She didn’t want to deal with those old feelings again. She wouldn’t. She’d dried his clothes and she’d see him on his way. That was more than enough.
Back in her grandmother’s room, Blair looked around for anything she thought Grandma Alice might want. As she checked the top of the dresser for things she should take, she turned on the radio so she could listen to the hurricane update.
It only confirmed what she knew: Nell would arrive shortly. Then the announcer began a new story. One about a wounded FBI agent sought by the Bureau. Blair stood by the bed, her gaze frozen on the small radio. The story was brief but the upshot was that Michael, in his capacity as a special agent with the Miami office of the FBI, had vanished. He’d walked out of the hospital where he was recuperating from a bullet wound.
Drew hadn’t explained, but why would her brother say anything to her about one of his best friends? Drew knew nothing of what had happened between her and Michael. Not even Grandma Alice knew it all.
Michael had left Miami two weeks ago. The day Grandma Alice left for London. Blair listened intently, trying to read between the lines to see if there was any indication of Michael’s status as an undercover agent.
“Blair?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice. Dressed in his dry clothes, Michael stood in the doorway. Their eyes met and held as the announcer finished his story. “All law enforcement officers in the area are on the lookout for Michael Alvarez. He was last seen yesterday, in Emerald Bay.”
Blair turned off the radio. “You should have stayed in the hospital.”
Cool eyes regarded hers. “If I had, I’d be a dead man now.”
That was the most Michael had ever said to her about his work. The most he’d ever revealed.
“Does Drew know?”
Michael paused, his eyes narrowed. “He thinks he does.”
“Meaning?”
“The less you know the better.”
“I’m not the girl I was years ago, Michael.”
“No, you’re not. But I’m a man with a target on my back.”
“You thought the house would be empty, didn’t you?”
“I know Alice goes to London this time of year.”
“You can’t hide with a hurricane coming.”
“Best place to hide.”
“Nell’s a category three. The house won’t be here.”
Pounding on the door made her jump. She looked at Michael. He stood straight and tall, so alert he looked bigger.
She broke the hold of his eyes. “Coming!” she shouted, and made her way to the living room. Fumbling into the yellow rain slicker, she grabbed the bag full of framed pictures. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Michael retreat into the bedroom.
She pulled the front door open, expecting to see a deputy, and felt the rush of wind and rain.
It wasn’t anyone from the Sheriff’s Department.
“Yes?” she shouted against the roar of the storm.
“Sorry to disturb you,” said a heavyset man wrapped in a blue rain slicker. “I’m looking for a friend who rode down here with me to look at the storm.”
“What?” She’d heard him, but had given herself a chance to think, to study the stranger.
“Looking for a friend,” he shouted. “Tall, dark hair. Seen anyone like that?”
“No!” The word seemed to be sucked away by Nell’s force.
Lights from a deputy’s cruiser flashed through the rain as it approached the house.
“Maybe the deputy has seen your friend,” Blair shouted. She pulled the door shut behind her and made her way down the stairs.
She couldn’t hear if the stranger said anything to the deputy. It looked like they only nodded in passing.
“You leavin’ soon, ma’am?” a young deputy she didn’t know asked as he pulled up near the house.
“I need to get one more thing from the house. This storm is really bad, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, sure is. These are just the outlying bands. Toll bridge across the bay is already out. You’ll have to take the one out toward High Point.” Rain pelted the deputy’s face through the open cruiser window. “How far are you going?”
“I’m from Emerald Bay, but I thought I’d drive north, toward Atlanta.”
“I hear hotels are fillin’ up quick. You might have some trouble.” He pointed at the boarded windows. “You do that by yourself?”
“I, ah, had some help.”
“Well, be careful drivin’ now.” He shifted gears, then shouted, “Listen to the radio. There’s a shelter up toward High Point, at the elementary school, if you get caught.”
She thanked the deputy, threw the bags in the trunk of her car, and went back upstairs. She shook the rain slicker as she stepped inside.
Michael stood to one side looking out through a crack in the boarded kitchen window. “What did he want?”
“Just to be sure I’m leaving.”
“I mean the other man.”
She wanted to see his reaction, see if he would explain. “He wants you.”
Michael didn’t even glance at her. He watched out the boarded window. Blair imagined he could see the stranger and the deputy slowly drive away toward the county road.
“We need to go,” she said.
“You go on.” Michael continued to look out. “Be careful.”
Even if he’d taken leave of his senses, she couldn’t abandon him to ride out a category three hurricane. She couldn’t leave anyone to that fate. “You can’t stay here.” She sounded more like she was speaking to her eighteen kindergarten students than to a grown man.
“I can’t leave.” Now he did look at her, those dark eyes intense, but still cool.
“It’s likely the house won’t make it.”
“I’ll risk it.”
His statement sounded so ridiculous that she blurted, “Get real.” A quick breath calmed her and she continued. “I have a car. I’m going as far as I can.”
“You’re not going far enough for me.”
That gave her pause. Torn between the need to protect herself and some other undefined feeling, she managed, “I will.” There. She’d said it.
That the words were those he’d expected six years earlier wasn’t wasted on Michael. She read the surprise on his face.
“Bad timing, Blair.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“Blair—”
“Be reasonable. We’ll get in the car and go. That man was looking for you, he probably knows you’re here. He’ll think you stayed.” She wouldn’t plead. She shouldn’t care. “It makes sense to leave.”
Michael moved toward her, away from the window. Blair took in the sensuous mouth, the beard-roughened jaw, and the amazing eyes. The way his body moved. This was the man she’d said no to.
“Go get in your car, Blair,” he said, standing before her.
Blair felt his nearness, the heat from his body. For a single moment she thought he might touch her cheek, but he never raised his arm.
“Don’t second guess good sense,” he said. “You made the right choice years ago.”
***
Michael watched her leave, Nell’s hurricane-force winds pulling at her bright yellow slicker. She put some more of Alice’s things in the trunk of her silver Toyota and, with one last glance toward the kitchen window where he stood, walked around to the driver’s side of her car.
That’s when Michael saw him. Hiding behind a supporting piling, ready to make his move. A month ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to burst out of the door, pistol drawn. Today, with Blair in the way and exhaustion lingering despite his nap, he waited a fraction of a second too long. A single shot would have taken the man out and rendered Blair safe. But it was too late.
He saw Blair turn, saw her body stiffen as she took in the sight of the stranger holding a .357 on her. The man mouthed directions at her, the revolver aimed straight at her chest.
***
Blair released her grip on the car d
oor and stepped away. As ordered. Shock kept her from being afraid, from real understanding. The gun looked huge.
“Come here!” the man who’d come looking for Michael shouted.
She did as she was told, praying her legs wouldn’t buckle as she rounded the car.
“Where’s the old lady who owns this place?”
“London.”
“When’d she leave?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
A vivid curse erupted from the man’s mouth. He fumbled in the pocket of his raincoat and pulled out a cell phone. After punching buttons, he shouted, “Eddie!” He listened briefly, glanced down at the phone, and muttered "damn it" before shoving it in his pocket.
“The deputy will be back,” Blair said, praying the man would leave now that he couldn’t communicate with anyone.
“Go down the driveway to my car,” he ordered. The gun he held still loomed large, but he’d dropped it a bit, apparently confused by his inability to get in touch with Eddie.
She couldn’t do as he said. But she couldn’t run. He’d shoot her.
He was going to shoot her anyway. She felt the bite of the car keys in her hand and reason fled. She threw the keys at the man’s face. Instinctively, he brought both hands up to protect his eyes, the momentarily forgotten gun hitting his right cheek.
Just as she turned to run, she saw a flash of movement, an emerging shape, from behind the man.
Michael made a quick motion and the stranger fell heavily.
“Damn, Blair.” Michael, his breath too quick, bent to check the man’s neck. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. How were you going to drive away?”
Michael pulled the gun from the man’s limp fingers, rolled him onto his back, and searched his pockets.
“I didn’t have time to think.” A gust of wind cut through her, making her shiver despite its warmth.
He pulled the man’s wallet out and rifled through the contents. “Aw, hell.” He threw the wallet down on the concrete carport.
“What is it?”
“Fake IDs.”
“Oh,” she replied, as if hearing that someone carried fake IDs was an every day occurrence.
He picked up the keys from the cement. “Let’s go,” he said handing them to her. He checked the gun.
“You’re coming with me?”
He looked down at the unconscious man while putting the gun into the back waistband of his jeans. “You’re right. I can’t stay here. Drive me across the bay and leave me.”
“How will you get away?”
He shouted over the sound of the wind. “Let’s just go before this guy wakes and Nell blows us away.”
***
The county road was nearly impassible. Wind whipped at the low-growing scrub oaks, rain slashed across the road in front of them. The overworked wipers struggled against the deluge. Michael wished he was driving, but he had to look out for Eddie and company. He wondered which side of the game Eddie fell on. The good guys or the bad. Or the ones in between.
Blair’s white-knuckled grip on the wheel made him curse himself for the fool he was. No, he couldn’t go to his family, they were being watched. But what had made him run into a hurricane? To a place where Blair filled the memories he still tried to avoid?
“Michael,” she said, breaking into his thoughts, “there’s a road block up ahead.”
Cruiser lights flashed fifty yards down the road. It was too late to turn back. “Keep going. If they stop us, come to a complete stop. I’m your friend, Kevin Johnson, from Atlanta.”
He hid his Glock beneath the folds of the rain slicker he’d taken from Alice’s. The .357 went beneath the seat.
At the roadblock, Michael watched a tall man in a Sheriff’s Department-issue rain slicker approach Blair’s side of the car. Rain slashed in when she rolled down her window.
The deputy leaned down. “Blair,” he said in a friendly shout, “I wondered who was going to board up Miss Alice’s windows.”
“I, uh, came over this morning, Charlie.” Blair’s discomfort was palpable.
Charlie held his rain hood over his head. “Go on up to High Point. It’s the only way off the island.” He peered at Michael.
“Charlie, this is … ah, Kevin.” Blair gripped the steering wheel harder. “From Atlanta.” She would make a rotten actress.
“Kevin.” Charlie nodded a hello. He straightened slightly and spoke to Blair again. “Glad you brought someone with you. Seems somebody’s gotten away from some FBI fellas. They got the crazy idea the guy’s down here hiding. Can you believe that? What fool would come down here to hide in this mess?” Charlie laughed, then backed away from the car. “Go on, now, and be careful.”
Blair began rolling her window up. “Thanks, Charlie.” Back on the road, the sound of the wipers nearly drowned out her next words. “It was dumb to think you could hide here.”
Michael smiled. How many times during that one incredible week had Blair bitten her tongue to keep from saying what was on her mind? “About as dumb as throwing your car keys at a guy who’s holding a gun on you.”
It took forty-five minutes to get to High Point, a resort village on the east end of the island. The drive normally took fifteen. One other car had dared the drive, one with Mississippi tags. Blair said it belonged to some people who lived two houses down from Alice. The couple stopped and spoke to the deputies manning the roadblock at the bridge.
Michael saw one deputy point back down the road and knew they were too late. They’d be riding Nell out on the island. He told Blair to go ahead and pull up to the deputies.
“Middle span of the bridge is gone!” the young man shouted, his face dripping rain. “Runaway barge hit it. Westside bridge is closed because it’s so low the water’s washing over it.” He ran a hand down his face, wiping away water. “Best thing to do is head for the elementary school. Go back the way you came and take the first right.”
Hands tight on the wheel, her mouth set in a straight line, Blair thanked the deputy. Michael hoped the young officer would believe she looked tense because of the hurricane, not because of the man sitting in her car.
As they pulled away, Michael said, “You should have left while I was sleeping.”
She threw him a quick glance, then concentrated on the road. “And leave you to die?”
She didn’t know how likely that was to happen anyway. And if she was with him when they caught him, how likely it was to happen to her, too.
“How safe’s this school going to be?” he asked.
“It’s closer to the bay side, so it should be okay. Grandma rode out a smaller storm there a couple of years ago.”
But Alice hadn’t had half the country looking for her.
“I’m still Kevin Johnson from Atlanta,” Michael reminded. If they weren’t careful, her nerves would give away his identity.
“You don’t look like a Kevin.”
“No, I look like Miguel.” His quick reply surprised him and made him sound thin-skinned. Miguel was his real name, the Anglicized Michael something he accepted as the price of coming from Argentina to the States at the age of fifteen. Except for the last thing he’d said to her a lifetime ago, he’d never put in to words what had lurked at the back of his consciousness from the moment he met Blair Davenport.
“That’s not what I meant,” Blair threw him a quick look.
So she remembered what he’d said and didn’t like it. But it had been the thought of dragging home a Latino boyfriend that made her change her mind after only one week. Fair-haired Blair Davenport of the Virginia Davenports thought she’d been slumming.
“Kevin is too soft a name for you.”
Determined to cut off memories best forgotten, he injected humor into his voice. “Would Lance suit me better?”
Her body relaxed a bit. “That’s a horrible name for you.” She kept a firm grip on the wheel, her eyes on the road. “Michael is who you are. Michael and whatever the mysterious middle A stands for.”
He thought of all the intimacies they’d shared and of those things they hadn’t, like his middle name. Which made him wonder again what had possessed his very American mother to give him such an un–American name. One that, in its simplicity, made him Latin American to the core.
“Here we are,” she said.
The school, built of cinder block and painted beige, was probably twenty years old. A few cars were parked close to the front doors. No way to know who was inside.
Once Blair parked, Michael shifted in the seat and put the Glock in the back waistband of his jeans. When he straightened, Blair was staring at him, her eyes wide.
“You’re not taking that in, are you?”
“I’ll need it if Eddie’s in there.”
She took that in quietly. “What if you told the deputies what’s going on?”
“Blair,” he said patiently, “I’ve told people who trust me and they don’t believe me. What makes you think a total stranger would?”
“Drew doesn’t believe you?”
She was a very quick study. “I haven’t spoken to him.”
“He’s your friend.”
“He’s an FBI agent. First and foremost.”
“He wouldn’t let anybody hurt you.”
“I’ve already been hurt. Hurt’s not what somebody wants to do to me.”
A gust of wind shook the car. “Oh.”
“We’d better go in. You taking your bag?” he asked, pointing to the back seat.
“Yes.” She started to reach for the bag, a backpack she’d chosen for its convenience, but he grabbed it first. He placed the other gun, the one he’d gotten from the man at the house, inside.
Michael reached for the door handle and felt her hand on his arm.
“I’m probably going to know some of these people. Let me do the talking, okay?”
He nodded and they both made a run for the front of the school.
“Blair!”
She turned in the process of pulling open the door. A deputy approached from one side of the protective overhang.
“Evan, what are you doing here?” With a too-quick movement, she leaned toward the blond-haired man and hugged him.
“I was helping with the evacuation. Becky said she saw you at the school.”
“I did what I could there this morning. Virgil couldn’t board up Grandma’s house because his wife was sick, so I came over.” She shot Michael a quick look. He hoped Evan wouldn’t pick up on how nervous she was.
Against the Wind Page 2
