“Oh, you two.” Angela reached out for Ricoh and gently ran her hand over his head. “Hola, mi esposo.”
Ricoh caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “Hola, mi ángel.”
“He has a point, Angela. I was under the table. In fact, I’m going to tell Gwen we all were under those tables. And thank God for your furniture-making hobby and those two wondrous hand-made hickory tables of yours, Ricoh Stone.”
“Amen to that.”
A sob escaped Brittany. Sean’s three words were a balm to her soul and a sign that her personal visit to hell was over.
“We’re going to find us a holy man—or woman—and have those tables blessed,” Noah said. Brittany made her way to them as fast as she could.
“Hey, baby girl. Are you all right?”
“Me? I’m not one of two people flat on their backs being carried to the doctor!”
“Our woman sounds pissed,” Noah said.
“We’re fine, Brittany. You can’t get rid of us that easily.”
Brittany wasn’t certain if the sound that escaped her right then was a bark of laughter or a sob of despair. “Trust me, prospector, there was nothing easy about the last few hours. And if you think you can escape me that way, think again.”
“L.T.? The area OEM director wants to speak with you.” Gunny handed the SAT phone to her. She wasn’t stopping to take the call, so she took the phone and talked and walked. “Yes, Mr. Carlton? Yes, thank you, we’ve extricated our people from the structure. Pardon? All right, I’ll let the Town Trust know. No, what Gunnery Sergeant Williams told you was correct. We had no fatalities. I don’t yet have a list of the injuries, but it doesn’t appear as if there is anything serious. All survivors were conscious and lucid when they were excavated. That’s correct. We no longer need further assistance. Thank you, sir. Goodnight.” She handed the phone back to Gunny. The call had ended just in time because they’d arrived at the triage area. Noah’s and Sean’s litters were set on stretchers at about waist height.
“Why did the area OEM Director want to talk to you, baby girl?” Sean asked.
“Because she was the one who coordinated this rescue, cousin,” David Jessop said. He came over to them and began to examine his new patients. “Now, let’s see what we have here, shall we?” He started with Sean.
“We look like refugees from a bomb blast,” Noah said.
Brittany smiled. They, like everyone else who’d been pulled out of the debris, were a little the worse for wear, covered in dust and dirt, and that was even before possible injuries were taken into account.
There was ample lighting in this tent, and as she looked around, she only saw a few people resting on stretchers. Lusty had its own fully equipped clinic, but anyone in need of immediate medical intervention would have been taken to Waco. As far as she knew, no one had been.
Robert Jessop joined her. “We were damn lucky. A simple fracture, a couple of sprains, and some bumps and bruises and minor cuts, a couple needing stitches. That’s a damn miracle, by anyone’s standard.”
“Yes, it is. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” He bent over and kissed her cheek then went over to examine Noah.
Brittany turned her attention back to her men. Exhaustion settled on her. She noticed Caleb Benedict looking over from where he was speaking to his son, Steven, who, with Matt, had been at the fires near Hamilton. He came over and gave her a hug.
“Good job, Lieutenant. You kept us together and focused.”
“We all did it together, Mr. Benedict. Oh, and the OEM director wants the structure left as is until he can get a team out to inspect the level of damage. He said tomorrow or the next day.”
“That’s Uncle Caleb to you, young lady. I’ll let Jordan and the Town Trust know.” He looked over at Sean and Noah then back up at her. “As soon as the docs here give them the all-clear, why don’t you head on home, the three of you? I think we’ll have a get-together at the Community Center tomorrow afternoon for everyone.”
“Thank you, Uncle Caleb. That sounds good.”
Caleb turned to Gunny and offered him his hand. “Thank you, Sergeant. This town owes you a debt of gratitude.”
“I was happy to help, sir.” He nodded then looked around.
Brittany knew what Gunny was seeing. Everyone who had been pulled from the wreckage was alive. Robert Jessop was right. A miracle, by anyone’s standards.
“All right, you both appear good to go. I would suggest you take it easy for what’s left of the night. We’re going to be at the clinic overnight, so if anything develops, anything at all, call. If you begin to hurt persistently, if you notice any soft tissue becoming rigid, if you see sudden redness or signs of infection. Understand?”
“They do.” She’d noticed both Sean and Noah frowning at David. David must have noticed it, too, because he turned and hugged Brittany and kissed her cheek.
“My thanks, added on to everyone else’s.” David released her.
Sean and Noah had sat up and then eased themselves off the stretchers. They stepped closer and enfolded her in their heat. She actually felt the adrenaline crash as her knees buckled for just a moment.
“I see our SUV over there,” Noah said.
“Good. Let’s go home.” Sean reached for her hand and brought it to his lips.
“Yes, please. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty
The water poured down on them, gallons of glorious, hot water. The only sound within the glass enclosure of the shower stall was the falling water and breathing. His hands on the wall, his head bowed, Sean felt helpless to do anything else for these few minutes, except absorb the heat while the water washed away the dust and the fear of the last several hours and soothed his aches.
Then he felt a small feminine hand caress his hip—his sore right hip. He sighed, opened his eyes, and turned around. His brother stood under the center showerhead, his eyes closed, clearly experiencing the same rejuvenation. Sitting on the bench they’d installed for her, Brittany looked up and met his gaze. Then she looked over at Noah and back to him. The love he saw on her face humbled him.
They’d had plans to love on her, but when they’d gotten home, it had been all either of them could do to drag their sorry asses into the house and down the hall to the master suite.
“Thank you for not arguing with me back at the ranch.”
Brittany’s polite words pulled a smile from him. She’d insisted on driving, and in all honesty, neither he nor Noah had it in them to argue.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I guess this is just one of those times in life when it was my turn to wield the sword. You men can have it back tomorrow sometime. Maybe.”
Noah laughed. “I suppose if one is going to turn the sword over to one’s woman for a time, it’s a good damn thing if one’s woman is a marine.”
“Oorah. Semper Fi.”
Sean chuckled. There’d been no gusto, no macho in the Marine motto this time. Brittany’s voice hadn’t even risen. “Let’s get dried off and into bed.”
It irked him some that he didn’t even have the strength, at the moment, to carry his woman to bed and make sweet love to her. He watched her as she stood on one foot and then got herself out of the shower. She was pretty good at hopping. She’d had the presence of mind to bring her crutches into the bathroom and set out towels for all of them before she’d joined them.
Shamefully, he and Noah had simply and selfishly stripped and headed to the water.
Brittany sat on the bench between the Jacuzzi and the shower and dried herself. She wrapped her hair in another towel then reached for her crutches. She walked to the sinks, set her crutches aside, and then used the blow dryer on her soft tresses. Everything she did was with a minimum of fuss.
Their Brittany wasn’t a fussy woman.
“What?” She’d looked into the mirror and caught them both staring at her.
“We could have died tonight.” Noah spoke the
words Sean was having a hard time getting out. “Should have died, except for those wonderful hickory tables Ricoh built.”
“Yeah. What he said.” It was the best Sean could do.
“Bed, please, gentlemen. I really need to feel your heat surrounding me. It was a fucking horrible night, right up until the end, there.”
He put one foot in front of the other, and still Brittany got there before either of them did. She pulled down the blankets and pointed.
He didn’t have to be asked twice, and neither did Noah. He would have been embarrassed by the chorus of painful groans they both emitted as they got horizontal if he was younger and more egotistical. Sean recalled that he and Noah had told Brit that there would likely come a time when they’d need her to take care of them at some point. Maybe he hadn’t really meant it when he’d said it. Maybe he had been trying to ease Brittany’s unfounded feelings of uselessness in the beginning of her healing process. They’d both known she’d felt that way when she was first adjusting to her new normal.
But damn, was he ever glad that, in this moment, when he needed her, she was here for him—that she was here for them both.
Brittany waited until they were both in bed, and then she proffered a bottle of Tylenol. She shook out two tabs for him and two for Noah then handed him a bottle of water. He chugged a good couple of mouthfuls and then passed it over to his brother.
“Thanks, baby girl. I didn’t think of that.”
“Yeah, thanks, sweetheart.”
“Robert told me you might wake up sorer than when you went to bed, so he suggested the medication since neither of you banged your heads.” Then she crawled up the middle of the bed and pulled the blankets up to cover them all. “Could you guys snuggle me in close, please? I’m about to fall apart, and I could really use the cuddle.”
He and Noah had barely gotten into position when she burst into tears.
He and his brother held her. They held this fragile yet amazingly strong woman and let her cry. No words were necessary, and he doubted in that moment she’d welcome any. The impression he had gotten earlier was that it had been Brittany who’d stepped up and stepped in and kept everyone together, kept them focused on rescue, and got the job done.
No, not Brittany. It had been Lieutenant Phillips, USMC, who’d done all that. It was the first time he’d really seen this side of her, the soldier side of her.
Tremendous pride filled him—pride and maybe a little guilt. He recalled the promise he’d made to himself as he crouched trapped with his brother and cousins, twenty men all huddled under the protection of those two heavy tables as the world had collapsed around them.
He’d honor that promise, but more, he’d honor her with total honesty—the kind he’d demanded of her, when he hadn’t been man enough to offer the same in return.
Brittany exhaled deeply. Her inhalations were a bit trembly, so he stayed silent and gave her what she’d asked for—snuggling her in tight. She’d told them that she’d had trouble getting warm without them. This bed was her sanctuary, and he and Noah were integral to that.
She sighed again, the tension in her small frame much less than it had been.
“Better, baby?”
“Yeah. I was so scared. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. Not even when that chopper went down. That…that must have been a little of what you both felt, in Namibia.”
“Yeah. Scared, worried, helpless, you name it, we felt it.” Noah spooned her, and Sean stroked her shoulder and arm that were draped over his chest.
“It must have been hellacious for the two of you, trapped in that house. I can’t even imagine.”
“It was. Not just the tornado part of it,” Sean said. “We didn’t have much time to be afraid before it hit. The tornado happened pretty damn quick. There’s a sound that you sometimes hear, when a tornado is about to hit you. A lot of people have said it sounds like a freight train. I can now attest that’s the truth.”
“We were dissing each other the way we do—cousin-speak—and playing cards. Duncan had just laid down a damned natural royal flush. Then some of the guys’ cell phones pinged. They had weather alert apps. Then we heard that horrendous sound, and fuck…we all just dove under the tables.” Noah’s words weren’t very loud. Sean figured the memory demanded a soft tone. “Someone pulled me under better, and there was jostling. Just a few seconds, but we got it done. Then it was like an explosion. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt the percussion of an explosion?”
“I’ve served a tour where there was combat, I’ll remind you.” Brittany’s tone—almost droll—made Sean smile.
“Well, the concussion popped our eardrums.” Sean picked up the telling. “It felt like we were lifted then slammed down again, just a heartbeat of time, really, but we were all still under the tables. They held.” Sean exhaled shakily. “It took us a few moments to understand what had happened. The house had come down on top of us, and the only thing preventing us from getting crushed were those wonderful, handmade tables.”
“The worst part was there we all were—so many of Lusty’s so-called Alpha dogs—and we didn’t know about our women, our families. A fucking tornado had gotten us, but we didn’t know how much of the town, how many…” Noah inhaled, and Sean knew how he felt, beating back another visit from the despair that had stayed with them as they’d huddled within the debris.
“We didn’t realize at first that we were all a little bit deaf. That wore off after about a half hour or so. We tried to get turned around, to see if we could maybe dig ourselves out, get some idea of our situation.”
“I guess you didn’t know the entire house had come down on top of you,” Brittany said. She shivered, and Sean edged closer to her, trusting Noah did the same.
“No. We didn’t know that at all,” Sean said. “Various of us tried getting some of the debris out of the way, but the moment we pulled a little, more filled in the hole.”
“Adam Kendall and Greg Benedict both shouted at us to stop trying to dig ourselves out. There was only one place for the debris trapping us to go where it already wasn’t, and that was under the table with us. It seemed like forever until we heard Jordan yelling at us.”
“The first thing we did when we got there—about twenty minutes after that bitch hit—was to scream your names.”
“We must have all still been suffering from tinnitus,” Sean said. “The ringing and deafness eventually cleared, as I said. We were certain there was wide-spread damage, that the whole town had been destroyed, and we were all so pissed because we were trapped and couldn’t get to our women—to our families. It was hardest for Chase and Brian.”
“Once we heard Jordan and knew that we were the only ones Mother Nature had screwed with…it was easier, then.”
“We’re both a little in awe of you, Brittany,” Sean said. He kissed the top of her head. “How did you come to be in charge of the rescue operation?”
He felt her shrug. “It was the training. I’m a Marine. When Carrie burst into the great room at the Big House and told us what had happened, it was like we were in a kind of horror movie. I’m not even sure how my being in charge happened. People looked at me, and I just started issuing orders.”
“We’re all lucky you did,” Noah said.
Brittany shivered then yawned. “I think sane minds would have responded in a few more seconds. It was the training that had me react so quickly, and everyone just followed my lead.”
Sean could feel his own energy draining out of him. “Let’s sleep, baby girl. Let’s just snuggle down, close our eyes, and go to sleep.”
“Okay. But we still need to talk about something important.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow, sweetheart,” Noah said.
“Okay.” Brittany’s long sigh, and the way she relaxed into him told him, she’d just fallen asleep. Exhausted, but content, he followed her.
* * * *
Private time would have to wait. Jake Kendall called and asked them to meet at the Commun
ity Center at noon. Since that was in only an hour, and they’d just awakened, they didn’t have time for more than getting up and getting ready.
“He didn’t give us any information on the phone,” Sean said. “But he said there’d be an update on everyone.”
Sean didn’t have to explain himself to her. After the harrowing events of the night before, he and Noah both felt a need to touch base with everyone they’d been trapped with, to know how everyone had fared.
“I’m amazed there’s a cell signal this morning,” Brittany said. “One of the women got a ping on her phone, and then the cell system crashed.” That wasn’t the only thing that amazed her. After a solid nine hours sleep, both men awoke a bit sore but otherwise sound. She’d taken a moment to check them out more thoroughly than she had the night before. There was a bruise on Sean’s right hip and a bit of a scrape on Noah’s left arm. But other than that, they were fine.
“I know from times past that, when something like that goes down, the Town Trust gets it fixed right away,” Sean said. “Infrastructure isn’t allowed to stay broken for any longer than necessary around here.”
Brittany nodded. “I had the sense they take those things very seriously here,” Brittany said.
“The Town Trust had just installed a new Wi-Fi tower last December, over at Healing Rides.” Noah nodded. “At the time, they bought enough equipment to fabricate several more installations. I imagine they used parts from an already assembled unit to fix the one we lost.”
“It’s good to live in a place where a pot hole formed on Monday will be fixed by Tuesday.” It wasn’t a matter of wealth, although Brittany had come to understand that the families of Lusty, Texas, were probably among the wealthiest in the country, if not the world.
It was a matter of attitude. Funds were set aside and allocated where needed. What needed doing, got done.
There was a lot to love about Lusty, Texas. Not the least of which, in Brittany’s estimation, was the people.
They arrived at the Community Center—a very short drive from the house—at noon, sharp. Already, the place was filling up. A huge buffet had been set up, and dozens of round tables awaited. Aunt Samantha spotted them as soon as they stepped foot inside the hall.
Love Under Two Prospectors [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting) Page 20