Under the Magnolia (2 page)

The wheels spun, and for a
moment—just a moment—she thought the Jeep was going to
lurch free.
Please,
please.

But the Jeep didn't move, and she
found herself cursing as she scrambled out again, fighting a rising
feeling of panic as she dropped to her knees in the mud. It would be
the perfect lesson for her class. When this was all over and she was
back in the classroom, she'd tell them this story, make them work out
a solution.

She wrote the lesson plan out in her
head as she struggled with the rocks, using the exercise to keep
herself calm. She would have to duplicate a smaller scale of the
conditions, which wouldn't be difficult. Mud would be a bit too messy
in the lab, though she could probably use the old cornstarch and
water trick. Combining them would create a quicksand-like substance,
and this mud certainly had a quicksand sort of feel to it. It was all
too easy to imagine her Jeep slowly sinking into the earth as she
struggled to free it.

She ignored the chattering of her
teeth and the increasing howl of the wind, letting her mind formulate
a perfect lesson for her tenth graders even as her body moved on
reflex. Shove the rocks under the wheels, hope the wheels grip the
branches...
Try not to
think about what might happen if the bridge is flooded by the time I
finish this.

Addie almost didn't hear the rumble
of an engine over the sound of the wind whipping through the massive
pines surrounding her. She straightened and squinted through the
downpour, shoving her hair back from her face as she struggled to
focus on the source of the sound.

A utility vehicle with the police
department logo emblazoned on the side pulled to a skidding stop on
the road up the hill from her, and a man in a navy blue slicker
climbed out.

He called out to her as he slipped
and slid down the embankment. "Addie Jo Gardner, you are giving
me gray hair!"

She could only imagine what she must
look like, drenched from the rain and covered in mud. If it had been
any other man she might not have minded, but of
course
it was Wes. Handsome, funny Wes, with the gorgeous blue eyes and the
charming smile that had been distracting her more and more over the
past year.

It was silly. She'd known him since
middle school, and never once during her hormonal teenaged years had
she thought about him in more than a friendly fashion. Her heart had
belonged to the school's resident math genius, a brilliant young man
who'd spent endless hours studying with her without noticing that she
was a girl. Or maybe Chuck just hadn't known what to
do
with girls; he certainly hadn't seemed interested in them.

She doubted there had ever been a
time when Wes hadn't known what to do with a willing woman. He'd been
popular with the girls in high school, and every last one of Addie's
friends had been in love with him at one point or another. If she'd
ever been able to pull her attention away from Chuck, she might have
joined them. He
was
impossibly charming after all.

Better late than never, crushing
on the quarterback,
she
grumbled to herself as she resisted the urge to wipe at her face.
She'd only add to whatever mud was already there, and now was not the
time to be worrying about appearances.

So she smiled at him a little
self-consciously and gestured to the rocks under her tires. "Got
a little stuck."

He shook his head, clear blue eyes
taking in the sky. "Leave it. The bridge is covered over,
anyway. We'd better make for the plantation house."

"Shit." She turned back to
the Jeep, dragging her bag from the back seat before giving the
vehicle one longing look. The chances she'd see it again in one piece
weren't very good, but she'd rather live than get sentimental over a
vehicle.

She slipped the strap of her bag
over her shoulder and followed him back to the steep slope. "Did
those kids send you out here after me?"

He paused only long enough to lift
the backpack off her shoulder and throw it over his. "Yeah. They
went over to the shelter at the Presbyterian church like you said.
Bea Westbury called the station when you didn't show."

"I thought I could make it
out." And she felt more than a little guilty that she hadn't,
since now she'd dragged him into the path of danger with her.

"Doesn't matter," he told
her shortly as he dragged open the passenger side door and gave her
two quick slaps on the back. "Get in and buckle up."

He moved with enviable ease, even in
the driving rain and under the considerable weight of her bag, and it
took no time at all for him to shove the knapsack between their seats
and climb in behind the steering wheel. "You ready to go?"

She nodded, but all of her attention
had shifted to the growing tension inside her, the feeling she got
just before she had one of her waking visions.
Not
now, God, please not now.

Psychic ability might be the newest
pseudoscience to go mainstream, but Addie still had occasional
nightmares—not visions, thank God, but garden-variety bad
dreams—that she would find herself the toasty target of a witch
hunt if her placid, boring neighbors ever found out about her
abilities. Even if they
didn't
run her out of town, she imagined no one would want her to keep
teaching their children. The ACLU was already having a field day
prosecuting employers who suddenly “let go” employees who
displayed psychic power.

Addie's waking visions weren't
subtle. Even now, her heart raced and her breathing sounded fast and
loud in the closed confines of the car. She curled her hand around
the handle of the door, closing her eyes as she tried to fend off the
rush of power that sent a shiver up her spine and raised the hair on
the back of her neck.

"Hey." His voice was
concerned but stern, and his fingers touched her bare arm. "Are
you okay, Addie?"

Heat flooded her as the world
disappeared. She was on fire, burning from the inside out, and Wes
was above her, skin sliding against hers in tantalizing ways as he
dragged his tongue up the side of her neck. He whispered something
she couldn't understand, and she caught the faintest flash of those
devastating blue eyes before his teeth closed on her ear. In the next
moment he was thrusting into her, and she had been waiting for this
so long, so
fucking
long—

The vision released her as quickly
as it had seized her, and she jerked her arm away from his fingers as
color rushed to her cheeks.
Holy
shit.

Chapter Two

The closest Wes could figure, she
was in shock, or maybe getting feverish. It was the only explanation
for the way she barely seemed to hear him, for the flush that spread
over her neck and cheeks.

They were going to be stuck out
there until the storm blew over, and the last damn thing he needed
was to have little Addie Gardner die on him. Her grandmother would
kill
him. He cursed and shook her shoulder. "Addie, talk to me."

"I—" Her voice
broke, and she batted at his hand almost as if she didn't want him
touching her. "No, I'm fine. We should…just drive, Wes.
I'm fine."

She was right about that much, at
least. "All right. Buckle your seatbelt. The wind was blowing me
all over the place on my way here."

He put the 4x4 back in gear and
started carefully down the road. It was only a few miles to the edge
of the park then a few more to the plantation house, but conditions
were treacherous, and he had to use all of his concentration to keep
the truck on the road.

The short drive took nearly half an
hour, and it was time they could ill afford. The old plantation,
which had since been converted into a boutique hotel, would offer
them shelter on high ground as well as enough supplies to last the
storm, but none of that would matter if the storm hit before they
could get inside.

"You still doing okay?" he
asked tersely, his hands clenched on the wheel, knuckles white and
aching.

She didn't say anything for a
moment, though he could hear her teeth chattering. He'd turned on the
heater to warm her, but it couldn't change the fact that she was
drenched to the skin. It was one more thing to worry about—getting
her into something warm and dry before she ended up sick.

When she finally spoke, her voice
was hoarse. "I'm okay. Just cold."

She must have been in shock, because
he could believe she was cold in her wet clothes, but it wasn't
that
cold. Still, she was shivering violently. "Are you sure you're—"

His breath hissed out in a curse as
lightning struck a tree a few dozen yards ahead of them with a
blinding flash and a sharp crack. Another one sounded seconds later
as a large branch broke free of the tree and went tumbling to the
road in front of them.

There wasn't time to slow to a stop
before they hit it, and swerving to one side or the other on the
half-flooded pavement would have been suicide. Wes cursed again and
concentrated, focusing every bit of his energy on the branch.

It flew up, almost as if moving in
reverse, and tumbled off to the side of the road. They still barely
managed to avoid hitting it, and Wes didn't dare glance at Addie as
he continued up the drive.

She was silent until they reached
the parking lot that had been constructed when the old house was
converted into a swanky resort. When he finally chanced a look at
her, she was studying him with her eyebrows slightly drawn together.
Then she tilted her head to the side. "I knew you cheated the
last time we played pool."

"I don't cheat," he told
her shortly, shutting off the engine. "Get inside, and wait for
me in the lobby. I'll bring our stuff."

She snorted at his preemptory tone,
but she didn't argue. "We'll talk about this later."

He watched her sprint toward the
door, then checked his phone for a signal. He got none, so he ran
through the channels on his radio. Nothing greeted him but static.
Finally, he dragged Addie's bag out of the truck, along with the two
emergency bags he'd loaded up, and headed for the hotel, dreading the
next few days.

The situation would have been bad
enough normally, but why couldn't he have been stranded with the new
hire over at the power company or maybe Glenda Barrett, his on-again,
off-again girlfriend? Why did he have to get stuck with Adelaide
Gardner, the slightly odd teacher with legs up to her neck and brown
eyes to die for? Adelaide Gardner, who had once been endearingly
gawky and the only girl who'd ever turned him down for a date.

He gritted his teeth, pushed the
door open, and found Addie waiting next to the front desk, still
shivering. "Come on. Let's grab some things and get downstairs
into the basement. I don't want to get caught up here with all these
windows when the wind picks up. Someone did a real half-assed job of
boarding them up."

"Basement should be safe
enough," she agreed absently. "This is the highest point on
the island, and the storm surge's never gotten this high before. And
it'll be safer in case of tornadoes." She seemed to have
regained her composure a little, even if she still looked like hell.
"Maybe they've got some spare uniforms or something that I can
put on. I need some dry clothes."

"The laundry's downstairs,
too." He guided her toward the service stairs. "Even if we
can't find any uniforms, there should be some clean robes and
bedding."

"I've only been in here once,"
she admitted as she descended the stairs. "Had lunch with my
thesis advisor in the restaurant. I have never paid that much for
chicken before in my life."

"Why would you want to when
your granny can make buttermilk fried chicken the way she does?"
he laughed. "I swear, that woman sold her soul to the devil to
cook like that."

That earned him a laugh, a rich,
full sound. Addie had never been one for fake little laughs or
girlish giggles. "Gran loves you, too. I bet she never lets you
pay for a thing at the restaurant."