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.For a moment he ceased, pulling back an inch or two, and his broad, scarred hand cupped her cheek.His sapphire eyes glittered with something lost and sad and so hungry that Celia felt her own body shaking with the need to fill it.For a long moment she felt suspended in that painful, jeweled gaze, and then he lowered his head once more to kiss her mouth with such gentleness, it bordered on reverence.He kissed her slowly, then touched her nose and both cheeks, letting her go an inch at time, until somehow they were standing separate again, facing each other in the bright light of a Texas morning.“Goodbye, Celia,” he said, his voice rasping almost below register.She swallowed.“Bye,” she whispered.He hitched his pack onto one shoulder and strode off down the muddy road without a backward glance.Celia watched him, her heart pounding.She was glad she had kissed him, that she would carry always the memory of it.Because she would never see him again.And considering everything, that was probably a very good thing.A man like that…Setting her jaw, she turned back to the work that awaited her.Her life had been filled with dangerous turns and instability.A man like that would only bring more of the same.* * *Eric found Laura’s house deserted.The front door was unlocked, as if she’d been waiting for him.The living room carpet was freshly vacuumed, the pillows on the couch plumped and artfully arranged.In the spare bedroom, the coverlet had been turned back to show crisp, fresh linens, and in the ice box were hot dogs and cheese and a jug of sweet tea.He paced around the rooms for a little while, noting these details, wondering if she’d just stepped out for a minute now that the water had receded.But why hadn’t she left him a note, then?He showered off the grime of the past few days from his body, and drank some of the tea.He was starving—the flood provisions had not been the best to start with and after three days of peanut butter and crackers, his stomach ached for something real.There was no electricity here, either, so he had to content himself with several bowls of cold cereal.They helped.It was only as his stomach stopped growling that he realized Laura had not been in the house since the flood started.There were candles on the kitchen and bedside tables, each with a book of matches alongside.Several cans of Sterno were piled next to a fondue pot on the counter, and an ice chest beside the refrigerator awaited a power failure.But the food had not been spoiled.The tea was lukewarm, but he’d found a handful of useable ice cubes left in their trays.Because the doors had not been opened since the power failed, they held in the cold for much, much longer.The candles hadn’t been lit.Not even once.A sickening sense of panic built in his belly.He fought it with reason.Laura had chosen this house because it sat on the west side of Jezebel, on a bluff.The river nearly always jumped her banks to the east, and the bluff was fifteen feet, providing protection even if the river climbed her west bank.Eric peered out the kitchen window.His sister had known the river was on the rise.She had also known Eric was on his way.He had called her the morning of his arrival, that gloomy rainy morning.She had prepared for both the flood and his arrival.And then she’d left the house?It made no sense whatsoever.Feeling sick, he headed for the door.He spent the day trying to find traces of where she might have gone.The going was rough.Hardly anyone, thanks to the flood, was where they might have been ordinarily.The phone lines were down.Electricity had yet to be restored, and the roads were covered with silt, branches and an occasional hapless animal.It soon became obvious he would not even be able to find out who had last seen her until things had been restored to some kind of order, and to keep himself from worrying, he hiked down the road to see what might have become of his car.He took back roads and shortcuts he’d known since childhood in order to avoid the sight of Celia’s farmhouse.To his great surprise, he found the car relatively untouched, jammed hard against a tree only a few feet from where he’d left it.The windows weren’t even broken, although enough water had seeped in through little crevices to give the whole interior a smell of river silt.A dent from a tree branch or rock marred the driver’s door, but other than that, the body looked sound.He lifted the hood and stared at the engine.Staring was about all he could do.Like mathematics, engine functions had always been just beyond his ken.He could change a spark plug if the need arose, fill the various reservoirs and identify problems by the sounds they made, but that was as far as it went.At least the car hadn’t been washed down river.He was attached to the Volvo.It was the best car he’d ever owned and had served him well for two years, since his old car…He shut off that line of thought with clenched teeth.One thing he did know was that the distributor cap had to be dry.He tugged it off and dried it, then tried to turn the engine over.Nothing.Which meant the carburetor might have gotten wet.He’d have to leave it until someone from a garage could tow the car in and check it out.The last thing he did was open the back door to get the guitar he’d left on the seat.Throughout the flood, he’d cursed his choice to leave it behind, in spite of the fact that it was essentially useless to him.Wild Willie Hormel had given him the ’57 Stratocaster when Eric was fifteen, and even if he never played it again, he wanted to keep it
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