Page 8 of Bailey

“Go on,” he said sternly. “Go home.”

He started the ATV and turned it in a slow arc to get out from underneath the overhang. Sir came with him, and he turned and drove in front of Bailey’s garage and down her driveway toward the highway. When he made it there and made the left turn, Sir was no longer with him.

Reeves gripped the ATV and muttered his prayer right out loud. “Bless us that we can make it this half-mile home, Lord. It’s only a half-mile. Bless us that the roads are closed and there’s no traffic. Help Sir to get home.”

He couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of him, and water ran down his back. Bailey hooked one hand around his right bicep, and then she touched him right in the middle of his back too. He wasn’t sure what that was, but he added her to his steady stream of prayers as he kept driving into the unknown.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Bailey kept her head bent low, her forehead pressed right between Reeves’s shoulder blades. He didn’t drive terribly fast, but with the cats on her lap, and a dog in front of him, and the rain pelting the whole earth and everything on it, she felt very unstable and out of control.

Reeves’s hard muscle beneath her fingers, where she’d curled them around his bicep, grounded her and infused some hope into her that he could handle this situation. They seemed to drive along the highway for a long time before he eventually slowed and then took the left turn into his driveway at a crawl. He accelerated a tiny bit, but Bailey still didn’t lift her head.

“I’ll get the garage,” he yelled above the sound of the rain hitting the cement, his roof, and everything else on his farm.

She sat up then to allow him space to get off. Pansy went with him, and Bailey sat perfectly still while he punched in the code to lift the garage door. Balancing the cats in her arms, she tried to comfort Rabbit by saying, “You’re all right, buddy. We’re here, and I’ll get you dry.”

As she swung her leg over the seat of the ATV, Reeves appeared and took Rabbit and Milky Way so she could finish getting off the four-wheeler. They exchanged the bin again, and Bailey darted into his garage and out of the elements. Reeves already had two vehicles parked in the garage—a big truck that could pull trailers, and a mid-sized SUV the deep color of midnight—but his garage was oversized, and he had room to pull the ATV in behind the SUV.

Bailey had moved all the way out of the way by then and hovered near the hood of his truck as he killed the engine and came to join her.

“I never want to do that again,” he said, lifting his cowboy hat and running his free hand through his wet hair. Somehow, he gave her a smile, and Bailey shivered, because wearing wet clothes wasn’t pleasant on a warm summer day, let alone a chilly spring one. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see if Sir made it back.”

Bailey hadn’t even realized that his boxer wasn’t with them, and her heartbeat picked up speed. “Do you think he made it?”

Reeves went up the steps, where Pansy once again hovered until he opened the door. She darted inside, and Reeves followed, then turned back to hold the door open and reach for the bin Bailey carried. “I hope so,” he said.

Bailey went up the few steps to the cement pad, and then into his house. She’d been here before, but hadn’t gotten a grand tour or anything like that. The sound of the rain muted to almost nothing as Reeves did have a second story where Bailey did not.

His kitchen boasted lights and darks, with a deep, rich brown hardwood on the floor, near-white countertops and backsplash, and solid wood cabinets with black handles. It seemed like a lot of different colors and textures, and yet somehow went perfectly together. No matter what, it screamed money, and Bailey wondered if he had oil on his land.

“Sir made it,” he said, and he practically threw her bin of cats onto the kitchen counter before jogging over to the sliding glass door beyond his dining room table. “There’s a towel on a shelf right there. Will you toss it to me?” His voice carried over the security system that announced the back door was open.

Bailey turned and found a couple of neatly folded towels on an open shelf in his upper cabinetry. She picked up the top one and somehow managed to slide it across the dining room table to him. She turned back to get the second towel and her cats, and she moved them to the dining room table, which wasn’t as high as the countertop. Rabbit continued to yowl, incredibly upset about the happenings of the last fifteen minutes.

“I know, buddy,” Bailey said, and she wrapped the feline in a towel and lifted him out of the bin. The fluffy, comfy blankets had gotten soaked during the mad dash here, and with Rabbit wrapped in the towel and cradled in her arms, she lifted the cloth away from Milky Way, then decided against taking it dripping across Reeves’s floor. The two of them were already doing a fine job of that.

She looked to him for help, but he had crouched down and was using his towel to rub dry both of his dogs, murmuring to them about how good they were, and how he’d get them fed up nice.

Bailey took Rabbit over to his couch and settled her into the corner of it, then returned for Milky Way. He didn’t have another towel on the shelf, so she grabbed a kitchen towel and stroked the gray tabby with that before placing her with Rabbit on the couch.

“We can get all this in the dryer,” Reeves said. “We should take advantage of the electricity while we have it.”

Surprise bolted through Bailey. “Do you think we’ll lose power?”

“Yes,” he said, and he spoke in such a sure way that Bailey didn’t doubt him. “Though I have generators. But we’ll want those for other things.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then took a big breath.

“I’ll get some lunch started and make some coffee, and we can pack a cooler with a few things and take everything upstairs to the second level.” He glanced into the living room, where Rabbit still yowled, though at about half the volume as before. He met her eye again, then reached for the bin. “I’ll put this stuff in the laundry, and we can find some more towels and blankets for them.”

“I didn’t bring a litter box,” Bailey said, her heart dropping to the soles of her feet.

Reeves grinned. “Can you imagine carting that on the back of the ATV?”

Bailey managed to return the smile, and she shrugged out of her heavy backpack, where she’d thrown her laptop, the few files she wanted to go over, a couple of days’ worth of clothes, pajamas, and toiletries. She pulled back one of his dining room chairs and set her bag there before following him down the hall to the laundry room. It boasted high-end, energy-efficient appliances and the scent of fresh rainfall dryer sheets.

“If you open that cabinet right there on your right, you’ll find some towels and blankets.” He nodded to it and lifted the lid on the washing machine.