Allie saw the hard, glassy look in Dallas’s eyes and realized her words might not matter. How many times over the years had she been told it wasn’t her fault that her father had died? When had she ever believed it?
“Besides, you said yourself, she was fine,” Allie said.
“I know.” Dallas ran a hand through his thick blond hair, and it jutted out in all directions. Allie wanted to ease his worry, but wasn’t sure how. “But I lived with her for nearly three years. I was there when she had her first day of preschool. And, then... Well, I know she’s not my responsibility anymore, but...”
“You still care about her,” Allie finished. Allie wondered just how deeply his feelings for them still ran.
The streetlights beside them were out, and the houses along the ridge were dark. Another power outage, added to the many. Dallas studied the road intently, the bright beams of the truck lighting the way.
“I nearly adopted her. If we had gotten married, I would’ve been her stepfather. Her own dad hadn’t been involved at all.”
“What happened with you and Jennifer?” Allie had to know. He said he hadn’t cheated, but she couldn’t make the puzzle pieces fit.
Dallas let out a long sigh. “Jennifer is pretty damaged,” he admitted. “I guess I’m a sucker for damsels in distress.”
Allie barked out a laugh as she thought about just how much of a damsel she’d been lately. “No kidding.”
Dallas sent her a rueful smile. “Jennifer’s damage is all on the inside. Her father left when she was little. She got pregnant with Kayla right out of high school. She was one of these girls who wanted attention from everyone—it didn’t matter who. She’d go with any guy in front of her. I thought I could change her, could get her to understand that all she needed was me, but it took me a long time to realize you can’t fix someone else, no matter how much you love them.”
Allie agreed this was true. It was one of the reasons why she knew it wouldn’t work with Jason.
“We were together two years before I caught her cheating the first time, with one of her rich real estate clients. Against my better judgment, I took her back. For Kayla’s sake. We were a family, and I felt I owed it to her to work it out. We went to counseling. We really tried. But then I found out she hadn’t quit stepping out on me. In fact, she’d made it her regular hobby. The last time, I found her in our bed with the reality TV producer she still works with.”
“Oh, Dallas.” Allie felt instant empathy, putting herself back in the afternoon she’d opened that package meant for Jason.
Dallas’s eyes narrowed as he watched the road. “I wish pride was the only thing she took from me.”
“What do you mean?”
Dallas swallowed. “She...” Dallas paused, holding back. Allie could tell this was something he didn’t want to share, that this was the hardest part of the betrayal.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s... Well, it doesn’t matter. After that, I couldn’t stay anymore, and I had to say goodbye to Kayla. I asked Jennifer if I could still adopt her, but Jennifer was livid, angry at me for walking out.”
“How could she expect you to stay?” Allie couldn’t believe the woman’s gall.
Dallas’s shoulders sank in weary indifference. “She gives everyone in her life an excellent reason to leave, and yet she’s always surprised when they do.”
“It’s terribly sad, but you can’t blame yourself,” Allie said, realizing how empty the words might sound to him, knowing how they’d sounded when her friends told her the same thing. When someone cheated, there was always an undercurrent of “Why didn’t you make him happy enough to stay?” No one said it out loud, but Allie felt it dozens of times, in the questions people asked. Did he ever tell you he was unhappy? Did you know he was pulling away?
“I know the feeling. I do. But those were choices Jennifer made, and what happened now—if something happened to Kayla that we don’t know yet—you can’t take responsibility for it.” Allie felt more certain of this than she had of anything in the past year. She only hoped Dallas believed it.
She reached over and put her hand over his on the gearshift of his truck. He glanced down at their hands. When he looked back to the road, he hit his brakes. Water completely covered the road up ahead. Allie craned her neck, peering into the darkness. A poolside lounge chair floated by them, and she realized debris littered the water: splinters of wood, pieces of glass and a random single flip-flop crowded together. Watching the neon purple flip-flop bobbing in the water, her stomach shrank. She wondered what had happened to the person wearing it.
“Are all the roads like this?” she asked.
“I hope not.” Dallas put the truck in Reverse and then whipped it around, backtracking to a small residential road that he took south. “I’m going to try to get us closer.” All the homes were dark and quiet as they glided past. These houses, just beyond the reach of the tidal wave, had been spared. Dallas slowed the truck as they reached the main road. He stopped, and they both stared out the windshield in complete shock. Here, some of the water had receded, but even in the narrow beam of the headlights, they could see the path of destruction. An entire gas station and convenience store had been completely wiped out; random piles of brick, smashed wooden planks and pieces of road signs littered the ground. Water lapped at some of the debris, and, inexplicably, a huge round sea turtle lay half-stranded between an overturned dumpster and someone’s old spare tire, a large flipper smacking against the muck.
“I don’t believe it,” Allie breathed, the complete destruction impossible to process. Just that morning, she’d driven down this road, alive with stores and people. Now not even the small palm trees remained; they’d been completely uprooted by the force of the tidal waves, as had any small building in their path. Distantly, she saw that the tall concrete resorts still stood, dark outlines against the night sky. She wondered how flooded they were, and whether tourists were stranded in the top floors, looking down at the ocean below. Nearby, Allie heard a loud snapping sound. A spark lit up the street about fifty yards down. A broken streetlight hung half in the water, and the power line above it, severed, still sparked with live electricity.
Dallas looked at the mess, trying to get his bearings. “Rainbow Daycare is just a little north of here. Should be about a block that way.” Dallas pointed. He studied the sparking light pole and then got out and turned his back to it, walking round to the bed of the truck and removing his two-seater kayak.
“You’re going out in that?” Allie looked at the sparking streetlight, thinking that might not be the worst of the danger.
“I have to. I have to see if the building is still there. If there are any survivors. If Kai is there.”
“I’m going with you,” Allie said, lifting her chin stubbornly once more.
“Fine,” he replied, resigned. “I’ll paddle. You take this.” He gave her a handheld spotlight. She flicked it on to test it and then climbed into the front of the kayak. Dallas eased it into the floodwaters, through the debris. Allie shone the spotlight on to the water, amazed at the sheer bottleneck of wood splinters, as if a giant had come and squashed everything and then used a huge hose to wash it away.
On the edges of the road, she saw parts of buildings, some still half-standing. A three-story condo had half of it washed away; the other half still stood, with a gaping hole down the side.
“Water did this,” Allie said, almost in disbelief. Allie shone the flashlight to the right and saw what looked like an arm out of the water. “Dallas! There.” Dallas pulled the oars through the water, pushing the boat in that direction. But, when they got there, the body, a man wearing bright blue Bermuda shorts, was floating facedown. He still wore a plastic wristband, a luau ticket from the night before. Dallas got close enough to take a pulse.
“Long gone,” he said.
Allie didn’t know him, but finding this man, a tourist by the look of the sunburn on his neck, chilled her. She felt a heavy sadne
ss as they moved away from the body, a stranger they didn’t know, but still. He had a family somewhere. People who cared about him. Maybe even a daughter or a son. Worry built up in her chest for Kai. Now, suddenly, the tragic reality of the situation sank in: people were dead.
And then she thought of her father, drowned, just like that man floating facedown in the floodwaters. She should’ve felt a rush of gratitude about surviving. But instead, all she felt was how unfair the world was. Why am I the one who always survives? Why am I the one who gets to crawl out of the car window?
“Are you okay?” Dallas asked her, and she realized she’d zoned out.
“Seeing that man...it just...brings back bad memories,” she said. The car crash seemed so suddenly real and vivid.
Dallas let it drop, and Allie felt relief. They moved slowly past the sparking signal light, away from the live wire snapping high above their heads.
“Hello?” Allie called into the quiet night. “Kai! Anyone out there?”
She waited, but no response came, just the snapping of the electric line and the sound of water lapping at the boat.
“Kai! Can you hear me? Kai!”
Allie saw a shadow moving to her right, and moved the light there, hoping to find a survivor. Instead, her beam landed on a dark, menacing triangle poking out of the water, gleaming and unmistakable: a shark.
“Dallas,” Allie whispered urgently, her beam of light on the moving target, the dorsal fin at least twenty inches high. The massive shark moved quietly, deadly through the debris. Allie sucked in a breath and held it.
Dallas stuck his paddle in the water behind them like a rudder, and the kayak shifted away from the dark shadow, moving soundlessly away from them.
“Tiger shark,” he whispered back. “Scavenging.” He frowned as they watched the huge fin turn and move away from them, back out in the direction of the ocean.
Allie let out the breath she’d been holding. “How did it get here? The water... It’s not that deep.”
“A shark that size only needs about four feet, maybe five.” Dallas resumed his paddling down the flooded street. “It came in with the wave, and it stayed for a late-night snack.”
Allie shuddered as she grasped the floodlight in her hands tightly. She slowly swept the water in front of them, fearing each new shadow that appeared might be a new dorsal fin. Now that she knew what was in the water below them, the murky waves seemed even more menacing.
“Whatever you do, don’t fall in,” Dallas warned from behind her.
“I don’t plan on it.” She eyed the water that swept past the bow of the kayak before turning her attention once again to the dry shore. “Kai!” Allie called out over the floating minefield of debris in front of them. “Anyone! Can anyone hear me?”
Allie’s stomach sank as they moved through the water, with no sign of human life. Buildings lay completely destroyed in oversize heaps of broken matchsticks rising up from the flood.
“There. The sign.” Dallas pulled the paddle out of the water and pointed with it. Allie shone the light in that direction, and miraculously, the tall metal sign for Rainbow Daycare stood, mostly intact, its huge steel pole securely in the waves. Beyond that, the building lay half-standing, its front door and half of the first floor washed away, gaping and skeletal, the water flowing inside. The second floor still had its windows and roof attached, and sat above the water.
Allie aimed the flashlight at the door and windows, fearing what she’d find.
“Kai!” Allie shouted as her light brought up no sign of anyone, dead or otherwise. The child-care center lay dark and empty, water sitting in most of the first floor.
Dallas rowed the kayak straight up to the day-care center, carefully avoiding the fence top, just bobbing up in the water. Dallas’s oar hit something hard, and as they rowed past, Allie realized it had been the top of a large slide, the upper part of the ladder just visible below the surface of the water. Allie shone her light down and saw the rest of the playground there: a jungle gym and swing set, all bolted down to the ground, the chained swings floating in the waves upside down, the seats floating along the surface of the water.
Dallas kept rowing, and when he got to the building, he pulled up alongside a broken-out window. He grabbed the empty sill with his oar, pushing the boat to the building. He peered in.
“The second floor is dry,” he said. “I’m going to go look for Kai.”
“Dallas—wait! It’s not safe.” She looked at the day-care center and thought of all the ways it could be dangerous: leaky gas lines, weak floors or collapsing roofs.
“I’ll be quick,” he said as he climbed out of the kayak and into the window. He gave her the oar, and she held it, keeping the boat in place near the window. “Stay here,” he warned, and flipped a small LED flashlight out of his back pocket.
“Dallas...”
“Stay with the kayak. Make sure it doesn’t float away.”
She gripped the oar more tightly. “Okay.” Allie’s voice sounded small as she followed Dallas with the beam of light, watching as he disappeared into the darkened building.
* * *
DALLAS CAREFULLY MADE his way through the Rainbow Daycare center, his heart in his throat as he dreaded what he would find inside. The small playrooms upstairs had been touched by the water: chairs and tables were overturned, soaked crayons leaked color onto the wet carpets. No children here, or their caregivers, either.
The water had blown through and then receded, though it still covered much of the first floor. He made it to the main stairwell, and shone his flashlight into the salt water that covered most of the first flight of stairs.
“Kai!” he shouted down, and then waited, but heard only the sound of water gurgling across the handrails. There was no way to explore that first floor, and even if he could, he thought, anyone down there would be dead. There was just too much water.
Dallas thought about Kayla, the sweet girl who’d always begged him for shoulder rides with her dimpled smile, and felt a dull pain through the center of his chest. He missed her. She’s with her mother, where she belongs, he told himself, but somehow it didn’t make him feel any better. He turned the corner and saw a single white stuffed animal floating in the stairwell, and had a moment of panic, thinking it was Kayla’s bear, Mr. Cuddles. But soon he realized his mistake. The bobbing stuffed white kitten with a bright pink collar belonged to someone else. Dallas turned back to the second floor, opening the closed janitor’s closets and bathroom doors, knowing in his bones the building was empty, the search futile, but unable to stop until he’d checked every room.
“Kai! You in here?” he shouted, his voice suddenly loud in the enclosed space, bouncing off the tiled walls. No one answered him. Maybe he got out. God, he hoped so.
He heard a muffled call from outside. Allie. He’d left her outside with sharks and who knew what.
“Allie!” He rushed back to the window, panting, blood pumping and ready for a fight.
Allie, safe and in one piece, focused on the water beyond them, her eyebrow furrowed.
“Listen,” she urged him. Dallas did as he was told. First, he heard nothing, and then came a distant plink.
Could be nearly anything. A chair leg hitting an exposed pipe, maybe. A chain caught in the water, banging against a car bumper. The sound was far away and hard to place.
“I think we should check it out,” Allie said.
Dallas figured why not—he’d checked the day-care center already and found nothing. He climbed back into the boat, and they went paddling farther down the debris field. It seemed as if they’d gone a long way before they heard another plink. This one, a little louder.
“Hello?” Allie’s voice echoed a bit in the dark night.
No one answered.
Dallas kept paddling until they heard another plink. They were getting closer. Finally, after a good ten minutes of rowing, the plinks came louder and more often.
“Hello?” Allie called. “Is that someone?”
>
The plinks came furiously, this time in response to Allie’s voice.
Allie and Dallas exchanged a glance, both thinking the same thing: that nothing about the metal-on-metal sound was accidental.
After a little more distance, Dallas paused in rowing as the kayak glided through wooden debris. “Hello?” he called this time. The metal plinks came once more, louder.
“There!” Allie directed the light at a car, floating tires up. A man, his back to them, clung to the front fender.
Dallas sped up the paddling. They turned the corner and saw Kai, clinging desperately to the car, a bleeding cut across his forehead.
“Kai!” Allie shouted, putting down the light and leaning forward. “Kai! Are you all right?”
Kai turned, opening a bleary eye. “I’ve been better,” he half croaked, his voice raw and hoarse. “I think my leg’s broken.”
Dallas glanced down and saw his friend was right: his leg seemed oddly disjointed, and he floated in a pink cloud of blood.
“We have to get you out of there.”
“Don’t worry about me. Is Po all right?”
“Po?”
Kai pointed to the top of the floating car. There, a little boy lay. He looked no older than three or four. He sat up, holding a small metal pipe, which he’d been clanking against the car’s muffler.
“Hey, are you all right?” Allie asked the little boy, who nodded, his almond-shaped eyes wide and serious.
“That’s my buddy,” Kai said. “You did it, pal. Good job with the pipe.” Kai grinned, but he looked pale. Dallas glanced around, looking for something that might act as a floating stretcher. A commercial refrigerator, like the kind filled with soda at the convenience store, bobbed nearby. He saw a few plastic bottles of soda and some broken shelves lined the bottom along with a little water. The tsunami had ripped off the original glass door at the hinges. Amazed at the force of the wave yet again, he grabbed the refrigerator by the closest edge, pulling it toward them.
Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) Page 15
