UPON THE STORM Page 5

  "Everybody's entitled to one," she said lightly.

  "Sure." He made a wry face. "Anyway, Tony came out to see me once, when he was eighteen. He didn't like it much. Then, when I got Air West—the series," he explained, reminded with a little shock how long it had been since he'd had to do so, "he came back. I tried to get him to stay. I could afford it then, but he wouldn't. Said he liked Corpus Christi. And he still didn't like L.A. much. But I kept pushing him. We had a major fight. The first serious one we'd ever had."

  He looked pained, as if something about that long-ago conflict with his brother had only now come clear. "What?" she prompted softly.

  "He told me—yelled, actually—that it wasn't L.A. as much as it was me he didn't like." He swallowed tightly; his words had the constrained, awkward sound of words spoken for the first time. "He said that I'd changed, that I was a … a 'conceited, pompous jerk,' I think was the phrase. I thought he was just envious." His eyes closed, and his voice dropped to a near whisper. "But he was just telling the truth."

  After a moment, Christy asked quietly, "Have you seen him since?"

  "Once. I came home to try to talk to him. He wants to be a vet, he's great with animals. He had the grades, and two of the local vets were willing to sponsor him when he got out of college. But he'd given up the idea, because he couldn't afford it. He was barely making it at the university, even with a scholarship. I thought if I offered to pay his way…" He let out a long breath. "He told me to go to hell. He'd pay his own way or not go at all."

  Christy made a small sound, and he opened his eyes. "A charity case," she breathed, barely aware of speaking out loud.

  Trace sat up a little, looking at her in shock. "That's exactly what he said. How did you know?"

  "Because I know just how he feels," she said tightly, the echo of old hurts clear in her eyes.

  "But he's my brother."

  "It doesn't matter who it is."

  "Who was it … for you?"

  "A teacher."

  He knew she didn't want to talk, but he pressed her anyway. He told himself it was for Tony, to help him understand, and he almost believed it. "What teacher?"

  She sucked in a short, sharp breath and waited so long he thought she wasn't going to answer. Then, softly, painfully, she did. "He was a photography teacher. At the high school I went to for my junior and senior years. He … caught me looking at one of the blowups in the display case outside the room when I should have been in class. I thought he was going to turn me in. But he just asked what I thought of it."

  Trace tried to picture her at sixteen. It wasn't hard; she didn't look much older than that now. "What did you say?"

  A tiny smile curved her mouth. "I told him what it needed was a broken rail on that fence, or a nice piece of litter on the grass. It was too damned perfect to be real."

  So young to have given up on perfection in life, he thought, just as he had been. He remembered the hollow feeling that surrender had brought. What had brought her to it so early? "And?"

  "He laughed. Said he agreed. I was in his class the next semester. And all my last year. I didn't have a camera, but he loaned me one. He spent hours with me, after school in the darkroom. He pushed and pushed, and sometimes I hated him."

  If she'd thought about it, she would have been just as shocked as before; she never spoke about this, either. The words were proof of that, choppy and hesitant. Trace did nothing that would interrupt the tentative flow.

  "But he never gave up. He told me I could do what he'd always yearned to do, make people look at things a little differently, make them notice the world in a different way for a moment or two, even make them think…"

  She was lost in it now, the words coming more easily, with soft reverence. "Nobody had ever made me feel like that. Like I was worth something. Nobody ever had faith in me before. It scared the hell out of me. But I didn't dare let him down. He made me enter some contests, even though I knew I wasn't good enough. But I won." Her voice rang with the wonder of it, even after all this time. "I got a scholarship. To a very good school that specialized in photographic arts. But it wasn't enough, and I told him I wasn't going."

  "And he offered to help?" She nodded. "Let me guess," he said ruefully, "you told him to go to hell?"

  She couldn't help smiling at his look. "Words to that effect." Then she looked at him intently, suddenly earnest. "Don't you see? When you don't have anything, any offer like that feels like … charity. I didn't have much pride, but I couldn't take his money."

  He could just see her, young, bright, seeing a dream slip through her fingers. It hurt with a force that startled him. "What did you do?"

  "I went to school. He found another way. It might work for you, too," she said eagerly. "He put the money in the bank, and I borrowed against it. Collateral, I guess. Anyway, I owe the bank, not him. I'm paying it back, and he's making interest on his money. I can stand that. Maybe your brother could, too."

  Her desire to resolve the conflict between a man she barely knew and the brother she'd never met puzzled him. "Why does it matter so much to you?"

  She lowered her eyes. "You were close once. You could be again. Should be. At least you have him…"

  "And you, Christy?" Softer still, he asked, "Who do you have?" She didn't speak, but he read her answers in the suddenly tight line of her mouth. Pain twisted in him again. "I'm sorry. I had no right to ask that."

  "It doesn't matter anymore," she said softly, not realizing her eyes gave the lie to her words as she raised them to his. "But will you try again, with your brother?"

  He didn't hesitate. Only because of her did he have this second chance; he couldn't refuse her. He nodded slowly. "I will. If I have to wrestle him down and pin him to get him to listen … like I used to. Although, these days, I'm not so sure I could win anymore."

  The conversation was back on safe ground, and he worked at getting that look out of her eyes. Ignoring the nagging ache in his head and never even realizing how long it had been since he'd been the slightest bit concerned about somebody else, he told her the most ridiculous stories he could remember about his little brother's antics, then his own, until they were both laughing freely.

  That's what I wanted to see, he thought with satisfaction, looking at the gray eyes alight with mirth. Now that's a face you wouldn't grow bored with, not in a million years! Before he could take that startling thought any farther, she had risen from her cross-legged position on the side of the bunk and gone to the cupboard to cheerfully ask him what he wanted for dinner.

  "Backpacker Haute Cuisine," she intoned regally. "We have lasagna, chili and veal parmigiana." She spoke airily, tossing sealed foil packets at him in rapid succession. "And chicken cacciatore, spaghetti—"

  "Aack!" he yelled, throwing up his arms in defense against the bombardment of freeze-dried food. "Help!" He was laughing, ducking and batting away the flying packages, when a sobering thought occurred to him. "I'm messing up your rationing here, aren't I?"

  "You're in luck. You just happen to be marooned with an overkill expert in the preparation department. I always bring twice what I need. Water, propane, kerosene, food … we can eat like this for weeks."

  "Oh. Lasagna, then." He was relieved until something she'd said came back to him. When you don't have anything… When you remember how it was not to have anything, wouldn't you have a tendency to make sure you had plenty of everything when you got to where you could? He had. But even food? Had she been that badly off? That pain again, knife-sharp and twisting.

  How on earth, he wondered, could the human race come up with two women who were so incredibly different? His mother, who'd never lifted a finger in her life, who'd let two sons scramble up whatever way they could, with any love or caring coming from a father who was so often too weary to give it … and Christy.

  Christy, who had every reason to wail and rant against the world as his mother always had, yet had met it head-on, making her own way, asking for and taking nothing from anyone, while s
omehow hanging on to enough compassion to worry about a rift between two brothers she didn't even know. And who had the incredible courage to brave a hurricane for a stranger.

  The food, when she handed the plate to him, smelled delicious. "It's probably not what you're used to, but it's not bad."

  "I grew up on TV dinners, canned spaghetti, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," he said dryly. "This is big time."

  She looked startled, then grinned. "I hope you still like PB and J, because that's lunch tomorrow."

  "I can hardly wait."

  The lasagna tasted nearly as good as it smelled and was a pleasant surprise. "Scrambled eggs for breakfast," she said brightly as she cleaned the dishes.

  "You're good at this," he said with a smile.

  "This? This is a picnic. No snow, and not even any bears to worry about."

  "Bears?" he asked, startled.

  "Bears."

  He looked blank for a moment. "Oh. Alaska?"

  "Um-hmm. Brown bears. Doing their last-minute shopping for the winter hibernation. Dodging them had its interesting moments."

  "Er … I suppose you went there to take pictures, too?" She nodded. "Why?"

  "Oh, just innate insanity, I suppose," she said cheerfully, "although I do manage to sell a couple here and there. How about some aspirin?"

  His mouth twisted wryly. "Does it show?"

  "Just a little. You've had that kind of glassy-eyed look since we ate."

  "Hmm."

  "Hurts, huh?"

  "I'll take the aspirin."

  * * *

  Five

  « ^ »

  He awoke to dim, gray light coming through the small window and an empty room. He sat up, gratefully aware that the ache in his head seemed to be gone. He reached up tentatively, touching the bandaged spot. It was sore, but it was the normal soreness of a cut, not the throbbing ache of damage below the surface. She was a heck of a doctor, he mused. Although what she'd accomplished in healing that gash, she undid with what she did to his blood pressure.

  He could hear the wind howling and the sound of water; whether it was rain or the sea he couldn't tell. She was out in this? Wasn't that carrying it a little far?

  He stood up and was pleased to find himself steady on his feet. He made it to the alcove on his own and managed to figure out the marine head after a few minutes. He saw his clothes hanging over what looked like a small butane heater, but when he felt them they were still damp, so he resigned himself for a while longer to the sacrifice of his modesty. Such as it was, he thought. But he seemed to be a hell of a lot more aware of his nudity around her than anyone he could remember. He saw a towel that looked dry and reached for it.

  In the act of wrapping it around his waist, a sudden memory surged up, not an image, but a feeling, of this same fluffy, dry softness patting at him, and he realized she must have dried him after she'd gotten his clothes off. And probably rinsed him, as well; there had been no itchy salt residue on his skin.

  He felt color rising to his face even though he was standing there alone; the thought of her touching him so intimately while he just stood there in that odd gray fog made his blood start to pulse heavily, then settle somewhere below the pit of his stomach.

  He knotted the towel hastily, striding across the room as if motion could erase what he'd begun to feel. He peered out the tiny window in the door and stood stock-still in shock. If the traditional picture of hell had consisted of water instead of fire, this would be it. Was that worth a couple of photographs? Why did she risk it?

  If she didn't, a little voice answered inside his head, you wouldn't be standing here wondering about it. You'd be at the bottom of that cauldron out there.

  He turned away from the grim scene. His eyes swept the tiny room, the radio, the stove and the various other items on the counter, to the kerosene lantern on the table at the foot of the bunk…

  The bunk. The only place to lie down in this cramped space. He'd been here two nights now. Where the hell had she been sleeping?

  He leaned back weakly against the door as the next obvious question came to him. Where was she—or he—going to sleep from now on? This weather could go on for days, until Charlotte made up her mind…

  A little desperately, he flipped on the weather radio. Through the static came the grim news that the storm was picking up both wind and travel speed as she closed in on the Gulf Coast. The only question was her landfall: would she stay to the north, hitting them with only the admittedly destructive fringes of her whirling might? Or would she veer westward once more and vent her rage on them more directly?

  He turned the radio off before the announcer could begin to speculate about what would happen if the high altitude winds that steered the storm pointed her west sooner, towards Corpus Christi and a small, vulnerable hut built into a sandy bluff. He tried to think of what Christy had told him, that this little place had withstood the biggest storms thrown at it, but all he could think of was that she hadn't said anything about it being occupied at the time…

  He had to do something; he couldn't just wait, worrying. He thought about going out to look for her, but he knew her well enough already to guess that she wouldn't appreciate it. Besides, Trace, old pal, you'd probably do something stupid and get yourself into trouble again. And she might really decide you aren't worth saving this time.

  His stomach growled unexpectedly. Well, that he could handle, he thought. The least he could do was fix breakfast. Just because he hadn't cooked a thing for a year…

  He had just gathered everything when the door slid open and the roar of the world outside invaded the little sanctuary. Christy scrambled in and quickly shut the door behind her. She shook herself, reminding Trace of a long-legged foal after a roll in damp grass. Then she saw him and stopped dead.

  "You're up," she said unnecessarily, an odd note in her low voice.

  God, Christy thought as she looked at him. Until now she'd been able to make herself think of him as someone helpless, injured, to be treated with the same impersonal distance as a nurse treated a patient. But there was nothing helpless looking about the man who stood there now. Her eyes trailed over him, over the wide, strong shoulders, the sleek, muscled expanse of his chest, with no concealing hair to mask any slackness; there was none.

  She couldn't stop herself. Her eyes moved down over the ridged tightness of his belly to where a path of golden-brown hair began at his naval and trailed downward, glinting softly in the dim light before it disappeared below the edge of the stark-white towel that rode low on his narrow hips.

  Somehow that white towel, so precariously knotted on his right side, seemed more provocatively sexy than if he'd been naked. Especially when her memory was all too able to provide the missing details. With a convulsive little movement she turned away, tugging off her slicker and setting her gear down on the table.

  "Ready for breakfast? Or is it brunch?" Trace asked, wondering why she was looking at him so oddly; Lord knew she'd seen more than this.

  She didn't dare look at him again. "I think it's brunch. It's nearly noon," she said, fussing a little unnecessarily with the waterproof pants she wore over her jeans. Despite their protection, she was still soaked from the knees down, and she shivered a little as she gathered up dry clothes and started for the bathroom to change.

  She couldn't resist another peek as she went by, and he caught her glance. "Like the outfit?" he asked, trying to make light of the awkwardness he felt at the unknown look in her wide gray eyes. When she threw him a flashing, teasing grin, it took his breath away.

  "I didn't think there was anything wrong with the other one," she quipped, then disappeared behind the curtain.

  He gaped after her, forgetting the food in front of him. That incredible wave of heat swept him once more, and he put a hand on the counter to steady himself. Damn, what was wrong? This just didn't happen to him! Women openly drooled over him, and he stayed coolly uninvolved. Even, he'd been told, in bed. There it had its advantages in a mech
anical competence and a controlled endurance that usually managed to satisfy his partner while leaving him unmoved, feeling no more than a thankful release of pressure. He didn't care enough to feel anything more, and doubted that he ever would, or could. Or even wanted to.

  So what the hell was this? The circumstances? The woman? Both? He heard her rustling around, heard the curtain being drawn back, and bit his lip fiercely. Easy, Dalton. A towel isn't going to be much cover if you keep thinking about things like that.

  He busied himself with the food, and by the time they sat down to eat he was back in hand. She sat cross-legged on the bed again while he took the chair, resting his feet on the edge of the bunk. He was surprised; the eggs tasted good.

  "You look startled," she teased at his look.

  "I am," he said dryly. "You would be, too, if you'd ever tasted my so-called cooking."

  "Then I'll let you savor it and not tell you how hard it is to ruin this stuff."

  "Thanks a lot," he complained, but he was grinning.

  He protested when she began to get ready to go out again, but she was quietly adamant. "It's what I'm here for."

  "But it's crazy out there. Haven't you got enough?"

  "Maybe. But I won't know until I get into the darkroom and by then it will be too late to make up what I might have missed. I've been through that once. I don't want to go through it again." She smiled crookedly. "I think a third hurricane might be tempting fate just a tad too much."

  He paced the floor practically all afternoon. She'd explained about the rope and the ring, and that had reassured him a little, but he still didn't like the idea. "What good will that do if you get hurt?"

  "It's better than a trail of bread crumbs," she'd said with a grin that did nothing to ease his mood. He'd wanted to go with her, but she'd refused.