Page 6 of A Sublime Casualt
“Shit.” I land her arms around my neck abruptly. The rain is falling so hard and fast it’s blinding. “Hold on!” I shout over the thunderous roar.
Flash flood.
What the hell was I thinking? I’m a damn cop. I should know better. Check the damn weather. It’s not that hard a job.
I climb up to the lowest bow as Charlie wraps her legs around me tight like a coil. I find a spot at the base next to the trunk, just enough space for my back to rest against it as my left leg digs into an adjoining branch, offering a false sense of stability. The rain pummels us hard and fast, like a punishment, as Charlie burrows her face in my neck, her warm tears pressing against my skin like coals.
It’s becoming clear that if we survive this date it will most likely be our last.
She looks up, mascara down to her chin in black muddy trails, but she’s still stunning, arrestingly so.
“Are we going to live?” she shouts up at me, blinking hard as she struggles to keep her gaze on mine.
“Yes!” I try to laugh it off. “I promise you will.” It might be a different story, but only because I’ll voluntarily drown before I let anything happen to her. I’ve already disappointed one girl. There’s no way in hell I’m losing another. “How about a do-over in the spring?” I flash a quick smile at her, the one my mother says I can steal the world with, and she grins right back.
“Gunning for the spring, huh? You’re pretty brave.” Her chest vibrates with a laugh. “Sounds like a plan!” Her arms and legs tighten around me, the bony protrusions of her knees cut into my back. “Theo?” A pained expression grips her and I’m terrified as to what she might say next. “I have to pee!” she screams at the top of her lungs, but the rain pummels us at a quickened pace as if to tune her out entirely.
A million thoughts race through my mind. That river is at the base of my ass. Neither one of us is getting off this branch, not anytime soon at least, not if we want to live.
“Go ahead!” I shout back and wince. “It’s fine.”
Her mouth squares out in a silent scream, her eyes stinging me with their disbelief. She burrows her face in my neck a moment, and just like that, a warmth spreads between us, over my belly and down my legs. It’s over before it really began, and sadly I didn’t mind it all that much.
She looks back up with her nose wrinkled, adorable as hell. “Sorry,” she mouths. “I guess I owe you.”
“Honey, I think I owe you.” After this near-death experience, I’ll be apologizing the rest of my life. A bright jag of lightning goes off overhead. A crackle of thunder roars out its fury, right on its tail, and her body bucks hard against me. I pull her in close, her limbs still tangled and tight over my torso. The afternoon turns to evening, and the night comes without warning, a darkness so thick you could touch it. At about one in the morning, the rain starts to give. And once the sun crests over the horizon, the waters have receded, leaving the mud smoothed of its wrinkles, moist with the promise of sucking off both our shoes. The storm already vacuumed out our souls. The sun is out, the birds are chirping as if nothing had ever happened.
Charlie rouses herself, drugged and exhausted, not sure if she really caught a wink. “Did you sleep?” She gives me a light slap over the cheek, and I’m pretty sure I deserve something harder with a little more power behind it.
“Nope. I had precious cargo.” I give a sheepish smile as I land us back on the ground, my feet sinking into the soupy ground like quicksand. She tries to dismount, but I don’t let her feet touch the earth. Instead, I cradle her in my arms. “No way. I got you. It’s not a big deal, I promise.” I carry her back to the truck, plucking my feet from the muck and the mire for a half a mile straight. By the time we finally crawl back into my truck, we’re both too exhausted to say a word on the drive home. I drop her off at the gate, her hair, her face, caked in mud.
“I guess the Secret Falls remain just that until spring.” She picks up my hand and offers a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Hell, don’tsueme.”
We share a weak laugh and she offers a friendly wave before heading inside.
I’m lucky she didn’t give me the finger.
* * *
It’sseven by the time I get to the house. The lights are on in the kitchen, and I can see Jackson hunched over his laptop through the front window. I kick off my shoes on the porch before letting myself in. I bought the house on auction a few years back. Lizzy and Nikki helped decorate it, thus the girly décor and touches of pink interspersed throughout. I think they did it just to get a rise out of me, but I love my sisters too much to change it.
“Hey, lover boy.” Jackson lifts his mug my way. His dark hair is unruly, his eyes still squinted with sleep. “How was she?” He pulls the mug away from his mouth as he gets a better look at me. “Geez. You went on a date, not Iraq.”
“We went mudwrestling.” I tell him all about the harrowing experience while making my own cup of coffee.
“She pissed on you?” Jackson blows out a slow breath. That look on his face spells something out I’m not familiar with. “You’re kidding me, right?
“I’m telling the truth.”
“Sit down.” His eyes close a moment as he wipes down his face with his hand.
“I know. Trust me, I’ve been a toilet for women for years. I’m pretty sure we’re in the friend zone, though. And after last night, we’re in the I-think-you’re-a-hazard-to-my-health zone.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.” His mouth twitches. Jackson’s father is Irish, and every now and again I’d swear Jack looks like a stereotypical leprechaun. Dark curly crimson hair, bright green eyes with a bit of wicked intent, sharp, pointed ears—you can’t go wrong with that look on St. Patty’s Day. Leprechaun was his nickname straight through seventh grade, no thanks to me. It didn’t do much for him with the girls, but I think he’d admit Gabby was worth the wait. Jackson and I have always been as close as brothers. His dad ditched out around the same time mine did, so it bonded our mothers that much closer. Same issues, divorce, new family in Des Moines. “It’s about Lizzy.”
“What?” I pull a seat in close to his laptop until we’re staring at his screensaver, rotating pictures of him and Gabby on their Florida vacation two years ago. Life seems to have stopped for the both of us the day Lizzy disappeared. “What is it? Did they find her? Did Neil call?”