Storms Never Last by Vivian Vaughan

Author:Vivian Vaughan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626816749
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2015-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

They didn’t make the courthouse. Where Lindsey Mae had not been fazed by huddling in a third-floor corner while a building blew away around her or by rushing headlong into the bay in search of homeless people, March’s firing at an escaped prisoner was her undoing.

It didn’t make one iota of sense, not to him, unless he considered it a delayed reaction to everything that had happened in the last several hours, which March decided must be the case.

By the time he calmed her down enough to lift her in his arms, the wind was so strong he had trouble keeping his balance. The second time a combination of water and wind almost toppled him, he realized they would never reach their destination.

He chose the sturdiest structure within range, a house partially off its foundation, with a couple of missing walls and only half a roof. Several feet of water on the ground floor forced them upstairs. With each step, he expected the staircase to collapse.

Even so, it felt good to have the rain and wind off his back, and Lindsey Mae out of the storm. Gaining the second floor, he found a selection of furniture, since most of the residents’ furnishings had obviously been carried up there out of the water.

Wearily he chose a sofa and eased himself down, still cradling Lindsey Mae in his arms. He had a notion, he might just hold her forever.

For a while he sat in wet clothing and soggy boots, mindless. He tried to concentrate on the storm, at least enough to determine whether they were in imminent danger. The wind howled around the unstable walls and whistled through open spaces in the roof, reminding him of the proverbial wolf. It wouldn’t take many huffs and puffs to blow this house down. With that thought, he roused himself, stretched Lindsey Mae out on the sofa, stored his guns and belt in her carpetbag, and went to investigate.

The sofa appeared to be in the safest place, against an inside wall. It was the roof that concerned March—he didn’t hanker to have it fall in on them. After a moment’s deliberation, made all the more urgent by the way the house rocked and rattled in the gusting wind, he dragged some fallen timbers and a mattress to the sofa. From them he fashioned what he hoped would be a secure nest with an opening just wide enough for him to crawl through.

Lindsey Mae had turned her back to the outside and lay so still he thought she had dozed off, until he lay in the dark beside her and heard her sobbing.

The sound filled him with sadness. Yet, hadn’t she earned the right to shed a few tears? What she’d been through in the last few hours, would have spooked a seasoned ol’ cowpuncher.

Strong didn’t begin to describe this woman. Pride swelled in his chest when he recalled how she fought for his help to save her homeless friends, help she hadn’t needed. She proved that and then some.

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