From Glowing Embers (27 page)

“We’ve got no choice.” Gray went down on one knee and scooped Jody up in his arms. “Find some rope and tie our belts together. Do it quick.”

Julianna realized he wanted a stronger defense against the storm. Two bodies functioning as one. In the main part of the workshop she found a ball of sturdy twine. As Gray stood beside her, she looped it around and under both her belt and his, leaving six inches between them. Ten loops later, she tied it off with a strong square knot and cut the cord with clippers hanging on a nearby peg.

“Now take off my jacket and cover Jody.”

Julianna reached past Jody’s body and unzipped the jacket, then helped Gray slip it off. She draped it over Jody and tucked it around her, closing the zipper underneath her small body. “The cat,” Jody murmured.

“The cat will be fine where it is, and it won’t come with us anyway.”

“Can we make it?” She heard the catch in her own voice.

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t get shaky now. It’s a short trip, and we sure can’t stay here.” Gray pulled her forward. “You’re going to have to dig in as hard as you can or we’ll never get there,” he warned. “I can’t do it for both of us and Jody, too.”

She nodded, taking a deep breath as he flung open the workshop door.

Chaos reigned. Julianna realized how insulated she had been inside the house. There the hurricane had been terrifying; here it was beyond comprehension. The rain seemed to fall from the ground up and from the sides of trees and houses. The wind sucked up everything it touched, sending fountains of loose debris dancing in midair.

“Let’s go,” Gray shouted.

Even though she was right beside him, Julianna could hardly hear his words. Hooking her fingers in the waistband of his pants, she stumbled out into the storm.

The house seemed miles away. Each step they took moved them only inches toward their goal. The wind assisted them by blowing in the right direction, but they had to compensate for its power or be blown to the ground. Julianna stumbled, almost taking all of them down. A moment later she
was
down, knocked there by Gray to avoid a tree branch swirling through the air where their heads had just been.

The storm was the nightmare she had never gotten over. Incoherent with dread, she tried to stand, but her knees wouldn’t hold her. She felt the tug on her belt and heard Gray’s shouted encouragement. She tried again to get up and succeeded, only to be blown off her feet by a blast of wind so fierce she had no strength against it.

“Come on, Julianna. You can do it.” Gray crouched beside her, Jody in his arms. “Come on.”

She tried once more, with the same result, but the next time she made it, stumbling to her feet and taking two steps before she was knocked to the ground again.

Gray and Jody fell, too, dragged down by her weight. Julianna knew what she had to do. Weeping now, she unbuckled her belt with trembling fingers and slipped it off, freeing Gray. “Go! I’ll make it. Get Jody inside.”

“No!” He tried to pull her to her feet, but Jody began to slip in his arms. “Hold on to my belt,” he ordered. “We can do it.”

“Go on.” She gestured toward the house, tears mingling with the water surging around her. Through them, she saw the desolation on Gray’s face.

“I can’t leave you.” He reached toward her again.

“Go. For Ellie!”

She knew he understood. Holding Jody against his chest, he turned away and started toward the house. Julianna tried to stand and follow, but the wind threw her forward into the stream of water running down the slope from the house. She crawled another foot on her hands and knees, grasping for holds that weren’t there.

Something hit her on the top of her head, and she cried out. Dazed, she continued to crawl, hoping she was going in the right direction. Water ran into her eyes, blinding her, and her head throbbed unmercifully. The water turned red, and she knew it was blood.

“Gray,” she sobbed as she crawled. She remembered crying for him when she had given birth to their daughter. He had cared then; he would have been beside her if he could have been. If there were a way, he would be beside her now.

The thought gave her the strength to battle the storm. She looked up and saw the blurred image of Paige’s house. Her head throbbed, and the image disappeared, but she began to crawl again.

Gray fought his way toward the house, stumbling twice, but catching himself both times. Even Jody’s insignificant bulk made it more difficult to stay upright against the buffeting of the winds.

Each step took him closer to the house but farther from Julianna. He didn’t dare turn around to see if she was making any progress. He couldn’t bear to think of her alone, forced to face the storm’s fury without his support. He increased his pace until every muscle in his body screamed from the effort it took to keep his balance, but he was frantic to get back to her, frantic to bring her to safety.

When he was still yards from the house he saw the broad-shouldered figure of a man leap down from the lanai and start toward him. Moving against the wind, Dillon’s progress was slow, but he reached Gray at last. Gray saw his mouth move, although his words were lost in the hurricane’s roar.

“Julianna!”

Gray pointed over his shoulder, but before Dillon could move in the direction he had signaled, Gray grabbed the sleeve of the Australian’s oilskin. Then he shoved Jody toward him. “Take her,” he shouted near Dillon’s ear. “I’m going back.”

He saw Dillon’s mouth move, and he heard remnants of his words. “You’re exhausted. Let me.”

Gray shook his head, and Dillon, left with little choice, took Jody from him.

Gray turned and started back in the direction he had come. The wind at his back had been treacherous, but nothing had prepared him for the experience of facing it head-on. It was as if he were trying to batter his way through a stone wall with nothing except desperation to aid him.

He bent low to give the wind less of a target, but by bending, he lost sight of all landmarks. He stumbled on, seeing nothing except the water rising around his ankles. He screamed Julianna’s name, even though he doubted she would hear him.

Julianna was crawling on gravel she hoped was a path. The rocks bruised her knees as water rushed past her. The wind whipped long strands of her hair across her face and into her mouth, and she felt the sting of something sharp slice the palm of her hand. Disoriented, she lifted her head again, afraid she might be moving in circles.

“Julianna!”

At first she thought she had imagined Gray’s shout, but in a moment she heard it again. “Julianna!”

She tried to stand once more. “Gray!” she managed, before she fell to her knees.

She saw him coming toward her, making slow progress against the wind. Crawling again, she started in his direction. Blood and rain mixed with her tears.

Strong arms closed around her. “I’ve got you.” Gray clasped her to his chest. “I’ll help you stand. Come on.”

She tried to tell him about the pain in her head, but her tongue didn’t seem to be able to form the words. He pulled her to her feet, one arm tightly around her waist for support. She stumbled, but he held her upright. “Jody?” she croaked against his ear.

“Dillon’s got her,” he shouted.

With Gray as her anchor, she took one step, then another. Her foggy brain judged that they were halfway there. Her knees buckled, but Gray managed to hold her up, swaying unsteadily until she leaned back against the wind. He began moving, pulling her along beside him once more.

Gray was giddy with relief. He had been plagued by fear so intense that he had understood, for the first time, how Julianna must feel about storms. The hurricane had become a diabolical force separating him from the woman he loved.

There was no time to examine it, but suddenly there was no doubt in his mind that he still loved Julianna. Nothing else could explain his terror she would come to harm; nothing else could explain his joy at bringing her to safety. He loved her, and he had loved her for ten long years.

“We’re going to make it,” he shouted, and he hoped his words were prophetic. “We’re just about to the house.”

Gray’s words were punctuated by an explosive crack. Julianna turned, her head reeling from the effort, and watched the cannonball tree fall straight toward them.

Gray heard the crack at the same moment. His choice was so simple that there was no choice at all. In an instant Julianna was lying in a stream of rushing water with Gray covering her. She groaned, her head spinning, then she fainted in his arms.

JUST BEFORE SHE
opened her eyes, Julianna heard a moan. The sound convinced her she was alive, but told her nothing about where and when. Neither did it explain why. She lay quietly, gathering the strength to force her eyelids apart.

The moan sounded again, but this time she knew it was coming from her own throat. Her eyelids fluttered open in protest. She’d never been a moaner. She took what life dished out without audible complaint. As her eyes began to focus, she wondered if moaning might not be a healthier response after all.

The room undulated in shades of gold and ebony, and for a moment she concentrated on the fact that it was a room, not the swirling center of a violent storm. Then she remembered something more important.

“Gray.” Her lips were dry, and the word crackled hoarsely. She said it again. “Gray!”

“I’m right here.”

She felt fingers slide between her own and a thumb making slow circles across the back of her hand. She gripped Gray’s hand with all her strength—which she discovered wasn’t much—and turned her head to look at the man that hand belonged to.

“You’re alive. I’m alive.”

“Apparently Eve didn’t want either of us.”

She swallowed, and he seemed to anticipate what she needed. He bent and slipped an arm under her back, lifting her just far enough so that she could sip from a glass of water he held to her lips. When she shook her head, he lowered her to the bed again and picked up her hand once more.

She rested a moment before she managed her next words. “Tell me what happened.”

“You hit your head one time too many.” Gray caressed her hand as he spoke. “Do you remember the tree falling?”

His words brought back the sound of exploding wood. She nodded, and pain throbbed in jagged waves across her forehead.

“I knocked you to the ground.”

“You threw yourself on top of me.”

“Any chance a man gets.”

She tried to laugh, but instead a tear ran down one cheek. “You were trying to protect me,” she said haltingly, interrupted by more tears.

“Sweetheart, don’t.” Gray sat down on the bed beside her and began to smooth her hair back from her face. “It’s all right.”

“You shielded me.” She turned her face to his hand and rubbed her cheek against it. “I thought you were going to die. I wanted to die, too.”

He was silent, but no words were needed. He lay down beside her and took her into his arms, wrapping them around her so that they lay face-to-face. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, nuzzling each teardrop. Hesitantly he kissed her lips, brushing his own back and forth over them until she was kissing him, too. Only then did he withdraw far enough so he could watch her expression as he answered.

“I want to
live
with you, not die with you,” he said, tracing the trail of her tears with one finger. “We’ve been given that chance.”

Julianna knew how much more courage living took than dying. She turned her face from his. “Tell me what happened.”

“The tree missed us.” He didn’t add that it had missed only by inches. She didn’t need to hear how close they had come to dying in each other’s arms. “You were out by then. Dillon says from shock as much as a slight concussion.”

“Dillon?”

“He works on a miner’s rescue squad as a trained paramedic. He’s the one who patched up your head. You’ve got a cut right along your hairline. It should heal without a scar.”

As her hand went to her head to touch a neatly taped gauze square, she realized that although the wind was blowing steadily against the bedroom windows, it was blowing without conviction. “The storm. Is it over?”

“The worst of it is. The winds rimming the eye were fierce, but they’ve died down. Last I heard they were going to downgrade Eve to tropical storm status. As hurricanes go, she was a pussycat.”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

He laughed, and his finger circled higher to trace the frown lines on her forehead. “Jody’s fine.”

Full memory returned in a rush. “Jody!”

“She’s all right, Julianna. In fact, she’s waiting to see you.”

“How long have I been out?”

“About an hour.”

“May I see her now?”

“But you haven’t exactly been out the whole time,” Gray went on, as if she hadn’t interrupted. “You’ve come to a couple of times, said a few interesting things.”

She wet her lips, afraid to ask.

“For instance, when I undressed you and put you in dry clothes, you thanked me.”

Her eyes challenged his. She refused to cringe because he had seen her without clothes. It certainly wasn’t the first time. “Thank you again.”

He smiled. “My pleasure, believe me.”

“Since I don’t remember, I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“You never wore underwear like that when we were married.”

“On the few occasions we were together, you could hardly wait to get me out of my underwear anyway.”

“I’ve learned a few things since then.”

“More than a few, I’ll bet.”

“There were no women that I could pretend were you.”

Jealousy was quickly replaced with something else equally powerful. “This so-called
slight
concussion knocked my tear ducts haywire,” she said, wiping another errant tear with her fingertips.

“I’m sure that’s what it is.”

“What else did I say?”

“I’ll tell you someday. Right now there’s a little girl who’s pretty worried about you.”

He kissed her forehead, untangling himself as he did. At the door, he paused. “Don’t be angry at her, Julianna.”

“I couldn’t be.”

Gray opened the door. “She’s awake, shrimp.”