Marooned with the Maverick

And she nodded and forced her mouth to form a smile.

On the other side of the barn, the two pigs from the night before were rooting around near the water trough. A rooster stood on a section of busted-down fence and crowed as Willa stared across the ravine at her parents’ house.

The house was untouched by the flood, though the water had gotten halfway up the front walk that was lined with her mother’s prized roses. Her dad’s minitractor lay on its side at the base of that walk. And a couple of steers had somehow gotten through the fence and were snacking on the vegetable garden in the side yard.

Below, in the ravine, the water had receded, leaving debris strewn down the sides of the hill and up the one on which the house sat. There were tree trunks and lawn chairs down there, boulders and a bicycle, a shade umbrella and any number of other items that looked bizarre, scary and all wrong, soggy and busted up, trailing across the pasture. Willa turned her eyes away, toward the road.

And saw her red Subaru. It had drifted past the ditch and lay on its side in the pasture there. It was covered in mud.

“Guess I’ll be needing a new car.” She tried to sound philosophical about it, but knew that she didn’t exactly succeed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check out the house. Watch where you put your feet in that ravine.”

Buster and the two pigs followed them down there. They picked their way with care through all the soggy junk and knotted tree roots. It was going to be quite a job, cleaning up. And she knew that all the other ranches in the valley had to be in a similar state, if not worse. Her family still had a barn and the house, at least. And as far as she could see, there were no animals or—God forbid—people lying broken amid the wreckage down there.

When they reached the house, they skirted the downed tractor and went up the front steps. She’d lost her keys. They were probably still stuck in the ignition of her poor Subaru. But her mom had left a house key where she always did, in the mouth of the ceramic frog by the porch swing.

They went inside. The power and phone were both out, but still, it all looked just as it had the last time she’d been there, the white refrigerator covered with those silly smiling-flower magnets her mother liked, some of them holding reminders to pick up this or that at the store. There were also pictures of her and her brother and a few recipes her mom was meaning to try. In the living room, the remote sat on the magazine table by her dad’s recliner and her mother’s knitting bag waited in its usual place at the end of the fat blue sofa.

Her childhood home. Intact. It seemed a miracle to her right then. And she wanted to cry all over again—with a desperate, hot sort of joy.

Collin turned on the water in the kitchen. It ran clear, but they both knew that the flood could have caused contamination of any wells in its path.

She said, “We have wells for the stock. But for this house and Gage’s place, we have a water tank that taps an underground spring higher up on this hill. The floodwaters wouldn’t have reached that far. So the water here, in the house, is safe.”

“That’s good. A lot of valley wells are going to need disinfecting. Any source of clean water is great news.”

She nodded. “And in town, they get water from above the falls. So they should be all right, too, shouldn’t they, at least on the north side of the creek?” He shrugged. She knew what he was thinking. Who could say what they would find in town? And what about his family’s place? “I know you probably want to head over to the Triple T….”

“Yeah. But let’s check out your brother’s house first, and then see about getting something to eat.”

Gage’s house. She realized she didn’t want to go there.

But she did it anyway. And she was glad, again, for Collin’s presence at her side. The house was locked up. They looked in the windows. It was bad. The waterline went three feet up the walls, but the moisture had wicked higher still in ugly, muddy little spikes. Gage’s furniture was beyond saving, soggy and stained, the stuffing popping out.

“Can we get to the propane tank?” Collin asked. “Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to a possible gas leak.” She showed him the way. They were able to turn it off from outside. Then he said, “Come on. There’s nothing more we can do here right now.”

They went back to her parents’ house and found plenty to eat in the pantry. She filled Buster’s food bowl and the hungry dog quickly emptied it. After the meal, she took the perishables out of the fridge and put them in a bucket in the front yard. The two pigs went right to work on the treat.

By then it was still early, a little after seven. Collin suggested they make use of the safe water source and take showers before they left. There was just no way to guess the next time they’d have a chance to clean up a little. As at Gage’s place, the tank was heated by propane, so they even had hot water.

Willa chose from some of her own old clothes that her mom had stored for her in a box under the stairs. She got clean jeans, a fresh T-shirt and a pair of worn but sturdy lace-up work boots to wear. For Collin, she found an ancient purple Jimi Hendrix Experience shirt that belonged to her dad, a pair of her dad’s boots that were a pretty decent fit, and some trusty bib overalls. She also gave him a towel, a toothbrush, shave cream and a disposable razor. He took the guest bathroom. She used the master bath, and she made it quick.

Still, as she stood before the steamy bathroom mirror wrapped in one of her mother’s fluffy towels, combing the tangles out of her wet hair, she couldn’t help but think that Collin was just down the hall in the other bathroom, possibly naked.

Or if he wasn’t by now, he had been a few minutes ago.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and glared at her own reflection. “Get your mind off Collin naked,” she told her steamy image in an angry whisper. “Seriously. You should get help, Willa Christensen.”

And that struck her as funny, for some reason. The idea that she needed counseling over Collin Traub. She laughed. And then she pulled herself together and pinned her still-wet hair into a knot at the back of her head.

A few minutes later, they were out in the kitchen again, deciding what to take with them when they left.

She didn’t tell him so, but he looked sexy even in overalls. He’d used the razor she’d given him and his dark stubble was gone, his hair still wet, but minus the dried mud from the flood.

Before they left, they filled a couple of gallon-size plastic containers with water. She stuffed a backpack with a few personal items. Her mom had a key to Willa’s house in town and she took that, since hers was lost somewhere in her mud-filled car. She also grabbed a leash and a plastic container of food for Buster. She would have grabbed her dad’s first aid kit, but Collin said he had one in his pickup.

“You want to wade out to your car?” Collin asked her. “See if maybe we can find your purse or your keys?”

It was way out there in the middle of that muddy field. And it didn’t look promising to her. “We just got dry boots,” she reminded him. “Let it go.”

Collin didn’t argue. She figured he was probably anxious to get to the Triple T.

They locked up the house again and headed for his truck, which waited at the top of the road where he’d left it. Buster hopped in the back and they climbed in the cab.

His cell was stuck in one of the cup holders. He tried it. “Still no signal.”

Willa hooked her seat belt. He started the engine, pulled a U-turn and off they went.

It took them over an hour to get to the Triple T. The roads were washed out in several places and they had to find a way around the trouble spots. There was soggy, broken stuff strewn randomly wherever the water had risen, not to mention swamped, abandoned vehicles. Willa tried to take heart that they were all only things.

Collin played the truck’s radio for news. Roads and bridges were out everywhere. Any number of small towns on the western side of the state from Butte north had sustained serious damage. A third of the state had been designated a disaster area and there were constant warnings—about staying off the roads as much as possible, about exercising caution in flooded buildings, about the danger of snakes and the hazards of rats. About steering clear of downed power lines.

At the Triple T, all the buildings were above the waterline and undamaged, but there would still be one heck of a cleanup to deal with. The hands who’d been taking care of the place were there and safe. Willa told them how to get into her parents’ house to get fresh water for the next day or so, until they could disinfect the wells. They said they would check the stock for her as soon as they’d dealt with the animals on the Triple T.

Once Collin seemed satisfied that the hands had things under control, he said, “We should get going, go on into town.”

She caught his arm before they got in the cab.

He stopped and turned to look at her. “Yeah?” His skin was so warm under her hand. Smooth flesh, hard muscles beneath. She felt suddenly shy with him and jerked her hand away. He frowned. “What’s the matter?”

“I, well, I was just thinking that I’ll bet you really want to go back up the mountain to check on things at your place. You could just drop me off when we get to Falls Street and I can hitch a ride in.”

He stuck his fists into the front pockets of her dad’s overalls and tipped his head to the side. “What the hell, Willa? I’m not leaving you alone on the street.”

His words warmed her. But still. She really did need to stop taking advantage of his kindness to her.

Kindness.

Incredible. She’d been so busy judging him as a heartless, undisciplined sex maniac for all these years, she’d never had a clue what a softy he really was. She shook her head. “Oh, come on now. It’s Rust Creek Falls. We both know I’ll be perfectly safe.”

“We don’t know what’s going on since last night. And I don’t want you wandering around alone.”

“Collin, I would hardly wander. And I know everyone in town, so I won’t by any stretch of the imagination be alone.”

“I’m coming with you. I want to be with you when you check on your house.” He said the words in a cautious tone. They both knew where her house was: directly in the path of the water. She was already resigned to the fact that it had to be flooded and was hoping that at least some of her clothing and furniture might be salvageable.

“Honestly, I can handle it. I was pretty shell-shocked yesterday, I know. But I’m over that. I’m ready to face whatever comes. You don’t have to worry about me.”