Men of Courage (14 page)

“You really have to stop hauling me around.”

“Fireman drills. Consider it keeping me trained and ready.”

“Oh. Well, then. Trained and ready is good.”

He slid her to her feet on the first landing, and backed her up against the wall. “Wanna play damsel in distress?” he teased, dropping kisses here and there.

“Fire, fire,” she deadpanned, grinning. “Help.”

He pushed her T-shirt up. She shoved his shorts down.

“Officer fireman, sir,” she panted against his neck. “I think I’m going to burn alive.”

He lifted her up against the wall. “Hold on tight. I’ll save you.”

She wrapped her arms and legs around him as he slid deep inside her with one long thrust. “Yes,” she groaned, holding him tight. “You can. Only you.”

And the earth moved. Again.

Jill Shalvis

I
T WAS A RARE DAY
all around. First, there was the storm, which with its raging winds and slashing rain made working on the house a definite challenge.

Then there was the reason Matt Walker was able to work on the house in the first place—he actually had the day off.

That in itself was so unusual, he almost hadn’t known what to do with himself, but he’d figured it out pretty quick. Being an emergency room doctor had taught him nothing if not how to prioritize.

He stood in the middle of what he could loosely call his heritage, a falling-down-on-its-axis, three-story house on the gulf coast of Texas, left to him by his grandfather.

He’d been given the place, while his brother Luke had been left the big, fat bank account, when the truth was neither of them, both doctors and well-established, needed anything. Still, the
money seemed a hell of a lot easier on a guy than this house.

Good thing he loved his brother, the lucky jerk.

So why had the house and the neglected, overgrown one hundred and fifty acres surrounding it, come to him? He didn’t need it, he didn’t need anything. Or anyone, for that matter.

And what was he, a man without a spare moment to call his own, supposed to do with it? His job was all-consuming, and he liked it that way. He put in a minimum of eighty hours a week at the hospital where he headed the emergency department, saving people twenty-four seven. If he wasn’t treating others, he was planning the treatment of others.

Or, during the rare few hours in a row he had to himself, sleeping.

True enough, he worked with his hands, but this renovation project was so far beyond his abilities it was laughable. And yet here he stood in jeans, a T-shirt and work boots, music blaring out of his portable radio, contemplating the mess around him as though he knew what he was doing.

The foyer stretched out, opening into a living room bigger than his entire apartment. But his
apartment didn’t have rotting carpet, drywall nails coming through the walls and a ceiling turning yellow from leaks.

He was going to have to do something about all of it, but hell if he knew what exactly.

The music stopped abruptly and a deejay cut in. “Sorry, folks, but we’ve got something more important than vintage Van Halen at the moment. We’re talking about that storm out there, the one that’s wasting your spring veggies.”

Matt craned his head and looked out the window. What had started out as a pretty pathetic offering of a few sprinkles had upgraded itself with a vengeance. He could hardly see for the slashing rain and incredible wind.

“It’s upgraded itself from pesky to downright dangerous,” the deejay continued. “Coming in off the Gulf, and basically, if you’re anywhere near the coast of Texas or Louisiana, you’re in for it.”

Well that solved the problem of what to do with himself today. If the storm was that bad, he’d be back in Houston, in scrubs soon enough, treating injuries and worse.

The house would be on its own.

It was a hundred years old, it could handle it; if it held through that storm, that is. Matt didn’t
care either way, his parents had seen to it he didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. They’d traveled extensively, and exclusively.

Exclusively meaning no children invited.

Which meant that more often than not, he and his brother had landed here. Grandfather had pretty much let them run wild and, Matt had to admit, they’d spent some impressionable months here, he and Luke, racing through the fields, swimming in the creek behind the house, dodging grandfather’s ire over their antics…

Funny how he’d forgotten that when he’d learned the house was his. All he’d felt was resentment at having to care for something other than his patients.

But now as he stepped past the living room, the formal dining room, the den, the kitchen, all fading from their former glory, memories slammed into him like a two-fisted punch.

From outside came the sound of the howling wind. The rain drummed the walls, the roof. Matt had seen lots of storms in his thirty-two years, and this was going to be a whopper. Overgrown bushes outside the windows scraped against the glass, hitting with such force he winced.

“Yes, sirree,” he heard the radio announcer say from the radio in the foyer. “Batten down
the hatches and get the heck out of Dodge, everyone. Don’t be a hero.”

From where Matt stood in the lanai, an enclosed porch he’d camped out on too many times to count, he could hear creaking and groaning above him. The supports and rafters were straining.

Not good.

The house had been built in 1902. It’d been in the family all these years, passed down from generation to generation, skipping his father of course, a man far too busy for such things.

Only a few moments ago Matt would have said the same thing, which left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He didn’t want to think like his father.

This house was the only thing he had in the way of a past worth remembering, and suddenly he didn’t want to see it destroyed.

“Get out those flashlights, folks.” This from the radio announcer. “Be careful, be smart, and be safe—”

The radio died as the power went out.

With a sigh, Matt moved toward the scant daylight the clouds hadn’t choked out. He wasn’t a hero, not today. He knew enough to leave. But
first he turned in a slow circle to take a good long look around him.

He could almost hear himself as a kid, chasing Luke down the hallways, frogs in their pockets, running like hell from their enraged grandfather.

Oh, yeah, those had been good times. He felt bad that Luke, older by two years and working himself into an early grave as head surgeon in Los Angeles, wouldn’t get to see this place one last time.

No matter really, Luke was even less sentimental than Matt.

“Hold on,” he said out loud to the empty rooms. “You’ve made it this long, you can stand strong against a silly little storm.”

Around him the creaks and groans increased. The drumming of the downpour against the windowpanes was so loud he could hardly hear himself think. It wasn’t going to be a pleasant run for his car, but he needed to get out now before the long dirt driveway washed away.

He’d go straight to the hospital, he figured, because he could only imagine the injuries piling up.

As he turned and caught a glance out the window, he tensed. The creek that ran through the
east and west fields was about to overflow its banks.

Not good.

Twice in the past hundred years it had flooded the house; it might yet again if the storm didn’t let up.

But that’s not what made Matt step closer to the window. He’d seen a flash of blue in all that wild, stormy gray. There, on the shore of the swollen creek….

Unbelievable.

The field had once been farmed, but not in the past twenty years. It was now just an open, overgrown space dotted with bush and trees and divided by the creek. Valuable, given the offers he’d been sent since his grandfather’s death, but neglected just the same.

There was another flash of blue, but with the rain and wind distorting his view he couldn’t tell what it was. A blanket? A truck? Even a person? And then he watched. It moved again. Matt’s stomach fell. Whatever was out there, it was alive.

A child, he thought grimly. What if it was a child?

He hoped not, but with the mind-blowing wind, anything could have happened. There
could have been an accident on the main road, someone could have been blown off of it, become completely lost.

Well, hell. He couldn’t leave without finding out.

Hero complex,
he could hear Luke scoffing. But his brother was a fine one to talk. Luke had the king of hero complexes. Whether it came from practically raising themselves, or the fact that as a result, they preferred to be needed rather than needy, Matt had no idea. He didn’t care.

But he couldn’t leave until he checked out the field.

The windows on the back door rattled. Instead of stepping back, Matt headed directly for it. On a hook hung yellow rain gear that looked as if it might have been there since the First World War. The pants were too short and the poncho too wide, but it had a hood. A hood was good.

Grabbing a spare poncho, as well, he opened the door. The wind nearly sucked the life right out of him. In fact, it sucked his body right off the porch. To balance himself, he took two running steps forward, and nearly plowed face-first into the wooden porch swing.

He wrapped his arms around it and held on through the gust. As unbelievable as it was, in
just the past few moments the winds had doubled. Tripled. The rain slashed across his vision, pelting him, stinging his face.

Pulling the neck of his T-shirt up, he was able to at least cover his jaw. Holding on to the extra poncho, he let go of the swing and stepped off the porch. With the gale force hitting him in the chest, walking was nearly impossible, but he staggered forward.

He couldn’t see any blue now. But someone was out there, he could feel it, and his instincts were rarely wrong. And if there
was
someone out there, they had to be in trouble.

His ears were ringing and the stinging-cold rain hurt his eyes, but at least, thanks to his shirt over his mouth and nose, he could breathe. He was also thankful for the neglected field because he used the occasional bush and tree to propel him forward.

With little to no visibility, he was wondering how he thought he was going to make his way back in when the flash of blue popped up again, much closer now.

The unrelenting wind gusts helped propel him forward, practically lifting him off the ground, wanting to toss his body through the air as if he were nothing more than a rag doll.

Having no choice but to run to keep his legs beneath him, he ended up far too close to the edge of the creek, which had turned itself into a wild, level-five rapid. Scanning the area, he found the blue. It was clinging to a small tree by the edge of the water, and it wasn’t a blanket.

Not a truck.

Not a child.

But a woman.

M
OLLY HELD ON TO THE TREE
for dear life. Getting caught in a storm hadn’t been in her electronic organizer under Planned Activities For Today.

But then again, Professor Molly Stanton usually forgot to enter anything into the contraption in the first place, so she couldn’t complain.

How had this happened? All she’d wanted to do was to collect some soil from the edge of a natural creek for her students at the university. They were studying the effects of the past few storms on the land, and she’d been out in the field, thoroughly engaged in her work. So engaged, she’d missed the signs of a storm going bad.

Nothing new. She’d been missing signs for some time now, including any signs of a personal life for herself. But work was so much more interesting than anything going on in her own life, so it’d been easy enough to bury herself in it.

That had been before the winds had picked her up, body and clipboard and nearby resting bike, and as casual as she pleased, slammed her into the tree she now clung to.

Stunned at first, she’d lain where she’d landed, dazed and utterly shocked at how much it had hurt to hit a tree. God only knew where her bike had ended up. With the velocity of the wind, it could be in Oklahoma by now.

Actually, she should consider herself lucky. Two more feet and she’d have hit the creek, and certainly been swept away by the roaring water.

Absentminded professor,
she could hear her students saying.
Noticing nothing but her studies again.

Well, she noticed her surroundings now, thank you very much, only this time, those surroundings just might get her killed. She was wet, cold, and felt as if she’d been steamrolled.

And she was out in the middle of nowhere, being pelted by the elements, all alone, with nothing but her trusty clipboard—

Nope, not even her clipboard, she realized, patting the ground around her. Even that had blown away.

Oh, boy, wasn’t this a fine mess. Given the way her vision kept fading and the pain radiating
through her body, she’d definitely done it this time. Even as she thought it, the wind somehow managed to kick up another notch and she could feel her body being pulled away from the tree.

Panicked, she wrapped her arms around the trunk that had knocked her so silly only a moment before. But when she pressed up against it, little black spots danced in front of her eyes. Crying out, she fell back to the ground.

On the one hand, she’d located the pain center. It was in her ribs.

On the other hand, she was still breathing—mostly water and wind—but breathing was good.
Alive
was good. She decided right then and there to make more of being alive the moment she got herself out of this mess.

Assuming she got herself out of it.

Her teeth were clicking together so hard, her jaw ached. Her head felt as if it might fall right off. The driving rain made seeing more than a few inches in front of her impossible.

But she really wanted to live. She wanted a life.

“I’ll get a cat,” she yelled into Mother Nature’s face. “I’ll join a bowling league.”
Just don’t let me die.

Again the wind threatened to pick her up and
toss her into the water, so she crawled back to the tree, the only stationary thing around her, and carefully, very carefully, plastered herself to it. Whimpering a bit pathetically, she put her cheek to the trunk and closed her eyes.

“I’m on a beach,” she whispered, heart pumping as she felt the tree sway. “In the Bahamas. It’s ninety degrees.” Oh, yes, that worked. She was sitting in a chair facing the calm, quiet surf—

A terrible crack nearly split her eardrum, dissipating the beach image in a heartbeat. The crack came from her tree, which now swayed violently, assuring her it was only a matter of time before it was ripped the rest of the way from its roots, leaving her with nothing solid to cling to.

This was bad, very bad. “Sand beneath my toes,” she whispered desperately, but it didn’t work now. Nothing could take her away from her horrid reality.

She had no idea how long she sat there, huddled to the loosening tree, doing her damnedest to pretend she really was on some fab beach vacation, when something made her open her eyes.

A face appeared in front of hers, so suddenly that she let out a cry of surprise and shrank back against the trunk that had become her entire life.

Fear was as insidious as the pain invading her body. Sometime between hitting the tree and bathing on a beach, her thoughts had become fuzzy, but one thing remained clear: she was going to die.

The monster’s face swimming in front of her was surrounded by yellow.

Yellow plastic.

Wait. She blinked the rain out of her eyes and tried to focus. No. Not a monster. A man. A man who was completely covered in rain gear, only his eyes showing. Those eyes were midnight-blue and leveled right on her.

Her fear didn’t ease. How could it? No one knew where she was. Why? Because she’d reduced her world to just work, damn it. No one would even know she was missing until she didn’t show up for classes tomorrow.

By then she’d be fish bait.

The man in yellow lifted a hand and pulled something away from his face, revealing his mouth, which made her realize his mouth was moving.

Funny, she couldn’t hear his voice.

In fact, she couldn’t hear anything. She shook her head—big mistake as her dizziness turned to nausea—but nope, still no hearing. Given the
way the trees around her were still straining, and the clear and obvious rain still drumming down, it was the oddest thing.

The man hunkered down in front of her, his mouth still moving. It was a grim-looking mouth, and not a particularly happy-looking face, but wow, his eyes were the most unusual shade of blue she’d ever seen. They mesmerized her, those eyes, and she locked her gaze on them, wondering if she’d died and this was her guardian angel.

Yes. And he was going to take her to heaven.

No. An angel wouldn’t look so fierce, so intense, nor be so big. She could tell he was well over six foot, though with his huge, bulky rain gear she couldn’t discern anything else about his physique. In any case, he was far too big for an angel. And anyway, an angel would be smiling. He’d have a soft voice, a sweet, kind—

“Give me your hand,” he said, his voice rough and serrated suddenly breaking through the silence.

The voice of sin personified. Oh, no! She wasn’t going to heaven, she was going to h-e-double-hockey-sticks—

“Damn it, that tree is going to give and you’re going to end up in the creek!” Dropping his out-
stretched hand he moved in closer, towering over her, and put his hands on her body.

Okay, she wasn’t dead, because as he gripped her waist, his fingers hitting her ribs, pain shot through her like a knife. It overrode her exhaustion and fear and confusion, and, reacting, she plowed an elbow into his belly.

Had she wondered about his physique? Well, he wasn’t fat, her elbow nearly bounced off the rock-hard surface of his midsection. Still, the wind was on her side and, propelled by both, he fell backward.

At the same moment, with an ear-splitting crack, the trunk of her tree split. As luck would have it, the half she held on to ripped free.

The next thing she knew, she was hanging over the roaring creek, her fingers digging into a branch that seemed far too fragile for her weight. “Ohmigod.
Ohmigod.
”

“Hold on!” The man leaped to his feet, wavered for a moment when a gust hit him full in the chest. Then, without an apparent care for his own safety, he waded into the rushing water, his gaze intent on hers. “I’m coming!”

He was coming. Good. That was good.

Except her branch cracked again. And before she could open her mouth to let out a scream,
the thing gave, crashing it and her into the tumultuous, wild water below.

S
HE VANISHED
before Matt’s very eyes. Horrified, he shouted after her, eyes glued to the water as he surged forward, nearly losing footing himself.

The branch she’d been holding rushed away, and he backed up and out of the water so he could run downstream, keeping the branch in sight because she had to be close. She had to be. He couldn’t have lost her.

Though she had short, curly blond hair that should have stuck out in the dark, dim world around him, he didn’t see her, and his stomach dropped. “Come on, come on,” he prayed as he ran along as best he could, tripping over his own frozen feet, the wind making breathing all but impossible.

Finally, a very long moment later, he caught sight of her and nearly fell to his knees in gratitude. She’d grabbed on to a pile of debris at the edge of the rushing creek, about a hundred yards down from where she’d fallen in. Her hold seemed tenuous, as she was being whipped by the driving rain and wind, not to mention being pummeled by the rising water.

“Hang on,” he yelled, cupping his mouth to make the sound of his voice travel farther, his pulse kicking up a notch when whatever it was she gripped for dear life slipped and she nearly lost her hold.

Amazingly enough, she lifted her head and landed her moss-green eyes right on him. Her pupils were dilated, her breathing rough. She had blood oozing from a cut on her head and God only knew how many other injuries. He had no idea how long she could hold on, but he wasn’t going to lose her now.

She wasn’t quite close enough that he could stay on the edge and reach her. Of course not. So he stepped into the creek again, the icy water hitting his knees and sucking the air from his lungs. By the time he made his way closer the water was at his thighs, threatening to carry them both downstream.

The debris she clung to looked to be a stack of wood. Could have been a boat, a shed, anything, but whatever it was, it had almost completely broken up. The power of the water was beyond comprehension, and if she let go, she’d be broken up, as well.

Then the entire pile slipped. Icy fear had him diving toward her. “No!”

With a scream, she whipped her head his way just as the debris broke entirely free of the shore.

“Here!” he shouted. Digging his feet into the sand beneath him, he reached out at the same time she reached toward him.

By some miracle he snagged her wrist, latching on to her with a death grip stronger than a vise. “Got you!”

For one long, horrifying second the wind and water fought him for her, but with the most utter determination he’d ever seen she battled the current and managed to lift her other arm, which he also grabbed.

Hauling her to him, he took a step backward, toward the shore behind them.

Twice he lost his footing and they nearly went down, but then he was sitting with hard, wet ground beneath him, cradling her in his lap.

For another long moment they stayed just like that, panting, gasping…holding on for dear life while the storm continued to beat on them with sharp, stinging, torrential rain and a wind so strong he could hardly take a breath.

Knowing she was injured, and knowing he had no idea how badly, he kept his hands light on her, but it was difficult because he had the oddest urge to haul her close and hug her tight.

He, who never had the urge to cling and hug anyone tight. Not that he didn’t like women. He loved women. Tall, short, thin, chunky, dark, light…he didn’t care, he loved them all to such a degree Luke often called him a hound dog, but in his life women had their place and priority.

They were more important than say, going grocery shopping, but not as important as work or sleep. Not particularly flattering, but there it was.

If there’d been a woman who mattered lately, she’d been a patient. A case. When he’d healed her, he’d moved on.

He had no doubt this woman needed his medical skills, but holding her soggy, wet, cold body against his, he wasn’t exactly thinking like a doctor. He couldn’t help it, whatever the hell she wore was thin and filmy and had long ago plastered itself to her very petite, very nicely curved body.

A body he had against his. A body he’d slid his hands over several times now. A body—

Lifting her head, she looked into his eyes. “I’ve been wondering…are you from heaven or hell?” she asked before her eyes rolled into the back of her head.