Marooned with the Maverick

by Christine Rimmer

  “Don’t,” he commanded gruffly.

  She just couldn’t let it go. “But I know you need to get up to your place.”

  “My place is fine.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  “Willa. We’re going to your house and we’re going tomorrow.”

  “I’m only saying that you don’t have to—”

  He put up a hand. “I know I don’t have to. And you don’t have to worry. It’s pretty much impossible to take advantage of me. If I say I’ll do a thing, it’s because I want to do it.” And when it came to the woman beside him, well, what he wanted was to do whatever she needed. He added, just to make himself sound tough and uncompromising, “I don’t do anything because I think I have to. Life is too damn short for that.”

  Chapter Six

  It all went as Collin had predicted, which only made Willa more aware of how completely she had once underestimated him. He understood so much, really. About people. About the way things worked.

  The nine teams searched for four hours the next day, covering the rest of the valley and the flooded area south of the creek in town. They found a couple of stranded pets and more cattle that had to be pulled from muddy ponds, but no people in need of rescue.

  Willa’s team was out at the far western reaches of the valley. They finished up the search of their section by a little past noon and returned to town, where everyone had gathered at the church for the midday meal. Willa sat with Paige and the rest of their team.

  Collin sat at another table, his team around him. He glanced up and saw her and gave her a nod that she took to mean he still intended to take her to her house.

  Her heart kind of stuttered in her chest and then recommenced beating a little too fast. Partly because trading meaningful glances with Collin excited her more than it should. And partly because it was happening at last: she would see her house again. She sent a little prayer to heaven that it wouldn’t be too bad.

  While they ate, Nathan Crawford got up and gave a speech. He thanked everyone for the great job they were doing. He praised Rust Creek Garage for having plenty of gas to share with the searchers and the foresight to own a generator so that the pumps were still working. He said that state and county workers were on the job around-the-clock, trying to get services back online and roads and bridges repaired.

  He advised, “If you have family members who were out of town for the holiday and you’re wondering why they haven’t returned—please don’t be overly concerned. The governor has declared a state of emergency and asked that people try and stay off the roads, many of which are badly damaged. Bridges are out all over the western half of the state. It’s just going to take a while to get all our services back up and running and for people to get back home.”

  Nathan also reminded them that the next phase was cleanup. “I hope many of you will pitch in with the community effort, that you’ll donate your time if you can spare some. But we’re suspending our teams for the rest of the day and all day Sunday so that everyone can handle personal business. Those who live south of the creek will have a chance to visit their homes.” The floodwaters had sufficiently receded, he added, and gas and water mains to the damaged areas had been shut off for the time being. The town council realized that people had to be allowed back in to begin to assess the condition of their property. “Please use the Sawmill Street Bridge only. Follow the newly posted signs for the safest route to your property.”

  Next, he got to the hazards, which were many. “Please, please, be extra careful about entering buildings. Proceed with caution. If you see a downed wire or pole, keep clear and remember to report it.” He reminded them all to wear boots and gloves and watch out for dangerous animals displaced by the flood. “Also, take note. Any buildings roped off with yellow tape have already been determined to be unsafe for entry. We’ve done our best to personally warn all of you whose houses are in that condition, but the priority until now has been rescuing the stranded. There are assuredly buildings that should have been roped off but haven’t yet. Please. Don’t approach any houses that are taped off. Search-and-Rescue Team One reports that our elementary school is badly damaged and possibly structurally unsound. So, also, we ask that you stay away from the school and the school grounds.”

  Willa’s heart sank at that news. Beside her, Paige made a low sound of distress. Were they going to lose the school?

  That would hit hard. If they had to rebuild, how long would it take? They only had two months until the start of the next school year.

  Nathan ended by saying that dinner would be served at six and thanking the charitable organizations that had come through with donations of food and supplies. Then Pastor Alderson got up and invited them all to a brief Sunday service after breakfast the next morning, a service that would include a final farewell to Mayor McGee.

  A funeral. Willa sighed. Lately, life was just packed with sad and difficult events. But then again, it was important to give people a chance to pay their respects and to grieve.

  She glanced toward Collin again. But he’d already left his table. She thought of last night, of sitting out on the front steps of the town hall with him. That had been so nice. Just the two of them and Buster, alone under the sliver of moon.

  She almost wished she could go back there now, just run away from reality and all the everyday grimness of surviving the worst flood in the history of Rust Creek Falls. Run away and sit out under the moon with Collin, forever.

  Even if they were just friends.

  “You ready, Willa?” His voice, behind her. A little thrill pulsed through her.

  Beside her, Paige frowned. “Ready for what?”

  She pushed back her folding chair and gathered up the remains of her meal to carry to the trash and recycle stations. “Collin’s taking me to see my house.”

  Paige looked at Collin. He gazed coolly back at her. “How are you, Collin?”

  “Just fine, Paige. You?”

  “Wonderful,” Paige said in a tone that could have meant anything. She turned her gaze to Willa. “Shall I come with you?”

  Willa shook her head.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. But thank you. I’ll be fine.”

  “You be careful.”

  “I will. Don’t worry.”

  * * *

  They got into Collin’s truck and he paused before he started the engine. “Where’s Buster?”

  “Thelma’s keeping an eye on him.”

  “Good. Safer for him if stays at Thelma’s until this is done.”

  She nodded her agreement and he pulled the truck out into the flow of traffic, most of which was going where they were going. Her neighbors were as eager as she was to see firsthand how their homes had fared.

  They followed the signs across the Sawmill Street Bridge, down Falls Street and then west on Commercial. They had to move at a crawl, even though road crews had already been hard at work. Fallen trees, utility poles and flooded vehicles had been cleared from the roadway. But the streets themselves were badly damaged, the pavement erupted and broken apart in places, pools of standing water and puddles of mud everywhere, some as big as ponds. The buildings that lined the street had not fared well. Some were partially collapsed and roped off with yellow tape. Yards were still cluttered with household items and who knew what all.

  Fires had taken out a whole row of houses on South Pine. A few of them were burned all the way to the ground.

  At Main, they passed the elementary school. It was still standing, at least, though sections of the roof had fallen in. There was no way to tell from the street how bad the damage might be.

  For Willa personally, the moment of truth came much too soon. They turned onto South Broomtail and pulled to a stop at what was left of the curb in front of her one-story bungalow.

  She had to
stifle a gasp of dismay at what she saw. Like all the other yards on the street, hers was a mess, strewn with a bunch of mud-caked stuff she couldn’t even identify. The roof on one side of her front porch sagged alarmingly. The porch itself was empty. Her white wicker chairs and cute little spray-painted metal folding tables topped with potted geraniums were nowhere to be seen. And the cosmos and columbines, the boxwood hedge and the rows of mums and Shasta daisies she’d so lovingly planted along her front walk? If they were still there, she couldn’t recognize them under the layer of mud and trash.

  Collin reached over and took her hand. She wove her fingers good and tight with his. It helped—his warm, strong grip, the calloused flesh of his palm pressed to hers. The contact centered her down, reminded her again that she could get through this, that she wasn’t alone.

  He said, “You can wait for the insurance people, let them tell you what can be saved. I can turn this truck around and get us the hell outta here. You don’t have to try and go in there.”

  She gripped his hand tighter. “What was that you said last night? About not wasting any part of your life doing what you think you have to do?”

  “So don’t. We’ll go.” He tried to pull his hand from hers.

  She held on. “I mean, I want to go in. I...need to go in, Collin.”

  “Look at that porch roof. It could be dangerous. Someone on one of the county crews should have roped it off.”

  “I’m going in.”

  “Willa, it’s not safe.”

  She hitched up her chin and stared straight in his eyes. “I have to. I do. I don’t agree with what you said last night. Some things, well, a person does just have to do.”

  * * *

  Collin tried to think of a way to talk her out of it. But she had that look—so solemn and determined. When Willa got that look, there was no changing her mind.

  Maybe he could bargain with her a little. “Just let me go in first, okay? Let me make sure that it’s safe.”

  She still had his hand in a death grip. “Great idea. You can get killed instead of me.”

  “Willa. I’m not going to get killed—and if you think that it’s too dangerous, well, why are we even talking about going in?”

  “It was a figure of speech, that’s all. I’m sure it’s all right. We can go in together. But you’re not leading the way. I won’t have it. Do you understand?”

  In spite of the very real danger in the situation, he wanted to smile. “You know you sound like an angry schoolmarm, don’t you?”

  “Well, I am an angry schoolmarm. And you’d better not cross me right now, Collin Traub.”

  He put on his most solemn expression. “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dare.”

  She let go of his hand and he wished that she hadn’t. “Here.” She passed him his heavy black rubber gloves. He put them on and she put on hers. They were both still wearing their waterproof search-and-rescue boots. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.”

  They got out and picked their way through the piles of broken, muddy junk in the yard. The smell was pretty bad—like spoiled food and smelly socks and other things he decided not to concentrate too hard on.

  “Look,” she said, and pointed. “One of my wicker porch chairs. Right there—and look over there. Isn’t that a slow cooker?”

  He only shrugged. The things she pointed to were unrecognizable to him.

  The mud-caked porch creaked in an ominous way when they went up the steps. But it held. One front window was busted out, the other crisscrossed with cracks.

  She reached for the door—and then she dropped her hand and laughed. “The key...”

  For a moment, he knew relief. She’d forgotten the key. Good. But then she reached into her pocket and came out with it. She stuck it in the lock and gave it a turn.

  The door swung inward.

  It wasn’t anything he hadn’t expected. Mud everywhere and water wicking halfway up the walls. The same rotting, moldy smell as in the yard.

  They went through the small entry hall and into the living room, where he doubted that any of the furniture could be saved. The large picture window on the side wall had cracked from corner to corner. The fireplace was full of mud.

  “My grandmother’s clock,” Willa said in a tone of hope and wonder. It was on the mantel, a brass carriage clock, untouched. She went over to it, and gathered it into her arms. “It’s an antique. A mercury pendulum clock.” She glanced up and met his eyes. Hers were suspiciously misty. “Hey. It’s something....”

  They moved on, first to the kitchen and then down the short hallway to the bedrooms and the single bath. It was bad, all of it, every room full of mud. There wasn’t much worth saving.

  But there were some pictures on the walls that were good as new, and some stuff in the kitchen, dishes and such in the higher-up cabinets. And the things on the counter, too: a red toaster, cutting boards, some glass figurines on the windowsill. He suggested that they try and see if they could scare up some boxes to put the stuff in.

  Willa shook her head. “And put the boxes where?”

  He wanted to offer his house, but he hadn’t made it up the mountain yet, and he knew she’d only argue that she couldn’t impose on him. He thought of Paige. He didn’t like what had gone down with Paige and his brother Sutter, but he knew Paige was a good woman at heart and a true friend to Willa. She would store Willa’s stuff for her in a heartbeat. But then Willa would only give him some other excuse as to why that wouldn’t work. “We’ll haul them out to your parents’ place. How’s that?”

  She clutched the brass clock like a lifeline and said primly, “That would take the rest of the day. And they are just things, after all.”

  “They’re your things. And you need to get them out of here.” He asked gently, “And what else are we gonna do with the rest of the day?”

  “Other people might need our help and we should—”

  He didn’t let her get rolling. “Need our help doing what? Saving their things? We’re doing this. Deal with it.”

  Her lower lip was trembling and her eyes were more than misty now. “I can’t... I don’t...” He felt a tightness in his chest at seeing her cry. She sniffed and turned her head away. “Oh, this is ridiculous. I have so much to be grateful for. There is no point in my crying over this. My crying will not change a thing....” A tight little sob escaped her.

  “Come on. Come here.” He reached out his rubber-gloved hands and pulled her close. “It’s all right.”

  “No. No, it’s not. I loved this house. I loved my little red Subaru.”

  “I know,” he soothed. “I understand.”

  “I...I keep telling myself how it doesn’t matter, that what matters is I’m alive and in one piece and so is most everyone else in town. But then I think of my...my treasures. My fairy-tale books, my favorite velvet pillow...I want them back, Collin. I want my things back.”

  “Shh, now. I know you do. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s natural. Don’t be so hard on yourself....”

  “Oh, I am being such a big baby....” Sobs shook her slim frame.

  He held her. He stroked her back. She curved into him, fitting against him as though she was made to be in his arms. For that moment, he forgot about everything. It all just...receded: her ruined house, the smell of mud and mildew, her grandmother’s clock poking into his belly. There was only the woman in his arms. He held her and rested his cheek on her soft hair and waited.

  Eventually, she pulled back enough to gaze up at him. Her nose was red and her eyes were puffy and she was so beautiful that his chest got tight all over again. He wished that...

  But no. It was never happening. He wasn’t going there. No way.

  She sniffed. “Well. This is embarrassing.”

  He took her lightly by the upper arms. “You oka
y now?”

  She sniffed again. “My nose is red, isn’t it?”

  “Your nose is beautiful.”

  “Liar.”

  It all seemed...strange and scary, suddenly. For a moment there...no. Uh-uh. Not going there, he reminded himself for the second time. He put on a big, fake smile and asked, “What do you say we go find those boxes?”

  * * *

  It took the rest of the day to scare up the crates and boxes, pack up what was salvageable and drive it out to the Christensen place. Her dad had a storage area off his work shed. They put it all in there.

  By then, it was past time for the community meal back in town. They’d planned ahead and brought clean clothes with them so they could take advantage of the chance for hot showers. As before, he took the hall bath and she took the one off her parents’ room.

  She came out of her parents’ bathroom, her brown hair still wet, smoothed back into a knot at the nape of her neck, smelling like flowers and rain and lemons, better than any woman he’d ever known.

  And he’d known a lot of them—well, not in the past couple of years. After he hit twenty-five or so, all that chasing around had begun to seem kind of pointless. But back when he was younger, he’d lived up to his rep as a player. Then he’d been out to have himself a good time every night of the week.

  And not one other woman back in the day had ever smelled as good as Willa did right then.

  They raided the pantry. As they ate canned stew, crackers and peaches, Willa said how happy she was with the cleanup around the ranch.

  “They’ve done a lot,” she said, “in just a couple of days.”

  Her car was still out there on its side in the pasture and probably would be until she could call her insurance guy or the FEMA people and have it towed away, but the animals were back in their proper pastures and pens. The neighbors were making sure the stock got fed.

  They headed back to town at a little after eight, stopping off at the Triple T for a few minutes on the way, just to check on things. In Rust Creek Falls, they went to Thelma’s to get Buster, and then they returned to the town hall for the night. There were several empty cots. Some people had found neighbors to stay with and some had gone to live with out-of-town relatives for a while.