Strangers When We Meet

by Marisa Carroll

  “I’ll remember that.” She would love to meet Blake’s family. She wondered if she would ever have the chance. “And you? How did you get such an ordinary name?”

  Blake chuckled. “I hardly think my name is conventional.”

  “I think it’s very distinguished. F. Blake Weston.” She quoted from the careless scrawl on the Twin Oaks guest register.

  “How did you know about the F?” he asked.

  “You signed in just ahead of me,” she reminded him.

  “If I tell you what the initial stands for, do you promise never to breathe it to another living soul?”

  “Cross my heart,” Emma assured him.

  “My name is Freedom Blake Weston.”

  Emma smiled in the darkness. So, he hadn’t escaped his parents’ eccentric name choices after all. “Freedom?”

  “It could be worse. I was named after the midwife who delivered me. Her name was Moonbeam Freedom Blake. My father hadn’t completely lost his old patriarchal hang-ups, thank God. He said there was no way he was going to name his firstborn son Moonbeam. If my mom wanted to encourage gender equality for her children, okay. I could play with Barbie dolls, but he wasn’t going to name me after one.”

  “Did you play with Barbie dolls?” Emma asked. She found it hard to believe someone so inherently male would have played with dolls even as a small child. She shifted her leg to try to get more comfortable. The dampness of the ground was seeping into the shelter. It was going to be a long, cold, frightening night if help didn’t arrive soon.

  “Sure,” he said without hesitation. “My mother thought they were establishment symbols of a male-dominated society, but Summer loved them. My brother, Ash, and I used to take the ones our grandparents sent Summer for Christmas and her birthday and guillotine them with the wood ax. Or we’d play airplane crash with them and pull off their arms and legs and dunk them in red paint and scatter them across the porch. Summer took to hiding them in a tin can under a floorboard in her bedroom to keep them safe.”

  “You must have been terrible brothers.”

  “We were. But we’d have laid down our lives for her. And for each other.”

  “That’s one of the good things about a big family, always being there for each other.” She couldn’t quite keep the longing out of her voice. A draft of cold air blew under the tarp, scattering raindrops along her leg. Blake obviously felt it, too.

  “It’s raining harder,” he said.

  “And it’s getting colder.”

  “Do you want to know what time it is?”

  She gave a rueful chuckle. “Am I that obvious?”

  He held up his hand, and she fumbled for the right button. Eight-fifteen. She gave a little sigh of relief. “We’ll make it,” she said, blinking back a sting of tears that caught her unaware. “Just about now my grandparents should be calling Twin Oaks. Help should soon be on the way.” She closed her eyes and prayed she was right.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BLAKE HOPED EMMA’S grandparents were as reliable as she insisted they were. He didn’t know how much longer he could stay conscious. Even if the Cooper’s Corner search and rescue squad had the instincts of bloodhounds, he might not make it. He could feel the cold seeping into the marrow of his bones. Not just the chill of the rain and dropping temperature, but the weakness of blood loss and shock.

  The warmth of Emma’s slender body against his back didn’t help. Only the sound of her voice, her laughter, tinged as it was with a quiver of fear, kept him grounded in the here and now. He’d even told her his full name. He felt the ghost of a smile curve his mouth. It had been years since he’d confided that information to anyone.

  He’d never told Heather what his first initial stood for.

  She had never cared enough to ask.

  Emma moved slightly, flexing her knee, and another bolt of white-hot pain lanced through him. He groaned. He couldn’t help it. The pain simply would not go away. He could no longer focus on distractions to keep it at bay. The discomfort was getting stronger, and he was not.

  He wondered if he was going to die.

  He didn’t think so. But then neither had the guys in Saudi who’d been mortally wounded when their Bradley was hit by friendly fire.

  His buddy, Fiegler, had been one of them. Blake had seen him die. He’d suffered no pain at the end. But Blake still hurt big time, so maybe he wasn’t as bad off as he feared.

  “Do you miss living on a farm?” Emma asked so quietly he didn’t know if he’d imagined the question or not. He knew she was already listening for sounds of rescue, even though it might be hours before the team made it this high into the hills. He wasn’t sure where they were on the mountain. Like Emma, he hadn’t noticed the lean-to on their climb. It was possible they’d intersected the streambed a short distance above the spot where they’d left it.

  Or they could be following another streambed entirely. One that led them into the countryside, away from the village.

  “Not for a minute until I saw the McGillicuddy place.” Manhattan had such energy. It was the center of the financial universe, and for the first couple of years he’d lived there, he’d reveled in the novelty of it all. He’d enjoyed dining in the finest restaurants, seeing Broadway plays, having seats for the Knicks games and heading off to Yankee Stadium whenever his hectic schedule permitted.

  And the women. There weren’t women like those back in Fort Wayne.

  But too many of them had been like Heather, and he began to think it was his priorities that were out of step, not theirs. When Heather came along, he’d told himself there were trade-offs in every relationship. That’s the way it was in the twenty-first century.

  He’d had his apartment, a steady rise in his position and responsibilities at Braxton, Cartwright and Wheeler, and Heather. He’d been content. Or at least he pretended to himself that was the case.

  And then one day last spring he’d wakened to find that the seasons had changed once again, and he hadn’t even noticed. In Manhattan it was easy enough to do. But he was more of his parents’ child than he sometimes admitted. He’d taken a good look around, and the concrete and steel and glass surrounding him was suddenly like a prison, not the buzzing, twenty-four-seven hive of energy, talent and creativity it had seemed at the beginning.

  So he’d packed up a protesting Heather and headed west into the Berkshires. There he found the McGillicuddy place—the same kind of tumbledown farmhouse he’d spent the first eighteen years of his life trying to get away from—and he felt as if he’d come home.

  “What did you say?” Emma’s voice seemed to be coming from very far away.

  “I...I don’t remember.” Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? He was farther gone than he’d imagined.

  “You said you felt as if you’d come home.”

  “I must have been dreaming.” He was in no shape to tell her what he felt about the McGillicuddy place. Or what he felt for her.

  “I was drifting a little myself,” she admitted. “It’s hard to stay awake when it’s so cold. I’ve always heard you’re not supposed to fall asleep if you’re very cold. You could freeze to death.”

  “We’re not going to freeze to death.”

  She gave a tiny rueful chuckle, and the warmth of her breath brushed across his cheek. Her grip tightened on him in a reassuring hug. “I’m not really going to fall asleep. My bottom’s too cold. That’s all I can think about.”

  If he didn’t hurt so damned bad, it would be all he could think about, too. She had a cute bottom, round and feminine. No jutting hip bones and young-boy angularity for Emma. Her breasts were full, her waist nicely curved. She was every inch a woman. A very opinionated and independent woman, but sexy as hell.

  She grew silent again, and he could feel her listening, her senses straining into the distance, trying to dist
inguish the sound of an ATV engine or the shout of a searcher. He listened too, but there was such a ringing in his ears, he gave up and contemplated the bursts of colored light behind his eyes that pulsated in time with his heartbeat, and focused his waning senses on the warmth and comfort of the woman who held him in her arms.

  He must have drifted off again because he jerked to consciousness when he felt Emma stiffen behind him. His mind resisted the effort to concentrate on the here and now, preferring instead to remain in the dreamlike state where he’d been watching Emma fly kites with three round-cheeked, knobby-kneed little boys in the flower-strewn meadow behind the McGillicuddy place. In his fantasy he had looked down and found he was holding an infant in his arms. A little girl, dressed all in pink and smiling at him with Emma’s smile. Four children. A possibility Heather wouldn’t even discuss.

  “Listen,” Emma whispered, her voice tight with suppressed excitement. “Did you hear that?”

  “All I can hear is the rain on the tarp,” he said honestly. He didn’t want her to get her hopes up. It might be hours before they were found.

  “You didn’t hear an engine? Wouldn’t they search for us with off-road vehicles?”

  “Possibly. But I imagine most of them would search on foot.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” She settled against the rough siding. “I’m not going to ask you what time it is. I think I’ll cry if you tell me it’s not even nine. And I think I’ll cry if it’s later, too.”

  “Are you hungry?” It was getting to be an effort to speak. He kept feeling himself float off. But he was afraid that if he didn’t keep her talking about mundane subjects, he would weaken and tell her what was in his heart. If he was dying, he wanted Emma to know he was falling in love with her. That he was already in love with her. He had no idea how it had happened so quickly, but he didn’t care. There was nothing like looking death in the face to focus your feelings. He loved Emma Hart.

  “I’m starving. When I’m not thinking about my cold bottom I’m thinking about my empty stomach.” Her tone was light and teasing, but he wasn’t fooled. He could hear the teeth-clenching determination that kept it that way. He liked that about her, too. There was no role-playing with Emma, no attempt to mold herself to the image of what a man wanted, at least until she had what she wanted. Emma was Emma. Not so plain and not so simple, but the woman he wanted most in the world.

  He took a breath to answer her question, or perhaps to tell her what was in his heart, when another sharp lance of pain changed it to a groan. Emma laid her cheek beside his. “Hang on, Blake. They’ll be here soon.” He thought he felt a tear, warm against his skin, but he was too weak to lift his hand to brush it away.

  He nodded. He had no strength left to speak. It was too late to tell her what he wanted her to know, regardless of her relationship with Daryl Tubb. It took everything he had to stay conscious.

  Emma lifted her head. He felt her tense, and her arms tightened convulsively around his chest. “There. I heard it again. And listen. Isn’t that someone shouting?”

  “I don’t know.” He couldn’t be certain of anything he heard any longer. He was too tired of fighting the cold and the pain.

  “It is.” Emma’s voice was full of certainty. “They’re looking for us. But they sound so far away.”

  “We need a signal flare,” Blake said.

  “Or a whistle,” Emma responded. “One more thing I’m going to add to my survival list.” She was sliding out from behind him, moving as gently and slowly as she could to keep from jostling him. She cushioned the back of his head with her palm as he leaned back against the rough sapling wall. “I’m going out to try to attract their attention. They could walk right by us in the darkness and not see this place.” He could feel her hesitate. “Maybe if I go to the creek?”

  He reached out and grabbed her wrist. “No,” he said, and it came out more of a croak than an actual word. “Don’t leave the lean-to. It’s too dark. If you fall you could break a bone or knock yourself out, and it might take hours longer to find you. Stay put. Do you understand?” He didn’t have the energy to try to be reasonable.

  “Okay. Okay. I’ll just stand outside and holler my lungs out.”

  He shook his head, even though he knew she couldn’t see him in the darkness. “Voices get distorted in the woods at night. Echoes come back on you from all directions.”

  “I’m not keeping quiet a moment longer, Blake Weston.” He could hear the exasperation and impatience in her voice, and he smiled.

  “I know that. Take one of those pieces of firewood over there and bang it against a tree, the side of the hut, anything. Just use a pattern, so they know it’s you.”

  “You mean Morse Code? SOS?”

  “Anything.”

  “I know SOS.”

  “You learned it at finishing school?”

  “No. I used to bug the Marine guards at the embassy when I was staying with my parents. I told you I could handle a devil dog. I meant it.”

  He tightened his grip on her wrist. “I’ll hold you to that boast.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Something alerted him to her movement, her nearness, and when he turned his head, her lips brushed his. “I love you, Emma.”

  He thought he had spoken the words aloud, but she didn’t respond, didn’t act as though she’d heard him, and he wondered if he was half-dreaming again. But the kiss was real. He could feel the warmth of her lips on his mouth. Heat like the flare of a match seared through him, and he pulled the sensation deep inside him and held it there. He let the darkness close over him and concentrated with all his might on keeping the tiny flame alive.

  * * *

  EMMA’S ARMS ACHED, and her hands were raw. Each blow of the rough-barked piece of firewood against the tree trunk sent shards of pain racing from wrist to shoulder. She was soaking wet and shivering so hard her teeth chattered uncontrollably. She had given up trying to convey any decipherable distress signal. After losing track of whether she was pounding out three long or three short whacks against the tree trunk. She concentrated on keeping the signal going. Three swings and a deep breath. Three more swings and exhale.

  She longed to stop what she was doing and listen, but she was afraid that the searchers might lose track of their direction if she didn’t keep to her task. And she was scared to death of what might be happening to Blake behind her in the lean-to. He hadn’t made a sound in what seemed like hours.

  She bit her lip until it bled to keep from calling out to ask how he was. He would probably try to crawl out of the shelter to see why she’d stopped her signaling, and she was certain that much exertion would start his wound bleeding again, if not kill him outright.

  He had to be the stubbornest man alive. And, dear Lord, please let him still be alive.

  Minutes ran into each other and time stood still. She shut everything out of her thoughts except the rhythmic pounding of wood against wood. Closing her eyes to the steady rain that had soaked through Maureen’s coat. It’s ruined, Emma found herself thinking. It’s ruined. I’ll have to buy her another. And a scarf to go with it. But not another bittersweet-orange scarf. Bittersweet was too near the color of blood.

  Lights sparkled behind her eyelids. She shook her head to make them go away. But they didn’t. They continued to dance and weave their way closer. She blinked and realized her eyes were open and the lights were real, not phantoms of fatigue and stress. She sucked in a sobbing breath and clutched the piece of wood to her chest.

  “Here,” she shouted, but it came out a mere croak. She licked her lips, moistening her tongue with rainwater, and tried again. “Here! We’re over here. Help!”

  “Keep pounding,” a voice shouted. “We’ll home in on that.”

  “Blake. Did you hear? They’ve found us!”

  There was only silence behind h
er in the lean-to. Fear clutched at her heart, but she didn’t dare crawl under the tarp to see how he was. She began swinging the stick of firewood against the tree trunk once more. If she didn’t, the searchers might move off in the wrong direction, and the consequences could be tragic for Blake.

  And for her if she had to go on without him in her life.

  One. Love. Three. Pause. One. Two. You. Pause. I. Love. You.

  Where had that thought come from? Did it mean what she thought it meant? Was she falling in love with him? She couldn’t be sure, but she did know that if Blake Weston died, she would never be the same again.

  I. Love. You. Pause. I. Love. You. Pause.

  She closed her eyes against the icy raindrops and narrowed her focus to the simple task at hand. Had she really heard him say those words? If her ears hadn’t been playing tricks, did he really mean it? Or was it shock and pain talking, not Blake in his right mind?

  And did she love him?

  Was that why she was so scared she could barely string two coherent thoughts together? Because she had fallen in love with a virtual stranger? Her. Emma Hart. Who was still tangled up in a love-at-first-sight relationship that had gone oh, so wrong.

  I. Love. You. Her arms were numb to the shoulder. She could barely lift the wood to swing it against the tree trunk. I. Love— The piece of firewood halted in mid-arc and she lost her hold on it. She whirled, dropping to her knees to find it. She couldn’t fail Blake. Help was so close. I— Strong arms grasped her by the shoulders and held her upright.

  “It’s okay, Emma. We’re here now.” It was Clint’s voice. That much she recognized, but her eyes couldn’t adjust to the brightness of the high-powered flashlight he held in his hand. She blinked against the sudden glare.

  “Clint? Thank God you came. Are there others?”

  “Alison Fairchild’s with me.” Emma stared dazedly at the short, slight woman who moved into the circle of light. Cooper’s Corner’s postmistress. You’ve met her before, remember?