They slammed shut the door behind them as soon as they were in the safety of the house, and then Gabriel was moving quickly and purposefully, knowing exactly where to go to find the oil lamps. He had obviously given very detailed instructions to the foreman before they’d travelled over and that didn’t surprise Rose. He would have considered everything.
‘I know you’re probably uncomfortable in those wet things, but let’s sort out the lamps here and then we can both go and change.’
Even though his attention was elsewhere, Rose was still horribly aware of the T-shirt clinging to her body, outlining her breasts and leaving nothing to the imagination. She surreptitiously tried to flap it into good behaviour but no chance and she couldn’t possibly skulk off to change, not when they were clearly facing an emergency situation that needed all hands on deck.
So she did as she was instructed and tried not to stare down at her soaked body and the way her breasts were visible and bouncing under the fine cotton.
From outside came the terrifying sound of strong winds battering at the walls and the distant noises of objects being hurled around outside, obviously things they had missed in their inspection of the grounds.
She was beginning to feel cold in the wet clothes and she had to make a big effort not to let her teeth chatter. Visions of the sea rising up the incline in one ferocious tidal wave did nothing to calm her jittery nerves.
In a God-given stroke of luck, they had finished lighting the last of four oil lamps when the electricity went, leaving them in total darkness save for the watery light from the lamps.
‘Right.’ Gabriel handed her two of the oil lamps. ‘At least these are lit and there are candles in the bedrooms, although these should do for the moment. You okay?’
No. ‘Fine. I’m a dab hand at crisis situations like this!’
In the darkness, she was aware of Gabriel grinning at her. ‘When all else fails, a sense of humour is all a person needs to keep going. Keep it up!’
‘I’ll try but I was never good at being a mascot.’
They had found themselves back in the bedroom. Hers.
‘You’ll need to change and then we should bunk down in one room. Just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
‘Just in case this bad weather really kicks in. A strong hurricane can take the roof off a building, although we shouldn’t be in too much danger here. But better safe than sorry. If the situation deteriorates, I don’t want to have to come looking for you.’
Rose acquiesced quickly. She certainly didn’t want to be on her own just now.
‘I’ll be in with you in a minute. As soon as I’ve changed.’
She did. Quickly. Into her other remaining pair of jeans and a cotton T-shirt, with her bra safely underneath. Her wet clothes she laid carefully out on the floor although she didn’t rate the chances of them drying in a hurry.
The wind was managing to find all sorts of cracks and crevices and the noise was incredible. She almost expected it to sweep through the walls and lift her off her feet, but of course she was safe from that. Even so, it was a relief when she was standing outside Gabriel’s room, banging on the door to warn him that she was coming in, relieved to find that he, too, had changed, although into boxer shorts and a T-shirt.
‘You’re going to be comfortable trying to sleep in that getup?’
‘I’ll be fine! Shall we get my mattress in?’
‘Give me a minute.’
Literally a minute and back he was, having hauled her single mattress into his room and plopped it alongside his.
Now, suddenly, the comforting presence of another body next to hers when the whole world outside seemed to be going mad, didn’t seem like quite such a brilliant idea.
‘You look green,’ Gabriel said. ‘Don’t worry. The building won’t collapse around our ears. You forget that I’ve overseen everything from the foundations to where the walls go, and that I know quite a bit about the structure of buildings and what makes them solid.’
Rose was quietly relieved that he had misinterpreted her sick look. She was also heartily relieved that the only lighting in the room was from two oil lamps, the other two having been dimmed to their lowest level and placed in the bathroom.
‘Do you want anything to eat?’ he asked, interrupting the disastrous train of her thoughts and she shook her head.
‘Okay. In that case, you definitely need something to drink. Wait here.’
He didn’t give her time to argue, not that she was going to. She could feel exhaustion creeping over her, but the sickening anticipation of lying down next to him was a more powerful force and promised to keep her eyes wide open for what remained of the night. She didn’t make a habit of drinking but she sure as hell figured that there couldn’t be a better time for a glass or two of whatever he managed to rustle up.
It was dark rum. And soda water, both of which were in plentiful supply. The workmen weren’t allowed to drink on the premises, he told her, but he doubted that held true when they slept there most nights. He had brought the bottle in along with six plastic bottles of soda water and two glasses.
It tasted great. She drank the first one quickly and the effects were pleasantly immediate. Her nerves were beginning to do a disappearing act. In fact, after her second drink, it felt fine to be sitting cross-legged on the mattress, facing him, chatting about their experiences of being caught up in bad weather. Since Rose had precious little, most of the chat came from him and she was more than happy to listen to him as he talked to her. The deluge clattering down against the walls and on the roof and the angry roar of the wind as it gusted along the coastline were a lot easier to bear after some alcohol.
Eventually, Rose yawned.
‘Sleepy?’
‘Suddenly.’
‘You’ll never get to sleep in those jeans, you know, and as soon as you do, you’ll wake up because you’ll be too hot.’ He fiddled with the base of the oil lamp and dimmed it so that the room was plunged into near darkness. He had slipped under the sheet, his own sheet, and Rose felt safely tucked away from him.
‘And as soon as you realise you’re hot, you’ll also realise that they’re not quite loose enough to allow you to breathe easily and then you’ll spend tomorrow feeling like hell because you’ve had a sleepless night.’ He yawned widely and rolled over on to his side with his back to her, leaving her to ponder, in a very unfocused manner, his words of advice.
She waited a while, thinking that, yes, the jeans did feel very tight, now that he had mentioned it. It also felt ridiculous to be trying to sleep fully clothed. It was a psychological thing, of course, but once she got it into her head that she was uncomfortable, she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep unless she took the damned trousers off.
So she did, as unobtrusively as she could. And, while she was at it, she also removed her bra and breathed a little sigh of relief. Both items she placed very carefully next to the mattress, within easy reach for when she got up to stick them back on.
Gabriel, she could tell, was already asleep. She could see it in the rhythmic rise and fall of his shoulders, and her own eyelids were beginning to droop.
The alcohol was working on her like an anaesthetic. She could almost physically feel it drugging her into slumber and then she was gone.
Peace lasted all of an hour and a half. Then came her need to go to the bathroom, something she had failed to take into consideration when she had been happily allowing the rum and sodas to relax her.
The wind was still howling. Rose was tempted to grope her way to the window and peep outside, just to see what was going on, but that would risk waking Gabriel, which was something she intended to