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She screamed and Alec swung around to see that her husband must have gone underneath the hull and was being swept away. He gunned the motor and steered in a semicircle, timed so he could lean over and grab the arms that were all he could see. The aluminum boat, too lightweight, swayed wildly; the kids cried and the woman sobbed and in the moments of intense struggle Alec was convinced they were going over. Somehow he managed to pull hard enough to drape the man over the edge while keeping his own weight as a counterbalance, and finally to roll the guy in. He felt as though he’d been in a war, and the family was in worse shape.
He took them to a designated landing, where volunteers waited to lead them to a shelter. He waited while they took off the life vests and offered incoherent thanks that he knew would mean something to him later, but not now.
WREN WOKE WITH A START and lay still for a long moment, trying to figure out what had penetrated the stupor of exhaustion. A sound? Yes, there it was again, an odd sizzle from the potbellied woodstove here in the parlor. As if water was dripping onto the fire she’d thankfully built. Rain coming down the chimney?
Drawing the comforter with her, she sat up on the old, dusty sofa to look. But when she put her feet on the floor, they plunged into water. Wren cried out. It was night now, and she couldn’t see, but… She tentatively reached her hand down. Oh, God, oh, God. Water was a foot deep or more. In horror, she grappled with the concept. How could it have reached the house? She’d climbed several steps to the porch. It had to have risen four or five feet to have reached this high. It was lapping into the stove, putting out her fire.
She needed the fire. It had been her salvation, finding brittle old wood heaped in a copper bin beside the stove, a bundle of yellowed newspapers with a date two years past and a box of matches abandoned atop the newspapers. The only food in the cupboards had been in cans and she hadn’t been able to find an opener. It was lucky she wasn’t hungry. The refrigerator was unplugged, which told her no one planned to be back in the near future. In fact, either the storm had taken out a power line somewhere or the electricity to the house had been cut off. But she’d been able to build a fire, and she’d dragged the comforter from an old bedstead in one of the two bedrooms.
Her back hurt again. The pain had been coming and going unpredictably, waking her periodically. Each time, she’d added wood to the stove. Kneeling on the sofa, she waited this spasm out. It had occurred to her sometime in the past few hours that she might be going into labor, but the thought had been so terrifying she didn’t let herself take it seriously. Early twinges were common, she knew that. Braxton-Hicks contractions. Except…were they felt in the back? She didn’t know. Wren didn’t think this pain was any more severe than what she’d had earlier—yesterday?—when she was still behind the wheel of the car. So she wouldn’t worry about that problem—not yet.
She laughed, and heard her own hysteria. Oh, yes. She had bigger problems.
She hadn’t seen a staircase, which meant there was no second story. But, frowning, she seemed to remember the house rearing higher above her than the single-story ranch houses she’d lived in. Old houses like this often had attics, didn’t they?
By the time she put her feet back on the floor, the water level had risen to her knees. Wren left the comforter on the back of the sofa and fumbled in the woodpile for a piece of kindling. When her fingers found one, still dry near the top of the heap, she opened the door of the stove and poked the kindling in to the coals, which sizzled as water inched in but remained alive. When the wood was alight, she went exploring, holding her torch high.
In a bedroom, she found the square in the ceiling she’d been looking for. A rope hung down, and when she pulled on it, she was rewarded with a creak and some movement. Not for the first time, she cursed her petite size, but being pregnant helped. She hung from the rope, and with a groan a folding staircase dropped.
She climbed the narrow, steep stairs and poked her head up. She was relieved to see a floor rather than open joists. Dusty bits of unwanted furniture and heaps of boxes. The glint of a reflection from a window. At least she’d have daylight when the sun rose. She’d be able to signal for rescue, if anyone came.
She eased down the steps, holding tight as she went, then waded through the house looking for anything she could salvage from the rising waters. More bedding. The matches, and some dry firewood, although she’d only be able to start a fire upstairs if she could find a flame-proof container like a metal washtub. Clothes—nothing that exactly fit, but the voluminous flannel nightgown she’d found in her earlier exploration was wet now, and she was beginning to shiver again. She grabbed armfuls and thrust them upstairs.
The piece of kindling burned down quickly and she replaced it. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen—just in case, although she didn’t know in case of what—and found her way to the staircase right before the flames reached her hand a second time. She cried out and had to drop the burning wood into the water, which quickly drowned it.
Climbing in the complete darkness was scary. She felt her way once she reached the attic. Her hands encountered cloth. Flannel, maybe a shirt, she decided, as she lifted. Denim beneath. Groping, she located the blankets and her comforter and an old quilt she’d found. She crawled toward the window, dragging the bedding with her, then went for the clothes and the knife.
She shook out the comforter and spread it, then folded it twice to make a pad. Sitting on it, she scrabbled among the garments for something, anything, that might fit her, settling finally on a flannel shirt. She tugged the nightgown over her head and discarded it, then hurriedly pulled on the shirt, rolled the sleeves half a dozen times to free her hands, then buttoned it. If she stood, she thought the shirt would reach near to her knees. Right now, she wouldn’t worry about putting anything else on. All she did was pull blankets and the quilt over her, and lie down facing the window. Praying for a pale tint of dawn that might allow her to see out.
ALEC HAD GOTTEN STARTED at first light and had rescued a dozen people by the time the sun was seriously up in the sky. He guessed it was about ten o’clock, and he was reaching his limit. He almost skipped the old Maynard house; he knew Josiah had gone to a nursing home in Blytheville a couple of years ago, and the house had been empty ever since. But Alec’s conscience wouldn’t let him. It was possible travelers had taken refuge there. There weren’t many options on that stretch of the Spesock.
All he could see was the roof of the barn and the upper portion of the house. The water was nine feet deep or more. He swung the tiller to circle the house. That was when he spotted a white sheet hanging, sodden, from the attic window.
Even as he steered closer, he saw a figure behind the glass, struggling to push the casement up. He was bumping the side of the house before he got a good look.
Oh, hell. Oh, damnation. That woman was pregnant. Her belly huge. As he tried to edge to position the boat beneath the window, her mouth opened in a cry of distress and she dropped from sight.
Alec swore then yelled, “Ma’am! Ma’am? Are you all right?”
She didn’t reappear. A gust drove rain between them and in the window. Swearing some more, he swiped his arm across his face, trying to clear his vision.
Finally she returned to the open window. She said something. He shook his head and gestured at his ear.
“I’m in labor!” she screamed.
“Are you alone?” he called, and she nodded.
His silent profanities intensified. There was no way a hugely pregnant woman in labor was clambering out of that window and lowering herself to the boat, then hunching beside him in the bitter cold and rain for a forty-five-minute trip to the nearest shelter.
Could a helicopter reach her? He knew how few were available. If eastern Arkansas had been alone in flooding, rescue workers would have had more resources to draw on. But the Mississippi and all its tributaries had gone over the banks, and the National Guard and army were spread over Ohio and Tennessee and down into Mississippi, too. Alec had had the impression rural Arkansas was low on the list of priorities.
Not seeing any other choice, he lifted a grappling hook on the end of a rope that was tied to the seat of his boat. He waved her back and she seemed to understand, disappearing again. Alec gave the hook a toss and watched it catch over the windowsill. He tugged on the rope until the boat was snug against the house and below the window. He thought he could reach his fingertips over that sill.
All right. What would he need? First-aid kit…although he couldn’t imagine what in it would be of any use for a woman in childbirth. Nonetheless, he slung it in the window. Big rubber flashlight in case this went on into night. He had a cache that held some clean drinking water and energy snacks; he slung that in, too, hoping she’d had the sense to get out of the way and he hadn’t knocked her out. Finally he killed the motor, reached high and just got his hands over the soaking wet sill.
He was hanging there when something big hit the boat. The whole seat that anchored the rope ripped free with a groan, and the boat swung away. His fingers began to slip. He had a cold, clear moment of knowing he was going to fall. Vest or not, he wouldn’t have a chance in the bitter floodwaters.
Small strong hands grabbed his wrists and held on tight.
CHAPTER TWO
ALEC KNEW SHE WOULDN’T be able to hold on to him for long. He was a big man, his considerable weight hanging by his fingertips and her grip. But she’d arrested his slide toward the floodwaters, and he inched his right hand toward the rope and grappling iron. A second later, he’d managed to grab the iron above the knot.
His shoulders were screaming. As he tried to pull himself upward, he cursed the bulky flotation vest that caught on the clapboards. With his toes he scrambled for purchase. Any tiny toehold. His booted feet kept slipping. But the woman was exerting steady upward pressure, too, and he got a better hold on the windowsill with his left hand. He closed his eyes, summoned the memory of doing that last pull-up in P.E. so long ago, and with a guttural sound put everything he had into one try.
He was almost shocked to find his shoulders over the edge. She wrapped her arms around him and held tightly as he tried to clear the window.
The damn vest snagged. He had to maneuver a half roll, which meant he tumbled into the attic and fell hard onto one shoulder.
As he lay there, winded, muscles shaking from the exertion, the woman uttered little cries interspersed with “Are you all right? Oh, God. I didn’t think you’d make it. Please. Are you all right?”
A grunt was the best he could do. She turned abruptly and shoved the window down as far as it would go with the iron grappling hook biting into the wood.
Alec flopped to his back and stared up at thick cobwebs festooning open beams. He’d left the goddamn radio, he thought, stunned at his stupidity. It was gone with the boat.
“Shit,” he said aloud.
“You’re all right.”
He rolled his head to look at the woman. The extremely pregnant woman. It was hard to see anything but that gigantic belly.
“I’m alive,” he conceded. “Thank you.”
“For getting myself stuck here? You should be cursing me.”
Alec gave a grunt of laughter. “Thousands of people have gotten themselves stuck somewhere or other. Nobody expected a flood of this magnitude, or the waters to rise so damn fast. Trust me, you’re not alone.”
“I didn’t know there was going to be a flood at all,” she admitted. “I’m not from around here. I stopped for the night before I headed into Arkansas, but I didn’t even turn on the TV or see any newspaper headlines. The rain was scary, but I didn’t have a clue until I drove into the water.”
“Car still there?”
She nodded.
He shoved himself to a sitting position, his back to the wall beside the window. With clumsy, cold hands, he unbuckled the PFD and yanked it over his head. It landed with a splat on the attic floor. It was bloody cold in here, but he unsnapped his raincoat, too, and finally stood to strip off the coat and yellow rain pants. Beneath, he wore jeans and a thick chamois shirt under a down vest. Wool socks and boots.
His cell phone was in the pocket of his vest, which would have made him feel optimistic if didn’t know damn well there would be no coverage here in the valley. Cell phones were notoriously unreliable throughout the Ozarks. He turned it on, in case.
No bars.
“Doesn’t it work?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Alec shook his head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. It would take a helicopter to get us out of here, and there aren’t enough of those to go around.”
She went very still for a long moment, as if absorbing the undoubtedly terrifying knowledge that he was as good as it was going to get. At last she said, in a briskly practical voice, “Your hair’s wet. Here.” She offered a piece of clothing—a pajama top, maybe Josiah’s?—and he used it to scrub his head.
Then, finally, he sat and really looked at her.
She was a small woman. Hard to judge height, given her girth and with her kneeling, but he’d be willing to bet she didn’t top five foot three or four. Small bones. Tiny wrists. Feet encased in enormous wool socks. Her legs were bare beneath what he guessed was a man’s flannel shirt. Probably Josiah’s, as well.
His assessment moved upward. She had a small, upturned nose, nice lips that were neither thin nor pouty and brown eyes that dominated an elfin face so thin it looked gaunt. Medium brown hair that had gotten wet and dried without seeing a hairbrush. Stick-straight, it was shoved behind ears that poked out a bit, adding to that fey affect. Not a pretty woman, for sure, but…something.
“Are you here alone?”
She nodded. “Except for…” She gestured at her belly.
“You’re having contractions.”
“Yes.”
“When did they start?” As if that would tell him anything. He sure as hell was no expert on childbirth. His wife’s first labor had been dizzyingly fast, and Alec had missed the birth of his younger daughter entirely.
“I don’t know,” this woman said softly. “I think now…almost two days ago. When I was driving, my back kept hurting. It would come and go. I thought it was because I was so tense. You know, with the rain coming down so hard, and hardly any visibility, and not really knowing where I was going.”
“Where were you going?”
Those big brown eyes sought his. “Um…to visit a friend. Molly Hayes. No, Rothenberg. She got married. Do you know her?”
Alec shook his head. “I haven’t lived in these parts that long. I’m sorry. If I haven’t encountered them on the job, I probably don’t know them.”
“Oh.” Then, in an entirely different voice, she groaned, “Ohhhh.”
Galvanized, Alec shifted to his knees, gripped her shoulder—so fragile his hand felt huge—and guided her as gently as he could to her makeshift pallet. “Lie down. That’s it.” She clenched her teeth, her body bowed so that he doubted anything but her shoulders and heels touched the pallet. Alec unpried the fisted fingers of one hand and took it in his. She grabbed on so hard it hurt. Hell, maybe she could have pulled him in the window on her own, especially in the grip of a contraction.
“You’re doing great,” he murmured. “That’s it, honey. Ride it out. It’ll pass. That’s it. You’re doing great.”
He listened with incredulity to his own drivel. For God’s sake, how was that supposed to help her? As if she didn’t know the contraction would pass.
When it did, she collapsed like a rubber raft with the air valve opened.
“Do you have a watch? How often are they coming?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “No watch.”
“I have one.” The glass was slightly fogged, but the second hand still swept around. “We’ll time you.” Her lips were chapped, and he saw a streak of blood. She’d bitten down too hard, he guessed. “Did you take a childbirth class?”
“I got books.”
Alec didn’t waste time discussing what she’d read. “Here’s what you’re going to do.” He demonstrated the breathing technique he’d been taught in the medical part of the police academy. He remembered that much, thank God. “Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Four pants, then blow. Got that?”
She nodded, those brown eyes fastened on his face as if nothing and nobody else in the world existed to her right now. “Yes. Thank you.” She hesitated. “Have you… Are you a paramedic?”
“Cop. But we have some training, too. I’ve delivered a baby.”
Hope lit her face. “You have?”
He hated to dampen that hope, but admitted, “A long time ago. I was a patrol officer. Woman was trying to drive herself to the hospital. She didn’t make it.” His mouth tilted into a rueful grin. “Scared me, but we managed.”
“Do you think…” She bit her lip, then winced. “I mean, that we’ll manage now?”
“Of course we will.” He found himself smiling and meaning it, although something complicated was happening inside him that he suspected was partly fear. Yeah, they’d manage—if nothing went wrong. If the baby wasn’t breech, or her placenta didn’t separate. If she dilated fully without drug intervention. If the baby didn’t suffer distress, or get the cord wrapped around its neck, or… Alec didn’t even want to think about the myriad nightmarish possibilities.
Most childbirth was uneventful. Cling to that.
Okay.
“You’re cold,” he said gruffly. “Let’s tuck you in.”
He wrapped a hand around one of her feet and found it icy. Swearing, he gathered blankets and bundled her in them.
There was a chimney at one end of the space, he saw, but no opening for a fireplace. At some point, a floor had been laid up here, but rooms were never framed in. Alec didn’t think the Maynards had children, which meant they’d never needed to add upstairs bedrooms.
“I had a fire downstairs,” the woman said. “It felt so good. But then water started coming in. I brought the matches up and even a little bit of wood, but…”
“The bedding was smart. We can keep you cozy. The baby, too, when it comes.” He paused. “Do you know whether it’s a boy or girl?” Or, from the size of that belly, both.
She tried to smile, but it trembled on her lips. “A girl. I haven’t named her yet. I guess I’m superstitious.”
“You call her it?”
Now a tiny laugh escaped her. “Cupcake. She’s Cupcake.”
“Ah, that’s more like it.” He laid a hand on her belly. “Hi, Cupcake.”
Beneath his hand, muscles seized and her belly became rock-hard. Cupcake’s mother groaned. Alec glanced at his watch. Five minutes, give or take a few seconds. Too bad he didn’t know how long it took to get from contractions five minutes apart to the actual birth. Assuming there was any norm.
He turned her face so she had to look into his eyes. “Breathe,” he reminded her. “One, two, three, four, blow. One, two, three, four… That’s it.” He counted and praised until the tension left her body once again.
“Better?” he asked.
She closed her eyes, but whispered, “Yes. Better.”
“Now I’ve met Cupcake—” he touched her belly again “—you and I might introduce ourselves. I’m Detective Alec Harper, Rush County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Oh.” Her eyes opened. “My name is Wren.” She studied him warily. “Um…will you need to put my name in a report or anything like that?”
He went on alert. “Is someone looking for you?”
After a moment she gave a small nod. “Cupcake’s father. He’s…” She swallowed. “I’m running away,” she finished, with an air of finality. “For Cupcake’s sake. And mine.”
“There’s not a warrant out for your arrest?”
She stared at him. “For my arrest?”
“You’re not in trouble with the law?”
“For heaven’s sake, of course not!”
“Then I promise Cupcake’s father won’t find you by any doing of mine.”
Those eyes, as soft as a Hershey’s bar melted for a s’more, kept searching his face. “Okay,” she said. “Fraser. My last name’s Fraser.”
“Ren? How do you spell it?”
“Like the bird. W-R-E-N.” She sighed. “I suppose that’s how I looked to my mother. Small and brown-feathered and sort of plain.”
He’d swear he heard a lifetime of sadness in words she said lightly.
“It’s a pretty name,” Alec said. Somehow, he hadn’t let go of her hand, which lay trustingly in his rather like the small bird they were talking about. “Wrens may not be colorful, but they’re quick and cheerful and full of life.”
“Still, it would be rather nice to be a blue jay. Or a cardinal.”
He grinned at her. “Blue jays are thieves, you know. Lousy characters all around. Cardinals are in bad taste. Too flashy.”
Wren gave another tiny giggle that warmed his heart ridiculously. His hand tightened on hers, and she looked down as if bemused to see where it lay. But she made no move to remove it from his.
Another contraction came. Gaze fastened desperately on his, she breathed her way through it. When it passed, she said, “Do you mind talking to me? You said you’re a detective?”
“Major crimes,” he said. “Homicide, rape, assault.”
“Do you like what you do?”
He felt his mouth twist. Funny she should ask him that. He might still be married if he’d been willing to give up what he did. He wouldn’t have lost India and Autumn, the two people he loved most in the world.
“Yeah.” His voice came out hoarse. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I like my work. I never wanted to be anything but a cop.”
“Then that’s what you ought to do,” Wren said firmly. “You’re lucky.”
Lucky. That was one way of putting it.
“You?” he asked.
“Nothing special.” Her voice brightened. “I did graduate from college.” The brightness left her. “But I majored in history, which is pretty much useless. I wanted to do grad school to become a librarian, but—” She grimaced. “I told myself I’d still do it, but…later.”
Cupcake’s father had come along, Alec guessed. He was developing quite a dislike for Cupcake’s father.
“You got married?”
She looked at him in surprise. “No. Oh, no. I was stupid, but not quite that stupid. We’re not married, thank goodness. Just…” She indicated her belly.
“Do you know for sure that he’s after you?”
“No-o.” Memories pinched her face. “But he said I couldn’t leave him. That he’d find me, and I’d be sorry if I ever tried.”
“Bullies like that don’t always follow through.”
“No.” Again she sounded doubtful. “But I’d rather make it impossible for him to find me.”
Alec didn’t like seeing that expression on her face. He smiled at her. “Well, there’s the silver lining to your current predicament. I can guarantee you that Cupcake’s father can’t get to you right now.”
Some of the tension left her. “That’s true, isn’t it? And I was so lucky that you came along. I told myself I could do this alone, but…I was scared.”
“You weren’t just lucky,” he told her firmly. “You were smart, too. You got yourself from your car to a house, then into the attic. If you hadn’t hung that white sheet out the window, I might not have come close. I knew this house was abandoned.”
“Why was it?”
“Old guy lived here. Josiah Maynard. His wife died quite a while ago. He let the place go after that, from what I heard. Almost two years ago he had to move to a nursing home.”
“He’s still alive, then?”
“Far as I know.”
She gave a little nod. “Then I’ll go visit him once I can. I should thank him for…for leaving some clothes behind, and wood and even matches. And tell him I’m sorry I had to break a window to get in.”
Alec laughed. “With water halfway to the ceiling downstairs, I think the house is history. One broken window doesn’t make any difference.”