He took them to a designated landing, where volunteers waited to lead them to a shelter. He waited while they took off the life vests and offered incoherent thanks that he knew would mean something to him later, but not now.
WREN WOKE WITH A START and lay still for a long moment, trying to figure out what had penetrated the stupor of exhaustion. A sound? Yes, there it was again, an odd sizzle from the potbellied woodstove here in the parlor. As if water was dripping onto the fire she’d thankfully built. Rain coming down the chimney?
Drawing the comforter with her, she sat up on the old, dusty sofa to look. But when she put her feet on the floor, they plunged into water. Wren cried out. It was night now, and she couldn’t see, but… She tentatively reached her hand down. Oh, God, oh, God. Water was a foot deep or more. In horror, she grappled with the concept. How could it have reached the house? She’d climbed several steps to the porch. It had to have risen four or five feet to have reached this high. It was lapping into the stove, putting out her fire.
She needed the fire. It had been her salvation, finding brittle old wood heaped in a copper bin beside the stove, a bundle of yellowed newspapers with a date two years past and a box of matches abandoned atop the newspapers. The only food in the cupboards had been in cans and she hadn’t been able to find an opener. It was lucky she wasn’t hungry. The refrigerator was unplugged, which told her no one planned to be back in the near future. In fact, either the storm had taken out a power line somewhere or the electricity to the house had been cut off. But she’d been able to build a fire, and she’d dragged the comforter from an old bedstead in one of the two bedrooms.
Her back hurt again. The pain had been coming and going unpredictably, waking her periodically. Each time, she’d added wood to the stove. Kneeling on the sofa, she waited this spasm out. It had occurred to her sometime in the past few hours that she might be going into labor, but the thought had been so terrifying she didn’t let herself take it seriously. Early twinges were common, she knew that. Braxton-Hicks contractions. Except…were they felt in the back? She didn’t know. Wren didn’t think this pain was any more severe than what she’d had earlier—yesterday?—when she was still behind the wheel of the car. So she wouldn’t worry about that problem—not yet.
She laughed, and heard her own hysteria. Oh, yes. She had bigger problems.
She hadn’t seen a staircase, which meant there was no second story. But, frowning, she seemed to remember the house rearing higher above her than the single-story ranch houses she’d lived in. Old houses like this often had attics, didn’t they?
By the time she put her feet back on the floor, the water level had risen to her knees. Wren left the comforter on the back of the sofa and fumbled in the woodpile for a piece of kindling. When her fingers found one, still dry near the top of the heap, she opened the door of the stove and poked the kindling in to the coals, which sizzled as water inched in but remained alive. When the wood was alight, she went exploring, holding her torch high.
In a bedroom, she found the square in the ceiling she’d been looking for. A rope hung down, and when she pulled on it, she was rewarded with a creak and some movement. Not for the first time, she cursed her petite size, but being pregnant helped. She hung from the rope, and with a groan a folding staircase dropped.
She climbed the narrow, steep stairs and poked her head up. She was relieved to see a floor rather than open joists. Dusty bits of unwanted furniture and heaps of boxes. The glint of a reflection from a window. At least she’d have daylight when the sun rose. She’d be able to signal for rescue, if anyone came.
She eased down the steps, holding tight as she went, then waded through the house looking for anything she could salvage from the rising waters. More bedding. The matches, and some dry firewood, although she’d only be able to start a fire upstairs if she could find a flame-proof container like a metal washtub. Clothes—nothing that exactly fit, but the voluminous flannel nightgown she’d found in her earlier exploration was wet now, and she was beginning to shiver again. She grabbed armfuls and thrust them upstairs.
The piece of kindling burned down quickly and she replaced it. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen—just in case, although she didn’t know in case of what—and found her way to the staircase right before the flames reached her hand a second time. She cried out and had to drop the burning wood into the water, which quickly drowned it.
Climbing in the complete darkness was scary. She felt her way once she reached the attic. Her hands encountered cloth. Flannel, maybe a shirt, she decided, as she lifted. Denim beneath. Groping, she located the blankets and her comforter and an old quilt she’d found. She crawled toward the window, dragging the bedding with her, then went for the clothes and the knife.
She shook out the comforter and spread it, then folded it twice to make a pad. Sitting on it, she scrabbled among the garments for something, anything, that might fit her, settling finally on a flannel shirt. She tugged the nightgown over her head and discarded it, then hurriedly pulled on the shirt, rolled the sleeves half a dozen times to free her hands, then buttoned it. If she stood, she thought the shirt would reach near to her knees. Right now, she wouldn’t worry about putting anything else on. All she did was pull blankets and the quilt over her, and lie down facing the window. Praying for a pale tint of dawn that might allow her to see out.
ALEC HAD GOTTEN STARTED at first light and had rescued a dozen people by the time the sun was seriously up in the sky. He guessed it was about ten o’clock, and he was reaching his limit. He almost skipped the old Maynard house; he knew Josiah had gone to a nursing home in Blytheville a couple of years ago, and the house had been empty ever since. But Alec’s conscience wouldn’t let him. It was possible travelers had taken refuge there. There weren’t many options on that stretch of the Spesock.
All he could see was the roof of the barn and the upper portion of the house. The water was nine feet deep or more. He swung the tiller to circle the house. That was when he spotted a white sheet hanging, sodden, from the attic window.
Even as he steered closer, he saw a figure behind the glass, struggling to push the casement up. He was bumping the side of the house before he got a good look.
Oh, hell. Oh, damnation. That woman was pregnant. Her belly huge. As he tried to edge to position the boat beneath the window, her mouth opened in a cry of distress and she dropped from sight.
Alec swore then yelled, “Ma’am! Ma’am? Are you all right?”
She didn’t reappear. A gust drove rain between them and in the window. Swearing some more, he swiped his arm across his face, trying to clear his vision.
Finally she returned to the open window. She said something. He shook his head and gestured at his ear.
“I’m in labor!” she screamed.
“Are you alone?” he called, and she nodded.
His silent profanities intensified. There was no way a hugely pregnant woman in labor was clambering out of that window and lowering herself to the boat, then hunching beside him in the bitter cold and rain for a forty-five-minute trip to the nearest shelter.
Could a helicopter reach her? He knew how few were available. If eastern Arkansas had been alone in flooding, rescue workers would have had more resources to draw on. But the Mississippi and all its tributaries had gone over the banks, and the National Guard and army were spread over Ohio and Tennessee and down into Mississippi, too. Alec had had the impression rural Arkansas was low on the list of priorities.
Not seeing any other choice, he lifted a grappling hook on the end of a rope that was tied to the seat of his boat. He waved her back and she seemed to understand, disappearing again. Alec gave the hook a toss and watched it catch over the windowsill. He tugged on the rope until the boat was snug against the house and below the window. He