“I’ll check out the supplies.” She found the boxes beneath dust and wood, slightly crushed but with several salvageable items. She discarded the damaged items and combined the two boxes into one. Jesse met her at the bottom of the stairs. He traded her the bedding for the box. “I’ll go up first to make sure the stairs aren’t damaged. If they can hold my weight, you’ll have no problem.”
He climbed the steps, testing each one before putting his full weight on it. He reached the top, turned to her. “They’ll hold.”
She followed him up. Gaps where the tar paper had ripped off revealed the eerily beautiful sky, but the roof had held. The rain had blown over horizontally. The air was muggy and ripe with the scent of damp plaster and the sea. Jesse went to the gaping windows and looked toward the ocean. Amy joined him. A sudden gentle breeze greeted them. Farther down the beach, it looked clear, but at the eye’s edge, clouds hovered.
Jesse rummaged through the remains of the supplies. He pulled out a package of beef jerky and ripped open the plastic wrapping. He handed her a wide slab.
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
“Force yourself.” He thrust the dried meat at her. “If the surge comes, bringing the tide inland, the water could take everything. There’ll be no food, no water until help comes and we can get back to town. Eat.”
She took the strip and bit off a chunk of the dehydrated meat. She chewed hard. The dryness of the meat and the dryness of her throat caused the jerky to wad in her mouth. She ground it with her teeth, reached one of the surviving bottles of water and drank. Finally she swallowed the chunk of jerky.
“Eat more,” Jesse advised her.
She gave him a long, unsmiling look, but bit off another chunk. He smiled as he peeled another strip from the package. They ate in silence, standing at the window, watching the sea, the moon sliding in and out of the low clouds moving in. They stood as close as they could without touching. The clouds gathered and a sudden gust of cold air caused Amy to tense. She slipped her hand into Jesse’s, finding it warm and strong and scarred. The past did not matter at this moment. All that mattered was right now, and the fact that they were alive and unharmed.
At first Jesse did not respond, uncertain, but gradually his fingers wrapped around hers, held them tight. And she was grateful.
The clouds came together more thickly, and the moon was gone. The air temperature fell as quickly as it had risen. The scent of a storm filled the air.
A powerful gust came through the hole where the window had been, threatening to topple them, but they stood strong. Hand-in-hand, they watched with helplessness and awe as the sea rose up high and came toward the land. What they saw froze them. The water was black as ink, the surf rearing up, heading for landfall like a moving cliff. Behind the first wave came another, rising, getting taller, bigger, stronger as it rushed toward the dunes and destruction. Even from a distance, the power was unmistakable and terrifying. The rains broke through again, the black waves and gray sky rising up monstrous, evil, unstoppable. Easily twenty feet, Amy estimated. The eye had passed. The moment of calm was over.
“It won’t be long before the waters reach us,” Jesse said. She said nothing, helplessness holding her hostage.
“We’re high enough—we’ll be safe,” he reassured her. “By the time the waters reach here, they’ll have leveled off. They’ll flood the roads, ruin whatever hasn’t yet been ruined, but up here, higher up, we’ll be safe.”
The rains blew, battering their faces. A piece of debris whistled by. The trusses creaked above them. Amy gave a gasp and watched in horror as the wave slammed into a beach house three-quarters of a mile away, rocking it on its stilts and peeling back the roof like a sardine can. The left side of the house fell away. Only the front stood, unsupported, as if caught by surprise before it collapsed in on itself.
“Amy?” Jesse had not let go of her hand and gave it a gentle tug. “Come away from the window.”
She nodded, knowing he was right, and moved with him toward the corner where they had piled supplies. They sat cross-legged on an opened blanket. Jesse unscrewed the top of a peanut butter jar, tore opened a pack of crackers and began smearing them with the spread. He handed her a cracker heavy with peanut butter as if they were on a picnic.
A memory rose up. Another picnic, another time, another life. Two days before her eighteenth birthday Jesse had surprised her by hitchhiking the many miles from Salt Lake City, where his father had gotten a job and moved them both to a few months earlier. He could only stay two days. His father had gotten him work after school on the construction site where he was employed. It was not enough time. It was never enough time. It was all they had.
They’d rented a boat and rowed to a secluded cove carved into Seattle’s coast. Their own private island, she remembered thinking. The water had been calm, glittering with the day’s sunlight. He’d packed a bottle of sweet, sparkling cider which he’d opened ceremoniously. He’d toasted her. “To you, Amy Sherwood.”
Laughing, she’d kissed him, then raised her own glass. “To us.” She had never been so happy or certain or young as she’d been on that day. She had not known it then, of course. Life had stretched out before her, and her love was as bright as the sun on the sound. Jesse hadn’t needed to ask her wish when she blew out the candles on her favorite chocolate fudge layer cake, which he’d special-ordered from Johnson’s Bakery. She hadn’t needed to tell him as she’d moved into his arms, the cake and sweet cider forgotten for the sweeter taste of Jesse. Her wish had been in her eyes, the urgent touch of her hands, her body pliant against his with a warmth and fever beyond the day’s temperature. She had not known then that even one perfect day such as that was a lot to ask in a lifetime. All she’d known was that she loved Jesse Boone, and to spend the rest of her life with him would not be long enough.
That day was the last time she’d seen him until yesterday morning.
She took the cracker thick with peanut butter. “Do you remember the last time we saw each other? You and your father had moved to Salt Lake a few months back, but you had come for my eighteenth birthday—”
“I remember everything.” His features were neutral, hiding any emotion underneath.
“Your accident? How long after that day did it happen?”
“Six days.”
“Jesus.”
He raised his eyes, looked her full in the face for a count of five, then lowered them once more. He buttered a cracker, topped it with another to form a sandwich and handed it to her. She ignored it.
“When I hadn’t heard from you for over a month, I called the number you’d given me. The woman at the desk said you and your father had left weeks ago.”
“He was waiting for me when I got back from Washington. Said his buddy had work at a commercial job in New Mexico. Good pay. Work would last months, maybe longer. I was going to call you as soon as we got settled somewhere and I could give you a phone number.”
“But then the accident.”
He said nothing. What was there to say? One perfect day. Then fourteen years of nothing. She knew it was more than many people had in a lifetime. Amy looked at Jesse. It was not enough.
“That day—”
Amy’s words were cut off as lightning flashed, filling the room with an artificial brightness. She saw Jesse in the mocking light, and uncertain, she could not continue. The half hour of calm was over. The storm had rallied. It descended again with renewed violence. As the fury returned, the silvery sky had taken on a green tint, as if ill with the destruction it wrought. The building was shaking, struggling to stay upright, as weary as its occupants.
Jesse fished in the box of supplies and took out a thick coil of nylon rope. He handed several loops at one end to her. “Take off your belt. Thread this through your belt loops.”
She did as he instructed, trying to still her hands, which were trembling from fatigue and fear. He removed his belt and snaked the other end of the rope through the loops around his w
aist. When she finished, he came to her, securing the rope around her waist with a series of intricate knots, then repeated the same on his length. The rope was long, providing several feet for freedom of movement while they waited for whatever the storm had in store for them now. Yet he settled close beside her, and she was glad. She could have easily moved into his arms, but she fought the desire, sitting stiffly upright, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. The roof above them creaked, and any tiles not taken before now popped like gunshots. Jesse had fastened the portable light into his belt. Amy had done the same with the smaller flashlight, although the storm’s light illuminated more than either of them cared to see.
A loud crack came directly overhead. Amy huddled into herself. Jesse’s arms came around her, pulling her tightly to him. If he’d asked permission, she wouldn’t have refused. He didn’t ask. He brought her to him, letting her take shelter in the strength of his body. The building trembled. She looked into his face. He kept his grim expression averted, although he saw her study. Finally he looked down at her, careful not to reveal any emotion.
He bent close to her ear. “Whatever happens, hang on to me.”
Forever, her heart answered. She reached out, her touch tender this time as it found his face, felt the years of pain and healing. She stretched up and placed a light kiss on his mouth. His lips beneath hers responded with a gentle, reverent tentativeness that made her want to weep. It could be a kiss hello or a kiss good-bye. As the wind and sea reared around them, obliterating as much as possible, all bets were off.
A tremendous crack sounded, as if the world were being ripped in two, filling Amy with a desperate fear. The beach house was breaking up all around them. The structure seemed to sway, pitching like a boat at sea.
“She’s not going to hold this time,” she screamed at Jesse.
“Hang on to me,” he yelled. “Hang on to me.”
She was thankful he did not say everything would be all right.
Hang on to me.
It was enough to save her.
Huge squares of the roof were peeling back, leaving grave-sized holes. The rain and the wind pelted Amy and Jesse with a brutal carelessness, the gusts seeking to suck them out through the openings. There was nothing to grab on to but each other. The shaking around them became violent. Amy fisted her hands into Jesse’s wet shirt and cried his name, although she knew he couldn’t hear her. She heard one final crack, and with an almost detached fascination watched the floor beneath them give way like a trap door. For a second, they seemed suspended in air like characters in a cartoon, then, still clinging to each other, they dropped straight down into the black water.
The strength of the surge slammed into Amy. A wave ripped her from Jesse, held her under, rolled her over, then snatched her up, hurtling her into something unyielding. Her legs and arms flailed as she tried to right herself, but the waves kept breaking over her, disorienting her, holding her underwater. She struggled to find her footing, but felt no solid surface. Objects, hard, wet, scratching, bumped into her. She surfaced once, gasping, only to be sucked under again, pulled by the current. Something hit her in the back, knocking what little breath she had left out of her. She searched for the surface, her hands outstretched, clawing at the current. A new blackness, even darker than the storm or the water washing over her, was wrapping around her, pulling her down into its depths. A soft, womblike darkness so easy to slip into. Her arms and legs were like weights. Her movements became less frenzied. Her body went limp, no longer fighting. All boundaries seemed to dissolve. She felt herself melting into the water.
Something jerked her hard, snapping her head back, pulling her with a fresh strength until she broke the surface. She slammed into a wall. She cried out, choking up water as Jesse’s arms wrapped around her.
She clung to him, coughing, heaving deep breaths. The wetness that trickled down her face tasted salty—of the sea, but also with the metallic bite of her own blood.
“You’re cut,” Jesse yelled. He wiped high on her forehead. “It’s a gash but not too deep.” Holding her tight with one arm around her waist, he tried to dog-paddle with the current, but the waters were too strong.
“I’m fine,” she screamed. The irony of what she said hit her. A panicky laugh bubbled up in her chest but was swallowed by a wave that sucked them both under. They surfaced, gasping, the water lifting them, only to suck them under again, rolling them over and over as if hell-bent to wrench them apart. They clung to each other. Fate which seemed calculated to separate them, would not win this time. Survival was dependent on them staying together.
Amy heard an inhuman sound, and was frightened it came from inside her own battered, weary brain. Then she saw a tree float by, a cat high in its branches, screeching its primal rage. Then it was gone, carried away by the water, blending with the ever-changing keys of the wind, shrill as a madwoman’s protest one minute, deep as a subterranean monster next, all adding to Amy’s sense that the world had become a moaning, heaving house of horrors. She clung to Jesse without shame. Pieces of houses, objects of everyday life—dishes, window screens, a garbage can—coasted by. A section of white picket fence passed by as if the storm gods laughed at the humans’ attempts to live happily ever after. She cleaved to Jesse, her very survival dependent on pressing her heart to his. Hadn’t it always been that way?
“Don’t leave me this time,” she yelled, made brave by the fact her words would be swept away by the fearful wind before they reached Jesse. She looked at his face as he held her strong in his arms, even as the waters fought to take them down, jerk them apart. Shamelessly she wished she had made love with him when the house still stood and the world was not a screaming vortex of madness. Damn her pride. Damn his pride. We should have made love, she thought with a wildness rising like the wind. She clutched at him. He responded, his arm tightening, holding her fast against him as if he’d heard her plea.
Don’t leave me.
A ceiling beam struck them from behind, but it was traveling in the same direction as they were and didn’t hurt them. It moved on swiftly and was sunk by the waves before they could grasp it.
The water took them. Jesse reached out and grabbed a thick branch of a tree that had fallen, stopping their travel. They draped themselves over the limb, leaning against each other, shuddering. The clouds were racing at them at ground level. The sky kept changing from gray to black, black to that odd green. Every few minutes it would ignite with white lightning, spotlighting the trees, cars, various household items as if proud of the destruction it had wrought.
Amy watched in fascination as everything from television sets to shoes came swirling by while the churning surge made its way across the land. Jesse aimed his flashlight beam around them. It bounced off what looked like a pair of red eyes about thirty feet away. Monster eyes, Amy thought, her own eyes widening with terror. He directed the beam back at the eerie gaze. Others were reflected in the light like a hallucination. Then she saw them. Snakes weaved among the low limbs of a tree. Four or five dozen of them, their yellow and black bodies stretched long as if a waking nightmare. Cottonmouth water moccasins. One bite could bring a man to his knees.
Amy looked at the tree they clung too, ready to submit to the surge over snakes. Anything that touched her now made her fearful. She felt something long and cylinder-like brush against her leg and she started, kicking her legs furiously, pulling out of Jesse’s hold.
“Snake,” she screamed in answer to his puzzled look.
He reached down into the rolling waters and retrieved the length of rope left loose between them. She stilled her legs. She heard the edge of hysteria in her laughter. Jesse’s brow knitted into deep lines. He pulled her back to him, his arm tight around her waist, his fist pressed into her rib cage. Through the wet cloth, she could feel the strong lines of his body, the powerful muscles. Lifting her head, she kissed him full on the mouth because he was there. Because she was scared. Because despite the number of times she’
d told herself the opposite, she had never stopped loving Jesse Boone.
She kissed him long and deep, pushing her tongue into his mouth with a desire and a desperation, feeling as out of control as the storm around them. She hated the fact she wanted him, that she reveled in the hard thrust of his arousal. She had once believed they’d be together forever. All she knew now was that they were together this moment, her mouth on his, her body pressed to him. Past that, she had no idea what would happen. Life had taught her not to make predictions. She reached up, smoothed her hand over his forehead, trying to ease his worried brow.
She felt the wind drop. At first, she thought she’d imagined it. The kiss ended. She looked into Jesse’s eyes, dark with passion and concern. The noise had died down too. She only needed a slightly louder than normal tone to ask, “It’s over?”
His brow pleated again as he looked around. The world grew calmer, as if the eye of the storm had returned. It had to be the end. No sooner had her hope flared than the winds struck again, crueler after the false calm. The tree gave a violent shudder as if being twisted under the water. Amy held on to Jesse and together they went down again, plunged back into the rushing water, tumbling, fighting fate. Amy lost her grip, felt Jesse’s strong, powerful body slip from her hands. She opened her eyes under the water, saw Jesse’s figure, blurred by the water and movement. She reached out toward him, the waters trying to carry her away. She tumbled, turned upside down and lost him. She fought toward the surface, screaming his name as she broke through the waters. A sound hushed her, made her fear escalate. A buzzing that was not animal but man-made. Thirty yards away she saw the loose whip of live electric wires ripped down by the storm. The power grid had not shut down yet.
“Amy.”
She swung her head. Jesse was fighting to make his way to her, struggling against the current carrying him in the opposite direction. The rope had tangled around something solid, leaving Amy paddling in place as Jesse tried to reach her.
Hard Rain Page 10
