“Who?” Angela’s stomach fluttered. She knew exactly who.
“Big guy. Blondish hair, green T-shirt.”
Chris.
Relief pushed the air from her lungs. Even though she couldn’t afford to believe he had no connection to Robert, she couldn’t stop that from letting him do something to help his fellow survivors. To help her.
She tilted her chin. “Right. Good. Well, if you guys will get a chain going and pass the supplies out, I’ll go and see where else I’m needed.”
The man nodded and turned back to help.
Angela lingered awhile longer, part of her wanting to see Chris again, wanting to look into his eyes and see something there to convince her he was as good and honest as she wanted him to be—and to tell him how good it felt to be in his arms. It had been so long since she’d let a man touch her or even hold her hand. When she’d buried her face in his shirt, she’d done it instinctively and the euphoria of being held by him still lingered like a tattoo on her skin.
The perpetual feeling of hopelessness that stole over her shoulders had nothing to do with the flood or the fact she was in charge of hundreds of stranded civilians. That she would cope with. She’d make sure every single one of these people was rescued from the roof before her. It was her lack of control over Robert’s next move that had panic clawing at her courage, threatening to rip it wide-open once more.
The horrible, gnawing fear she’d never be free of him for as long as she lived spread like poison inside her. Angela moved through the sea of survivors. News helicopters. Photographers. It was sick they’d arrived before the rescue teams came to airlift people fighting for their lives in tree branches and on roofs.
She stopped and took a moment to slow her breathing, lifting her stiff and dirty hair back from her face and holding it in a fist. What would happen when tomorrow’s paper came out for the entire country to see? What then? According to her family, Robert had left prison and returned to their marital home. Heedless, it seemed, to the catalog of vile memories the place held for his ex-wife.
After months of phone calls and letters sent to her parents’ address from prison, he’d finally given up on Angela’s family ever allowing him to apologize for what he’d put their daughter through. Angela had enjoyed complete anonymity for so long she’d stupidly begun to believe in the possibility of staying in Templeton Cove forever.
Tears burned at her eyes. Doubting Chris was just another successful punch to her life that Robert continued to deliver with his iron-clad fist.
She slowly exhaled as desperation tore at her heart. Her gaze fell on a big plastic storage box to the side of the roof. There was work to do. No time for self-pity or wondering what the future held. Right now, people needed her to be focused and she wouldn’t let them down.
She marched forward and snatched up the box. They needed a toilet.
Angela raised the box above her head. “Can everyone who can spare a coat, a blanket, even an umbrella, please follow me. We have work to do. The rescuers will come soon. In the meantime, we need to get busy and make the best of what we have.”
People slowly stepped forward, jackets and blankets in their arms, umbrellas in their hands. Human strength was amazing. Strength in numbers even more so. Even if Robert had beaten the trust in human nature from her, raped her belief in any possibility of a happy future...he hadn’t broken her spirit. She’d survived him once and she would again.
Leading the volunteers to a far corner of the roof, she got to work. Busy hands meant less thinking, less contemplating, less imagining. She set about using discarded coats, blankets and umbrellas to form a makeshift shelter, catching the eyes of fellow survivors and offering them smiles of encouragement.
She’d do everything in her power to lessen people’s humiliation and discomfort. Nobody would be subjected to anything they didn’t want to do if she could avoid it. Memories flooded Angela’s mind and strengthened her resolve. Robert made her beg for a meal, clean the house naked and go days without the comfort of friends or family. No one in this world deserved to suffer humiliation at the hands of another.
Tears smarted her eyes and she blinked them away. Her hands shook and she fought to steady them as she strode forward to ask the others to help her tie the coats together. Using some crossbars on the roof and the iron railing running around the outside, they soon erected a curtained toilet area.
Another hour passed before the whirr of helicopters once more filled the air. The crowd of survivors fell quiet for the third time that day. People lifted their hopeful faces to the sky. Angela stopped breathing as she trained her gaze on the horizon. The helicopter neared and its telltale khaki color became clearer. She released her held breath in a rush.
The Army.
Seconds later, another one followed. Cheers erupted. People waved and hugged loved ones once more.
With expert precision, the helicopter circled and then hovered above the stockroom. Everyone stood in mesmerized fascination as a helmeted rescuer jumped down and approached the closest man to him.
Chris grasped the outstretched hand of the soldier.
Angela pushed her way through the crowds and stood still as she watched them speak. After what felt like forever, Chris turned.
“Women and children first. Women and children only.”
As though they were connected on an invisible thread, his eyes met hers before he looked away and gestured for the first people to come forward. Angela’s chest ached. If only she could trust her intuition that Chris was a good man—but hadn’t she thought the exact same thing about Robert in the beginning?
* * *
CHRIS AND THE final male survivors stepped from the bus that had brought them from the airfield to the impromptu rescue spot set up in the sports hall of the local leisure center. The soldiers had worked quickly and efficiently and three hours later, every one of the five hundred or more survivors had been flown to safety.
Exhaling a shaky breath, Chris pushed open the double doors and stopped. If it hadn’t hit him before, it hit him now. They had survived a disaster. Tables were set up around the perimeter offering clothes, food, water, towels and first aid. Tens of people manned the stations, offering help. It was a glorious illustration of human kindness but also stark confirmation they were lucky to be alive.
Swallowing the ball of emotion that rose in his throat, Chris searched the crowds for one particular brown-haired woman. He’d not set eyes on Angela since helping her into a helicopter an hour before. She’d been the last woman to be taken to safety. Despite the way they parted company, he smiled.
She hadn’t boarded the helicopter without a fight.
Although not physically fighting him, her eyes had flashed with fury and her mouth spewed words of protestation as she insisted the male holidaymakers be flown out of the park before her. Her claim that the park was her ship and a captain didn’t abandon ship had almost floored him.
The woman he’d held in his arms while she trembled, the woman whose eyes had grown wide with terror had once more been focused and full of confidence. The manager, the woman who got things done, lodged at the forefront of his mind. The core of her lingered in that persona, he was sure of it. Not in the one the possibility of her ex-husband evoked. She was strong, beautiful and confident. A woman—any woman—deserved to live her life that way. Every day.
He really didn’t want this to be happening. Why couldn’t things in life go along quietly for a while? He’d wanted nothing more than to pull Angela into his arms and kiss her before she climbed into the helicopter. He’d resisted, knowing damn well it would’ve earned him a slapped face.
“Chris? Chris!”
He spun around at the sound of his sister’s voice. “Hey, you.”
Cat enveloped him in a hug, the top of her head fitting snugly beneath his chin.