The Right One (16 page)

“Was always on getting what you want. I know. But you have that now.”

She shrugged. “Kind of. Feels like I’m hanging on to all of it by the skin of my teeth.”

The room darkened, the morning sun swallowed by clouds. They glanced out the window, and back to one another. “That’s not true. You were just referred two cubs we pick up tomorrow. Even with everything that just happened, you’re building a reputation and the sanctuary is going to be fine. You’ve done what you wanted to do. Now what about the rest of your life?” he asked.

A single finger rubbed the bottom eyelid of her left eye, Cami edged around, and leaned into Alex. His arms wrapped loosely around her, no words passing between them. The newscaster came on once again, tornado watches morphing into warnings. She pressed her head into Alex’s chest a little firmer. “This isn’t looking good.”

“No. Is your overnight packed?”

She nodded. “Packed it before breakfast.”

“Good. Maybe we better head downstairs, just in case.”

She nodded again, rose from the bed. Through the connecting door, she gathered the handles for the bag and turned to return to Alex’s side. The wind howled outside, the lights flickering and then went black as Cami froze, staring in the darkness, waiting.

They didn’t come back on.

“Cami? Are you alright?”

She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “I’m fine. I think I left my phone on your bed, can you turn on yours? I’ll be able to find you without stubbing my toe.”

A dim light shone from around the corner, his voice coupling it. “Stay there, I’ll come to you.”

Tossing the straps over a shoulder, she watched as the light grow a little brighter, barely illuminating Alex’s silhouette as he rounded the corner and stepped into her room. “You didn’t have to come get me. I wasn’t frightened.”

“No, I’m sure you weren’t, but I am a gentleman, and so coming to you was the right thing to do. Have everything?”

She nodded again, remembering he couldn’t see her well, and said, “Yes.”

He reached out, took her arm and weaved it around his elbow. “Let’s head downstairs.”

The hallways glowed with cell phone lights, and echoed with rushed murmurs and crying children. Alex leaned over. “Don’t let go of me.”

She didn’t answer, pressing closer to him with the only response needed. The crowd moved down the stairwell, Cami unable to brush out of mind the image of cattle struggling against one another during a drive like she’d seen in the old westerns her father liked to watch. Gradually, they reached the first floor, nearly every guest crowded in the halls, a hard silence gripping everyone as the collective listened to the rushing winds echoing through the windowless space. The storm picking up velocity. Thoughts strayed to Tennessee, her cats, Regellius, Liz. The weather and whether everything she loved was safe.

Alex pulled Cami against a wall, strong arms wrapped tight around her as he pressed her against the wall. “Storms don’t bother you, do they?”

She fought out a smile. “No, not usually, but this one has my attention. It’s a different animal being in one at a hotel.”

“It’s been an active season, we had those threats at home just a few weeks ago, and now this.”

“They predicted a busy one.”

Alex nodded, looking up and down the hallway. He turned back to Cami, lowered his head and brushed a kiss along her lips.

The winds howled, the three story building rattled. His strong grip pulled against her wrists, pulling her down to the carpet, his body a shield as he huddled over her.  

The hotel squeaked and rattled, protested against the storm’s coaxing. A growling roar announcing the moment the hotel gave in, screams rippling through the hallway as something above their heads splintered, sounding like bones and flesh being ripped apart.

Alex’s weight pressed down against her back, arms wrapped around her chest, Cami’s body swallowed into his.

The whole of the hallway held its breath. If anyone breathed, she couldn’t hear it. The first floor of the hotel waited, listened, begging for the worst of the storm to be over. Twenty minutes passed, Alex never moved, no one whispered except an occasional child’s cry, followed by a mother or father’s urgent
shh-ing
. Winds stopped whistling, rain slowed from pounding sheets against the exterior of the hotel to barely audible pattering.

She felt the berth of Alex lift off as screams echoed from the stairwells. Movements in the hallway began with a flutter, morphed into buzzing as parents began gathering children and purses.

Alex reached out to help her stand. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine. You?”

He nodded, and turned to the stairwell, where screams continued to wail. “I’ll be back.”

She reached for an arm. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

*

Alex grimaced as he left Cami behind in the hall, but screams kept calling, and it sounded like they were calling his name. He pushed past families – men, women, children. No one else followed, but that didn’t matter.

He pushed the door to the stairwell. It didn’t budge. Tightening his shoulder and arm, he backed a couple steps and charged forward into the stairwell door.

The door gave and Alex edged into the stairwell, the sky encroaching upon the area where second and third floors had been a mere hour before. People were huddled against the remaining walls, a couple families crouching with their young children under the broken stairwell. Pieces of roof and furniture, even a couple car tires, littered every corner of what was left of the building.

Cami was safe, she was unhurt. So was he.

These people were not as lucky.

“Hang on everyone! We’ll start getting you out of here.”

Turning, Alex returned to the first floor hall, calling for anyone to help. “I need other men. There’s people trapped out here.”

Few moved. “Come on! There’re women and children, some men who can’t move the debris. We need help.”

He stood, looking over everyone, and slowly, men started pushing their way up the hallway. He patted a couple backs and turned back to the stairwell. Someone nearby pulled out a cellphone and he heard them tell an operator help was needed.

In the stairwell, Alex began moving the debris closest to the doorway, piling items – a tire, table, telephone, branch, a strange twisted piece of metal he couldn’t identify – all of it in an empty corner. He reached a little girl first, her mother still buried, but alive, pleading for him to take the child.

Cami pushed down the hall, struggling against a crowd either too afraid to move or helping the efforts ahead. Struggling, she bumped into a couple of men in a assembly line of volunteers moving items out of the way, apologized. She turned, stopped. Alex came into view, child in his arms, huddles against the strong arms and chest. She froze. Something inside broke, and melded together. Her mouth dropped open. Dusty, sweat dripping down his face, shirt dishelved and hanging over the large belt buckle, everything about him chipping at every desire she’d ever held up tight like a fortress around her. Shattered like the storm that broke apart the hotel.

Alex.

It was Alex.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The people trapped in at the hotel were rescued and safe. No causalities. As rescue and police arrived to take over what Alex had began, he and Cami climbed into the truck. Heading east to Jackson, where the tornados never touched down.

She hadn’t been able to talk to him, not since they left Battle Creek. Everything she’d seen, how wonderful he was as Alex fought to reach people, carried children, every emotion was locked within. Cami only wanted to sort through the feelings she never expected to target at her best friend. A man she’d grown up with, knew more about than she knew about anyone, and yet, now looked like someone she’d never met.

Checking into the hotel, she quietly wished Alex a good evening and bowed into the room, changed, pulled back the blankets and settled against the full sized mattress.

“Alex.” The name caressed her lips and stomach fluttered. His face danced before her mind’s eye, years of passing moments. Always wanting to share life’s defining moments with him, and many times, only him. “Alex.”

The phone rang and she reached for it with a lazy arm, tired with the day’s events and emotions. “Hello?” she whispered.

“Cami? Alex. Are you okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ve been quiet since we left Battle Creek. Are you feeling okay? Did I hurt you during the storm?”

“No, no, I’m fine.”

A moment of silence. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

“Alex?”

“Yeah?”

She stopped. “Good night.”

“Good night, Cami.”

She cradled the receiver and rolled over, staring at an ugly framed painting of splattered colors.
Now what? Confess I’m in love with him
? She didn’t doubt he felt the same way, yet …

Yet what?

She didn’t know.

Cami closed her eyes and eased into the drifting moments before sleep, Alex’s name floating along her dreamscape.

The next morning, they didn’t stop for breakfast before heading to the small zoo outside of Battle Creek. A keeper and the DNR agent who contacted her two days earlier showed Cami to the holding area while Alex stayed outside, preparing the cages for the ride back. The cubs would have to be drugged, and him left him to load the tranquilizers. The animals would be traumatized enough by all they had been through, adding an eight hour drive south.

“Here they are, Ms. Lockhart.” The agent motioned towards two small bundles of striped fur. One of the cubs, the smallest of the two, lifted its head at his voice, wide black eyes weighing them both before burying a pink nose into its sibling.

Cami melted.

The agent crossed his arms. “Not sure how old they are. You’re probably a better judge of that than we are. They were the only surviving cats from the home we rescued them from. The others looked as though they had been starved. One was chained to a concrete slab, looked like it might have strangled itself. Another had a metal cuff around his paws, chewed on one of the paws until, well, let’s say it bled to death, most likely.”

Cami blinked hard, her voice hoarse as images flashed through an all too active imagination. “I wish I could say that’s uncommon, but …”

He nodded. “I’m glad we found you. We had contacted a couple other sanctuaries, they were full. I could have held them a few more days had we not found you, but the zoo doesn’t have the space to take them in permanently. I hate to say it, but had we not found you – "

Nodding, she looked to the sleeping cubs. She knew that too, and that they were alive right now only because Lockhart Sanctuary could take them in. The sheriff may have been able to find another sanctuary for them if she’d been unable to take them, or not. If the latter, the cubs would have been euthanized. “Yes, I’m afraid that’s not uncommon either. We’re fairly new, so I have room, but I dread the day when I won’t. It’s a tremendous problem.”

“How are they?” Alex asked as he walked into the room.

She turned with a soft smile. “They’re beautiful.”

Moving forward, she stooped before the cage. “Hi babies. We’re going to take you to your new home.”

The cub which had looked at her moments ago lifted its head again, stood, and wobbled to the edge of the cage, ducking to rub the top of its head against the bars. Cami grinned, poked a finger through the bars, the sheriff’s cautionary voice distant and ignored. “Hi, sweetie. You’re safe now. We’re going to take you on a little road trip, get you checked out and then you’ll be free to be happy. You’ll like the sanctuary, you’ll see,” she cooed.

The cub rubbed against the bars and Regellius face trumped in front of her houghts. Her soft smile spread into a wide grin.

Alex’s hand rested on her shoulder and she looked up. “We’re ready to go.”

She nodded, “Let’s get them to sleep then.”

An hour later, Alex pulled onto I-75 south. The cubs slept soundly in the trailer, curled in a ball next to one another, unlikely to wake before the drive ended.

Cami strained, reaching into the backseat, pulling a bottle of water from the cooler. Righting herself in the chair, she glanced to Alex. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”

He chuckled, rubbed the side of his face with a finger. “Nah, I’m fine. Maybe you can take over later.”

She smiled, knowing that
later
would never come, flicked the air conditioning on. “If you’re sure.” She turned to the passing summer landscape of Michigan racing by. “Alex?”

“Hmm?”

“Can we go out for dinner when we get home? Just the two of us?”

It felt like the truck slowed, and Cami shyly looked up, reaching across the shallow gulf between them to take hold of his hand. “I’d really like that.”

Alex grinned, lifted her hand to his lips. “You have me for the taking.”

Everything buzzed within her, hummed with coursing happiness.