From Glowing Embers (26 page)

Something slammed against the side of the house, and Julianna stifled a cry. They had long since turned off the battery-powered radio. Its weak signal had been inaudible over the storm, but nobody needed a meteorologist to tell them that the worst part of the hurricane was minutes away. The house shook with its force.

As the winds roared louder, they sat in a tense circle, brought together by circumstance but strangers no longer. Now they were united, their tenuous bonds forged by the wind and the rain into friendship.

GRAY FELT JULIANNA
tense each time something hit the house. Once it was the unmistakable clatter of a garbage pail left unsecured by a thoughtless neighbor. Another time a crash was followed by the discordant splintering of glass. Dillon left their huddle to return a minute later shouting the news that a bathroom window had broken.

Gray knew how much worse the hurricane was for Julianna than for the rest of them. He could only sit, gripping her hand with comforting pressure while he clasped Jody to his chest with his other arm. Silently he directed an illogical litany of curses at the storm for wreaking its vengeance on the woman who had suffered too much already.

A movement across from him caught his eye. He turned his head and watched Paige rearrange her lovely, long legs. She looked up and sent him a bittersweet smile that told him everything he didn’t want to know. She saw what was happening more clearly than either he or Julianna could. He wouldn’t have hurt Paige for the world, but he knew that he had.

Outside, the wind raged until there was no distinguishing one gust from another. Jody sobbed intermittently against his chest, and Gray wished he could cry, too, not for fear of the storm, but for fear of the storm’s end—fear of the silence.

As if his thoughts had somehow been telegraphed to Eve, there was a sudden, deafening absence of sound.

Jody was the first to break it. “It’s over!” She pulled away from Gray and scrambled to the floor. “It’s gone!”

Julianna and Gray exchanged worried looks. Neither of them wanted to tell her the truth; both of them knew they must.

Julianna was the first to speak. “Jody, honey, come here.”

“The sun is shining!” Jody ran to the window and pointed at one fractured ray of sunlight poking its way past the edge of the plywood covering. “My mommy can come get me now.”

Gray stood and felt Julianna’s body brush his as she stood, too. “The worst of it’s going to be over soon,” he promised the little girl, walking toward her. “But it’s not over yet. This is what they call the eye of the storm, Jody.”

“There is no storm,” she said defiantly. “It’s over!” Jody ran past Julianna and Gray, out the den door into the hall.

“I know how she feels,” Julianna said with a shaky smile. “I’d like to think she’s right.”

“We’ve gotten through this much, we’ll get through the rest.” Gray tilted her face to his. “Are you doing all right?”

She tried to smile again, but she couldn’t manage it. “I’m not very brave.”

From the corner of his eye, Gray saw Paige follow Dillon to check the rest of the house. “I think you’re the bravest woman I know,” he said softly, his hand lingering against her cheek. “This isn’t going to defeat you.”

She let herself be drawn closer. “If I have to go through this, I’m glad I’m here with somebody who understands.”

“Do I have an invitation for all the other hurricanes in your life?” He wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. “How about big thunderstorms? Little drizzles?”

Her arms slipped around his waist. “You know how to take advantage of a situation, don’t you?”

“Not well enough, apparently, but I’m learning.”

“We’d better go find Jody and try to explain. She’s going to be scared to death when the winds start again.” Julianna tried to pull away, but Gray held her in place.

“When this is over, we’re going to take some time together. We’re going to talk.”

“We have talked.”

He let her go, but his words followed her to the door. “We’ve still got things to say, Julianna, and until they’re all said, that peace you claim you want so badly is going to be impossible to find.”

In her room, Julianna felt disoriented. She had sat in a circle with Dillon, Paige and Jody, people she barely knew, and Gray, a man she knew too well, and she had let them comfort her. Outside, Eve had hurled the full fury of her destruction at the house, but inside, the small group of fellow sufferers had offered each other support and friendship. She had survived the terror of the past hours solely because of them.

For years she had denied herself the comfort of others. Even Lehua, her benefactress, had never been allowed access to her deepest feelings. Lehua had understood; she had been a woman of great wisdom, but now Julianna wondered how much more comfort Lehua would have given had she been allowed.

She heard a noise in the hall and turned to see Gray watching her. “Jody’s not with you?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“I thought maybe she’d come in here to pout.”

“The winds could start again any minute.”

“Eve’s got a large eye. We might have as much as fifteen more minutes, but it depends on whether we got the whole thing or just caught the edge.”

“Let’s find her.”

“You take a look in the bathrooms and bedrooms, and I’ll check the rest of the house.”

“Shout when you see her.”

“We’ll find her. Don’t forget to look under the beds.”

“If I find her under a bed, I might stay there with her.”

Jody wasn’t under a bed, nor was she anywhere else Julianna looked. She ran into Paige in the hallway and Dillon in one of the bathrooms, nailing plywood over the inside of the broken window to keep out the rain. Neither of them had seen the little girl, and both of them promptly dropped what they’d been doing to search.

A minute later, four concerned adults gathered in the kitchen. Dillon was shrugging into his oilskin when Julianna arrived, and the simple act confirmed her worst fears. “You think she’s outside?”

“She’s not inside.”

“The back door was shut but not locked,” Paige added, visibly upset. “And I know I locked it this morning.”

Julianna heard the harsh rasp of a zipper and saw that Gray was preparing for the storm, too. “Has anybody called her?” she asked. “Maybe she’s just out back.”

“I did,” Paige said.

Gray’s hand covered the doorknob. “We’ll be back with Jody before the storm hits again. Please, don’t either of you go outside.” He was gone before either woman could answer. Dillon was right behind him.

Julianna listened to the slam of the door. Echoes were still resonating when she turned terrified eyes to Paige. Her own fear was mirrored on the other woman’s face. “What if they don’t find her?” she whispered. “The winds could start again any second.”

“They’ll find her,” Paige said, with a lack of conviction.

“She didn’t come when you called.”

“Jody barely knows me. If Gray calls her, she’ll come whether she wants to or not.”

“This is my fault. I should have explained how hurricanes act. She would have understood, but we didn’t even call Eve a hurricane in front of her.”

“You’ve been wonderful with Jody. Besides, guilt’s not going to help.” Paige hesitated, as if trying to think of something that would. “Let’s see what we can do to make the den more comfortable. We’ve got a long wait before this is over.”

“I’m going to look for her.”

“You heard what Gray said.”

“I don’t care what he said. I’m not going to stay inside while Jody’s out there.” Or while Gray is, either, she added silently.

“Then I’m going, too.”

Julianna shook her head. “Somebody has to be here in case she comes back on her own. She’ll be scared to death if the house is empty.”

“You’re so tiny, the first good gust of wind will drop you in the ocean. Stay here and let Gray and Dillon find her.”

Julianna caught Paige’s last words as she closed the door behind her.

She understood immediately why Jody had felt safe enough to come outside. The storm did seem to be over. The dark, dense clouds of the early morning were gone, and although the sky was still gray, the sun flashed through at regular intervals, as if burning off the cloud cover. There was no rain, and the winds had died down to a strong autumn breeze.

The ground was strewn with refuse. Fragrant flower petals mingled with branches and the contents of someone’s garbage pail. The twisted body of a spotted dove lay next to an uprooted No Parking sign like a piece of neo-expressionist sculpture. The luxurious subdivision had no overhead wires to ruin the landscape or provide hazards, and Hawaii had no dangerous reptiles, but Julianna picked her way carefully across the yard anyway, unsure what danger she might encounter with her next step.

There was no sign of Dillon or Gray, nor was there any sign of Jody. Instinctively she knew the men had split up to cover more ground. She called Jody’s name in a clear, strong voice, hoping that her plea, added to theirs, would bring the child back.

Once Julianna had been a stubborn little girl herself; she appreciated the quality, since it had probably ensured her survival. Now, however, she wished that Jody were a little less stubborn, a little more acquiescent.

“Jody!” The wind took the shout and dispersed it. Julianna wondered if she was imagining that the wind was already growing stronger, the sky darker. She shouted again, skirting the workshop and the cannonball tree as she remembered Dillon’s words of caution.

“I told you to stay inside.” Gray appeared from behind a wall of shrubbery, his face betraying his fear.

“You haven’t found her?”

“Please, get back inside.”

“Where could she have gone?”

“For all I know she’s walking to the airport right now. Would you get back inside so I can look for her?”

“No. Listen.” She grabbed his jacket angrily. “Stop wasting time. We’ve got to find her.”

“You think I can find her with you out here?”

“You’d better.” She dropped her hands.

“Then stay close to the house. When Eve hits again, she’s going to hit with more fury than hell’s ever seen.”

She watched him disappear around the side of the house, but his words had produced the desired effect. She knew what happened to people in storms. She blinked back tears and shoved her trembling hands in the pockets of her pants. “Jody!”

Frantically she tried to remember the places where she had hidden as a child, places where she had felt safe and in charge of her life. Places where no grown-up could find her. Up in trees, under porches, inside cars.

Down on her knees, she peered through crisscrossed slats under the back lanai, hoping to see Jody peering back at her. Her search yielded mud stains on the knees of her pants, but nothing more. “Jody!”

The wind was picking up. She could feel its sting against her bare arms and face. She felt a splash of rain, then nothing, as if the rain had been only a warning. A deadly one. “Jody!”

The wet ground gave under her feet as she zigzagged through the tropical shrubbery, calling Jody’s name over and over like a prayer thrown into the blackest night. “Answer me!”

Her answer was the distant shriek of the wind and a glimpse of a wall of water so dense it wasn’t rain but a wave, a surge of water rimming the hurricane’s eye and heading right toward her.

“Get inside.” Julianna heard Gray shout behind her.

“Have you found her?”

“Not yet. She’ll come out when she hears the wind.”

“Jody! The storm’s coming back. You’ve got to come inside!”

Julianna waited, but no answer was forthcoming. The storm was perceptibly closer. “Gray, did you check the workshop?”

“First thing.” His voice went from stern command to tortured plea. “Julianna, sweetheart, go inside. I can’t take care of you and find Jody, too.”

“I’m going to check for myself.”

“No you’re not!”

She ran toward the workshop, terror turning her steps to flight. The cannonball tree towered above it, shading the workshop from the few rays of sun that still broke through the clouds overhead. Julianna threw open the door before Gray could reach her. “Jody! Are you in here? The storm’s about to hit again.” She knelt down to look under the table and workbench. It was a perfect hiding place, but no little girl was hiding there.

“She’s not in here.” Gray grabbed Julianna’s arm. “I told you, I checked.”

In the seconds before harsh winds began to buffet the tiny building, Julianna heard a faint whimper.

“I heard her.” Julianna held herself back. “I heard her!”

“We’ve got to get out of here. That tree could come down on top of us.”

“But I heard her!” she screamed at him.

“She’s not here!”

Julianna jerked her arm away and pointed to a door. “What’s back there?”

“The woodpile.”

“Did you check there?” she shouted.

“Yes!”

She threw open the door and peered into the darkness. “Jody?” If there was an answer it was inaudible over the howl of the wind. She stepped forward and took another step before Gray grabbed her once more.

“Don’t make me carry you out of here!”

Something large and furry brushed past her legs, and Julianna screamed.

“What the hell?” Gray blocked the animal’s progress with his leg.

Julianna looked down and saw a half-grown tiger cat, its yellow eyes terrified. As she watched, it dodged Gray’s leg and ran under the table in the main part of the workshop.

She turned her attention back to the woodpile. “Jody, are you here?”

Gray dropped Julianna’s arm and pushed past her. “Jody!”

They both saw the little girl’s shoe at the same moment. It was wedged between two logs on a neatly stacked pile of firewood. Gray reached the pile first, followed closely by Julianna. Jody lay on the floor near the rear of the pile, her eyes closed, her head pillowed on a two-by-four. As Gray bent toward her, her eyes fluttered open. “I fell,” she said groggily.

Gray threw enough logs into a corner so he could get to the little girl. Julianna stood close behind him. “Should we move her?” she asked softly.