Читать онлайн книгу «A Man Like Him» автора Rachel Brimble

A Man Like Him
Rachel Brimble
After two years in hiding, Angela Taylor knows her independence is worth it. As long as she can escape her past, she has everything under control. Until a flash flood hits the park where she works, and the hot Chris Forrester shows up the exact moment she needs a hero.Chris proves he can save lives – and weaken a girl’s knees. But how she can make him understand that she’s off limits, that getting close to her will endanger his life? Her happiness or his safety: it shouldn’t even be a choice. Because when you love someone, you protect them, no matter the cost.At least that’s what Angela keeps telling herself…


Changing her life…again
After two years in hiding, Angela Taylor knows her independence is worth it. As long as she can escape her past, she has everything under control. Until a flash flood hits the park where she works, and hot Chris Forrester shows up the exact moment she needs a hero.
Chris proves he can save lives—and weaken a girl’s knees. But how can she make him understand that she’s off-limits, that getting close to her will endanger his life? Her happiness or his safety: it shouldn’t even be a choice. Because when you love someone, you protect them, no matter the cost. At least, that’s what Angela keeps telling herself.…
“Nothing can start between us, Chris.”
Angela guessed the frustration in his eyes was reflected in hers. The tension between them burned hot. Out of reach. In a different time, a different life, she would have stridden forward and pressed her lips hard to his, leaned into his fit, muscular body and let him kiss her, touch her, take her, right there and then. The heat between them was so dangerous it drew her to him with a pull she had to fight with every ounce of her self-control. If she didn’t, the result could be disastrous.
“This is a bad time for both of us to get into…whatever it is you think we should be getting into.”
Each fraught second beat with her heart. The movement of his feet across the carpet made her tremble. No. Don’t, Chris, please.
He touched her arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dear Reader,
I am delighted to introduce you to my second novel set in the fictional U.K. seaside town of Templeton Cove. I am a Brit, living near the infamous Georgian city of Bath, England, and love that I get to write about British characters in a U.K. setting! I will be forever grateful that the Harlequin Superromance editors like these stories and want to send them out into the big wide world.
Swimming instructor Chris Forrester comes to Templeton Cove to reconnect with his sister and spend some time licking his wounds. When a freak twenty-four-hour downpour floods the holiday park where he is staying, lives are lost and devastation rips livelihoods and families apart. After saving many women and children without thought or feeling for his own safety, Chris becomes a reluctant hero overnight.
But meeting one particular woman whose life he saves changes him forever.
When a photograph of holiday park owner Angela Taylor and Chris in an intimate embrace is plastered over the U.K. press, Angela knows it’s only a matter of time before her past comes back to haunt her.
A Man Like Him is a deeply personal story in that my husband, my two young daughters and I were rescued by helicopter from a hotel roof during the 2010 French floods. The opening scenes are an almost word-by-word account of what happened to us during those terrifying twenty-four hours.
I will never forget the lives of the people lost that day…nor their grieving loved ones. I thank God for keeping my family safe.
I really hope you enjoy Chris and Angela’s story! I’d love to hear from you when you’re finished. You can write to me anytime at rachelbrimble@googlemail.com.
Love,
Rachel Brimble
www.rachelbrimble.com (http://www.rachelbrimble.com) Twitter: @rachelbrimble (https://twitter.com/RachelBrimble)
A Man Like Him
Rachel Brimble


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel lives with her husband and two young daughters in a small town near Bath in the U.K. After having several novels published by small U.S. presses, she secured agent representation in 2011. In 2012 she sold two books to the Harlequin Superromance line. Rachel hopes Finding Justice and A Man Like Him represent the beginning of an ongoing series set in Templeton Cove, a town she has 100 percent fallen in love with. She also writes Victorian romance for Kensington—her debut was released in April 2013. Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and Romance Writers of America. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find Rachel with her head in a book or walking the beautiful English countryside with her family and beloved black Lab, Max. Her dream place to live is Bourton-on-the-Water in southwest England…although she hopes a dream visit to Canada might just change her mind! She likes nothing more than connecting and chatting with her readers and fellow romance writers. Rachel would love to hear from you!
Contact her via her website, www.rachelbrimble.com (http://www.rachelbrimble.com/)/, her blog, http://rachelbrimble.blogspot.co.uk (http://rachelbrimble.blogspot.co.uk)/, on Twitter @RachelBrimble (https://twitter.com/RachelBrimble), or Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/rachelbrimbleauthor (http://www.facebook.com/rachelbrimbleauthor).
To the victims and families of the catastrophic 2010 floodings in Draguignan and Frejus, France.
May you rest in peace.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my wonderful husband, Terry, and my fantastic children, Jessica and Hannah, who have had to put up with years of thinking my laptop is a physical part of me.
I love you all so much.
You will always be at the center of everything I do.
Also, I want to say a huge thank-you to the never-ending support of my agent, Dawn Dowdle, and encouragement and belief of my editor, Piya Campana.
Thank you!
Contents
Chapter One (#u10e940ec-b875-5c4e-aa7a-e93f3c5c0c98)
Chapter Two (#ue81576a7-d1e0-59f2-a20d-4e34dc7f26ce)
Chapter Three (#u2921c82e-5097-5821-b7f7-e742c3fd03f6)
Chapter Four (#u3cdd2f21-3239-5ab5-957a-da3063055050)
Chapter Five (#u2927fb73-78b3-5ace-b23e-790fa2da13f2)
Chapter Six (#u563caab1-b0e9-5f94-a42a-587a16729f4b)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
CHRIS FORRESTER STARED into the amber depths of his whiskey glass and gave a wry smile. The irony was painful. Drowning his sorrows in liquor. What a bloody cliché. He needed to get a grip. So his fiancée had been sleeping with another man for seven months. Get over it. He wouldn’t be the first bloke to have his heart ripped out and slammed onto the public spike of humiliation.
He lifted his glass to his lips and surveyed the circumference of the club room. When he’d arrived at the pretty English holiday destination yesterday, the park had taken him by surprise. His memories of old-fashioned trailers and sad swing sets from his youth were sorely outdated. The mobile homes the holidaymakers rented at the Good Time Holiday Park were brand-new and ultradeluxe.
State-of-the-art stoves, power showers and plush sofas meant when visitors returned after dancing the night away at park-run events or eating in the five-star restaurant onsite, they relaxed in luxury. Chris shook his head. Even the staff weren’t entirely uneasy on the eye. He met the steady gaze of the park’s manager over the rim of his glass.
She arched an eyebrow and pulled her clipboard against her chest. “You still here?”
He lowered his glass onto the bar. “Yep. So are you.”
She smiled. “I work here. What’s your excuse?”
He took a moment to appreciate this beautiful woman. Her eyes were huge. Huge and brown. Not boring brown. They were light...like caramel. Thick and dark, her hair fell down her back in waves highlighted with gold. And her figure? Chris resisted the urge to shake his head a second time. Outstanding. He leaned against the low back of the barstool.
“What’s a woman like you doing hiding away in a holiday park?”
Her smile faltered. “A woman like me?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “It’s not a pickup line. I was just wondering. You should be out there enjoying yourself.”
“I should, huh? What do you suggest I should be doing exactly?”
He grinned and took another sip of whiskey. “You should be an air hostess. Traveling the world, wearing one of those sexy fitted suits that show off more than a name tag and serving me a drink on a silver platter.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “My God, you’re not a guy ready for the twenty-first century, are you?”
Chris laughed. “Nothing wrong with fancying a bit of the old days.”
“Of course not...as long as you don’t lose a handle on reality.” She smiled. “Please tell me you don’t think girls get together and have pillow fights in their underwear, then, after a couple of drinks, can’t resist making out?”
He forced his smile into submission and covered his ears. “Don’t say it. Don’t spoil the dream.”
She shook her head. “You need help.” She turned and approached the bartender.
Chris dropped his hands and curled them around his glass.
In a different world where his heart hadn’t taken a bashing and his ego wasn’t entirely flattened, he would have asked her out. Or maybe at least asked her name. As it was, neither would be happening anytime soon.
Dragging his gaze to her butt, Chris smiled. Goddamn. Her pencil skirt clung to her perfect ass like a second skin. He drained his drink and glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of the clubhouse. The rain still came down in torrents as it had all day. It ran in rivulets down the glass, blurring the sway of the pine trees surrounding the huge swimming pool in the distance.
Before he’d arrived, “sunny” Templeton Cove had been sweltering and then this rain came from nowhere. A freak storm that hadn’t let up since ten that morning.
“I’d head back to your trailer if I were you.” Her voice turned his head.
“No, thanks. Nothing about heading back alone to a mobile home appeals to me right now.”
She looked to the window. “It’s supposed to get worse. I’d make a run for it.” She stared past his shoulder. “I’m just about to tell everyone the club is closing for the night. I don’t want to have to worry about my guests getting back to their accommodations safely.”
“You’re the girl in charge, then?”
She met his eyes, a flicker of pride making them more striking than ever. “I’m the manager.”
Of course, he already knew that. Asked a few questions of the bartender the minute she walked in. “Been here long?”
Her gaze lingered on his and two spots of color darkened her cheeks. She looked at her clipboard. “Long enough.”
Chris stared at her bowed head. The temptation to ask what he’d said wrong hovered in his whiskey-slick conscience. No. He didn’t need to know. None of his damn business. He’d only just met the woman. She didn’t need him nosing into her private life.
She lifted her head and her smile was back in place. “So, are you heading back? I don’t want anyone stranded in here.”
Chris gestured toward the rest of the room. “Worry about them, not me. I can handle myself in water.”
She met his gaze. “You can, huh?”
“Swimming instructor.”
“Ah, now it makes sense.”
He frowned. “What does?”
“I saw you swimming length after length yesterday. Thought you were going to break the world record...or you were trying to outswim something.”
Their gazes locked. Chris’s stomach knotted. Far too much sympathy shone back at him. Or was it empathy? He stared past her.
“I like to swim. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Right.”
He opened his mouth to respond but she was already walking away. He shifted uncomfortably. Was it tattooed on his head he was running away? Did she guess he was that guy? The guy who ran when things got tough. He clenched his jaw. She was the manager of a holiday park. It was her job to talk to everyone and anyone. Even the waste of space drinking at the bar. She was a nice woman. A sexy woman.
When her gaze was turned on him, nothing but goodness shone from her. Her personality screamed kindness and consideration. Chris frowned as the phrase “too good to be true” filtered through his mind.
He turned on the stool. She worked the room, talking to one guest after another. Her hand at their elbow, she subtly eased people to their feet. Men hurriedly finished their pints and mothers ushered their children from the dance floor and fought them into jackets. All of them smiled. No trouble. No arguments. Her looks and her body weren’t to be dismissed, but Chris guessed it was the soft concern in her gaze that got the guests to their feet.
Chris stood and shrugged into his jacket. He grinned as she moved to yet another young family. Definitely another time, another place. Right now, he needed to leave. His loneliness was heavier than ever and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by saying the words that battled on his tongue to her. Words like “come back with me” and “spend the night.”
Shaking his head, he walked to the double glass doors and stepped outside. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and ducked his head. The rain came down like God was trying to wash away His sorrows.
* * *
ANGELA TAYLOR LOCKED the door behind the final family and looked around the empty clubhouse. She’d sent the bartender home, too, safe in the knowledge she only had herself to worry about. People would undoubtedly be wet, but they’d be safe and warm in their beds by now. Her task for the night was done.
She walked to the bar. The guy with the dark sandy hair and gorgeously intense hazel eyes had gone, his empty glass left on its coaster. She picked it up. It was strange how his smile knotted her stomach. She’d forgotten how the first whispers of attraction felt. Not that it mattered. It didn’t change anything. Didn’t mean she could get to know him and risk everything unraveling from its tight and safe knot of survival. Angela swallowed. She needed to keep the knot intact, otherwise everything would come undone. Robert would find her. If he found her, he’d killed her.
Nausea rose bitter in her throat and Angela’s vision blurred. She marched behind the bar. Her hands shook as she loaded the glass into the dishwasher. She took a cloth hanging by the sink and wiped down the bar, tidied the lemons and limes in their glass container and swept the narrow tiled space. When she had nothing else to keep her there, she took the keys from her blazer pocket and headed for the door.
The rain was an opaque sheet in front of her, gray and relentless. Angela stared. It was so heavy and thick, she couldn’t see three feet ahead. She lifted her blazer above her head like a makeshift umbrella, took a deep breath and made a run for it. When she reached the reception building, she pushed open the door. Two members of the staff were on duty to oversee the check-in desk until morning. Inexplicable tension skittered along Angela’s nerves as she turned to stare again at the rain.
She shivered and cussed the fat drop of rain that slithered down her neck as she lowered her blazer.
“Hi, Angela.” Yvonne smiled from behind the desk. “I heard you emptied the clubhouse. I bet that didn’t go down well.”
Angela lifted her hand dismissively. “They were fine. I told people there was a chance the storm could get worse and they moved along soon enough.”
“Worse?” Yvonne glanced toward the windows. “I don’t see how it can.”
Angela followed her gaze. “I’m sure it will slow down. I just needed to know everyone was home safe and not wandering around the park.” She walked past the desk and toward the office behind it. “I’d better print off the guest list, just in case. I won’t be long and then I’m heading home.” She hesitated. “Will you be okay here tonight?”
Yvonne turned back to the papers in front of her. “Sure we will. No worries.”
Still feeling uneasy, Angela walked into the office, shut the door and headed for the computer. She slung her wet blazer over the back of the chair. The next ten minutes passed with her locating the latest list of guests and holidaymakers and printing it off. She moved the cursor over the screen, preparing to shut down and stopped. The guy at the bar came to mind. Her gaze shot to the closed office door.
Guilt tiptoed up her spine. The need to find out how long he’d be staying at the park took over her common sense. She swallowed. Common sense was her middle name.
“Don’t do it. Don’t do it,” she mumbled and brought up the booking information spreadsheet.
She’d spotted him the day before. He was the type of guy any girl with a pulse noticed. Especially when he walked around wearing nothing but black shorts. Heat warmed her cheeks as Angela passed her fingers over the keyboard. She typed in a request that brought up all the new arrivals from the day before.
Only one person checked in alone. Chris Forrester. She leaned closer to the screen. He’d booked in for four weeks, until July 25. A month. Interesting. She leaned back and stared at his name. He intrigued her. Why was he here? Why would a guy come alone to somewhere like Templeton Cove? It was a holiday place. A seaside town. Judging by the way Chris Forrester scowled into his whiskey glass he wasn’t there to enjoy the beach or array of ice-cream flavors. Could he have something to do with Robert?
Her gaze shot to the calendar pinned to the wall above her desk. The anniversary of Robert’s release from prison loomed. Had he found her? Sent someone to the Cove to follow her? Torment her? Nausea rose bitter in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut. No. She would not do this.
Revulsion for Robert rose up inside her and Angela snapped her eyes open.
Damn you to hell. You will not do this to me. Not anymore.
Shutting down the file, she stood. She was being stupid. Paranoid. Plain and simple. She’d felt zero need to look into any guy’s background for a very long time, and she wouldn’t let Robert taint her interest. Chris had been nothing but nice to her. Which was exactly why she was looking now. The fact niggled at her conscience. Silly girl. Leave the guy alone. Didn’t she know more than most how it felt to want the curious to turn the other cheek?
Angela whipped her blazer from the back of her chair. None of her business.
She left her office and walked back through the reception area. “Right. I’m off. I’ll see you in the morning. Any problems, give me a call on my cell.” She glanced toward the window. The night sky was black and rain ran like a stream down the glass.
“Everything’s under control.” Yvonne gestured toward the door. “Stop worrying. See you tomorrow.”
Angela stared for a moment longer before she took a deep breath. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
She pushed open the door and headed outside.
Angela lived a fifteen-minute drive from the holiday park, and getting there was like running a gauntlet. Her nerves were stretched to breaking and her neck ached with tension as she fumbled her key into the lock of her rented house and let herself in. The rain hammered against the French doors as she kicked her ruined high-heeled shoes into a corner and hung her sodden blazer on a hook behind the door. She lifted her dripping hair from her face and neck, shivering as icy-cold rivulets ran down her cheeks. Coldness seeped into her bones as she headed upstairs and into her en suite bathroom. She needed a hot shower.
Undressing as the water heated, Angela caught sight of herself in the mirror and laughed. She looked like a zombie, with her hair hanging in rats’ tails and mascara streaked down her face. Stepping under the welcome heat, she reached for the shampoo.
Chris Forrester snuck once more into her mind. His eyes were sad, his smile forced. What happened to make such a handsome man look that way? She tipped her head back, letting the water run over her face as unease rippled through her.
He wasn’t there for her. She was sure of it. The look in his eyes was universal. Instantly recognizable. At least to her. He was running, too. She doubted he ran for his life as she did, but he was definitely running. Who holidayed in a small seaside town in Devon, England, for a whole month? Nobody. Questions stormed in her head. Questions she had no business asking. He’d paid in full, up front. He was clearly there for the duration.
She opened her eyes and stared ahead at the tiled wall. Chris Forrester.
The surname seemed familiar and not just because of the hundreds of guests who had passed through the park over the two years she’d been there. She knew of another Forrester. She was sure of it. Angela shook her head, the recollection escaping her. Turning off the shower, she stepped out and wrapped a towel around her hair, another around her body.
The familiarity of his name continued to badger her consciousness as she dried off and pulled on a pair of pajamas. Ten minutes later, with the rain still lashing against the window, Angela walked into the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. There was little chance of sleep until the rain eased off. Time for a trashy novel and a cup of tea.
The kitchen clock showed eleven-fifteen.
CHAPTER TWO
THE FORCE OF the pounding on the trailer door jolted Chris from sleep. He sat bolt upright, his heart racing as he looked left and right around the small unfamiliar bedroom. What the hell was that?
“Evacuation! Evacuation! Grab what you can and hurry to the camp clubhouse. Hello? Anyone there? The park is flooding. You need to leave. Now.”
The screaming outside the door was manic, frenzied. Flooding? Adrenaline shot through Chris as he fumbled from the mess of sheets wrapped around his arms and legs. He must’ve misheard. Leaping from the bed, he cursed as his toe hit its wooden frame. He felt along the walls in the semidarkness and stumbled into the kitchen. Flicking on the overhead light, he squinted against the brightness. The neon clock on the stove showed just after two.
He unlocked the door and his breath caught as he gripped the door frame. “Jesus.”
The rain came down in sheets. A moving gray mass against a pitch-black sky. The continuous blare of the park’s emergency siren and people’s screams filled the air, sending his pulse into overdrive. Chris stared in disbelief, his body immobile. Families with young children, of no more than seven or eight, waded through water that reached the adults’ knees. Toddlers cried on their father’s shoulders. Dogs lay silent in their owner’s arms, ears flat.
Chris looked toward his feet. Illuminated by the light spilling from the kitchen, the water had already reached the steps below the door, swirling fast and unwelcome in a red-brown torrent. His lifetime love of water diminished. This wasn’t a swimming pool but most likely the result of the river adjacent to the park breaking its banks. The park was situated at the very bottom of the surrounding hills. They were trapped in a damn sinkhole, miles from the beach and with nowhere for the water to escape.
Chris slammed the door and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to focus. The rain thrashed down in all its cold and heavy destruction. It would rise quickly and dangerously contained within a five-or six-mile circumference. There were houses, shops, parks...a school. He needed to do something, anything, to help. He was a strong swimmer, an instructor, a trained lifeguard.
He snapped his eyes open and tried to shove away the heavy sense of foreboding stealing through him. Water was unpredictable. It gathered strength and power quickly, making it one of nature’s most dangerous destructors. People were going to die. Mothers, children...
Tightening his jaw, Chris sprinted into the bedroom. Fully awake and alert, he pulled on shorts, sneakers and a T-shirt. His mind whirled and his pulse thumped an erratic beat at his temple. The telltale warning of an impending disaster swam icy-cold in his blood as the rush of the water and the screams of people outside echoed inside his head.
He hurried into the kitchen and grabbed his backpack from a storage cupboard. He filled it with water and fruit, scissors, tape and a basic first aid kit from a shelf above. Tossing the strap over his shoulder, Chris took a deep breath and reopened the door. The steps had vanished.
* * *
ANGELA STARED AT the chaos around her. Within forty-five minutes, the entire world had gone insane. The water curled around the hundreds of screaming and shouting people struggling to escape in their panic. Danger whispered at their backs, the noise like the roar of a giant as it chased them. The swish of tires and the blaring of car horns pierced the air, sending the holidaymakers into a state of near hysteria.
The frantic screeching of a woman ahead of her kick-started Angela’s stunned body into action. The holiday park was her life. Her refuge. She’d save it and these hundreds of people encased in a sealed bubble of terror. It would be all right. The rain would stop.
People yelled the water was coming down harder and faster and Angela’s rising panic hitched up a notch. Her niggling fear that the day’s rain was shrouded in threat had become a reality. She faced her assembled staff, the panic in their eyes clear as a mirror into their hearts. She took a deep breath and threw open her arms.
“Everyone, listen to me. We must remain calm. I want as many people as possible directed into the open-air dining area. The water will not rise above that level. It can’t possibly. It’s well over four feet from where the water is now.” She kept her shoulders straight, battling her fear into submission. “We must remain calm. We’re here to help the guests in every way we can. Please, do not endanger yourselves. Be careful. I want to see every one of you back here when this is over. Do you hear me?”
She met their eyes in turn. They nodded. It would be okay. She would make sure they made it home safely to their families. She had to. She gave a curt nod.
“Now go. I’ll see you back here soon.”
The minimal staff she had at three in the morning scattered left and right into the burgeoning crowds. People came toward the clubhouse like a million drowned rats. She’d been the first person Yvonne roused from bed. That was two hours ago. Angela had immediately left her house and sped back to the park. Its location was advertised as “quaint,” “secluded,” “quintessentially English”—now it offered zero escape.
Anger mixed with frustration had coursed through Angela’s veins when she’d leaped from her car and rushed to the office. The water had barely reached her ankles and the concerns about the boating lake had been just that...a concern. Now, this life-threatening situation loomed in front of her like an adversity on an impossible battlefield.
Inhaling a deep breath, she shook off her fears and hurried forward to help an elderly lady who’d slipped in the deluge of bodies rushing to get past her.
“It’s okay, madam. Everything will be all right. Here, take my arm.”
The woman shook so badly Angela brought her other arm around her waist and practically carried her to a free seat. The chatter of people sitting at the tables was relatively calm compared to the chaos a few feet below. People would be safe here.
She caught the eye of a mother cradling her two crying children on her lap on the other side of the table. “Could you keep this lady company for me? There’s so many—”
The woman’s smile wobbled. “Of course. You go.”
Nodding her thanks, Angela ran out of the dining area and down the steps toward the yellow brick road that snaked throughout the park from the reception to every single one of the six hundred trailers.
She waded into the water. It reached just above her knees. Cold, relentless and completely unforgiving. Cars that had been heading out of the park moments before now lay abandoned and gridlocked like wrecks piled up in a junkyard. She frantically looked around, not knowing which way to turn. The crying and screaming of a young girl of six or seven broke through her manic thoughts.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
“It’s all right. It’s all right.” Angela lifted the girl into her arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Everything will be all right.”
She turned and headed back up the stairs. People called out to their loved ones left and right. Children were hauled onto their parents’ backs and shoulders. The whole world looked soaked to the skin in despair. Angela’s leg muscles screamed in protest as she fought her way up the stairs and back into the dining area.
“Oh, thank God.” A woman rushed forward, her face etched in agony. “Melissa? Melissa, it’s Mummy.”
The little girl in Angela’s arms turned and her tiny body shook with relief as she held out her arms to her mother.
Angela’s heart swelled with gratitude as she passed her over. “She was calling for her father, but I don’t know...”
The woman shook her head, the silver tracks of her tears shining in the overhead lights. “He said he was going for help. I haven’t seen him since.” Her voice cracked.
Angela squeezed her hand. “He’ll be back.”
The woman nodded, but the anguish in her eyes was so deep, Angela closed hers against it. What right did she have to promise these people anything? Didn’t she know how your entire life could change beyond recognition in a single twenty-four hours? Robert’s face loomed in her mind. After everything she’d done to survive, there was no way in hell this flood would take her life. Nor would it take anyone else’s. People were stronger than they thought.
She smoothed her hand over the girl’s head as she dropped her cheek into the crook of her mother’s neck. They turned and walked away. Angela drew in a shaky breath and headed back to the steps. Barely a minute had passed and now the water burst over the top step and worse, over the swimming pools to the side of the dining area.
“My God.” The words whispered like a plea from between Angela’s freezing lips.
The power of the water, the noise of it, was deafening. It mixed with people’s terrified screams, their pleas to God and their shouts for missing family and friends. Angela brought her hands to her head in an effort to concentrate, to think of the next thing to do. She turned around three hundred and sixty degrees.
There was no way out. Nowhere else to go than up.
The water rushed like a gathering tsunami, splitting around her and running at such a speed, filthy gray froth crested its waves. She needed to move people onto the clubhouse roof. There was no other option.
With her heart pounding and her ears ringing, she looked to the car roofs, barely visible below, when minutes before people had been sitting inside hoping for escape. Horror ripped through her body at the sight of people swimming toward her, their eyes wide with fear. Furniture, suitcases, clothes and debris passed in an undulating torrent. How many? How many would survive? How much weight could the roof withstand?
Making a snap decision, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Everybody. On the roof. Get your families on the clubhouse roof. Now!”
Sending up a silent prayer, she took a deep breath and dived back into the water. With a strength borne from adrenaline and her fight for survival, she cut through the water and grasped flaying hands. One after another, she brought people to the edge of what she hoped would be safety. Her shins smacked against the stone steps time and again before she turned and swam back out into the murky water.
Another life. Another human being. She brought more and more people to the clubhouse before heading back out again. Her arms were little more than lengths of rubber. Her lungs screamed for mercy. A sob escaped her and as Angela gasped for air, the water rose and took her under.
* * *
THE PARK MANAGER disappeared beneath the water and Chris’s gut leaped into his throat. One minute she was there. The next gone. The attraction—the protectiveness—he had when he first saw her wrenched through his chest. He had to get to her. A woman like her couldn’t die like this. The haunted look in her eyes lingered in his memory.
He felt the connection between them—an affinity, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t find out why. He darted his gaze left and right. Chaos reigned supreme. He ran his hand over the little girl’s forearm nestled beneath his chin in an attempt to comfort her as his mind whirled with what to do next. He’d pulled her from the water but had no idea who she belonged to.
“Everything’s going to be all right, sweetheart.”
With her parents nowhere in sight, Chris’s words dissolved into the panicked air. He should get her to safety, but his gaze drew back to where the manager had vanished once again. She’d resurfaced and was now desperately reaching out to passing pieces of furniture and other debris to use as an anchor.
He drew in a deep breath. “Hey! Over here. I’m coming. Hold on.”
Her arms continued to flail, her mouth set in grim determination. There was no way she could hear him. The need to save her roared through his blood once more. He’d seen her drag one person after another to safety without regard for her own life.
He’d liked she was oblivious to him watching her. Now he wanted to see her look straight at him. Fear for her beat hard in his chest. Her strength was phenomenal, but the strongest woman on earth would lose the fight against a current building with this much ferocity.
He gritted his teeth and reached out, gripping a man’s wrist as he came out of the water on a forward stroke. The man’s eyes were frenzied and he looked past Chris toward the mirage of the disappearing clubhouse.
“Get off me.” The man tried to yank his wrist away. “What the hell are you doing?”
Chris tightened his grip and reached for the girl on his back. “Take her. Take her with you.”
The man looked to the girl and shook his head. He made to swim away but Chris held fast. “Take her or so help me God, I’ll drown you myself. Right here. Right now.”
The man cursed before grabbing the girl beneath the arms. He tossed her onto his back. She remained eerily quiet as her gaze locked on Chris. Clearly she knew she had no choice but to be passed from one strange man to another.
He forced a smile and winked. “I’ll see you on the roof, okay?”
She nodded, her bottom lip trembling. The man swam forward and in seconds they were spots in the distance. Chris focused his mind on the woman he needed to save. He couldn’t think about the girl, the man or anyone else for the time being.
He plunged forward. The manager was nowhere to be seen. He circled around. His muscles screamed with fatigue. His heart thundered in his ears. Where the hell was she? He inhaled a deep breath and sank into the dark, cold depths. Nothing but black space loomed in front of his open eyes. He reached blindly forward.
His fingers bumped hard surfaces of God only knew what but nothing human, nothing female. He searched for another few seconds before forcing himself upward for more air. As he broke the surface, he saw her.
Barely more than a few feet away, she fought against the rage of the swirling river water. She was static. Neither going backward nor forward. He cut one arm into the water and then the other. Each stroke brought him painstakingly closer to her. He moved his head from side to side and pictured the clear blue of a swimming pool.
The image loosened the tension in his arms and made his strokes longer and more confident. His hands splayed her waist and, in one fluid motion, he lifted her onto his back.
“Hold on,” he yelled. “Hold on.”
Her arms came around his neck and locked beneath his chin. “There are so many people. We have to help them.”
He ignored her words lest they creep inside his mind and unleash the panic and helplessness bubbling at the surface of his resolve. Inhaling another breath, Chris battled toward their last chance of anyone finding them alive. It seemed to take forever to reach the solid concrete upper floor of the clubhouse. The only building now visible from their vantage point.
He swam forward until his feet touched the steps leading to the roof where people rushed up the disappearing staircase. She slipped from his back and stared down at him.
“You’ll be all right now.” His words came out in short, sharp breaths. God, she was beautiful.
Swallowing hard, he turned and moved to dive back into the water.
“Wait!” Her yell stopped him short.
Their gazes locked. They stood paralyzed for a long moment.
“Be careful.”
Chris nodded and dived back into the water. He had to save more. He was a strong swimmer. He’d make it back. He had to.
CHAPTER THREE
FROM THE CLUBHOUSE ROOF, Angela stared out at the wreckage the flood had left behind. The rain stopped the moment the sun rose above the mountains. It lit the sky in glorious pink and peach. An ironic relief, for it also lit the devastation. Tears blurred her gaze. As far as the eye could see, the world was hidden beneath brown swirling water. The roofs of cars and the top few feet of trees punctuated the landscape like macabre reminders of what had been visible and alive with holidaymakers just a few short hours before.
“My God.” Her words caught painfully in her throat. How would the park ever recover from this? The money. The damage. Everything was beneath water and warping as five hundred or so people stood helpless watching it happen.
She turned from the horizon to stare at the anguished faces of the people who’d come to the Cove for a holiday, a break, a relaxing time away from life’s chaos. People stood so close their arms brushed hers, yet everything was eerily quiet. The odd murmur, the odd whisper to God blew along a soft breeze.
Children lay silent in their parents’ arms; grown men shook their heads, tears sliding over their cheeks unchecked.
She closed her eyes and forced her mind to focus. The red tiled roof of the stockroom was adjacent to the clubhouse. If they could somehow manage to pull off the tiles and underlay beneath, she could climb inside and pass up supplies. Bottled water, soda, ice cream and sealed packets of cookies were stored there for selling in the outdoor snack shop. It would at least sustain them and keep the panic of passing time at bay awhile longer.
Until what? She opened her eyes. How would they get out of here? Would the authorities send boats? A whirr sounded in the distance and she lifted her head, shielding her eyes against the sun. A helicopter.
Hope filled her chest as the noise grew around her. One by one the subdued crowd heard it, too. Fingers pointed to the sky, voices rose and then cheers erupted. Angela’s smile stretched to a full-blown grin. A man to the side of her pulled her into an embrace and pressed a firm kiss to her forehead.
“We’re saved.” He laughed, his eyes shining. “We’re saved.”
She laughed. “It’s going to be all right.” She said aloud the words that had revolved on an endless reel in her mind for the previous, terrifying hours.
“I can’t believe this has happened.” The man shook his head.
Angela swallowed. “What time is it? Do you have a watch? A phone?”
He released her and turned his wrist. “Half past six.”
Angela nodded as he turned away to his family. Five hours. It had taken just five hours to turn the park into a mud-red sea. Another whirr of blades filtered the air and then another. Three helicopters circled overhead as people raised their hands, cheering and shouting.
She squinted in an effort to see what kind of helicopters they were, praying they were for rescue or the police. She couldn’t make out the letters along the side. Wouldn’t the police or rescue teams have bold and distinct markings?
They hovered above them and flew back and forth for twenty minutes, before tilting and flying away.
As their tails disappeared over the horizon, panic overtook the crowd once more. The cheers became shouts of protest. The waving hands turned to people clutching their heads and throats. She needed to get them doing something. Keep them busy to lessen the panic and pass the time. Their saviors would be back.
Angela stared after the helicopters. They had to come back.
She took a deep breath and pushed her way through the throng of bodies. Setting her jaw against the rapid beat of her heart, Angela pushed onward. She would not panic. She was strong. A survivor. This was nothing more than a test.
Elbowing her way through the mass of men, women and children, she struggled toward the stockroom roof. Once there, she leaned over the railing surrounding the top of the clubhouse and looked down. The water was two-thirds the way up the wall, which meant the flooding had to be at least nine feet above ground level. She raised her arms.
“Everyone. Can I have your attention?”
The men and women closest looked at her and one by one tapped the shoulders of the people standing next to them. The noise lessened and Angela met their defeated gazes. People, both young and old, trembled. Their faces were pale, either from fear or cold. She forced a smile. She was the park manager; it was up to her to keep the guests buoyed and positive.
“Now the rescuers have seen us, they’ll be back. They know our situation...” Her voice wavered as a barrage of catcalls and heckling started. She waved her hands. “Please. Listen. We have no idea if people outside the park are in a worse situation. We have to be thankful we’re alive, and better, we have supplies.”
“What supplies?” A voice demanded from the crowd. “Everything we own is under the damn water.”
A chorus of agreement and a rumble of chatter followed.
Angela’s determination increased. The tenacity that had gotten her through the past two years since her divorce raged like a storm in her heart. She’d survived Robert’s abuse through experience and quick thinking. She’d survive again. God needed her to do a job and she’d damn well do it.
“We have supplies. Lots of supplies. Enough to get us through today.”
“What if we’re still here tomorrow?” the same “Man of Eternal Hope” yelled.
She dropped her hands and fisted them on her hips, all notions of niceness evolving into determination. Negativity bred like disease if it wasn’t nipped in the bud. She’d been forced to learn that quickly. Believing rescue was possible had undoubtedly saved her life more times than she cared to remember.
“Sir, if you don’t mind, you need to step back and keep your thoughts to yourself. They’re not helping.”
He glared. “Yeah? Well, you’re supposed to be in charge. You told my family when we got here two days ago this place was the best park in the damn Cove. Now look at us.”
Anger simmered in her stomach. What the hell was wrong with this guy? Angela glared. “Are you serious?”
He took a step toward her, and his wife clamped her hand to his forearm. “Frank, don’t.”
He shook her off and kept coming. “Yes, I’m serious. You think I’m in any mood to freaking joke?”
Angela tensed as her hackles rose. “We are in the middle of a natural disaster, sir. If you can’t understand that, then—”
“Then what?” He stood just feet away, his hands fisted on his hips and his face contorted with fury.
“Then you need to stand out of the way and let the other men and women help me do what little we can until the rescue crews come back.” She turned away from him and fixed her gaze on the men and women looking at her with encouragement and interest. They couldn’t see she trembled. She couldn’t show him a glimmer of weakness. If she ignored him, he’d disappear.
She cleared her throat. “Behind me is a stockroom full of soda, water, ice cream and other things. I need a handful of volunteers to help me tear enough of the roof back so I can climb inside. If we work as a team, everyone will at least have something to drink.”
At first no one moved. They continued to stare at her in dazed confusion and Angela wondered what she was supposed to do next. Then the crowd of people parted.
Her heart skipped as she met the same hazel eyes she’d last seen moving away from her when Chris Forrester dived back into the water. That was over two hours before.
He was alive. Her stomach knotted and her smile grew wide. “You.”
He winked and lifted his hand to his head in a salute. “At your service.”
“Again.”
He held out his hand. “Chris Forrester.”
Angela grasped his hand as guilty heat, because she already knew his name, seared her cheeks. “Angela Taylor...and thank you.”
He kept hold of her hand and continued to stare, his gaze wandering languidly over her face as though they were alone, rather than surrounded by hundreds of panicked holidaymakers. The nonsensical notion to kiss him leaped into her mind and she laughed.
“Well, we can’t stand around here all day.” She slowly pulled her trembling hand from his. “I assume you’re the man to help me rip off a roof.”
He blinked and his smile reappeared like a breaking sun. “Absolutely.”
He moved to stand beside her. His damp T-shirt clung to his biceps and stretched taut across his shoulders. Angela snatched her gaze toward the expectant crowd, unease rolling through her stomach. Unease because of her reaction to him. Unease that somehow or another this man had caught her interest...attracted her.
She clapped her hands. “Okay, anyone else?”
One by one, more men joined them until there were eight or nine of them working side by side to find a way to get the stockroom roof peeled off. Angela risked a final look in Chris’s direction. He had his back to her, gesturing toward the roof, clearly taking control of his new mission.
She turned away. Was she seriously ogling the man when he was trying to get food and drink for everyone? Embarrassment swept through her.
She’d concentrate on where she was needed...even if the temptation to stay near Chris burned hot inside her.
She weaved her way back among the crowds, offering words of encouragement and reassurance to the elderly and young alike. Parents seemed calmer, cradling their children in their laps as they sat on the flat concrete roof. The area was sometimes used for barbecues and a place to sit at small bistro tables. Not today. Today, it was the only safe haven in an island of danger.
Angela looked to the sky. It was a sheet of clear blue above them. Yesterday the temperatures rose to the low nineties. People wouldn’t be cold for long. The midday heat would be the next challenge.
* * *
WITH SEVERAL OF the roof tiles smashed and cleared, Chris gripped the edge of the underlay. “On my count. One, two, three.”
He and the four men on either side of him heaved the heavy black material toward them. Their combined strength and adrenaline made easy work of what would normally have been a tough job. Chris smiled. It was like peeling back the lid of a sardine can. They’d made a four-by-four-foot hole.
“Well, just look at that.”
The man next to him clapped Chris on the shoulder. “It’s the equivalent of a damn candy store window to a group of sugar-hungry kids.”
Chris laughed. “I’ll get the lady in charge. We’d better not just throw ourselves down there. No matter how much I’d like to.”
He levered himself up and looked around for Angela. He didn’t have to look far. Even with her hair wet and dirty from the floodwater, there was no mistaking her among the crowd. Chris guessed her to be five feet five or six and with her clothes still damp and clinging to every curve of her body, there was no mistaking the woman had the figure of a catwalk model.
Letting out a low, appreciative whistle between clenched teeth, Chris shook his head and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Miss Taylor? I need you.” I need you? What the hell did I say that for?
She turned. The way she stared and the soft quirk of her eyebrow made Chris feel like an infatuated teenager. He laughed. “I mean...you’re needed over here.”
She grinned and echoed his salute of earlier. He looked back into the stockroom before he could say or do anything else to make him look more stupid. The men around him peered over, too. The place was filled with bottled water, sodas and snacks just as she’d promised. The food and drink would bring at least some hope and serenity to a possibly explosive situation. Chris didn’t doubt that was exactly her intention.
The distinctly feminine touch at his shoulder made him tense before he slowly turned. She wasn’t looking at him but into the hole they’d made into the stockroom.
“Fantastic. Look at that.” Her smile was wide and a soft flush of pink darkened her cheeks. “This is what people need. This will make all the difference to morale.” She stepped back, her hand lifting from his shoulder.
She looked at the other men. “Okay, if you and you—” she pointed to two men beside Chris “—grab my wrists and lower me down, I’ll start passing things up.”
Was it his imagination or had she purposely dismissed him? What had the lingering hand on his back been all about? Maybe it hadn’t exactly lingered, but there had been definite contact. Contact that seared through his wet shirt and straight to his damn chest.
He crossed his arms. What did it matter? He’d come to the Cove to nurse his wounds after the backlash of Melinda’s infidelity, not to start panting over the first female who gave him the time of day. He might have gone wild for a while after Melinda, but that was over. He was here to get his head...and heart straight.
So why the hell couldn’t he drag his gaze from Angela’s long, lean legs as she clambered onto the stockroom roof? Or ignore the way her huge brown eyes were alight with positivity? He tightened his jaw.
What did he care that the two men “helping her” seemed to be finding every reason known to man to touch every part of her as well as her damn wrists as they slowly lowered her into the hole?
Tension knotted his stomach. This was neither good nor wanted. He didn’t need the stress of a woman and he didn’t need her betrayal. He moved to walk away and leave them to it when the whirr of the helicopters returned. He lifted his head. The same three were back again. This time they circled the circumference of the roof four times before hovering just above the people who watched them.
He glanced around. Hope etched the features of every single face.
“Wait. Lift me up. Lift me up.”
The sound of Angela’s voice jolted him and Chris turned. With her butt on the tiles, she shimmied closer and he held out his hand. Her palm slid against his and he pulled her onto the clubhouse roof. She stood by his side. So close the soft heat of her shoulder warmed his biceps.
She grinned. “They’ve come back. Thank God.”
He forced his gaze away from her pretty profile and back to the helicopters. “And just in the nick of time.” He blew out a heavy breath. “I didn’t want to say anything before, but there are people shouting from trees.”
“What?”
He nodded toward the east. “Over there. See them? We’re the lucky ones.”
She followed the direction of his gaze and lifted her hand to her mouth. “They have to help them. Those poor people must’ve been hanging on for hours. They’ll be terrified, hungry...exhausted.”
There was no denying she was beautiful, but it wasn’t just that making his heart beat with the overwhelming urge to touch her. She looked strong yet fragile. As though she could take on the problems of the world but, at the same time, the wrong thing at the wrong time would break her.
Without thinking, he slid his arm across her shoulders. “It’s going to be all right. They’ll get them.”
She stiffened at his touch and Chris turned to stare ahead but didn’t remove his arm. It would be too obvious he suddenly felt like a leech. He didn’t want to see the revulsion or rejection in her eyes. Every fiber in his body screamed with an inexplicable protection for her.
His past was peppered with mistakes. All of them ground in his inability to protect...
The power of her stare bore into his temple. After a long moment, she relaxed beneath his arm. She blew out a breath. “What’s going to happen? These people are relying on me. I don’t know—”
Reluctantly he turned and, as he’d predicted, her huge brown eyes were glazed with anxiety. He swallowed. “It’s going to be all right.”
She shook her head and sadness replaced the anxiety. “You don’t know that. None of us does.”
“Hey.” Goddamn it. She’s tearing up. He slid his hand down from her shoulder and gave her biceps an encouraging squeeze. “We’re going to get through this. All of us. You’re doing a fantastic job. These people are right to trust you. I can feel it.”
Their eyes locked and Chris’s gaze dropped to her mouth. It fell ajar and her tongue poked out to wet her bottom lip. He snatched his gaze back to the sky. They were in the middle of a disaster situation. They were reaching out to each other for support. Nothing more. Nothing less. So why the hell was his heart beating like a damn jackhammer?
He shielded his eyes against the sun and prayed to God she hadn’t seen his need to kiss her. He focused on the helicopters. “Damn it.”
She shifted beside him and he felt her gaze on him once more. “What is it?”
“They’re not going to be any help to the people stranded in the trees.”
“Of course—”
“Those vultures aren’t going to do a damn bit of good. Where are the rescue teams?”
“What are you talking about? What vultures?”
“Can’t you see?” He shot his arm toward the sky as frustration hummed along his nerve endings. “They’re TV helicopters. A fat lot of bloody help—”
“TV cameras? Oh, my God.”
Chris turned. Her face grew ashen and she swayed back on her heels, her eyes wide with terror. She gripped his forearm. “Help me. Don’t let them see me. You have to do something.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Chris, please. Help me.”
Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms and she buried her face into his chest. He brought one hand to the back of her head, the other to the small of her back and pulled her close. She fit the contours of his body like she was meant to be there.
He held her tight. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She shook her head against his chest. “It’s over. It’s all over.”
The helicopters circled one more time and then flew away, disappearing over the horizon once more. “They’ve gone. Angela? Look at me. What is it?”
She pulled back and tears slipped over her lower lids and down her cheeks. “I’m dead. He’s coming. He’s coming and this time he’ll kill me.”
He gripped her forearms, adrenaline filling his blood on a protective wave. “Who will? What are you talking about?”
She closed her eyes. “My husband.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“YOUR HUSBAND? YOU’RE MARRIED?”
Angela stared at Chris’s shocked face and shook her head. “No.”
“Divorced?”
She nodded, unexpected tears burning her eyes. “Yes.”
His hands slipped from her arms and she crossed them against her shaking body.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”
He frowned, his gaze intense on hers. “Why would you say he’ll kill you? Are you serious?”
Angela’s heart beat faster. What had she done? For two years she’d kept her past a secret, kept her fears locked inside a box deep in her heart. A constant reminder never to let her guard down. Never forget Robert’s promise to find her, hurt her, make her his again but this time without the chance of escape. She turned away from Chris’s hazel stare as panic clawed at her insides.
How could she have been so stupid to tell him? How could she have been so naive not to realize TV cameras would arrive? The media were the enemy. The police, the traitors. Hadn’t she learned anything through their broken promises and false assurances? Her stupid, blind pull to this...this stranger meant she’d let the thrill of him lower her defenses and now she was wide-open to God only knew what. Nausea rose in her throat and she clutched her hand there. “It’s all right. I haven’t heard from him in a long time. Everything will be okay.”
“Well, everything is clearly not okay right now.”
Angela turned from his turbulent gaze. “I haven’t heard anything from him for almost two years. I’m just spooked. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Go away. Leave me alone.
“You can’t say something like that and expect me not to react...it’s out there now. It’s in my head.”
“Please. Just leave it.” Panic lashed out and caught like a hook in her chest. She needed him away from her. Away from her situation. “It’s the shock of the flood, the heat. It’s making me a little crazy, I guess. He won’t come here.”
Please walk away. Please don’t care. Pretend you never met me. Please.
Chris’s gaze bore into her temple, but she concentrated on mustering a calm expression. He had to believe her. If Robert saw her picture, he’d be at the Cove before the next day’s paper was printed. What was she supposed to do? Go home and pack? Move away? A warm tear slipped onto her cheek and Angela swiped at it with her fingers.
The silence beat between her and Chris and she drew in a long breath before she turned and met him square in the eyes. “I don’t need your help. I’ve got this, okay?”
He shook his head. “Don’t tell me that. You’re shaking. If you’re in some kind of danger—”
She lifted an eyebrow. Irritation and defensiveness burst into her bloodstream. “What? You’ll swoop in and save me? I don’t think so.”
She didn’t want to be nasty. The man had saved her life. The man was built. The man was kind. Yet her coldness was necessary. She had to do something to deflect his interest...and the damn heart-melting concern in his eyes. Men were manipulators. Manipulators who blinded and charmed a girl—making her fall head over heels in love, only to have him rip out her heart and shove it down her throat.
She didn’t know Chris Forrester. She certainly couldn’t trust him.
He continued to stare. “Nice try.”
His face blurred in her vision and Angela blinked hard. “I mean it. I don’t need your help.”
His gaze locked on hers for a moment longer before he raised his hands in surrender. “Fine.”
Sadness dropped into her stomach. Despite her history, her fear, she sensed Chris was a nicer guy than most and she’d just pushed his goodness back in his face like it counted for nothing. It counted for so much. She hadn’t seen so much concern for her in a man’s eyes for as long as she could remember. Did he truly care? Why, though? Maybe he wanted something from her. Her paranoia from the previous day surged back into her mind. Maybe he did know Robert after all.
Suspicion rose raw and ugly in her conscience and her weakening defenses slammed back into place. She whirled around to face the men gathered around the stockroom. “Let’s concentrate on getting these people fed and watered before anarchy breaks out, shall we?”
A couple of seconds passed before he brushed past her. Angela stiffened. His face was stony and his wide shoulders tense. He didn’t deserve her dismissal but that’s exactly why she’d slammed down the hatches. If he knew Robert, she was in all sorts of trouble. If he didn’t...God only knew what a man like Chris would do about her violent ex-husband.
He’d already proven his bravery, his ease at stepping forward and doing what had to be done in any given situation. Who was to say dealing with Robert would be any harder for him? Angela closed her eyes. Who the hell did she think she was? Why would he get involved? Why on earth would he give her another thought once they were off this roof?
She was nobody to him. She’d made herself nobody to everyone for a very long time. It was her problem. She’d started to believe she could build a life in Templeton. Maybe start having a friend or two, the odd night out in good company. But that didn’t give her the right to dream she was important enough for Chris Forrester to have a genuine concern for her.
You’re insignificant. Unimportant. Ugly.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Angela stepped forward and planted a wide smile on her face before Robert’s words could gather momentum inside her mind. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get started.”
She surreptitiously searched for Chris. He’d disappeared. Disappointment flooded her veins, making her heart ache. He was undoubtedly getting as far away as possible from her and her damn distrust of everyone and everything. She didn’t blame him. She’d avoid being close to herself, too, if she could.
Angela clapped her hands and the waiting men turned. “Okay, let’s do this. Lower me back down there. We need to get the stuff out of the stockroom as soon as possible. This heat is only going to rise and we don’t want that food wasted.”
One of the volunteers smiled. “It’s all right, love. A bloke’s already down there sorting things out.”
“Who?” Angela’s stomach fluttered. She knew exactly who.
“Big guy. Blondish hair, green T-shirt.”
Chris.
Relief pushed the air from her lungs. Even though she couldn’t afford to believe he had no connection to Robert, she couldn’t stop that from letting him do something to help his fellow survivors. To help her.
She tilted her chin. “Right. Good. Well, if you guys will get a chain going and pass the supplies out, I’ll go and see where else I’m needed.”
The man nodded and turned back to help.
Angela lingered awhile longer, part of her wanting to see Chris again, wanting to look into his eyes and see something there to convince her he was as good and honest as she wanted him to be—and to tell him how good it felt to be in his arms. It had been so long since she’d let a man touch her or even hold her hand. When she’d buried her face in his shirt, she’d done it instinctively and the euphoria of being held by him still lingered like a tattoo on her skin.
The perpetual feeling of hopelessness that stole over her shoulders had nothing to do with the flood or the fact she was in charge of hundreds of stranded civilians. That she would cope with. She’d make sure every single one of these people was rescued from the roof before her. It was her lack of control over Robert’s next move that had panic clawing at her courage, threatening to rip it wide-open once more.
The horrible, gnawing fear she’d never be free of him for as long as she lived spread like poison inside her. Angela moved through the sea of survivors. News helicopters. Photographers. It was sick they’d arrived before the rescue teams came to airlift people fighting for their lives in tree branches and on roofs.
She stopped and took a moment to slow her breathing, lifting her stiff and dirty hair back from her face and holding it in a fist. What would happen when tomorrow’s paper came out for the entire country to see? What then? According to her family, Robert had left prison and returned to their marital home. Heedless, it seemed, to the catalog of vile memories the place held for his ex-wife.
After months of phone calls and letters sent to her parents’ address from prison, he’d finally given up on Angela’s family ever allowing him to apologize for what he’d put their daughter through. Angela had enjoyed complete anonymity for so long she’d stupidly begun to believe in the possibility of staying in Templeton Cove forever.
Tears burned at her eyes. Doubting Chris was just another successful punch to her life that Robert continued to deliver with his iron-clad fist.
She slowly exhaled as desperation tore at her heart. Her gaze fell on a big plastic storage box to the side of the roof. There was work to do. No time for self-pity or wondering what the future held. Right now, people needed her to be focused and she wouldn’t let them down.
She marched forward and snatched up the box. They needed a toilet.
Angela raised the box above her head. “Can everyone who can spare a coat, a blanket, even an umbrella, please follow me. We have work to do. The rescuers will come soon. In the meantime, we need to get busy and make the best of what we have.”
People slowly stepped forward, jackets and blankets in their arms, umbrellas in their hands. Human strength was amazing. Strength in numbers even more so. Even if Robert had beaten the trust in human nature from her, raped her belief in any possibility of a happy future...he hadn’t broken her spirit. She’d survived him once and she would again.
Leading the volunteers to a far corner of the roof, she got to work. Busy hands meant less thinking, less contemplating, less imagining. She set about using discarded coats, blankets and umbrellas to form a makeshift shelter, catching the eyes of fellow survivors and offering them smiles of encouragement.
She’d do everything in her power to lessen people’s humiliation and discomfort. Nobody would be subjected to anything they didn’t want to do if she could avoid it. Memories flooded Angela’s mind and strengthened her resolve. Robert made her beg for a meal, clean the house naked and go days without the comfort of friends or family. No one in this world deserved to suffer humiliation at the hands of another.
Tears smarted her eyes and she blinked them away. Her hands shook and she fought to steady them as she strode forward to ask the others to help her tie the coats together. Using some crossbars on the roof and the iron railing running around the outside, they soon erected a curtained toilet area.
Another hour passed before the whirr of helicopters once more filled the air. The crowd of survivors fell quiet for the third time that day. People lifted their hopeful faces to the sky. Angela stopped breathing as she trained her gaze on the horizon. The helicopter neared and its telltale khaki color became clearer. She released her held breath in a rush.
The Army.
Seconds later, another one followed. Cheers erupted. People waved and hugged loved ones once more.
With expert precision, the helicopter circled and then hovered above the stockroom. Everyone stood in mesmerized fascination as a helmeted rescuer jumped down and approached the closest man to him.
Chris grasped the outstretched hand of the soldier.
Angela pushed her way through the crowds and stood still as she watched them speak. After what felt like forever, Chris turned.
“Women and children first. Women and children only.”
As though they were connected on an invisible thread, his eyes met hers before he looked away and gestured for the first people to come forward. Angela’s chest ached. If only she could trust her intuition that Chris was a good man—but hadn’t she thought the exact same thing about Robert in the beginning?
* * *
CHRIS AND THE final male survivors stepped from the bus that had brought them from the airfield to the impromptu rescue spot set up in the sports hall of the local leisure center. The soldiers had worked quickly and efficiently and three hours later, every one of the five hundred or more survivors had been flown to safety.
Exhaling a shaky breath, Chris pushed open the double doors and stopped. If it hadn’t hit him before, it hit him now. They had survived a disaster. Tables were set up around the perimeter offering clothes, food, water, towels and first aid. Tens of people manned the stations, offering help. It was a glorious illustration of human kindness but also stark confirmation they were lucky to be alive.
Swallowing the ball of emotion that rose in his throat, Chris searched the crowds for one particular brown-haired woman. He’d not set eyes on Angela since helping her into a helicopter an hour before. She’d been the last woman to be taken to safety. Despite the way they parted company, he smiled.
She hadn’t boarded the helicopter without a fight.
Although not physically fighting him, her eyes had flashed with fury and her mouth spewed words of protestation as she insisted the male holidaymakers be flown out of the park before her. Her claim that the park was her ship and a captain didn’t abandon ship had almost floored him.
The woman he’d held in his arms while she trembled, the woman whose eyes had grown wide with terror had once more been focused and full of confidence. The manager, the woman who got things done, lodged at the forefront of his mind. The core of her lingered in that persona, he was sure of it. Not in the one the possibility of her ex-husband evoked. She was strong, beautiful and confident. A woman—any woman—deserved to live her life that way. Every day.
He really didn’t want this to be happening. Why couldn’t things in life go along quietly for a while? He’d wanted nothing more than to pull Angela into his arms and kiss her before she climbed into the helicopter. He’d resisted, knowing damn well it would’ve earned him a slapped face.
“Chris? Chris!”
He spun around at the sound of his sister’s voice. “Hey, you.”
Cat enveloped him in a hug, the top of her head fitting snugly beneath his chin. “Thank God you’re all right.”
He smiled. “I’m fine.”
She squeezed her arms tighter around his waist. “There are so many people who aren’t. People have lost loved ones, Chris. It’s terrible.”
Sadness weighed heavy on his shoulders. Cat was Templeton’s detective inspector. If she’d already been notified of lost lives in this short of a time, it meant the number was high and most likely growing. As he’d predicted, the devastation was rife, the aftermath worse.
He eased her back and looked into green-blue eyes so similar to his. “How many?”
“It stands at twenty-five so far.”
Chris shook his head. “God.”
Cat’s arms slipped from around his waist and instead circled her husband’s. His brother-in-law, Jay, held out his hand. “Good to see you in one piece.”
Chris shook Jay’s hand and offered a strained smile. “Thanks.” He released his hand and turned to Cat. “Were they all from the holiday park?”
She straightened, her cop face sliding into place. “Twelve from the park.”
“The others?”
“People camping at Fairgrove. It’s a nightmare. When I heard you were...” Her voice cracked.
He rubbed his hand down her arm. “I’m okay. Does Mum know?”
She nodded. “She’s okay. I told her I was coming down here and I’d get you to phone her straight away.” She pulled her cell from her pocket. “Here.”
Chris waved it away. “Not yet. I still need a bit of time.”
Cat’s determined stare locked on his. “She’s okay, Chris. This isn’t going to set her back.”
His gut knotted. It was no wonder Cat was a cop. She read minds like a damn psychic.
“I know.” Chris closed his eyes and pushed his hand into his hair. “I’ll go and see her as soon as we leave here. It’ll be better for her if she sees me alive and kicking rather than talking to her over the phone.”
Cat’s eyes softened. “Good.”
Chris looked around the hall. People sat on the floor, chatting and hugging other survivors. Others walked around looking dazed and unsure what to do next. He turned to Cat and planted his hands on his hips. “So, what happens now? Do you need any help? Volunteers?”
She blew out a breath and followed his gaze around the hall. “Not yet. This is a matter for the police and the authorities for the time being. Until the big cleanup starts in the next few days, of course. Then it will be all hands on deck. I’m sure the holiday park could use your help when the time comes. We have to wait for the water to recede and then make sure it’s safe for the public to go back in there.”
Chris moved his hand to the back of his neck, the muscles strained. “Right. Okay, well, in the meantime, do you have a spare bed at your place?”
She smiled. “It’s where I wanted you in the first place.”
Guilt that he’d rejected her offer in favor of being alone niggled at his conscience. He grimaced. “In hindsight, it might have been worthwhile to do that.”
She shook her head, her gaze lighting with pride. “Nope. I think God put you exactly where you needed to be, don’t you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “In the middle of a flood? Gee, thanks.”
Cat laughed and punched him playfully on the arm. She looked at Jay. “Can you believe him?”
Jay grinned. “She’s right, you know, Chris. It’s pretty clear why you were at that park.”
Angela Taylor leaped to mind and he turned away from their gazes to look across the hall. “Hmm, maybe.”
Jay laughed. “Good God, man. You’re so damn modest, it’s kind of sickening.”
Chris looked from him to Cat. “What?”
“The people you saved, you idiot.” Cat smiled. “If you hadn’t been at that park, I’ll wager the death count would be higher than it is now. You’re a local hero, my big brother.”
Chris exhaled and pushed his hand into his hair. “Yeah, well. That’s not the way I see it.” He turned toward the table set up with tea and coffee. “Anyone else use a cup of coffee before heading out of here?”
Cat turned to Jay. “I really need to stay for a while. It will be good for people to see me here. I want to try to reassure as many families as possible that the police are doing all they can to reunite loved ones.”
Jay pressed a kiss to her temple. “Sure. You go to talk to some people. I’ll keep Chris company.”
Cat lifted onto her toes and kissed him before throwing a sympathetic smile at Chris and moving toward the crowds of people waiting in line for food and water. Chris smiled when Jay patted Cat’s backside before she was out of arm’s reach. She threw Jay a glare over her shoulder, but her cheeks flushed pink with pleasure.
“She’ll kill you for that later.” Chris laughed.
Jay grinned. “I have to show her who’s boss somehow.” He threw his arm around Chris’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s grab that coffee and you can tell me all about your heroics.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “That’s not what it felt like when we were up on that roof.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it. It’s taken us over an hour to find you among all these people. Cat was flashing your photo around like a madwoman. Anyone who looked at the picture recognized you as ‘the guy who helped my daughter’ or ‘the guy that ripped off the roof.’ Don’t try to go all modest on me, my friend, because I ain’t buying it.”
Jay walked ahead and Chris followed, waiting for a sense of pride to drift over him. Something to tell him he’d done all he could. Nothing came but a profound sense of sadness. Sadness for the lives lost, for the countless number of people who’d go home with nothing of what they came with to Templeton. This was just the beginning. Lives would have to be rebuilt and loved ones mourned.
Swallowing hard, he pulled back his shoulders. Tomorrow was another day and Chris vowed to just be grateful he had somewhere to stay with Cat and Jay. He wasn’t ready to go home. The need to stay in the Cove awhile longer and lick his wounds after Melinda’s betrayal still lingered. He had zero intention of returning to normal life until they were healed and no amount of salt could filter them.
He scanned the crowd. Angela was still nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE SMELL OF bacon and fresh coffee drifted under the bedroom door. Tired and hungry, Chris inhaled. He’d been awake for over an hour, unable to drag his aching body from the comfort of his sister’s spare bed. If he didn’t move soon, he’d seize up completely. He’d worked every damn muscle yesterday.
Pain shot across his shoulder blades and Chris grimaced. He clearly wasn’t in as good of shape as he liked to think. Then again, swimming back and forth, hauling food and drink and helping hundreds of people into a hovering helicopter wasn’t your run-of-the-mill workout. With a curse, he heaved upright. His legs muscles screamed in protest as he swung them out of bed. He planted his feet on the hardwood floor. Damn, even his toes hurt.
He stared at his jeans hung on the back of a chair in the corner. His T-shirt had been washed and ironed and was now folded atop the chest of drawers, his boxers and socks beside it. Had Cat crept in his room in the night and put them there? He stared down at his naked body. God, the woman didn’t care. Get Things Done. That was his sister’s motto. To hell with the consequences...or whether someone was naked or dressed.
Trouble was, the consequences always turned out to be what was needed at the time and her instincts were spot-on. Unlike his. Everything he touched got messed up.
Standing, Chris ignored the crick and pop of his tired bones and hobbled toward his clothes. He’d managed to navigate his legs into his boxers and cover his manhood just as the bedroom door flung open on its hinges.
“Jesus, Cat.” He scowled. “Can’t a man have some privacy?”
She waved a newspaper in front of his face, clearly not bothered by his state of semidress.
“Look at this.” She held the paper out in front of her and wiggled her eyebrows. A smile curved her lips. “And explain.”
“What?” Shooting her a glare, he snatched the paper from her fingers.
He stared at the double-page spread reporting the flood. Or should he say the double-page spread of him and Angela, seemingly side by side for the entire duration of the ordeal. His stomach tightened. This was what she’d been talking about. This was the anticipated situation that filled her chocolate-brown eyes with tears and turned her olive skin gray.
“Well?” Cat’s voice cut through his reverie. He met her expectant gaze and inwardly groaned. His sister’s eyes were lit up like they had damn fairy lights behind them, and her grin was as wide as her face.
He shoved the paper at her. “It’s nothing like that.”
She laughed. “Nothing like what? Look at your face. Woo-hoo. You like this woman big-time.”
Spinning away from her, Chris headed into the bathroom. “I don’t like her. I don’t even know her.”
He slammed the door and tried to concentrate on emptying his bladder. It wasn’t easy when his little sister hammered on the door before he’d even got going.
“Cat, for God’s sake.”
“She’s gorgeous. Even with her hair all messed up and her face streaked in mud, she looks beautiful. Puts my tomboy ass to shame.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Chris tipped his head back. How could he argue how beautiful Angela was? She was gorgeous. More than gorgeous. She was intelligent, savvy, caring...and scared.
A moment’s silence and then Cat’s voice drifted under the door as she read aloud. “Listen to this, ‘Angela Taylor, the Good Time Holiday Park manager, was the last female to leave the roof and taken by helicopter to safety. Survivors talk of her bravery and care during this horrendous time.’
“‘Together, with her comrade-in-arms, lone holidaymaker and swimming teacher Chris Forrester—pictured here comforting Miss Taylor—have been referred to as the dynamite team by many survivors we interviewed.’ Wow! Dynamite team, huh? Certainly some sparks between you, looking at this picture. Jeez, just kiss the damn woman, would you?”
Snapping his eyes open, Chris flushed and turned the faucet on full blast as he washed his hands. Cat banged on the door again, but he ignored it. He needed some time to figure out what he was going to say to her. How he’d explain the dumb-assed look on his face captured for eternity on camera. He looked like a bloody idiot staring into Angela’s eyes when chaos reigned supreme all around them.
When chaos reigned inside her.
Angela’s face and voice when she told him about her ex-husband had been too real to ignore. Too raw to be exaggerated. Chris gripped the edge of the sink. He wanted to run again. Get the hell out of Dodge before this woman’s problems seeped any deeper into his mind and morals. Shame coursed through his veins and panic sped the beat of his heart.
How could he not get involved? She’d told him something profound about her life and then turned away. Her face and the timbre of her voice still haunted him. He hadn’t wanted to push her. His perpetual fear of involvement and getting it wrong swelled up like the river that flooded the park. So he’d taken the easy way out and walked away.
Turning off the faucet, frustration swarmed into his blood, hot and unwelcome. “Goddamn it.”
Slapping the edge of the sink, Chris turned and marched to the bathroom door. He yanked it open. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
Cat stumbled backward, the paper still in her hand. “Hey, I’m joking. What’s the matter with you?” Her frown was deep, the teasing lilt in her voice gone.
With his back to her, he stalked to the chest of drawers and pulled on his clothes. “Nothing. Like you read, she’s the park manager. I’m a swimmer. I helped her as and when I could. No big deal.”
Silence.
Inwardly cursing, Chris snatched up his belt and threaded it through the loops of his jeans. His hands shook. “Stop looking at me as though I’m some bloody perpetrator, Cat.”
“How do you know how I’m looking at you if you’ve got your back to me?”
He spun around. “Because I know you, that’s why.” He met her eyes. They were narrowed and suspect, her jaw set. “And I was right. Stop looking at me like some bloody perp.” He brushed past her and sat on the bed. “There’s nothing else to talk about. The situation is nothing to do with me anymore. I’ve moved on. Even you’ll back off and let your brother come to terms with the fact he survived a disaster, won’t you?”
She flung the paper on the bed and fisted her hands on her hips. “I was teasing you. Having five minutes of fun. But your reaction tells me there’s a lot more to that photo than my big brother going all googly eyed over a beautiful woman.”
Chris’s hands turned clammy. If he told Cat about this, about Angela, it made it real and it meant he’d heard every damn word Angela said and hadn’t done a thing about it. He came to the Cove to get his head straight, to feel sorry for himself about Melinda for a while and decide what the hell to do next.
“Chris?”
He looked up. “What?”
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Talk to me.”
“Goddamn it, Cat. There’s nothing to talk about.”
He pushed off the bed and walked to the dresser. He snatched up a comb and strode back into the bathroom, slamming the door and praying Cat took the hint and gave him some space.
He’d run headlong into more responsibility and now he had a choice to make. There was a time he would’ve run and not looked back. That changed when Cat made him realize the error of his ways and demanded he take care of their mother while she investigated her friend’s murder. Chris tossed the comb into the sink and turned away from the mirror.
Two years ago marriage would’ve been something Chris could never contemplate. But when he’d seen his mother destroying her life through drink and sadness, it had flicked a switch, leaving him yearning for more. It had been that yearning that Melinda said scared her.
“You’ve changed, Chris. You’ve gone from the good-time boy to the serious family man. It’s boring.”
Anger yanked at his chest. Well, watching from the sidelines while his family deteriorated had done that to him. Made him think twice about what was important and what wasn’t. Family. Love. Loyalty. All the things his sister had known and kept sacred for years. He might have been slow to get it, but he did now. He frowned. Boring was who he was and would continue to be, with or without Melinda.
He blew out a defeated breath and walked to the door. Cat would find out about Angela one way or the other. He wouldn’t put it past her to be standing outside the bathroom with her gun pointed at him. He pulled open the door.
No gun...but her legs were planted apart and arms crossed. Her stormy green eyes bored into his. “Well?”
He raised his hands in defeat. “She’s in trouble.”
Her frown deepened. “Who? Angela Taylor?”
He nodded and brushed past her to sit down on the bed. He propped his arms behind him. “In the picture where she has her face in my chest? She’s hiding. She’s not hugging me like you seem to think, though God only knows why you’d think we’d be making out in the middle of a disaster zone.”
Cat lowered herself onto the bed beside him, her gaze full of concern as she put her hand on his thigh. “I’m sorry. You do know I was scared out of my mind the entire time you were up there, right?”
He nodded and forced a smile. “Course.”
A few moments passed. “Who’s she hiding from?”
Chris closed his eyes. Her sister was like a dog with a bone once she set her mind to something she didn’t like the sound of. He sighed. “Her ex-husband.”
“I see.”
He opened his eyes and waited.
Cat stared, her green eyes dark and her jaw tight. “She’s scared of a man. Just like Sarah was before I could do a damn thing to help her.”
Shit. He reached for her hand and squeezed. “Hey, this isn’t like Sarah. Sarah was in a lot of trouble through her own choices. You did everything you could to help her as soon as you knew she was in trouble. Sarah was wrapped up in the first stages of love that blinds us all.”
Cat looked at their joined hands. “Maybe.”
Regret for Cat’s best friend furled like barbed wire in his stomach. “Cat?”
“Uh-huh?”
“What are you thinking?”
She met his gaze. Determination burned like fire in her eyes. “That now I know I’ve got a scared woman running from her husband in my jurisdiction, I can’t ignore it. Neither should you. Sarah ended up murdered, Chris. I won’t stand by and let that happen to someone else.”
His stomach twisted. Sarah had called for Cat’s and Jay’s help far too late. Sarah was already in too deep when she reached out, but Cat still hadn’t forgiven herself for not saving her friend’s life. Although there wasn’t a thing she could’ve done differently.
Chris released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. He kissed her hair. “You have so much to be proud of. Remember that.”
Her exhalation shuddered through her. “It’s only been a little over a year since Sarah died. Everything’s still so raw and now I know Angela Taylor’s in trouble...”
Chris steeled himself. There was no possible chance he could avoid involvement now. Cat would make sure he didn’t. It’s what she did. It was why she was such a fantastic cop and why the whole of Templeton trusted her.
He closed his eyes. “She said if he saw her picture, he’d find her...and kill her.”
She pulled away from him and stared deep into his eyes, a dart of concentration spearing between her brows. “Did she say where he was? Where he lived? A name?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I literally felt the door slam shut. I couldn’t have pushed her even if I wanted.”
“You didn’t want to?” Annoyance flashed in her eyes.
Shame stung hot at his cheeks. “You know why I’m here. I don’t want to get involved with another woman. Not yet.”
“And helping a woman in trouble means getting involved with her? That’s just lame, and you know it. You’re involved whether you like it or not. You’ve got to help me help her, Chris.”
Irritation mixed with his shame and he glared. “I’m not a cop. You can’t put that on me.”
“So, you’re not going to help me? Is that what you’re saying?” She pushed to her feet.
His chest grew tight. He’d mess up. He always messed up. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Jesus, Chris. Did that flood do nothing to wake you? Nothing to make you realize life isn’t a game you can just meander through and if the going gets tough, turn your back on it? God, you’re unbelievable.”
Irritation caught like a flint to a flame, turning it to anger. “Hey, you know my track record. If I get involved, I’ll have to do things my way, not yours. Is that what you want?”
Their eyes locked and Chris stood. He mirrored her defensive stance. Legs planted apart, hands on hips. Brother and sister. Siblings. Children of an alcoholic mother and dead father.
He closed his eyes against the frustration in hers. “I’m trying to get my head straight. What help can I be to her when I’m in this state of mind?”
“We’re both messed up by things out of our control, but you don’t see me walking away. First Dad then Mum...and now, by the looks of it, you’re going to pretend this isn’t happening, either.”
“That’s not fair.” Chris clenched his jaw.
“This woman told you about something she most likely wouldn’t have if the entire world hadn’t gone crazy in a matter of hours. You owe it to her to listen.”
“She doesn’t want my help.” If Angela’s eyes had told him differently than her words, maybe he’d be pounding the streets looking for her, but they hadn’t. Stay away. Leave me alone.
He shook his head. “You didn’t see the way she looked at me when she realized what she’d said. It was like the whole world fell out from under her. If I get involved, who’s to say I won’t make things worse?”
Her gaze darted over his face, her mouth set in a grim line as though she was keeping any words firmly trapped inside.
The silence stretched until Chris couldn’t stand it any longer. “Look. I made things worse for Mum when Dad died, didn’t I?”
“No. You went off the rails when he died, but you didn’t make it worse.”
“Yes, Cat. I did. I made things worse for Mum by not letting her know where I was. If I was dead or alive. I won’t risk ruining what Angela’s already done to protect herself. She’s strong. Her strength comes off her in waves. Believe me...she doesn’t need my hardheaded ass on her back today, tomorrow or ever.”
For a long moment, she said nothing and then shrugged. “Maybe not. But she’s going to have mine, so it might as well be both of us.”
“Cat—”
She shook her head. “No. She’s in trouble and she needs help. I’m worried what will happen if she won’t talk to me. You were together in a disaster situation. That connects you. I’m not going to have another dead woman on my conscience. What if you’re the only one she’ll talk to? What then?”
Chris closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “Cat. Come on.”
“Just because she said she didn’t want your help doesn’t mean she meant it.” She gripped his forearm. “God knows, I said the same thing when you were exactly what I needed.”
“Cat...” He opened his eyes and she brushed past him.
She snatched the paper from the bed and held it up. “The man in this picture is somebody who cares, somebody who put his arms around a woman when three days ago he vowed to not come within thirty feet of another female for as long as he lived. You’re in it. Whether you like it or not.”
Seeing the tears in his sister’s eyes, Chris came forward and wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t cry.”
She relaxed into him and sighed. “I’ll run a check on her. Find out who she was married to.”
His shoulders slumped. She was right. He couldn’t ignore this any more than she could. “Fine.”
She pulled back and a wide smile curved her lips. “Great. Then I’ll see you later.”
Without as much as a backward glance, she marched from the room.
Chris opened his mouth to shout after her. He wanted to follow her down the stairs and explain the look in Angela’s eyes. The one pleading with him not to tell another soul about her ex, to let her run and hide if that’s what she wanted. Hell, if there was nothing else he understood, he understood that.
Now Cat knew there was a strong woman out there, a woman who undoubtedly saved a lot of lives, yet was fearful for her own. She wouldn’t let this lie. She’d get to the bottom of it even if it killed her.
Chris covered his face with his hands. Nothing but protection roared in his ears and thundered in his chest. The connection between him and Angela was instantaneous and so was his resistance. What Angela didn’t realize was if he got involved, he’d want to do things his way. And his way of dealing with things was rarely appreciated at the time by the people he was trying to help.
He wouldn’t regret his adolescence of moving from one city to another, one job to another. He’d been happy leading a solitary life. Maybe his mum and dad had wanted different things for him—like the police force—but it hadn’t been him then, and it wasn’t now. He was a free spirit, impulsive, a decision maker who’d run from his family. Run from the responsibility that hummed through the Forrester household until he couldn’t breathe. Cat thrived on it.
Responsibility was his sister’s middle name. His, once upon a time, had been “freedom.” Until he was forced to come home and face what he’d left behind. Maybe Cat hadn’t appreciated his insistence of putting their mum in rehab after years of her care, compared to his pathetic three weeks, but he’d had to say what he felt regardless. Rare tears burned his eyes and Chris blinked. Never again. He wouldn’t turn his back when he was needed again.
Marching to the chest of drawers, he stuffed his cell phone in his back pocket and headed downstairs. The first question was how the hell was he supposed to find Angela again? He had a funny feeling when Cat ran a check on her, nothing would come up.
CHAPTER SIX
ANGELA GLANCED AT her kitchen clock once again. Morning had broken but with it came no desire to go to the news agents. She closed her eyes. Three cups of coffee and a brisk walk around her garden had done nothing to clear the words of warning circling her brain like damn seagulls around a cliff top. Nor did it help her stop seeing Robert’s face everywhere she looked.
His name and everything he was swirled inside her head, rescarring her heart and making her jump at her own shadow once again. For two years she’d felt safe. Even knowing Robert had been free for a year this coming July, Angela was confident he wouldn’t find her. Why would he have reason to stumble across the tiny and beautiful town of Templeton Cove?
Well, now he had reason. If her picture appeared in the national paper...
Tears stung her eyes and her body shook. Cursing, she slammed her coffee cup into the kitchen sink. The satisfying smash of china against steel soothed rather than agitated her nerves. She wanted to hit something. Hit him. Meet violence with violence. She abhorred such a sentiment, but her choices were running out. She’d followed the law and he was released after serving three pathetic years. Now, after finally starting to believe she might be free of him, might be able to breathe easier, God chose to open the skies at a holiday resort and make it all too easy for Robert to discover her secret haven.
Why? Why here? Why did yet another disaster strike slap-bang in the middle of her new life?
She whirled around, leaving the shards of china where they laid, and rushed out of the kitchen. Snatching the rental car keys from a hook by the door, she strode out into the mid-June heat. In just twenty-four hours, the weather had changed from devastating torrential rain to bright sunshine settled in a crisp blue sky. Not a single cloud marred the purity of it. It would be eerie if it wasn’t so painful.
People were dead, others missing. The flood had ripped through thousands of lives in a matter of hours. When she arrived in the town center, undoubtedly the ripple effect of shock would be written on everyone’s face. Although most of the town escaped the deluge, it was likely everyone knew somebody who’d lost something—if not everything.
She slid behind the wheel and closed her eyes. At least she’d managed to rent a car the evening before so she could keep mobile. It was imperative she had the means to get around the Cove where she was needed. She guessed others wouldn’t be so lucky, managing to get a vehicle this morning when the demand would suddenly be so high. God, she was brooding like a spoiled child.
Gunning the engine, Angela backed out of the driveway. Not only had she come away from the disaster unscathed, but she still had her home intact. A beautiful place to live. Some people had lived in the park for years. People who worked hard for the right to retire in a stunning seaside area, safe in the knowledge their families would like nothing more than to come visit for the holidays.
She’d do everything she could to help salvage at least part of their lives once the police and investigating teams gave the all-clear for the big cleanup. In the meantime, she had to think what she was going to do next as far as Robert was concerned. The first thing she had to do was think like him. Years of abuse had taught her to preempt his every mood, his every thought. There were two choices: run or sit it out and be ready for him when he decided to show.
The appeal of being a lame target waiting for him to strike over the next few weeks held zero appeal—the alternative to leave, even less so. She didn’t want to give up the new life she was beginning to love. She tightened her jaw. The one option she wouldn’t even begin to explore was trusting the police. They’d let her down too many times to be trusted.
The roads into town passed by unseen as plans formed in her mind—each one less and less appealing and quickly discarded. In her heart, she hoped and prayed she wasn’t photographed after all. Could she be that lucky? Would her perfect and quiet little life remain as it was? Or would it be pummeled around and around on Robert’s silent and cruel axis until she threw up from the sheer force of his torment?
There was only one way to find out. Get the morning papers and take it from there. She pulled to a stop outside the news agents’ and got out.
The local paper was piled high on the stand outside and her stomach knotted. The headline screamed from its front page and her feet stuck to the pavement as people brushed past her.
“Disaster Strikes Beautiful Templeton—Lives Lost.”
She willed herself forward and pressed her hand to the nausea swirling like floodwater in her stomach. Drawing in a strengthening breath, she sent up a silent prayer there wouldn’t be a picture of her anywhere within its pages. Surely any journalist worth his salt would focus on the real story. The devastation. The loss. Contemplation of the power of water, the likelihood of a natural disaster. Not her. Not Angela Taylor. She was nobody. Robert had reminded her of that so many times it beat like a mantra in her head.
It was egotistical, stupid and selfish to think for one minute a photographer would zoom in on her, out of the hundreds of survivors. No. It would be fine. Everything would work out. She tilted her chin and lifted a copy of the paper from the rack. The front page showed a full aerial view of the holiday park.
She released her held breath; it was going to be okay. She trembled. Opening the pages was like pulling back the lid on Pandora’s box.
The breath left her lungs as she came face-to-face with her worst nightmare.
Bringing her trembling hand to her mouth, Angela stared at the full-page image. She and Chris stood with their arms wrapped around each other. They stared into the other’s eyes, seemingly oblivious to the devastation and fear all around them.
“Oh, my God.” Angela’s whisper caught in her throat. “Oh, my God.”
Another—her face buried in his chest, his eyes closed as he held her tight. His brow was furrowed with concern, his muscular biceps strained and secure around her. If Robert saw this, he’d surpass anger and move to fury in seconds.
Her mouth drained dry and when someone nudged her as he reached for a paper, Angela stumbled backward on legs of rubber.
The man touched her elbow. “Sorry, I didn’t mean... Hey, are you okay?”
She met his eyes; concern mixed with caution stared back at her. She forced a smile. “Sure. Terrible, isn’t it?”
He frowned. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
He moved past her and disappeared inside the shop. She had to get out of here. An unwelcome, once familiar feeling of claustrophobia threatened and Angela forced a slow, steady breath through pursed lips. She wouldn’t do this. She would not go back. Never back.
She tossed the newspaper back on the stand and spun around. Marching to the rental car, she yanked open the door. Her hand shook as she tried time and again to get the key into the ignition. On the fourth attempt, it slid into place and she gunned the engine. Slamming the car into First, she pulled away and into traffic. Robert would come. She felt him. Heard him. His laugh loud in her head...
She closed her eyes.
The smash of metal against metal ricocheted through her body, slamming her teeth sharply together. Angela snapped her eyes wide-open.
“No, no, no.”
She’d hit the car in front, which was dutifully stopped at the traffic light.
Snapping off her seat belt, she got out of the car, her body shaking. The car door of the person in front opened, and a guy built like a WWF wrestler emerged, his face a mask of rage. Panic shot through her and she instinctively took a step back when he came toward her.
“What the hell are you doing, lady? Look at my freaking car.”
She stared, her body numb, her mind whirling as she fought for composure. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking—”
“Damn right you weren’t looking. Jesus Christ.”
Taking another step back, Angela raised her hands. “Look, if you just give me a minute, I’ll take down your details. We can get this sorted out.”
“Yeah, sure. Ring around insurance companies, making phone calls. Don’t give me that crap. Look at it.”
The impatient blaring of horns started behind her and Angela’s eyes burned with unshed tears. Goddamn it. Didn’t this guy realize? Wasn’t it written all over her face that she couldn’t handle confrontation right now? Her gaze shot left and right. She needed to get out of there.
“Hey, are you listening to me? I said I want cash. Now. I’m not waiting for any insurance company to pay out. You pay me now.”
She stared at him. Her body wound tight. The sudden urge to sink to the ground and cover her head with her hands before the guy moved from angry to violent surged through her. It would only be a matter of seconds before he rained blows down on her and kicked her in the ribs. The same anger showed in his gaze that showed in Robert’s...
“I said, are you listening to me.” He took another step closer.
“Hey!”
Angela snapped her head to the right. A redheaded woman marched between the cars toward them. She held one hand up toward the cars behind them and the other carried what looked like a badge. A police officer. A woman.
She met the officer’s gaze. “I hit him. It’s my fault. I wasn’t looking.”
The officer stared at her, seemingly oblivious to the hulk of a man towering above her. “Are you...” She shook her head and her expression instantly changed from surprise to irritation. She faced the guy Angela had hit. “Why don’t you take a few steps back, sir? If you want to intimidate a female, how about you make that female me?”
The guy glared. “You think that badge scares me, lady? This isn’t a police matter. This is between me and her.” He nodded toward Angela.
Instinctively Angela pulled back her shoulders. Her wavering strength had been nothing but a blip. She was fine. She was in control. Robert wasn’t there and she was as she’d been for the past two years. Strong. Capable. Independent. Nothing had changed. She tilted her chin.
The cop fisted her hands on her hips. “It is a police matter when I have a line of cars waiting to get past an accident. An accident. Get it? Now I want you to take a seat in your vehicle and count to fifty. By then, you’ll be calm enough to talk to me in a way that doesn’t have me throwing your ass in jail for the night.”
Admiration mixed with inadequacy furled in Angela’s stomach. The cop couldn’t have been any taller than five-eight or -nine but made Angela feel every inch of her five-six as insignificant. The woman was as fiery as the color of her hair. Inhaling a deep breath, she dragged back to the surface the inner strength she’d worked on since Robert’s incarceration.
The man threw another glare at her and then the cop before cursing and heading for his car.
The policewoman watched him until he slid into the seat and slammed the door. She turned and smiled. “Mind on other things when you rammed him, huh?”
Angela forced a smile, unease rolling through her stomach at the knowing look etched in the cop’s eyes. Does she know who I am? Does she know I’m the woman who was beaten and raped? Who put her husband in prison and then ran for obscurity? “Something like that. I told him I’d take his details—”
“Angela Taylor, right?”
Angela met her gaze. “How did you know?”
“I saw the paper. You’re the park manager.”
“Right.” Angela swallowed. It was barely eleven in the morning and already the town’s detective inspector recognized her. Robert was coming whether she liked it or not.
The cop cupped Angela’s elbow. “Come with me.”
Angela stiffened. “Where?”
Kindness shone softly in the cop’s eyes. Eyes that stupidly reminded her of Chris Forrester’s. “I want you to sit tight while I sort out Mr. ‘Big I Am,’ okay? Go and take a seat in your car. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.” She winked. “I won’t be long and then you and I can have a chat.”
Before Angela could say another word, the DI walked behind Angela’s stalled car and seconds later vehicles slowly moved past. Angela walked to her car and got inside. “Then you and I can have a chat.”
Defeat crawled over her shoulders and sat there heavy and unwelcome.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER Angela walked into her house. Her chat with Detective Inspector Catherine Garrett, nee Forrester, had left her in a numbed state of disbelief. What were the chances of her meeting Chris Forrester’s sister? Now she was in a bigger emotional mess than ever. Inspector Garrett was bound to tell Chris they’d spoken. Then what? Would he contact her? Not care one way or the other?
She tossed her keys onto a side table by the door, her thoughts running at a hundred miles per hour. The one thing this had to mean is that Chris had no connection to Robert. Why would Robert enlist the help of a DI’s brother? Surely that would just be stupid and far too risky. The one thing Robert wasn’t was stupid, and risks were something he abhorred. His pursuit of her would be as gradual and as tormenting as his abuse.
Softly, he’d approach her. Silently, he’d pursue her.
Angela pulled back her shoulders. Her biggest defense was her in-depth knowledge of how Robert thought and analyzed before he struck. Whatever happened next, it was imperative she acted alone. The police would make the situation worse by assuming Robert’s actions incorrectly, as they had before, leaving her wide-open to danger.
Nobody knew her ex-husband like she did.
She walked through the house and out onto the balcony leading from the living room. Lucky enough to rent a place on the beach, she sat at the small bistro table and stared out toward the sea. All she could do now was hope and pray she’d misinterpreted the look in Chris Forrester’s eyes that betrayed an interest in her. She had no right involving him in her life. No right involving him in a potentially explosive situation if Robert saw the newspaper and decided to come and get her, as he’d threatened so many times in his letters.
Even though DI Garrett hadn’t said as much, Angela could tell by the concern in the detective’s eyes and the occasional gentle touches to Angela’s arm that Chris had told his sister about her stupid, albeit terrified, admission about Robert killing her.
Now not one but two people knew she was in Templeton hiding from her ex-husband. Tears stung her eyes and the view blurred. How could she have been careful for so long, only to blow everything? DI Garrett was most likely at the police station right now running a check on her.
She’d discover Angela had been living there for two years. She’d read all about her court case, her history and her horrendous—and very publicized—marriage. She tightened her jaw. Whatever DI Garrett’s reaction was to what she discovered, Angela had rights. Until she requested help, the police couldn’t get involved. She’d lived alone and happy for a long time and there was no way in hell she’d allow her way of life to be governed by Robert’s actions again.
So, why then were tears searing hot behind her eyes? Why did it feel as though her heart was being squeezed? Like Robert’s fist pushed clean through her chest, bruising and hurting her once more.
Covering her face with her hands, the tears broke and Angela cried harder than she had in months. Cruel images of a wedding, children, first days of school and birthday celebrations appeared in garish Technicolor behind her closed lids. Her body shook and her heart ached for a life she was beginning to believe she’d never have.
Once her tears were spent and her throat sore, she inhaled a deep breath and swiped at her cheeks. Done. No more. Tears didn’t get things done. Didn’t protect her life or those she loved.
Those I love.
Angela leaped to her feet. She needed to warn her family. Her parents. Her sister. Forewarned was forearmed. Who was to say Robert wouldn’t contact them before her? She went back inside, snatched up the phone and dialed her sister’s number.
Eloise picked up on the third ring. “Hey, you.”
Angela released her held breath. Her sister sounded the same. Happy. Free of worry or concern. “You haven’t seen today’s Daily News, have you?”
“No. Why?” The smile left Eloise’s voice. “Is everything okay?”
“No. I’m afraid it isn’t.” Angela walked into her open-plan living room and collapsed onto the leather sofa. “You need to get today’s paper.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
Angela leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes as a sharp thud took up residence in her temple. “There was a flash flood yesterday. Part of the Cove was completely washed out.”
“My God. Are you all right?”
“Yes...” Thanks to one man. “So far twenty-five people are dead. The holiday park was completely devastated. Nothing spared.”
“Oh, Ange. I’m so sorry.”
“There’s a picture of me in the paper, Ellie.”
Silence.
Angela opened her eyes and stared ahead. Her sister’s muffled curse came across the line and then Eloise blew out a breath. “So, you’re leaving Templeton, right? You know you can’t stay there.”
“I’m staying.”
“What? No. You can’t.”
“I can, and I will. He’s not making me change my life again. No way.”
“He’ll go there. If he sees that picture... Look, I’ll pack a bag and be there by tonight, okay? Tomorrow we’ll grab what we can and get you back home with Mum or me. We’ll let the police know what we’re doing before we leave.” Her voice cracked. “Everything will be all right.”
Angela’s heart ached for the renewed pain the photographs in the newspaper would cause her family after the peace of mind they’d had knowing she was safe—if a little lonely. She sighed.
“I’m pretty sure the police will be knocking on my door anytime now, so don’t worry.”
“Why would you say that?”
Angela sighed. “I met the town’s police inspector today.”
“You’ve been to the police already? Thank God. I didn’t think you would...” Eloise’s breath rasped down the line. “Well, that’s something, at least.”
Angela stared across the room, not bothering to correct her that she hadn’t been to the police but rather they happened upon her. Having placated the guy whose car Angela hit with promises of a full insurance follow-up, DI Garrett had slid into the passenger seat of Angela’s car like it was the most natural thing in the world...and asked her absolutely nothing. It was clear from the intense look in her eyes and the set of her shoulders that she was waiting for Angela to tell her about Robert. Angela hadn’t said a word, either. The minute she did, her life would no longer be her own—again.
Angela blew out a shaky breath. “I just wanted you, Mum and Dad to be aware that Robert could already know where I am. What he chooses to do about it, none of us knows.” She paused. “We’ve just got to hope he won’t be angry enough to land himself back in prison for longer than he could’ve dreamed of.”
“So, you’ve told this inspector everything, right?”
“Right.” Angela grimaced, the lie feeling horrible in her mouth.
Even though Inspector Garrett hadn’t directly asked her anything, her eyes asked so much Angela had squirmed under their gentle scrutiny until she’d been forced to stare out the windshield or crumble. She’d curled her fingers around the steering wheel, silently begging God to make DI Garrett leave before everything came spilling out. Her gaze was so much like her brother’s; Angela had felt herself weakening. She just hoped she didn’t see Chris again—the potential for disaster was wide-open.
She closed her eyes. “There’s more, Ellie.”
“More?”
“I told someone Robert will kill me. After all this time, it just slipped out.”
“Who? Who did you tell?”
“Her brother.”
“Her brother? Whose? The inspector’s?”
“Yes.”
“But how? You’re so careful. How could you tell the inspector’s brother? Was he with her at the station? Who is he?”

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