by Linda Howard
“There’re a couple of towels in the trash bag,” he informed her curtly, sliding back under the steering wheel and putting the vehicle in gear.
She pulled one of the towels out and patted it over her bare arms and shoulders, then blotted her dripping hair. That was the best she could do, and she stared in dismay at the soaked seats and floorboards of the Blazer. “I’m sorry,” she choked, realizing now that they should have remained at the cabin until the storm had passed.
Rain still glistened on the rock-hard planes of his face, and drops were caught like liquid diamonds in the black silk of his beard. He pulled the soggy cap from his head and dropped it on the seat between them. In silence she offered him the towel, and in silence he took it, rubbing it over his face and head with one hand as he eased down the driveway.
The headlights caught the swirling, muddy waters of Jubilee Creek as they crossed the small bridge, and she was frightened at how high the water had risen in the short time it had been raining. Cord gave the water a grim look. “I hope I can get back.”
He had to keep both hands on the wheel to hold the Blazer steady against the gusts of wind that pushed at it; one particularly strong gust pushed them so far to the side that the two left tires left the road and dug into the soft earth on the side. Cord wrestled them back onto the roughly paved secondary road, but they could proceed at nothing more than a crawl. The headlights did no good against a blinding curtain of rain, and the windshield wipers, though going full speed, couldn’t keep the windshield clear.
Making a sudden decision, he glanced at her and pulled the Blazer over onto the side of the road, then cut the ignition. As the engine died, the roar of the rain hitting the metal top sounded even louder. He’d turned off the headlights but left the dashlights on, and in the dim glow she turned frightened eyes on him.
“I can’t see to drive,” he explained. “We’re going to have to wait until this blows over.”
She nodded and clasped her hands tightly in her lap, staring out through the windshield. She couldn’t see anything; the darkness was absolute, the rain cutting them off from everything else, isolating them in the small sanctuary of the Blazer.
Seconds ticked past and became minutes; if anything, the rain fell harder. Cord turned on the radio, but the static was so bad that they couldn’t make out what the announcer was saying, and he snapped it off again. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her shivering, and he reached out to touch her chilled arm.
“You should have said something,” he scolded, and started the motor, then flipped the heater switch to high.
The blast of warm air felt good on her feet and legs, and she slipped her icy feet out of her soggy shoes to stick her toes up close to the vent.
Silence thickened and grated on her nerves. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it rain like this,” she ventured, if only to break the quiet.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
She controlled a shiver. “Why did you start letting your beard grow again?”
“Because I don’t like to shave.”
The curt sentence slapped at her, and she winced. So much for conversation. She hugged her arms around herself, for the first time thinking of the suit jacket she’d left in her car, as well as her purse. She’d been acting like a wild woman, so desperate to get away that she hadn’t given a thought to anything else.
A metallic sound began to reach her ears, just barely detectable above the pounding of the rain. She sat up straighter and cast a puzzled glance in Cord’s direction, to find that he was listening, too. “What is it?”
“Sleet.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the sound of the sleet began to intensify. He turned off the motor, his eyes alert and wary.
“The thunder and lightning are farther away,” Susan said hopefully, not admitting until that moment that she was a little frightened.
“Shhhh,” he cautioned, his head turned slightly in a listening position. He reached out and caught her hand, his hard fingers wrapping securely around hers. Susan caught her breath and listened, too, becoming more uneasy as she realized what they were listening for. The sleet stopped, then abruptly the rain stopped, leaving behind a silence that was broken only by the dripping of water from the battered leaves of the trees.
It was the silence, the utter stillness, that was so unnerving. There was a tense, heavy waiting quality to the air, making it difficult to breathe, or perhaps she was simply too frightened to draw in a deep breath. She was clinging so hard to his hand that her nails were sinking into his flesh. “You can see to drive now,” she said nervously.
He slid across the seat until he was pressed warmly against her, his body heat making a mockery of the soggy condition of his clothes. He put his arm around her shoulders in a comforting gesture and briefly pressed his lips to her temple. “We’ll wait awhile,” he told her mildly. “We won’t be able to hear it coming if the motor is running.”
Susan shivered and closed her eyes. “I know.” Her every muscle was tight, her heart pumping faster. The quiet before the storm wasn’t just a cliché, it was a reality. As a native of the warm Southern climes where the heated Gulf bathed the region in warm moisture, triggering wild and magnificent storms whenever a cooler system from the west swept in to collide with that warm, damp blanket of air, Susan knew all too well the lethal power of the twisting tornadoes that were spawned out of the towering thunderheads. She knew all the signs, the warnings, and as a child had been drilled in school in the best way to survive a tornado. The Number One Rule: Don’t get caught by one.
“If we think we hear something, get out of the truck as fast as you can,” Cord instructed quietly. “There’s a small ditch on the left of the road; it’s probably full of water, but that’s where we’ll go anyway.”
“Okay.” Her voice was strained but calm, and she rolled down her window a little, making it easier to hear. Only the dripping of the water, splattering down on the undergrowth, reached her ears.
The first hailstone hit the windshield of the Blazer with such force that they both jumped, and Susan bit back a shriek. Cord uttered a short, sharp expletive, then anything else he might have said was drowned out as golfball-size hail began to pound the Blazer, ripping the leaves of the trees to shreds, taking small saplings completely down. The din was incredible. Susan felt that they were on the inside of a giant drum, with some maniac beating wildly on it. She tore her hand from Cord’s grip and pressed her palms over her ears.
Then it was gone, racing away, leaving the ground covered with shimmering balls of ice, a deep rumble following after it.
With a quick, hard motion Cord reached over her and shoved the door open, then used his body to force her outside. He grabbed her around the waist, keeping her from falling as her feet hit the ice and skidded out from under her. She was barefooted except for her stockings, and the ice was unbearably cold, bruising her soft feet, but she knew that she had better traction without her shoes anyway. High heels would have been more than useless, they would have been dangerous, unsafe for picking her way across a road covered with ice balls. Heedless of the pain, she ran, hearing the rumble come closer, feeling the earth begin to tremble beneath them.
They splashed into the ditch, the freezing water taking her breath. There was an eerie yellowish cast to the sky, an absurd lightening of the night sky, and she was able to see the taut lines of Cord’s face. With one hand on her shoulder he forced her to lie down in the ditch, and the rushing stream of water splashed up in her face, filling her mouth with the taste of mud. She spat it out and looked up at him, her eyes burning. If she had to die, then thank God it was with him. Then he was covering her, pressing her down deeper into the foul water, putting his body between her and the fury of the storm that was thundering toward them.
Somehow, it didn’t seem quite real. Inside she was terrified, but on the outside she was not only calm but oddly detached. She felt the wind buffeting their bodies, so fierce and
strong that the tumbling water was blown out of the ditch to splash across the field in tandem with the gargantuan rain that had begun slashing down out of the abruptly inky sky. It had been raining hard before, but that was nothing to the way it rained then. The water that had been blown out of the ditch was instantly replaced by the downpour. Her skin was bruised and stinging in a thousand places as small stones and debris were hurled through the air, and she could hear nothing but the roar of the enormous, thundering monster as it tore across the earth. She clung to Cord, her slender arms wrapped about his head in an effort to give him as much protection as she could, and her desperate strength was so great that he couldn’t dislodge her arms to tuck her more securely under him.
A deep, bull-throated bellow of destruction assaulted her, and she screamed, a sound that went unheard in the greater scream of the storm. Cord’s grip on her increased until she thought her ribs would snap under the force of it, and he pressed her harder, deeper into the ditch. She fought for breath, but couldn’t drag any oxygen into her lungs, as the monster’s suction pulled all the air away into its rotating, twisting maw. Her only thought was, I’m glad I’m with him.
She must have fainted, though she could never be sure. Certainly she was dazed by the storm, her senses scattered. One moment she was suffocating, feeling as if any moment the tornado would come down on them, and the next the world was strangely normal, even serene. It was still raining, but it was a normal rain, as if the violence of a moment before had belonged to another world. There was no lightning, no thunder, no hail…and no wind. Cord was still lying heavily on her, his chest heaving as he too sucked in much-needed oxygen, his arms outspread and his fingers sunk into the mud as if he would physically anchor them to the earth with his own body. They remained like that for several minutes, lying in the ditch with the rain slanting down on them, as they tried to assimilate the fact that they were not only alive, but relatively unscathed.
Susan moved beneath him, turning her face into the hollow of his throat, and her fingers moved through his hair.
He rolled off her and sat up, his arm behind her as he eased her into a sitting position. “Are you all right?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Yes,” she said, and was surprised to find that her throat was sore, her voice so husky that she could barely form the word.
They stumbled to their feet, clinging together, and Susan heard Cord swear quietly as he peered through the darkness and the rain, searching for the Blazer. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “It’s turned completely around, and pushed off the road on the other side.”
Susan put her hand over her eyes to keep the rain out and was finally able to make out the black bulk of the Blazer, farther away now than it had been when they’d jumped out of it so long ago…or had it been only a few minutes ago? Cord must have eyes like an eagle, she realized, because she could tell only where the Blazer was, not what direction it was facing.
“It missed us,” he said suddenly, with hoarse jubilation. “Look where it came across the road.”
Following his pointing hand, she could make out a twisted, broken mass that was evidently an enormous tree, lying across the road. There was an odd, flashing illumination, so bright and blue-white that it almost hurt the eyes to look at it. The falling trees had taken down the power lines with them, and now a live wire was lashing back and forth just above the ground, throwing sparks like a Fourth of July celebration. The tornado had dipped down to earth and exploded everything in its path, bypassing them by no more than fifty yards.
Seeing her pick her way, limping, across the hailstones, Cord turned to her and swung her up against his chest. Susan felt as if she’d used her last reserves of strength, and she was just as glad to let him carry her; wearily, she let her head fall against his shoulder, and his arms tightened momentarily about her. He carried her to the Blazer, placing her inside it before walking around and vaulting into the seat behind the steering wheel. He turned the key in the ignition, and to her amazement the engine started immediately. He flashed her a quick grin. After the last hour it was a pleasure to have something going right. He changed gears, easing the Blazer along, the big tires churning in the mud until they gained the hail-slick surface of the road.
“We’re going back to the cabin,” he said, letting the truck move slowly to keep it from skidding on the ice. “I can’t get you home until morning, when I can see how to pick my way around those trees and power lines that are down.”
Susan didn’t say anything, merely clung to the edge of the seat. She was certain the power would be off at the cabin, but he could build a fire, and the thought of being warm and dry again seemed like heaven. Her muscles were still tense, and she found she couldn’t relax, her gaze fixed on the stabbing beams of the headlights as they probed through the gray curtain of rain.
They reached the crest of the gentle incline that led down to the creek, and Cord brought the Blazer to a halt. “I’m going down to check the bridge,” he said, and left the truck before she could cry out that she wanted to go with him. Somehow, she didn’t want him out of her sight for even a moment.
He came back in only a few minutes, his face harsh in the blinding glare of the headlights. He got back into the Blazer. “The water’s over the bridge; we can’t chance crossing it. We have to spend the night in the truck.”
Chapter Eleven
Susan bit her lip, thinking of the fire that had been warming her in her imagination. She was silent as he shifted into Reverse and turned the Blazer around, then drove a little farther back the way they’d come. Finally he pulled to the side of the road and parked.
She had been so frantic to get away from him, she thought dimly, but now she was glad that he was here, that he was all right. They had come so close to death…but what if only she had been spared? The thought of him lying dead from the brute force of the storm was unbearable.
Her shaking hand went to her dripping hair, and her fingers combed through it. The driving rain had evidently washed the mud out, but she found a few twigs that she pulled out and dropped to the floorboards. But what did it matter, anyway, if her hair was a mess? She began to laugh.
Cord’s head jerked around at the sound, and he reached out to touch her shoulder. Susan covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the unwilling mirth, but she couldn’t. “Baby, it’s all right,” he murmured, sliding out from under the steering wheel and taking her in his arms. “It’s over; you’re all right.”
The hard strength of him surrounded her, and Susan burrowed into it, her arms lacing around his waist. The strained laughter turned into choking, dry sobs, then slowly diminished as he continued to hold her, talking to her in a quiet, gentle voice, his hand stroking her head.
But her shaking didn’t diminish, and finally his hand moved down over her bare shoulder and arms. “My God, you’re freezing,” he muttered, taking his arms from around her. He found the two towels that he’d brought when they’d dashed through the rain from the cabin to the Blazer, and wrapped one around her hair. “Get out of those wet clothes,” he ordered, but in a voice so calm and matter-of-fact that she didn’t balk. “There’s a blanket in the back; I’ll wrap you up in it.” He turned the heater on high.
Susan looked at him, her eyes enormous. “You need to get out of your clothes, too; you’re not impervious to cold, either.”
The normal tone of her voice reassured him, and he flashed her a grin that shone against the darkness of his growing beard. “I’m warmer than you are, but I’ll admit that wet jeans are damned uncomfortable.” He peeled his T-shirt off over his head and wrung the excess water out, then draped it over the steering wheel.
The sight of his bare, powerful torso agitated her, and she jerked her gaze away, beginning to unbutton the flimsy camisole top while he struggled to take off his boots in the limited space they had. Her cold fingers wouldn’t cooperate, and she had managed to get out of only the camisole and the strapless bra she’d worn under it by the time Cord had completely strip
ped and was wiping himself down with the other towel.
When he’d finished, he came to her assistance, pushing her shaking hands aside. He dealt with her skirt, pantyhose and panties in short order; then he dried her vigorously, the rough fabric of the towel speeding her circulation and driving some of the chill away.
He reached in the back for the blanket, unfolding it and draping it across the seat. He sat in the middle of it, then scooped her up and placed her on his lap, and wrapped the rest of the blanket around both of them like a cocoon.
Blessed warmth enveloped her, and Susan gave a blissful sigh, cuddling against his amazing body heat. She felt suddenly peaceful; they were completely alone and isolated from the world, at least until morning. They were naked together, rather like Adam and Eve, and for the moment she wanted nothing except that they be warm and dry. Everything else could wait until morning. For now she was in his arms, and the feel of him was heaven. The scent of his skin, of his warm masculinity, both soothed and aroused her, and she turned to press more fully into the hair-softened contours of his hard chest.
Cord held her, his hands on her satin curves, his face troubled. “I’ve never in my life been as scared as I was tonight,” he admitted in a rumble, his words startling Susan.
She lifted her head from his shoulder, her eyes wide with astonishment. “You?” she demanded, her voice rising in disbelief. “You were afraid?” That didn’t seem possible. He had nerves of ice, an imperviousness to danger that both alarmed and reassured her.
