Especially considering she hadn’t much of a house left. And practically no personal effects at all.
She had Jordan. And she had seen enough on television to realize just how many people had lost their homes, and just how many of them were now sleeping in the tent cities that had begun to spring up in the afternoon.
“I think we’ve lost Jordan,” Drew commented softly.
Katie looked at her son. He had pushed his plate away, set his head down on the table and fallen asleep.
“Poor kid, he must have been really exhausted,” Drew said.
“I’ll bring him up, and then I’ll come right back down to pick up the dishes.”
“I’ll take him up for you,” Drew told her.
“But I—”
He was already standing, lifting Jordan. “You’re very defensive, you know,” he told Katie. “I’m bigger. It’s easier for me to take him upstairs. Just say thanks and let me do it for you.”
She had started to rise. She sank back, shrugging. “I’m not defensive!” she told him defensively. “I’m just—capable.”
He smiled, picking up Jordan. “Very capable,” he told her, and disappeared into the shadowy corridor, sliding a flashlight from the counter as he did so to guide his way up the stairs.
When he was gone, Katie started to clear the table. She scraped and rinsed the dishes quickly, and soaped them liberally since she had nothing but cold water to wash them in. She was just about finished when Drew came into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, picking up his wineglass and sipping at the inch of burgundy that remained.
“Tired?” he asked her.
“I hadn’t thought about it until I saw Jordan crash into the table. But I am. Very.”
He shrugged. “No one has slept in at least thirty-six hours. And those have been some hours.”
She nodded, finishing the last of the dishes and wiping her hands on a towel. The kitchen suddenly seemed small. She barely knew him; she was staying with him. No, she couldn’t say that she barely knew him. Perhaps she didn’t know a whole lot about him, but in the hours they had been together, she thought she had come to know him. She felt as if she knew him ridiculously well.
“By the way, thank you,” she said softly.
“For what?”
“Letting us stay here.”
She didn’t understand why, but the comment seemed to cause his jaw to tighten as if he was angry. His reply sounded angry, as well.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“But—”
“Dammit, Katie, trust me. You don’t owe me any thanks.”
She turned around a little blindly, realizing that she was exhausted, that she still wanted to check on Jordan and that she needed a shower—a cold one, of course—before going to bed. She was so tired she couldn’t really begin to make sense of anything—much less a man who was as much an enigma as Drew Cunningham.
“Well, then, I won’t thank you,” she said, walking from the kitchen toward the dark living room. “I’ll say good-night. If it’s all right, I’ll take this flashlight.”
“It’s fine. And Katie…” His voice trailed away. Soft now. Sensual. Too sensual.
“Yes?”
“Thank you. Dinner was great.”
She looked at him. He was grinning pleasantly, still leaning against the counter. She nodded. “Dinner was almost nice,” she told him. “I haven’t eaten by candlelight in a long time.”
“Neither have I.”
She remained there a moment, then found herself asking him, “My staying isn’t going to create any difficulties for you?”
“Such as?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Well, with your friend on the phone today. The one you—love.”
He set his wineglass down. “I think she’ll deal with it. In fact, I think she’d have my head on a platter if I didn’t see to it that you and Jordan had a place to stay.”
“Oh?”
“Mom is like that,” he said.
“Mom?”
“My mother, Katie.”
“Oh.” She found herself flushing. She’d definitely been nosy. And he had certainly managed to hold off from telling her for awhile.
But then, she had gotten an answer from him that she liked.
“Where is Mom?” she asked him.
“Boca Raton,” he told her. “Where’s Dad?”
She grinned. “Orlando.”
“At least they’re both safe and out of this,” he said.
Katie nodded. “Yeah. Well … thanks again. Whether you want to hear it or not.”
“Good night,” he told her.
She took one of the big lantern flashlights from the counter and hurried up the stairs. She found Jordan in the room at the end of the hall, sleeping comfortably on a double bed. She kissed his forehead and left him.
She started to the guest room, then paused, seeing a half open door.
She pushed it open and discovered an office. There was a desk and a big drafting table and all manner of drawing supplies. She threw the flashlight over the room, too tired to really study it yet impressed with all she saw. There was a rendering of a house on the drafting table, and it was done in beautiful detail.
Her host was certainly talented.
And more…
She quickly left the room and hurried along the hall to her own. Luckily, she had piled all her things on the floor and not on the bed.
She closed the door, and walked straight into the bathroom, setting up the light so she could take a shower. She came out, wrapped up in a towel and searched through the remnants of her belongings until she found a simple white cotton nightgown.
She couldn’t quite manage to slip into any of the silk he had teased her about. The world still seemed too uncertain to be dressed in anything that wasn’t a little bit encompassing.
She was in a stranger’s house.
No, she had decided he wasn’t a stranger. She didn’t know much about him, but she had seen how he managed in the middle of the storm, leaving safe shelter to save her and Jordan.
Clearing the roads.
Helping.
She wasn’t worried about him. She was worried about herself. She was so tempted to leave her room again, to try to find him in the dark house, to…
To curl up beside him somewhere. Feel his arms around her. Holding her.
“Katherine Mary Wheeler Wells!” she admonished herself.
She’d been alone too long, or the storm had unhinged more than her house.
Sleep. She needed sleep.
She stretched out in his guest bed, so tired she was certain she would sleep instantly.
But she didn’t. She listened, and wondered where he was.
Then she closed her eyes and began to drift to sleep. She felt pleasantly secure and glad to be in his house.
Dangerous, she decided.
But she was too tired to care.
She smiled before she dozed.
She should have been devastated. But she was comfortable, warm. And there still seemed to be a sweet touch of fever inside her. She was looking forward to the morning.
And finding out more—all that she could—about her attractive, sometimes kind, sometimes brooding, sometimes very angry and intense—
And always fascinating—
Host.
She opened her eyes just before she slept. “Thanks, God. For bringing us through. For keeping us safe.” She hesitated a second. “And for making that woman on the phone this morning his mother!”
And with that, she managed to turn, plump up her pillow and sleep very deeply and very well.
Chapter 5
She felt as if she were being awakened from the dead. She groaned as she felt her weary body shaken and she heard a voice calling her name coming from a great distance.
It wasn’t coming from a great distance. There was a man standing over her bed, Andrew Cunningham. He had been whispering her name—now he was saying it louder and shaking her more fir
mly.
“Katie, we need to get anything out of your house that we can. I’ve got some roofers coming in an hour to at least do a patch job on the houses, so you won’t be able to get back in today. And I can’t stay very long here myself—I’ve got to go and see what’s left of my office.”
She’d been so sound asleep, but she bolted up, instantly awake. Her hair was wild; she was glad she’d chosen the encompassing cotton nightgown and she was suddenly wishing she could wake up like the stars in the soap operas—she knew she was completely tousled, disoriented and far less than glamorous.
But he was smiling at her. And she caught her breath as his fingers tenderly—briefly—caressed her cheek. “Katie, I’m sorry to wake you, but I thought that you’d want to do a little more exploring in there before you can’t get in.”
“I’m up,” Katie said. “I’m awake. You—you have roofers coming out here already?”
“They’ll just be doing patch jobs—that’s about all anybody will be able to do for awhile. But it will help keep the rest of the house from becoming more destroyed than it is. Jordan is up—he’s just waiting for you to go on over.”
He turned and left her. Katie jumped up and rushed into the bathroom, hurriedly brushing her teeth, scrubbing her face and splashing it with cold water to wake herself up. She scrounged through her things until she found a pair of white shorts and a red tailored sleeveless cotton shirt—the coolest combination she could find—and dressed hurriedly. Even as she slipped on Midge Holloway’s loafers once again, she heard a tapping on her door. Jordan was standing there, very carefully balancing a cup of black coffee.
“Drew—Mr. Cunningham—said that you might need this,” Jordan told her.
“Thanks.” She took the coffee and sipped it. It was very good. Drew Cunningham might not be a gourmet cook, but he made very good coffee and he seemed quite capable of taking care of himself. “I’ll be right with you,” she told Jordan, and took the coffee with her into the bathroom. She didn’t want to get carried away or anything, certainly not under these circumstances, but she had salvaged a little makeup, so maybe she should use it. Jordan waited at the foot of her bed while she quickly put on base and gave her eyelashes a whisk and a promise with mascara. “Did you have yours?” she asked Jordan.
“My what?”
“Coffee?”
“Mom, you know I don’t drink coffee!” he reminded her, and she sensed that he was grinning. “I did have hot chocolate—and a cold Pop Tart. It was good. This is neat in a way. It’s almost like camping indoors. If I could only have Nintendo, as well!” he said with a sigh.
“You can always read a book,” Katie said.
“Sure, Mom. I’ll read a book. I imagine I’ll read lots of them. They say it will be two weeks to several months before everyone starts to get electricity back.”
“Ugh!” Katie said.
“School will be very late opening,” he told her happily.
“Don’t sound so smug. You’ll lose half your holidays because of it.”
“Oh!” He sounded very unhappy then.
“Sorry,” Katie told him. “Maybe it won’t be so many,” she said as she came out of the bathroom. He was sitting at the foot of the bed. “Besides, when the roads are clearer and I’ve done whatever I can do about getting our things out and the house fixed, we can go up and visit with Grandpa for awhile. We can go to Universal Studios and Disney World and Sea World and play gooney golf and the whole bit. Before school starts. Sound fun?”
“Sure.” But he didn’t sound as enthused as he might have. He shrugged. “I don’t mind staying here.”
“Oh,” Katie said softly. “But it isn’t our home, Jordan.”
“It’s all right for now, right?” he said hopefully.
“Yeah, it’s fine for now. But come on, let’s start salvaging some things.”
She rinsed her coffee cup in the kitchen. Drew was no longer in the house, but she quickly discovered why.
Men with trucks had made it into the cul-de-sac. They were the roofers, she quickly realized. Drew was directing them to take boxes he had already packed out to the street.
He seemed to know the men, and had an easy relationship with them, even as they moved quickly and efficiently to do as they were instructed. Drew saw Katie come walking over and waved a hand to her. “I took all the books out of your den, the tapes, the discs—and it seems your VCR is okay, so I took it, too. Your garage stood fine, and I think all your chemicals and photo equipment are in it. You might want to start there. By the way—there’s a small bathroom in my garage. You’re welcome to turn it into a dark-room if you want to take photos and develop them.”
“My things in the garage are all okay?” Katie said, incredulous. What a wonderful break!
“Fine,” he told her. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you all later. Giles there is the foreman on the job. He’ll tell you when he needs you out.”
Katie nodded and started to thank him. He was already gone, walking down the path to the cul-de-sac. He slipped behind the wheel of a car there, a bright red Ford Probe.
Jordan would just love the car, Katie thought.
“I’m going to see what he saved of my games in the den, Mom,” Jordan told her. He hesitated. “And I’m going to see what’s left of that box of photos in there.”
She knew what he was looking for. She had done a special book for him—and herself—with some of the pictures she had taken of his father. It meant a lot to him.
“Maybe I should help you first.”
“I’m fine—I can check myself. Get your camera stuff, Mom. It’s important, too.”
He wanted to be alone; she let him. She watched him walk into the house while she entered the garage.
Her car, a dated BMW, was fine, as were the shelves around the edges. Even her washer and dryer seemed all right. Funny, but yesterday she had only seen what had been destroyed. Today she was seeing what had not.
She set to work gathering her equipment, then thankfully finding that she had more of her own and Jordan’s clothing in the dryer. She had just finished putting everything in her car to drive it across the street when one of the roofers, the one called Giles, walked into the garage. “Can I give you a hand here with anything? We need to get started.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Katie told him.
“We just took your son back across the street with his boxes.”
“Thank you. That was really nice.”
Another of the roofers had come in. He and Giles were both tall. Giles was in his mid-forties, the other was younger with white-blond hair and a quick, engaging smile. He nodded to Katie.
“You guys are back to work fast!” Katie said.
Giles shrugged. “We’re roofers. We’ll be working hard and fast for months now. I don’t think there’s a roof between Homestead and Broward County that didn’t suffer some damage.”
“How did you make out yourselves?” Katie asked them.
“I’m living in the office,” Giles told her.
“I’m his roommate,” the younger man said, still grinning. “And mind you, even the office had damage.”
“This was really bad, huh?” Katie said.
The older man shrugged. “Yeah, it was bad. But actually, I always knew my place wasn’t put together quite right. It was just nice looking, and I could afford it. I always meant to put a new roof on it myself, but…well, you know. These houses, though, they should have all stood. Like Mr. Cunningham’s. Glass damage, yes, but not this.”
“There are staples here,” the younger man said.
Katie frowned. “Staples? On a roof?”
“Oh, yeah, and it’s legal, and sometimes the staples even hold real well and only shingles might rip away. It’s just that Hunnicunn doesn’t usually use staples. The roofs on these homes are usually built the old-fashioned way, tongue in groove, sturdy, solid. The house would have to blow away for the roof to come off—even in a big wind like Andrew. Well, we’d better get to work. O
h—by the way, we’re going to rip out your soaked carpet. There’s no way to dry it, and the smell will get really bad in a couple of days.”
“That’s really nice of you. You’re roofers. It isn’t necessary.”
“Mr. Cunningham wants this place taken care of.”
“I’d do it just for you!” the younger man said.
Katie grinned. He was a flirt. Cute. “Thanks,” she told him. “I’ll just get out of your way now.”
She drove the BMW across the street. She went into the house and discovered that Jordan had acquired all manner of boxes—the roofers had brought them—and that his boxes were strewn all over the living room.
“Jordan, we’ve got to do something with all this. We aren’t in our—”
“Our own house, I know,” he told her, grinning. “I’ll get it all picked up. Honest, Mom.”
“Did you find the book?” she asked him.
“Yeah. It’s half okay and half not.”
“I think I had most of the negatives in the garage,” Katie told him, and saw the light of hope in his eyes. “Mr. Cunningham said that I could make a darkroom out of the bathroom in his garage. After we pick up, I’m going to see what I can do out there.”
“Pick up, right,” Jordan said wearily. “Okay!”
The hours ticked by as they went to work. She listened to the reports of how Andrew had swept across the southern tip of Florida, then gained momentum again to slam into Louisiana.
By the afternoon, the sun had come up in a big way. It was August in Florida.
Killer hot.
She and Jordan rested, going out back to stare at the destroyed pool and to catch what they could of the breeze. They rested awhile, then she started on her crude darkroom. She developed the pictures she had taken the first day, and was pleased with them. She needed to start getting them out to newspapers and magazines. She needed to take more pictures.
Tomorrow. She’d venture out.
Drew returned after dark and instantly excused himself to take a cold shower. Traffic had been a disaster, he told her briefly. It had felt good to get into his car to use the air-conditioning, but then he’d gotten into a gridlock, and he’d had to turn it off.
The Trouble with Andrew Page 7