Wild Rain (15 page)

“Hold on there a minute.” He slid off of her. “Let me make sure the only thing on top of us is this mattress.”

She heard him shuffle a bit, then, remembering her state of dress—or rather, undress—she quietly pulled down her shirt. She tried not to let herself think about the sudden sense of loss that flooded her as she realized her time with Reese was probably over. Not that they’d done anything earth-shattering that would have permanent repercussions.

Unless you called spending twelve hours in the arms of the most tantalizing man she’d ever met earth-shattering.

“Feels sound,” he said a minute later. “I’m gonna prop this side back up, you feel around over there for a battery lantern.”

Jillian willingly shoved aside her seesawing emotions and did as Reese asked.

“I’ve got to check on Cleo. Right away.” She found the lantern and switched it on, then swung her forearm over her eyes as the unnatural brightness filled the small space.

When she’d adjusted, she peered at Reese, whose eyes were also squinched up.

“Takes a bit of getting used to. Feel like a mole.”

“I know what you mean,” she replied, finally lowering her arm completely. “Is it day or night outside?”

Reese glanced at the watch on his wrist, taking a moment to focus on the small dial. “Morning. A bit past seven.”

“Good, at least we’ll be able to see the damage outside.”

“Jillian,” he began, his tone one of warning.

She held up her hand. “I know. At least, I know that it may be horrible. I don’t imagine I could possibly really prepare myself. Except I keep thinking of the scenes after Andrew.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “It’ll be different since it’s … my home … that’s rubble.”

“You’re alive, Jillian.”

Her gaze connected with his. Damn but he looked as good and strong and reassuring as he’d felt all through the long, dark hours of the night. “Yes, you’re right. Thank you, Reese.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Ivan.”

Ivan didn’t hold me for the last twelve hours.
“If I’d spent last night alone, I’d have fallen apart long ago. That is if I’d been able to protect myself in here as well as you did.”

Reese stared at her for a few moments, his expression unreadable. Then he said, “You wouldn’t have fallen apart. You’re strong, Jillian Bonner. You do what has to be done.”

He continued to stare, and Jillian got the uneasy feeling he was distancing himself from her, like he was cataloging her, storing his time with her away. There was no deeper, more personal message lurking in his flat eyes. Nothing to indicate he’d spent the better part of the last twelve hours with his face between her breasts, or with his lips fastened on hers.

She swallowed her regret, determined to take this next step in stride without embarrassing either one of them. Maybe it was just as well they pulled back now, she told herself. She’d need all her strength and concentration to deal with what she was likely to find on the other side of the closet door.

Their parting was inevitable, anyway.

They’d come together in a crisis, when the line
between life and death had thinned to almost invisible proportions. She was not stupid enough to think that what they had shared in the darkness would survive in the light.

It was as simple as that. Painful, but expected.

She squared her shoulders. “That may or may not be true,” she answered him at length. “But the fact remains that you
were
here and I’ll always be grateful to you for that.” Without waiting for his reply, she rolled onto her hands and knees and went about pushing her side of the mattress back up onto the boxes. Once that was done she faced Reese again, careful to keep her demeanor and tone businesslike.

“What’s the best way of getting out of here? I don’t want to move something, or open the door, and have the remainder of the house cave in on our heads.”

“Slowly. First, let’s get this mattress folded under so we can stand up. Scoot over here next to me and help me shove this half onto the other side.”

Jillian did as he’d asked, but paid a price for being so close to him again. She could smell him, even the heat of his body made her pulse pound, and she had to quickly duck her head before he looked up and caught what she knew was written plainly on her face.

She still wanted him. She wanted to finish what she hadn’t let him really start last night. And she wanted it so bad, she hurt.

And they said pain was a great teacher. Well, if that was the case, she should be a scholar.

What she felt like was the class dunce.

They made short work of the mattress. She stood and immediately began to massage the sudden cramping that assaulted her thighs and calves as her blood flow obeyed the force of gravity.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught Reese wince and hop a bit off to one side before catching his balance with a hand on the wall.

She’d forgotten. “Your leg. Let me look at it.”

“It’s okay. Just cramped a bit when I stood.” He turned. “Let me check the door.”

Jillian watched him lift the lantern and examine the doorframe, she assumed for cracks or stress fractures. She didn’t pursue checking his wound, telling herself he was a grown man and could look after himself. It was easier and less shaming than admitting the very last thing she wanted to do was come in to close contact with his bare skin—no matter what the reason.

Reese angled the light at the ceiling. “Looks sound from in here.” He turned and twisted the doorknob slowly, then opened the door a crack. Nothing crashed down or caved in. He turned to face her. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” She took a deep breath and moved to the door. She reached past him to grab the knob.

“Jillian.” His voice was low, husky. Private. Without the background noise of the storm, his
rich accent filled her name with mysterious texture. It sounded almost … intimate.

Jillian realized then that she didn’t want to hear any emotion in his voice. Flat and distanced was better, made it easier for her to remain focused. She bowed her head for a brief moment, then looked up at him. “It’s okay, Reese,” she said quietly. “Really. I’ve got to check on Cleo.”

“Right.” The distance was back. He moved away.

Shoulders squared, mind carefully blank, Jillian opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Behind her she heard Reese whisper, “Good on you, mite. Good on you.”

The respect she heard in his voice was the only thing that carried her through the next several seconds without buckling to the ground.

Her hand rose slowly to cover her open mouth. In the next instant, Reese’s strong hands covered her shoulders and pulled her stiffened body back against his.

The kitchen still stood, but her office was rubble. It looked as if the corner of the house had been accidentally stepped on by a huge giant whose long stride hadn’t quite cleared the width of the house. She twisted from Reese’s hold and looked behind him, back down the hall toward the front door. It looked fine. Except for the unnatural amount of light streaming down the staircase.

She took two steps in that direction, but Reese stopped her, his hand on her arm.

“Let me.” He moved in front of her before she could answer.

A step behind him, she spotted the rubble at the base of the stairs only a second after he did. She slowly raised her gaze upward, up the staircase now littered with remains of what had been the upper level of her house.

“Dear God,” she breathed, in complete awe, truly aware for the first time the enormity of the danger they’d been in. She’d known what she was risking, or thought she had. But this … this … destruction, so casually ripping apart a piece of her life here, then generously sparing another, as if on some evil-minded whim.

Reese grasped her shoulders and turned her back toward the kitchen. “We can’t check the front bedroom, too much rubble piled at the bottom. Let’s get out of here. Until we see the extent of the damage from the outside, we don’t know where it’s safe to be.”

Jillian stretched her head back and took one last glimpse up the stairs. There was so much structural garbage blocking the entrance to the upper hall, it was hard to tell how much of the roof had caved in. But the amount of light streaming in and around the mess up there made it a certainty that at least part of it was gone.

“Let’s check on Cleo.” He gently prodded her forward.

Like a zombie, she took two steps forward, then swung around, and buried her head on Reese’s
shoulder. His arms came around her immediately, holding her tightly against his chest.

“You’re alive, Jillian, you’re alive,” he whispered, his warm lips nuzzling her ear. “Nothing else matters.”

Jillian’s eyes burned but no tears would come. She wondered absently if she was going into shock. She concentrated on the steady beat of Reese’s heart under her cheek, and forced her breathing into the same even cadence. In, out. In, out. She’d be okay, she’d be okay.

They were alive. Reese was right, nothing else mattered.

“So why does it feel as if my life has come to an end anyway?” She hadn’t been aware of speaking out loud until Reese answered.

“We’ll make it right again, Jillian. It’ll take more than a passing fair amount of time, but we’ll make it right.”

She barely heard him. The enormity and strength, the sheer magnitude of the storm to have done damage like this …

Cleo. The thought jumped into the jumble her mind had become. Her head shot up. “I’ve got to check on Cleo. Or”—she pushed out of Reese’s arms with a sudden burst of energy and determination, her brain racing forward—“maybe you should do a perimeter check while I go find out how she is.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“It’s okay,” she rushed on, turning toward the kitchen. “I’m fine really, I’ll be—”

She didn’t have a chance to finish. Reese simply took her hand in his, slipped his fingers between hers and began picking his way over the rubble that had blown into the kitchen from the destruction that had once been her office. “Watch your step.”

Jillian looked down automatically, then froze when she saw what she’d been about to step over. After a split second she stooped down and grabbed the carved wooden lamp that just yesterday had been on the nightstand in her bedroom.

She turned it over. The lamp shade was gone and bulb fixture mangled, but the twin dolphins still arced gracefully out of a beautifully carved wave, the smiles on their faces a silent mocking to Ivan and the havoc he’d wrought.

The world slowly rocked back to center. Jillian carefully filtered out all the myriad things beckoning her attention. There would be time later to sort out the long-term effects of the devastation the storm had left behind.

She set the lamp carefully on the kitchen table, which had been left untouched by the storm. And, without wanting to, she tightened her hold on Reese’s hand. Right that minute it felt like a lifeline, and she wasn’t too proud to admit that she could use one.

“Help me get the bars off the door, okay?”

Jillian was grateful for the task, to do even the smallest chore meant she was moving forward, that
the worst was over and every step, no matter how tiny, was a step away from this … this …

She shuddered lightly, but dropped Reese’s hand. “Okay. Do you want to get the mop handle from the storage room for a crutch?”

“Nah. Not that bad, really. I guess the enforced rest of last night was good for something.”

She didn’t even want to think about last night. Couldn’t, if she wanted to retain what small part of her control she’d won back.

But she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he stepped to his side of the door. He limped, favoring his wounded thigh more than a little, but he could walk. She turned her attention back to the door, and what lay beyond it. Or rather who. Cleo.

“Let me push, then you pull,” he directed. “The door seems to have warped a bit.”

Five minutes and a few swear words later the door swung open.

“The porch is gone,” she said, stating the obvious. Her mind registered the incredible amount of garbage, both natural and man-made, strewn about the grounds of the compound. But most of her attention was focused on one small part. The pond.

She looked down for a safe place to jump, as without the benefit of the porch, she’d also lost the stairs. Reese levered himself down first and motioned her to follow him.

Once on the ground, she passed Reese on her way toward the pond. “At least there’s no flooding,”
she called over her shoulder, realizing it felt strange not to have to yell to be heard. She scanned the grounds. Downed trees and limbs and what was probably chunks of her roof blocked her line of vision. She headed in what appeared to be the most direct route around it.

A small crash and a string of colorful cursing made her slow down enough to look over her shoulder.

Reese was bent over holding his shin, but he motioned her on. “Go on, I’ll catch up.”

Jillian nodded, using all of her concentration not to look past Reese at her house—or what was left of it—and turned her attention back on picking out her path. Not now, she said silently. Cleo first, then the house. The house wasn’t going anywhere. At least not what was left of it.

Her thoughts flipped to the egg mound as she wondered about the nestlings’ fate. A waterlogged egg mound would be fatal for the soon-to-be hatchlings. A quick glance skyward showed it was still overcast, but the rain and wind had stopped. “Please,” she prayed softly, “don’t bring more rain.” She knew the fact that it hadn’t flooded yet didn’t mean the threat was past. Caracoles Key was small, and a storm of Ivan’s magnitude had likely wreaked its havoc on the tides as well as the island. Her compound was on the eastern side closest to Sanibel, but that didn’t insure it against the threat of flooding.

She rounded the last twisted piece of siding and
caught her first good look at the pond … and the mound. The pond had swollen past its banks, but it had stopped several feet shy of infiltrating the mound. Cleo, she didn’t see Cleo.

Without realizing it, she broke into a run, not stopping until she was halfway around the pond. There she was! Jillian raised her finger, pointing out to no one in particular the dark shadow lying in the shallows at the edge of the pond.