Chapter 13
Thirteen
Samson disappeared, and she heard one more round of hammering before he came back to the ladder, now slippery despite the roof’s overhang. She held on for dear life as he scrambled down it, losing his footing one time and making a scream catch in her throat.
Then he was on the roof beside her. He lowered the ladder to its side and pushed it under the eaves before he made his way to the edge of the roof and looked down. She joined him, moving more cautiously on the wet shingles.
Sure enough, the taller ladder was flat in the yard, like it had fallen straight back. They were stuck up here in the storm.
”The wind must have blown it down,” he said.
She might have thought so, but, “It’s on the wrong side of the house. The wind would have pushed it against the house, not away from it.”
“So what’s your explanation?” He looked over at her.
She was thinking it was the same…thing…that had been in her bedroom last night. But figuring out how the ladder had fallen wasn’t the top priority, and she wasn’t ready to explain her experience to him right now. If ever. Instead she asked, “How are we going to get down?”
Before he could answer, the rain came in a sudden rush, drumming against the roof and cascading off the eaves. He caught her elbow and urged her toward the narrow strip of shelter beneath the overhang, tucking her close beside the attic window.
“Here,” he murmured, shifting so that his body blocked the worst of the downpour. His shoulder brushed hers, then his chest pressed lightly against her as he angled himself to shield her completely.
Heat radiated from him, steady and solid, seeping through her damp clothes.
His scent—salt, rain, and the clean bite of sweat—wrapped around her, grounding her in a way she hadn’t expected.
She wanted to curl into him, to just breathe him in as her pulse rate slowed, but she couldn’t allow herself even that much comfort.
He was drenched, and she was pretty wet herself, as she crowded against the window to the attic.
The window he’d just fixed so no one could get in.
“There’s no way this ladder will reach the ground,” he said, nodding toward the lightning rod she was sitting beside. “I’m sorry. I can only think of one way off the roof.”
“I’m not jumping.” Just the walk to the edge of the roof had put her heart in her throat.
“No.” He inclined his head toward the window. “I have to break it.”
“Break it?” She wasn’t sure what horrified her more, having to replace the glass, or worrying about someone getting in again.
“I’ll board it up once we’re inside, but it’s too dangerous to be out here.”
She noticed then that his hands were white-knuckled, holding onto the roof. She hesitated, then nodded her permission.
She hadn’t expected him to strip off his T-shirt.
Her breath snagged. Her eyes followed before she could stop them.
He was very nice to look at. Broad shoulders tapering to a lean waist, every line of him honed and strong.
A dark fan of hair covered his chest, not enough to hide the muscles shifting beneath.
Rain sluiced over his skin, beading in the hair, tracing paths across the ridges of muscle.
She didn’t even notice he’d gestured for her to move aside until he spoke her name. She startled, dragging her gaze guiltily to his, her cheeks burning hot despite the chill of the storm.
He didn’t comment, just lifted the hammer and drove it into the thin glass.
The pane cracked with a sharp pop, shards scattering as he carefully tapped the jagged edges free until there was enough space to climb through.
Then, to her surprise, he draped his shirt over the sill.
A barrier, she realized—to protect them from what was left of the glass.
He motioned for her to go first. She scrambled through, feet first, then shoved wet hair from her face in time to watch him swing in after her.
The storm battered the roof overhead, each gust rattling the rafters. She shivered. He crossed past her, shirt abandoned in the window, scanning the floor beneath the leak.
“Nothing dripping through yet,” he said, glancing back at her with a crooked smile. “I’ll find something to board that up. You might want to get changed.”
He was soaked—far worse than she was. Water streamed down his chest, catching in the hair before trailing lower. Heat coiled through her stomach. She forced herself to look away, swallowing hard.
She didn’t even own a shirt that would fit him. And maybe that was for the best. Best to put some space between them.
“You should probably just go on home, anyway. You’ve already done so much.”
He gave her a blank look. “I thought you wanted help looking through the books to see if we could figure out those symbols?”
“I mean.” She hesitated, because she did want answers, and the sooner the better.
But the emotions surging through her needed to be dealt with first. She needed to keep those emotions buried, nice and neat.
She could not fall for him. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Those symbols have been there a long time. We don’t have to have the answers today. ”
He grunted, and passed the back of his arm over his forehead to wipe away the rain dripping from his hair. “I guess you’re right.”
She almost spoke, wanting to soften the dismissal because the set of his jaw told her he’d taken it as a brush-off.
But what could she say? Anything more might sound like expectation, and that was the last thing she wanted him to believe—that she counted on him.
So instead, she turned and started down the stairs, leading the way past her room where she could have changed out of her damp clothes, intent only on seeing him to the door.
On the landing, the words See you tonight rose to her tongue, aching to be said.
But she bit them back. If she said it, he might think she assumed he’d be at Rumrunners again, that she needed him there.
The truth was, she had come to appreciate his company, the steady comfort of his presence. Maybe too much. And that was dangerous.
“Ah, all right then,” he said when he opened the front door. “I hope the answer’s not in the books you tossed in the dumpster.”
She shivered, both with the chill from being wet and the idea that she might have been too hasty in getting rid of her grandparents’ things. “Maybe the raccoons can help us out, then.”
He coughed out a laugh, then waved and headed out the door.
“What on earth?” his mother demanded when she opened the door to see him still sodden on her front porch.
He’d found a shirt in the truck, put it on, but it smelled musty, and he hoped he’d left something else here, something that didn’t abuse his nose very time he took a breath.
“I was helping Erielle put a tarp on her roof, and we got stuck up there when it started raining.” He stepped inside, but not too far, in case she didn’t want him dripping on the floor, though mostly he was just steaming now.
Her eyebrows went up. “Helping Erielle put a tarp on her roof?”
“Yeah, she has a leak, and it’s ruined part of the attic floor, not quite to the next floor, but since it’s a rainy time of year…”
“So she’s staying?”
The guarded edge in her voice made him pause. “I don’t know. We didn’t talk about that. I just know she’s cleaning the place out and making it livable for now. She doesn’t seem to have a lot of money. Why?”
“Just curious.” Her voice was brighter now.
“How’s Dad?”
She rolled her eyes. “‘I’m sure you know. Why don’t you come in and say hi? Maybe that will put him in a better mood.”
Based on their recent interactions, Sam doubted it, but tugged his shirt away from his chest as he followed his mom into the living room. “Hey, Dad.”
His father looked up from the television screen, where he was watching an old wartime miniseries, his favorite. “Where’ve you been?” he asked gruffly, with a glance at Sam’s wrinkled shirt.
“I’ve been over helping Erielle.”
“Erielle?” His dad’s eyebrows shot up. “She’s back?”
“I told you she was,” his mother said, entering the room behind Sam.
“And you’re over there helping her? Helping her do what?”
“Dan,” his mother said quietly, to calm him.
“The house is in pretty bad shape. Today I was helping her put a tarp on the roof. She’s got a pretty bad leak.
And that house is so full of old stuff she’s trying to get rid of it.
She can’t do it alone.” He didn’t add that he’d also been going to Rumrunners to watch over her.
His father would not like the idea of him hanging out at a bar, even if his intentions were good.
“I am sure she can. That girl was always very headstrong.”
Sam didn’t recall that, but he did remember that his parents blamed her for Susan sneaking out of the house to go party in the swamp with some high school boys.
He knew his sister wasn’t hundred percent innocent.
Probably not even fifty percent. But his dad’s attitude toward Erielle all these years later surprised him.
His dad had lost some of his filters with the brain injury, but Sam hadn’t thought he’d lost his empathy.
“She doesn’t have anyone else.”
His dad snorted. “She kind of made that bed for herself, didn’t she?”
He wasn’t going to let his dad slide with this. They’d let a lot slide, actually, since the fall, but this, no. He wasn’t going to let his dad tell him to turn his back on someone who needed help. Someone he liked, someone his dad didn’t even know anymore.
“I don’t know what you think you know about her.
If you’re basing this on what you remember about her from over a decade ago, or what you think you know about her from the television show, but that’s not who she is.
She’s a hard worker, she’s having a hard time, and she doesn’t deserve to deal with this all on her own. ”
His father set his jaw in an expression Sam had come to know all too well these past few months. An expression that was going to send Sam storming out, leaving his mother to soothe the man on her own. Sam squared his shoulders, then recognized his own rising temper wasn’t going to solve the issue.
“What is she having to deal with?” his mother asked, taking a seat in the recliner next to Dan.
Sam took a moment to breathe, to not just react. “Her grandfather had so many books. Boxes and boxes of them. She can’t take care of them all by herself. And there are some repairs that need to be done to make the place comfortable.”
“Is she going to stay? Or sell?”
“She hasn’t said. I don’t think she’s considering selling, at least right now, not in the shape it’s in. And she seems to want the connection to her grandparents.”
“She could have had that,” his father said.
“She realizes it,” Sam said. “She has regrets. She’s a good person. Just...kind of lost right now.”
“Not your place to help her find herself.”
“That doesn’t sound like something a preacher should say,” Sam retorted, and watched his dad’s eyes flare.
“Don’t you tell me what you think a preacher should say when you only attend services under duress.”
Sam tried not to flinch at that. Sure, he’d gotten away from going to services when he moved to the city.
There was always a reason not to go. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t retained what he’d been taught, and he thought he was doing a pretty good job of living up to those standards.
He understood why his dad was acting this way, but he couldn’t reconcile it with the man he’d grown up with.
“We know why you want to help her,” his father said. “We’ve seen her pictures all over everywhere. She’s a beautiful woman. I don’t know what you think you’ll get from a relationship with her.”
“All I know is that she needs help, and I’m going to help her, no matter what you think my motivations are.”
The silence that followed was heavy. He hated leaving things like this, hated the widening rift between them. He’d only come hoping for a clean shirt, maybe even a civil conversation.
So he drew another breath, steadied himself, and said, “While I’m here—and in a helping mood—anything I can do for you two?”