CHAPTER 8
SOMEHOW, JAKE HAD GOTTEN Aria into his arms. Nearly. Not that it had been his goal, but . . .
Jake tried to still his heartbeat to get a fix on the weather—anything, really, to not focus on the feel of Aria’s body edged up next to his. Warm. Soft. And it stirred up way too many memories of their days in the tent, especially that last night when the blizzard roared. To keep her warm, he’d pulled her into his sleeping bag, fully clothed, and tucked her against him, trying to quell her shivering.
He’d been so worried that she might be going into shock, or worse, starting to suffer from altitude sickness. At least here in Florida he just had to worry about the weather.
The wind had stopped wailing, the thunder of the rain dying. The storm surge still raged, sounding eerily like an engine revving, in cycles. But maybe . . .
“Why did you say that I ran away from you?” Aria asked.
She’d been quiet a long time after he’d called her Houlihan, and he’d listened to his pulse, condemning him for going there, again. The nickname just emerged, something sweet, and well, he thought of her like that. Determined, smart, unafraid, just like Hot Lips Houlihan on M*A*S*H.
Aria didn’t move away, however, and he began to hope that maybe she’d stopped being angry with him. So, quietly, “Well, what I remember is that I was kissing you, and then Jenny walked in, and then you looked at me with an expression I’ll never forget and took off for the bathroom. So, I guess to me, that was running away.”
She made a little noise. “I was just . . . I was embarrassed.”
He tightened his arm around her, not really meaning to, but not knowing what else to say. “Sorry.”
“No, again, that wasn’t your fault. But, Jake . . . why did it matter? Although, I remember Jenny practically ordering you from the room and I felt terrible, so . . .”
“I guess it just reminded me of, well . . . something that happened when I was a kid.”
He wasn’t sure why that slipped out. Maybe the darkness. Or maybe just Aria. Because being around her just seemed to unlatch something inside him.
Still, he winced, painfully aware of Ellie’s words. I let him in too far.
Then Aria put her hand on his arm, the warmth of it sinking into him, and another piece of himself broke free.
“My kid sister ran away from me when she was six years old.”
He hadn’t said those words aloud . . . well, probably ever. But with the telling, it felt as if a hand had unloosed around his lungs. He swallowed, and, “We were at the state fair. You know how big it gets—it’s packed. I was thirteen, and I went into the food barn to get some fish sticks.”
“The food barn. A crazy maze of pizza rolls, walleye on a stick, chocolate-covered bacon, and cheese curds.”
“Yep. Our family went every year. My dad would give each of us kids a twenty-dollar bill and tell us to get anything we wanted. I went into the packed food barn and suddenly, there was Hannah. She’d run in after me. Except, she didn’t want fish sticks—I didn’t know what she wanted. I just knew that I didn’t want her tagging after me, so . . . I yelled at her and told her to go back to our parents, who were waiting outside. I wasn’t angry, but I don’t know . . . I was thirteen. Who knows what I said? I just have this memory of her running away from me.”
Aria hadn’t moved her hand, and somehow the darkness made it all easier. Outside the rain had subsided, a quiet descending throughout the hospital. He lowered his voice. “That was the last time anyone saw her.”
Silence. Just Aria’s breath, in and out, a swallow. “Wait . . . ever?”
“Mmmhmm. We think someone snagged her. Maybe offered to buy her food, I don’t know, but when I came back without her, we started to look for her. Then we called the police and they searched the fair, but there were over a hundred thousand people there that day and . . .”
“Oh, Jake.”
“They didn’t blame me. They should have, but my parents remember her saying she was going with me, and there was so much chaos, when they looked around she was gone.”
Aria had lifted her head sometime during the telling, and now settled it again against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
He leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “Our family just . . . we just didn’t talk about it. My mom was wrecked . . . I could hear her at night weeping—it came right through the walls of my room. I know she was trying to hide it, but it . . . I don’t know, it was haunting. And the worst part is that I couldn’t cry. I don’t know why—maybe I thought if I did, it would mean I’d accepted it, that she was truly lost.”
And wow, that was a little too close to the truth, so, “It was strange, though, too, because in the daytime, we simply kept living as if Hannah was at school, or a neighbor’s house. I think my parents wanted us to have a normal life, but we stopped talking about her and it made it easier, I guess, not to cry. In fact . . .” He blew out a breath, the horror of it shredding his voice low. “I’ve never cried.”
“You’ve never cried?”
“We never had a funeral, so . . .” He opened his eyes and glanced at her. “I just feared going down, into all that pain. I thought if I did, I might never resurface.”
“We all deal with grief different ways.”
“Yeah. The worst part is not knowing. Really, we’re pretty sure that she was kidnapped, maybe murdered.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I don’t know how my parents even looked at me after that. But my dad, he just, well, he pressed into his work. A few years later, they had another child—my sister Ellie. She calls herself the replacement.”
Aria made a noise. And he remembered her words, earlier. “I can’t help but feel I’m a poor substitute for her.”
“She’s not. Ellie is beautiful and smart and amazing, and a spitfire and bold and . . . well, nothing like Hannah. In a way, Ellie saved us.”
“If you didn’t cry, how did you deal with it?” Aria raised her head again.
He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I was sad.”
“You blamed yourself.”
“Who else was I supposed to blame?”
“How about the person who kidnapped her?”
He hadn’t really thought about that before.
“You’re suddenly starting to make sense to me, Jake.”
“Just . . . it’s hard to go through life feeling like a murderer.”
Her words were soft, but he winced. “My family was so impressed when I joined the SEALs. I think I wanted to prove I could . . . be a hero, maybe, instead of the guy who . . . well, scared his sister away. And being a SEAL was the hardest thing I could think to do. Ever.”
“You inflicted your own punishment on yourself.”
He frowned. But yeah, he supposed BUD/S could be called punishment. “Maybe. But it also gave me purpose. And brotherhood. And it made me feel like maybe I could make up for what I did.”
His eyes closed. “As if that was even possible.”
“You need to forgive yourself. You were a kid.”
“I was thirteen. Old enough to know better.”
She set her chin on his shoulder. “And young enough to be forgiven.”
He said nothing. Finally, “One night, about a month after she’d gone missing, I went into her room. It was right next door to mine, and nothing had been touched. I took this little rabbit she had on her bed and I got on my knees and I prayed. And I asked God to find her. And if he had to, to take me instead.”
Now his eyes burned, and probably he should just stop talking, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “But he didn’t, and believe me, I tried, for a long time, to make that exchange for him.”
Her hand touched his face. “Jake. You’re not a replacement for your sister.”
He made a noise of disagreement. “I started to realize that the best I can do is just keep trying to be, I don’t know, the guy who doesn’t make people run away.”
She touched his jaw and turned his face to hers. “I’m sorry I ran away,” she said softly.
Her breath was against his lips, so close he could smell her, nearly taste her. “It was probably a good thing you ran away,” he whispered.
His heart hammered, and he was suddenly very, very aware of the feel of her hand on his face, the fact that she moved it behind his neck.
Then she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.
Her mouth was soft on his, as if comforting. Or maybe just reaching out in this darkness to connect, hold on.
Probably a catharsis for all this unwrapping of his soul, but he leaned in, her touch igniting something inside him he couldn’t douse, and suddenly he had cupped his hand around her neck and pulled her to himself.
He didn’t think about it at all, the rush from gentle to hungry, but all of it—the race to find her, the storm around them, the darkness, the shedding of his soul—conspired to unspool into his kiss, turn it to urgency, hunger.
Need.
Yes, that was the problem. He needed her. She calmed the personal hurricane always swirling inside and made him see parts of himself he didn’t want to look at and somehow made it okay.
In fact, he was well on his way to loving her.
So he deepened his touch, even as the storm rose around them, the rain returning in a wild gust that roared down the hall.
She pressed her hand against his chest, moved away, her breath fast. “Jake—”
“The storm’s back,” he said. “We must have been in the eye.”
“No, I mean, yeah, but . . . um . . . I didn’t, I mean . . . I shouldn’t have—”
The wind shrieked, and the entire building shuddered. Her hand turned to a fist in his shirt even as he pulled her to himself. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”
But the building continued to shake. “Something’s not right. It feels like the entire building is coming down—”
Like her words might be prophecy, a terrible rending of steel and cement tore through the corridor and mixed with the hair-raising wail of gale-force winds.
The door slammed open, water slinging into the room.
Yola screamed, and next to him, Angel sat up.
Jake turned on his phone light, and the swath scraped over the gnarled arms of a tree.
Jake climbed to his feet, grabbing for the dislodged mattress when the world exploded around them.
Water, plaster, and wood barreled in from the hallway and into the room.
Angel screamed, the puppy barked. Aria launched herself over Mimi, protecting her. Yola curled next to them, hands over her head.
Jake picked up a mattress and flung it over all of them, huddling with them under the debris as the hurricane tore their hiding place asunder.
If she knew what was good for her, Aria should probably untangle herself from Jake’s arms.
Again.
But he had such warm arms, and she could finally hear the tharumph of her own heartbeat. A steady beat, in her ears, reminding her that she’d survived.
They’d survived.
She, and Jake, and Yola, and Angel and, Thank you, Jesus, Mimi, still wheezing on her ventilator, the generators for the building still kicking, despite the wind that seemed to have gutted the second floor.
Outside, the rain had slowed, drips from the destruction of the third floor slapping against the debris. A slight wind still worried through the building, but sunlight poked between the clutter.
She could probably attribute the pounding of her heart to the fact that Jake cocooned her in his embrace, his chest to her back, his legs entangled with hers—and everyone else’s. Because she cuddled up with Angel, who held her stomach, and next to her, protecting Angel on the other side, was Yola. Toby the puppy cuddled between them. Mimi lay close enough for Aria to check her breathing.
Over the top of them, Jake had built a small alcove of mattresses, a nest braced by timbers that had fallen into the chapel. By some angelic act of the heavens they hadn’t been crushed in the mini cyclone that tore through the building, but rather, the timbers had piled up against the altar, under which they huddled like sacrifices.
Alive.
The air smelled of brine from the sea, but heat began to settle into the morning, a musty odor rising.
Not Jake. He smelled of the storm—rainwater, a little sweat, and puppy breath, having rescued the fella twice from running out into the torrent. The little guy had turned on Jake and slathered him with kisses.
Yeah, well, she couldn’t blame him—she’d done the same thing.
Apparently, that was her MO. Get into trouble and turn to Jake. Let him rescue her.
Kiss him like she’d lost her mind.
Oh brother.
But maybe she’d wanted to rescue him a little too. “I started to realize that the best I can do is just keep trying to be . . . the guy who doesn’t make people run away.”
She couldn’t help but kiss him after a statement like that. No wonder he called her Hot Lips. Something about Jake Silver simply made her turn off her brain and leap into his arms.
But this had to stop. This was a one-time, safe-port-in-the-stormy-night moment.
Okay, two-time. But now, it was time to untangle herself.
She drew in a breath, aware of his arms around her, the sinewy muscles in his forearms with blond hair that glistened in the morning sun.
He had beautiful arms.
Oh! Stop! She came to Florida to forget Jake Silver. To get him out of her system. To find her balance again.
His breath warmed the back of her neck.
So what if he’d shown up. In the middle of the storm. Brought her necklace.
Rescued a puppy.
And understood more than she wanted to admit how it felt to lose a sister and feel like it was your fault.
He was still a whirlwind, the kind of guy a girl met on vacation . . . and left there.
Besides, she wasn’t falling for him. Not really.
He was just . . . well, someone to hold on to in the storm.
“You awake?” Jake said, his voice low and in her ear, sending a warm trickle of danger through her.
And then some. “Mmmhmm.”
“You injured anywhere?”
Just her common sense, thanks. “I’m okay.”
He held her a moment longer, then eased back, his hand on the mattress. “I’m going to get us out of here.” He gripped the mattress above her and started to move it out of place.
A board shifted and tumbled away.
Yola sat up. “There’s a wall here that looks like it could come down. It’s only being braced by the timbers above us.”
In the sunlight, she made out wooden joists that fell at an angle from the floor above. “We could get crushed if that comes down.”
“I’m going to see if I can get out,” Jake said. He climbed to his knees and moved the mattress. Another board fell.
“It’s going to come down, Jake!” Yola pressed her hands against the mattress.
“Okay, I see it. There’s a big piece of wood balanced on the edge and every time I move the mattress it wants to push it over.” He ducked back down. “And if it goes down, it brings down a good chunk of plaster. I need to get out and move it.”
What, like Hercules? Or Samson? But Aria said nothing as Jake reached up and grabbed a beam above him, tested it, then pulled himself out of the enclave like a world-class gymnast.
She rolled over and checked on Mimi. “You doing okay?”
“Oh, honey, if I had a man like that show up to rescue me, I’d be more than okay.” She moved her oxygen mask to the side. “I heard you two talking last night. That man has a thing for you.”
Aria shook her head. “We had a . . . a fling, sorta, in Alaska. It’s over.”
“It’s not over,” Yola said. Toby poked up his head and slathered her on the chin. “Poor man, losing his sister like that.”
She looked at Yola. “How much did you hear?”
Outside their enclave, grunts accompanied the sound of debris moving.
“All of it,” Angel said, grinning.
Perfect.
“I would have kissed him too,” Mimi said and winked. She replaced her oxygen mask.
“He was a SEAL?” Yola said, wiping her face, then cradling Toby to herself.
“He’s on a global rescue team now,” Aria said.
“He rescued me,” Angel said.
And me, Aria wanted to say, but . . .
Well, that was it, wasn’t it? Somehow, around Jake, she became a clingy girl who had to be rescued. The old, weak Aria stuck in a bed, or, more recently, in a tent, or a pile of debris.
Frankly, it scared her how easily she relied on Jake.
The mattress lifted away, and wouldn’t you know it, there Jake stood, the sun streaming down over him. His short blond hair glistened in the dawn, gold-and-red highlights lifted like he might be Thor, the god of thunder. A swatch of whiskers skimmed his chin, and his shirt stuck to every inch of his body. Standing there, grinning down at them, he appeared every inch the rescuer she knew him to be.
Her heart gave a hard, decisive, betraying thump. Proving that yes, she was very, very much alive.
“We need to find a place to shelter while we wait for help,” Jake said. He reached for Angel, who practically leaped into his arms and let him lift her out of the debris.
Aria didn’t need help, thank you very much. She climbed to her feet while Jake finagled his way through the debris in the room, looking for a safe place to put Angel down. He set her on a gurney in the hallway that had somehow stayed upright.
Once Aria got a good look at the destruction, how they’d survived without being crushed seemed a miracle. Broken glass, plaster, wood, and dirt littered the hallway. Above her, the ceiling rained down at an angle from torn wooden planks, a tree poking branches through the joists and plaster. It might have come through a window and crashed into the inner wall.
“That could fall any minute,” Jake said as he helped Yola out of the rubble. He put her on his back and piggybacked her out of the room. “I’ll be back for you and Mimi.”
He disappeared then, with Yola, out into the hallway.
“He’s going to be back for you,” Mimi said.
Aria looked down at her. Mimi winked.
“Really? We’re in the middle of chaos, stranded here, and you’re . . . winking? What do you think is going to happen here? A walk on a sandy beach? A candlelit dinner? Soft music?”
“I could hum. Yola has a nice voice.”
“We need to get you out of here, Mimi. I don’t know how long that generator has power, and you need oxygen.”
“How long do you think the gennie will last?” Jake asked.
Oh. Jake had returned, minus Yola, and Aria’s face warmed, hoping he hadn’t heard Mimi. “A few hours, maybe? A day?”
He nodded, the look behind his eyes far away, as if he might be formulating a plan. He turned and hunched over.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you out of there. C’mon—climb on my back.”
“No, I’m just fine.”
He straightened and turned around. “Aria. Two weeks ago you seriously sprained your ankle. Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt.”
Her mouth tightened. But yeah, all the running yesterday had stressed it, and it had swollen in the night, sending an ache into her bones.
“Listen, Houlihan, I’m here to lift heavy things. You’re the finesse. You get hurt and we’re all in trouble. So, let me help you, okay?”
Aria gave Mimi a look, then turned back to Jake. “Mimi goes first.” She knelt by Mimi and tightened down the oxygen mask. Met her blue eyes with something of a warning.
Oh brother. She propped Mimi up, and Jake leaned over the mess, running his arm under her shoulders.
Then, as if he might be lifting a child, he swung the woman up into his embrace. “Stay put,” he said to Aria. “The floor is thick with glass and nails.”
Oh, for . . .
Aria felt like a fool as she stood there in the nest of clutter, like some kind of invalid.
She lifted her leg over the debris, setting it on the other side. Her ankle burned, but surely it would hold her. Still, heat gathered in the ankle as she eased her weight onto it.
She just had to move quickly—
Her ankle buckled, and she bit back a scream as she started to collapse.
“Oh, for crying out loud—”
Jake’s arms came around her, pulling her up. “I told you to wait.”
“You’re not the boss of me—”
“Oh goody. Here we go again. What happened to the woman I woke up with? The nice one?”
“Ha. Listen, Thor. I don’t need you to show up and rescue me all the time.”
“Apparently, you do.” He righted her, then turned. “What did you call me?”
“Nothing. What are you doing?”
“Climb on my back.”
She stared at that wide, muscular back. And the way he glanced at her, over his shoulder, almost a little angry.
“It doesn’t hurt you to admit you need help, you know.”
Her lips tightened. “Fine.” Aria leaned over and wrapped her arms around his neck. Oh, see, this was not the way to keep her heart from trouble. Jake had a wide, sturdy back, and his hands grabbed her knees and held her steady as he carted her from the room.
He brought her to the staff lounge, still intact despite the windows that had blown in. Outside, blue skies arched over a frothy shoreline, a still-churning sea. Seagulls called, soaring on the currents above.
He set her on a table. Then he stepped back, turned around, and grinned at her. “Thor, huh? I admit, I like it better than Hawkeye.”
And behind her, lying on a gurney that the superhero must have found, Mimi started to hum.
Ah, Jake recognized this Aria.
The Aria after the storm.
The Aria who didn’t want to admit that she’d needed him. That she’d clung to him when the world was crashing in. The one who, like a wet cat, turned on him when the sun rose.
He sorta liked cats. They were like sisters—independent, smart, savvy, and capable.
But he’d heard Aria’s words as he’d been dismantling their enclave. “We had a . . . a fling, sorta, in Alaska. It’s over.”
No, no, it wasn’t over. Not when she’d ended up in his arms again.
Not when he knew, in the deepest wail of the storm, that he’d found a measure of peace.
She was good for him.
He just had to prove to her that he was good for her too. Even in the light of day.
“I’m going to find us some fresh water and grub,” Jake said as he set down a mattress he’d retrieved from one of the patient rooms. He’d wrapped Aria’s ankle, despite her protests, but her limping had eased. Made him less desperate to simply carry her everywhere.
A little less desperate.
She had pushed aside tables in the staff lounge to make room, and now she eased Angel onto one of the mattresses. Angel winced, her hand on her belly.
“Are you having contractions?” Aria asked.
“I don’t think so,” Angel said but lay back, her jaw tight. Tough girl. Reminded him of his sisters—blonde hair, blue eyes. Quiet, thoughtful.
Against the other wall, on a gurney, Mimi lay with her eyes closed. Feisty, but rail thin in her illness, she held the oxygen mask over her mouth, as if trying to eke more air from it.
“Mimi, you okay?” he asked, the gesture stirring his concern. He walked over to her to check the ventilator. It wasn’t pumping. No wonder she was fighting for breaths. “I think the generators have gone out,” Jake said to Aria.
Aria came over to Mimi to confirm, then nodded. “But they should be working. Most hospitals’ generators last for at least twenty-four hours.”
Jake walked toward the window. Jagged glass edged the sides and shards littered the room, although he’d done his best to sweep it up. Outside, the skies had turned an eerie yet beautiful magenta, the clouds a deep purple, slashes of light yellow where the sun bled through.
Below, the storm surge had flooded the parking lot, the water over the top of most of the remaining cars. Palm trees stuck up like broken toothpicks, their fronds stripped from their trunks and floating in the water. Black shingles from roofs of nearby houses glistened in the rising sunlight, undulating in the waves.
Down the shoreline a house sagged off its foundation, the roof smashed, the waves foaming around it. The house next to it had lost its roof, leaving only the skeletal remains of the rafters.
A massive sailboat lay like a broken albatross in the middle of a nearby beach, propped up next to an SUV with a dented roof that was trapped in a pile of debris.
Aria had come to stand beside him. “Wow.”
“I know. So much destruction.”
“But look at that sunrise. I read somewhere once that the normal rhythm of wavelengths is disrupted after a hurricane, and the residual moisture in the air scatters them and brings into focus the colors we don’t normally see.”
“So, the storm lets us see something that is usually hidden?” He looked at her.
She met his eyes, then looked away. “Or it’s just a rare phenomenon, never to be repeated.”
“Until the next storm.”
“Hopefully there won’t be another storm. How are we going to get on the roof?”
Okay, so they wouldn’t talk about the kiss, or the fact that he’d woken up with her in his arms. “My guess is there is an access on the third level,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Of course she was.
“But first, I need to find an ambu bag.”
“I think I saw one in the room I stole the gurney from.” He headed out the door.
The southwest wing of the hospital had suffered the least destruction. Broken windows, but none of the ceiling had come down, the walls were still intact, and aside from the debris and the grime of the storm, the structure seemed sound. He found the room—just down the hall from the staff room—and retrieved the bag.
The other side of the unit—the northeast corner where he’d oh-so-wisely decided to take cover—had been shredded. Sheetrock hung from the ceiling, a few joists dragged on the floor, and the skinned and broken trunk of a palm tree poked like a finger into the middle of the chaos. Probably the one that landed in their door moments before the ceiling came down. The storm had shoved the tree farther down the hall, but just seeing the wicked power of the aftermath sent a fist into his gut.
God clearly had Jake’s back because his instincts had nearly gotten them killed.
Jake handed the ambu bag to Aria, his hands shaking a little. Probably he just needed some coffee, something to eat. He hadn’t eaten a meal since yesterday—a hamburger as he’d left Miami.
The storm had pushed the fridge from the wall, unplugged it, and when he opened it, the smell of rotting food turned his gut. And without electricity, no water emerged from the faucet.
“We need fresh water too,” Aria said, as if reading his mind. She had hooked up the ambu bag to the oxygen mask and was teaching Yola how to bag her grandmother. Slow, even movements.
Yola’s jaw set tight as she took Aria’s place.
“Let’s go,” Aria said, and he followed her out the door to the stairwell.
She held the door for him, then took the stairs up to the third floor. At the top, a hinged pull-down ladder was affixed to the wall, and he easily reached it and gave it a tug.
It came down, and she reached for it.
“Let me go first. Just in case the roof has caved in.”
“Which means I get to save you?” She stepped back. “Have at it, cowboy.”
Debris blocked the rooftop hatch, but he set his shoulder against it and it finally budged.
Sunlight poured down over him as he climbed out, testing the rafters. Aria poked her head out of the hatch. “So?”
“It seems intact. And aside from a few gnarled pipes, it seems undamaged.” He held out his hand to help her, but she was already out. She stood beside him, taking in the view.
And oh, the view.
“Oh my,” Aria said and slipped her hand into his.
He tightened his around hers.
From this vantage point he could see the whole island, starting with the destroyed bridge out of town, swept away by the sea, waves crashing over the broken edges of pavement.
So, they were trapped. And on an island that looked as if it had been swept by the hand of God.
On every side, water had rushed over the land, the surge easily over twenty feet, swamping houses, businesses, and streets with seawater, still swirling and undulating in the aftermath of the fury. The boats in the nearby harbor, once moored in tidy stables, now piled together in stacks—skiff, sailboat, and fishing boat alike—tangled, their hulls broken, some breached and belly-up.
Farther up the island, more boats lay in curious places—one in a pool, another through a shed, another in the median of the highway. And everywhere twisted metal from the roofs of mobile homes and other houses floated like ribbons, shiny in the sunlight.
Wood, garbage, palm trees, furniture, water toys all collected in debris piles where the wind took them. Houses lay in sticks, some homes simply a smear of rubble on the land.
Other homes had been cleared completely off their foundations, the belongings tossed to the storm.
An odor rose from the debris—rot, mold, dead fish, even gasoline, and despite the salty air, the humidity stewed it together into a rancid cesspool.
Aria pressed her hand to her mouth. “I hope Drey hurries up.”
Jake looked at her. “Who?”
“Drey. He was one of the doctors from the conference. He took the last chopper out but said he’d send one back for me.”
“So, there might be help on the way?”
“I hope so.”
Him too. “Gennies are over there.” He pointed to two giant gray metal boxes side by side. “Watch where you put your feet.”
“Sort of like climbing down a glacier.” She followed him across the roof.
“Yeah, sort of.” He glanced at her. “I thought we weren’t talking about that.”
“If we limited our conversation to only the things that happen when we’re trying not to die, we’re going to run out of things to say.”
Oh, he’d probably never run out of things to say with her. Because it seemed the moment he started spending time with her, he unbuttoned his soul and said all sorts of crazy things.
But she had a point. “Maybe we should try it.” He reached the gennie and put his hand on the metal structure. It hummed. “It seems to be working.”
“Try what?” she said, crouching in front of the door. She unlatched it.
Inside, the motor was humming, the fuel at half-tank.
“Spending time together when we’re not in trouble. The gennie looks like it’s running. It’s just that the switch that routes the power from the generators to the electrical system has sprung back to the neutral position. Maybe there’s a blown transformer somewhere that’s causing a ground-short in the system.”
“It’s a short that keeps turning off the electricity to the rest of the building. We need to force the switch into place.” He reached for his belt.
“What are you doing?”
He swung the belt out of the loops and wrapped the end around the switch handle. “Now to tack it into place.”
“Hook it onto this bar.” She was pointing to a long bar that protected the power unit on the bottom.
He looped the belt through it and pulled the switch over, hitching the belt tight. “This should keep the ventilator and other essentials running. Probably not the lights, though. The emergency generators are usually only set up to run medical equipment.”
“You’re a genius,” she said, and the compliment made him look at her. “A hero, even in the daylight.”
“Enough to be seen in daylight with you?”
She smiled. “What does that look like—us together when we’re not dodging a blizzard, or a hurricane?”
He edged back to the door. “Dinner out? Maybe I take you sailing?”
“On your cat?”
He nodded, held the door open for her.
“The one that capsized?”
Oh, she heard about that, huh? “So maybe not the cat, then. We could, I don’t know, go for a drive?”
“On your motorcycle?” She descended the stairs.
Right.
“Okay, so we eat dinner at home, in front of the television, or go to a movie, or—I don’t know, Aria. Not everything I do is dangerous.”
She had reached the bottom of the ladder. “Really? Because it feels like it. I mean, you’re in the rescue business, Jake. Which means you run toward trouble.”
He followed her down the stairwell. “Listen, I met you while you were climbing a mountain, for Pete’s sake. Don’t tell me you don’t like adventure.”
“I wasn’t doing that for me—”
“Not true.”
She stopped on the landing and turned, frowning.
He met her there, unfazed by the darkness in her eyes.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
And although he heard sirens, he couldn’t stop himself. “Yeah. Because if you were honest with yourself, Aria, you know you have a choice. You like the adrenaline rush of doing something scary. Going beyond yourself—”
“What? No, I—”
“Fact is, Doc, I get you, better than you think I do. You spent the first sixteen years of your life watching your sister do and be all the things you wanted to be. Then you got her heart. And you suddenly got to live that life. But you felt guilty—of course you did. And maybe a little scared. So you said—hey, I’ll go do all those things because of Kia. Because she wanted to. But that’s not true, is it?”
Her eyes widened.
“It’s because you wanted—still want—to prove to yourself that you’re strong. That you’re brave. That you are every inch of the daring, amazing person you always wanted to be.”
Her mouth closed.
“You’re testing your heart, Aria. Not Kia’s.”
Her hand went to her necklace and she shook her head. “No, I’m . . . I’m . . .”
“Not brave?”
“Not adventurous?”
She bit her lip.
“Not—”
“Not Kia.”
He frowned. “I know you’re not Kia.”
Her eyes filled. “But see, Kia was supposed to live this life, and—”
“Kia wanted you to live your life, Aria!”
She turned away.
“Sheesh. You need to forgive yourself just as much as I do.” He ran his hand over her shoulders, pressed his forehead to the back of her head. “Doc, I know why you only let yourself collapse when there’s a storm. Because if you were to need anyone in the light of day, under the blue skies, then you’d be weak little Aria with the broken heart again, wouldn’t you? And that’s why you kissed me and ran—because it wasn’t Kia who kissed me, but you. And you couldn’t live with the fact that you, Aria, get to live. To love. To feel. To be happy.”
Her body trembled and his voice softened. “You get to be happy, Houlihan.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth and turned. “No, Jake. I . . .” She looked at him. “I was perfectly happy before you . . . before you . . .”
“Rescued you?” His mouth quirked.
She nodded, but her eyes had filled. “And that’s why it won’t work, Jake. Because around you, I . . . I turn into a woman I don’t want to be. Weak and needy. I don’t want to be that woman. I can’t go back to her.”
“Aria, you’re not weak—”
But she’d slipped away from him.
The door closed behind her, on the second level. Jake wanted to slam his fist into the wall.
Instead, he listened to the pounding of his heart.
And the pounding in his head.
He could use some coffee. And probably fresh water and maybe some food. Which maybe he could find in the cafeteria.
Then maybe he could figure this thing out between them. Help her see how brave she was. Not needy, but capable and amazing.
The water from the first floor reached his thighs, cold and dark as he descended to the main level. Debris had propped open the door and he squeezed his way through and into the lobby. Following a sign, he headed toward the coffee shop.
The area was dark, the tables floating, the water just below the counter level. Stuffed animals floated by, soggy and grimy. The menu board boasted a fresh Caesar wrap he might have paid a thousand bucks for. Even more for a can of Spam. Funny how some things were damaged in the storm, others survived intact—like the display of wrapped cookies, neatly sitting on the counter. The paper bags of coffee, however, lay soggy and broken.
He nabbed a cookie, then went around to the back and found the refrigerators, silent. He was right—the generators only supplied power to the essential medical machines.
Still, maybe he could find something to eat.
Opening an upper door, he spotted the goodies for the next day’s sale—a tray of bran muffins, some banana bread, a few warm yogurts. On the bottom rack, a supply of bottled waters. He grabbed a couple bottles and stuck them into the pockets of his cargo shorts. Then he pulled out a tray of muffins.
What he wouldn’t do for hot coffee, but the odds that the makers were working seemed slim. Still, he slogged through the water to the supply of coffee and found three commercial makers, two with pots of coffee, probably brewed yesterday.
He set the muffins on the counter.
So, maybe he didn’t have to rescue her. Maybe he could simply show up with breakfast. That didn’t count as a rescue, did it?
More of a fast-food delivery-service guy.
No tip required.
Standing in the water, he reached for the coffeepot. His left hand touched the metal of the machine, testing for heat, and even before it happened, he felt a quiver ripple through him, something not right.
Something dangerous and lethal—
Then the voltage hit him. Two hundred twenty volts jerked through his body, tightening his muscles, zapping his heart, and stealing his breath.
Jake dropped like a rock into the water.