaded as agony roiled his stomach. “Please let Rowena be alive.”

“Marcus?” The word was faint, and at first he almost didn’t believe he’d heard it until it came again. “Marcus.”

He stared with one eye through the opening. “Rowena, are you there?”

Two fingers reached up and appeared at the edge of the rock. He reached his fingers inside and if he stretched he could just touch the tips of her fingers. “Oh, God, Rowena. How could I have failed you again?” She was behind all that rock, buried.

“It’s not your fault, Marcus. I was the one who wandered off.”

He pulled his hand back and started clawing at the rocks, trying to dislodge anything that would allow him to get to her, to save her.

“Marcus. I found the rest of the treasure. It’s here in this tunnel.”

“I don’t give a damn about the treasure. I would give up every last piece if I could hold you in my arms once more.” He stopped scraping the boulders with his fingers and turned to Mack. “Go back to the ship and get any men who are willing to risk entering the cave. Bring black powder and a fuse as well as tools, anything that might help move these rocks. We only have a few hours before the tide turns again.”

“Aye, Captain.” Mack turned and raced out of the cave.

Marcus leaned his cheek against the cool, rugged stone, trying to draw a hint of Rowena’s scent through the wall that separated them. The muffled sounds of crying reached through the rock and coiled around his heart.

“Don’t cry,” Marcus said in a ragged voice, reaching his hand back through the opening. “We are going to get you out.”

“You and what miracle?” He could hear the sadness in her voice, feel her hopelessness.

It took a moment for her words to register, but when they did he straightened. A miracle . . .

“Hold on, Rowena. We are going to have you free in no time.” Marcus pulled his fingers back. “Come, Rob Roy, Bryce. Help me try to dislodge this top rock.”

The two men scrambled up to the top of the pile of boulders, and along with Marcus strained and tugged, trying with all their strength to move a rock that was no doubt heavier than the three of them together. After several long moments, they’d only managed to move it slightly. But they had moved it. “Let’s keep trying,” Marcus said, trying to fill his voice with enthusiasm.

Several minutes later, covered in sweat and exhausted by their efforts, they hadn’t managed to move the boulder any farther. “Rob Roy, go and look for a sturdy branch or anything we might use to gain some leverage against this rock.”

After Rob Roy ran off to do Marcus’s bidding, he turned to Bryce. “I need you to stay here with Rowena.”

“Where are you going?”

“There is something urgent I must do. I will return quickly. I promise.” He would not fail again. He would not lose another man or woman in the pursuit of treasure. They’d tried moving the stones with brute force. Until they had an axe to smash the boulders into smaller chunks or a lever to shift them away from the gap, there wasn’t much more in the physical sense he could do. But there was something of a more magical nature he had yet to try.

At Bryce’s nod, Marcus raced back through the cave. When he reached the last piece of dry rock before it dipped into the sea, he paused, looking at the sky. In the cave he’d had no sense of the passing of time and was surprised to see the sun was already low on the horizon. If the morning’s high tide had crested mid-morning, then the next high tide would happen around nine-thirty or ten o’clock that night. That meant they truly only had about four hours to free Rowena.

The paralysing fear that flashed through him at the thought had him sucking in a breath. He couldn’t lose another person to the sea. Drawing another more steady breath, Marcus pushed the debilitating thought aside. He had a task to complete, there was no time for fear.