He swam forward until his feet touched the steps leading to the roof where people rushed up the disappearing staircase. She slipped from his back and stared down at him.
“You’ll be all right now.” His words came out in short, sharp breaths. God, she was beautiful.
Swallowing hard, he turned and moved to dive back into the water.
“Wait!” Her yell stopped him short.
Their gazes locked. They stood paralyzed for a long moment.
“Be careful.”
Chris nodded and dived back into the water. He had to save more. He was a strong swimmer. He’d make it back. He had to.
CHAPTER THREE
FROM THE CLUBHOUSE ROOF, Angela stared out at the wreckage the flood had left behind. The rain stopped the moment the sun rose above the mountains. It lit the sky in glorious pink and peach. An ironic relief, for it also lit the devastation. Tears blurred her gaze. As far as the eye could see, the world was hidden beneath brown swirling water. The roofs of cars and the top few feet of trees punctuated the landscape like macabre reminders of what had been visible and alive with holidaymakers just a few short hours before.
“My God.” Her words caught painfully in her throat. How would the park ever recover from this? The money. The damage. Everything was beneath water and warping as five hundred or so people stood helpless watching it happen.
She turned from the horizon to stare at the anguished faces of the people who’d come to the Cove for a holiday, a break, a relaxing time away from life’s chaos. People stood so close their arms brushed hers, yet everything was eerily quiet. The odd murmur, the odd whisper to God blew along a soft breeze.
Children lay silent in their parents’ arms; grown men shook their heads, tears sliding over their cheeks unchecked.
She closed her eyes and forced her mind to focus. The red tiled roof of the stockroom was adjacent to the clubhouse. If they could somehow manage to pull off the tiles and underlay beneath, she could climb inside and pass up supplies. Bottled water, soda, ice cream and sealed packets of cookies were stored there for selling in the outdoor snack shop. It would at least sustain them and keep the panic of passing time at bay awhile longer.
Until what? She opened her eyes. How would they get out of here? Would the authorities send boats? A whirr sounded in the distance and she lifted her head, shielding her eyes against the sun. A helicopter.
Hope filled her chest as the noise grew around her. One by one the subdued crowd heard it, too. Fingers pointed to the sky, voices rose and then cheers erupted. Angela’s smile stretched to a full-blown grin. A man to the side of her pulled her into an embrace and pressed a firm kiss to her forehead.
“We’re saved.” He laughed, his eyes shining. “We’re saved.”
She laughed. “It’s going to be all right.” She said aloud the words that had revolved on an endless reel in her mind for the previous, terrifying hours.
“I can’t believe this has happened.” The man shook his head.
Angela swallowed. “What time is it? Do you have a watch? A phone?”
He released her and turned his wrist. “Half past six.”
Angela nodded as he turned away to his family. Five hours. It had taken just five hours to turn the park into a mud-red sea. Another whirr of blades filtered the air and then another. Three helicopters circled overhead as people raised their hands, cheering and shouting.
She squinted in an effort to see what kind of helicopters they were, praying they were for rescue or the police. She couldn’t make out the letters along the side. Wouldn’t the police or rescue teams have bold and distinct markings?
They hovered above them and flew back and forth for twenty minutes, before tilting and flying away.
As their tails disappeared over the horizon, panic overtook the crowd once more. The cheers became shouts of protest. The waving hands turned to people clutching their heads and throats. She needed to get them doing something. Keep them busy to lessen the panic and pass the time. Their saviors would be back.
Angela stared after the helicopters. They had to come back.
She took a deep breath and pushed her way through the throng of bodies. Setting her jaw against the rapid beat of her heart, Angela pushed onward. She would not panic. She was strong. A survivor. This was nothing more than a test.
Elbowing her way through the mass of men, women and children, she struggled toward the stockroom roof. Once there, she leaned over the railing surrounding the top of the clubhouse and looked down. The water was two-thirds the way up the wall, which meant the flooding had to be at least nine feet above ground level. She raised her arms.
“Everyone. Can I have your attention?”
The men and women closest looked at her and one by one tapped the shoulders of the people standing next to them. The noise lessened and Angela met their defeated gazes. People, both young and old, trembled. Their faces were pale, either from fear or cold. She forced a smile. She was the park manager; it was up to her to keep the guests buoyed and positive.
“Now the rescuers have seen us, they’ll be back. They know our situation...” Her voice wavered as a barrage of catcalls and heckling started. She waved her hands. “Please. Listen. We have no idea if people outside the park are in a worse situation. We have to be thankful we’re alive, and better, we have supplies.”
“What supplies?” A voice demanded from the crowd. “Everything we own is under the damn water.”
A chorus of agreement and a rumble of chatter followed.
Angela’s determination increased. The tenacity that had gotten her through the past two years since her divorce raged like a storm in her heart. She’d survived Robert’s abuse through experience and quick thinking. She’d survive again. God needed her to do a job and she’d damn well do it.
“We have supplies. Lots of supplies. Enough to get us through today.”
“What if we’re still here tomorrow?” the same “Man of Eternal Hope” yelled.
She dropped her hands and fisted them on her hips, all notions of niceness evolving into determination. Negativity bred like disease if it wasn’t nipped in the bud. She’d been forced to learn that quickly. Believing rescue was possible had undoubtedly saved her life more times than she cared to remember.
“Sir, if you don’t mind, you need to step back and keep your thoughts to yourself. They’re not helping.”
He glared. “Yeah? Well, you’re supposed to be in charge. You told my family when we got here two days ago this place was the best park in the damn Cove. Now look at us.”
Anger simmered in her stomach. What the hell was wrong with this guy? Angela glared. “Are you serious?”
He took a step toward her, and his wife clamped her hand to his forearm. “Frank, don’t.”
He shook her off and kept coming. “Yes, I’m serious. You think I’m in any mood to freaking joke?”
Angela tensed as her hackles rose. “We are in the middle of a natural disaster, sir. If you can’t understand that, then—”
“Then what?” He stood just feet away, his hands fisted on his hips and his face contorted with fury.
“Then you need to stand out of the way and let the other men and women help me do what little we can until the rescue crews come back.” She turned away from him and fixed her gaze on the men and women looking at her with encouragement and interest. They couldn’t see she trembled. She couldn’t show him a glimmer of weakness. If she ignored him, he’d disappear.
She cleared her throat. “Behind me is a stockroom full of soda, water, ice cream and other things. I need a handful of volunteers to help me tear enough of the roof back so I can climb inside. If we work as a team, everyone will at least have something to drink.”
At first no one moved. They continued to stare at her in dazed confusion and Angela wondered what she was
supposed to do next. Then the crowd of people parted.
Her heart skipped as she met the same hazel eyes she’d last seen moving away from her when Chris Forrester dived back into the water. That was over two hours before.
He was alive. Her stomach knotted and her smile grew wide. “You.”
He winked and lifted his hand to his head in a salute. “At your service.”
“Again.”
He held out his hand. “Chris Forrester.”
Angela grasped his hand as guilty heat, because she already knew his name, seared her cheeks. “Angela Taylor...and thank you.”
He kept hold of her hand and continued to stare, his gaze wandering languidly over her face as though they were alone, rather than surrounded by hundreds of panicked holidaymakers. The nonsensical notion to kiss him leaped into her mind and she laughed.
“Well, we can’t stand around here all day.” She slowly pulled her trembling hand from his. “I assume you’re the man to help me rip off a roof.”
He blinked and his smile reappeared like a breaking sun. “Absolutely.”
He moved to stand beside her. His damp T-shirt clung to his biceps and stretched taut across his shoulders. Angela snatched her gaze toward the expectant crowd, unease rolling through her stomach. Unease because of her reaction to him. Unease that somehow or another this man had caught her interest...attracted her.
She clapped her hands. “Okay, anyone else?”
One by one, more men joined them until there were eight or nine of them working side by side to find a way to get the stockroom roof peeled off. Angela risked a final look in Chris’s direction. He had his back to her, gesturing toward the roof, clearly taking control of his new mission.
She turned away. Was she seriously ogling the man when he was trying to get food and drink for everyone? Embarrassment swept through her.
She’d concentrate on where she was needed...even if the temptation to stay near Chris burned hot inside her.
She weaved her way back among the crowds, offering words of encouragement and reassurance to the elderly and young alike. Parents seemed calmer, cradling their children in their laps as they sat on the flat concrete roof. The area was sometimes used for barbecues and a place to sit at small bistro tables. Not today. Today, it was the only safe haven in an island of danger.
Angela looked to the sky. It was a sheet of clear blue above them. Yesterday the temperatures rose to the low nineties. People wouldn’t be cold for long. The midday heat would be the next challenge.
* * *
WITH SEVERAL OF the roof tiles smashed and cleared, Chris gripped the edge of the underlay. “On my count. One, two, three.”
He and the four men on either side of him heaved the heavy black material toward them. Their combined strength and adrenaline made easy work of what would normally have been a tough job. Chris smiled. It was like peeling back the lid of a sardine can. They’d made a four-by-four-foot hole.
“Well, just look at that.”
The man next to him clapped Chris on the shoulder. “It’s the equivalent of a damn candy store window to a group of sugar-hungry kids.”
Chris laughed. “I’ll get the lady in charge. We’d better not just throw ourselves down there. No matter how much I’d like to.”
He levered himself up and looked around for Angela. He didn’t have to look far. Even with her hair wet and dirty from the floodwater, there was no mistaking her among the crowd. Chris guessed her to be five feet five or six and with her clothes still damp and clinging to every curve of her body, there was no mistaking the woman had the figure of a catwalk model.
Letting out a low, appreciative whistle between clenched teeth, Chris shook his head and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Miss Taylor? I need you.” I need you? What the hell did I say that for?
She turned. The way she stared and the soft quirk of her eyebrow made Chris feel like an infatuated teenager. He laughed. “I mean...you’re needed over here.”
She grinned and echoed his salute of earlier. He looked back into the stockroom before he could say or do anything else to make him look more stupid. The men around him peered over, too. The place was filled with bottled water, sodas and snacks just as she’d promised. The food and drink would bring at least some hope and serenity to a possibly explosive situation. Chris didn’t doubt that was exactly her intention.
The distinctly feminine touch at his shoulder made him tense before he slowly turned. She wasn’t looking at him but into the hole they’d made into the stockroom.
“Fantastic. Look at that.” Her smile was wide and a soft flush of pink darkened her cheeks. “This is what people need. This will make all the difference to morale.” She stepped back, her hand lifting from his shoulder.
She looked at the other men. “Okay, if you and you—” she pointed to two men beside Chris “—grab my wrists and lower me down, I’ll start passing things up.”
Was it his imagination or had she purposely dismissed him? What had the lingering hand on his back been all about? Maybe it hadn’t exactly lingered, but there had been definite contact. Contact that seared through his wet shirt and straight to his damn chest.
He crossed his arms. What did it matter? He’d come to the Cove to nurse his wounds after the backlash of Melinda’s infidelity, not to start panting over the first female who gave him the time of day. He might have gone wild for a while after Melinda, but that was over. He was here to get his head...and heart straight.
So why the hell couldn’t he drag his gaze from Angela’s long, lean legs as she clambered onto the stockroom roof? Or ignore the way her huge brown eyes were alight with positivity? He tightened his jaw.
What did he care that the two men “helping her” seemed to be finding every reason known to man to touch every part of her as well as her damn wrists as they slowly lowered her into the hole?
Tension knotted his stomach. This was neither good nor wanted. He didn’t need the stress of a woman and he didn’t need her betrayal. He moved to walk away and leave them to it when the whirr of the helicopters returned. He lifted his head. The same three were back again. This time they circled the circumference of the roof four times before hovering just above the people who watched them.
He glanced around. Hope etched the features of every single face.
“Wait. Lift me up. Lift me up.”
The sound of Angela’s voice jolted him and Chris turned. With her butt on the tiles, she shimmied closer and he held out his hand. Her palm slid against his and he pulled her onto the clubhouse roof. She stood by his side. So close the soft heat of her shoulder warmed his biceps.
She grinned. “They’ve come back. Thank God.”
He forced his gaze away from her pretty profile and back to the helicopters. “And just in the nick of time.” He blew out a heavy breath. “I didn’t want to say anything before, but there are people shouting from trees.”
“What?”
He nodded toward the east. “Over there. See them? We’re the lucky ones.”
She followed the direction of his gaze and lifted her hand to her mouth. “They have to help them. Those poor people must’ve been hanging on for hours. They’ll be terrified, hungry...exhausted.”
There was no denying she was beautiful, but it wasn’t just that making his heart beat with the overwhelming urge to touch her. She looked strong yet fragile. As though she could take on the problems of the world but, at the same time, the wrong thing at the wrong time would break her.
Without thinking, he slid his arm across her shoulders. “It’s going to be all right. They’ll get them.”
She stiffened at his touch and Chris turned to stare ahead but didn’t remove his arm. It would be too obvious he suddenly felt like a leech. He didn’t want to see the revulsion or rejection in her eyes. Every fiber in
his body screamed with an inexplicable protection for her.
His past was peppered with mistakes. All of them ground in his inability to protect...
The power of her stare bore into his temple. After a long moment, she relaxed beneath his arm. She blew out a breath. “What’s going to happen? These people are relying on me. I don’t know—”
Reluctantly he turned and, as he’d predicted, her huge brown eyes were glazed with anxiety. He swallowed. “It’s going to be all right.”
She shook her head and sadness replaced the anxiety. “You don’t know that. None of us does.”
“Hey.” Goddamn it. She’s tearing up. He slid his hand down from her shoulder and gave her biceps an encouraging squeeze. “We’re going to get through this. All of us. You’re doing a fantastic job. These people are right to trust you. I can feel it.”
Their eyes locked and Chris’s gaze dropped to her mouth. It fell ajar and her tongue poked out to wet her bottom lip. He snatched his gaze back to the sky. They were in the middle of a disaster situation. They were reaching out to each other for support. Nothing more. Nothing less. So why the hell was his heart beating like a damn jackhammer?
He shielded his eyes against the sun and prayed to God she hadn’t seen his need to kiss her. He focused on the helicopters. “Damn it.”
She shifted beside him and he felt her gaze on him once more. “What is it?”
“They’re not going to be any help to the people stranded in the trees.”
“Of course—”
“Those vultures aren’t going to do a damn bit of good. Where are the rescue teams?”
“What are you talking about? What vultures?”
“Can’t you see?” He shot his arm toward the sky as frustration hummed along his nerve endings. “They’re TV helicopters. A fat lot of bloody help—”
A Man Like Him Page 3