by Sue Brown
“Well, I didn’t have to worry about kissing the wrong twin.”
“Obviously not.”
“Toby was already going out with Damien when we met. He was cute.”
“He’s cute now,” Sam said without thinking. “Wait, did you just say he was cute?”
Gabriel gave a wicked grin, and Sam’s heart fluttered. Christ, the man was hot.
“I did.”
“You’re bi?”
“Yeah, but once Toby introduced me to Jenny, she was it for me. I took one look into her eyes and never looked at anyone else again. Toby was the same with Damien.”
Sam couldn’t imagine meeting someone who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Then again, maybe he was married. He looked at Gabriel’s left hand. He still wore his wedding ring. Sam stretched out his hands. There was a lighter band of skin on the middle finger of his right hand as if a ring had once been there, but nothing on his left hand.
“What are you thinking?” Gabriel asked.
“If I’ve left someone behind. I don’t think I wear a wedding ring.” He stared at Gabriel. “I don’t know. I don’t feel anything. I can’t remember anything.”
He could feel cloying panic sweeping over him, his heart started beating faster, and for a moment, his vision blurred.
Someone tried to kill me.
The sharp tug of his hair trapped beneath his shoulders roused him from the cold darkness. His body hurt from head to toe, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t seem to move his limbs to wriggle into a better position. It was as though the connection between his brain and body had been severed. Whatever he was lying on was hard and uncomfortable, and a harsh disinfectant smell clung to the back of his throat.
He tried to open his eyes to make sense of what was happening, but his eyelids had the same heavy weights attached to them as his arms and legs. He fought to calm the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm him. There had to be a simple explanation. Perhaps he’d fallen and bumped his head. Maybe he hurt his neck, and that’s why he couldn’t move. All he needed was to attract someone’s attention, but he couldn’t freakin’ move.
He couldn’t move!
Sam tried to struggle as rough hands gripped his arms, but he was hauled over someone’s shoulder as though he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes. Sickness rose in his throat, and Sam swallowed hard. The man reeked of sweat and cigarette smoke, which didn’t help the nausea, and his cheek rubbed painfully against a coarse jacket as he bumped against the man’s back.
“Sam, Sam, listen to me. It’s okay. Just breathe.”
He needed to calm the hell down and take deep breaths, but even that seemed like a struggle, and the acrid smell from the floor made him feel nauseated. Sam focused on his breathing. He tried to count, but it was hard to focus, and he’d miss a few numbers and start over again.
“In. Out. In. Out.”
A voice, not his own, kept murmuring the same thing. A firm, kind, male voice. It didn’t sound as if he wanted to harm Sam.
Sam slowed his breathing in rhythm with the voice and his breathing steadied and his heart slowed.
“Open your eyes.”
His eyes were closed? He opened them to find Gabriel sitting on the coffee table, concern in his grey eyes and his hands wrapped around Sam’s.
“Hey, welcome back,” Gabriel said, a faint smile curving his lips.
“What happened?”
Sam was disorientated, still lost in fear and panic.
“I think you had a panic attack,” Gabriel said.
“It felt so real.” Sam shuddered and Gabriel held his hands tighter. It was grounding and Sam didn’t want Gabriel to take his hands away.
“I think you’re fine, but I’ll get Toby to take a look at you.”
Sam shook his head. “I’m all right. It’s all a bit overwhelming, you know?”
“I know.” Gabriel stayed where he was for a few minutes and then moved back to his chair.
Sam clasped his hands together, missing Gabriel’s warmth. He shivered, and Gabriel noticed.
“Why don’t you put the throw around your shoulders?”
Gabriel got up immediately and wrapped the afghan around Sam’s shoulders, leaning in to smooth it down Sam’s back.
Gabriel’s face was so close. Sam looked up and held his breath. For an instant he thought Gabriel was going to kiss him, but then the man’s eyes grew hooded and he took a step back. Sam reached a hand out to him. “Gabriel, I….”
“I… have to get milk.” Gabriel rushed away, grabbing his wallet and hurrying outside, leaving Sam alone in the cottage.
Sam wrapped his hands around the cooling mug of tea, not sure whether to run after him and offer comfort or leave him alone, but he had no shoes, and rummaging through the wardrobes and cupboards while he was alone seemed wrong. He felt alone and vulnerable, and that feeling was alien to him. Sam didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.
“You’re lucky he’s a good guy,” he muttered.
He looked around for something to do, but the place was clean and tidy. Gabriel’s bedroom door was shut, and it seemed like another barrier. He wasn’t about to open it without invitation. Eventually, Sam sat down on the sofa and stared at his hands as if they would give him the answers to all his questions. They were soft, well-manicured, but with calluses on his fingertips, as if he did something specific that caused the hard skin.
He thought back to his panic attack. It had scared him, not being able to move.
“Was it real? Did it really happen?” he murmured. No one answered him.
It had seemed real. The smells, the sounds. Even the feel of the weave of the man’s jacket on his cheek. How could he imagine that? Was he having dreams, nightmares, or flashbacks? How had he ended up on the boat? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember that. It was so damned frustrating.
He was distracted by a deep rumbling sound and the mugs on the table rattled and one moved close to the edge. Sam pushed it back. What the hell was that? Gabriel! Was he all right? Sam leapt to his feet, ready to go and find him, but a wave of pain shot through his head and he sat back down, his head in his hands.
He wasn’t going anywhere for a moment. Sam closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain. Okay then. He’d stay here until he could move and then look for Gabriel.
Chapter 5—Gabriel
GABRIEL NEEDED to get out of the cottage and away from Sam. His unwanted visitor was too much for him to deal with. He’d told Toby it was a bad idea to have anyone else in the house, and look what happened. He’d nearly kissed Sam, been so close to him he could smell the sweet tea on Sam’s breath, the citrus scent of his shampoo in Sam’s bright hair. Sam would have been horrified. The cottage was Gabriel’s home, and he needed it back. Alone.
He shoved his hands into his jacket, put his head down, and strode as fast as he could without looking as though he were running. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he had to be away from the cottage and temptation and he had to buy milk. Gabriel knew he was being childish. He could hear Toby’s voice in his head, telling him to get over himself. When had Toby replaced his mother as his voice of conscience?
Gabriel had just reached the old coastal road when the ground shook so hard it almost forced him to his knees. He staggered and braced to keep his balance. Then he grabbed the low wall nearby to hang on to as he wondered if the earth was about to open up and swallow him whole in a thunderclap. He tried to focus, even as the world shook around him. The noise was ahead of him, not behind. Sam was safe in the cottage. Relief flooded through him before he pushed it aside. More shaking and intense noise. Gabriel stayed where he was until the shaking stopped.
He waited for a few seconds. The silence was as deafening as the noise had been. Then Gabriel heard shouting ahead of him and ran towards the voices. It was coming from around the bend.
Gabriel turned the corner and immediately saw the cause of the problem. Not just one tree this time. A landslip
had brought trees, boulders, and tonnes of earth down onto the houses and road below. The road was blocked for several hundred yards. Gabriel tried to remember the sequence of houses along this stretch. It was the main road out of the village and was lined with small bungalows and cottages. If he remembered rightly, there were three or four cottages on this side. The landslide had effectively covered the bend of the road.
Gabriel’s heart faltered. What if people were trapped in their houses? The village had suffered a tragedy just after the turn of the twentieth century when a catastrophic landslip engulfed half the village. No one was alive from that time, but all the locals had lost family, Toby and Jenny included.
Gabriel patted his pocket. Thank God he had the muscle memory to pick up his phone before his flight from the cottage. His first call was to Toby.
“Is Sam okay?” Toby said by way of greeting. “I’m getting my shoes on. What was the noise?”
“He’s fine. There’s been a landslip on the old coast road by Bert Wooding’s cottage. It’s large, Toby. I don’t know of any casualties yet.”
“Evacuate everyone to the centre. Damien can take care of them,” Toby said crisply, and Gabriel nodded, unseen, as his brother-in-law went into take-charge mode. “I’ll be there in five minutes. I’ll get Damien to call the emergency services.”
“Get the council and highways services here too. I don’t know how stable the banks are.”
“Damien knows what to do.”
Gabriel disconnected the call and ran to join the people surrounding the slip. Old Mrs Thomas came out of her gate looking tired and confused as he jogged past. She was over eighty, and Gabriel was very fond of her.
“What just happened, Gabriel. Was it a bomb?” Her voice was shaky and her eyes wide and frightened.
Although he was anxious to see what happened, he stopped and took her shaking hands as she reached out to him. “It was a landslide, Mrs Thomas, by Bert and Elsie Wooding’s place.”
“Oh dear, are they all right?” She looked distressed.
“I’ll find out,” he promised.
One of her neighbours came out of her bungalow looking equally confused. Gabriel didn’t know her name, as she’d moved into the village in the past year.
“What just happened? I thought it was an earthquake,” she said. Then she spotted the landslip. “Oh my God. Is everyone all right?”
“I don’t know yet,” Gabriel told her. “You need to evacuate your house for now. Dr Maris has set up an evacuation centre at his clinic.”
“Evacuate? Do I have to? I’ve got dinner on.”
Gabriel stared at her. Her life was in danger and she was worried about dinner? “We don’t know how stable the banks are. There could be more landslides. If that bank comes down it could cover the whole road.”
A burly middle-aged man with dark grey hair joined them. He nodded at Gabriel. “Pennant, good to see you here. We’ll need you.” He turned to the woman. “Do what he says, Marion. The whole bank is unstable. The last thing we need is to lose more houses.”
Marion looked frightened. “I’ll turn off the oven, Tim. Where shall we go?”
“Take Mrs Thomas with you to Dr Maris’s clinic,” Gabriel said. “Damien is setting up an evacuation centre. Can you get her to go with you?”
With that simple task, Marion went from combative to helpful. “Leave it with me. Just wait while I turn off the oven.” She vanished into her house and reappeared a moment later with her coat and a blanket.
Mrs Thomas stood between Gabriel and Tim, looking like a tiny bewildered owl. Gabriel held her hands and assured her everything would be fine, and no, it wasn’t a bomb. Marion put the blanket and her arm around the elderly lady and walked away, promising a nice cup of tea and a nice shortbread once she got to that nice doctor’s place.
Gabriel looked at Tim. “Thanks for backing me up.”
“No problem. You’ve got the evac centre set up and emergencies on the way?”
Gabriel nodded. “Plus the council and highways agencies. Tell me what we’ve got?”
They strode back to the edge of the slip, Tim talking as they walked. “Three houses partially covered. The bulk of the rocks and dirt missed the houses, but those trees are threatening to fall. After that storm, the whole bank could come down. I’ve been telling the council for months it was unstable. That tree fell for a reason. The team from the council only left about an hour ago.”
“Any casualties?” Gabriel asked.
“Not at the moment. That house—” Tim pointed to the middle house, partially buried under the weight of soil and boulders. “My wife says the family is away. She’s going to call them. The other two we don’t know. Bert and Elsie could be at their daughter’s.”
“We need to get the surrounding houses evacuated first. What about the houses on the other side?”
“I’m coordinating with my brother-in-law, working the other side of the slip. There are fewer houses that side, as it’s almost at the edge of the village. That’s my home.” Tim pointed to a grey stone cottage on the side of the road, constructed much like Gabriel’s own.
They reached the crowd of people by the slip.
Gabriel assessed the crowd, who were predominately elderly couples. They weren’t going to be much help with any rescue attempt.
“People, Dr Maris is opening the clinic for an evacuation point. We need to get everyone out of their houses and to the clinic now!” Tim said. “If this slip blocked the road, a more catastrophic one could cover the homes on both sides of the road.”
“We’ll start knocking on doors,” one of the older men in the crowd said. “Ellen, you’re with me. Johnny, do the other side. Don’t let anyone say no.”
Johnny was a younger version of him and built like a brick outhouse. If anyone refused, he’d probably pick them up bodily and cart them over his shoulder to the clinic. Gabriel knew from experience some of the villagers were stubborn as hell.
“Who owns the cottage on the left?” Gabriel asked.
He’d known the previous owners, but they’d been elderly. From the toys and swing in the front garden, the place had changed hands without him realising. Life had gone on around him, and he hadn’t even noticed.
“Shaun and Janice moved to be near their daughter. A young family own it now. I don’t really know them. They keep themselves to themselves.” Tim sounded faintly disapproving, and Gabriel remembered Tim was a man of the community. He liked to know what was going on in his village. Jenny had been like that—loved by everyone and always ready to help out.
“We know one house is empty. Bert and Elsie might be away. It’s just this one.”
Johnny jogged up to them. “My neighbour said she saw the mum going into the village about half an hour ago. I’m going to find her.”
He loped away on his mission, and Gabriel felt some of the tension recede. All three houses possibly empty. How fortunate was that? They could wait until highways services arrived. If the slip had occurred a couple of hundred yards further on, more houses and local shops would have been affected and the casualty rate higher. This was the least occupied part of the road. If they managed to shore up the bank before any further slippage, it would be fine.
The crack reverberated like a gunshot. Gabriel instinctively ducked, and Tim cried out as a large tree split as though someone had swung a giant axe at it. It careered down the slope into the first house, crumpling one side as though it were cardboard. More stones and boulders and dirt piled down behind it.
The silence left behind was almost as shocking, broken only by a few smaller stones bouncing down the road.
“Fuck!” Tim uttered succinctly.
Gabriel agreed with that sentiment. He coughed, and the dust-filled air cloyed at the back of his throat.
He was about to suggest they move the hell out of the way of any further landslides when a woman in a long summer dress ran up the road, crying and screaming, “Where’s my daughter? Where’s my daughter?”
“Who’s this?” he asked Tim.
“She lives there.” Tim pointed to the cottage now barely visible under the weight of dirt and trees.
Gabriel caught the woman as she ran past him, heading for the cottage. “Stop, ma’am, you can’t go in there.”
She tore her arm out of his grasp. “My kid’s in there.” Fear was in her eyes and trembling frame.
Déjà vu coiled in the pit of Gabriel’s belly. “You left your child in there alone?”
“Maisie didn’t want to come with me, and I was only going to be five minutes.” Her face screwed up as though she was about to cry. “I’ve got to get her out of there.”
“Where was she?” Gabriel asked.
“I left her watching TV in the back room. We’ve got to get her out.”
The back of the cottage had almost been completely demolished by the tree. Gabriel looked at Tim, who just shook his head slightly. If the little girl had been in the back room, there was little chance of her being alive.
“I’m going to call my brother-in-law,” Tim said as he walked away, phone pressed to his ear.
Gabriel had heard the sirens and seen the blue flashing lights on the other side of the landslip, but there was no way they could get over here yet. The whole area was too unstable. But they had to get the little girl out fast. Tim was arguing with someone, and Gabriel guessed he was being told what Gabriel had just thought. No chance of a rescue yet.
“Maisie is in there. I’ve got to get her. Why isn’t anyone helping me?”
The woman bolted towards the cottage, but Gabriel lunged forward and grabbed her, spinning her into Tim’s arms.
“You take her. I’m going in.”
“You can’t do that. It’s too unstable,” Tim protested.
“Someone has to,” Gabriel said grimly.
“You can’t take that risk!”
“One more slip, and that little girl is….” He stopped, but he knew by Tim’s pursed lips that he’d got the meaning. One more slip of earth and the cottage would be gone.