I kissed her long… achingly long, aroused all over again by the teasing look in her eyes and the taste of our mingled flesh on her tongue. “It’s six-thirty. We ought to get back on the road.” I plucked a pale strand of her hair out of her eyes. “Dean’s going to be out of his mind.”
She sat up, forgetting the coverlet that slipped down and bared her beautiful breasts. “Oh God, he’ll be thinking something terrible has happened.” She got out of bed and gathered up her clothes. “Do I have time for a shower?” she asked. I stood up and collected my own clothes from the floor. Her eyes stopped at my erection, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Go on, Maggie,” I said, giving her sweet little ass a swat. “I’ll scare us up some breakfast and we can be on the road by seven.” She gave me a pouty look that dared me to change the plan. “If I join you in there, Dean will be sending a whole posse after us.”
She grinned and turned her back on me. I headed for the kitchen with everything but breakfast on my mind. As the coffee perked, I leaned back against the tile counter and pictured Maggie’s tender body, lathered and slick with soap.
“Where in the hell have the two of you been all night?” Dean asked without stopping. He was unloading CPR dummies for the first aid class. He and Jackie were teaching at the church today. Ryan and Henry had taken kits to distribute at the school.
“Ryan said the two of you never made it back yesterday. What’s with that?”
I looked over at Maggie’s face. “We got caught by a storm on the road,” I said calmly. “Hail… big stuff. I didn’t dare head back. Hail like that can be a sign that something worse is on its way.”
Dean straightened up and looked at me, then Maggie. ‘Well, I asked you to keep her safe for me,” he said. “I guess you kept your word… Thanks.” He clapped his heavy hand sharply on my shoulder and headed back to the truck for more. “Could use a hand,” he shot out over his shoulder.
Maggie and I shot a look between us, and I left her to welcome a handful of students who’d arrived for the class. I caught up with Dean and gathered up an armload of headless plastic torsos. His back muscles were visibly tight and the veins stood out on the sides of his neck.
“How was the class?”
“Great. How the fuck was my sister?” he shot back without facing me.
“Keep your voice down…,” I began. He cut me off.
“Goddamn it, Joe.” He finally turned to look me in the eye. His were dark, menacing. “I’ve known you for a lot of fucking years, and I know that look… Yeah, that one. The one that says you got laid last night.” He slammed the back of the truck shut.
“It isn’t anything like you’re thinking, Dean. I swear to God, it’s not.” I ran a hand roughly through my hair and down my bristly jaw. “We need to talk.”
“Fuck you and your talk. I know you’re no asshole, Joe. I’ve seen you with women in the past. You’d never intentionally hurt anyone… I know that.” He sighed hard, from the gut. “But this is little Mags we’re talking about. You’re thirty-three… she’s twenty fucking two. She isn’t like the others, Joe. You’ll hurt her.” His eyes, still dark with anger, pleaded with me. “She’s just a kid.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but that was the moment Ron and Margie burst through the back doors to lend a hand. They were tirelessly cheerful and oblivious to what they’d just interrupted. Together, we all gathered up the last of the supplies and headed back inside.
I spent the rest of the day snapping stills and making notes on my laptop for the TexStar spread. Dean’s words echoed in my head.
Ron and Margie had taken one of the trucks back to the farmhouse to pick up Ryan’s forgotten laptop. And Maggie and I had shared a brief moment before I took the van and made a circle, visiting all the other locations to check on their progress. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what Dean had said. In only a single day, we’d handed out almost half of the materials we’d brought. And more than a hundred people had been given disaster prep kits that they could never have afforded to buy. This trip was already an enormous success for her, and I didn’t want a cloud hanging over it. I’d talk to Dean again… I’d make him understand. Somehow, I had to find a way to make him accept us.
Thunderstorms, violent ones, had been building all day. Walls of dense, dark clouds formed in the distance, and a tornado watch had been announced for the entire area. It was hardly unusual this time of year, and watches were common enough. But as I drove back to the church and back to Maggie, I felt a deep unsettling in my chest and in my belly. Like the moment of stillness, when a glass falls from your hand… but hasn’t yet hit the floor.
26
Maggie
“You look different,” Jackie said directly. She cocked her head and put her little feet up as I handed her a cup of coffee. We had almost half an hour before her next class started. The turnout had been amazing. People had come from miles away…
“Different…?” I smiled without meaning to, feeling the blush creep up from my chest to my face.
“Holy shit, Mags! It happened, didn’t it? Joe finally got the hell over it, and figured out what he wants.” She put her cup down hard, and the coffee spilled up and over the rim. “I knew that’s why he showed up for this trip.”
“He came for the story, Jackie.” I looked up to meet her eyes. “And I think he felt like he had to. It’s that damned protective streak. He’s always felt so responsible for me… and for Dean, too, in a way.” I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “It always made me so angry. Like he was treating me like a child…”
“You don’t look angry anymore. You look like a cat with a mouthful of cream.” She smiled when I turned crimson. “How was it, honey? By the looks of you, I think I can guess…” She took my hand. “He knew to be gentle enough… to be careful…?”
I knew what she meant. All those years of nursing were showing in the concern on her face.
“He didn’t knock me up, Jackie.” I took a deep breath and wiped the damp skin under my neck. I smiled like a kid with a secret.
“He’s got plans for our first time. He wants it to be special…” I looked around at the new wave of people coming through the doors. “These aren’t exactly the ideal circumstances for a girl’s deflowering.” My smile began to fade. “And he wants to talk to Dean…”
She smiled at his name and nodded quietly, lost for a moment in her own thoughts. “It won’t be easy for him. You two have only just mended your own relationship. And he’s only just started to get the hang of the big brother thing.”
“Can you talk to him, Jackie? I know it’s a lot to ask, but you two seem to have a connection. He respects you… he listens to you.” It was Jackie’s turn to turn pink.
“He’s man who knows his own mind, Maggie.” I saw the hint of a smile and her eyes seemed to wander for a second. They settled on Dean, at the far end of the room. “I can’t promise anything… but I’ll try.”
By five o’clock, the last class was over. We’d planned to stay another day, but the event had been such an enormous success, only two small boxes of leftover handouts remained. RemedAid had been invited to come back next year, and I’d made more than a dozen valuable contacts offering both funding and services. By this time next year, we could easily be serving half a dozen or more needy communities just like this one. It was better than I ever could have wished for.
But we would also be able to head back home a day earlier than expected, and it was that, more than anything, that had my heart beating too fast. Joe would be back anytime, along with the others, and there would only be one more night apart. Once we were home, the cottage would be all the privacy we needed. And for me, it seemed like the perfect place… Young as I’d been, it was still and would always be the place where I’d fallen in love with Joe.
I helped to fold up the tables and clear away the last of our materials. Everyone pitched in, working in silent satisfaction after two long and demanding days. Joe hadn’t gotten back yet, and even I
was amazed at how hungry I was just for a glimpse of him. It had always been like that. Even when I was little. Nothing in my life had ever felt right until he was beside me.
There were a handful of people who hadn’t left yet… an older couple who were talking animatedly with Jackie, and a few others who were clustered by the main doors. A woman stood, holding her little daughter’s hand and laughing with Henry. He and Ryan had shown up almost twenty minutes ago.
“Hey, guys.” I walked over, smiling at the little girl. She was skinny, and her knobby knees were pressed together.
“Has anybody heard from Joe?” I looked up at Ryan. “Wasn’t the school gonna be his last stop? He should be here by now…”
“We left a little before he did, Mags,” he replied. “He said something about making a stop at the corner market.” Ryan looked at his watch. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.” He smiled at me knowingly, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Ryan had always been able to read my mind. “He’ll be here.”
It was only late afternoon, but the light that came through the stained glass windows had started to dim. I opened one of the heavy wooden doors and the hinges creaked dully. The sky was a shapeless wall of clouds, and the road was flat and empty as it disappeared into them. No truck… no Joe… I shivered and felt sweat trickle between my shoulder blades…
“I gotta pee, Mama,” the little girl whined, as she crossed one leg over the other and stood on one foot. “Mama…”
“I’ll take her if you like,” I offered, as the young woman let go of her hand. “There are restrooms at the far end of the hall.” The woman nodded and turned her attention back to Ryan. The little girl took my hand and skipped along beside me, hurrying.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“I’m Maggie,” I said, smiling down at her. She was sweet with her blonde curls and big blue eyes. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Emily,” she answered politely. “And I gotta pee.”
I pushed the big door open for her and she rushed past. “I’ll wait for you here, Emily.” A few seconds later, I heard a gentle tinkle and a sigh.
The next sound I heard wiped the smile off my face. It was off in the distance… like the dull roar of thunder. But instead of rumbling away, the sound only grew louder. There was the crashing sound of rain on the rooftop and the light shifted… then for a second the sound was gone and it was dead, cold silence. In that pause, I heard Emily’s tiny voice cry out in fear.
The next thing I knew, the rain was beating down again, harder than ever, and the howling wind mixed with the groans of the wooden walls around us. I ran toward the stall where Emily shrieked.
“Maggie!”
I heard his voice and reached out, searching with my hands… “Joe!”
Another howl from the storm cut me off, but I felt his strong arms capture me and pull me against his chest. “Emily!” I called out. But the thunderstorm took no pity and drowned my words in its vengeance.
“Christ, Maggie… talk to me!”
I coughed and opened my eyes to a dark and shadowy underworld…
“Where is this?” I asked. I felt a cup pressed to my lips and I drank. He wiped my face and my eyes with a cool, damp cloth. I blinked hard and saw Joe’s blue eyes close to mine.
He kissed me, tenderly at first, then savagely. I could hear the rustle of bodies around us, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered… except that he was safe and next to me. No matter what happened now… nothing else mattered.
“You’re all right?” he asked intently. I felt his hands roaming my arms and legs. “Does it hurt anywhere? Fuck, Maggie… I should have been here.”
“You are here,” I said, holding onto his arms for support. I sat up gingerly and felt the room tilt. “I was afraid…,” I broke off in a sob. “I thought you were caught in the storm.”
He pulled me into his arms again and kissed me until the dizziness passed and the fear along with it. He was big and strong and real in my arms. He lifted his mouth from mine and even in the pale lantern light his eyes were blue… so beautifully blue… “Emily’s still upstairs…,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat.
I sat up in a panic and looked around. Dean and Jackie… Ryan and Henry… the rest of our crew… Then I saw her. Shocked and huddled into a corner of the basement. Emily’s mother…
“There’s a little girl, Joe… she’s still up there. She was in the bathroom. I took her in there… I was waiting for her to come out…” I saw the look on his face. And I watched his lips form a thin, grim line.
“Are you all right? Do you promise me?” he asked. He searched my face for the truth.
“I’m fine, I swear it. You have to find her. Just go!”
He tore his eyes from me and jerked his head toward Dean. Jackie came to sit beside me, and the next thing I knew, they were gone. Joe in the lead, and Dean right behind him. I could hear the storm’s fury, and wondered what the hell I’d just done.
27
Joe
I’d seen the goddamned storm touch down twice behind me, as I’d recklessly torn up the asphalt racing it back. I’d prayed to reach the church before it did, and I had… but only by seconds. Dean had gotten everyone downstairs. Everyone but Maggie… and I hadn’t stopped until I’d found her.
“Lift.” I heaved one end of a shattered beam and Dean took the other. Together we dragged it out of the way and climbed the stairs. The winds weren’t as loud now, and the storm had shifted. It was moving… but it could always shift back…
“Here,” Dean coughed and pointed. We ran for the end of a long hall, and I looked up to see patches of sky through the rooftop. “Bathrooms are here.”
“Emily?” I pushed the door and it fell away from its last remaining hinge. “Emily…!”
The stall walls had collapsed in on themselves and water was pouring from a broken pipe. I could see tiny legs.
“Mama…,” the little girl wailed. My heart broke at the sound, but her voice was strong and she was very much alive.
“Hold still, Emily,” I said, as soothingly as I could. Dean reached to support the metal walls, as I dragged the door aside. “Your mama is just fine, sweetie.” I swallowed a thick lump of gratitude as I caught sight of her. She was wet and she was dirty, but in spite of the chaos, there wasn’t a scratch on her.
“I want Mama,” she said, reaching her arms out for me as I gathered her up. Dean and I shared a look over her shoulder, a split second of mutual heart-stopping relief, and he smiled.
“Then I guess we’d better go find her.”
Emily’s mother met us on the stairs. Ryan and Henry had done their best to hold her back, but she’d become almost hysterical once the initial shock had worn off. She flew towards us and smothered the little girl with kisses. Emily wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and smiled back at me.
“Are you okay, baby?” I asked. Maggie’s face was pale. She threw herself into my arms and buried her face in my chest.
“Fine, now,” she said, as I wrapped my arms around her. ‘But I don’t think I’m ready to let you out of my sight again.” I felt her chest rising and falling unevenly with her breath. “Where you go, I go…”
I chuckled and kissed her forehead, leaving my lips on her as I scanned the room, listened for the storm. It wasn’t gone, but it was distant now. I could hear the crackle of the radio. For the moment at least, the warning was over.
“How is everyone, Jackie?”
She came over and smiled at us. Nothing, it appeared, could shake her calm exterior.
“Good,” she answered. “A few scrapes and bruises.” She brushed her hair back with both hands. “That fucker hit fast.”
Dean came over with a bottle of water and handed it to her. She looked up at him gratefully and drank. “You forget to take of yourself, Jackie,” he chided. “You were the last damned one down here.”
“Only second to you,” she shot back. Their glance held a moment longer.
“Where are the Walkers?” I asked, looking for them in the wavering light. Everyone’s here except for them…”
“Oh my God,” Maggie pulled back from me sharply. “How the hell could I have forgotten?” She grabbed at me arm. “They left for the farmhouse… hours ago. What if they got caught on the road?”
Emergency services had arrived and were busy clearing the remaining debris from the staircase. A paramedic was checking each person before they were taken back up and into the mottled, fading daylight. The four of us stayed together. And we were the last ones up to see the devastation.
“It could have been a hell of a lot worse,” I said aloud, keeping Maggie at my side. “F-1… 2, maybe… Mother Nature might have blown off enough steam… for now…” I glanced around, getting my bearings. “The Walkers are most likely fine, but I have to make sure, Maggie. I want you to stay here with Ryan and Dean. I’ll use the two-way to keep in touch as long as I can… I’ll only be gone…”
“No!” she spat out. “Not without me, not again. I’m not letting you leave me again.”
Dean took her arm gently, but she pulled away sharply. “I’m not leaving him,” she said, her eyes strong, her voice firm. “You may not like it, Dean… you may not understand the way that I feel… the way that I’ve always felt.” She looked from his face to mine. “I love you, Joe,” she said simply. She turned to face her brother. “I love him.”
“And I love her, too,” I said gently to Dean, facing him.
“I don’t want this to come between us… not between any of us. But Maggie’s no child anymore. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known and she knows her own mind. I love her, and I’ll never hurt her. I’ll also never give her up.”
Dean drew in a breath to speak. Then I saw Jackie reach over and take his hand. It was a tiny movement, but it was there. He exhaled and stayed silent, but I could see in his eyes that he hadn’t accepted it.
Little Sister Next Door Page 9