The Widow's Protector

by Rachel Lee

  “I guess.” She wrapped her arms more tightly around her belly, protectively. “The house. It’s all I really have.”

  “Do you have insurance?”

  She shook her head. “We couldn’t afford it. My husband inherited it, and when he lost his job we moved out here. We figured we could make it on land leases until one of us found work.”

  “Then you lost him. So no income at all?”

  “Just from the leases. There’s a lot of land. We’ve leased it to grow hay, and some as grazing land. It’s not a lot, but it was enough for the basics.”

  She glanced at the door again as the drumming resumed.

  “Everything may be okay,” he said pointlessly. Although it was easy to tell someone not to worry about things they didn’t know, and they certainly didn’t know if anything had happened to her house, worry seemed to be a natural human state.

  He hated sitting here like this, unable to do anything but wait, and if he hated it, so must she. She had a lot more at stake. But if he’d learned anything at all from his marriage to Brandy, it was that sometimes no amount of effort could solve a problem.

  Of course, he still wasn’t sure which lessons to take from that. It didn’t seem to have improved his patience any. But Brandy had tested his patience for years. He’d learned to roll with the punches and deal with each day as it came. Maybe that was the maximum patience a man could learn.

  The radio crackled and a voice came back, telling them the tornado warning had been lifted for Conard County.

  Then Marti reached out to switch the dial, and a staticky news station came on. The sheriff reported that damage to Conard City appeared to be minimal, but they were still awaiting reports from outlying areas. Power and telephones were out, and some cell towers seemed to be down. The station pleaded for folks to check on their neighbors and find a way to report emergencies to the sheriff’s department.

  Marti looked at the closed storm door again, and Ryder could read the anxiety in every line of her. She needed to look but was afraid to.

  Finally, despite the drumbeat of what he assumed to be rain, Ryder realized that nothing heavy was battering them any longer, and the wind had stopped wailing. Time to check.

  He climbed the stairs, unlocked the bolts and threw the door back.

  “Oh my God,” he heard Marti say on a breath right behind him.

  If it hadn’t passed right overhead, the tornado had certainly come close. He saw a cluster of debris around the shelter opening, and beyond it he could see her house.

  Part of the roof was gone and some of the trees had come down, although not on the house, the only mercy he could see. The tree trunks looked like splintered matchwood, giving him some idea of the power of the storm that had just passed them.

  He shoved debris aside, making a clear path for the woman behind him. He didn’t want her tripping on anything.

  Then he climbed out and turned to offer her a hand. Steady rain fell, although not heavily, and the sky had lightened to a deep gray. The inky green was gone.

  But so was part of her life.

  * * *

  Marti stood there staring at her house, the one thing she had counted on to get her through, taking in the corner of the roof that had been stripped of its covering, leaving rafters bare. The rain would get in, she thought numbly. It would ruin everything.

  The downed trees didn’t shock her as much, though it troubled her to see them. They had provided protection in the winter from the wind and then shade as spring had deepened. Now they were just kindling.

  Then, feeling as if every muscle in her body had turned to lead, she pivoted to look out over the fields that had been planted with hay.

  “Oh my God,” she said again, clapping one hand to her mouth. The hay had been mown right down to the bare earth as if by a giant scythe, along a line so clearly marked she could have believed a surveyor had laid it. It told her how close that tornado had come, missing her buildings by a couple of hundred feet. And the slash was so wide.

  “My God,” she said helplessly. There went her income. Nobody was going to be able to pay up on those leases if they lost their crop.

  Her knees started to weaken, and she was grateful when Ryder gripped her elbow, steadying her.

  “It’s gone,” she whispered hollowly. “It’s all gone.” What was she supposed to do now?

  “Do you have any decent tarps?” Ryder asked her.

  Slowly her gaze tracked to him. Any other time she would have thought him a fine-looking man, with his chiseled, slightly weathered face, his lean, hard build. Those gray eyes of his were filled with compassion, and the compassion almost made her weep. How long had it been since anyone had given a damn about her?

  Not that it mattered. He was a stranger she had picked up along the roadside only because she couldn’t leave another human being out in this storm. He’d probably resume his trek in a matter of minutes.

  “Tarps?” she repeated blankly.

  “I need to cover that hole in your roof before the rain does too much damage.”

  “You don’t have to….” She had trouble grasping that he was offering to help in some way. The idea didn’t want to penetrate the haze of total despair.

  “I have to,” he said. “It’s the least I can do. Looks like you saved my life. Tarps?” he repeated.

  “In the barn,” she said woodenly. “I think there are some there.”

  “Okay.” His steadying grip on her elbow tightened a bit. “I want you to stay in the truck out of the rain. Come on.”

  She was in no condition to argue. What would she argue about anyway? There was nothing she could do herself, not in her condition.

  So she let him guide her back to the truck, let him help her climb back in.

  “Just stay,” he said, his gray eyes stern. “I can at least keep the rain out if I can find enough tarps.”

  “Thank you.” It was a paltry expression of gratitude, but she was having trouble feeling grateful about anything right now. The baby inside her kicked, and she laid her hand over the spot. The baby. Whatever she did about this, the baby had to be her first concern. Her only concern. If that meant moving on…

  She couldn’t even consider it then. She stared at the house, stared at the hole in her roof, then watched Ryder trek to the barn through the rain. Why couldn’t it have been the barn roof?

  Sometimes she just wanted to yell at the heavens. But right now she didn’t even have energy for that. The devastation she saw everywhere she looked… Well, right now she didn’t even feel grateful for having survived.

  Then the baby kicked again, reminding her why she had to carry on. The baby, she murmured to herself, over and over. Whatever came next, she had to do it for Linda Marie.

  The tears came then, silent large drops that rolled down her face like rain.

  * * *

  Ryder took a flashlight to the barn with him, well aware that what he was about to do was dangerous. It was still raining, and he could hear rumbles of thunder. There was some small hail on the ground, too, which could make planting a ladder dangerous, and there might be more. What did he know about storms like this? He was no meteorologist.

  But he just couldn’t bring himself to walk away from this woman’s problem without at least protecting her house from more damage. Rain getting in would do far more to cause her problems than the tornado had.

  So he started hunting the unfamiliar space. The flashlight at least picked up on an aluminum ladder quickly, one that looked of recent vintage and would get him up the twenty feet he needed to climb to the roof.

  Hammer and nails were next, easily found in the tack room at the back. Some of the nails looked a bit rusty with age, but they weren’t bad. Enough to do a temporary job. The tarps gave him more trouble, although he couldn’t imagine a place like thi
s, if it had ever been worked, would lack them. A lot of things you might want to leave outdoors needed to be protected from rain and the inevitable rust or mold.

  It seemed to take forever, but at last he found a stack of them, musty and heavy. They weren’t the lighter-weight new ones, but as he checked them, he thought they would do. Canvas, and full of clay to judge by the weight. If they leaked anywhere, that’s what they made buckets for.

  With some rope, he bound them together in stacks he felt he could carry on his back up a ladder. An old tool belt came in handy for carrying hammer and nails.

  When he stepped back outside, the day had darkened again. The smell of the earth, freshly churned by the passing tornado, filled his nostrils. But at least it had stopped raining for the moment.

  He set up the ladder against a part of the roof that hadn’t been damaged, settling it carefully in the wet ground, then began lugging up the stuff he would need. A streak of lightning rent the sky to the west, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

  He needed his head examined. At any work site he had supervised, he’d have stopped all exterior work while something like this was going on. But in this case, he felt he had no choice. Who knew how much rain would fall and how much damage Marti’s house would suffer? It was easy to deal with broken wood compared to water damage.

  And given the news report, he doubted anyone would come by here soon to help. Hell, probably a lot of her neighbors were trying to do exactly the same thing right now.

  Damn tornado.

  Up on the roof at last with everything he needed, he studied the problem, deciding how best to nail the tarps into place. At least the storm hadn’t removed the underlying roof trusses when it had torn away shingles, tar paper and plywood decking. The gable pieces were still firm and steady to his touch, and he was able to stand on joists some of the time as he worked his way across the opening.

  Right then he’d have given just about anything for a nail gun or a heavy-duty staple gun. Instead he had to hammer each nail individually as he attached the tarps.

  Rain swept across him from time to time, and occasionally the wind snatched at the tarps, but he lost himself in the comfort of working with his hands. He had always loved working this way, much more so than he had enjoyed running his own business.

  Manual labor made him feel good, and before long he was feeling better than he had in months. That ought to tell him something, he thought bitterly. Hard work was good for the heart, body and soul.

  Maybe that was what he needed more than anything. More than trying to sort things out in his head, things that didn’t sort at all because they knew no logic. Maybe he just needed to work, and work hard, until all the confusion settled and he found the missing pieces of himself that Brandy had taken with her.

  He didn’t even realize that he had grown soaked to the skin. He didn’t notice when the wind took on a bit of a chill.

  Hammering nails was good. If nothing else in life could at the moment, the feel of a hammer in his hands and the force he exerted with every downward swing satisfied him.

  Sort of like a primal scream, he thought wryly, and reached for another nail. He was exorcising a whole lot of unhappiness and anger and confusion with every blow of that hammer.

  Lightning jagged across the sky, followed so closely by a clap of thunder that it reminded him how foolhardy he was being. He wouldn’t have let any man who worked for him do this. But he felt he had no choice. The more rain, the higher the likelihood that Marti Chastain’s house would suffer severe damage. He couldn’t leave anyone like that, least of all a pregnant widow.

  She was a pretty woman, he thought as he struggled against the wind to hammer down the last tarp. Pretty with her short blond curls, and pretty in her pregnancy. Funny, he’d never before noticed that a woman so far along could be sexy. But maybe that was because he hadn’t been looking. Every bit of him had been utterly focused on Brandy for a long time now.

  Okay, so Marti Chastain was a sexy-looking woman, but he felt guilty for even noticing, given her pregnancy and the current state of her life. That woman sure had a whole heap of troubles.

  At last he got the final tarp nailed into place, just in time for another wave of heavy rain to sweep through. Sitting on the roof nearby, he watched the water roll off the tarps with satisfaction. Now he’d just need to check inside the attic and see if there were any leaks.

  When the rain lightened a bit, he tested the ladder. It still felt stable, so he climbed down cautiously. The rungs were wet but gripped his hiking boots well enough, and the ladder didn’t tip at all until he had only a few more steps to take.

  When he reached the ground, he carried the ladder and tools back to the barn. There he found an old rag and wiped as best he could at the hammer and nails. The ladder could dry on its own.

  The barn roof leaked in a couple of places, he noticed, and he almost sighed. At least the drips weren’t falling on anything important, but the idea of another leaking roof bothered the builder in him. Things like that needed fixing to protect a structure, and he had a feeling Marti couldn’t afford it.

  Great.

  As he exited the barn, he saw Marti had left the truck and was now standing on her front porch. He trotted over to her, taking in her dejected posture and the way her blue eyes seemed too large for her face.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “I was going to ask you that. Thank you for what you did.”

  “It was nothing.” He stepped up on the porch beside her, out of the rain. “I’d like to check the attic, though. If there are any leaks, we need to put buckets or something under them to catch the water so your ceilings don’t collapse.”

  She nodded, looking out over the destruction again before shaking herself. “Let me make you something to eat,” she said. “And you should stay the night. I’m not sure I can get you to town when the road is so soggy. Well, I probably could, but then the question would be whether I could get home. Ruts get deep fast when it’s this wet. Plus,” she added almost as an afterthought, as if the enormity hadn’t really hit her, “some of the roads could be blocked by debris.”

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  “You’re all wet,” she remarked. “You must be freezing. Do you have a change?”

  “My backpack’s in the truck.”

  “Well, go get it. I’ll start a meal.”

  He jogged over to the truck, which she had brought closer to the house, and wondered what he was doing. Part of him, most of him, just wanted to resume his travels even in this inclement weather. He wouldn’t melt, and the solitude had been quieting his emotional pangs.

  But he also realized that Marti was just being neighborly, trying to thank him for putting those tarps on her roof, and she’d probably feel bad if he just marched off into the quieting storm without accepting any mark of her gratitude, whether it was a meal and a bed or a ride to town.

  He could identify with that, being pretty much built the same himself, but he looked down the road with a moment of longing as he retrieved his backpack.

  Not now, he thought, slinging the heavy pack over his shoulder. At the very least, he needed to make sure her house was snug and safe. He wouldn’t rest easy unless he did.

  He needed to check more than the roof. The wind had to have struck awfully hard to tear away that portion, and there might be hidden damage.

  Then he started thinking about her leaking barn. Her advanced state of pregnancy. Her lack of friends or family in these parts.

  Aw hell, he thought as he tromped back to the house. He couldn’t leave with a clear conscience. Not yet. Maybe not for a week or so.

  Ben was just going to have to wait a little longer.

  Chapter 2

  Marti sent Ryder up to change in the guest room, telling him to feel free to use the hall shower, and anyth
ing that was in there, if he wanted. It wasn’t much of a room. The iron bedstead looked as if it had been there since the house had been built back around 1902, but the mattress had been replaced at some point and was in great condition. The bedding was fresh, too—since she’d had a burst of energy just a week ago and washed all the linens. A battered but large old chest of drawers completed the furnishings. Minimalist but adequate.

  She pulled a thawed chicken out of the fridge. She had been planning to roast it tonight anyway and use the leftovers for meals during the week. Ryder looked like he might have a big appetite, but if the chicken disappeared at one sitting, it wasn’t as if she’d be left hungry. She had other things in her freezer to cook if she needed them.

  But after the way he had climbed up on her roof, braving the elements, to protect her house from further damage, there was no way she was going to let him just leave without a decent meal and a night’s sleep.

  She’d been scared watching him up there. Sometimes the lightning had seemed so close, and then those bands of rain had blown through with strong winds and she had seen him struggle with the tarps. Fear that he might get struck by lightning or take a fall had never been far from her mind.

  What would she have done if he had gotten hurt? Her phone was out, and she couldn’t have moved him by herself, certainly not in her present condition.

  His willingness to risk his neck to save her from additional damage was startling. She wasn’t used to men like that. Jeff, her late husband, probably would have shrugged, popped the top off another beer and told her he’d get to it when the storm passed. If he got to it at all.

  Although, seriously, she didn’t see how he could have avoided it. This house and the land was all that had stood between them and starvation.

  It wasn’t like they could sell it. Jeff had tried that when he first lost his job, but nobody was buying run-down farms in the middle of nowhere. At least not at a price Jeff considered fair, assuming he ever had an offer. He’d said not, but as she had learned, Jeff hadn’t always told the truth.