“They weren’t sure what happened. They think there must have been a hole in the line of the hand-held tank my father was using and gas had been leaking out steadily. Anything could have ignited it, a hot piece of solder, a spark. The tank exploded.”
Acid-tongued flames and suffocating smoke. Jesse on his knees, crawling, inching forward. His vision going black as he groped blindly toward his father. Reaching the head, tugging, the flames closing in, the sizzling heat, the smoke.
“The scaffolding hadn’t been set properly.” His voice was flat, void of expression.
“You fell five stories?”
He released her hand. Her arm dangled at her side.
“Your father?”
Jesse glanced away, then back at her. He shook his head.
“I was in and out of consciousness the first few weeks from the dope to kill the pain. They learned from my father’s records that he had a brother, only known relative. The hospital contacted him. He offered to take me in once I was ready to leave the hospital. A few months later I was out of danger enough to be transferred to a Texas hospital.”
Amy dropped onto the stool, the assault of emotions draining her.
“When the scaffolding broke, I fell onto heavy equipment. My back was broken in three spots, one leg crushed. The doctors didn’t think I would ever walk again. It took six years to prove them wrong.”
Amy’s medical training told her he shouldn’t have walked again. In fact, he shouldn’t have survived.
“There were lacerations, contusions, a punctured lung…”
“Your face?” Amy asked softly.
“Shattered by the fall.”
She touched his cheekbone. “Reconstructed by plastic surgery.”
He nodded.
She drew her hand back from his face and stood, paced a few steps. “All these years. All this time. Didn’t you think I had a right…” Her voice quavered. She looked back at him. “Why, Jesse? Why?”
Her expression turned hard. “Even today, did you have any intention of telling me the truth?”
“I saw you this morning and realized you had done as I’d hoped. Become a doctor, created a life for yourself, achieved your dreams. What right did I have to try and turn that life upside down? What would have been the point of telling you the truth and risk hurting you again?”
Amy shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“It’s been fourteen years. What good would it have done to tell you the truth now?”
“What good would it have done? I would have known the truth. I deserved that much.” Her voice cracked. She turned away. “I loved you.”
“I loved you, Amy.”
She spun around, her gaze sharp. “Don’t you dare, Jesse. Don’t you dare tell me that you loved me. Do you know how long, how many nights, how many tears…” She broke off, moved toward the windows. She turned her back to him, facing the storm. Her arms wrapped around her waist and she held herself.
“Amy?” She felt the tentative touch of his fingertips on her shoulder. She should step away. She didn’t move.
All was black outside. The wind surged stronger than she’d imagined possible.
“Come away from the window, Amy.”
At first, she thought it was only her body trembling as she reeled from shock, but the tremors surrounded her now, the floorboards and wall joints shaking from the storm. She stepped away from the window as Jesse asked, and tried to still her body. She could hear thrumming sounds and hard pings when objects hit the sides of the house, as if knocking to come in. She looked at Jesse. His grim expression answered her. If the storm had shifted, it might have missed Corpus Christi, but it had not made it as far as the Mexican border. It was now heading straight for the shore area where Amy and Jesse were stranded. Soon it would be pounding on the front steps. But for now, the hurricane was inside her.
She faced her first love. In the muted light, his scars were still visible. The aftermath of his accident, the pain that would not go away was in his eyes. Now it was her pain too. Added to the fourteen years of questions without answers, tear-filled nights, angry pleas, unanswered prayers. Fourteen years of the pain of a heart missing its other half.
He extinguished one lantern, but left the other until the storm hit, postponing using the portable lights as long as possible to conserve batteries. He faced her again. “The storeroom should be the safest place. There are no windows.”
He had not asked her forgiveness. She did not know if she could answer him if he did. The strong and violent emotions had leveled off now, leaving her body physically weak. The wind howled against the walls. The windows rattled. There was not much time left.
She stared at Jesse’s face, so unlike the face of his youth. She searched for the boy she knew, saw the man he’d become. All those years lost. A new wrenching pain twisted her gut.
She knew there was a plea in her eyes, and she heard a plaintive keen in her voice as she said, “I don’t understand. Why?”
The pain inside her was mirrored in his eyes, eyes she now recognized as belonging to the boy she’d known. She stepped back. The deep blue of his eyes went black with grief. He closed them for a long moment as if overwhelmed. When he opened them again, she saw he had regained control.
“You would have come,” he said flatly.
“Yes.”
“You would have stayed by my side through every operation, every hateful procedure, every humiliating helplessness.”
“Yes,” she answered, although she knew he had not asked a question. “I would never have left you.”
She meant to hurt him, her anger still too fresh and irreconcilable. The pain in his eyes told her she had done so.
“No, you wouldn’t have abandoned me. You would have given up your scholarship, school, your career, your dream of being a doctor.”
She said nothing. They both knew it was true.
“For what?” he asked.
“For us.” Her answer sparked a fresh flash of pain in his eyes.
“No. I couldn’t allow that.”
Behind him she saw the windows take on a strange shape, as if bowing inward from the pressure of the wind. Inside her, her anger and pain gathered new fury. “What gave you the right to make that choice for both of us?”
“There was a big chance I would never walk again. Even if I did, it would have been years and years of surgery, hospital rooms, recovery time, therapy, setbacks, frustration, disappointment. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to hold a job again. I didn’t know if I would be able even to do a simple task like take out the garbage.” He paused. “Pleasure a woman, father a child. Is that what you wanted, Amy?”
Her body had tensed as if to ward off the reality of his words. When they stopped, she bowed her head as if unable to withstand any more and answered him.
“I wanted you.”
Her voice was small, quiet, contrasting with the mounting fury outside. The building made a grinding, straining sound against the storm. Amy’s heart made the same pathetic protest inside her, unable to accept what she had learned.
Lightning flashed outside the windows. In the brief burst of light, she saw a huge tree upended, its root system higher than the windows, clods of dirt as big as cars shaking from its roots. Amy thought wildly of the people gathered down by the pier and prayed they had come to their senses long before this. And as for the boys…
Jesse grabbed her arm but she jerked it away. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. The queer satisfaction she felt at the bleakness that passed across his features was soon replaced by her own anguish.
“We’ve got to get in the storage room.” He blew out the remaining lantern. The darkness inside matched the darkness outside. Disoriented, Amy waited until her eyes adjusted to the full blackness of the hurricane. A light beam cut through the dark. She saw Jesse standing there like a savior. He swung the beam toward the kitchen. The odd pot and pan rattled in the cupboards. Chairs toppled, and cans and boxes fell off the counters a
s the hurricane pawed to get in.
“The storage room,” Jesse yelled. “Now.”
She grabbed the small flashlight with her free hand and circled its light around the room and the supplies they’d carried in, as if checking to see what could save her. Nothing. She looked at the items she’d arranged in precise order, now scattered in disarray.
She looked at Jesse. He was watching her, waiting. From outside came the thunderous gibberish of howls and wails like hell itself.
“Amy?”
She moved toward him, stopping in front of him so close she saw the tension in his muscles, the restrained rise and fall of his chest.
Anger and bitterness were gone from her voice, leaving only defeat. “I wanted you, Jess.”
He followed her into the storage room, their lights leading the way. Amy settled down on a blanket, propping a pillow beneath her back. She switched off the flashlight. Jesse’s light scanned the narrow walls, high ceiling. He panned it across the kitchen.
“Sit down, Sheriff,” Amy said in a flat voice. “Nothing else can be done now.”
His gaze fell on her. His expression was hard to read, the muted light making him a mystery. He propped a pillow against the opposite wall. Their legs were drawn up to their chests. Three feet separated them.
“We’ll leave the door open for now,” he said.
She stared at him. “Tell me more,” she said plaintively.
“Amy—” He gentled his voice as if to placate her.
“Tell me everything,” she said, steel in her tone. “You woke to vertebral fractures, comminuted fractures of the leg, facial lacerations, intra-oral lacerations, avulsed teeth, fractured facial bones, fractured jaws…”
She laundry-listed the possible injuries as if knowing more, knowing everything could make her understand, could wipe away the loss of fourteen years.
“What was the hospital? Small? Community? Surely, your injuries would have required the skills of a large medical center.”
He watched her as she rose on her knees and came closer to him, examining his features with a critical eye. He didn’t flinch as she snapped on the flashlight. He remained stolid as she traced his scars, first with the light, then with her fingers, seeing new ones that had been so expertly stitched, they hadn’t left a seam. Only the whiteness of new tissue. She turned his head to the left, the right, her flashlight held high, illuminating the scars hidden along the hairline, behind the ears, down the neck.
She set the flashlight down, its light now aimed on Jesse’s body. Her gaze locked with his as she unfastened the top button of his shirt. She saw his muscles tense. She undid the next button and the next, pulling the shirt out of the waistband of his pants, spreading it open. A light layer of dark curling hair veed along the muscles, unable to hide the scars. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders, all the way down as she moved behind him. She repositioned the flashlight, then sucked in a breath as she saw the thick puckered scar along his spine. Her professional objectivity failed her, and the woman she was let the tears slide down her face. She reached out, touched the wound. The tension in Jesse’s shoulders forced him still.
“Jesus,” she whispered. Her voice caught in a sob. She leaned down and pressed her mouth to the wide swath of skin, felt his sharp intake of breath. Her mouth moved blindly up his spinal cord, the tender skin twisted by both injuries and surgery. Her fingers crept up his arms, across his shoulders, as if by touching, tasting his flesh, his pain, she could understand how he could have abandoned her, how fourteen years that should have been theirs had been lost. At last she pulled back and sat on her haunches, shaking with confusion and fear, fury and desire. Then she leaned forward and rested her cheek on his broad back, beautiful in its agony, marked with suffering. He remained still as the wind beat against the walls and she sat trembling behind him. She felt the power that had allowed him to survive his accident.
He half rose and turned to her. She could see the strength in his face now, in his steady expression.
“I’m not saying what I did was right. I’m not saying I didn’t know it would cause you pain. But I’m not saying I’m sorry. When I walked into the firehouse this morning and saw you, a beautiful woman, an accomplished doctor, I was not sorry.”
She bowed her head. He came to her, crouched down and gathered her in his arms. She could not fight him off even if she’d wanted to. He stroked her hair, his touch light. She’d remembered the passion, the pain. She’d forgotten the sweetness.
“I’m not sorry, Amy.”
She laid her head against his chest and wept.
She heard a train coming straight at them. Lifting her head, she looked into Jesse’s eyes. The building, its walls shaking and windows rattling before in nervousness, now began to crack. She heard glass breaking, shingles being ripped off, and all around them, the very air shaking with an inhuman force.
“Lie down,” Jesse ordered.
She did as he said, lying flat on her stomach, the floorboards beneath her trembling so hard she didn’t know how they stayed together. She heard the storage-room door slam. A tree fell, clipped the roof. Amy swallowed the scream in her throat.
“Cover your head.” Jesse had to shout above the thunderous fury although he was right next to her. He arched over her, shielding her. Windows blew out, spraying glass across the floors. The storage-room door split, the walls around them cracked. The hurricane had came inside now, pelting the floorboards, their bodies, swirling around them as if to carry them off too, take them away only to discard them, fling them down like garbage, then swoop them back up again until they were beaten and broken and near death.
Amy covered her head with her forearms, trying not to think, waiting it out until it was over, even the slight weight of Jesse’s body not stilling her trembling. She thought of her son, the man above her. She prayed for life.
The wind howled with a banshee’s glee. The chaos peaked. All around her the world cracked apart, and Amy feared they would not survive.
And then the storm subsided—so suddenly Amy thought it an illusion. She didn’t move, not trusting her own senses as she heard the groans soften, the howls hush, the pounding of her own heart again.
Jesse’s sheltering warmth moved away as he stood. She pushed herself up from the floor. All around them lay splintered wood, cracked Sheetrock, mounds of pink insulation like cotton candy. Jesse was watching her, looking for injury.
“I’m fine,” she said, brushing the dirt off her clothes. He turned to the doorway.
“Wait,” she said. His back was covered with tufts of insulation. “You’ve got stuff all over you.” She brushed his shoulders, across his back. He stood still for a second, then shrugged off her hands and drew his shirt back on.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
He was right, she realized as she followed him out of their narrow shelter. They were alive. That’s all that mattered.
They walked carefully through the kitchen, picking their way through the debris. Parts of the ceiling had fallen and insulation lay on the floor like snow. Miniature tornadoes had come through the building, knocking over stools, chairs, tables, any object that had gotten in the way. The windows had been blown out, the glass glittering amid the damage like buried treasure.
“I heard the trusses crack but I think they held.” Jesse looked up at the second floor. The tar paper beneath the shingles had ripped off, exposing the sky. The stairs had shifted but, remarkably, held.
Amy stepped almost daintily through the destruction, making her way to a wide hole that used to be a window. She looked out. The clouds had parted. Above was a sky so clear, so calm and peaceful it brought tears to her eyes. The moon was a white glow and the brilliant wash of the Milky Way stunned the sky with a light like no other.
Beneath this beauty were the remnants of pure evil. Wind, rains, waves crashing around the edge of the eye. Trees broken, snapped at the trunk or ripped from the ground whole, leaving the landscape bare and ugly. One particularly large tr
ee had gone down, and the Bronco, parked beneath it, had been lifted on its root system and now tilted high above the bombed-out landscape like some crazed symbol of surrender.
Downed power lines crisscrossed the trees. Objects gathered in the storm’s fury and cast off at its whim dotted the broken landscape. Parts of boats, the pier, seaweed, a fish as big as a dog were all part of the scenery like a madcap tableau of modern art.
Amy turned to Jesse. He’d picked up a piece of insulation or two, then stopped, dropped them. He looked at her across the ruin. His gaze circled the room and returned to her once more, desolation in his eyes.
Neither had spoken since they’d left the storage room. Amy looked at the man across from her, solid, alive, seeming unreal in this nightmare of destruction. She thanked God for their survival, but her prayers were not over. She was not fooled by the silver sky above, nor the sacred and wondrous silence after so much rage, or the calm and balmy air. The temperature was rising so fast, she felt the sweat bead on the back of her neck. They were smack dab in the middle of the hurricane’s eye, and the northern wall was the most destructive side of the storm.
Amy looked at Jesse. Neither spoke. They didn’t have to. They knew. The worst was yet to come.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JESSE MADE his way to the window. “Won’t be long before the eye passes. The back end of the storm will bring the sea surge.” He looked at the ocean, now like glass, the storm at its edges. “Flooding is going to be the problem, along with the winds. We’ve got to head upstairs to higher ground.”
Amy nodded but didn’t move.
“Hope we can salvage some of the supplies. The blankets and pillows are still dry. C’mon.” He took her arm lightly.
She did not pull away. She let him lead her from the wreckage outside. The fact that the Jesse Boone who’d left her fourteen years ago was here beside her had become secondary to survival now. Her world had narrowed down to this room, this man and making it through the night. She thought of her son. She looked at Jesse.
“I’ll get the blankets,” he said.
Hard Rain Page 9
