As soon as the coughing subsided, she gasped, "Did the calf get out alright?"
Rain grasped her by the shoulders, held her at arm's length, and looked her in the eyes. She was astonished to see the mixture of fear and anger in his face. When he spoke, his voice shook with emotion. "What the hell were you doing? Were you trying to get yourself killed?"
"The calf...," she coughed.
"Damn the calf!" He was yelling now and shaking her.
"Stop!" she cried "You're hurting me!"
"Hurting you? You could have been killed!" He abruptly let go of her, and she lurched back into him. This time he held her hard against him. She struggled for a moment before she gave in and let him hold her. She turned her head sideways to watch the progress of the fire. Adrenalin still pumped through her veins, and she couldn't understand Rain's reactions. Why was he so angry?
Now that the fire had broken through the roof, already the driving rain was having an impact on its progress, but Emily knew it would not go out before the barn was completely destroyed. All around them stood the cows. They were quiet now, great wet bodies standing dejectedly around them in the downpour.
Behind them a pickup truck pulled into the yard. She looked up at Rain enquiringly.
"It's Don, the neighbour. He must have seen the flames." He released her and moved toward the truck as Don stepped out. Emily followed him.
"Hello," Don called above the storm. "What a terrible night. Although the lightning seems to be letting up." It didn't matter how big the crisis; in the country, the weather was always the first thing to be discussed. He stared at Emily intently in the light from the truck headlights. "Emily?" he asked uncertainly.
Emily nodded. Of course he would recognize her. He had been her neighbour too, a long time ago.
"Are all the animals out?" he asked, looking around him at the huddled wet cows.
It was Emily that answered. "Yes. I saw the lightning hit from the house and came right out."
"Well, that was a good thing. Good thing you didn't get hurt too."
Emily looked at Rain triumphantly, but he still didn't look pleased. She didn't know why. After all, hadn't she saved the animals?
"Look. We can drive them down the road and put them in my barn for the time being,” Don offered. “They'll catch pneumonia if they stay here.”
Rain seemed to recover his wits. "Thanks." He turned to Emily. "Go back to the cabin. There's a fire on. You'll be warm there."
"No. I'm coming with you. I'm not cold." She should have been – she was wet through to the skin. She looked at Rain defiantly, and he didn't challenge her. Instead he moved away from her and began to herd the animals toward the road.
The wind and rain stayed fierce and steady, but the thunder and lightning had moved eastward. Don put the calf in the cab of his truck and drove on ahead to prepare room in his barn. Rain took the frightened and nervous Celeste by the halter, and he and Emily walked behind the slow-moving cows. The trip to the barn took at least half an hour as beast and human alike bent their heads to the wind and struggled against its force. Twice Emily stumbled and twice Rain caught her, releasing his hold on the horse’s halter to do so, but both times she pulled away quickly. She was determined not to fall apart now.
But at the barn things were different. In the quarter-mile walk from Maple Tree Farm, the adrenalin had dissipated, and she shook with cold and shock. Don gave her a blanket out of the truck and she wrapped it around herself while Don and Rain rearranged the living quarters of Don's livestock to make room for Rain's. It was crowded, but a separate stall was found for Celeste, and it wasn’t long before she was enjoying a warm porridge made of oats. The men rubbed down the cows with burlap sacks and made certain there was plenty of warm, dry bedding.
Emily moved outside the circles of light from their flashlights and huddled on a bale of hay. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, fatigue washing over her in waves. She was miserable now and desperately wanted to be in front of Rain's fireplace. She held the blanket tightly around her wet head and shoulders with shaking hands, waiting for the men to finish.
The wind whistled through every crack, knothole, and broken window pane in the barn. Even without the thunder and lightning, it was a frightening storm, and in Emily's exhausted state it was too much to bear. She closed her eyes and rested her head against a post until she felt herself lifted from the bale. "Rain?" she asked as she weakly struggled in his arms.
"Ssh.... Don't move. I'll carry you to the truck. I think you've had enough for one day." He spoke gently and soothingly as if to a child, and for once she didn't fight him but submitted gratefully to his attentions.
"Don't worry about the animals," Don said as he drove them back to the farm. "They can stay in my barn for now. You call the insurance company and get things rolling. No reason why you can't get a new barn by Christmas. You'll need hay and grain for the winter too."
"I appreciate your help," Rain replied. "This is beyond the call of duty for a neighbour. I'll be by to help with chores, and the insurance should cover the costs of feeding them."
"It's no problem at all. Just glad I can be of some help." He pulled the truck into the driveway of Maple Tree Farm. "And you look after this little girl here. We don't want her catching cold."
Rain laughed softly. "It's a good thing she's half asleep. Any other time and she'd give you a good blow to the head for calling her a little girl."
"Well, she isn't looking very tough now."
"You just better hope she doesn't remember this conversation, neighbour."
Back at Maple Tree Farm, Rain climbed out of the truck and gathered Emily into his arms again. This time she didn't protest, not even feebly. She couldn't have walked on her own if her life depended on it. She clung to him, pressing her face into his chest as he carried her toward the cabin. Even in the wind and dark he carried her almost effortlessly. And when he set her down in the chair beside the fire, she was so grateful to be out of the storm that she almost cried in relief.
Rain, on the other hand, flew into action. He threw a couple of logs on the dying fire and lit the candles on the mantle. It was unlikely the power would be back on that night. He poured a generous shot of brandy from the decanter next to the candles and drank it with a toss of his head. Then he refilled it and held it to Emily's lips. She shook her head. She was too tired.
"Drink it!" he demanded. So she drank, the fiery liquid causing shivers of a different kind. He refilled the glass and set it on the table next to the chair before pulling off his wet boots and dumping them on the floor by the door. He disappeared into the bathroom for a minute, re-emerging in dry jeans. He had not bothered buttoning his shirt, and, as tired as she was, she could not help but stare at his smooth, strong chest. How nice it would be to lay her head against it as she had when he’d carried her to the house. Just lay her head against his safe chest and go to sleep....
"I shouldn't have let you go to Don's," he said angrily as he pulled off her boots. He didn’t ask her if she wanted help with her wet things. He just went straight to work undressing her. She had taken another sip of brandy while he was changing in the bathroom, but she had made no attempt to remove her sopping wet clothes.
"Well, they couldn't stand out in the rain all night," she said grumpily. His harsh tone had awakened some of her own spirit, although she continued to submit to his attempts to undress her. He took the jacket off next, tearing at the buttons and pulling her arms roughly from the sleeves.
"Since when did you care so much about cows?" he said sarcastically as he carried the jacket into the bathroom to add to his own wet clothes. He was back moments later with a terrycloth bathrobe.
"I didn't rescue them from a burning barn so they could drown in the rain." Why is he so angry? she wondered. You'd think he'd be happy that I rescued his precious animals.
"For heaven's sake, Emily, take off the rest of those wet clothes before you drown in them."
"Fine," she said angrily, jumping up from t
he chair. Immediately the room swam before her eyes, and she almost fell to the floor. Rain caught her, eased her back into the chair, and held the brandy once more to her lips.
“Are you alright?” His voice was full of concern.
She took the glass from his hands and swallowed what was left. “I’m fine. Now let me get my clothes off,” she said with annoyance. She was already feeling a little drunk, and if Rain wanted her to take her clothes off in front of him, she would.
This time she stood up more slowly. She shrugged the heavy, wet dressing gown off her shoulders and let it fall with a sodden thud to the floor. The thin silk nightgown, soaking wet, clung to every curve of her body. It was almost transparent, and Rain was not oblivious to its seductive effect. He could not take his eyes from the rosy nipple pressed against silk. Then slowly, as in an erotic striptease, she drew the nightgown slowly over her head and stood naked in front of him.
Her eyes were level with his chest, and when she raised her face to his he was looking down at her with those intense blue eyes. Where moments ago they had expressed annoyance and anger, they now smouldered with blue passion. They stood there, only inches apart, and Emily became hotly aware of his eyes on her body.
It lasted only a moment. Rain averted his gaze and held out the dry bathrobe. His fingers brushed against her bare skin as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. She held the bathrobe modestly closed as Rain poured another glass of brandy. This time he didn’t offer her any but threw back the entire contents of the glass himself and set it back on the mantle. He leaned his elbows on the mantle, burying his face in his hands.
With a feeling of something like compassion mingled with lust, Emily reached out a hand to touch his back. But before her fingers could make contact, he straightened up again. He drew his hands through his hair to pull it back from his eyes and, without looking at her, grabbed the rest of her clothes and took them to the bathroom. He returned with a towel, which he practically threw at her. “Dry your hair,” he said roughly, all desire or even concern gone from his voice.
She let the towel fall at her feet. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded. "I should think you'd be happy that I saved your stupid cows." She wasn't thinking of them as stupid cows anymore, but old habits died hard.
He reeled around to face her, his eyes flashing blue ice. "What the hell is wrong with me?" He was shouting. "What the hell is wrong with you? What the hell ever possessed you to go running into a burning barn? You could have been killed. If you'd been in there one minute longer, that ceiling would have fallen on your head and you'd be dead! Do you even know how close you came to death in there?!”
This was the first time tonight the idea that she might have been foolhardy entered her head. At the time, she wasn't even conscious of having made a decision. It had been simple: the barn was burning, the animals were inside, and she had to get them out. Once inside the barn, she knew the situation was dangerous, and she had worked quickly. But that she shouldn't have been there at all had never crossed her mind. For the first time since the ordeal started, she began to feel frightened. And there was a terrible sense of deja vu. Her mother’s body lying in the field flashed before her eyes.
She looked at Rain for a long time. The anger was gone from his eyes, and in its place was something she couldn't quite read. Despair?
"I think...," she started, becoming aware for a moment of the wind and the storm outside. It was warm and safe inside Rain's cabin. The eye of the storm. It was another one of those expressions that always made her think of Rain. In the centre of the turmoil was Rain, solid and safe.
"I think...," she repeated slowly. "I think I am more like my mother than I thought."
Rain bent over and picked up the towel that still lay at her feet. Standing behind her chair, he roughly towelled her hair. "I think you're a fool,” he said coldly. “Your mother died in an accident. She was not trying to be a hero. It was an accident. There would be only one reason for your death: Emily Alexander ran into a burning barn. End of story."
He threw the towel in her lap and poured the last of the brandy into the glass. He felt desperate and his words sounded cruel. "Your mother, Emily, is dead. She has been dead for over ten years. Get over it before you do something really stupid!"
Tears of hurt, fatigue, and frustration welled up in Emily's eyes. She didn't need this right now. She needed comfort – and she needed it from Rain. However unwilling he was to provide it. "Rain?" she pleaded quietly.
"Go to bed, Emily," he said firmly, setting up the fire screen in front of the fireplace and blowing out the candles.. "I'll take the couch."
Emily resignedly pulled back the duvet on Rain's bed and, letting the bathrobe drop to the floor, slipped her naked body into the bed. His scent was on the pillows and in the sheets. She drank it in as she nestled into the feather mattress. Her feather mattress, she deduced. This was where it had gone to. She wondered if Rain had ever detected her scent in its soft depths. Laying on the edge of the mattress, her face to the fire, she immediately fell into a troubled, nightmare-filled sleep.
For Rain it was different. He did not have to sleep to experience his nightmares. He lay on the couch that was too short for his tall frame and watched the play of light from the fire on the ceiling. Why had he treated her so roughly when all he had really wanted to do was take her in his arms and never let her go? Fear. Shock. Panic. Guilt. All those things, he decided. Emily had no idea how close she’d come to death. He had literally snatched her from its claws. He had seen the flaming beam crash down only inches behind her. If he hadn’t been there.... Oh god, he couldn’t have borne it.
And while Rain grappled with his fears, Emily dreamed. She dreamed of fire, only this time Rain wasn’t there for her. There were just herself and the cattle in the burning barn. In her dream she was frozen, unable to move as she watched the walls burn around her. Fiery beams smashed all around her, flames licked at her clothes, and the air was filled with the bellows of the terrified animals.
And then, above the noise of the animals, she could hear another sound. Someone calling her name. She peered through the smoke, looking for the caller. Emily, help me, the voice called over and over. It was coming from all directions.
Mom? Emily asked weakly in her dream, recognizing the voice at last. Where are you?
Over here. Here. Here, came her mother’s voice from all around. Don’t leave me, here, Emily.
I won’t, Mom. Just tell me where you are.
But there was no answer. Emily was alone again with the bawling animals and the sickening feeling that it was all over. She couldn’t move, but she could scream, and she screamed for Rain to come and help her.
Rain jumped at the sound of his name. He could hear the terror in her voice and went to her, calling out her name. He sat on the edge of the bed and, gathering her in his arms, pulled her into a sitting position, cradling her head against his chest. He rocked her gently until she gradually became calmer. “It’s alright. I’m here,” he whispered as he stroked her hair.
Emily clung to him, her face pressed against his chest. In his strong arms she felt safe, and his calm voice soothed away the awful dream. Gradually her breathing became steadier, and she stopped shaking. She relaxed into his arms, submitting to his gentle caresses. “It was a terrible nightmare,” she whispered finally. “I was trapped in the barn with all the animals, and everything was burning. Mom was there too. I wanted to save them, but I couldn’t move.”
“It’s okay. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I was angry with you earlier. I was just so scared....” He left the rest unsaid as he held her tightly in his arms. Feeling he would never be able to let her go again, he gently kissed the top of her head.
Emily felt his kiss against her hair, raised her head, and looked into his deep blue eyes. What she saw there could only be described as love, and she was filled with a confusing mix of love, gratitude, and desire. She became aware that his touch, so comforting, was now awakening a sexual lon
ging. She reached up and touched his lips with the tips of her fingers. “Will you kiss me?” It was a whispered plea.
“Are you sure?” he whispered back.
“I won’t run away this time,” she promised.
“I know, but I feel like I’m taking advantage of you. You’ve been through so much tonight. Are you sure you won’t regret this tomorrow?” He pressed her against him and felt the warm pressure of her breasts against his chest. He ran a finger down her back and felt her shiver with desire under his hands. He wanted her so much, even more after the night’s events. She was more precious to him than ever before. More than when they were seventeen and twenty-three, more than earlier this evening when he had kissed her in the car. He had almost lost her tonight, and he had learned that he loved her more than he ever thought possible.
“Absolutely sure,” she said with heartfelt conviction. Her hand travelled from his lips to hair. She buried her fingers in the thick waves, and, as he brought his face down to hers, and their lips met, any doubts that might have remained were gone. They drank in each other’s kisses greedily – heady, dizzying kisses made all the more electrifying by years of deprivation.
* * *
Entwined in each other’s arms, they were silent for a long time. Outside, the storm raged, but inside the cabin it was warm and peaceful. Rain stroked Emily’s hair and kissed her softly.
Falling for Rain Page 12
