She chuckled, seeming embarrassed. “Well, since we’re having true confessions right now . . . when I got off the phone with you last night, Marti said something about us dating, and I didn’t think much of it at the time because we’ve just been friends. But while you were at the store this afternoon . . .” Her face turned pink, but she forged on. “I started thinking that maybe dating you would be fun, and then I got nervous, and I don’t know what you think about that idea, but you’re kind of perfect in a lot of different ways, and I don’t know what to do with this new revelation.”
“I’m kind of perfect?”
“Um, yeah. But if that’s going to be weird, you can forget I said anything.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Do you know how long it’s been since anyone wanted to date me? Why would I ever say no to you?”
“Because we were just friends, and . . .” She looked down at the table. “I’m making this worse, aren’t I?”
“No. Listen.” Now that Greg knew the real reason why she’d been acting so strangely, he could deal with it . . . and also be just a little bit blown away by it. “I like you, Candice. A lot. You’re beautiful and funny, you’re as smart as all get-out, and I love hearing what you have to say about things. And if you’d like to give dating a try, I’m all for it. In fact, I’m sort of jumping up and down on the inside, singing ‘She likes me. She likes me.’ I didn’t think . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat, fighting the emotions that had suddenly risen up and caught him off guard. “I didn’t think anyone would ever want to be with me again, and now the most amazing girl I know is telling me how perfect I am?” He shook his head. “This is a blessing, and I’m not going to turn it down.”
She picked up a napkin from the table and dabbed her eyes. “Really?”
“Really.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, intending just to give her a quick hug, but then he looked into her eyes, and before he realized what was happening, he was kissing her.
When he’d been injured in the car accident and was told that he’d never walk again, the greatest pain he’d experienced was realizing that he’d likely never marry. He’d shut off that part of his heart and refused to think about everything he’d lost because it hurt too much to bear. Now, holding Candice and feeling her soft lips against his, the walls he’d built up came crashing down almost audibly, and he pulled her a little closer. Could this really be happening to him? How could everything have changed so quickly?
When he pulled back, her eyes were a little misty. “Wow,” she whispered. “We should have done that a long time ago.”
He grinned, but then he grew solemn. “I just need to tell you something before we get all carried away in the moment,” he said. “My recovery is going to be long and difficult. I can only stand for short periods of time, and then I’m back in my chair. My physical therapist tells me that as the different muscle groups and bundles of nerves wake up, I’m going to experience even more pain before it gets better. I’m better than I have been, but I’m not cured, Candice.”
“Well, maybe you could use having another person in your corner,” she said, slipping her hand into his.
“You mean that? I understand if you want to turn tail and run.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know the McClains very well if you think we turn tail on the things we want the most. You’ve never met a more stubborn group of people in your life, and Marti says I’m the most stubborn of them all.”
“And . . . you want me the most?” He meant his question to be joking, but as he looked into her eyes again, his breath caught, and he found himself desperate to hear her answer.
“I just might,” she said, bringing her hand up to the side of his cheek, and he kissed her again despite the fact that they were in the middle of a crowded Mexican restaurant where dozens of people could see them.
***
Candice had a hard time falling asleep. She kept reliving every single moment of that conversation, especially the kisses. If she’d had any idea the two of them could create sparks like that, she would have kissed him a long time ago. Of course, sometimes it took a little while to build up that kind of chemistry, so maybe it wouldn’t have been so earth-shattering before, but now? She grinned into the darkness and snuggled further into her blankets as she thought about it. She’d never been kissed like that in her life, and she liked it. A lot.
She’d just drifted off to sleep when Marti burst into her room, startling her. “Candice! Are you awake?”
“Now I am. What’s the matter?”
Marti flipped on the bedside lamp. Her eyes were panicked, and Candice was immediately alarmed. “Marti, what’s the matter?” she asked again, more insistently this time.
“I saw a huge river of water coming toward Bagley. It was picking up cars and washing them away, it was filling people’s basements with mud, it was scooping people off their feet and drowning them. Candice, the dam’s going to break. It’s all this rain—we’re not used to it, and we’re not prepared. People are going to die.”
Marti was shaking, and she reached out to grab Candice’s hand. “The rain will stop for two days, and then it’s going to start again harder and faster. I can see it happening, but I don’t know when. Can you see it?”
Candice felt goose bumps on her arms, and she realized the weight that was being placed on her. If she knew when to expect the flood, she could help save the lives of the people in Bagley. She closed her eyes, feeling her chest constrict. If she didn’t know, if she couldn’t detect this . . .
Marti squeezed Candice’s hand reassuringly.
Candice searched inwardly for a minute, then reached out to the clouds, hoping they’d tell her. She had no idea how her power worked, only that she could sense what the weather was planning to do. It wasn’t a person or an entity of any kind, but it moved in patterns, and if she could isolate and identify the pattern . . .
Her eyes flew open, and she knew it as surely as she knew anything else. “The rain will stop the day after tomorrow, and the flood will hit late Tuesday night.”
Marti sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed her hands between her knees. “All right. Tomorrow is Saturday. The rain will stop Sunday. That gives us four days.” She turned to meet Marti’s gaze. “What can we do in four days?”
The goose bumps on Candice’s arms didn’t go away—they multiplied. “We have to get the word out that everyone needs to evacuate. We need to arrange for sandbags. We need to make sure that the hospital doesn’t lose power. We need people filling water bottles—as many as they can.”
“And we need to call our sisters and have a meeting,” Marti said. “I’ll arrange that right now.”
Yes . . . a meeting of all the sisters. Candice had a feeling they were all going to be needed before this was over.
***
Six McClain sisters, three husbands, one fiancé, and one new boyfriend gathered in Steve and Tracy’s living room. It was six o’clock in the morning, but they were all wide awake, adrenaline working better than coffee. Marti had kept the message short and sweet, and now Candice was in charge of breaking the news.
Well, two sets of news.
This was going to be fun.
“Hey, everyone, sorry for dragging you out of bed like this,” she said. “Tracy, thanks for letting us meet here. I didn’t want to worry Mom and Dad until we have a plan.”
“Not a problem, but now you’re worrying me,” Tracy replied, and everyone else nodded.
“Should Heather be in on this? Should we call her?” Gaylynn asked.
“We’ll call her this afternoon, but there’s nothing she can really do right now,” Candice replied. “Um, before we get started, Greg, I need to tell you something.”
“Uh-oh,” Kent said, leaning back and crossing one knee over the other. “He doesn’t know yet?”
“Hey, we only started dating last night,” Candice explained. “Gotta give me a little time here.”
“Time for what?”
Greg asked. “Are you trying to sponsor me into some kind of multi-level marketing thing?”
Candice was about to retort when she heard a slight tapping on the door, and their cousin Peter entered, shaking rain from his hat. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “A horse trailer overturned on the freeway and it took them a minute to get it clear.”
“Glad you’re safe,” Candice replied, then turned back to Greg. “Okay, you’re going to have to bear with me, okay?”
“All right.” He looked curious, but amused.
“So, my dad’s really into gadgets and gizmos—you knew that already. Well, about a year and a half ago, we were all in his study checking out some of his new toys, and we had an electrical surge that zapped through the house. As a result of that . . .” She took a deep breath. “Each of the seven of us manifested some sort of unique talent or gift.”
“You mean like, playing the piano or something?” Greg looked confused.
“Sometimes I wish it were that simple,” Candice replied. She glanced at Gaylynn for support, and her sister nodded.
“Heather’s a matchmaker, Jessica has dreams, Gaylynn knows if someone’s lying, Rebekah can diagnose diseases, Tracy can fix things, I can predict weather, and Marti’s a precog.” Candice said it fast, thinking it might be easier that way. “That’s how Rebekah knew what was wrong with your back, and that’s why we’ve called this meeting. Something huge is about to happen, and we need your help—all of you.”
Greg glanced around the room, a grin on his face. “Okay, so you’re all in on this, right? This is my hazing—my welcome to the family or something?”
“Yes and no,” Steve said, giving Tracy’s hand a little squeeze. “Yes, you’re being trusted with privileged information, but this isn’t a hazing.”
Candice cleared her throat. “Greg, we’ll give you a minute to digest that and ask questions later.” And probably get out of there as quickly as he could, wheels or no wheels. “In the meantime, I need to tell you all what’s going on. Marti?”
Marti scooted forward to the edge of her chair and glanced around. “I saw something tonight,” she said, and everyone in the room stiffened. Candice felt the atmosphere shift from curious to tense. “Because of all the rain we’re having, the dam is going to break, and Bagley is going to flood. We’ve got four days—this is all going to happen around midnight on Tuesday.”
“How bad?” Kent asked.
“A lot of property damage, and some lives lost,” Marti replied.
Over next to Gaylynn, her husband, Officer Zachary Jones, cleared his throat. “We’ll need to get everyone on board,” he said. “The police, the firemen, the hospitals . . .” His voice trailed off. “I don’t know how I’m going to get my captain to believe it, though.”
“That’s the problem we’re running into,” Candice said. “How do we convince people we’re telling the truth when we have no evidence? I can’t just call up the mayor and explain that I have a gut feeling and that everyone should evacuate town.”
“Does everyone need to evacuate?” Steve asked. “Where will it hit the hardest?”
Marti glanced around. “Tracy, do you have any paper?”
“You bet.” Tracy disappeared into a back room, coming back a moment later with paper and pencils. Candice wanted to glance over at Greg and see how he was taking all this, but she was also scared to, so she stayed focused on Marti.
“Okay, this is a really rough drawing,” Marti said. “Here’s the river, and here’s the dam. Over here is Main Street, and Center, and then over here’s Mom and Dad’s house . . .” She worked quickly, and while it wasn’t the most stunning artwork Candice had ever seen, it was easy to follow. “The water’s going to come down here and take out this road and these buildings. It’s going to flood these farms, and then it will veer to the side and miss the rest of the town. But this segment here …” She tapped on the drawing with her pencil. “We’ve got to do something.”
Steve peered over her shoulder. “That’s just barely going to miss our place,” he said, his voice tight. He glanced at Tracy, whose face had gone white.
“Yeah, it is. It’s going to come awfully close. I’m sorry,” Marti replied.
He gave one sharp nod. “I’ll do my best to prepare just in case it nudges closer. What else can I do?”
“What can we all do?” Kent asked. “You’ve got a plan, Candice—I can see it on your face.”
“Marti and I both came up with it,” Candice began.
“But it’s mostly yours,” Marti interrupted. “So, in case it doesn’t work, you’ll all know that I was an innocent bystander.”
“Whatever.” Candice shook her head. “All right, I’m just going to head down the list here. Jessica and Kent, you have a lot of pull in this community. Talk to the teachers, talk to the parents. Tell them . . . tell them you have a suspicion that the dam might break because of the rain. See if you can get them to meet with us for an emergency planning meeting tonight at the church.”
“Will do,” Jessica said, and Kent nodded.
Of course, they still needed to ask permission to hold that meeting at the church, but Candice would worry about that later. “Gaylynn, you talk to the radio station. Zachary, do you think we can get the police on board with this?”
“That’s what I’m getting stuck on,” he replied. “I believe you—of course I believe you—but without evidence, how will I convince my captain? When the dam actually breaks, everyone on the force will work as hard as they can, but getting ready for it?” He shook his head. “Let me keep thinking about it, okay? There’s got to be a way.”
Candice nodded. She completely understood. “Rebekah, you’re kind of a big deal at the hospital. What do you think?”
Rebekah nodded. “It helps that the chief of staff knows my secret. Yes, I’ll talk to him and get him prepared.”
“I’m running into the same problem as Zachary,” Jeremy chimed in. “I know my boss will do everything he can once the emergency has happened, but getting him to act beforehand will be tricky.”
“If the two of you will do the best you can, that’s really all we can ask,” Candice said. She was getting exhausted—not only from the lack of sleep the night before, but the stress. She sank down onto the edge of her chair, deciding that standing up wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. “Tracy, is there a way that you could pay visits to the police station, the fire department, and the ambulance bay and make sure all the emergency vehicles are running smoothly?”
“You bet,” Tracy replied. “It’s helpful that I have brothers-in-law who can get me into those places, right?”
Zachary and Jeremy both nodded.
“Marti and I will keep feeling out the situation and will update you all if anything changes,” Candice went on. “In the meantime, we’re going to see about getting some sandbags filled for the weaker spots and to see if we can divert some water. Steve, you have a tractor and a backhoe. Could you help dig up some earth to form channels? If we could control where the water went, it would sure be helpful.”
“I’ll do whatever you need,” Steve promised.
“Great.” At last, Candice turned to Greg. She couldn’t make eye contact at first—she was too nervous to see what he might be feeling. “Greg, we could really use your help too. With your ham radio license, you could help us spread the word quickly and efficiently.”
He looked down at the floor. “I . . . I need a minute.”
Ouch. She nodded. “I understand. We’ll talk later, okay?” Without waiting for his response, she turned back to the group. “The biggest thing we need is a cover story. What are we going to tell people when they ask how we know?”
Peter had been sitting quietly in the back of the room, taking everything in, but not contributing. He finally spoke up. “A friend of mine, an engineer, was out for a visit last summer, and I took him fishing on the river. As we were going past the dam, he commented that he hoped we never got any large amount of rainfall because the dam wasn’
t built to hold it. So, there you have it—an engineer warned us what would happen in case of heavy rain.”
“Peter, do you have anything to add to my map or what I saw?” Marti asked. She turned to Greg. “Peter’s a precog too,” she explained.
Greg didn’t reply. This wasn’t good.
Peter stepped up to the table and looked over the map. “This resonates with what I saw,” he said. “But the path of the water did become wider over here.” He pointed.
“That’s the daycare center,” Jessica said. “Thank goodness this will happen late at night when the children are safe at home.”
“But the couple who owns it live in an apartment upstairs,” Tracy said. “We’ll have to make sure they evacuate.”
The buzz continued around the room as everyone discussed how they planned to carry out their assignments. Zachary, Jeremy, and Rebekah gravitated toward each other, which made sense because they all worked in public services. Gaylynn and Peter started drafting out a statement she could present to the radio station. With everyone busy, Candice turned to Greg.
“Can we talk now?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah. Is there somewhere . . .?”
She motioned toward the back porch, which was covered, and he nodded.
Instead of wheeling himself out there, he stood and walked the short distance to one of the deck chairs, then lowered himself into it.
“I can’t imagine what you must be thinking,” she said, taking the chair next to his. The rain fell just beyond their reach—they were protected where they were, but if they moved a bit to one side or the other, they’d get drenched. “We didn’t even have a chance to talk before all this happened.”
“I really don’t know what to say.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “What have I wandered into here? Some sort of coven? And my brother . . . he’s one of you too?”
Candice sat upright. “Excuse me? Please tell me you don’t mean what you just said. We’re not witches. We aren’t exactly sure what we are, but it’s far, far away from that, and we’re using our gifts to save lives and properties. If that’s not completely obvious, I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Candice (Seven Sisters Book 6) Page 3
