by Ranae Rose
Maybe coming back to Willow Heights had been a bad idea. After less than an hour inside town limits, she felt like a teenager again.
“I’ll dry off in my car.” Finally, she opened the door. “Bye, Donovan.”
She almost choked on the farewell, but she had to get away, fast. Feeling eighteen again had her heart racing, her head pounding. A lot of time had passed since then and she’d relished that fact, taken comfort in it. This – these feelings – were unbearable. Feeling as if she were moving deep underwater, the air forced out of her lungs by pressure on all sides, she slid into the driver’s seat.
As soon as she settled her hands on the wheel, she remembered something important: she was trapped. With Donovan’s truck blocking her in, the only way to get back onto the road would be to drive over his lawn. Rain was falling so thick and hard that water was collecting on the ground’s surface – her tires would carve trenches in the soft earth, in the grass he’d obviously taken pains to keep perfect. Her grandmother’s grass.
As rain poured down even harder, she was a prisoner to loyalty, to a horror inspired by the idea of desecrating any part of her grandmother’s estate, even the lawn. Agonizing moments ticked by, each filled with the roar of a thousand pelting raindrops against her windshield.
The sound of a closing door reverberated through the noise, and her gaze was drawn to the rearview mirror. Through a screen of rain and dark glass, she could just barely make out Donovan in the cab of his truck, slowly backing out of her way.
When the driveway was clear, she backed out, leaving him behind.
He’d been right – she didn’t give a shit about the leaves. All she cared about was getting to her new residence and retreating to the sanctuary provided by four walls. Four walls of her own. For the next three months, anyway.
The weather was uncooperative. The rain worsened so much that she could barely see a few yards in front of her car. Thunder rumbled overhead, a roar even louder than the rain. If lightning followed, it was too far away to be seen through the dense clouds overhead. Rain fell so thickly she felt as if she was underwater, driving on the ocean floor.
Forced to move along at a crawl, she persevered. Willow Heights was small – her destination was only a few miles away. A little more time on the rural road circling town and she’d be there, ready to claim her place on the outskirts.
Or maybe not. She clung to the wheel for dear life when she hydroplaned, her tires – shit, how overdue was she for a new set? – sailing across the pavement like she was in a boat instead of a car. With a groan, she clenched her jaw, setting her teeth against the impact that would be sure to come if she veered off either side of the tree-lined road.
When it finally happened, it came from below her vehicle instead of from one side. Bouncing in her seat, she squeezed her eyes shut as she pumped the break, her overworked calf quivering with desperation. When she finally came to a stop, it rattled every bone in her body.
Pouring rain drummed against the roof and windshield, drowning out the sound of her breathing. She could feel her heart pounding in every pulse point her body possessed. Swallowing, she unbuckled herself and stepped out of the car, grateful that the airbags hadn’t deployed.
Water immediately filled her shoes, and she nearly lost her balance.
“Damn it.” Gripping the open door for support and shielding her eyes against the rain with a hand, she surveyed the recently-purchased three year old coupe, which she was still making payments on. The right front wheel had careened into the overflowing ditch that lined the road – she hadn’t even realized it was there, the water was so high.
Just a few yards ahead, the road was completely flooded, muddy water roaring up from a stream that was supposed to run under the road and exit through a pipe that stuck out the other side.
Getting back into her car, she turned the key in the ignition and gave backing out of the ditch her best attempt.
It didn’t work. If anything, she could actually feel the car sinking lower, the spinning wheel entrenching itself in the ditch’s muddy interior. Breathing a curse, she stopped, grabbed her purse and fished out her phone.
Minutes ticked by as she stared at the screen, reality setting in. She had no one to call. This wasn’t New York City – Willow Heights’ only cab company had maybe three vehicles in its fleet, and it wasn’t like she could expect any of them to come out in the flash flood that had wrecked her car.
As for friends … seven years had a way of making them disappear. And family was a definite no now that her cousin had moved out of the area.
Stuffing her phone back into her purse along with her keys, she stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind herself. She’d just have to make it back to town on foot.
What the hell did it matter, anyway? She was already soaked, already had liquid squishing inside her shoes. What difference could more rain make? Her car was stuck – that was the real problem. Teeth chattering, she walked as quickly as she could in the direction she’d come, kicking up a constant spray of dirty water as she went.
Swearing helped a little. Completely alone and surrounded by the noise of pounding rain and rumbling thunder, she cussed up a storm that would’ve put a sailor to shame. It gave her a channel for her anger and kept her lips from going numb as cold water ran over them, getting in her mouth.
Spitting out rainwater as she went, she made it all of a quarter of a mile before light cut through the premature twilight cast by storm clouds, harsh and yellow.
Headlights. Her heart leapt, torn between hope and alarm. Should she try to flag the vehicle down, to stop the driver before they reached the flooded section? Maybe he or she would give her a ride back into town – she was desperate enough to ask. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be run over if the driver didn’t see her. Remembering how low visibility had been when she’d been driving, she stepped off the road, slogging through flooded underbrush at the edge of the woods.
The vehicle crept along at a snail’s pace, gradually coming into view. She walked as far from the side of the road as possible until she could make out more than just headlights. Then she froze.
It was a truck – a big black pick-up. She didn’t have to see the driver to know it was Donovan’s. Crossing her arms over her midsection and trying to retain some trace of body heat, she stood still as the truck stopped in the middle of the road.
CHAPTER 2
“Clementine,” Donovan called, opening his door and settling his boots on rain-slicked pavement. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she called, hurrying toward his truck, embarrassingly grateful to have a perfectly rational reason to rush toward him.
He walked around the truck, re-soaking his still-damp t-shirt as he opened the passenger door for her. “I was afraid you might be stuck in a ditch somewhere.” He arched one dark brow as she settled into the cab. “You get stuck in a ditch somewhere?”
“Yes.” Her cheeks heated a little, fighting the chill. “I hydroplaned into a ditch. Couldn’t get my car out.”
He shut the door and climbed into the driver’s side.
“You can’t go this way,” she said as he drove forward, moving at a faster pace than he’d maintained while searching for her. “The road’s flooded just ahead, at the stream.” His house was in the opposite direction anyway. Or did he plan to drive her to her new place?
He ignored her.
“The road—”
“Your car. I’m gonna see how stuck it really is.”
A minute later, they stopped a few yards from where the stream had swollen up over the road. Donovan abandoned the cab to inspect her vehicle, wading through water so high it threatened to swallow the tops of his boots.
“It’s stuck all right. I’ll have a truck tow it to my garage.”
“The house doesn’t have a garage.”
He shook his head as he turned the truck around. “My garage in town. You want me to turn the heat on?”
“Yes.” Maybe then her nip
ples would stop poking through the front of her sopping sweater like thorns.
Or maybe not. Donovan still looked as obscenely hot as before in his pointless shirt, and enclosed in the cab, she could smell him, soap and a hint of sweat mixed with rainwater.
“Are you going to tell me about the garage you apparently have in town?”
“You know the one – it used to be Gerrity’s Auto. Now it’s mine.”
“You own your own repair garage?” Her gaze drifted automatically to his hands, tanned brown and roped with sinew. How many times had she watched him fix a car, or some neighborhood kid’s dirt bike? She’d spent countless hours camped out beneath a maple tree, a can of Dr. Pepper in hand as she hid in the shade, watching him work. The memories came back to her, made real by the phantom smells of motor oil and soda, the memory of grease stains on his skin.
He’d always been good with vehicles – had always been good with his hands.
“I do general repairs. Body work. And I’ve got a guy who paints now.”
“All that in six months?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
Well, that solved the mystery of how he was existing in Willow Heights, if not the why.
“At least I know the mechanic won’t try to rip me off with bullshit charges just because I’m a woman.” Her joke came out flat.
Donovan looked away from the road, his dark brows plunging. “There won’t be any charges.”
“You don’t have to—”
“No charges.”
So much for coming back to Willow Heights as an independent woman ready to take on the real world, ready to take care of herself. Burying an eyetooth in her inner lip, she studied Donovan’s profile in her peripheral vision.
“You’ve needed new tires for a while.” His deep voice cracked the silence. “Yours are worn down to practically nothing – that’s why you hydroplaned.”
“The fact that we’re in the middle of a flood might’ve had something to do with it.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to argue with him, but she did, even though he was right about the tires. Maybe because not arguing would’ve been tantamount to accepting the reality of her situation, to admitting to herself that he was not only alive, but back in the flesh, less than three feet from her.
What then? She couldn’t begin to think, could hardly begin to process the unlikelihood of it all. She would’ve bet on being hit by a falling star or attacked by a shark on dry land before she would’ve bet on running into Donovan at her grandmother’s old place.
“Just don’t let it happen again. There’s no reason for that kind of neglect. You’re lucky you didn’t hit a tree head on, or drown in that floodwater.”
She laughed. “Drown?”
“Ruby lips above the waaater…” He shocked her into silence by bursting into song. “Blowing bubbles, soft and fine… But alas, I was—”
“Oh, God! That song.” She wheezed, doing her best to pass off the shock he’d given her as a fit of hilarity. “Don’t. Don’t torture me.”
Torture was the right word for it, and not because she’d gotten used to being called CeCe instead of Clementine, a name she shared with her long-departed great-grandmother. He might as well have plunged a knife into her solar plexus and twisted. The sick thing was, she sort of liked the stab of nostalgia, the ache for yesteryear she so rarely let herself feel anymore. And he wasn’t a bad singer, either. She’d always liked the sound of his voice. It deepened when he sang, and seemed made for sad melodies.
“You want me to change the words so it doesn’t embarrass you?” He kept a straight face as he stared ahead at the road, but sang just as loudly as before. “Oh my darling, Clem… Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“Stop it, Donovan. You know I hate that song.”
She didn’t. She loved it. At least when he sang it, anyway.
“Dreadful soooo-rry, Clementine.” He sang his apology.
She forced another laugh as they rolled up in front of the house, turning into the driveway.
They walked inside together, bodies beaten by the driven rain. Inside, she dripped on the kitchen tile, her chest tightening as she looked around.
Some of the furniture was gone, as were all the pictures, but otherwise, it was just like she remembered it. Even the smell was the same, a part of the house. “Thanks for letting me wait out the rain here,” she said when a not-so-small puddle had formed at her feet.
It felt weird to say, even to Donovan. Her heart didn’t recognize deeds or closing papers any more than the house itself did. It was her grandmother’s place – always would be – no matter who owned it. Everything surrounding her was familiar, from the old hand-carved crown molding to the wide arch that separated the kitchen from the hallway. The cherry wood cabinets were ones her grandmother had chosen during a kitchen remodel a decade ago, and the oven was the same one she’d used. The kitchen fixtures sent dual pangs of nostalgia and guilt sailing through Clementine.
Donovan wasn’t the only person she’d missed after leaving Willow Heights, or the only person she’d shortchanged.
“Plenty of extra rooms.” Donovan pulled off his boots and walked past her, all traces of song and humor gone from his voice. “No reason why you can’t stay in one.”
She stiffened inside her wet clothing, her thoughts drifting automatically to the second room on the right upstairs, the one with the grey and cream fleur-de-lis wallpaper. “Surely I won’t need to stay that late. I’ll just wait out the rain.”
Donovan paused at the foot of the stairs, turning. “Like you said, it’s flooding.” He cocked his head toward the nearest window. “But yeah, you’re welcome to wait it out. However long that takes.”
Judging by the tone of his voice, he had a very different idea of how much time she’d need to spend there than she did. It was hard to argue convincingly when she no longer had a drivable car. But it didn’t matter, at the moment. She could ask him for a ride across town when the weather cleared, probably in a few hours.
He retreated up the staircase, leaving her to continue dripping on the floor. When he returned maybe two minutes later, he was dressed in dry jeans and a t-shirt.
Unfortunately.
“Here.” He tossed her a towel.
She caught it and clung to it, wrapping it around her shoulders. It was half-soaked within seconds.
“You should take off those wet clothes,” Donovan said.
Something flashed in his eyes, and it wasn’t clear whether he was teasing or giving her another safety lecture, like he had with the tires.
“I would if I had something else to put on.” No way was she going to lounge around in Donovan’s presence in nothing but a towel, even if the idea did have her entire body tingling. Especially because the idea had her entire body tingling. God knew that after the afternoon she’d had so far, she needed to hold on to whatever vestiges of dignity she had left. “I should’ve gotten my suitcase out of the trunk of my car.”
She couldn’t have pulled it behind herself, not through the floodwater. She could have retrieved it when Donovan had driven her back to her vehicle, but she’d been too distracted then to think of it.
“I’ll go get it.” He was halfway to the door before she could protest. “You stay here. Take a shower or something. Just get out of those clothes.”
“Be careful,” she said after hesitating. The roads were bad, but he had that big four wheel drive truck, and she longed for a dry pair of jeans, a fresh sweater.
Silent, he held out a hand.
“What? Oh.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her key ring.
Her fingertips brushed his palm as she surrendered her keys. Like a flash of lightning, heat swept through her, sudden and striking. She would’ve sworn the hair on the back of her neck stood up, warning her that something life-altering was imminent.
The feeling was gone as soon as she dropped her hand to her side, and he was out the door, leaving her alone with his lingering scent: soap and a
hint of sweat, a contradiction.
She inhaled, savoring the smell and thrill of touching him for the first time in seven years. Then she moved on.
Climbing the stairs didn’t erase the lingering high skin-to-skin contact with him had provided, but it filled her with something else – curiosity.
Were the rooms upstairs as unchanged as the rest of the house? She was almost afraid to look, just in case they weren’t. But she had to know.
She skipped the first two doors and went immediately to the second one on the right, closing chilled fingers around a glass doorknob that was probably old enough to be considered antique.
She held her breath as the door swung inward. When it was open, she toed the line between the hallway’s wooden flooring and the room’s silver-grey carpet.
Nothing had changed. At least, nothing significant. The wallpaper she loved was still there, as was the four-poster bed. The dresser was gone – maybe her mother had moved it to her house. The thought sent a splinter of bitterness through her chest, but a sense of wonder suppressed it as she entered the room.
The house was a time capsule – an enormous brick portal to the past, complete with gingerbread trim. For the first time that day, feeling like she’d gone back in time wasn’t such a bad thing. The room had always been a happy place, an escape – the only safe harbor in a storm, sometimes. She’d spent many a night there as a teenager, after her mother had married her step-father.
And it was still being enjoyed, apparently. Some sort of large pack rested between the bed and one wall, olive drab and utilitarian, clearly military. A cell phone charger had also been plugged into the outlet beside it. Had Donovan taken over her old room?
The thought made her heart race for reasons she didn’t completely understand.
She left the room, not wanting to soak the carpet. There was a bathroom across the hall, and she retreated to it, drawing a bath in the old-fashioned claw-footed tub she’d always loved. It had been forever since she’d taken a bath – her apartment in New York had only had a narrow shower stall, and she’d shared the place with two other women. Showers had been nothing more than quick scrub-downs before work, and she’d usually styled her hair at the kitchenette table, twisting her brunette locks up into a chignon or brushing them straight in front of a hand-held mirror.
