Washed Away (10 page)

A tender hand stroked her bare arm; a lazy kiss on the top of her head followed.

“Just thinking what an apt name for the town I ended up in. Turning Point.” She lingered on the words for a moment, and she could sense him smiling. “Because whatever tomorrow brings, I know life’s never going to be the same again for me.”

There was the longest pause. Her lashes tickled his chest as she blinked into the darkness.

“Nor for me,” Noah replied, a beautiful honesty in his simple words. “They say whoever comes to Turning Point and stays long enough to taste the water ends up coming back for good, or something like that.” He shrugged, but not dismissively. “That’s a very loose translation.”

“From where?” Cheryl asked, genuinely interested, but Noah just laughed.

“From my grandmother. Her grandparents were the ones who first came out here. It would be well over a hundred years ago now, in the midnineteen hundreds.”

“Ewa?”

“That’s right.”

“From Poland.”

“Ewa was from Poland, but Alexis, my great-great-grandfather, was Russian.”

Snuggling closer, Cheryl waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, she thumped him playfully.

“Tell me about them!”

“Tomorrow,” Noah mumbled. “Right now, all I want to do is go to sleep and dream about you.”

“And I want to talk, find out about each other. Anyway, how can you sleep with this storm going on?”

“Easily. I’m thinking of all the work I’ll have to do tomorrow when it’s passed, and given we don’t even know your surname, my guess is it would be a pretty one-sided conversation.”

“Tell me, Noah,” Cheryl grumbled. “Tell me how they came to be here, why they couldn’t leave.”

So he told her, holding her close, and she closed her eyes as she listened to his low, husky voice, trapped between reality and a fairy tale, his story slow and measured. He halted at times as he attempted to recall a detail, and apologized every now and then for a gap in a story that had been passed down through the generations of his family.

“My great-great-grandmother was called Ewa. Apparently she didn’t want to come to America. She loved her homeland, but her brother had come out several years before and sent enough money for his two sisters’ passage, and since she was only eighteen and in those days you didn’t disobey your brother, she had no choice.”

“What about your great-great-grandfather?” Cheryl asked.

“They hadn’t met yet. He was orphaned when he was fifteen. His synagogue had grouped together and raised the money to send him to America, figuring he deserved a new chance in a new life. His name was Alexis—Alex.”

“Are you Jewish?” Cheryl asked, not because it mattered, but because she was interested.

“Part Jewish,” Noah answered. “Part everything,
come to think of it. Anyway, they arrived in America, and they set out to find their settling point, traveling along Texas’s coast—”

“Is that how they met?” Cheryl broke in, smiling into the darkness as she pictured the scene.

“You’re too impatient. If you want to hear, you have to let me tell you.”

“But they were in the same group of settlers?”

“Yes, but they were also kept apart. Ewa stayed with the Polish folk, the same way the Germans, the English and the Czechs all clung to their own, and Alexis was with the Russians. None of the groups trusted the others, they only dealt with the people who spoke their language, shared their background. The only person who kept the peace among the people was the wagon master. He was something of a legend apparently. He spoke enough of everyone’s language to keep the peace, to give directions to forge ahead.”

“So how did Ewa and Alexis get close, then? How did they start talking?”

“We’ll never know for sure. Even they didn’t know for sure! Apparently Alexis insisted that it was Ewa who first came over, offered him some cake, some bread or something, while Ewa remained adamant that one night Alexis walked past their campfire, that he smiled at her and called her over. But whatever story is the true version, I guess at the end of the day…”

“They just knew?” She felt like a child listening to a fairy tale cuddled up, safe and sound, knowing the ending must surely be happy.

“They knew,” Noah responded, “but it could never be. Ewa’s sister sensed something was going on and forbade her to talk with him, while Alexis was told that a bride had been found for him, and as soon as they reached their destination he was to be married. The elders told them to stay apart, to stop talking, but…”

“They couldn’t?”

This time he didn’t chide her for her interruption, just nodded into the darkness.

“The wagon train plowed on.” Noah’s voice lulled her, even though he was talking over the wind. “And like tonight, a fierce storm was about to hit. The wagon master knew what to do. He had seen this type of storm before, so he turned the convoy inland to look for shelter. The storms hit off the coast here. He knew that waves would follow, and if they stayed on the coast they’d be in big trouble. So he picked up speed, leading them to shelter, but his horse lost his footing in the mud, and rolled over, trampling his master….”

“He died?” Suddenly Cheryl didn’t like this story so much; it hit her then that Noah was talking about real people, that this wasn’t some fairy tale, but a true story. That he was talking about his past, the brave people who had braved unknown territory in the hope of forging a better life for themselves and their families.

“Instantly,” Noah said softly, “and everyone in the convoy had respected him, everyone had liked him, and so everyone wanted to do the right thing by him—to bury him in a way that seemed fitting. So for the first time, they pulled together, different cultures merging at
his graveside, all the different religious rituals somehow incorporated, everyone respecting each other’s grief.

“They never moved on,” Noah finished. “Then and there they chose to work together to build a better life, to embrace one another. They realized that even though they were different, deep down they all wanted the same thing. They didn’t just turn away from the storm that day, they were forced to turn to each other.”

“What about Alexis and Ewa?” Cheryl asked. “Was the relationship allowed to continue?”

“Not quite.”

She felt his grimace and could almost see his smile as he gripped her tighter.

“It wasn’t that much of a merger, but the elders finally had to admit defeat when baby Noah Arkin was born precisely seven months later.”

“Your namesake,” Cheryl whispered, and Noah nodded.

“Despite fierce insistence from both sets of families that little Noah was premature, a pinker, chubbier, more bonny babe was never seen.”

“So it wasn’t quite innocent smiles over the campfire?”

“Apparently not.” His voice was growing lazy now, that heady mix of lust and satisfaction taking over. “Try and get some more sleep.” He kissed the top of her head and held her just a little bit tighter. “Everything will seem better in…”

Only as his body relaxed beneath her touch did Cheryl realize he had fallen asleep midsentence. As she felt his tension slip away, she began to understand all
that he had been through, and marveled at his strength. Already exhausted, he had dived into a river, carried her home and nursed her. Wriggling free, she pulled the blanket tighter over his shoulders and tucked it in around him, staring in the darkness as his features slowly came into focus. The long straight nose. The hollows of his cheeks. That gorgeous face relaxed now in sleep.

Staring over at her bedmate, Cheryl smiled into the darkness, listening to a wind that seemed to sing to her now, picturing in her mind the people who had come before.

P
ERFECT
.

It was the only word that came close to describing the feeling of waking in his arms, the warmth of his body against hers. As shards of dawn came in from the skylight her eyes drifted open, and she smiled at Georgina, then started to laugh as the little horse turned her haughty, disapproving face away.

“What’s so funny?” Noah was stretching like a lion beside her, his hand not so lazy now as he gently kneaded her soft buttocks, his arousal stirring along the shivering length of her inner thigh.

“I don’t think Georgina approves,” she told him.

“Then tell her to look away or it’s back to the cage.”

“She’s really cute.” Cheryl stared at the strange little animal. “I can easily see how her mistress spoils her.”

“That doesn’t come close to describing it,” Noah murmured, still half asleep. “I have it on excellent authority that someone looked through the living room window once and saw Georgina around the coffee table with Mary, eating biscuits and jam for afternoon tea.”

“No way.” Cheryl laughed. “I don’t believe it.”

“I do.” Noah yawned. “Mary knits Georgina hats and
everything. They go everywhere together. Mary never had kids, and I think Georgina started as a substitute baby and ended up as a lifelong friend.”

“So how come she wanted you to have Georgina during the storm?” Cheryl asked. “Wouldn’t she want Georgina to be with her?”

“They’re both really old now, Cheryl. I guess Mary couldn’t bear to see anything happen to Georgina, and she doesn’t want Georgina alone in the house if anything happens to her. Somehow I don’t think Georgina’s going anywhere for a while.”

“You mean you’ll have her even when the storm passes and the roads are open.”

“I think so.” He was stretching beside her again, his arms up in the air, not bothering to smother his yawn. “I’ll take her over to Mary’s for a visit now and then, but I reckon I’m lumbered with the little madam for now.” He gave a low laugh. “I’ll write it off as experience, I guess. Who knows? I can always open a hospice for spoilt, overindulged miniatures horses if business gets bad.”

The rain was still pounding, but with less urgency now. Cheryl lay listening to it, cocooned in her own world with Noah. His hands softly rolled her over toward him and she went to him in an instant. The brown stubble on his chin was peppered with blond, and she reached up to kiss him, a deep, languorous, lazy kiss that affirmed the passion they had discovered last night. Reluctantly Noah ended the kiss, dragging his tired body out of the bed and yawning again as he searched the
floor for his clothes, running a lazy hand through his hair. If ever there was a moment she wished she could somehow capture forever, it was that one.

Although the rain was steady outside, the terror of yesterday was gone now, and the promise of today stretched before them.

“Don’t be long,” Cheryl grumbled as Noah pulled on his discarded clothes.

“Hopefully not,” he said. “I’m just going to check the damage, find out what the hell that noise was when the storm first hit.”

“You’re not going outside.” The storm may have abated, but the weather was anything but friendly.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t got a death wish. There will be power lines down and God only knows what else.” Sitting back on the bed, he pulled on his boots and then leaned over, one hand catching her naked thigh through the rumpled sheet. “You get some more sleep.”

“You need some, too, Noah.”

He gave a weary smile. “
I
didn’t nearly drown yesterday.”

How long she slept, Cheryl wasn’t sure but it was a deep sleep. She wasn’t even aware he had returned until she felt the mattress shift, heard a long, exhausted sigh as finally he stretched out.

“How are the animals?”

“Good.”

“Mabel?” Cheryl asked when Noah didn’t elaborate.

“Proud mother to twelve.”

“What was the noise, Noah?”

He paused before answering. “Upstairs is completely gone. There’s a tree where the bathroom used to be—I guess we might be needing that kitty litter after all.

“That was a joke,” he added when Cheryl didn’t respond. “There’s a washroom here.”

“It isn’t a joke, though, is it.” She could feel his utter weariness. “I’m sorry, Noah, really sorry. All that work you put into…”

“It’s just a house.” He sighed. “Downstairs seems okay. I’ll have a better look when it’s lighter. I’ll have to put up some tarpaulin till I can get someone in. I guess we’ve been lucky, really.”

He gave a tight shrug, delivered the usual platitudes, but Cheryl felt his hollow sadness. It wasn’t just a house; this was his home. The one room he had lovingly renovated had been destroyed, his family heirloom no doubt smashed to pieces. Maybe in the scheme of things it wasn’t much of a loss, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. She lay quietly for a moment, wishing there was something she could say that might help. Maybe she was a nurse after all, Cheryl decided, because all she could think of, the only practical thing she could offer was to get up and make a drink.

“Not for me,” Noah said. “I’d better get back out there. It’s getting light enough to see now. I just wanted to stretch out for five minutes.”

“Literally! Come on, Noah, you’ve only had a couple of hours’ sleep. Surely the horses can wait a while.”

“No, Cheryl, they can’t.”

There was an edge to his voice she couldn’t under
stand, a warning as his eyes flashed at hers, but she chose to ignore it, genuinely concerned now. He was beyond exhausted; the very last thing he should be doing was going outside.

“Come back to bed,” Cheryl insisted, but Noah just shook his head.

“This is how it is for me. This is what being a veterinarian entails. Animals don’t care that you’ve barely slept for three days. They don’t give a damn that it’s Christmas Day or that you’ve been out late the night before.”

“Are you trying to put me off?” Cheryl asked softly.

“I’m just telling you how it is.” He gave a low, mirthless laugh. “Believe me, Cheryl, there’s nothing I want to do more than lie down beside you.”

“Or just lie down?” Cheryl asked perceptively. “I bet the floor looks pretty good right now?”

Noah nodded, facing her then. “I’m trying to be honest, Cheryl, trying to tell you, right from the start, how it is for me.”

“So tell me.”

“I just did, and you’ve got no idea how many women have said they understand and have seemed to…”

“Until your pager goes off at the vital moment?” Moving across the bed to where he sat, she knelt behind him, massaging aching shoulders that were knotted with tension until finally he relaxed a little beneath her touch. “Or until you jump ship in the middle of a dinner party or miss the end of a DVD for the second night in a row? I really do understand, Noah.”

And she did, more than she could logically explain.
Somehow she understood that work couldn’t always be confined to a single shift.

“Noah.” There was bewilderment in her voice and he reacted to it, turning to face her, watching as she struggled to articulate the images flashing in her mind. “I
am
a nurse. I work shifts.” Her eyes widened as memories returned, stilted ones. It was like flicking through a stranger’s photo album, catching glimpses of someone else’s life. Noah’s hands gripped hers hard as she carried on.

“I
know
the pressure you’re under. I know how it feels to come home late to accusing eyes. I did shifts, came home tired after a long day, and all I wanted to do was rest instead of go out to a movie, but my…” Her mouth snapped closed, choking down the one word neither of them wanted to hear.

But Noah was the brave one. He faced it head-on as Cheryl attempted to slam that mental window closed, the memories she had begged to return not wanted now.

“Your husband?”

She didn’t answer at first. Her brimming eyes met his, and when she saw the pain in his face, anger even, as he stared back at her, it was the hardest thing she had ever done to nod at him, confirming their worst fears. His hand dropped hers, his expression aghast at her revelation. “Please, Noah…”

“Please, Noah what?” He shook his head, striding across the room, wrenching the door open before turning to face her. “There’s nothing more to say here, Cheryl. You’re a married woman. This conversation
has
to be over.”

“I don’t know for sure that I am married, Noah. It’s just a memory, a feeling. I don’t knows what’s real anymore. All I can remember—”

“Cheryl.” His voice was like the crack of the whip, his stance unequivocal. “If you remember nothing else, then remember this. What happened last night was wrong. Until we knew who you were, we should never have taken things further, and I accept full responsibility for my part in it. But I won’t be responsible for breaking up your marriage.”

“We need to talk, Noah,” Cheryl begged.

“It’s a bit late for that,” he said tightly. “The best thing I can do for you now is put as much space between us as possible.”

“That isn’t going to change anything,” Cheryl insisted. “That isn’t going to make this all go away.”

“So how do you want me to play this, Cheryl? How do you think I should react? Climb back into bed and pretend that you didn’t say what you just did?”

“Of course not.”

“Or perhaps you want me to tell you that last night didn’t mean a thing, to forget it ever happened? Just what the hell am I supposed to do here, Cheryl?”

“I don’t know….” Cheryl never knew quite how it happened, whether Noah froze or she did, whether what she heard first was the footsteps or the frantic knocking on the door, but even before that, panic engulfed her. Sitting up, she pulled the blanket over her breasts and turned to Noah as a frantic pounding hammered the door, then watched in slow motion as he started to run.

She was searching for her own clothes now, pulling
on the same blue uniform she had worn last night. Once she was dressed, she dashed through the clinic. Something clicked inside—instinct, memories, she didn’t know what. But this sense of urgency was familiar, and she knew that the pounding on the door meant someone was in serious trouble.

That she was needed.

She raced behind Noah as he wrenched the door open, then gasped in shock as scared green eyes she actually recognized met hers.

“Help my mom,” the lisping voice pleaded.

“Flynn!” She recognized him! But there was no time to relish her memory’s return. Flynn’s screams were filling the hall, the bandage she had so carefully applied sodden on his arm as he pulled on Cheryl to follow Noah, who had already dashed out.

“They’re in the car,” he said.

She could feel the mud beneath her bare feet and almost slipped in her haste to get to the vehicle. Anguish tightened Noah’s features as he wrenched open the back door of the car, no doubt thinking the nightmare of losing Cody was starting all over again.

“Noah!” Her shout was controlled as she pulled open the driver’s door. “Noah, it’s Beth who’s in trouble.”

And she was in
serious
trouble.

The engine was still running as Beth lay slumped over the wheel, her cotton pajamas drenched in blood, and it took a second for Cheryl to figure out where it was coming from. She registered the crude tourniquet fashioned from a tea towel around Beth’s arm.

“Help me.” It was barely a whisper, Beth’s pale lips just forming the words.

Cheryl’s heart went out to this brave, amazing woman who had somehow managed to drive her babies to safety.

“We’re going to help you, Beth.”

“The window broke.”

Flynn was hysterical, holding his fractured arm, the slab she had applied literally hanging off, and Cheryl ached to reassure him, but there simply wasn’t time. Her fingers palpated Beth’s neck, feeling the rapid flickering pulse there. She stepped aside as Noah picked Beth up, scooped her in his arms as effortlessly as if she were a child and started running back to the house. Cheryl went to follow him, but whether it was professionally ingrained or just feminine instinct, she first unclipped the baby seat. Walking as fast as she could toward the house without falling, she carried Paul and used the tiny slice of time to comfort Flynn.

“You’re safe now, Flynn.”

“Mommy was bleeding, there was so much blood. She tried to call Mitch. I tried, too.” He held out his phone to Cheryl, and she struggled to keep the look of utter devastation from her face as she saw the flat signal line. “I think I dialed wrong, but I tried—”

“You did so well,” Cheryl broke in, “so very well. The phones don’t work, Flynn, because of the storm last night, but they will soon.”

She led them through the clinic, where Beth lay bleeding on an examination table as Noah set to work.
Cheryl took the two boys to the apartment, where she fashioned a sling around Flynn’s arm from a towel, securing it tightly to his chest and wrapping a blanket around him. Then she turned her attention to Paul, who was purple in the face and screaming at the top of his little lungs.

“He wants his soother,” Flynn called through chattering teeth. “Mommy clips it to his sleeper.”

She did, too. Thank God, Cheryl thought as she unwrapped the baby’s blanket, located the soother and prayed it would be enough to comfort him.

“Told you!” Flynn said proudly as the sobs abated. “Sometimes I put it in for Mom if she’s having a shower. It always works.”

“You’re a smart boy, Flynn.” Cheryl gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile and pulled him into her arms to attempt to calm him a touch. “I need to help your mom, Flynn.” She felt him stiffen and hugged him tighter. “You have to be very brave. You have to look after your little brother and stay here. Can you do that for me?”

“Is she going to die?” he asked. “Is she going to die like Cody?”

And even though false hope was wrong, even though she couldn’t really be sure, this was a seven-year-old boy she was leaving alone, a seven-year-old boy who had already been through way too much in his short life.

“Mommy’s very sick,” Cheryl said slowly. “But Noah’s very skilled—”

“And you’re a nurse,” Flynn broke in. “You told me you’ve seen legs hanging off….”