A Little Town in Texas

by Bethany Campbell

  “My shirt,” he said. “We need a bandage. Shh. Lie still.” She could feel him tying the torn cloth firmly first around her ankle, then under her instep, then round the ankle again. “Tell me if it starts to feel too tight,” he said.

  “I will,” she said. His hands were sure and gentle.

  “Okay, try not to move your foot. Rest it all you can. We’re going to have to get down from here tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” The descent wouldn’t be bad if the rain would stop.

  “The water should be mostly gone.”

  She knew. It would have rushed on, lowering as it went, emptying finally into the river. It would leave behind silt, mud—and wreckage. “Those houses are all gone.” She said it almost sadly, even though she hadn’t liked them.

  “Yes.” He propped her foot up, then slid beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hungry?” he asked. “I can rustle up some food.”

  “No,” she said. The reality of what they’d been through was starting to sink into her consciousness. “I couldn’t eat anything.”

  “Lost your appetite?” She could hear the concern in his voice.

  “Terror tends to do that to me,” she said with grim humor.

  “You? Terrified? Never. You never faltered. Not once.”

  “There wasn’t any time then,” she said unhappily. “Now there is.”

  “Some wine’s left in that bottle,” he said squeezing her shoulder. “Would it help? I wish there was coffee, but there isn’t.”

  “Wine sounds wonderful,” she said with feeling.

  “There’s a couple of metal cups. Stay put. I’ll pour you some.” He rose, stoked the fire, then filled two enamel cups. He sat beside her, handing her one. “Prop yourself up,” he said. “You can lean against me.”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of that lately,” she said worriedly. But she raised herself, then leaned back against his chest. He slipped one bare arm from his blanket and put it around her, drawing her more securely to him.

  Oh, she thought, He’s warm. He’s strong. He feels just right. He feels like home. The idea of feeling at home jolted her, even frightened her. She raised the wine to her lips.

  “Wait,” he said, clicking his cup against hers. “A toast. To survival.”

  “To survival,” she repeated and took a drink. It was cheap wine, sweet but strong. It went down her throat like a gentle liquid fire, and she took another sip.

  “Not exactly French champagne,” he said in her ear.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I wonder who lugged all this stuff up here.”

  She felt him shrug. “Who knows? Probably some couple who shouldn’t be together.”

  “Like us,” she said pensively.

  “Why shouldn’t we be together?” His mouth was even closer to her ear. His breath was warm against her cheek.

  She stared into the fire and listened to the rain. She took another sip of wine to fortify herself. “You and I are on different sides,” she said at last.

  “It’s gone beyond being on sides,” Mel said. He drew her nearer to him.

  The movement shifted his blanket. She rested now against his partly bared chest. She had the bizarre desire to turn and kiss it. She struggled not to think of the forces that pulled them together, but only of those that split them hopelessly apart.

  She took a deep breath and said, “I followed you here because of Nora. Somebody made her an offer on the Longhorn. Some outfit called Hometown Restaurants. But it’s Brian Fabian, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Mel said. “It’s not. It’s an outfit in California. They’re legit. They made the offer. For me.”

  She blinked in astonishment. “You? Why?”

  “Because Nora deserves to get out of there and do what she wants with her life,” he said. “You know it as well as I do.”

  Kitt touched her fingertips to her brow. The wine was going to her head.

  “You made the offer? I don’t understand. Why?”

  His arms tightened around her. “Because Nora’s not at the Longhorn out of choice. She has no choice. Can you deny it?”

  “No.” She rubbed her forehead. “It broke my heart when she had to go back. She never complains. But it bothers her. I know.”

  “It doesn’t have to bother her any longer,” he said.

  “But—what would you do with it? Do you think it would make money? Would you change it?” Kitt asked. She knew how Nora felt responsible to keeping the standard that Dottie Jones had set.

  “Make money?” Mel asked with a wry laugh. “It might. Change it? No. I’ll probably forget I own it except at tax time. There’s a philanthropist of sorts in California. Sheila MacCauley. Her hobby is buying and preserving small-town restaurants. She’ll find somebody who knows how to manage it, keep it in character. Somebody like that other waitress—what’s her name?”

  “Kasey?” Kitt said. “She’d love the chance. She could use the money. She’s got a little boy to support.”

  “So then everybody’s happy, right?”

  Kitt shook her head in confusion. She took the last drink of wine. “I still don’t understand. You thought this up on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? You hardly know Nora. Why would you bother to help her?”

  “Because you love her,” he said, his voice suddenly gruff.

  She twisted to look at him. His face was so close to hers she could feel the warmth of his skin. He touched her chin, traced his fingertip along the curve of her lower lip.

  “You did it for me?” she asked softly. Somehow she knew he spoke the truth. She could see it in his expression, as the fire’s golden light flickered on his face.

  “I had to do one thing to try to prove to you I’m not completely rotten.”

  She put her hand on his jaw. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” he whispered. He bent and kissed her.

  Oh, yes, she thought, half-faint with desire for him. Yes. Yes. Yes.

  She wound her arms around his neck, and the soft blanket fell away from her. The cool air hit her flesh like a mild shock, but then all she was aware of was the warmth and strength of his body.

  He deepened the kiss. She was dizzied with wanting him and wanting to give herself to him. His tongue flirted boldly and expertly with hers. She reveled in tasting him and being tasted. Both their mouths were tangy with wine, and the air was fragrant with woodsmoke and rain.

  His hands stroked her bare arms as his lips traveled down to the hollow of her throat. He kissed one of her breasts until it throbbed, then the other. She gripped his shoulders. They were hard and powerful beneath her fingers.

  He drew back and knelt beside her, letting his own blanket fall away. He stared at her, bare to the waist, with fierce hunger in his eyes. Her nipples were peaked with yearning to be touched again, and her breath was thick in her throat.

  “Good Lord,” he said, his voice raspy with pleasure. “What an exquisite little thing you are.” His hands closed over her shoulders, and his eyes traveled up and down her body.

  She let herself look at him. His naked body was gilded by the firelight, and he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. She ran her hands over the planes of his chest, savoring the feel of his muscles.

  His stomach was flat, his belly lean, his thighs long and sinewy. She let her hands caress the sides of his hips, the strength of his legs, and, at last, touch his erection, stroking it.

  He gasped and lowered her to the mattress. He drew back the blanket that still covered her. And for a long moment drank her in, one hand moving from her breasts to the cluster of red-gold curls between her legs.

  She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her body began to tremble with need for his. He gasped again and turned away. “I have a condom in my wallet. I—I’m sorry. I mean, it shows what a conceited bastard I am. But—but—”

  “Get it,” she said. “Hurry.”

  He rose and lifted up the fanny pack drying by the f
ire. She looked at him without shame now, how tall he was, how masculine, how aroused.

  He came back to her and lowered himself beside her. “You’re shivering again,” he said in concern.

  “I think it’s because of you,” she said, putting her hands on his waist, wanting to draw him nearer.

  “I’m not going to let you freeze,” he said.

  He seized up both blankets, and drew them around them as he lay down beside her. He kissed her on the mouth again. Their hands explored each other greedily, passionately. Their legs commingled. Kitt lost awareness of everything except the two of them, wild and tender and aching with longing.

  At last he entered her, and waves of pleasure swept through her, more and more strongly until they completely engulfed her. She was conscious of nothing except the sensations that rippled through her with such power and pleasure that she held onto him as if he were the secret to life itself.

  HE LAY WITH HER in the crook of his arm. Her hair, still damp, tickled his chest. They both gazed at the fire. “I’m going to have to get up in a minute and put more wood on,” he said. The idea of leaving her, even for only moments, filled him with regret.

  “Not yet,” she said, snuggling closer to him. She was good at snuggling. He’d like to grow old being snuggled up to that way.

  He stroked her shoulder. “I mean it about the condom. I was carrying it out of habit, that’s all. I didn’t think that you—that I—that we—”

  “Don’t apologize. I know you haven’t exactly lived like a monk.” He thought he heard a note of sadness in her voice.

  He drew her closer. He’d had dozens of beautiful women, and he’d never so much as pretended to make a commitment to one. He used them for sex and for his vanity.

  But Kitt was different. Kitt was—Kitt. She was a person with fire and intelligence and bravery and integrity.

  She stirred uneasily. “What happens now to Bluebonnet Meadows?”

  He tensed. He’d thought she was going to ask What happens now to us? But perhaps the two questions were the same.

  He said, “Fabian lost his chance to make good on the dam. I failed. I couldn’t convince him. My guess is that Bluebonnet Meadows is stalled for a long time. Maybe for good. Who knows?”

  She twisted so that she could face him. Her hand rested on his bare chest, over his heart. “What do you mean?”

  He put his hand over hers. “Fabian’s going to be sued. He’ll countersue. But he can outlast everybody because he’s got the money to do it. He’s capable of hanging on for pure spite. Years, if he has to.”

  “Years?” she asked. She settled against him again, but he sensed she didn’t feel as secure as before. Her voice sounded worried. “Then you’ll still be fighting J.T. and the others?”

  “No,” he said. He was certain of this. “I’m not a courtroom animal. He’ll send others. He’ll assign me somewhere else. This damn land doesn’t have to stand between you and me any longer.”

  “I want to believe you,” she said. “But it’s not that simple.”

  His hand ran down her bare back, savoring the smoothness of her skin. “We’ll make it simple. You had an assignment. So did I. We did our jobs. We go back to New York. And Crystal Creek will be behind us.”

  She made a sound of doubt, but he whispered, “Shh.”

  He kissed her cheek, then her ear. “Tomorrow we go back down that path. Back into the real world. I file my report. You write your story. And we get on with our lives—far from here. And together.”

  She sighed and nestled closer.

  “It’s true,” he insisted. He wanted to say I love you, but he couldn’t bring himself to say that, not yet. He had never said it to another human being in his life, not even his brothers or mother.

  But he thought of Kitt, so small and warm in his arms, and he was overwhelmed with feeling for her. “Your ankle,” he said, “does it hurt?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But you made me forget it for a while.”

  He smiled. “Go to sleep. Rest. Tomorrow we’ll get it fixed.”

  She murmured, “Mmm. Tomorrow.”

  His throat tightened. “Right.” He held her, feeling her body finally relax, her breath become even. When he was sure she was asleep, he whispered, “I love you.”

  The words were soft on the damp air. The fire crackled. Outside the rain had slowed to a steady drumming. But he liked the sound of the words, so he said them again. “I love you.”

  By tomorrow the flood waters would have drained away. He meant what he said: he’d carry her all the way back if he had to, and from then on, he intended to protect her from hurt for the rest of his life.

  He pulled the blankets more snugly about them. He slept.

  Outside the thunder growled. The rain redoubled its force. The wind wailed like a mad thing. Somewhere outside a rock tumbled down, striking the ledge outside. But neither Mel nor Kitt heard. Exhausted, they were lost together in dreamless sleep.

  A RUMBLE AWOKE HIM. A thunderous growl almost like the levee breaking, only closer, as if this time Mel and Kitt were at its roaring center. There was a hellish clatter of stones falling, great and small.

  A pebble hit Mel. A gigantic groan of rock moving against rock filled the air. Another pebble struck, then another. “What?” Kitt asked sleepily.

  Dust and pebbles came raining down from the cave’s ceiling. Mel saw a larger one strike the fire, sending sparks and coals leaping. He swore. Cave-in!

  Outside, the rumble grew to a roar, the clattering became a series of crashes, and the ceiling shook. Instinctively he grabbed Kitt and half-dragged, half-shoved her beneath the shelter of the rock ledge.

  He pushed her down so that he could angle his body above hers, shielding her. Kitt clung to him, burying her face against his chest. Pebbles pelted his shoulder. Noise deafened him; vibrations shook every cell of his body.

  It sounded as if the whole damn mountain was coming down around them, closing in on them like a great stone vice.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  LATE THAT NIGHT, Sheriff Wayne Jackson had to break the same bad news to two separate families. First he told Nora and Ken.

  Two crushed cars had been found, their remains wrapped around the same bridge abutment. One was Kitt’s rented compact, its roof crumpled flat, its hood smashed like that of a toy car by a giant hammer. There was no sign of Kitt.

  The other car had been Mel Belyle’s. It was rammed even more cruelly around the abutment. Its wreckage was twisted almost inextricably with Kitt’s car. There was no sign of Mel Belyle, either.

  “We’re calling in the National Guard, Red Cross, volunteers,” he said. “We don’t know how many people are missing. We can’t really start searching until light. I’m sorry.”

  “We understand,” said Ken Slattery. He held his wife’s hand tensely, his other arm around her shoulders.

  “She went off to find Belyle because of me.” Nora’s voice shook. “She must have followed him to Bluebonnet Meadows. She must have been there when the flood—when it—” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “It’s not your fault,” her husband told her.

  But tears spilled down Nora’s face. She looked at the floor and shook her head. “She was trying to look out for me.”

  Ken wrapped his arms around Nora. “She’s a smart girl. She thinks fast. She may be fine.”

  But Nora would not be comforted.

  SHERIFF JACKSON WENT THROUGH much the same scene with Nick and Shelby Belyle. They had come to the Double C, which had become a sort of nerve center for news.

  Shelby gazed in agonized sympathy at her husband. But Nick Belyle’s face was harsh and unreadable. He asked an ugly question. “If he’s dead, how long will it take to find him?”

  Jackson saw Shelby flinch. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe right away. Or it could take—days.”

  Nick swore and turned away from them. “He should have never come here,” he said in a bitter voice.

  In another room a p
hone rang. The sheriff heard Cynthia answer it, heard her talking in a low voice.

  “My mother’s been calling from Atlanta,” Nick said in the same relentless tone. “She heard about the flood on CNN. She’s been trying to reach Mel. She can’t. His cell phone’s dead.”

  Cynthia came to the doorway. She spoke to Nick and Shelby. “That was Ken. He and Nora are coming here. Nora’s in bad shape. He thinks she needs people around her.”

  She paused, staring at Nick’s rigid face. “J.T. and Cal will go out looking tomorrow, as soon as there’s light. They’ll take the helicopter. You can go with them if you want.”

  “Nick?” Shelby said, touching his arm. “It might be a good idea…”

  Nick nodded, but he kept his back to the others. With more sadness and less rancor than before he said, “He never should have come here. The damn fool.”

  And Jackson knew what was going through the man’s mind.

  Nick was angry and sick with helplessness over his brother. He was thinking, What if Mel can’t wait till morning? What if he’s in trouble now? What if tomorrow’s too late?

  KITT CLUNG to Mel, hiding her face against his chest. The world sounded as if it were ending. The air was choked with smoke and falling sand. The walls trembled, the floor shuddered. Kitt’s very marrow shook in her bones, and her eardrums seemed to be bursting.

  Then the noise stopped. It was eerie. It simply stopped. Once more there was only the constant murmur of the rain.

  Kitt coughed. Her lungs ached from smoke and the musty downpour of pulverized stone. Her hands tightened on Mel’s shoulders. “Is it over?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, still shielding her body with his. “Maybe.”

  “Wh—what was it?” She coughed again.

  “Rock slide,” he said in a raspy voice. He coughed, too.

  But he sat up, drawing her up next to him. His arm was comfortingly firm around her shoulder. She leaned her head back against the stone. She dared, at last, to open her eyes.

  The fire was broken and guttering out in smoke. The lamp had fallen on its side and gone out. The shadows in the cave danced strangely, and she sensed the walls closed in on them more tightly than before.