She worked long days on Tuesdays and Thursdays according to the new schedule, and it had been that way for several weeks. So, I assumed she was at home when the storm started rolling in one Friday. It was one of those Texas summer storms where the skies go dark all of a sudden like God snapped his fingers and a wind whips up hot and ferocious as hellfire. Miguel and Kirby and I leapt into action, radioing the other hands and telling them to bring the stock in to the barns. It was going to be a howler, and not much time to prepare. The dogs and cats had already streaked toward the stables as if by mutual consent, and the birds had gone silent.
I swung Mantilla toward the west pond to clear out that pasture. By the time I was halfway back with that part of the herd, shouting and harrying them, the skies had split open with lightning and a rain so fast and fierce it was like being lashed in the face with tiny whips. When I had made the rounds and check with the men, I shoved wet hair out of my eyes with my equally wet sleeve.
“Everybody accounted for?”
“Yeah, and a good thing, too. Radio says flash floods already. The near bridge will go under in no time,” Miguel said.
“What’s the radar look like?” I said, pulling out my phone.
I had a message from Allie. I clicked on the text, which said she’d been called into cover for another tech at the clinic that morning—probably five hours ago. I knew panic flashed across my face because Pablo nudged me.
“You okay?”
“Not till she gets home I’m not,” I said.
“Maybe she already made it back,” he said. “Go check up at the house. We’re gonna stay with the stock.”
I nodded and headed to the big house. I shucked off my drenched clothes in the mudroom and toweled off, looked in the garage for her car. It wasn’t there. I wrapped the towel around my waist and went to look out the front windows in case she’d parked out by the door in the rain.
“Allie?” I called, yelling her name several times.
I could barely hear my own voice for the shattering sound of the downpour beating on the windows and roof. It was as violent a storm as I’d seen in a long time, and this time of year the dust was so thick it would slide in nothing flat. She wasn’t used to living in the country or the way a bad storm could affect the roads and the little bridges out this way.
She always drove her little car, no matter how many times I told her we had six trucks on the ranch, and she could take any of them and have four-wheel drive.
“I like the gas mileage on my car,” she’d say. “Besides,” she’d said, “what do I need fifteen hundred pounds of American steel under me for when I’ve got you?”
She’d been flirting with me like always, just yesterday when I offered her a truck to drive to her shift. I kept promising to take her out and teach her to drive a stick, but Santeria had kept me so busy lately. Now she was out in this storm, probably trying to drive a road that was already flooded.
I tried to call her cell phone. No one answered. I tried again and again. Instead of voicemail, I got a recording that said the cellular customer was not available. Her phone was off. She never turned off her phone except to charge it at night. I knew her well enough to know those habits. I called the vet clinic and asked for her.
“I’m looking for Allie Santiago. This is her husband,” I said.
“Allie left already. Probably, I don’t know, around two when I came in.”
“Thanks,” I said.
It was already after three. In good weather she would’ve been home twenty minutes ago. Accounting for the storm, for her going slow and being cautious, she would arrive any minute. Reason told me to give her half an hour before I started to worry. There could be a simple explanation. She may have stopped for gas, dropped her phone, sheltered in a store or at Megan’s to wait out the storm. A dozen innocent scenarios couldn’t snuff out the fear burning in my body.
It had been storming when my parents died, when my dad took a curve too fast. In an instant, I’d been made an orphan. I couldn’t shake that feeling, that doomed tightness in my throat, the sharp need to scream, to tear out into the rain and search for her.
The midafternoon sky was almost as black as night, and visibility was terrible. I should wait and see. She was an intelligent woman perfectly capable of judging the road conditions and driving herself. There was no reason to pace around the house like a caged animal muttering about hiring a chauffeur to drive her in a huge, safe vehicle with all-wheel drive. I swung from terrified to angry—with myself, with her—back to panic again. I yanked on clothes from the laundry basket and got back in my truck. I’d managed to wait ten minutes. That would have to be long enough. Never mind that there were multiple routes to the ranch, and never mind that at least one bridge would be under water by now. I tried to call again, but there was no cell signal because the storm had closed in hard.
My wipers thrashed against the onslaught of heavy rain. I couldn’t see six feet ahead of me even with my bright lights on. All I could see was dark and rain and the feeble yellow of my lights cutting across the sloppy road just in front of me. I was going too fast, but I had to get to her. I wasn’t going to creep along like I had nowhere particular to be when Allie could be stranded or worse.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I said under my breath.
Images flitted through my mind. Allie holding the gray kitten, riding Moonlight the first time, holding out her wrist for me to fasten her bracelet, making me laugh, naming that stray dog I brought to the vet, cutting back her hours to spend more time with me and helping on the ranch. Dammit, I had to find her.
There was no possibility that she wasn’t okay because I couldn’t live in a world like that. I’d lost my parents, lost my grandfather. There was no way in hell I could afford to lose anyone else. Especially not her. I had been an orphan, but to be a widower, to have to put her in a box in the ground beside my mother and father was too much to bear. My knuckles were white where I gripped the wheel. I leaned forward toward the windshield, squinting as if that could help me see any better in the downpour.
There was nothing to see and no way to see it. I doubted if anything would be visible in that torrent of rain short of a volcano erupting. I wanted to roll down my window and bellow her name out of it like a crazed Marlon Brando screaming, “STELLA!” but I had too much sense to think she could hear me in the wind and rain. It was hard to see even with my wipers on high, and I blinked hard, rubbed at my eyes. They burned, raw and sharp. My hand came away wet, and not from rain.
“Goddammit!” I swore, hitting the wheel with the flat of my hand in frustrated rage.
I took a curve too fast and almost slid off the road. Even in my four-wheel drive, even knowing the roads in all conditions, I had nearly wrecked. What hope could I have for Allie then? Unfamiliar as she was with the drive and the way the roads were in a flash flood. I felt the sick doom knot in my stomach, the kind of icy knowing that slides its fingers down your tight, panicked throat. Only a man who’d lost his whole family under similar conditions could believe the worst now. Only a man who had found a pocket of happiness in a lonely life could imagine that it would be ripped away like this. Anyone else would assume that she was fine, that she’d be home later. That I was making a big deal out of nothing and maybe I had some paperwork I could catch up on. But I had my past whispering death in my ear, and I had some kind of fine-tuned sense of Allie. I felt that she wasn’t okay. That she needed me.
If I was an idiot, if I was dramatic and making a disaster out of a little rain, then I’d be damned if I didn’t give it my best shot. Expertly steering my pickup in the driving rain through mud and gravel, I swerved just in time, slowed and shifted into park. I was out of the truck instantly, headed toward the dark mass on the side of the road, a vehicle rolled nearly onto its side, one headlight still burning at its odd angle, which had made the wreckage visible. I slipped on the mud, caught myself on the side of the truck and barreled through the blinding rain toward the car. It was her. Of course it
was her. She just had to be alive.
The car was partly buried in mud. She must’ve been going fast when she left the road, must’ve skidded and rolled. The car had rocked to a stop against a tree. As I got closer and looked to see if the roof of the car were caved in from impact. It wasn’t—there was only a dent where the car had struck the tree so it must have slowed considerably before the tree stopped it. So the passenger compartment wasn’t crushed. The windshield was shattered but intact. I banged on the hood to see if she was awake, shouted ineffectually. Then I climbed the slick car, got to the passenger door and opened it.
Allie was in there. She had been crying, I could tell from her voice when she said my name, “Raul?” Then she burst into sobs, clawed at her seatbelt. I climbed into the car, unbuckled her. I was shaking so hard it took me three tries to get her loose from the seatbelt.
I started kissing her. I couldn’t stop myself. The terrible fear of losing her had gripped me and shaken me hard. She whimpered against my mouth and opened for me. My tongue swept between her lips, tasting her, assuring me that she was alive, that she was safe and whole. Her arms were around me, holding me close, and she kissed me back. Her body was warm and dry, getting soaked quickly as I dripped rain all over her. I kissed her as if I could devour her and pull her body into me whole. Shaking, I drew back because I knew I needed to get her out of the car. I reached for the keys, turned off the ignition.
I helped her climb out. Once she was clear of the car, I scooped her up. She shivered in the cold rain as I carried her to my truck, tucked her inside. Once I was in the cab of the truck, I wiped my face and took a good look at her. She was banged up, a cut scoring her forehead and one above her lip, a knot where she’d hit her head on the door. I ran my hands over her, checked her collarbone, her arms, her ribs. Nothing was broken. As soon as I knew she was okay, I grabbed her, yanked her toward my chest.
“I could’ve lost you,” I groaned. She nodded; her lips rolled under as she tried to stop crying.
I cradled her face in my palm, my thumb tender on her cheek and the corner of her mouth. My blood roared in my head, my pulse pounding harder than the rain on the roof of the truck. Mine, mine, mine thundered through me with every heartbeat as I gritted my teeth against it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Not your fault. The storm,” I said my voice ragged, unable to manage a full sentence.
I felt like I’d nearly lost my mind. She moved into my arms, seeming small and terrified. I kissed her forehead near the knot and shut my eyes briefly. I swore and dipped my head to take her mouth with mine, a hard, deep kiss to drive away all of the shadows, to remind us both we were alive. With a half sob, she opened to me, her arms around my neck. Part of me was so worked up from fear and fury that I wanted to pound into her, just take her hard until we both blacked out. But there was a well of tenderness and sweetness in the relief of knowing she was all right, that she was there with me. A primal, protective part of me wanted to shield her even from my baser self.
I buckled her into the truck myself and turned the pickup around. I helped her into a jacket I kept in the back seat and blasted the heater as she shivered and sniffed. As soon as I got her home, I bundled her inside in my arms. I set her down on the couch and lit a fire in the hulking stone fireplace. Crisp orange and red flames crackled to life, and she put her hands out as if she could already feel the warmth. Briskly, I pushed the couch, Allie and all, across the hardwood floor until it was near enough to the fire to soothe her. I sat beside her on the couch, rubbed her cold arms with my hands.
“I could’ve lost you,” I said again, gathering her in my arms. “Please,” I said, my lips against her ear.
Allie’s fingers peeled my wet shirt from my skin and dragged it over my head. She pressed against me, kissed my shoulder and chest. I could scent her arousal. Her skin tasted like rain, fresh and cool, and her mouth tasted of fear, of loss. I would never be able to kiss her enough. On the leather couch, with the noisy rain still lashing windows and roof outside, I maneuvered her out of her scrubs. She climbed in my lap, pale and shivering. My hands went to her breasts, her nipples puckered from cold, pale in the warm firelight. I soothed them with the heat of my mouth, capturing first one and then the other. Her body softened, loosened until she was molten under my hands. I shaped her thighs, her hips, her waist, and my hands slid up her bare back as I sucked her nipples. Her breathing came fast and shallow. She reached between us, digging at the button on my jeans, dragging my zipper down. When I was released into her eager hands, I groaned at the sensation of her cool fingers wrapping tight around my hot, rigid length.
I had never been so hard in my life. My cock stood out like a rod of steel, thick and heavy. It was a painful ache from my lower back all the way through my balls, straining. Every inch of my throbbing length was dying to bury inside of her and gush my possession and relief into her hot, willing body. Her thumb stroked the head of my cock, and her eyes met mine. Her beautiful, frightened eyes. I kissed her again, bumping my lips against hers, clinging to them as our tongues mated. My skin was fevered, my need enormous. I wrapped my big hands around her waist and settled her above me. Her knees squeaked on the leather couch as she rose up, straddling me. Allie’s eyes met mine, and she smiled. I smiled back at her, feeling so damn lucky I hadn’t lost her.
My fingers went between her legs, touching and testing, finding her sensitive and wet. I curled two fingers inside her, and she bucked against me, a flutter inside her warning me that she was as edgy as I was. I fingered her a little more because it felt so damn good. Then I took my hand away, kissed her bottom lip, and pushed my cock against her wet sex. I sank into her. She seemed to swallow me, sliding down my length and rocking against my pelvis as she took me to the hilt. I could feel her soft, sensitive folds gripping me tight as she took a long breath, spread her legs even wider to accommodate my size, to take the thickness and the pressure of my cock impaling her.
“Oh! Oh!” she said as she rocked on me, rising up and then pushing down to take me balls deep into her sweet, molten core.
Instead of guiding her by the hips, I wrapped my arms around her back, clutched her against my chest as we rocked together. She was as close to me as another person could be, but still it wasn’t enough. The gentle roll of our rhythm was mesmerizing. I wanted to bury myself inside her forever this way. I kissed her neck, felt her tighten around me. I bucked under her, going deeper until I brushed that spot inside her that made her seize up and go rigid as her inner muscles pumped me and she gave in to a scream. It wasn’t even the muscle contractions around my swollen cock that did it—it was the sweetness of Allie crying out my name at the height of orgasm that shot my climax through me. I surged into her, spurting with a shout, fingers soft in her hair as she covered my mouth with hers. I kissed her, sloppy and passionate, until I could slow the onslaught of my greedy lips. She gasped and panted on top of me.
Allie collapsed on my chest, trembling. I stroked her hair, kissed the side of her head. I felt her sobbing, felt the heat of her tears on my skin.
“Darling,” I whispered.
“I need you,” she said.
“I have you,” I told her, and cradled her close in my arms.
When she was still in my arms and relaxed, she slid off my lap and sat beside me. I pulled a cashmere blanket off the back of the couch and covered her with it. She leaned her head on my shoulder and started talking.
“I thought I could make it home. But in the flash flooding, I couldn’t control my car. I hydroplaned and went off the road. When my tire went into that little ditch, my car rolled into the tree,” she broke off in a sob. “I couldn’t reach you. My phone—was dead. I couldn’t have reached it anyway. I was afraid to move. Until you came and got me out, I was so stunned. I didn’t know if I should climb out and walk in the storm, or if I was in shock and that would be stupid—all I could think was I might make things worse if I didn’t wait there.”
“You did the r
ight thing. I came for you, Allie. I always will. When I realized you were gone— I saw the text message right after we started talking about the storm coming in. I freaked the hell out. I went home, ran through the house calling for you. I called the clinic, and they said you were gone. It had already been over an hour since you’d left there. I was not rational at that point. I don’t know if I told you this, but the night my parents died there was a storm, and my dad was driving too fast anyway but in those wet conditions they didn’t stand a chance. One sharp curve and I was an orphan. If you’d been going faster when you left the road—”
“Don’t say it,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should’ve stayed at the clinic.”
“No. This isn’t your fault. I should’ve had you in a safer vehicle, and I should’ve checked my messages and known that you’d need me. I could’ve driven to the clinic to get you or found you sooner. When I think of you sitting in that wreck and you couldn’t call me—” I crushed her in my arms, tipped her head back and kissed her, “I go crazy.”
“Please,” she whispered, her palms on my bare back, “Please, Raul. I need you.”
My body stirred at her words. It was too soon for any man no matter how virile, but the connection between us, that chemistry was undeniable. Not even biology could resist it. My cock hardened as I kissed her soft, pliant lips and stroked her tongue with mine. Desire flared low in my belly as I bore her down onto the couch before the fire. She pushed my jeans down, and I settled between her soft thighs. Poised above her, my mouth found her nipples again, sucking softly as she mewed and stroked my hair encouragingly. Then her hands trailed down my back until she squeezed my ass, trying to pull me to her as she canted her hips up to receive me.
“You do want it, don’t you?” I asked, wonder in my husky voice.
“I want you.”
The intensity of her gaze compelled me as I rocked deep into her. She was so ready, drenched and moaning for it. On the second stroke, her body clenched as she came hard around me, a sob escaping her. I withdrew to thrust again, but her fingers scrabbled at my shoulders to keep me from pulling away even for an instant.
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