Evan nodded and looked past Blair at Michael. “Who’s your friend?”
Blair spun around, eyes wide. “Oh, Evan, this is, ah … Kevin Johnson. Kevin, Evan Chambers, my best friend’s husband.”
“Nice to meet you.” Evan smiled, extending his hand. “What brings you to Saint’s Island in the middle of a hurricane?”
Before Michael could say anything, Blair spoke. “He came to help me because—”
If he’d been thinking faster, he could have stopped her. Maybe.
“He’s … ah … we’re engaged.”
Chapter 3
It wasn’t a Freudian slip, Blair told herself. She hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t secretly wished for it all these years. She couldn’t still want a man who refused to trust her with his secrets.
Evan looked surprised, but he hugged her and congratulated Michael, shaking his hand. Michael took it all in stride. Now, as they walked down one of the empty school hallways, Blair sucked in a quick breath, trying to calm herself.
“You don’t think well under pressure, do you?”
Michael’s words didn’t help. “If you mean I don’t lie well, then no, I don’t.” She hated sounding defensive. “I suppose you could have done better on the spur of the moment.”
“I wouldn’t have dug a pit we’re going to have a hell of a time getting out of,” he said, pulling her along, looking back over his shoulder.
She stopped, forcing him to face her. “Evan was staring at you.”
“He was looking at me. We were being introduced.”
She should have said nothing. She should never have offered to help him. “I can’t do this, Michael.”
A long, patient sigh was his only response.
It made her angry. “I’m doing the best I can.”
He watched her for a moment. “You are, Blair, and I appreciate it.” The soft rumble of his voice broke the tension. She remembered why they were here, like this. Why she was willing to risk spending any time with Michael. “I’ll do what I said. I’ll take you as far as I can.”
“That’s—”
“It’s so wonderful to see you, Blair, and to hear your wonderful news!” A woman’s high-pitched voice broke in.
Bitsy Caldwell, an old friend of Grandma Alice’s, came toward them, beaming. Blair forced a smile, knowing she’d have to lie again. “Mrs. Caldwell, how are you?” Blair asked, hugging the older woman.
“Call me Bitsy, honey, please. I’m fine, just fine. Evan says you’re engaged to this nice young man.” Mrs. Caldwell—Bitsy—had what Grandma Alice called a joie de vivre. Blair had always thought of her as an unrepentant flirt, to put it mildly. She batted her eyelashes and primped as she extended her hand toward Michael.
“Mrs. Caldwell,” he replied in that deep, steel-melting voice, shaking her hand. If Bitsy had been thirty years younger, she would have thrown herself at him. Right then she looked as if she might do so despite her age.
“Bitsy, I insist,” she replied, with a flirtatious smile.
“Oh, my, Blair.” The older woman released Michael’s hand reluctantly and held her own hand to her well displayed cleavage. “Why didn’t Alice tell me you were engaged?”
Blair’s thoughts froze.
Michael broke the long, empty silence. “I just popped the question today.”
“How wonderful! This calls for a celebration.”
Mobilized by the possible consequences of a party, Blair reached out to touch Bitsy’s arm. “That’s not—”
“I don’t think—” Michael protested.
“Nonsense. We’re stuck here at least until the morning. Let’s have a party!” Bitsy hurried away. From the slight tilt to her walk, Blair suspected Bitsy had already partied. Over her shoulder she shouted, “Don’t worry about a thing!”
Blair mentally kicked herself and the insanity of a fictitious engagement. She’d never be able to pull off such a thing. From the moment she’d opened the front door to Michael, she’d been fighting the urge to run. If it hadn’t been for Nell, she would have.
That was crazy. She couldn’t have left him in the path of a hurricane.
She couldn’t deal with any of this. Desperate to do something, anything, Blair turned toward Michael, intent on asking what they would tell all these people.
But Michael wasn’t paying attention to her. He was looking down the hall at Evan, who called, “Blair, the man in charge of the shelter wants you to register. Come on down here.”
“What’ll we do?” Blair whispered.
“Register?” Michael whispered back.
She stopped and stared at him. “This isn’t funny.”
“I don’t think it is.” He signaled Evan they were coming and the other man walked away.
“Then quit acting like it.”
“Blair,” Michael said quietly. “Not a damn thing about this mess is funny.” He put his hands on her shoulders and bent toward her, forcing her to look up at him. “It’s my fault your friend is throwing us a party. Hell, it’s my fault we’re here.” He paused, his attention directed solely at her. “But it’ll be okay by tomorrow. By then I’ll be out of your life for good. Everything will be fine.”
She shouldn’t care; she didn’t want to care. But mostly she hated that she couldn’t stop her question. “Will you be fine?”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders, giving her back some of the distance she craved. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not your concern.”
The words felt like a slap on the face. “You made it my concern by coming here.”
He looked down at her, his thoughts hidden, his expression unreadable.
“You should call Drew,” she said.
He said nothing for a moment. “Let’s get through Nell. Then I’ll worry about Drew.”
***
There were sixteen people in all, including four deputies. Michael didn’t like the idea that they wore their Magnums on their hips while his Glock wasn’t as handy in the small of his back. But of the group of sixteen people, all, except the deputies, were part of a couple. Eddie and company would not be traveling with their wives.
An Army chopper pilot had his hands full dealing with his two-year-old. While the little boy wiggled and squirmed, the wife ran to the bathroom at least five times in the span of an hour. Michael hoped she wouldn’t give whatever she had to the rest of them.
Bitsy Caldwell did throw a party. While Nell roared outside and news of the storm came in double doses from two radios, Michael and Blair were toasted with soda from paper cups. Bitsy, Michael was sure, had something a bit stronger in her enormous purse, because she grew increasingly merry.
Blair sat cross-legged on a blanket laughing at the impromptu jingles sung for their benefit. Michael couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if she hadn’t refused him all those years ago. If he were now married to Blair. And he felt her unease when Bitsy, in her alcohol-induced speech, wished them beautiful children.
Beautiful children. Damn.
He clearly remembered the words he’d thrown at Blair that last morning, remembered the deep, smoky hurt in her eyes. He’d spent six years excusing himself with the knowledge that she hadn’t wanted a future with him.
The power went off at about ten, throwing them into darkness. A flashlight, one with a fluorescent bulb, provided their light. They all sat huddled on blankets and chairs, their backs against the cold brick walls, while Nell pounded away at their refuge. Periodically, they could hear debris hitting the building.
As Nell howled around them, Michael wondered about the man at Alice’s. He’d either found shelter or he was dead.
Finally, the crackling radios were turned down. An hour of listening to the wind and the strange noises it made, quieted the room. The pilot’s wife quit making her dashed forays into the bathroom, and their little boy slept on a pile of blankets.
The ache in Michael’s side and shoulder made sleep impossible. That and the fact that he lay next to Blair, wondering how i
n the hell he’d managed to get her involved in this mess, how he’d managed to screw things up so badly before.
Until Blair, he’d lived with the sure knowledge that if he worked hard enough, he would always get what he wanted. He’d gotten a chance to avenge his brother, but he’d lost Blair. That failure had colored his life in the years that followed. The visits he’d made to his family, pretending all was well, only worried them, and not just because of the dangers of his job. Hell, he’d worried himself. He expected—needed—some degree of normalcy, at least in his private life. Blair had been his chance at that life.
Had the search for that, for her, brought him here? If that were true, then he was a much bigger fool than he’d thought. Because what moneyed Blair Davenport considered a normal life was a million miles from his normal.
In an effort to relax, he rotated his shoulder, trying to ease the aching stiffness, and lay down. Blair lay stretched out on her side next to him.
The next thing he knew, he was having the most incredibly erotic dream. About Blair. Only it wasn’t a dream, it was a replay of that single week. He woke lying on his right side, spooned against Blair, his left hand low on her stomach. He was so close he could smell her sweetness, feel her hair against his face.
If he was this close, then she could feel him. He tried to ease away when every male instinct screamed at him to pull her closer, to reach up and feel the soft weight of her breasts in his palm. He managed to shift slightly, only to have her move with him. She scooted her behind against his lap, making him groan in the darkness of the hall.
She woke, startled, and sat up, turning to look down at him in the dim light, her beautiful eyes wide, her hair tousled. And he wanted her, just like he’d wanted her six years ago.
No. More. Because the wanting was now steeped in memory, in things better left forgotten.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice rough from sleep. She pushed her hair back with one hand.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I didn’t think—”
They spoke in unison.
Michael cleared his throat and sat up. Darkness would conceal his condition, but he was uncomfortable as hell in his jeans. Memories flooded him, making him want to drag Blair down to the blanket. “I, ah, wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay.” The sleepy quality of her voice agitated his nerve endings.
It was too much. He’d wanted too much then, he wanted it now. Now, when it was more impossible than before. He had to walk away, as she had long ago. “I’m going to take a look outside.”
The night was wilder than anything he’d ever seen. An eerie glow provided just enough contrast to make out shapes. Nell had ripped the big oak in front of the school out of the ground. Michael peered through small windows in the double door at the wind-sheered darkness and saw the outlines of the cars. They’d been shoved together. There would be dents and scratches, but at least they were still there.
He heard footsteps in the hall and turned.
“Cars still out there?” the pilot asked, looking out.
“Barely.”
“One hell of a blow.”
They stood in silence, watching.
“Deputy Chambers says the eye has moved west. They think it’s going into Mississippi,” the pilot said.
“Glad we didn’t get that, but this side of the storm’s been bad enough.”
“You’re damn right.”
“How’s your wife?”
The pilot turned toward him. “She’s pregnant.”
“Congratulations.”
“She’s not happy.”
Damn, but this was uncomfortable. “Oh.”
“We’ve always wanted more kids.” Michael saw him run a hand through his short hair. “But I’m shipping out and she can’t come. She’ll have this one alone.”
“That’s rough.”
“Tell me about it. Her family never wanted her to marry a Army man and now I’m leaving. They won’t help.”
“What about yours?”
“My mother works. She’ll come down for a week or two, but that’s all she can manage.”
In silence, they watched the ripping wind.
“You and Blair planning on having children?”
Michael felt something inside give. “Yes.” He’d wanted children with Blair six years ago. She didn’t even want him long enough to listen.
“What do you do?”
The lie came too easily. “I’m an accountant.”
“Good. Nice stable job. That’s what you need for a family. The Army’s been my life, but the multiple deployments are too much if you want a sane family life. I’m getting out as soon as I can.”
“What about flying?”
The pilot shook his head. “It’s one of those things. I can’t have both.”
Long minutes after the pilot had left, Michael thought about what he’d said. Michael had wanted it all: Blair and the job.
He’d wound up with neither.
***
Blair turned fitfully on the scratchy blanket. Everyone was asleep. Everyone except Michael. And her.
She’d spent six years and three months coming to terms with Michael’s refusal to explain anything, with the burning need in him for something she couldn’t understand. His last words replayed themselves on bad nights. On good nights, she could push aside the lingering memories and doubts. She didn’t need a man with too many secrets, who kept so much of himself inside. A man who promised a life made up of quick visits home before he had to leave again.
Blair had seen what that did to two people. Her father had bull dozed his way in to her mother’s life, determined to have her, unaware that she could not cope with his wealthy life-style, with the gap between their expectations of married life. In the end they’d led separate lives, with a few weeks each year together. Those weeks and their children were their only connection to the love they bore for each other.
Blair refused to replay her parents’ relationship. She wanted one based on trust and sharing. One Michael couldn’t provide.
But the reality was that seeing Michael again made her question her resolve. What if she hadn’t said no? What if she’d been with him for the last six years? Would she also have the satisfaction of knowing she had touched so many lives? Or would marrying him have ruled out what she’d built for herself? A life full of giggling voices turning to her with small eager arms raised saying, “I know, Miss Davenport!”
Without Michael, she had only to worry about her school, about the classroom windows she’d boarded up in an attempt to protect them from Nell’s wrath. About the materials she’d accumulated in her years at Emerald Bay Elementary, about small hands clutching hers. Listening to the wind told her how vulnerable all she’d worked for really was. One gust could destroy her careful planning, leaving her classroom nothing but an empty place.
Just as this meeting with Michael would leave her. Empty and wondering. Again.
Because Michael was still Michael. He was older, harder somehow. And she was just as helpless to fight the overwhelming attraction as she’d been then. He hadn’t needed her then, had shut her out of everything about his life. Only when they’d made love had she felt she was touching his soul. That was the memory that tantalized her.
He strode up the dimly lit hallway. Tall and graceful. So male. He sat down next to her, his back against the wall.
Desperate to distance herself from the feelings that threatened to overwhelm her, she asked, “What’s it like outside?”
“Calming down now, but it was bad.”
“How’s my car?”
He hesitated. “We won’t be able to get to it right away. It’s mashed up against the others.”
“How will we get away?”
She saw the flash of his teeth against his smile. That smile she’d almost forgotten. “You’re a gutsy babe, Blair Davenport.”
“I’m not a babe at all.” She laughed at his choice of words and at her prudish sounding response. “
I thought we might get across the other bridge when the water goes down.”
He laughed softly. “You’re a lady with a practical streak.”
This time she read the admiration in his voice. It pierced a hidden place in her heart. “How will we do it?”
“A tenacious lady with a practical streak,” he corrected.
Blair looked around the hallway to make sure no one was awake. “Michael, you have to get away.”
He bowed his head. The dim light reflected off his hair. “Let’s worry about that in the morning.”
She wanted answers. She’d wanted them from the moment she saw him standing in Grandma Alice’s doorway, had to know if he’d changed enough to give them to her. “What happened?”
“It’s long and complicated.”
“Nell won’t let us out.”
“No, she won’t.” He sounded resigned, tired.
“Who’s after you?”
He laughed at that, but this laugh was harsh. “Everybody.”
“Drew?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
She shook her head. “Not Drew. He knows you.”
“It looks bad, Blair. I screwed up. I missed something big, trusted where I shouldn’t trust.”
“Eddie and his friend?”
“I don’t know whose side they fall on. Could be the Bureau could be the bad guys.”
She thought about that for a moment. “You have to fix this.”
“No basic questions, Blair? No, ‘what did you do wrong, Michael?’”
“No.” That should have surprised her. It surprised her more that it didn’t.
“Even after what hap—”
“I should have …” She struggled for the words, but only one explanation came to mind. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
He sat up straighter and reached out toward her. The contact of his fingers on her cheek felt charged. “We had something, Blair. Something—”
A roaring caught their attention, before the rapid change in pressure.
“Tornado!” A man’s yell came from the other end of the hall. “Get down!”
Against the Wind Page 3
