MYSTERY SOLVED. MARCO HAD gone to have lunch with the mayor. Should she feel quite so relieved when Maria told her this? Was she jealous?
Crazy girl! Get back out in the garden where things made sense!
Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she rammed on her cap after offering to clear up, so Maria and Giuseppe could get straight off to the fiesta in town.
‘Don’t get caught in the rain.’ She glanced up at the darkening sky.
She waved off her friends and then contemplated the happy state of having the whole afternoon to work uninterrupted in the garden. The happy state didn’t last very long. She should have listened to her own advice, Cass concluded as a flash of lightning stabbed the ground just a few feet away from her. It wasn’t safe to be outdoors, but there was plenty she could do to help Maria in the kitchen.
It had quickly turned dark, and the air was as heavy as if nature was stuck in a cupboard with a headache. As the first fat spots of rain hit her in the face she collected up her tools and beat a hasty retreat. Making a dash for the kitchen door, she launched herself through it, already soaked through. There would just be time to check the windows were closed before the storm hit full force.
She raced up stairs, by which time the storm had arrived. It was like all the fiends of hell roaring around the house, testing its defences. Slapping her hands over her ears as a thunderclap shocked her out of her skin, she shrieked with alarm as lightning flashed repeatedly, and did a little dance on the spot to reassure herself that the house was still standing.
Pull yourself together! Things need to be done.
She switched on the lights and felt better immediately, but on her way downstairs they all went out again. Now the power was down. She huddled against a door in the dark, and then told herself to get over it. Finding a light switch, she flicked it on and off, more in hope than expectation. It was dead. She reached for her phone. The line was dead too. There was a house phone on the landing—
Dead.
Feeling her way carefully down the stairs, she screamed as she stepped into icy-cold water. Leaping back onto the stairs, she clung to the banister like a limpet, trying to think what to do. She told herself calmly that the house had stood for centuries, and Marco had renovated it to the nth degree, so even if the river had changed its course, the house was hardly likely to leave its foundations and float away. She was safe, and she was confident that any damage could be dealt with. If there had been similar storms in the past, Marco would have prepared for bad weather. And if the river had flooded its banks and the road from the village was closed, she was cut off, so it was up to her to sort it out.
* * *
As day turned into night in the middle of the afternoon, everyone knew that a really bad storm was coming. Making his excuses, Marco left the mayoral reception early, and as he jogged down the steps he noticed that even the stallholders were packing up. They had all sensed the drama in the skies, and the bad weather was sweeping in much faster than expected. Some said it might be as bad as the explosive weather conditions of 2014, and with that in mind he’d called Maria and Giuseppe to warn them to stay in town. It was then they told him that Signorina Rich had never had any intention of joining them at the fiesta.
She was still at the house. And in who knew what sort of danger?
Cassandra Rich was an irritation he didn’t need. Was anything straightforward where that woman was concerned? Any other woman he knew would have been drawn like a magpie to the stalls on the market, but not Cassandra. Oh, no. She had to be the one member of his staff left unaccounted for as the storm of the century approached. If the river flooded, the authorities would close the bridge and then he wouldn’t get home. There were sandbags lined up outside the kitchen door, if she had the wit to use them, and an emergency generator in case the power went off.
The power would go off, he predicted, glancing again at the sky. Ribbons of lightning were slicing the boiling clouds into ugly black fragments, to a soundscape of earth-shattering thunderclaps. Then, quite suddenly, the noise subsided and it went ominously still.
Just as suddenly, rain started falling in vicious, freezing rods. Jumping into his car, he knew there wasn’t a moment to lose if he was going to get across the bridge before the emergency services closed the road.
His was the last car through. Men in uniform warned him to turn back. He thanked them and then ignored them. How he longed for his rugged pick-up. He grimaced at the sound of metal crunching as he rode a bank to avoid a fallen tree. He’d almost certainly wreck the engine and the brakes. Water was rising up the wheels, and the wipers couldn’t work fast enough to clear the windscreen.
He pressed on with one thought driving him. Cassandra was alone in the dark, stranded on his estate, and whether or not that was thanks to her own stubbornness, she was a member of his staff and he had a duty of care towards her. He could only imagine her relief when he arrived to save the day.
He had never been so pleased to see the house. He was less pleased to discover that floodwater was lapping around the front step. Parking up, he waded to the front door. Inserting his key, he pushed, but the door wouldn’t open. He put his shoulder to it, but that made no difference. The house was in darkness. He glanced across the courtyard and called out. There was no sign of life. Where was she?
‘Cassandra!’
Framing his face with his hands, he peered into one of the windows, but all he could see was blackness beyond. Turning up his collar, he retraced his steps. It brought him a moment’s humour to see the ground might be flooded but Cassandra’s trench was doing its job in directing the water safely away from her seedlings. He skidded to a halt at the back door. It was wide open. His heart jumped at the thought she might have run out into the night; people had died in similar weather conditions.
‘Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me?’
He spun around at the sound of her voice. Moonlight framed her. She was at the far end of the kitchen soaked to the skin, with her hair hanging in straggles down her back as she dragged a sandbag across the floor.
‘Those candles have gone out again,’ she shouted as she backed into the hall. ‘Can you close the door and light them for me?’
‘Leave that!’ He swore viciously as he tore off his jacket. He was at her side in an instant. ‘You light the candles. I’ll take the sandbag.’
She shook him off. The brief contact between them was electrifying.
‘If you want to help me, grab another bag!’ she yelled. ‘The river must have burst its banks—’
‘Clearly,’ he said dryly, wrestling the sandbag from her grasp. He laid it down on top of the others. That was why he’d been unable to get in—and now she was rolling up his Persian carpets.
‘Help me,’ she insisted impatiently. ‘It will be faster if the two of us do it.’
‘Have you lit those candles yet?’ he pressed, frowning.
‘Have you got any manners?’ she fired back with a scowl twice as deep as his.
He straightened up with surprise. No one had ever talked to him this way before.
‘Thank you would be a start,’ she told him sharply.
An almighty thunder crash brought an end to their discussion. As lightning flashed repeatedly he could see the wide-eyed shock on her face.
‘You’re safe,’ he insisted, when nature paused to take a breath.
‘If it doesn’t stop raining soon, we’ll