From Glowing Embers

Chapter 16

  Gray felt Julianna tense each time something hit the house. Once it was the unmistakable clatter of a garbage pail left unsecured by a thoughtless neighbor. Another time a crash was followed by the discordant splintering of glass. Dillon left their huddle to return a minute later shouting the news that a bathroom window had broken.

  Gray knew how much worse the hurricane was for Julianna than for the rest of them. He could only sit, gripping her hand with comforting pressure while he clasped Jody to his chest with his other arm. Silently he directed an illogical litany of curses at the storm for wreaking its vengeance on the woman who had suffered too much already.

  A movement across from him caught his eye. He turned his head and watched Paige rearrange her lovely, long legs. She looked up and sent him a bittersweet smile that told him everything he didn’t want to know. She saw what was happening more clearly than either he or Julianna could. He wouldn’t have hurt Paige for the world, but he knew that he had.

  Outside, the wind raged until there was no distinguishing one gust from another. Jody sobbed intermittently against his chest, and Gray wished he could cry, too, not for fear of the storm, but for fear of the storm’s end—fear of the silence.

  As if his thoughts had somehow been telegraphed to Eve, there was a sudden, deafening absence of sound.

  Jody was the first to break it. “It’s over!” She pulled away from Gray and scrambled to the floor. “It’s gone!”

  Julianna and Gray exchanged worried looks. Neither of them wanted to tell her the truth; both of them knew they must.

  Julianna was the first to speak. “Jody, honey, come here.”

  “The sun is shining!” Jody ran to the window and pointed at one fractured ray of sunlight poking its way past the edge of the plywood covering. “My mommy can come get me now.”

  Gray stood and felt Julianna’s body brush his as she stood, too. “The worst of it’s going to be over soon,” he promised the little girl, walking toward her. “But it’s not over yet. This is what they call the eye of the storm, Jody.”

  “There is no storm,” she said defiantly. “It’s over!” Jody ran past Julianna and Gray, out the den door into the hall.

  “I know how she feels,” Julianna said with a shaky smile. “I’d like to think she’s right.”

  “We’ve gotten through this much, we’ll get through the rest.” Gray tilted her face to his. “Are you doing all right?”

  She tried to smile again, but she couldn’t manage it. “I’m not very brave.”

  From the corner of his eye, Gray saw Paige follow Dillon to check the rest of the house. “I think you’re the bravest woman I know,” he said softly, his hand lingering against her cheek. “This isn’t going to defeat you.”

  She let herself be drawn closer. “If I have to go through this, I’m glad I’m here with somebody who understands.”

  “Do I have an invitation for all the other hurricanes in your life?” He wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. “How about big thunderstorms? Little drizzles?”

  Her arms slipped around his waist. “You know how to take advantage of a situation, don’t you?”

  “Not well enough, apparently, but I’m learning.”

  “We’d better go find Jody and try to explain. She’s going to be scared to death when the winds start again.” Julianna tried to pull away, but Gray held her in place.

  “When this is over, we’re going to take some time together. We’re going to talk.”

  “We have talked.”

  He let her go, but his words followed her to the door. “We’ve still got things to say, Julianna, and until they’re all said, that peace you claim you want so badly is going to be impossible to find.”