Her House Divided (Beach Haven Book 1) (6 page)

"Vernabelle Hyde is a direct line to Jacqueline," he told her. "Our 'relationship' will be the talk of the town within the hour."

Of course. Tara could have kicked herself. She'd been so caught up in those moments on the bench that she'd forgotten it was all just for show. It had been all about making a point in front of her ex-boyfriend and establishing themselves in public as a couple.

He had acted to save his house, not because he wanted 
her
.

Fine. If he wanted to give them a show, she'd give them a show. She stopped in her tracks, turned to face him, and went up on tiptoe. Before she could lose her nerve, she leaned in close and kissed him.

Chapter Nine

Ethan was too surprised to pull away from the kiss. It started tentatively, but he had to have more. He pulled her close and claimed her mouth with his, suddenly hungry for the taste of her.

She stiffened in his arms and then melted against him even as a few catcalls and whistles broke out near them.

Damn it.

Reluctantly, he pulled away from her.

"What was 
that
 for?" he asked hoarsely.

"Just giving the people what they want," she told him. She seemed as rattled as he was; however, there was smugness to her smile that he wasn't sure he liked.

He didn't like anything about the way he was feeling right now. He had felt slightly off-balance all afternoon, and he hated to admit to himself that it was all because of Tara. Seeing that swaggering jerk of an ex-boyfriend had triggered some uncomfortable jealousy in him, and he had acted on the crazy impulse to hold her close just to make the other man feel that same jealousy.

Ethan hadn't expected to feel so attracted to her in that moment. And he certainly hadn't expected her to kiss him like that.

He wanted to take her away from the crowd, get her alone, and finish what she had started with that kiss.

"You don't play fair," he growled.

She laughed.

After that, the games on the midway were anti-climactic. He won a small purple teddy bear by shooting three baskets in a row at a basketball stand, and she proved to be remarkably skilled at Skee-ball. By the time they finished their Sloppy Joes, potato chips and blueberry pie at the Methodist Church tent, he wanted nothing more than to be alone with her somewhere.

The breeze had picked up by then, and he remembered the storm that was coming in over the lake. "We should go," he told her.

She nodded, and he realized for the first time that she looked utterly exhausted.

"Can you make it back to the car?" he asked.

"I'm not that fragile. I'm fine."

She leaned heavily on him as they returned to the Expedition. He helped her into her seat and cursed himself mentally for not noticing her fatigue earlier. He still didn't fully understand exactly what had happed to her or why she tired so easily, but he felt like a selfish pig for allowing her to get so exhausted while he played stupid carnival games.

"You're mad," she said quietly, when he had started the vehicle. "I'm sorry." Thunder rumbled off in the distance.

"Why didn't you tell me you were getting so tired?" he demanded.

"I – I didn't want to be a bother."

He put the SUV into gear and maneuvered through the grassy field that had been turned into a parking lot for Fair Week. A few fat raindrops splashed on the windshield.

"I hate being like this." Her voice was so quiet that he almost missed her words.

"Like what?" It was raining in earnest now. He switched the windshield wipers on high and eased the vehicle out onto the road.

"This. Tired. Weak. I'm not used to being such a wimp."

"You're hardly a wimp, Tara. You've been through a lot."

She didn't answer. He risked a quick glance over at her and then focused his attention back on driving.

It was a true Michigan thunderstorm, sudden and violent. And powerful. Ethan felt the force of the wind blasting against the Expedition and gripped the wheel more firmly as a near-blinding flash of lightning streaked across the sky.

"Do-do you think people are okay at the fairground?" she asked softly.

"I'm sure they all went inside the barns and buildings," he assured her. He didn't tell her that the people at the fairgrounds were quite possibly safer than the two of them were at the moment. The windshield wipers were barely keeping up with the pounding rain; he turned on the headlights and tried to peer through the darkness to make sure he was still on the road.

Should have left earlier, Davis
, he told himself. He'd grown up right here on the Lakeshore, and he should have known just how quickly these storms blew up. This one was 
bad
. It was not supposed to be pitch-dark at seven o'clock at night in August. The streetlights should have come on, triggered by the sudden darkness, but their absence made him wonder if the power had been knocked out along this road.

Tara made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a whimper.

"You okay?" he asked, through clenched teeth.

"Fine." Her voice was too high, too breathless.

She was terrified.

Lightning flashed again.

He heard her shriek just as he saw the tree limb falling in front of him. Cursing, he slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the left. The Expedition skidded on the wet pavement, and Tara cried out again as they finally came to a stop, mere inches from the huge chunk of maple tree that now blocked the road.

Ethan took a deep breath and forced himself to release his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. They were okay. Not a scratch or a dent, nothing to worry about. They were—

"Get me 
out
!"

Tara was 
not
 okay. She was frantically grasping at her seatbelt, sobbing and muttering incoherently. He tried to pull her close and comfort her, but she was beyond hearing him. She batted his hands away and found the seatbelt release. Free of it at last, she wrenched open her door and leaped from the vehicle.

What the hell?

"Get back in the car!" he bellowed. It was no use. She was running down the road, rapidly disappearing into the darkness of the storm.

He leaped out and was instantly soaked to the skin. Damn it all! What was wrong with her? Didn't she realize that she was placing them both in danger?

He caught up to her easily, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back against his chest. She struggled against him, but he pinned her arms to her sides. This was not the time to be gentle. "Settle down!" he roared, tightening his grip. Lightning flashed again, so close that he imagined he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Thunder followed almost immediately, a boom so loud that the ground shook beneath their feet.

Suddenly, the fight went out of Tara. She sagged weakly against him, as though she could no longer stand on her own. Wordlessly, he lifted her and took her back to the Expedition as fast as he could get there. She put up no resistance when he reached around her to buckle the seatbelt.

Once he was buckled safely into his own seat, he allowed himself to look at her. Even in the darkness, he could see that her face had gone chalk-white. She sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her head bowed. Her hair had come loose from its clip and hung around her face in wet, rain-flattened strands that she didn't even bother to push back. He wondered if she was even conscious, but then he saw that her eyes were wide open, staring blankly at her knees.

"Tara?" he asked, as gently as possible. "Talk to me. Are you all right?"

She shook her head.

"Are you hurt?"

"Just get me home," she whispered. "Please."

Easier said than done, he reflected. He could easily back up and turn around to take another route to the Seashell, but he couldn't drive away and leave that giant limb blocking the road. It presented too much of a risk to other drivers.

"Just hang on," he told her. He found his cell phone and quickly dialed in 9-1-1 to report a tree down on Avery Street. No injuries, he assured the operator. Just a tree down and blocking the road.

He turned on his hazard lights and sat back to wait. The storm was blowing over almost as quickly as it had blown up, and the flashes of lightning were coming farther and farther apart. The rain began to let up. Dark clouds blew away, and weak, watery sunlight returned.

Just as Ethan decided that it was light enough for drivers to see the tree limb in time to avoid it, a police car pulled up beside them. The officer rolled down his window and gestured that Ethan should do the same.

"Anybody hurt in there?" the officer asked.

"No, just shaken up. Mind if we go now?"

"Nah, go ahead. Thanks for calling it in."

Ethan backed carefully around and headed for Kalamazoo Avenue. It was less than a mile out of the way, and Tara didn't make a sound until he had pulled into their driveway.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be," he said shortly. "Let's get inside."

The storm had knocked out the power, so the house was dark. Even the late afternoon sunlight reflecting off the Lake did little to improve the lighting. He found two flashlights in a kitchen drawer and sent her off to get dried off and changed while he hurried into his own room to find dry clothes for himself. A short time later, dressed in shorts and an old Nirvana t-shirt, he went out to the living room to wait for her.

He waited for what seemed like hours, although it was really closer to fifteen minutes. There was no sound coming from her room.

"Tara?" he called.

No answer.

He tapped on her door, but there was still no answer. Carefully, he pushed the door open.

Tara sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing the wet sundress. She had the same vacant look in her eyes; she didn't seem to notice that he had entered her bedroom.

He called her name again, gently. She didn't move. He crossed the room quickly and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his.

They were like ice.

"Tara!" he said, more sharply this time. "Snap out of it. You're safe. You're home."

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. She blinked rapidly and focused on him.

"You mind telling me what the hell just happened out there?" he demanded. "It was just a tree branch, for God's sake. It missed us. No big deal. We're fine."

"The other one didn't miss," she said.

"What?"

"I was driving home from work last May," she told him. "It was a storm just like this one. Came up out of nowhere, all of a sudden. A tree . . . a tree just . . . 
fell
, right over. I tried to stop . . . I tried so hard, I swear I held that brake pedal down just as hard as I could and I prayed and I tried to turn the wheel, but . . . it hit so hard and I couldn't move."

"Wait a minute. A tree fell 
on
 your car? With you 
in it
?" Dear God, no wonder she had freaked out tonight.

"It was on me.  It crushed in the roof of my car and rolled forward, through the windshield. I couldn't move. I couldn't call for help or get out or do anything, and it hurt so much. I had to just sit there and wait. When the fire department finally got there, it took them another forty minutes to cut the tree and the car apart to get me out."

"Sean was one of the firefighters, wasn't he?"

She nodded. "He climbed inside the wreck and held my head steady while they did the extrication. I broke my neck, Ethan. If not for Sean climbing in there and keeping me still, I would probably be paralyzed or  ... or worse."

"You . . .broke your neck?"

"C-7/T-1 fracture." Tara sat up straighter and recited the facts as though lecturing a class. "A compression fracture of the CranioThoracic Junction with damage to the left facet joints and resulting nerve damage to the left hand. Two of the fingers on that hand are completely numb. They say I'm lucky that my spinal cord wasn't damaged, but I don't always feel so lucky. It's hard to feel lucky when I'll never be normal again."

"My God."

"No, no, no, please don't look at me like that!" She put her hands on both sides of his face and forced him to look directly at her. "Don't feel sorry for me, Ethan. It's bad enough being a cripple without being pitiful, too."

"Your boyfriend –"

"Walked away when I came out of surgery.   He broke off our engagement because he said he just couldn't be married to a cripple, and who could blame him?"

I could
, Ethan thought. It was a lucky thing he hadn't known about Randy's desertion when he had seen him at the fair earlier that day.

"Of course he wouldn't want me like this. Nobody would."

"I would." Ethan was suddenly very aware of just how close he was to her, of her hands on his face. He was still kneeling in front of her, and he noticed the way the damp dress clung to her body, outlining her nipples that suddenly seemed to strain against the fabric.

"You should get out of that wet dress," he murmured.

"I should?"

He nodded. He reached up and carefully slipped the strap off her right shoulder, then her left. She slid her hands from his face and onto his chest. For a moment he thought she was going to push him away, but then she curled her fingers into his t-shirt and drew him closer.

One by one, he undid the buttons on the bodice of her dress and stood, pulling her to her feet in front of him. The damp cotton slid to the floor, leaving her in only her strapless bra and panties.

"Better?" he asked.

She nodded. The lacy blue bra was one of those front-buckle numbers, and he made quick work of the flimsy buckle.