Holly’s heart sank; the bottom dropped out of her world with the realisation of what Ramona’s call must mean. Wade wouldn’t be coming back on Sunday because he was already on his way to Perth. To see Ramona, no doubt, but also to be there to see Jessica — without Holly!
Then she began to rationalise, although the curtain of white-hot, growing anger made it difficult. How could he? Too easily; he need only drive to the airport, leave his vehicle there or somewhere handy, and be gone. Or else drive to Karratha and pick up a plane there.
Leaving me to babysit his stupid house while he plays the concerned employer, Holly thought savagely. And with Ramona Mason to fill in the time between visits. She had been well-and-truly led down the garden path. Holly thought, as the implications became more and more obvious in her mind.
Suddenly furious, she snatched up the telephone again and dialled the airport, demanding a seat on the first flight to Perth. It was seven calls later, having exhausted every single alternative, that she was forced to accept that the only seat available was the one already booked for her on Monday morning.
She could go stand-by, but every authority assured her that the list was so long she’d be wiser to await her scheduled flight.
A bus? The thought resulted in several more telephone calls and the information — already known — that shift changes on one of the large Northwest Shelf oil drilling crews had cornered every possible form of transportation, bar hitch-hiking.
She was angry enough to try that, but not silly enough. No, she’d wait for Monday morning, but when she saw Wade Bannister again she’d have a few new words to teach him, and they weren’t nice words at all.
She thought about those words throughout the day and evening, while her mood swings ranged from blackest depression to near hysteria. How could he do such a thing? And how could she still love a man she now hated and despised? It was senseless.
By noon the next day she was so confused, so bitterly angry and bored and frustrated that hitch-hiking began to look viable after all. She’d cleaned the house, weeded the garden, done all the laundry and read half the books in the house. Or at least, pretended to read them while half her mind was busy composing confrontation scenes with Wade.
She hadn’t bothered with the radio or television, and as she was chewing her way through a tasteless lunch, realised she’d been totally out of touch with world affairs since the weekend. She reached across to flip on the radio, then almost recoiled as the first word she heard was his name!
‘... Wade is now six hundred kilometres northwest of Port Hedland and moving in a south-easterly direction at approximately sixty kilometres an hour,’ the announcer’s voice said. ‘A cyclone watch will continue for coastal communities between Broome and Exmouth ...’
Holly didn’t wait to hear the rest. She rushed quickly to peer with astonishment at the clear, sunny skies outside, while his name reverberated inside her skull.
It was some sort of ghastly joke! Surely, it must be; the weather outside was identical to what had occurred every day since her arrival. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun a growing fireball, and there was no more than the usual light breeze to stir the foliage in the garden.
And ... Cyclone Wade? How ironically fitting, she thought, then shivered despite the warmth. Ironic, but hardly fitting. Suddenly Holly felt terribly, vulnerably alone. How could she cope if the cyclone did come to Port Hedland? She had no real experience, only what she’d read and heard. It couldn’t possibly be enough.
But likely it wouldn’t matter. Cyclones were reputedly erratic, and this one still had a long way to go before it would threaten Port Hedland or anywhere else in Australia. According to everything she’d learned, it could turn away in any direction and at any moment, and the odds against a direct hit were comforting.
Holly told herself that over and over again as she worked her way through the routine of preparing for that remote possibility. It would have been much easier not to worry, she thought, if it weren’t for the name they’d chosen, and it was little consolation to remember Wade himself saying that cyclone names were drawn out of a hat each year and assigned to the various regions without preference. Coincidence, Holly decided, was unnerving regardless of how it occurred.
The worst part of it all was simply the waiting. In her imagination, she had always thought of cyclones as whirlwinds of disaster, dervishes that struck like lightning, struck without warning. There was some consolation in having found that yes, such cyclones did exist — Tracy had smashed Darwin virtually without warning in 1971 — but the majority gave warning after warning after warning as they developed slowly from their births as tropical low-pressure systems.
Apart from the routine precautions, all of which had been done long before Holly’s arrival, most of what was left to do could be left until the cyclone — her cyclone, she thought — had matured to the point where cyclone warnings were begun.
What would Wade think, she pondered, if he returned early to find that she’d already prepared herself for a cyclone that hadn’t even justified warnings? Probably he’d understand, and equally probably he’d laugh.
And he’d think she was just a typical flighty female, shying at shadows and over-reacting. Certainly not the type to be living here in this beautiful, rugged region where cyclones were something to be expected, endured and recovered from.
Then she remembered that he wouldn’t be returning early; he’d be comfortably curled up with Ramona Mason somewhere in Perth, probably laughing at Holly’s predicament as he watched the television weather forecasts.
Well, too bad, she thought, carefully packing up the remainder of his book collection in plastic bags and checking for the hundredth time that every cyclone shutter was secure. If Wade chose to think of her as a panic merchant, even to laugh at her, it would have to be borne. Jessica would be doing this, and Holly knew she must uphold the family standard despite her own thoughts of abandoning everything of Wade’s to the elements. It would serve him right, too, but of course she couldn’t do it.
Nor did she have any chance to vent her emotions against him in person, because of course he hadn’t returned when the first proper cyclone warning emerged from the radio in funereal tones that struck like a death knell at Holly’s imagination.
By this time she was more than ready. The tiny bathroom-cum-cyclone shelter was loaded down with emergency gear: candles, first-aid supplies, food, large plastic water containers, everything suggested in the town’s natural disaster counter-plan.
And yet, the sky outside remained blue and the descending sun was as tropically brilliant as ever. Except that now on the horizon there was a tiny slurry of grey smudging the edges of the sky. Or was it her imagination?
No. Although the winds were still light, they were stronger than the usual evening breeze, and even as she watched, the grey smudge drew nearer, thicker, blacker. Yet there was no hint of rain, or of the cyclonic winds that could gust to two hundred kilometres an hour, destroying everything they touched.
And the warnings continued. Now the tracking facilities indicated the cyclone might strike within twenty-four hours, anywhere between Broome and Dampier with the most likely landfall somewhere to the north in the sparsely inhabited region between Port Hedland and Broome.
Unless it turned. Unless it changed direction. Unless ...
Holly ate dinner late, for once taking a thoroughly interested view as the television weather people detailed the movements of her cyclone. She cleared up the dishes slowly, filling in the immensity of waiting time until the last glass was spotless, the final piece of cutlery gleaming.
Then she took herself out to sit under the roof of the patio, where she sprawled in a lounge chair and watched as the stars slowly disappeared beneath a blanket of cloud that was visible only at the leading edge. Her smudge had grown, was continuing to grow. And Wade was ... where?
Cyclone Wade, she knew, was somewhere to the northwest and spinning in a great, clockwise spiral, perhaps a thousand m
etres high, perhaps twelve thousand. But her Wade — or more properly Ramona’s Wade, she thought bitterly — where was he? Could he really intend to let her go through the terror of this cyclone alone? In her heart, she couldn’t believe that, but what else was there to think?
The first drop of rain splattered down at exactly 1:14 a.m. the next day. Holly saw it, noted the time, and watched as it was joined by another drop, then another and another, watched as the drops seemed to merge, uniting to make larger drops, growing to build a wash of water that quickly grew heavier and heavier. There were no more stars now, only the sodden blackness above that eventually diminished to a more sodden greyness as the dawn struggled to throw light through the curtain of the rain many hours later. Holly saw that too, and gained little comfort from the warning that the cyclone was still moving south and eastward, but slowly.
Saturday was the longest day in her life. Only half awake, but too tense to sleep, she prowled the house like a zombie, the radio blaring constantly and the transistor radio always within reach in case of the power failure she feared.
Outside, the rain was a shimmering curtain, a drab and yet somehow magical curtain that filled everything with its presence. The very air was saturated; it was like moving through a steam bath. And the parched, arid red soil had long since lost all ability to absorb the moisture. Runnels of dark red water scoured through the garden, built to rivulets in the gutters and spread into bloody sheets across the roads.
But only the rain was constant. Cyclone Wade was displaying all the unpredictability of his breed, first veering to the north, then swinging south again. Every cyclone warning was different, and the cyclone was at least twelve hours away.
There was some small consolation in seeing two men across the street, soaked and fumbling as they struggled with their cyclone shutters in the drenching downpour. At least, Holly thought, she’d been spared that by her earlier planning.
It wasn’t until early afternoon that she first noticed the winds. Mild at first, merely tendrils that flung the grey raindrops from their perpendicular descent. But by evening they were no longer light, having matured to shrieking demons that hammered at the windows and flung themselves against the house with increasing violence.
There was a tangible tension now in the voice of the radio announcer reading the cyclone warnings. But his tension was nothing compared to Holly’s own. She was so over-tired, so keyed up with worry that she spooked at every noise, shied at every change in the pressure of the winds.
And the winds continued into the night, growing as Cyclone Wade, according to the radio, smashed across the coast a good hundred kilometres north of Port Hedland, then turned immediately and spun back out to sea as if to gather strength for another assault.
And where next time? Holly couldn’t make herself believe anything but the worst, although she mentally cursed herself for being such a pessimist.
She was never sure when it was that she noticed the shift in wind direction, but a mighty crashing from the patio was her first frightening warning. The lounge chair!
Screaming, first in alarm and then in chastisement at her own stupidity, Holly dashed to the back door and flung back the restraining bolts. She hardly noticed the force with which the door slammed inward, driven by the winds, nor the force of the storm-blown rain that instantly drenched both herself and the entire floor behind her.
All she could think of was getting the lounge chair off the patio and away from the dangerous forces of the wind. Stooping, she dashed out into the storm with all the speed she could muster, fighting the wind for every step, gasping with the strain and almost drowning as the rain was blown back into her panting mouth.
In the eerie patio lights, the storm took on new and ominous dimensions, grew far more fearful than when viewed from the dry, comparative safety of the house. Moving at all was like trying to run under water; finding the twisted remains of the patio lounger was easy, but moving it was nearly impossible. Even with the plastic covers torn and flapping, it presented a viable target for the predatory wind, and the first time she tried to pick up the jumble of aluminium and plastic, she gained only a slashing blow across the cheek when the storm slapped the torn cover into her face.
But she had to get it. She had to! Oblivious now to her own danger, to the utter foolishness of her efforts, she snatched at the tangled mess again, this time dragging it slowly along, moving step by sodden step towards the open door and safety.
The wind slapped at her, punching, buffeting, throwing her balance awry, whipping her hair into a sodden, blinding cloud. Once it flung her against the wall so hard she grazed her knuckles; a moment later it flung a broken branch against her leg, sending her sprawling into the wreckage of the lounger.
And it howled! Lord, how it howled. Even dulled by the soaking rain, it screamed into her ears like a migrant banshee, deafening her in a cacophony of sound. It even seemed, for one small instant, to call her name, wailing it out like a voice from the grave.
Ho-o-o-o-o-olly! The sound meant nothing. In her exhaustion, she couldn’t be bothered to think about it; she could only continue her struggle with the malignant wreckage of the patio lounger, which she now moved by crawling along the wall on her hands and knees, one elbow thrust through a bend in the aluminium frame of the thing as she dragged it along.
Something struck her arm, lightly. Another branch? She didn’t even bother to look, knowing the blinding wind and rain would make it impossible to see anything anyway.
But then something grabbed her, something that clamped solidly to her free arm, lifting her, pulling her upright against the force of the storm. The patio lounger was struck from her grip to smash against the wall and tumble limply as her other arm was grasped. She looked up then, into eyes like green fire, eyes that seemed to draw out the remains of her strength.
The last thing she saw was those eyes, as her world dissolved into a fuzziness that rushed through her, tumbling her into a soft blackness without sound, without sight.
CHAPTER NINE
Consciousness came slowly, tentatively. It seemed to take hours, during which Holly was dimly aware of a soft, gentle, yet somehow accusing voice that fairly chanted at her. Timed, it seemed, to the luxurious touch of hands that massaged her body, scrubbing at her with something soft, dry.
And in the chant were occasional words that struggled for recognition, some of them tender and loving, others distinctly derogatory. It was like the voice of somebody gentling a fractious colt in terms unmelodic yet soothing.
Very fractious, she thought at one point; there were a great many damns and hells. But there were other words, too, soothing, gentle words. Or was it merely the tone?
Then she felt something soft against her hair, stroking, drying, smoothing the tangle of dark auburn created by the storm.
Storm! Memory seared back, lifting her with a small squeak of amazement as her eyes flew open to find that she couldn’t see. Then Wade removed the towel from around her head and pierced her with an angry-loving-exasperated stare.
‘You’ll be the death of me yet,’ he growled without preamble. ‘What in the name of heaven were you trying to do — kill yourself?’
‘I ... I ...’ She got no further.
‘I’ve seen some dumb things in my life,’ he snapped, ‘but you are the ... the absolute ...’
This time it was she who interrupted, having suddenly realised she was lying half in his arms. And naked! Holly squealed again, this time in a combination of rage and outrage.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She writhed free, trying vainly to cover herself and dismayed to find she hardly had the strength to move at all. When she moved quickly, everything swam before her eyes, but Wade’s voice was clear enough.
‘I’m drying you off, what do you think I’m doing?’ There was a sort of anger still in his voice, but also something else, a quiet, half-hidden chuckle of amusement. ‘It’d be pretty difficult to get you dry and leave your modesty wrapped in the wettest clothes I
’ve ever seen,’ he chuckled. ‘Apart from my own, that is.’
Holly didn’t reply. She was too busy still trying to wriggle free of his grasp, all too aware of his touch as he returned to the task of drying her off.
‘Damn it — be still.’ Neither anger nor chuckle there now, merely the demand of a man used to being obeyed. She stopped struggling, lay quietly as the towel whipped round her head once more.
‘That’s much better,’ said a soft voice through the enveloping folds of towelling. ‘Just a bit more, then you can go see about brushing this into something civilised while I go clean up.’
It was becoming just too confusing. ‘Where ... what ...’ she stammered, only to have her voice stilled by demands that arrived in a tone that brooked no argument.
‘Not now. First you get dry, then you get dressed while I can exercise the little self-control I have left. Damned, silly woman. I swear I’d paddle you until you couldn’t sit down for a week, except that in your present condition I fear I’d be tempted to find a more ... enjoyable form of punishment.’
His fingers gripped her throat threateningly, then traced a lingering path from throat to breast. She didn’t need to see where they’d go next; her entire body was already tingling as the ribbons of ecstasy moved. She felt his lips touch briefly at one nipple, then the other, touching so lightly it was less a caress than a prelude to a caress, a promise that swelled her nipples in a greedy demand for more. The flame inside her quickened, flowed into a consuming inferno that brought her every erotic sense awake,
‘Wade,’ she whispered, wanting him to stop, then not to stop, never to stop.
‘My God, but you’re beautiful.’ The folds of the towel muffled his voice, but there was nothing to muffle the ecstasy of his touch as it deliberately aroused her. His lips were moth wings across her breasts, her thighs, following his fingers in an assault so gentle, so perfect, she couldn’t have resisted even if she’d wanted to.
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