Breaking Point (25 page)

Thunder crashed overhead.

“A monsoon has moved in. If we don’t haul ass, we’re going to get caught in a flash flood. Get your pack on, and let’s leave this death trap.”

And then she remembered.

They’d taken shelter early this morning at the bottom of a dry wash. He’d warned her that it was dangerous because they were in the middle of monsoon season and people died every year when the washes, which were dry most of the time, turned into raging rivers. But she’d been so tired that she’d barely been able to put one foot in front of the other, so he’d relented.

She grabbed her pack, shook it to dislodge anything that might have climbed into the harness, then slipped it on her aching shoulders. She hadn’t come all this way to die in a muddy ditch. “Let’s go.”

Zach grinned, his stubbled face turning from rough to handsome as hell in a heartbeat. “Yes, ma’am.”

By the time they reached the spot where they’d descended into the wash, it was raining hard, the fine desert silt turning to butter beneath Natalie’s feet. Zach climbed out of the wash, and she tried to follow, but the bank was too slippery and too steep.

A flash of lightning. The crash of thunder.

She tried again, grabbing on to a clump of grass and digging hard with the toes of her boots, but she just wasn’t strong enough to lift both her body weight and the weight of the backpack. Breathing hard, she felt herself sliding backward. Below her, the water was already ankle deep—and rising.

She hadn’t been afraid before, but she was now.

“I can’t do it!” She looked up only to be blinded by raindrops.

Zach was shouting something to her, but she couldn’t hear it over the rumble of thunder and the rush of water and wind.

Again she tried, and again she slipped, the water up to her knees and tugging hard, threatening to pull her off balance.

Oh, come on! You can’t drown in the damned desert, girl!

Then something hit her face.

A rope.

A loop had been tied on the end of it.

She didn’t need to hear what Zach was saying to know what to do. She slipped it over her head and beneath her arms and held on tight, the current sucking at her feet.

And slowly Zach dragged her up the muddy embankment until she lay at the top, covered head to toe in mud and breathing hard.

Then he was there beside her. “You okay?”

She nodded, still trying to catch her breath, the shock of what had almost happened catching up with her. “I could’ve drowned.”

“That was too damned close.” He got her to her feet, lifted the rope over her head, then tucked a gloved finger beneath her chin and kissed her. Rain spilled over his face, catching in his stubble. “Let’s get out of this storm.”

She glanced over her shoulder and felt her knees go weak.

The place where she’d just been standing was now a deep, roiling current.

THE THUNDERSTORM LASTED for almost an hour, changing the landscape. Low-lying areas were now muddy marshes. The washes were brimming and impassible. And everywhere the fine desert silt was slick and muddy. This slowed them down considerably and left footprints that any idiot could follow. But it also made the journey more difficult for Natalie, her feet slipping with each step.

Zach slowed the pace, trying to find a dry place where they could rest until dark, some place that wasn’t already occupied by snakes or arachnids trying to avoid the wet. He was about to explain to her why it would be okay in these circumstances to sit next to a spider, when he saw an outcropping of granite a bit farther up the hill to their right. He helped her up the slippery slope, then shooed away the bobcat that had taken shelter in a deep alcove on the north side of the outcropping. Larger than the space they’d camped in that first day, it would get them out of the wind and the rain and give them a safe place to rest until nightfall.

He took Natalie’s hand and helped her inside, dropped his pack and then took hers. “Take your jacket off. It’s drenched.”

He shed his jacket, as well, then grabbed the woolen blanket. He drew her down beside him in the soft, dry sand and wrapped the blanket around both of them, hoping the wool would hold in their body heat and help them dry off. Being wet out here at night would put them at risk of hypothermia. And there was nothing like walking in cold, wet BDUs to chafe one’s inner thighs. He could write a dissertation on that subject.

Petroleum jelly. You knew you’d forget something. Damn it, McBride!

The rain had rinsed off most of the mud that had coated her, her lashes wet, her hair sticking to her cheeks, droplets beading on her face. She huddled up against him, shivering. “Don’t we have to get skin to skin for this to work?”

“Are you saying you want to get naked with me, angel?”

She smiled through chattering teeth, two little dimples appearing in her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No? Too bad.” He drew her tighter against him, wrapping his arms around her, doing his best to share his surplus body heat.

For a while, they sat there, watching the rain fall, water spilling over the edge of their little shelter like a translucent curtain, partly concealing them from the world beyond. Gradually, her shivering subsided, and she began to relax into him.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

The question came out of nowhere.

“I wanted to drive a dump truck. Then I wanted to be a fireman. Then I wanted to be an astronaut. Then I wanted to be a football star. And then I went to college and had no clue what I wanted to do.” He glanced down and saw her smiling. “What about you? Did you grow up wanting to be a journalist?”

She shook her head. “No. I wanted to be a vet and take care of horses.”

“Really?” For some reason, that surprised him. “What changed your mind?”

“Math. I’m no good at it. I barely got through college algebra. I was much better at English, so I ended up majoring in journalism. I discovered I really loved it. Beau always told me he . . .” Her words trailed off into silence.

“Hey, it’s okay. You can talk about him with me.” Zach wasn’t insecure enough to be jealous of a dead man. Besides, he had no claim over Natalie.

Two days at most, McBride.

He glanced down, saw a bittersweet smile on her face. “He always told me that journalism was my destiny because I was always asking questions.”

That sounded like Natalie. “Did you meet him in college?”

She shook her head. “I met him the night I graduated from high school. I was from the Garden District and went to Louis S. McGehee High School—that’s a private girl’s school—and he was the football star at St. Bernard High School, a public school in Chalmette.” Her accent grew stronger when she talked about her hometown. Zach found it almost irresistible. “I went out with some friends to celebrate—we were wearing matching pink gowns and wrist corsages—and a guy he was with started picking on me and plucking the petals off my corsage. Beau made him stop and apologize.”

“It takes a lot of courage for a man to stand up to his male friends.” Particularly when it revolved around how they treated women. “He sounds like a good guy.”

“He was.” She smiled, a sad smile. “I ran into him about a week later at a White Stripes concert at Tulane. He asked me out. We ended up dating throughout my three years of college—”

“Three years?” It had taken Zach five.

“I skipped a grade in middle school and graduated early from college due to advanced credits.” She said this without a hint of arrogance. “I turned twenty-one the year of the storm.”

Hadn’t he known she was smart? “Sorry to interrupt.”

“We dated through college, despite my parents’ fears that he was just after their money. We were well off, and his family wasn’t. They didn’t like his accent, thought he seemed uncultured. But they eventually came around. He worked hard to earn their respect, and I think they saw the man he truly was. He turned down a football scholarship and worked his way through college. He’d just gotten accepted to law school when . . .

“We couldn’t live together because that would have freaked my parents out, but we spent lots of time together. He proposed to me on my twenty-first birthday over champagne at Commander’s Palace. He had a ring tucked in the pocket of his sports jacket. I was so surprised, and the ring was so beautiful—antique white gold with a one-karat diamond. He said he’d been saving his money since the night we met. I accepted his proposal and . . . In less than two months, he was gone and my folks, too.”

Something twisted in Zach’s chest at the depth of her grief. “I’m so sorry.”

“They didn’t like each other at first, but they died together because they all loved me.”

“Don’t you dare blame yourself, Natalie. It wasn’t your fault.”

But she didn’t seem to hear him.

“Now the Chalmette I knew is gone. St. Bernard High is gone.” Her voice quavered, and he knew she was near tears. “There have been so many times when I wished they hadn’t found me in the morgue. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I had blacked out. It would have been so easy to die. Then Beau and Mama and Daddy would still be here.”

A part of Zach wanted to tell her not to think like that, but he understood that feeling only too well. It sucked being the one left behind.

She went on. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the sound of his voice. I find myself wondering if I can remember his face without photographs. I kept my old cell phone—the one that had messages from him saved on it. I fell apart when I accidentally ran it through the washing machine and destroyed it. Somehow, it felt like I was losing him all over again. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“No, it isn’t.” He rested her head against his chest. “I may not have met Beau, but I know one thing for certain. He wouldn’t have wanted you to waste a moment blaming yourself. If he loved you at all, he would want you to live a full and happy life without him.”

She sniffed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on like that. I haven’t even told my friends at work about Beau or what happened during the storm. I didn’t mean . . .”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s a hell of a thing to have been through.”

He wanted to say more than that. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was that life had thrown so much shit her way. He wanted to remind her that if it weren’t for her, he’d be dead right now. He wanted to tell her that if it were simply a matter of crossing the river Styx and trading places with Beau, he’d be gone in a heartbeat.

But he didn’t.

She drew back from him, wiping the tears from her face, clearly embarrassed that she was crying in front of him. But, hell, who could blame her?

“I think the rain’s letting up.”

 

THE RAIN DID, indeed, stop, and the sun came out. Within fifteen minutes the air was warm again. Feeling both embarrassed about having fallen apart in front of Zach and grateful that he’d listened, Natalie concentrated on the scenery. Pools of water shimmered in the light of the setting sun, tiny ponds and puddles drawing thirsty wildlife. She saw pronghorns and more javelinas, and she thought for a moment she’d spotted a mountain lion. And then she noticed something odd—the sound of running water.

She stood, walked out of their little haven and downhill around to the side of the rock outcropping, where she discovered a little waterfall. Only about ten feet high and no more than a foot wide, it spilled from a crack near the base of the stone, down the slope, where erosion had washed the sand away, leaving granite. But it had stopped raining almost twenty minutes ago, which meant that this must be . . .

“A spring.” Zach’s voice came from beside her. He stood beside her, rifle in hand, as always. “It probably taps an aquifer near the surface and only runs when there’s been a downpour.”

Then an idea came to her—a crazy, wonderful idea. “Is there any soap in that backpack of yours?”

“I think the first-aid kit has a small bar.”

She turned on her heels and marched back uphill. “I’m taking a shower.”

“You’re . . . What?” He followed.

“I’m taking a shower.” She opened his pack and began to rummage through it.

“Here, let me find it. You’re going to mess up my system.”

She stepped back, watching as he moved things carefully aside, withdrew the first-aid kit, then handed her a small bar of soap. “Thanks. I can’t wait to feel clean again.”

She made her way back down to the little waterfall and was about to undress, when Zach insisted that he check the site to make sure there wasn’t anything there that could harm her. Once he was satisfied, she stripped, sliding out of boots and socks and her still-damp pants, T-shirt, and panties and setting them down on a dry rock.

She supposed she ought to feel self-conscious being naked in the open air like this, but there was no one there apart from Zach, and he’d seen it all before. She grabbed the soap and stepped through the sand into the stream of water. It wasn’t as cold as she’d thought it would be, but it wasn’t warm either.