Winds of Fortune (34 page)

Nita laughed bitterly. “No, it certainly isn’t.”

“Joey’s out on a cleanup crew with Deo,” Pia said. “I didn’t want him to go, but he wouldn’t let her have all the fun.” She shook her head. “He worships her. I think he wants to grow up to be just like her because he thinks she gets all the girls.”

“He might be right,” Nita said, strangely unbothered by the allusion to Deo’s reputation with women. Deo had awakened in
her
arms that morning. Deo had come for
her
, unguarded and vulnerable, the night before. That was truth. The rest didn’t matter.

“All my brothers love her, but it doesn’t make up for Gabriel. Deo said she told you about Gabe.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a big deal, that she told you, you know.”

“Yes, I know. I know how much she’s suffered.” Nita sighed. “I hope she isn’t out there taking chances…trying to prove something.”

“My uncle is the only one who hasn’t forgiven her. It was an accident, for God’s sake. She was just a kid, and we all did dumb things when we were kids. Jesus, it was just as much Gabe’s fault for going out with her as it was hers for taking a boat out when she was drunk.”

“What?” Nita frowned. “What did you say?”

Pia looked confused. “About what?”

“Deo wasn’t driving that boat. Her brother was.”

“No. That’s not what the sheriff said. That’s not what Deo told us either.”

“Who do you think told the sheriff what happened?” Nita stood abruptly. “Of course she wouldn’t blame her brother. He was dead.”

“She told you
Gabe
was driving?” Pia jumped up. “God damn her. I can’t believe she did that—let us all believe all this time that
she
got Gabe out there when no sane person would be on the water.”

“Why can’t you believe it?” Nita said, her attention drawn to a noisy group of men in yellow slickers and heavy black rain boots coming through the door. In the midst of them, she recognized Deo. “She’d rather hurt than hurt someone else. Excuse me.”

Nita caught up to Deo in the coffee line.

“I bet you could use a sandwich to go along with that coffee.”

Deo’s look of surprise turned to one of pleasure. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

“Were you now.” Nita knew there were people all around them, but she couldn’t see anyone except Deo. She couldn’t hear a single voice except hers.

“Yeah.”

After Deo got her coffee, Nita took her hand and led her to a quiet spot beneath the broad sweeping staircase. “Is this your first break all day?”

“More or less.” Deo sipped her coffee, then brushed her thumb over Nita’s cheek. “You okay? You look a little tired.”

“Someone has been keeping me up nights.”

Deo grinned. “Really.”

“Really.” Nita parted Deo’s rain slicker and slid her hand inside, settling her palm on the crest of Deo’s hip. “And when she’s not keeping me awake making love to me the way no one ever has,
I’m
awake thinking about it.”

“That’s funny.” Deo leaned closer and brushed her mouth over Nita’s. “I’ve been thinking about the same thing all day. Keeps me warm out there.”

A wolf whistle sounded from somewhere nearby and Deo scowled, sliding her arm around Nita’s waist as she scanned the nearby faces. Then she grinned. “Joey, take your eyes someplace else.”

“What, and miss all the action?” Joey skidded to a halt next to them, the coffee in the cup he held in his uninjured hand sloshing over the rim. “Hi Nita.”

“Hi Joey,” Nita said. “Are you taking care of that hand out there?”

Joey glanced down at the splint on his forearm as if he had forgotten it was there. “Oh yeah. I can do most anything with it now.”

“If you re-injure it,” Nita warned, trying to sound stern but finding it hard to raise any temper with the charming young man, “it will just take months longer to heal.”

“Forget that,” Deo grumbled. “He’s been freeloading long enough.”

“Listen,” Joey said eagerly, “I just heard there’s a bunch of power lines down and a few buildings caught fire. Fire crews are out already, but they’re probably gonna need some of our equipment. We should go, Deo.”

“Okay,” Deo said, never taking her eyes from Nita’s face. “Send Marco and his crew out with the other truck. Then grab us some sandwiches and I’ll meet you outside in a minute.”

“Got it. See you, Nita.”

“Bye, Joey.” Nita leaned into Deo and the icy water from Deo’s soaked jeans seeped into hers. “You’re cold. You should rest awhile before you go out again.”

“I’m okay.”

“If you work like this you’ll get hurt.”

“I’m okay. Better than okay now.” Deo kissed her again and tossed her cup into a trash can. “I gotta go.”

Struck by sudden disquiet, Nita pulled her closer, wrapping both arms around her waist beneath the heavy slicker. “Don’t try to be a hero.”

“Me?” Deo laughed. “You know that’s not my style.”

“Don’t pull that attitude with me,” Nita said gently. “I know how brave and caring you are—even if you try to hide it.”

“What?” Deo’s voice caught. “I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. I see you looking after Joey. I see you out there in this miserable, dangerous weather, hour after hour, helping everywhere you can.” Nita could still feel Deo’s pain when she’d told her about Gabe, and that other storm, and all she’d lost. “I
know
how much you care—you never told your family what really happened that night with Gabe. You took all the blame.”

Deo jerked. “Who told you that?”

“Pia.” Nita tightened her grip when Deo tried to pull away. “Don’t be angry with her. It just came up.” She laid her cheek against Deo’s, her mouth close to her ear. “I think you’re wonderful.”

“Yeah?” Deo relaxed in Nita’s arms. “It matters, what you think. It matters a lot.”

Leaning back so she could see Deo’s face, Nita read the questions in Deo’s eyes. Questions Nita knew the answers to but feared to say. A loud crash sounded somewhere outside. The floor vibrated and shutters clattered. Deo was about to go back out into that angry night, and Nita couldn’t let her take all the chances. “
You
matter to me, Deo. You matter a lot.”

“That’s good,” Deo whispered. “Because I’m falling in love with you.”

Nita didn’t know how to believe her, wasn’t sure she dared. She had never been enough for anyone—not enough for Sylvia to choose
her
over the privilege of a life that was a lie, not enough for her family to stand by her against the brotherhood of blue. Why should Deo change her free-wheeling ways for her? Nita’s voice shook. “I didn’t think that was your style.”

“Neither did I.” Deo smiled a lopsided smile. “But I think you hooked me the first time I saw you at the clinic. You were cool and beautiful and a little pissed, and I fell a little bit in love—”

Nita pressed her fingertips to Deo’s mouth. “I should tell you not to say that. Hell, I should probably run.” She moved her fingers and kissed her. “But I’m not going to. Call me when you get a chance. I need…I need to hear your voice.”

“You won’t change your mind, will you?” Deo eased free of Nita’s grip and backed up a step. “You’ll be here?”

When their bodies separated completely, Nita ached. She wanted to reach out and grab her, hold her there. Keep her inside, out of the storm. Inside with her. Nita shivered. She wanted her inside
her
.

“I won’t go, Deo,” Nita said just as Deo started to turn away. Deo looked back, the questions still in her eyes. “I’ll be here waiting for you.”

“Then like I said before, I’ll be back.”

Nita watched her until she disappeared with another group of excited men and women. She recalled the suffocating loneliness she used to feel watching Sylvia drive away. She didn’t feel that way now. She missed Deo immediately, but unlike with Sylvia, the ache came from something she had found, instead of lost.

“Pull up onto the sidewalk over there,” Deo told Joey, pointing to a ring of emergency vehicles parked haphazardly around the mouth of a wide access alley that led to one of the huge wooden piers in the far West End. A commercial fishing building on the end of the pier was burning, and the flames and the reflections from the light bars on top of the police cruisers, rescue rigs, and fire engines shimmered eerily through the inky rain.

“They’ve got a lot of boats up in dry dock,” Joey yelled, yanking on the emergency brake. “If the pier collapses and takes them too, it’ll be a hell of a loss.”

“Raise the other guys on the walkie-talkie,” Deo said, already out of the truck, hard hat in hand and a Maglite under her arm. Frigid rain lashed the back of her neck. “Tell them to get out here with hydraulic winches and joists. We’ll shore it up if we have to.”

“I’m on it.”

Deo ran down the pathway, struggling for balance as her boots sank into the saturated sand. Closing in on the conflagration, she skirted thick coils of fire hose and mounds of equipment that suddenly loomed up out of the darkness like predatory beasts. Even fifty yards away, the heat from the burning building caused sweat to stream down her face. Squinting through the billowing smoke, she spied Reese.

“Reese!” she shouted above the roar of the inferno. “How bad is it?”

“Might save the building,” Reese yelled back. “If the pier doesn’t collapse. Incident Commander’s down there now checking it out.”

“Let me go see what he needs.”

Reese lifted the restraining tape that Bri and Allie had used to cordon off the area, although there were no gawkers to discourage. “Got a radio?”

“Yeah.”

Deo didn’t see anything at first except the burning building, and then she caught the wink of a flashlight under the pier and followed the blinking pinpoint of light. Soon she came upon three men standing ankle deep in water underneath the 200-year-old pier. The tide was out or they would have been up to their thighs in sea water. The creosote soaked pilings supporting the pier would not burn easily, but they
would
burn. Unfortunately, time and weather and ocean salt had weakened some of them already. Above their heads, the fire raged.

Recognizing Alan Peterson, the fire marshal, Deo sloshed over to him. “How does it look?”

Peterson spared her a glance as he hammered a metal temperature probe into one of the horizontal joists. “We’re okay for now, but if we don’t contain the spread mighty fast, we’re going to lose this pier. Some of these beams are going to go up like kindling.”

“We can probably jack it up in enough places to buy you some time,” Deo said. She’d only worked this close to a fire once before, and that had been nothing near the scale of this one. The sound of air being sucked into the building to feed the fiery furnace was like an enormous dragon breathing in huge rasping gusts.

“If we don’t do something fast, it won’t make any difference,” Peterson yelled back. “I’ll have to pull my team out of there and let it burn.”

“I’ve got a crew on the way. Five minutes.”

“Okay, you’ve got fifteen.”

“I hear you!”

Deo ran toward the street and met Joey coming down.

“They’re here!” Joey exclaimed breathlessly. “They’re offloading gear onto the Jeep and will have it down here in just a couple minutes.”

“Let me show you what we’ve got,” Deo said, grabbing his arm. She guided him back down the circuitous path, tugging him along when he slowed to gape at the fire.

“Holy cripes,” Joey shouted. “They’ll never save that building.”

“Let’s worry about the pier.” Deo shone her light over the ancient timbers. The sky overhead was now a rosy grey. The fire above them was closer. “We need to get supports under here to shore up the joists, every twenty feet or so.”

“Man,” Joey said, gazing upward. “It’s almost right on top of us.”

“We’ve got a little time,” Deo assured him. “Come on, let’s get our crew down here.”

Deo turned and sprinted, slowing when she realized Joey wasn’t with her. She looked over her shoulder and saw that he had stopped to stare at the burning building again. “Joey, move it!”

He turned, his back to the pier and the pyre above, a look of innocent amazement on his face. He didn’t see the section of roof above him break free and start to fall. Deo didn’t even have time to scream. She launched herself at him and struck his chest with her shoulder mid-dive just as the world erupted in flame and fury.

*

“Tory,” Chief Nelson Parker said in a low urgent voice. “I just got a call from Bri. She says casualties from a fire on one of the piers are coming our way. ETA two minutes.”

“Did she give you anything else?” Tory swallowed back a wave of fear. Why had Bri called? Why not Reese? “God, Nelson, we’re not set up for major trauma here.”

“At least one serious. The others didn’t sound too bad—a few burns, couple lacerations.”

“All right.” Tory motioned to KT and Nita to join them as she continued thinking aloud. “We’ll stabilize here and transport anyone who needs it. Nelson, I need a vehicle standing by that’s capable of getting out of here, no matter what the roads look like.”