Protected (Jacobs Family Series Book 2)

by Vannetta Chapman

  She changed his diaper, reached into the crib to pick him up, and marveled at the coolness of his hand against her cheek. Instead of heading for the kitchen, she gave in to the weariness threatening to overwhelm her and sank into the rocker.

  Gazing out the window, she wondered how she’d ever manage to tend to the animals today in this storm. How much had the waters risen? Where would she find the energy? She could barely walk across the room. How would she make it to the barns?

  If she were a praying person, she’d pray.

  Hadn’t helped much a year ago, and she wouldn’t resort to it now. No use being a foxhole believer.

  She had prayed the night she’d found Joshua. The thought hovered like a whisper, but she pushed it away.

  Joshua began fussing in her arms. Erin glanced at the clock on his dresser. Somehow she’d managed to sit there for half an hour.

  “Bet you’re starving. Am I right?”

  It took the strength of a power lifter to carry him to the kitchen and place him in the reclining highchair. Feeding him the bottle sapped the rest of her energy. She wouldn’t make it to the barns this morning.

  Returning the formula he hadn’t quite finished to the refrigerator, she closed the door and leaned her head against it, reveling in its coolness.

  Her teeth began to chatter, and she clamped her jaws tight. In the background she could hear Joshua gurgling. Soon she’d need to clean him up, move him back to his crib. The tears rolled down her cheeks.

  She hated her weakness.

  Why did she have to get sick now? During a flood? When Joshua and her animals needed her?

  Nina’s voice, soft and gentle in her ear, whispered, “God’s timing is perfect, Erin.”

  Rubbing her palms across her cheeks, she pushed away from the refrigerator. She might be stubborn, but she wasn’t a fool.

  Doc and Evelyn were out of town. Shirley was too pregnant and had a family of her own to worry about. Not to mention her husband would have his hands full with their pets and cattle.

  That left one person she could call.

  She picked up the business card and ran her thumb over the name—Travis Williams, Child Welfare. Beneath his business address was listed his work phone and cell. Doubting he’d be at work on a Sunday, she grimaced at the cell number.

  It galled her to call him.

  She could think of a dozen reasons not to ask for his help.

  Her gaze tracked around the kitchen. In slow motion, like a film advancing frame by frame, the room once again began to tilt then spin. Darkness claimed the morning as what little light had pierced the darkness fled and thunder rattled the windows.

  Rain beat a rhythm against the roof.

  Even as she reached for the counter to steady herself—willed her heartbeat to slow in its headlong rush toward panic—Joshua lay in his reclined highchair, batting playfully at the toys on the tray. He remained blissfully unaware of the danger increasing around them.

  Joshua was the one reason she would put aside her pride.

  Downing two more Tylenol, she pulled her cell phone off the charger. If ever a situation qualified as an emergency, this one did. She pressed the on button and stared at the display in disbelief.

  No service available.

  Pushing away from the counter, she walked to the wall phone. Sweat broke across her forehead as an ominous silence filled her ear.

  The line was dead.

  “Don’t panic. We’ll drive out. Go for help.”

  She dug deep and found enough strength to lift Joshua from his chair. Within ten minutes she had them both bundled up and in the truck. Though the house was on the highest part of her property, the water was up to the running board.

  She didn’t allow her mind to think about driving through the cattle guards. Instead, she cranked the truck, pulled it around, and started down her lane.

  Though the clock on the truck’s dash flashed nine in the morning, she had to turn on her headlights to make out the lane. Thunder rumbled and lightning split the sky.

  She refused to think about the animals on the ARK. She’d drive Joshua to safety and take herself to the doctor. The animals would be frightened but okay for at least twenty-four hours. The water wouldn’t reach them in the ARK, where the barns were set on even higher ground than the house. She’d set out additional food last night. They would be fine. The milk cows would be suffering, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  Erin was so busy considering the needs of her animals, she didn’t at first recognize the lake blocking her path.

  Fever, exhaustion, doubt, and confusion took what she saw, tried to process it, and failed.

  She shook her head, thinking maybe she’d lost the lane.

  Then she saw the fence posts and stared in horror at the top two inches. The rest were submerged in the rising waters that blocked her only way out.

  Twenty-One

  Travis tapped his pen against his keyboard and checked the time on his computer monitor once more—fifteen minutes after ten. Unable to resist, he picked up his phone.

  “Any sign of Miss Jacobs, Angela?”

  “Again, no. I would have called you if she’d arrived.”

  “Try to get her on the line for me.”

  Travis hung up before their receptionist had a chance to editorialize any further.

  He’d spent the day before caged up in his apartment, and now he was paying for it. He felt itchy. Why hadn’t he gone to the gym instead of spending the day on the couch watching sports, hoping Erin Jacobs would call?

  How had the woman managed to care for her menagerie of animals in this flood?

  Any other new mom, any other single mom, would have called him scared to death when the skies dropped twenty-six inches of water in less than three days.

  Not Erin Jacobs.

  His only calls had been from his mother, two clients who wanted him to deliver meals (he’d referred those to Meals-on-Wheels), and James inviting him over to watch a game (he’d passed).

  No calls from Erin, and now she was fifteen minutes late.

  When his phone rang, he pounced.

  “Williams.”

  “I tried Erin’s number, Travis. Lines aren’t working out her way. Phone company reports they’ve been down since yesterday morning.”

  “What about her cell?” Travis began combing through his file for her number.

  “Tried it already. Nothing.”

  “What do you mean nothing?” Travis’s voice boomed, temporarily muting the steady drone of rain against the windows. He launched out of his chair, looming a good head taller than the sides of his cubicle.

  Seeing everyone within shouting distance turn to stare at him, he muttered into the handset, “I’ll be right there.”

  One minute later he was standing in front of a wide-eyed Angela.

  “I tried. Both numbers aren’t working.”

  “You mean you didn’t get an answer.”

  “No. I mean they weren’t working.”

  “How is that possible? Our phones are working. Erin Jacobs lives in the same town we live in, correct?”

  “Calm down, Travis.” Angela slid a bright red fingernail down the front page of the newspaper and stopped below a sidebar. “It says here some landlines and cellular companies are experiencing temporary outages.”

  “Unacceptable.” Determined to keep his cool, he gritted his teeth together.

  “Gosh. I’m sorry, but there’s a flood going on if you haven’t noticed.” Angela leaned back, cocked her head, and looked at him inquisitively. “It’s only an appointment. Maybe she forgot. I’m sure Erin will reschedule. What’s got your spine up?”

  Travis tamped down his temper, drew a deep breath, and stepped back from Angela’s counter. He paced away from her, stared out the window, and uttered a prayer, but the itchiness didn’t lessen. It intensified.

  Running a hand through his hair, he turned back to his receptionist. “I’m worried about Erin,” he confessed. “She was
early for her last appointment. I think she’d at least call—”

  “If she could,” Angela pointed out.

  “Exactly.” Travis nodded, relieved they were finally working together.

  “Do you want me to call emergency dispatch? Have them take a run by her place—”

  Travis stopped her hand as it reached for the push buttons of the phone.

  “Emergency personnel have enough to do in this kind of flooding. You could be right—maybe with all she had to do at the ARK, she forgot. My next appointment is after lunch. I’ll run out and check on her.”

  Travis jogged back through the door toward his office, grabbed his keys, jacket, and cell phone—at least his worked. As he rushed past Angela’s desk, she waved him over and shoved her keys across the counter toward him.

  “Jimmy insisted I bring his truck today.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “My brother.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Travis tried to think of something to say and couldn’t. Jimmy was about as redneck as they came—from his work boots to his John Deere hat and pinch of chewing tobacco. In his mid-twenties, the boy had already experienced several brushes with the law.

  “If I remember right, to get to Erin’s you have to go through some pretty low spots. Your Chevy Blazer is high, but not as high as Jimmy’s truck.”

  “You mean the—” A grin spread across Travis’s face for the first time since realizing Erin wasn’t going to show for her appointment.

  “Yeah, it’s that old Dodge Power Wagon he enters in the four-wheeler competitions—408 engine, larger pistons, heavier axels, even waterproofed. Why do you think he still lives with my parents? He spends all his paycheck on his hobby. Says he’s even made it up a seventy-degree slope. Any more than that, and you’ll flip over.”

  Travis gripped the keys in his hands. “Thanks, Angie. I owe you.”

  Then he was gone, flying down the road like a superhero in a transformer machine. He had no problem ignoring the strange looks thrown his way. First of all they were rare, since most sane people had stayed off the roads. Secondly, he was high enough that he could look down on the roof tops of the cars he passed. He felt them though—people wondering about the nut in the off-road vehicle.

  He waited until he’d left the central part of town to see what the truck was able to do. Though the water had started to recede, it still remained two to three feet deep in some places. At first he would slow down as he went through it, but the truck’s wheels never lost traction. It was like driving a subterranean vehicle. He would almost enjoy it if his heart rate would slow down.

  The closer he got to Erin’s place, the deeper the water became on the flooded roads and in the pastures.

  Then he turned on her lane, stopped the truck, and stared—mouth wide open. The truck idled, growled practically, as if its engines were eager to take on the lake in front of him.

  But there was a cattle guard in the middle of that lake. No way he could push that guard open given the amount of water it was standing in—unless he wanted to crash through it, and he’d never achieve the speed needed to manage that.

  He tried his cell.

  No service available.

  The rain had lightened somewhat, and he thought he saw a light on in the house at the top of the hill.

  There was another way to Erin’s house. There just wasn’t another road to Erin’s house. If you had an all-terrain vehicle though, you could get there via the back way—up the hill.

  Jamming the gears into reverse, he spun the truck around and circled the farm road to the back side of the ARK.

  Like one magnet drawn to another, he felt a pull now that he was powerless to resist. He’d reach Erin’s house to check on her and Joshua if he had to swim. First though, he’d try driving off-road.

  Looking at a ten percent grade and a river of mud, chances were he’d slide right back down. So he muttered a prayer, pushed the gear shift into first, and punched the accelerator.

  When he gained the hilltop, he crashed through an old fence behind the barn. A dilapidated three-foot wooden fence couldn’t stop him. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as mud sloshed beneath the truck’s oversized tires. He was so elated to have made it to the top of the hill and onto Erin’s property that it took a minute for what he was seeing—or not seeing—to register.

  There were no animals in the pens.

  No dogs in the dog run.

  The horses didn’t poke their heads out from the barn. In fact, the barn was closed up tight.

  He cracked his window and rain slapped him in the face, but he didn’t hear a single moo.

  The ARK was silent.

  Where were the horses? Ducks, rabbits, and cats might be quietly curled in a corner. But horses and a llama should be making a ruckus.

  Spinning the truck around in the lane, he downshifted once more. Erin’s house loomed in front of him in the noonday darkness. The one light he’d seen from the cattle guard—from the lake in front of her house—still shone through the porch window.

  Why hadn’t she noticed him? Even through the rain, she should hear the diesel engine of Jimmy’s truck. She should be looking to see who the idiot was trespassing on her property.

  He tried to swallow the panic rising in his throat. Wiping his sweaty palms against his pants leg, he studied her house and considered his next move.

  Surely there was a logical explanation.

  Maybe she’d left when she saw the water rising.

  Erin would never leave her animals—they were here somewhere. She was here.

  With the conviction that something was wrong, and thanking God he’d found a way to make it this far, he drove the truck steadily through the remaining three hundred yards of water and mud to her porch. When he finally cut the engine, the soft patter of rain against the metal roof of the truck almost unnerved him.

  Still no sign of life.

  He sloshed his way through the mud and up her porch steps.

  No one answered his knock, and the door was locked when he tried the knob.

  He peered through the slim window that ran the length of the door and saw another light on in the back room.

  He pounded on the door. “Erin? Erin, it’s Travis Williams. Are you in there?”

  He rattled the door and tapped on the glass. Still no one answered.

  Looking around the front porch, he spied a plastic frog sitting next to the swing, lifted it up, and removed the key.

  Unlocking the door, he stepped inside.

  Silence blanketed the home.

  “Erin?”

  His boots echoed on the wooden floor as he crossed the room. He had an overwhelming urge to stop and remove them, knew he was tracking mud across her pine floors.

  But the silence and an urgency spurred him forward.

  Through the living room, down the hall, to the darkened nursery.

  Joshua’s crib stood empty. The blanket with tiny horses had been tossed in the corner.

  The monitor light blinked on, and through it he could hear tiny, whimpering sounds—not cries really, not something he could hear from the other room. He leaned closer to convince himself it wasn’t his imagination. The whimpers stopped, then started again.

  He no longer called out.

  His pulse thundered in his ears as he strode down the hall, his legs growing heavier with each step.

  Her door was cracked slightly.

  He reached out his hand, again petitioned God for mercy, realized he’d been praying since he’d crashed through the fence, and pushed open the door.

  Twenty-Two

  Erin woke to Travis kneeling beside her bed, his hand on her face, deliciously cool fingers running across her brow. He whispered something she couldn’t make out, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the comfort of his skin against hers.

  She curled toward his hand and let her eyes drift shut.

  Then Joshua’s howls pierced through her fever. She struggled against the weight holding her eyes shut. Pushe
d at the mounds of covers pinning her down.

  Why couldn’t she sit up? Joshua needed her.

  “It’s all right, Erin. I have Joshua. Lie back and rest.” Travis framed her face with his hands.

  She was powerless to resist the delicious chill his hands brought to her face. Closing her eyes, she replayed the dream again—she’d been lost in a desert and alone.

  But now he was here and with him relief.

  She sank back into her pillows.

  “Joshua—” Her voice sounded like someone else’s. Pine needles scratched at the inside of her throat.

  “He’s in my arms. See? Josh is right here. You’re burning up. I need to bring your fever down.”

  “Josh first.” She croaked. “I’ve been feeding him.”

  She pointed to the cooler and bottle warmer by the bed. It was all she’d been able to think of the night before when the worst of the chills had hit. Realizing they were stranded on the ARK until the waters receded, she’d premade bottles, brought in ice and a cooler, and stored them beside her bed. The bottle warmer had been in the bag in Josh’s closet.

  Then she’d set in a supply of diapers.

  They’d spent the last twenty-four hours huddled there.

  She finally met Travis’s gaze and hoped he understood that she’d done her best.

  “He’s fine—only wet. I’ll change him.”

  She heard the heavenly sound of a diaper being pulled off and nearly cried because she didn’t have to lift her arms to do it. Falling back into the abyss, her last thought was something else needed to be done. Something urgent.

  When she woke again, Travis was pushing the hair back from her face. He worked a wet cloth around her forehead, cheeks, mouth—she had the bizarre urge to bite it. Anything to feel liquid in her throat.

  “Drink,” she murmured.

  He nearly jumped off the bed when she spoke.

  “I have water right here.”

  Helping her sit up, he held the cup to her lips. The water was delicious, cold, better than a thousand ice cream shakes. She tried to take the glass from his hands and gulp it down.