Love, Louisa

by Barbara Metzger

  That was how she knew he hadn’t been sitting around, missing her. He had called frequently, going over endless details concerning Mr. Bradford’s estate and checking on the progress of the book. Not that he doubted her, he swore.

  No matter what he said, Louisa knew Dante was worried; he’d put his reputation on the line for her. She intended to make him proud. Mr. Bradford had given her freedom, she owed him her best, too. As for what Dante had given her…

  “You never said you missed me.”

  Over the phone? Without knowing how she felt? Didn’t she understand he’d called so often just to listen to her say his name? Exasperated, he said, “Well, I did miss you. I thought about you all the time. And I was sorry I had to leave you so soon after the memorials, knowing how fond you were of Mr. Bradford, but I needed to make sure his sister was all right, not tossed into some sinkhole of a nursing home. Once I saw that she was living in luxury in a retirement center, and her sons were taking care of her, I decided to get as much done in one trip as possible. I didn’t want to have to keep going back, and you sounded okay.”

  “I didn’t need you to stay and comfort me. I managed.”

  “Of course you did. I knew you could, that’s why I left. You’re one tough cookie, but you’re not tough enough to fight a hurricane, Louie. Please don’t fight me, either. I don’t have time to argue. You have to get out of here.”

  Because he cared, and because she was terrified, Louisa said, “Okay, I’ll go to Osprey Hill. Your house.”

  “What, with all that glass? I don’t trust the new aluminum track shutters. Or that overhanging eave on the top floor. Besides, there’s only one driveway up to the top of the hill, and it’s lined with trees that can fall. The road at the bottom floods during every heavy thunderstorm from the runoff. The place will be an island if we get half as much rain as they are predicting. Your car would never make it through.”

  Louisa stared at her bare feet. “You don’t want me there.”

  “Not without me, I don’t. You’d be all alone. Marta has already left to stay at a friend’s house in town.”

  Alone in that huge house, in the dark? With things rattling around? “Where are you going to be?”

  “Heaven knows. I doubt I’ll be finished battening everything down until dark, so I might have to stay in whichever house I finish last if there’s no time to get back to town, or if the roads to Osprey Hill are blocked. I’ll try to get to the school then, where Francine and Aunt Vinnie and Teddy will be. They’ll have lights and food and cots and radios. That’s where you should be too. With them.”

  It was already raining here, with the center of the storm hours away, not due to touch land until after midnight. Dante had been working since daybreak, hauling plywood for Rico and his crew to hammer over windows of all the houses Rivera Realty controlled. They were next door now, and it looked like they would have to do Louisa’s windows as soon as they were done. Dante still had his ex-wife’s office and his aunt Vinnie’s house to fortify, then he had to secure his houseboat, see if the boatyard had hauled the Celia out of the water as he’d instructed, make sure Francine got the family over to the evacuation shelter, and check on his own house on the hill. The yard crew said they’d put everything loose into the garage and drained the pool so it did not overflow, but Dante wanted to move the art collection to a safer room, and make sure the backup generator was in working order. He was hoping to wait Elvira out there, watching the storm as long as he could. There was nothing like a hurricane’s raw, elemental power—but it was not safe enough for Louisa.

  “Please say you’ll go to the school so I don’t have to worry about you.”

  “What about my worries? You’d be fool enough to drive in the middle of the storm if you thought something needed doing, or someone needed rescuing. I wouldn’t put it past you to sit in your pretty new truck next to the beach, watching the surf.”

  He smiled because she was reading his thoughts. “Hurricanes have their own excitement, but I am not crazy. And I know this place better than anyone.” And he had too much to look forward to when the hurricane was past. “I won’t take chances.”

  “But you really will come to the shelter?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  He kissed her good-bye when Rico started dragging plywood boards over and started hammering them into her rotten window frames. Now she’d need new windows more than ever. The kiss made her want Dante more than ever, but they both knew he couldn’t stay.

  “Soon,” he promised.

  Louisa still had a few hours after the men left. Her house was shuttered and dark, with an abandoned look to it already that left Louisa feeling chilled and even more anxious, now that Dante had gone. The wind was picking up, whipping the branches of the old oak at the corner, and the rain was coming down harder. At least she did not have to worry about the roof leaking—only that it stayed on the house. She unplugged the microwave and the TV, on Dante’s advice, and carried her computer into the downstairs bathroom, at the back of the house.

  Now that she was leaving, she had to pack. She gathered a bunch of clothes into a suitcase, along with towels and blankets, her makeup and her jewelry. She never took off Mr. Bradford’s diamond pendant, but she gathered Howard’s pearls, too, on the far chance that she ran out of money and had to pawn them. She filled a tote bag with her emergency supplies, chocolate and breakfast bars and fruit, and enough dog food to keep Champ for a week, just in case her house wasn’t there in the morning.

  “It will be,” she told the dog as she turned and locked the door, reassuring herself, if not her pet, who did not want to go out into the rain. “We’ll be back.”

  As she drove through Main Street she thought she was in one of those western ghost towns. The shops were all boarded over and no one was on the roads. The few cars that passed had surf boards tied to the roofs, the idiots. Everyone else was already home, making last-minute preparations, or at the school, the church, or the firehouse.

  The windshield wipers of Louisa’s car were working furiously, and leaves and a few small branches were tumbling in the roadway. The radio was saying she still had time. Her white-knuckled hands clenched the steering wheel.

  Louisa drove to Osprey Hill. She’d made backup copies of all the computer files, of course—but they were all stupidly in the same place, in Mr. Bradford’s office. Dante had said his house wasn’t invincible either. What kind of dummy put all her eggs into one fragile basket? Louisa needed to take a copy of the nearly completed manuscript with her, on a disc at least, just in case.

  She let herself and Champ in through the back door, the only one not protected by a locked-down metal covering. She put on every light she could so the house did not seem so dark and scary. She put on the TV so she couldn’t hear the wind rattling those aluminum shutters.

  After checking the storm’s progress on the Internet, Louisa uploaded Mr. Bradford’s autobiography and sent it to herself in an email. Even if all the power went dead and the computers crashed, the book would be out there in cyberspace. She made another copy of the book too, and put the flash drive in her pocketbook. Checking the weather station again, she decided to print out another paper copy to take with her. If she had to stay at the school for any time, at least she could be editing the manuscript. The laser printer could do the whole book in less than an hour.

  When she’d done everything she could think of to protect Mr. Bradford’s work and hers—and delay leaving, hoping Dante would come—she unplugged everything. Then she clipped Champ’s leash on his collar, just to make sure he didn’t take fright and run off. She wrapped the book in a plastic bag and made a dash for her car, ending up soaked despite her raincoat.

  She hadn’t expected the day to grow so dark, so quickly. Or the wind to make her car sway. Dante was right: she’d feel better with Francine, Teddy and the rest of the town for company. The sooner she reached the school, the better. Maybe Dante would be there by now.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

/>   Dante was almost ashamed to admit it, but he was enjoying himself. He could feel the adrenaline rush through him, if not the testosterone. This was man versus nature, primitive and raw, guts against Goliath. Man might lose, but not without a damned good fight.

  Dante’s property was as secure as he could make it. His family was safe. Louisa was…worried about him. He was warmed, despite the mounting wind and the driving rain.

  Finally someone was not dependent on him, not waiting for him to make the decisions, take out the trash, pay the bills, pick up the pieces. Not his Louie.

  She was a person in her own right. She didn’t need him or his money, but she wanted him anyway. Now he was finally rich, where it really mattered. What was a measly hurricane compared to the storm inside him, raging to make love to her, with her, to make her love him?

  The measly hurricane was picking up strength as it got closer to shore. They would have done better if the trees were not still leafed out, making the branches wetter, heavier, more liable to break or pull up the roots altogether. Smaller, more exposed trees were already toppling as the soaked ground grew too muddy to hold them upright. A few cable TV lines were broken loose, whipping in the wind. A garbage can rolled down the street. It was time to get to shelter.

  The Hill, by himself? It had a garage for his new truck, but it did not have Louisa. He drove up there, checking everything one last time. The puddles were almost to the bottom of the hubcaps, higher when he left a short time later.

  The school? It had no garage—and no Louisa either. They shouldn’t have stopped naming hurricanes solely after women.

  His was the only car on the road as he headed toward Whaler’s Drive, leaning forward to try to see out of the windshield. The wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain or the bits of leaves that were plastered against the glass by the wind. The headlamps barely brightened a car length ahead of him. More wires were down, but he couldn’t see any sparks.

  Sure enough, though, lights were on at Louisa’s house. Dante left the truck parked in the road in front of her house, intending to grab her and get out.

  The wind whipped the screen door out of his hands, smashing it back against the house. Good, he thought. He felt like smashing something himself.

  Then Louisa opened the door. Sheets of rainwater drove into the house, and a gust of wind shook the overhead chandelier but didn’t extinguish the candle burning in a glass lantern.

  She pulled him inside, throwing herself at his dripping wet foul weather gear as if she wanted to burrow inside. “You came! You came!”

  Dante set her aside and manhandled the front door shut against the gale. “You didn’t leave,” he said, disgust and aggravation tinging his words. “After you agreed that you would.”

  She was shaking, so he opened his arms again. She was already wet, so what did it matter?

  “I did go. I really did,” she babbled against his chest. “But they wouldn’t take Champ. They said they barely had space at the school for all the people, so no pets were allowed except little ones in carrying cages. They said dogs might get upset by all the confusion and the crowds and bite someone. Champ never would!”

  “Of course not.”

  “And they said the dogs might mess inside.”

  “I know, Champ never would.”

  “The firehouse was for emergency workers, and a bunch of people hooked up to oxygen tanks. They told me to try the church, but they wouldn’t take animals, either. I couldn’t leave him in the car by himself, could I? So I brought him home. But you know how afraid he is of fire crackers and thunder. I just couldn’t leave him alone here, after you said it wasn’t safe. Now we can go to Osprey Hill.”

  She was crying in worry and in relief, so he stroked her back. “Too late, sweetheart. There are wires going down all over, and trees too.”

  “I know. The cable TV is out. I can’t get any local news on the radio either, only static.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know about the dog thing. I would have thought of something else, or kept you with me at the Hill.”

  “So we’ll have to stay here? What about the flood?”

  “We’ll just have to go upstairs if the water comes in.”

  “But what if the roof goes?” Louisa had been imagining every kind of disaster she could, including the entire house crumbling around her ears. She’d been hugging the poor dog for the last hour. Now Champ was as wet from her tears as Louisa was from Dante’s jacket.

  He stepped back and took off his yellow slicker. “If you’re afraid the roof won’t hold, then we should camp out in the crawl space.”

  “With the spiders and snakes? I’ll take my chances with the roof.”

  Dante dried his hair with the towel she handed him, wondering if they’d be better off in the vacant rental house next door. He knew the structure there was sound, at least.

  That’s when the lights flickered twice and went out. Now it was too late to make any moves. “Okay, Girl Scout. Show me what you’ve got.”

  Louisa had matches in her pocket, so she went around lighting the rest of the candles, all carefully placed on saucers, away from the paneled walls and curtains. The candlelight would have been romantic, except that they kept flickering in the drafts in the old house. She handed Dante the flashlight and the radio, to see if he could get it to receive anything.

  “I have hot tea in a thermos, too,” she told him.

  He led the way to the kitchen with the flashlight, which was already growing dimmer. He didn’t want to ask if she had more batteries. “Tea sounds great.”

  The next wind gust sounded like a jet engine landing on her house. The walls were shuddering. So was Louisa. She forgot about his tea.

  “I…I think we should go upstairs.”

  “There’s no water coming in.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to sit here waiting! I want to get into bed and pull the covers over my head.”

  Funny, Dante thought, he’d rather go outside and face the storm head-on than wait for the house to collapse on top of him. Louisa was frightened, though, and he’d never leave her. “Isn’t there a bed in that back room? The one you made your office?” He did think the roof would hold, but there was no knowing with old houses and hurricanes. “There’ll be less movement down here, and that room’s on the back side of the storm.” He saw no reason to tell her that the wind would turn and come back from a different direction, after the eye passed over.

  “Yes,” she said with relief, pulling him toward the office room, the lantern in her other hand. “We’ll be safe here. See? Champ is already under the bed.”

  Safe? On a narrow bed with a woman begging to be held? “I don’t think this is such a good idea, Louie.”

  “It’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. Come on, get comfortable.” She was already tearing at her jeans.

  “That’s not going to make me comfortable.” In fact, his imagination was making him anything but. The wind, the storm, the danger—and a gorgeous woman in a T-shirt and panties? Oh, boy.

  “Dante, I need you next to me. I need to block out the hurricane.”

  He thought he knew what she was asking, but he had to make sure. “I can’t promise not to want more than you want to give.”

  “How do you know how much I want? Do I have to spell it out? I want you. All of you. Now.” She reached for the buttons of his shirt.

  “Just because you’re scared and I’m nearby?”

  “Don’t be dense. I wouldn’t jump the electric company guy if he came to turn the lights back on.”

  Dante finished unbuttoning his shirt, but paused at the zipper of his pants. “What if one of the hot young firemen came by in a tank to evacuate you?”

  “Nope. Not even him. I only want you, Dante Rivera.”

  She was crawling under the covers, waiting for him. The wind wasn’t as loud back here. His breathing was. “Louie, you know I want you.”

  She lowered her eyes as he lowered his pants. “That’s pretty obvious.”<
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  “But I can’t do this, this way.”

  She leaned down and pulled a silver-foil packet out of her jeans pocket.

  He smiled, took two, more optimistic packets from his pocket, but shook his head.

  “What, you want to make love on the floor?”

  “I want to make love. That’s the point. I don’t want comfort sex. I mean, it would be nice, and help pass a long night in the best possible way, but it wouldn’t be enough. I think I love you, Louisa Waldon.”

  “Of course you do, silly. It just took you a long time to figure it out.”

  He sat on the bed, on top of the covers, with a corner of the sheet over his lap. “Let me get this straight. You knew it before I did?”

  “Even if I didn’t believe it, everyone else in the town did. They all told me so. They know I love you too.”

  “You do?”

  “I think I’ve loved you since the day you stood up to that dog-napper. I just had to wait to see if you were for real.”

  “And I had to see if you’d stick around.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Are you?”

  He reached over and brushed the hair away from her face. “Not without you. Except maybe fishing.”

  “Good. I have a lot of work to do.”

  “That’s fine. Someone has to support that expensive yard sale habit of yours. Speaking of expensive, I signed that paper of Susan’s. I won’t be claiming her baby, or supporting it, in case you were worried.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I know you’ll do the right thing for everybody, no matter what.”

  Which called for a long kiss, which would have led to where they were both longing to go, but Dante put his foot down, literally. He sat up on the bed, one leg on the floor so he was almost on bended knee, and took her hand. “Will you marry me, Louisa Waldon? I don’t have a ring yet, but I have a new key ring for the truck in my jacket pocket.”

  “Isn’t it too soon?”

  “I’d rather that than too late, like Mr. Bradford.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Are you?”