Washed Away

by Carol Marinelli

  No one knew they were here.

  Reluctant to leave her, yet knowing he had to, Noah headed for the hall. Casting an anxious glance into the lounge, he picked up the phone, fully expecting a dial tone to fill his ear. He stood tapping the phone for the longest time before realization dawned: the lines were down.

  Noah was too darn responsible for his own good sometimes, and though normally it didn’t faze him, at that moment his sense of responsibility threatened to overwhelm him. The mother of all storms was about to hit, he had a clinic full of animals and an unconscious stranger in his lounge, and no one knew she was here.

  No one.

  “So what are you gonna do, Noah?” Noah always spoke to himself, just as he spoke to his animals. Okay, he rarely received an eloquent response, but at least it made him feel as if there were an adult in the room. “Deal with it,” came his response, and Madge barked her approval as he dashed out to the clinic and poured a generous amount of antiseptic onto the bite on his arm and quickly bandaged it. Then he peeled off his wet clothes and changed into operating blues. Turning on the radio for the animals, he rounded up flashlights and batteries as the lights ominously flickered, a sure sign they were about to lose power. He wondered then if he should move the woman; bring her over to the small studio apartment he sometimes used at the clinic. He had the backup generator there. But after a moment’s contemplation he decided against it. She seemed comfortable where she was, and if need be, he could work by the beam of a flashlight to repair her cheek, or carry her over to the clinic and do it there. The most important thing now was to keep her still and warm.

  WHO WAS SHE?

  Over and over the question buzzed through his mind.

  Whoever she was, she needed his help, needed her cheek to be sutured and her scrapes bathed and dressed. Gathering the necessary equipment, Noah headed back into the house, wishing it wasn’t so in need of renovations, wishing the living room door he’d taken off the hinges in a moment of do-it-yourself madness was back in place so he could close it on the nervous animals that watched him.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Noah said firmly to them. “But right now, I want you guys shut safely in the kitchen.”

  He might as well have been speaking Punjabi. Madge promptly plonked her butt down on the floor, and the growl Chocolate Girl’s dog gave him told Noah that unless he wanted to dress yet another wound on his arm, he’d better leave well enough alone.

  “Kitchen,” Noah roared with even less effect. He could have sworn Georgina shook her head.

  “Okay, you can stay, but if one of you even thinks of coming near me while I’m stitching her, I swear…” His voice trailed off. The momentary anger that had welled in him abated as he saw the concern in the eyes of the animals, all watching, all staring at the sleeping beauty that lay on his couch.

  Who was she?

  As he gently soaked her cheek, aligned the edges of the gash, sutured it with the finest thread he had in the clinic, the question taunted him.

  His first assessment of her back at the gas station had been right. She really was beautiful. High, impossibly sculptured cheekbones were shadowed by long dark eyelashes. Gorgeous bee-stung lips were returning to their natural dark crimson as the space blanket he had wrapped her in slowly raised her temperature to normal. On he worked, taking his time to suture her, achingly aware that this was a human face he was working on. She would have to live with the legacy of his repair.

  The lights finally gave one final flicker and died. A grinding stillness fell as everything stopped around them—the clock, the DVD, the fridge. Only the howling storm outside screamed loudly as it drew closer, yet still he didn’t move her. Instead, after taking a few moments to stretch his aching arms, he tossed some logs into the fire and positioned flashlights for adequate light. He washed his hands again and pulled on some new gloves, then resumed his delicate task, only pausing every now and again to try to rouse her with his voice, to check her breathing and her pulse, which was slowly strengthening.

  Little details that hadn’t even merited a thought on the drama of the rescue were making themselves known at the fringes of his attention. Who was this woman? Surely someone was missing her by now, wondering where she’d gotten to.

  No wedding ring.

  Relief flooded him. Why should it matter? He wondered, yet somehow it did. Simple diamond studs decorated her ears. In fact, everything about her screamed simple elegance, right down to her well-manicured fingernails. Yet nothing about her added up. Nothing in the clothes she wore or the Jeep she drove jibed with this sophisticated woman who lay before him.

  Snipping the last stitch, he placed the scissors to one side and took a moment to admire his own handiwork, The deep catgut stitches he had used to close the wound inside would dissolve unnoticed, and if the tiny nylon sutures he had used to stitch her skin were removed within the next four or five days, the scar would barely be noticeable in a few weeks.

  She was becoming more restless now, her arms moving out of the blankets. Occasionally she tossed her beautiful head on the pillow as if having a bad dream. Tucking her arm back into the space blanket, he noticed that the face of her watch was broken. Not wanting her to cut herself with the jagged edge, he fiddled with the clasp, then loosened the silver chain and slid the watch over her slender hand. Turning it over, he carefully read the neat inscription:

  So proud of you, Cheryl

  Much love

  Mom

  So the mystery lady had a name.

  “Cheryl,” he gently called her, repeating her name several times and getting only minimal response. But at least her breathing was more even now, and her responses appropriate. Her eyes had flickered when he shone his penlight to test the reaction of her pupils, and she had raised her hand to push his away as he finished cleaning her cheek. He dabbed at the area now with some antiseptic. No doubt the anesthetic he had used was starting to wear off, since her hands again tried to push him away.

  “Hey, Cheryl.” Pulling the blanket tightly around her shoulders, he smiled down at her. “I’m just cleaning your cheek. You’ve got a nasty cut there.”

  Still no response, but Noah knew she wasn’t unconscious now, just in a deep, well-earned sleep. And though he’d have preferred to sit with her and reassure her as she came around, there was too much he needed to do, given the approaching storm. “I’m just going to the clinic next door to check on the animals, then I’ll be right back.”

  He turned to Madge. He had finally relented and let the dogs out of the kitchen. “Watch, girl,” he ordered Madge as he picked up the dressing pack he had used to suture Cheryl’s cheek. The second she started to wake, his faithful dog would come and alert him.

  Even with the backup generator, the lights were subdued, and the clinic felt eerie as the animals paced in their cages, unsettled and anxious. It took Noah some time to settle them before he could finally concentrate on Cheryl’s dog. He’d forced the little mutt to come with him for fear he’d jump on his mistress once Noah was gone. At last he picked up the loyal creature, but as he did, Noah felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. There were knots of matted hair beneath his fingers, and protruding ribs that had nothing to do with breeding.

  “Hey.” He gently soothed the trembling dog. “I’m on your side, buddy.”

  Noah could forgive most things. Ignorance he could understand, and plain stupidity was sometimes enough of an excuse for an unkempt, hungry pet. But the welts that littered the shivering body he held in his hands had been caused be repeated beatings. Noah’s stomach turned over. He could hardly believe that the woman who lay on his couch could be responsible for this dog’s injuries.

  It would be like finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real. Okay, he’d been a late learner, Noah acknowledged with a dry smile. His dad had been working up to giving him a lecture on shaving when his mom had finally bitten the bullet and told him that a guy in a red suit with a white beard didn’t really climb down the chimney at Christmas.

&nbs
p; “No way!” The words whistled through his lips. No way was the woman who lay on his couch responsible for this. Turning on the clippers, he set to work on the dog, bile churning in his stomach as he shaved the matted hair and tended the multitude of wounds, both old and new. And despite the evidence stacked against her, despite the altercation at the gas station, Noah knew that the woman he had briefly met would never treat another living creature with such contempt.

  THE FIRST THING her eyes focused on was a rabbit.

  A happy rabbit, Cheryl thought sleepily. Nose twitching, tail thumping, it perched on the coffee table, staring down at her. The strangest part for Cheryl was that the vision of the furry creature didn’t throw up a single question in her mind, just brought a lazy smile to her lips as she tried to roll over and slip back into the blissful dream she could only hazily recall. And she would have made it if the simple maneuver hadn’t caused a loud rustle. Her eyes flicked back open, and she stared in utter confusion at her body, which was wrapped in tinfoil like some Thanksgiving turkey.

  “Welcome back to the world.” A man with a grim, tired face was looking down at her, a black dog in his hands. The little animal seemed to recognize her and jumped down onto her stomach, circling furiously before nestling in the hollow of her lap with a contented sigh.

  “Where am…” Her voice petered out, the cliché to end all clichés right there on the tip of her tongue. But Cheryl wanted to work that question out for herself.

  “You’re at my home.” Clear blue eyes stared down at her. “I brought you here. I’m a veterinarian.”

  That really didn’t help her.

  “You had an accident. You cut your cheek and needed some stitches. Just a few,” he added as her hand shot to her cheek. “I’ll find you a mirror soon, so you can have a look. I would have taken you into the clinic, but it was warmer in here.”

  “The clinic?”

  He nodded. “Like I said, I’m a veterinarian. My clinic is attached to the house. It’s called Noah’s Ark. I’m—”

  She held up her hand and smiled. “Don’t tell me, you’re Noah.” Now she saw that animals were everywhere: the dog lying on her stomach, another one sitting on guard by the fire, birds chirping in a cage, that blessed rabbit still thumping its tail, a tiny horse peering around the door—

  Only then did she do a double take. Her mouth opened, but no words came out as she attempted to focus on the most bizarre creature she had ever seen.

  “That’s Georgina.” Noah answered her unspoken question, his eyes following her astounded gaze.

  “It’s a horse.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that.”

  “It’s a tiny horse,” she amended, shaking her head in bewilderment. A tiny miniature chestnut horse.

  “She thinks she’s a human,” Noah explained with a dry note, “and she’s not actually that tiny. She’s ten pounds overweight and heading for another coronary. That’s why I’ve got her here.”

  “At Noah’s Ark?”

  “That’s right.” He had a slow, deep, lazy drawl, but every word seemed measured somehow, carefully chosen.

  “And it’s raining,” Cheryl said dreamily, enjoying this fantasy more and more. The man staring down at her was heavenly.

  He was six foot four, Cheryl knew that at a glance. From the day she had overtaken her classmates, when height had suddenly really mattered, she had been able to estimate a person’s height from afar. And Noah stood tall. Despite the baggy operating blues he was wearing, she could tell his body was toned and muscular. Light brown hair flopped over his forehead as he gazed down at her, and she was tempted to put her hands up and brush it back from his face, to stare unhindered into those delicious sapphire-colored pools. For a moment or two, the whys and wherefores didn’t matter. It was so much easier just to lie back and gaze upward, to concentrate on the beauty of the man looking down at her rather than attempt to reason why a rabbit’s tail was thumping in her ear, why the wind was howling outside and the rain battering the windows. She wanted to just snuggle in the warmth of the fire and stare back at this delicious man.

  “There’s a flood,” Noah attempted to explain. “That’s why I couldn’t take you back to town.”

  “So I’m stuck here for forty days?” She started to smile, then immediately sobered as realization finally hit home. A million questions were bobbing on her tongue, but the first one that had sprung to mind still hadn’t been answered. “Where am I?” Struggling she sat up and pushed away the hand that attempted to press her back down. There was an urgency in her voice now. “I don’t understand….”

  “There was an accident.”

  “What sort of accident? How did I end up here?” She blinked rapidly in the semidarkness. “How did we meet?”

  “At the gas station.” Noah gave an easy shrug. “It was a nonevent. It’s no surprise you don’t remember. You were buying chocolate, lots of it and a couple of postcards.”

  “So how come…”

  “I don’t know,” Noah admitted. “But an hour or so later, I was driving back to the clinic when I saw your Jeep on Hansen’s Bridge.” Those brown eyes stared back at him without a flicker of recognition as he gave the location. “Hansen’s Bridge has been closed for years,” Noah explained. “There’s normally a barrier up, but I figure it had blown away. Still, the locals know it isn’t safe. I saw your Jeep….” For a second he closed his eyes, reliving the utter horror and devastation that had swept through him. “I knew you weren’t going to make it. Of course I didn’t know it was you at the time. I could just see a dark Jeep trying to get over the bridge and I knew it wasn’t going to make it. The bridge collapsed, taking you and the Jeep with it. I swam out to you. You were unconscious when I got there….”

  “You saved me?”

  “I was there,” Noah said easily. “Anyone would have done the same. I would have taken you back to town for treatment, but the river burst. That’s why I brought you here.” He gave a rueful laugh. “That’s why we’re stuck here with no electricity and no phone, cut off from the rest of the world. I didn’t think to take my cell phone out of my jeans before I jumped in, and if you had one, it would have been lost with the Jeep.” He shrugged. “It probably wouldn’t have helped. I just heard on the radio that most people can’t get a signal.”

  His explanation didn’t seem to have worked. He could see the confusion still flickering in her eyes. Her forehead creased and she slumped back on the cushion, her mouth opening to speak, then closing in defeat.

  “You’re okay now, and that’s the main thing. As soon as the phone lines are back on, you can call someone, let them know what’s happened.”

  She nodded but the expression in her eyes was still scared.

  “It won’t be long.” He was staring down at her, but every word of comfort he uttered seemed only to agitate her further. “Once the phone lines are back on, I can get in touch with Mitch and get you evacuated to a hospital—”

  “Mitch?”

  “He’s the fire chief,” Noah explained. “He’s heading up the mass evacuation of Corpus Christi to Turning Point. I’m supposed to be helping him. The storm was heading for Corpus Christi, but according to the news bulletins, it’s veered off course….”

  “Stop!” Her hand shot up to her ears and she squeezed her eyes shut. “What storm, Noah?”

  The rain was pounding on the roof, every window rattling. She should have understood what he was telling her, but nothing seemed to add up.

  “I don’t know anything about a storm, Noah.” Tears were filling those velvet eyes now, and she massaged her temples as if willing it all to make sense. “I don’t know anything about Turning Point or Corpus Christi or fire chiefs.” Hysteria tinged her voice, and the absolute direness of her situation seemed to strike them both.

  “Noah,” she said at last, “I don’t even know my own name.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “CHERYL.”

  Soft, infinitely understanding eyes held hers.
/>   “Your name is Cheryl.”

  Reaching over to the coffee table, he handed her a watch. Slowly she examined the object, turning it over in her hand, tracing every word of the engraving with her finger.

  “This is mine?”

  “You were wearing it when I found you, but the face was broken so I took it off. That’s when I saw the engraving on the back. I looked through all your other clothes—” he gestured to the untidy pile that littered the floor “—but there was no ID, nothing at all. I assume everything got lost when the Jeep went down.”

  “That’s everything?” Cheryl asked. “You mean that’s everything I had with me?”

  “Except for this.” He gestured to the little dog dozing in Cheryl’s lap. “She took a chunk out of my arm when I tried to resuscitate you.”

  “I stopped breathing!” It was more a statement than a question. Horror flooded her. She’d been in a life-threatening situation she couldn’t even remember, let alone comprehend. Each revelation caused a new jolt of alarm to ricochet through her. She fingered the scar on her cheek, which had only now started to make its presence felt.

  “Better not touch it,” Noah advised. “That was a nasty cut, and there are quite a few stitches in it.”

  “What’s the tinfoil for?” she asked, attempting a smile. “Were you planning to roast me later?”

  “It’s a space blanket—your temperature was low,” Noah explained, returning the smile. “I’ll go and get those clothes now.”

  “MAYBE MY FATHER’S DEAD.” The voice that greeted Noah when he returned sounded frail, an utter contrast to that of the supremely confident woman he had first met. She sat hunched over, staring down at the watch she held in her shaking hand. “I mean, why would only my mom’s name be there? Why would only my mom be proud of me?”