The Widow's Protector. Rachel Lee

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      “In the barn,” she said woodenly. “I think there are some there.”

      “Okay.” His steadying grip on her elbow tightened a bit. “I want you to stay in the truck out of the rain. Come on.”

      She was in no condition to argue. What would she argue about anyway? There was nothing she could do herself, not in her condition.

      So she let him guide her back to the truck, let him help her climb back in.

      “Just stay,” he said, his gray eyes stern. “I can at least keep the rain out if I can find enough tarps.”

      “Thank you.” It was a paltry expression of gratitude, but she was having trouble feeling grateful about anything right now. The baby inside her kicked, and she laid her hand over the spot. The baby. Whatever she did about this, the baby had to be her first concern. Her only concern. If that meant moving on…

      She couldn’t even consider it then. She stared at the house, stared at the hole in her roof, then watched Ryder trek to the barn through the rain. Why couldn’t it have been the barn roof?

      Sometimes she just wanted to yell at the heavens. But right now she didn’t even have energy for that. The devastation she saw everywhere she looked…Well, right now she didn’t even feel grateful for having survived.

      Then the baby kicked again, reminding her why she had to carry on. The baby, she murmured to herself, over and over. Whatever came next, she had to do it for Linda Marie.

      The tears came then, silent large drops that rolled down her face like rain.

      Ryder took a flashlight to the barn with him, well aware that what he was about to do was dangerous. It was still raining, and he could hear rumbles of thunder. There was some small hail on the ground, too, which could make planting a ladder dangerous, and there might be more. What did he know about storms like this? He was no meteorologist.

      But he just couldn’t bring himself to walk away from this woman’s problem without at least protecting her house from more damage. Rain getting in would do far more to cause her problems than the tornado had.

      So he started hunting the unfamiliar space. The flashlight at least picked up on an aluminum ladder quickly, one that looked of recent vintage and would get him up the twenty feet he needed to climb to the roof.

      Hammer and nails were next, easily found in the tack room at the back. Some of the nails looked a bit rusty with age, but they weren’t bad. Enough to do a temporary job. The tarps gave him more trouble, although he couldn’t imagine a place like this, if it had ever been worked, would lack them. A lot of things you might want to leave outdoors needed to be protected from rain and the inevitable rust or mold.

      It seemed to take forever, but at last he found a stack of them, musty and heavy. They weren’t the lighter-weight new ones, but as he checked them, he thought they would do. Canvas, and full of clay to judge by the weight. If they leaked anywhere, that’s what they made buckets for.

      With some rope, he bound them together in stacks he felt he could carry on his back up a ladder. An old tool belt came in handy for carrying hammer and nails.

      When he stepped back outside, the day had darkened again. The smell of the earth, freshly churned by the passing tornado, filled his nostrils. But at least it had stopped raining for the moment.

      He set up the ladder against a part of the roof that hadn’t been damaged, settling it carefully in the wet ground, then began lugging up the stuff he would need. A streak of lightning rent the sky to the west, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

      He needed his head examined. At any work site he had supervised, he’d have stopped all exterior work while something like this was going on. But in this case, he felt he had no choice. Who knew how much rain would fall and how much damage Marti’s house would suffer? It was easy to deal with broken wood compared to water damage.

      And given the news report, he doubted anyone would come by here soon to help. Hell, probably a lot of her neighbors were trying to do exactly the same thing right now.

      Damn tornado.

      Up on the roof at last with everything he needed, he studied the problem, deciding how best to nail the tarps into place. At least the storm hadn’t removed the underlying roof trusses when it had torn away shingles, tar paper and plywood decking. The gable pieces were still firm and steady to his touch, and he was able to stand on joists some of the time as he worked his way across the opening.

      Right then he’d have given just about anything for a nail gun or a heavy-duty staple gun. Instead he had to hammer each nail individually as he attached the tarps.

      Rain swept across him from time to time, and occasionally the wind snatched at the tarps, but he lost himself in the comfort of working with his hands. He had always loved working this way, much more so than he had enjoyed running his own business.

      Manual labor made him feel good, and before long he was feeling better than he had in months. That ought to tell him something, he thought bitterly. Hard work was good for the heart, body and soul.

      Maybe that was what he needed more than anything. More than trying to sort things out in his head, things that didn’t sort at all because they knew no logic. Maybe he just needed to work, and work hard, until all the confusion settled and he found the missing pieces of himself that Brandy had taken with her.

      He didn’t even realize that he had grown soaked to the skin. He didn’t notice when the wind took on a bit of a chill.

      Hammering nails was good. If nothing else in life could at the moment, the feel of a hammer in his hands and the force he exerted with every downward swing satisfied him.

      Sort of like a primal scream, he thought wryly, and reached for another nail. He was exorcising a whole lot of unhappiness and anger and confusion with every blow of that hammer.

      Lightning jagged across the sky, followed so closely by a clap of thunder that it reminded him how foolhardy he was being. He wouldn’t have let any man who worked for him do this. But he felt he had no choice. The more rain, the higher the likelihood that Marti Chastain’s house would suffer severe damage. He couldn’t leave anyone like that, least of all a pregnant widow.

      She was a pretty woman, he thought as he struggled against the wind to hammer down the last tarp. Pretty with her short blond curls, and pretty in her pregnancy. Funny, he’d never before noticed that a woman so far along could be sexy. But maybe that was because he hadn’t been looking. Every bit of him had been utterly focused on Brandy for a long time now.

      Okay, so Marti Chastain was a sexy-looking woman, but he felt guilty for even noticing, given her pregnancy and the current state of her life. That woman sure had a whole heap of troubles.

      At last he got the final tarp nailed into place, just in time for another wave of heavy rain to sweep through. Sitting on the roof nearby, he watched the water roll off the tarps with satisfaction. Now he’d just need to check inside the attic and see if there were any leaks.

      When the rain lightened a bit, he tested the ladder. It still felt stable, so he climbed down cautiously. The rungs were wet but gripped his hiking boots well enough, and the ladder didn’t tip at all until he had only a few more steps to take.

      When he reached the ground, he carried the ladder and tools back to the barn. There СКАЧАТЬ