the man.
How long had it been since she’d felt like that?
She was practically singing as she got to her feet and went to look for him.
It was still very early, not quite five her watch told her, the world still filled with a ghostly white gloom, the rain not retreating in the least. Neither was the wind.
She went from one end of the overhang to the other. It was like searching through thick fog, but he wasn’t there.
A moment later he came in out of the rain, a ghostly image, except she could tell he was dripping wet. He stopped when he spotted her and then through the gloom, she could swear she saw his mouth spread into a big smile.
“Sleep well, Red?”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “You?”
“I had really nice dreams and a woman draped all over me. Yeah, I slept just fine.”
So that’s how she’d slept? Draped all over him?
It must be true, because she’d slept on rock-hard ground before, and the body made its protests known the next day. Hers felt just fine this morning.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
“I’m not complaining,” he reassured her.
“No, just…You got to sleep on the ground. I definitely got the better end of the deal.”
“Well, you can owe me for that, too, Red.”
And then she laughed like she hadn’t in years.
Yeah, she owed him.
And it felt good to owe him, to think of paying back the favors of last night, leisurely, happily, in a nice warm bed.
“So, where is this nice, warm bed of yours, and how are we going to get to it?”
“My bed is about five miles, as the crow flies. So we’re going to have to make do with the hunting cabin I was telling you about. All we have to do is make it through the rain. I’m glad you’ve got your boots on. And your coveralls are waterproof?”
She nodded.
“Good. You’ll be just fine.”
“And you’ll be soaked,” she said, looking at the shirt plastered to him, his dark hair drenched and slicked back, lying against his head.
“I’ve been wet before. I’ll survive, and we’ll get a nice fire going once we get to the cabin and we can dry each other off. Sound like a plan?”
“Yes, it does,” she agreed.
A glorious plan.
They gathered up their things. She had her small pack, and he took her larger one. She got into her coveralls and then stared out into the storm.
At least the lightning had stopped.
Still, what a mess.
“The wind’s not any worse than it was last night,” she said. “Like…the storm’s stalled?”
“Right on top of us, I’d say.”
Which was not good.
A fast-moving hurricane could drop a lot of rain quickly, but at least it was gone fast, carried along by the forward movement of the storm.
But sometimes a hurricane came ashore and then ran into another front coming the other way, and it was like a standoff in the sky. The two storm systems just sat there, dumping torrential rain carried by the leftovers of the hurricane on the same spot.
The flooding could be devastating, particularly in a place as flat and normally dry as Texas.
“If I thought this was going to get any easier, I’d say we wait it out. But I really don’t think this storm is moving, Red. We need to just trudge through it. We’ll stick to the side of the ridge, so we’ll have high ground. And it probably won’t look like a path, but trust me, it’s there and I know it. I grew up on this ranch. Cabin’s maybe a mile and a half from here. Stick close to me, and if you need help, yell. Okay?”
“Okay,” she nodded, trusting him implicitly.
They set off in the cold, soaking rain, so heavy she could barely see him in front of her. He was right about the path. She didn’t see one, but he seemed to know exactly where he was going.
At times, off to the left, she could see what she thought was a raging river, where a peaceful stream had been the day before.
The one she’d watched him wash off in, when she’d had all those wonderful fantasies about him.
He lived up to them and more, she decided, and as soon as they got in out of the rain, she was going to peel those wet clothes off of him, dry him off and then heat him up.
It could rain for a week, for all she cared.
They trudged on through the storm. The ground was wet and had the consistency of watery oatmeal under her feet. Even with her work boots, she was sliding all over the place.
Rain dripped off her cowboy hat, blew in at times and rolled down her face, her neck and inside the opening of her coveralls, no matter how tightly she clutched them to her. It soaked through her sweater, her shirt, even her socks.
Yuck!
The sky lightened only marginally as they walked and, presumably, the sun came up somewhere above all the clouds and the rain.
She didn’t want to think of what might have happened if he hadn’t caught her in the mine. If she’d been inside the mine shaft alone when the storm hit, not knowing for sure what was going on, it would have been a long journey out of there alone. And an even longer night, either huddled alone against the rocks, scared half to death of the lightning or she might have even headed for the Jeep, might not have found it in the gloom, and then what would have happened to her?
Anything.
They trudged on, miserable, cold, wet.
She wondered if the cabin might have a primitive shower or even an old washtub. A bath was highly unlikely, she knew, but a woman could dream, couldn’t she?
A bath and then a nice warm bed with him.
That was a fantasy!
In the end, it took more than three hours. Three thoroughly miserable hours, but they made it. Paige didn’t see how he found his way, because the world seemed like a wet, foggy, miserable mess to her, but he led them right to a small cabin.
“Come on,” he said, opening the door for her.
She wanted nothing more than to get inside, but dug in her pack for her satellite phone instead. It was nearly six, and her brother had to be going crazy.
She huddled under the narrow overhang of the roof, pressed up against the side
