her fear into submission. “We must remain calm. We’re here to help the guests in every way we can. Please, do not endanger yourselves. Be careful. I want to see every one of you back here when this is over. Do you hear me?”
She met their eyes in turn. They nodded. It would be okay. She would make sure they made it home safely to their families. She had to. She gave a curt nod.
“Now go. I’ll see you back here soon.”
The minimal staff she had at three in the morning scattered left and right into the burgeoning crowds. People came toward the clubhouse like a million drowned rats. She’d been the first person Yvonne roused from bed. That was two hours ago. Angela had immediately left her house and sped back to the park. Its location was advertised as “quaint,” “secluded,” “quintessentially English”—now it offered zero escape.
Anger mixed with frustration had coursed through Angela’s veins when she’d leaped from her car and rushed to the office. The water had barely reached her ankles and the concerns about the boating lake had been just that...a concern. Now, this life-threatening situation loomed in front of her like an adversity on an impossible battlefield.
Inhaling a deep breath, she shook off her fears and hurried forward to help an elderly lady who’d slipped in the deluge of bodies rushing to get past her.
“It’s okay, madam. Everything will be all right. Here, take my arm.”
The woman shook so badly Angela brought her other arm around her waist and practically carried her to a free seat. The chatter of people sitting at the tables was relatively calm compared to the chaos a few feet below. People would be safe here.
She caught the eye of a mother cradling her two crying children on her lap on the other side of the table. “Could you keep this lady company for me? There’s so many—”
The woman’s smile wobbled. “Of course. You go.”
Nodding her thanks, Angela ran out of the dining area and down the steps toward the yellow brick road that snaked throughout the park from the reception to every single one of the six hundred trailers.
She waded into the water. It reached just above her knees. Cold, relentless and completely unforgiving. Cars that had been heading out of the park moments before now lay abandoned and gridlocked like wrecks piled up in a junkyard. She frantically looked around, not knowing which way to turn. The crying and screaming of a young girl of six or seven broke through her manic thoughts.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
“It’s all right. It’s all right.” Angela lifted the girl into her arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Everything will be all right.”
She turned and headed back up the stairs. People called out to their loved ones left and right. Children were hauled onto their parents’ backs and shoulders. The whole world looked soaked to the skin in despair. Angela’s leg muscles screamed in protest as she fought her way up the stairs and back into the dining area.
“Oh, thank God.” A woman rushed forward, her face etched in agony. “Melissa? Melissa, it’s Mummy.”
The little girl in Angela’s arms turned and her tiny body shook with relief as she held out her arms to her mother.
Angela’s heart swelled with gratitude as she passed her over. “She was calling for her father, but I don’t know...”
The woman shook her head, the silver tracks of her tears shining in the overhead lights. “He said he was going for help. I haven’t seen him since.” Her voice cracked.
Angela squeezed her hand. “He’ll be back.”
The woman nodded, but the anguish in her eyes was so deep, Angela closed hers against it. What right did she have to promise these people anything? Didn’t she know how your entire life could change beyond recognition in a single twenty-four hours? Robert’s face loomed in her mind. After everything she’d done to survive, there was no way in hell this flood would take her life. Nor would it take anyone else’s. People were stronger than they thought.
She smoothed her hand over the girl’s head as she dropped her cheek into the crook of her mother’s neck. They turned and walked away. Angela drew in a shaky breath and headed back to the steps. Barely a minute had passed and now the water burst over the top step and worse, over the swimming pools to the side of the dining area.
“My God.” The words whispered like a plea from between Angela’s freezing lips.
The power of the water, the noise of it, was deafening. It mixed with people’s terrified screams, their pleas to God and their shouts for missing family and friends. Angela brought her hands to her head in an effort to concentrate, to think of the next thing to do. She turned around three hundred and sixty degrees.
There was no way out. Nowhere else to go than up.
The water rushed like a gathering tsunami, splitting around her and running at such a speed, filthy gray froth crested its waves. She needed to move people onto the clubhouse roof. There was no other option.
With her heart pounding and her ears ringing, she looked to the car roofs, barely visible below, when minutes before people had been sitting inside hoping for escape. Horror ripped through her body at the sight of people swimming toward her, their eyes wide with fear. Furniture, suitcases, clothes and debris passed in an undulating torrent. How many? How many would survive? How much weight could the roof withstand?
Making a snap decision, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Everybody. On the roof. Get your families on the clubhouse roof. Now!”
Sending up a silent prayer, she took a deep breath and dived back into the water. With a strength borne from adrenaline and her fight for survival, she cut through the water and grasped flaying hands. One after another, she brought people to the edge of what she hoped would be safety. Her shins smacked against the stone steps time and again before she turned and swam back out into the murky water.
Another life. Another human being. She brought more and more people to the clubhouse before heading back out again. Her arms were little more than lengths of rubber. Her lungs screamed for mercy. A sob escaped her and as Angela gasped for air, the water rose and took her under.
* * *
THE PARK MANAGER disappeared beneath the water and Chris’s gut leaped into his throat. One minute she was there. The next gone. The attraction—the protectiveness—he had when he first saw her wrenched through his chest. He had to get to her. A woman like her couldn’t die like this. The haunted look in her eyes lingered in his memory.
He felt the connection between them—an affinity, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t find out why. He darted his gaze left and right. Chaos reigned supreme. He ran his hand over the little girl’s forearm nestled beneath his chin in an attempt to comfort her as his mind whirled with what to do next. He’d pulled her from the water but had no idea who she belonged to.
“Everything’s going to be all right, sweetheart.”
With her parents nowhere in sight, Chris’s words dissolved into the panicked air. He should get her to safety, but his gaze drew back to where the manager had vanished once again. She’d resurfaced and was now desperately reaching out to passing pieces of furniture and other debris to use as an anchor.
He
