Russell needed a place and time to sit and think. He knew that it was time to point his life in the right direction, and to do that, he had some difficult decisions to make.
He parked the Jeep in front, wandered past the herb patch—a Tristan garden, he thought—and went toward the back. He hadn’t taken but a few steps when he heard a rumble that sounded like falling tile, then a half scream, as though someone had been injured.
He ran toward the sound, through a doorway, and into a room that was missing part of the roof. But he saw nothing and no one, just a stream of sunlight showing dust motes.
“Help?” came a small sound from above his head.
He looked up to see a young woman hanging by her fingertips from a rotting piece of wood that ran along the top of the wall.
“By all that’s holy,” Russell said under his breath as he ran forward to stand below her. “Do you have a ladder?”
“On the other side,” she whispered.
Russell ran toward the doorway into the next room, but then he heard the crack of the old wood and he knew she was going to fall. There was time to do only one thing: put himself directly beneath her. His body would cushion her fall.
He leaped the few steps forward, his arms extended, and got to her just as the wood broke away. She hadn’t looked very big as she hung from the top of the wall, but when her body hit his, he staggered backward. His feet tripped over some loose boards, and he went down. The weight and the momentum of the two of them made him skid backward. He felt skin come off his back as he slid across the rubble. Pain ran through him and he grunted—but he didn’t let go of the woman he held. His arms were around her so tight it’s a wonder she didn’t break in half.
When he stopped moving, dust billowed around them. Russell was on his back, the woman on top of him. To protect them from the dust and falling debris, he put his hands over her head, hiding her face in his chest, and he buried his face in her blonde curls. As the dust engulfed them, he inhaled the fragrance of her hair. And when it settled, he still lay there, holding her tightly.
“I think it’s okay now,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
“Yes, fine,” he said, his nose still in her hair.
“Uh . . .” she said. “I think I can get up now.”
Russell’s senses began to return to him enough that he managed to lift his head to look around, but he didn’t release his hold on her. She was a small thing and her body felt good on his.
When she pushed against him, he reluctantly released her, and she rolled off to sit up beside him. Russell lay where he was and looked at her. Even with a streak of dirt on her face, she was extraordinarily pretty. Her dark blonde hair was short and rampant with soft curls, one of them hanging down over her left eye. Cornflower blue eyes, a little nose, and a mouth that turned up on the corners completed the picture.
She made a swipe at the dirt on her face but only succeeded in smearing it.
Russell pointed to the side of her right cheek. She pulled her shirtsleeve over her hand and wiped at it.
“Did I get it?”
“Not quite,” he said as he reached his hand out. He was still lying where he’d landed, but he raised a hand toward her face. “May I?”
“Might as well. It’s not like we haven’t met.”
Smiling at her joke, he cupped her chin—more than was necessary—and used his thumb to wipe away the smudge. When she was clean, he didn’t let go and for a moment their eyes locked.
They might have stayed that way if a timber hadn’t fallen to the ground behind them. Instantly, Russell rolled to one side and put his body between hers and the falling wood. Her arms went around him and stayed there even after the dirt settled.
“I think we better get out of here,” she said and again had to push him away.
Russell pulled himself to a sitting position, his eyes on hers, and he was smiling. “Are you—?” He cut off at a gasp from her. She was holding out her hands and they had blood on them.
In an instant she went from sweetly smiling to all-business. She put her hand on his shoulder and twisted her body to look behind him. “Your entire back is bloody.”
When Russell just kept smiling at her, she grimaced. “Okay, hero, get up. We need to get you cleaned up.”
She stood and Russell saw that even in her loose jeans and big shirt that covered a tee with MYRTLE BEACH written over the pocket, she was very nicely built. Nothing flashy, but trim and firm.
She put out her hand to help him up, but when Russell moved, the pain in his back brought him back to reality. But with her big blue eyes on him he couldn’t let out the groan he was feeling.
When she saw him wince, she slid her arm around his waist and helped him pick his way through the rubble on the floor, out the doorway, and into the courtyard and the sunlight. She guided him to sit down on the low stone wall. “Sit here and don’t move, got it?”
“But—” he began.