To Love and Protect (22 page)

Clarissa felt cold raindrops hit her cheeks and cling to her lashes.
 
She pulled the blanket more securely over her head and about her shoulders to ward off the chill of the dropping temperature.
 
She paused and turned in a slow circle, looking around at her surroundings.
 
Nothing looked familiar.
 
I should have been paying attention
, she reprimanded herself.
 
She thought she heard someone calling her name and turned towards it, but the wind carried the sound away.
 

A lighting bolt struck a tree not a hundred yards in front of her, sparking it to life.
 
Clarissa quickly dropped to the ground, screaming as she did.
 
The ground shook beneath her in time with the rumble of the thunder.
 
Something out of the corner of her eye caused her to look up the ridge on her left.
 
Nature’s fury had dislodged a giant boulder, and it began rolling down the slope, quickly gaining speed.
 
She frantically tried to move out of the way, but her thin, silky slippers would not allow her to find purchase.
 
In those final moments, she sent a prayer heavenward that her death would be quick and painless.

Chapter 10

“Dammit, Clarissa, where are you?” Justin shouted.
 
He knew she left angry, but now was not the time to be silent and moody.
 
Storms that came off the coast into this valley could be violent beyond your wildest imagination. She didn’t know what danger she could be in.
 
And you just let her go and wander about on her own
, he lectured himself.

He turned the corner of the dogleg and watched a lighting bolt strike a tree, followed by the sound of a small explosion and ground-shaking thunder.
 
What Justin saw next had him frozen in fear.
 
A large boulder had been dislodged and careened down the slope towards Clarissa.
 
Justin shook himself and ran towards Clarissa where she lay prone in the mud.
 
He tried to gauge the rock’s speed as he continued to run towards her.

“Clare!”
 
Justin dropped the forgotten picnic basket and ran as fast as he could.
 
He kept running, not wasting his breath trying to yell.
 
The rain came down heavier as the seconds passed.
 
The massive boulder gained speed as it moved towards Clarissa.
 
He had to get her out of there, fast, and did not know if he would reach her in time.
 
As he got closer he yelled her name once more.
 

Clarissa heard her name called above the wind, rain, and her own prayers.
 
She looked in the direction it came from to see Justin racing towards her.
 
She tried to scrabble out of the way once more, to no avail.

“Move!”

“I’m trying!” Clarissa screamed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes to join the rain splattered on her face.

“Dammit, move!”
 

She managed to roll over on her back and saw the boulder only a few yards from her.
 
At that moment a solid figure blocked her view.
 
She felt hands biting firmly into her waist, rolling her over and over.
 
Clarissa alternately felt cold, hard ground and cold rain on her back.
 
The boulder scraped along her left leg and arm as it passed by.
 
A heavy, warm body lay on top of her.
 
She could not tell if the tremors she felt belonged to her, Justin, or the ground as the boulder passed by, a trail of rocks and debris following after it.
 
She wrapped her arms around him, clinging tightly to his warmth.
 
A crunch reached her ears and she cocked her head at an odd angle to see the boulder hit a small tree, effectively crushing it, before continuing on its way.

“Thank you,” she whispered tremulously, meeting Justin’s worried gaze.

“Damn, woman, I lost years off my life.
 
That tree could have very well been you,” Justin answered back, bracing himself on his forearms above her.
 
“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so,” Clarissa replied, looking into his blue eyes.
 
“You?”

“Fine,” he said just before another bolt of lightening lit the sky and thunder rumbled, once again shaking the ground.
 
“We have to find shelter.”

“The coach,” she began.

“We are miles from the road.
 
I let you walk far too long.”

“Now I am to blame for this situation?”

“If you had stayed put like I told you.”

“I can’t believe you even said that to me!”

“We are not going to argue about this now,” his words were punctuated by yet another bolt of lightening and rumble of thunder.
 
He pushed himself up to stand, and held his hands out for her.
 

Clarissa reluctantly took his proffered hands, and he easily helped her stand.
 
She jerked her hands free once she stood, and pulled the muddy, wet blanket firmly over her head and around her.
 
“What do you suggest we do then?”

“Just follow me,” he yelled to be heard above the rain.
 
He turned occasionally to make certain that she stayed behind him.
 
The ground fast became a quagmire as the cold rain continued to fall.
 
Justin bent over and retrieved the earlier dropped picnic basket.
 
He cursed himself for bringing her out here.
 
He knew how quickly winter storms could come upon them, and he had foolishly thought a change of scenery would do her good.

“Justin,” Clarissa called, when something caught her eye.
 
He kept walking, like a man possessed, in the opposite direction of the object.
 
“Justin!”

“What?” he turned, yelling at her, his empty hand fisted at his side.

“I think there’s a building over there,” she pointed in the direction of a thick grove of trees.
 
She watched him as he looked in the direction she pointed.
 
He nodded, before turning and walking towards it.
 
Clarissa merely shook her head as she followed him through the mostly barren trees.
 
Her body felt frozen from head to toe, and she stumbled, falling to her knees as she lost her footing.
 
She tried pushing up onto her feet, but they had begun to hurt and throb with the cold.
 
Clarissa refused to call out for Justin’s assistance and instead crawled to the nearest tree, reaching for a low-hanging branch to help leverage herself upright once again.
 

Justin reached the door of the little hut.
 
It hung precariously on its rotting leather hinges in the frame.
 
He opened it enough so that he could slip through and take stock of the inside.
 
A corner of the thatched roof had collapsed and cobwebs comprised the majority of the decorations.
 
A small fireplace took up a portion of the far wall of the one room hovel.
 
A cot took up the other wall, but would be no good to either of them because two of the legs were broken.
 
In fact, all the furniture in the hut, what little there was of it, appeared broken and unusable. “Well, it looks like this is it,” he turned expecting to see her grateful face, but instead found he spoke to empty air.
 
“Bloody hell,” he muttered and turned to go outside.
 
Five minutes later, he found her struggling to stand.
 
“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she replied mutinously, pulling herself upright.
 
She fought to mask her face of the pain she felt shooting through her feet.
 
Clarissa straightened her spine, took a step and collapsed into a heap.
 
She wrapped her hands around her feet.
 
They felt frozen, even to her ice-cold hands and fingers.
 

“Clare,” she heard Justin say, followed by an expelled sigh.

“Go away,” she muttered, pulling the soaked blankets around her shaking shoulders.
 
She felt herself being lifted and tucked close to a solid body.
 
Clarissa reluctantly entwined her arms about Justin’s shoulders as he carried her the remaining distance to the hut.
 
Once inside he lowered her so that she sat on the floor.

“Don’t move,” he directed.

“Where would I go?” she asked between her chattering teeth.

“That remains to be seen.”

She glared at him as he turned and left the small hut.
 
Clarissa pulled her knees up close to her body and rested her head on them.
 
She drifted off to sleep.

***

Justin walked around the small hut, looking for a stack of firewood, but found none.
 
He turned to the grove of trees and began gathering pieces of wood.
 
A small brook gurgled about twenty yards beyond the house in the back, leading towards the loch.
 
He found an old, forgotten caldron half-buried in mud and rocks on one side of the building.
 
Justin struggled to uncover it before he took it to the brook and washed it clean as best he could.
 
His hands were almost frozen once he had it filled and returned to the shack.
 
Snowflakes began to fall instead of rain, as he forced the door shut.

He walked in and saw Clarissa exactly where he left her, her head resting on her knees.
 
“It has begun to snow now,” he announced.
 
She did not respond.
 
“Clarissa,” he called louder.
 
He walked over to her and shook her.
 
She barely roused before laying her head back on her knees.
 
He knew what that lethargic behavior meant.
 
He had to raise her body temperature and get her warm, quickly.
 
Justin quickly began scrounging for anything that would aide him in starting a fire.
 

It took almost half an hour before Justin could coax a fire to life.
 
He used some of the dry, broken pieces of furniture to help it get started before adding the damper logs from outside.
 
Then he took the thin mattress that most certainly housed vermin of various types and lifted it to cover the corner of the missing roof.
 
When he turned back, smoke hung low in the room.

“Dammit,” he growled.
 
He looked around the room and found an old broom, most of its bristles long fallen off.
 
Justin grabbed it and walked over to the fireplace and shoved the broomstick up the chimney as far as it would reach.
 
Leaves, bird nests, and other debris fell into the fire, but the smoke began to clear.
 
He swung the arm out and hooked the caldron on it before swinging it back over the fire.
 

He rummaged in the basket he had dropped inside the door when he arrived and found the remaining blankets they had brought with them.
 
Justin laid one out on the floor in front of the fire.
 
“Come on, Clare.
 
We need to get you warm,” Justin walked across the small room and bent to lift her in his arms.
 
Her clothes felt like ice.
 
When he looked down he saw the unnatural pallor of her skin and her lips were tinged blue.
 
Her teeth no longer chattered from being cold, nor did her skin have goose flesh, and that frightened him the most.
 
He had seen this before and knew she was in grave danger.

Justin lowered her to the floor and pulled the wet, freezing blankets from around her.
 
When he dropped it, a portion landed on the hot rock of the fireplace and he could hear it sizzle.
 
He made quick work of her clothing, slippers and underclothes.
 
Her feet felt like frozen blocks of ice and were splotchy red.
 
The soles of her feet looked bruised and cuts littered them.
 
He looked once more at her slippers and noticed the holes from where the sharp rocks had cut them.
 
Never once had she complained or asked for help.

He dropped all of her clothes to the floor before laying more logs on the fire, and pivoted the arm with the caldron hanging from it off the fire.
 
He grabbed her shift from the pile of clothes and dipped it into the hot water, letting loose a curse as the hot water hit his cold fingers.
 
He wrung the excess water out, wiped off the soles of her feet as best as possible, then wrapped her feet in the cleanest part of the heated shift.
 
Then he quickly removed his clothing and grabbed the remaining two blankets that were cold and slightly damp, but warmer than anything else they had.
 
He lowered himself to the blanket on the floor, pulling the others over him and Clarissa.

He tucked the blankets around their feet then pulled her nude, frozen body into his, wrapping her up in his arms.
 
The blankets began to warm as the fire grew in strength.
 
Justin feared closing his eyes and giving himself up to warmth, unsure what he would find when he opened them.
 
Instead, he held her tightly against his body and began humming songs his mother used to sing to him, Jon, and Meggy when they were sick as children.
 
All the while he diligently prayed for her health.

Justin must have drifted off despite his best attempts.
 
The room had a distinct chill and the woman in his arms shivered uncontrollably.
 
He quickly slipped out of her arms, despite her attempts to cling tightly to him.
 
He broke up part of the old cot and stirred the embers in the fireplace to life.
 
Once the dry furniture sparked to life, he added more of the wood he found outside.
 
Their clothing, although caked with grime, had begun to dry.
 
Snow still fell outside when he opened one of the wooden shutters to peek outside.
 
Dusk had also begun to fall.
 
The driver should be on his way home to alert the family they were missing, but it would still be morning before anyone sent out a search party for them.