A Love Beyond Words & Shelter from the Storm
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Sherryl Woods
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Chapter 1
Help me. Please help me. The words echoed in Allison’s head, though she had no idea if she had actually spoken them aloud.
Everything around her was eerily silent, but it had been that way long before Hurricane Gwen, with its 130-mile-an-hour winds, had struck Miami just after midnight. In fact, her world had been silent for nearly fifteen years now, a long time to go without hearing her parents’ voices, a long time for someone who had studied music to miss the lyrics of a favorite love song...an even longer time to adjust to a life of perpetual quiet.
Watching the newscasts about the approaching storm, she had read the lips of the veteran meteorologist and sensed, rather than heard, his increasing panic over the size and force of the storm and its direct aim at Miami.
Then the power had gone out, and she had been left in total darkness to wonder what was happening outside. She’d tried to tell herself it was beyond her control, that she ought to go to bed and attempt to sleep, but for some reason she had stayed right where she was, on the living room sofa, waiting for morning to arrive. Unable to listen to a radio for updates on the storm’s progress, she had simply replayed the last reports over and over in her mind and prayed she had done everything she could to protect herself and her home.
Anyone who’d lived in South Florida for any length of time knew the precautions to take. From the start of the hurricane season in the spring until it ended in November, they were repeated with each tropical storm that formed in the Atlantic.
Allie had arrived from the Midwest only a few months earlier, but she was a cautious woman. After living her whole life with the surprise factor of devastating tornadoes, she was grateful for the advance notice most hurricanes gave from the instant they began to brew off the coast of Africa. Unlike some newcomers, she took the potential threat of these powerful storms seriously.
At the very start of her first hurricane season, she had read every article on preparedness. She had installed electric storm shutters on her pretty little Spanish-style house before she’d spent a dime on the decorating and landscaping she wanted to do. She had a garage filled with bottled water, a drawer jammed with batteries for her flashlight, plus stashes of candles and canned goods. She had double what anyone recommended, enough to share with neighbors who weren’t as prepared.
She suppressed a hysterical laugh as she wondered where all of those precious supplies were now, buried right here in the rubble with her, but defiantly out of reach and useless. As for the house in which she had taken such pride, there appeared to be little left of it but the debris that held her captive. Obviously, despite all she’d done, it hadn’t been enough.
It was pitch-dark, though she couldn’t tell for certain if that was because of the time of day or the amount of debris trapping her. She suspected the former since every once in a while rain penetrated the boards and broken furniture that were pinning her down in painful misery.
Every part of her body ached. She had cuts and scrapes everywhere. The most intense pain was in her left leg, which was twisted at an odd angle under the weight of a heavy beam. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but sensed it couldn’t have been more than minutes. Her stomach still churned from the sudden shock of shutters ripping loose, windows blowing in and walls collapsing around her.
There had been no time to run. Perhaps if she had heard the wind and lashing rain, things would have turned out differently. Instead, out of the blue she had experienced the odd sense that the walls were quite literally closing in, and then everything had begun to break apart around her. Her house had seemingly disintegrated in slow motion, but even at that, she hadn’t been able to move quickly enough.
She had taken one frantic step toward the safety of a doorway, then felt a wild rush of air as the roof lifted up, then shattered down in heavy, dangerous chunks. Those expensive shutters—which had wiped out the last of her savings—had been no protection at all against the fury of the storm.
She remembered the slam of something into the back of her head. Then her world had gone blissfully dark for however long it had been. When she’d come to, there had been nothing but pain. A foolhardy attempt to move had sent shafts of blinding agony shooting up her leg. She had passed out again.
This time she knew better. She stayed perfectly still, sucking in huge gulps of air and fighting panic. She hadn’t been this terrified since the day nearly fifteen years earlier when she awoke in the hospital and realized that everything seemed oddly still and silent. Sensing that something was amiss, she had flipped on the TV, then tried to adjust the volume. At first she had blamed the television, assuming it was broken, but then she had inadvertently knocked over a vase of flowers. It had crashed to the floor without a sound. And then she had known.
Panicked, she had shouted for her parents, who had come running. They had brought the doctors, who had ordered a barrage of tests before concluding that nerves had been damaged by the particularly virulent attack of mumps she’d contracted.
For a while they had hoped that the effect would be reversible, but as time passed and nothing changed, the doctors had conceded it was likely that her world would forevermore be totally silent. It had taken days before the devastating news finally sank in, weeks more before she’d accepted it and slowly learned to compensate to some degree for the loss by relying on her other senses.
Now, because she couldn’t see what was happening, it was as if she had suddenly lost yet another of her senses—her sight. She wasn’t sure she could bear it if the inky darkness that was her world right now was permanent.
Frantic, Allie again shouted for help, or thought she did. In that great vacuum of silence in which she lived, she had no idea if anyone could hear her and was responding. She didn’t even know if anyone was searching the area for casualties or whether the worst of the storm had passed or was still raging overheard.
She had no idea if the dampness on her cheeks was rain, blood or tears. On the chance that it was the latter, she scolded herself.
“Stay calm,” she ordered. “Hysteria won’t accomplish a thing.”
Though, she conceded, it might feel good to give in to a good bout of tears and rage about now.
That wasn’t her style, though. She hadn’t valued or even tested her own strength before she’d lost her hearing. At nineteen she had cared more that she was pretty and popular, that her college studies in music education came easily. Then, in an instant, none of that had mattered anymore. She had been faced with living her life in total silence and she had been terrified. What would she do if she couldn’t share her love of music with others? Who would she be if she couldn’t perform in the occasional concert with the local symphony as she had since her violin teacher had won an audition for her when she was only fourteen?
For a time Allie had quit college and withdrawn into herself. Once gregarious, she had sought isolation, telling herself it was better to be truly alone than to be in a room filled with people and feel utterly cut off from them. Her parents had hovered, distraught, taking the blame for something over which they’d had no control.
Then one day Allie had taken a good, hard look at her future and realized that she didn’t want to live that way, that in fact she wasn’t living at all. Her faith had taught her that God never closed one door without opening another. And so, she had gone in search of that door.
Not only had she learned sign language, she had studied how to teach it to others. She might have lost something precious when the raging infection had stolen her hearing, but she had gained more. Today she had a career that was full and rewarding, a chance to smooth the way for others facing what she had once faced. The hearing-impaired children she worked with were a challenge and an inspiration.
The strength it had taken to view tragedy as an opportunity would get her through this, too. She just had to ignore the pain, the nearly paralyzing blanket of darkness, and stay focused on survival.
“Think, Allison,” she instructed herself, calmer now.
Unfortunately, thinking didn’t seem to be getting the job done. Determined to make her way to safety, she tried to maneuver one of the smaller chunks of debris on top of her, only to realize that the action was causing everything to shift in an unpredictable, potentially deadly way.
This time when the tears came, there was no mistaking them. They came in tandem with the pain and fear.
“I am not going to die like this,” she said, then repeated it. She thought it was probably just as well that she couldn’t hear the quaver she could feel in her voice. “Just wait, Allie. Someone will come. Be patient.”
Of course, patience was not a virtue with which she was very well acquainted. Once she had accepted her hearing loss, she had moved ahead with learning sign language and lip reading at an obsessive pace. She seized everything in life in the same way, aware of just how quickly things could change, of how a sudden twist of fate could alter a person’s entire vision of the future.
Now, just as it had been when the doctors had been unable to battle the infection that had cost her her hearing, it appeared her fate was in someone else’s hands. She could only pray that whoever it was would hurry up.
* * *
“Come on, Enrique,” Tom Harris taunted. “Let’s see those cards. I could use the down payment on a new car.”
“In your dreams,” Ricky retorted, spreading his full house on the bench between them.
The other firefighters had gathered around to watch the high-stakes, winner-take-all hand between two men who were intense rivals for everything from women to poker winnings in their spare time, but dedicated partners when it came to rescue operations. Ricky’s grin spread as Tom’s face fell.
“Come on, baby. Show ’em to me,” he said, tapping the bench. “Put those cards right down here where everyone can see.”
Tom spread three aces on the bench, then sighed heavily. Just as Ricky was about to seize the cash, Tom clucked disapprovingly.
“Not so fast, my man. This little devil here must have slipped my mind.” He dropped another ace on top of the other three, then grabbed the pot. “Come to Daddy.”
The other firefighters on the search and rescue team hooted at Ricky’s crestfallen expression.
“Next time, amigo,” Ricky said good-naturedly.
There would always be a next time with Tom. About the only thing Tom liked better than playing cards was chasing women. He considered himself an expert at both pursuits, though even he grudgingly admitted that Ricky was the one with a real knack for charming any female between the ages of eight and eighty.
“You may be lucky at cards, but I am lucky at love,” Ricky boasted.
“It’s those dark eyes and that hot Latino blood,” Tom replied without rancor. “How can I compete with that?”
“You can’t, so give it up,” Ricky retorted, as always. “You can’t match my dimples, either. My sisters assure me they’re irresistible.”
“Your sisters aren’t exactly unbiased. Besides, they have spoiled their baby brother shamelessly,” Tom retorted. “It’s no wonder you’ve never married. Why should you when you have four women in your life who wait on you hand and foot? I’m amazed their husbands permit it.”
“Their husbands knew I was part of the bargain when I allowed them to date my sisters,” Ricky said. “And there are five women, not four. You’re forgetting my mother.”
“Saints forgive me, yes. Mama Wilder, who comes from the old school in Cuba where the husband is king and the son is prince. She’s definitely had a part in shaping you into a scoundrel.”
Ricky grinned. “I dare you to tell her that.”
Tom turned pale. “Not a chance. Last time I offended her precious son, she chased me with a meat cleaver.”
“It was a butter knife,” Ricky said with a shake of his head at the exaggeration. His mother might be a passionate defender of her offspring, but she wasn’t crazy. Besides, she considered Tom to be a second son, which she felt gave her free rein to nag him as enthusiastically as she did Ricky or his sisters. She was still lecturing Tom about his divorce, though it had been final for three years now. If it had been up to her and her meddling, he would have been back with his wife long ago.
“Hey, guys, cut the foolishness,” their lieutenant shouted, his expression somber as he hung up the phone. “We’ve got to roll. There’s a report of houses down.”
“Casualties?” Ricky asked, already moving toward his gear.
“No word, but it’s the middle of the night. Some people might have gone to shelters, but outside the flood zones where evacuations were required, most stayed home to protect their belongings. Worst-case scenario? We could have dozens of families whose ceilings came crashing down on top of them as they slept. Clearly the construction in that part of town was no match for Mother Nature.”
“Multiple houses?” Ricky asked. “I thought we’d lucked out. I thought this sucker had all but ended. Was it the hurricane or a tornado spawned by the storm?”
“No confirmation on that. Either way, it’s trouble,” the lieutenant said.
Within seconds the trucks were on the road, traveling far more slowly than Ricky would have liked. The main street in front of the station was ankle deep in water and littered with debris. Rain was still lashing from the sky in sheets, and the wind was bending nearby palms almost to the ground. Other trees had been uprooted, their broken limbs tossed around like giant Pick-Up Sticks.
Street signs had been ripped from the corners, making the trip even trickier. With signs down and landmarks in tatters, it was going to take luck or God’s guidance to get them where they needed to be, even though it was less than a mile from the station. He murmured a silent prayer to the saints that they would reach the devastated street before someone died in the rubble.
As if in answer to his prayer, the rain and wind began to die down. In a few hours the street flooding would begin to ease, but that was no help to them now. They crept along at a frustrating pace.
The scene that awaited them when they eventually reached the middle-class Miami neighborhood was like a war zone. Power lines were down, leaving dangerous live wires in the road. Here and there a home had miraculously escaped the worst of the hurricane’s wrath, but those were the exception. Most of the two-story houses had been leveled by the winds or by an accompanying tornado. Those that hadn’t collapsed completely were severely damaged. Roof tiles had been stripped away, glass was shattered and doors had been ripped from their hinges. Another testament to lousy inspections and shoddy construction, Rick thought wearily as he surveyed the damage. Hadn’t the city learned anything from the devastating hurricanes they’d had in the past?
There was no time to worry about what couldn’t be changed. With the precision of a long-established team, the firefighters assessed the situation, then split up. A call was placed to the electric company to get a crew on the scene. In the meantime, barricades were set up to prevent people from stumbling onto the area around the live wires.
A few people were walking around dazed and bloody, oblivious to the light shower that was now the only lingering evidence of the hurricane. Some of the paramedics set up a first aid station and began to treat the less severely injured, while others took their highly trained dogs and began to search for signs of life.
A woman who looked to be in her seventies, clutching a robe tightly around her, hobbled up to Ricky. She seemed to be completely unaware of the bloody gash in her forehead, though her expression was frantic.
“You have to find Allie,” she said urgently.
“Your daughter, ma’am?”
“No, no, she’s my neighbor.” She gestured toward a severely damaged house. As Ricky and Tom headed in that direction, she trailed along behind. “She’s a wonderful young woman and she’s already been through so much. This house was her pride and joy. She just bought it a few months ago, and she’s been spending every spare minute fixing it up, putting in flowers all around.”
Her eyes shone with tears. “None of that matters, of course. Houses can be rebuilt. Flowers can be replanted.”
“You say her name is Allie?” Ricky asked.
“Allison, actually. Allison Matthews.”
As Tom went to get the equipment they’d need, Ricky surveyed the collapsed structure in the early-dawn light. He opened his mouth to shout, but the woman’s frail hand on his arm stopped him.
“Calling out won’t help,” she said urgently. “She won’t be able to hear you. Allie’s deaf.”
As if the situation weren’t complicated enough, he thought, then reminded himself to treat it as he might a rescue in a foreign country where he didn’t know the language. It wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t communicate with this Allie in the usual way. He just had to find her.
He circled the twisted pile of debris, looking for any sign of the woman, any hint of where rooms might have been. Would she have been in an upstairs bedroom or downstairs?
Shadow, the highly trained dog at his side, moved gingerly through the rubble, sniffing. Rick stood where he was, waiting, letting Shadow do his part. This was always the hardest part of a rescue, hanging back, leaving it to the German shepherd to pinpoint signs of life.
Finally Shadow stilled, whimpered, then barked.
“So, you found her, did you, boy? Good dog.”
Shadow yipped excitedly, but didn’t move, as if he sensed that one tiny shift could be fatal.
“Let’s get her out of there, boy,” Ricky said. He paused long enough to give a reassuring smile to the neighbor. “Looks like we’ve located your friend. We’ll have her out of there in no time.”
“Thank God,” she said. “Allie’s one of those special people put on this earth to show others the meaning of goodness. She’s an angel, sure as anything.”
Ricky didn’t know a lot of women who could live up to such high praise. He tended to gravitate toward women who could best be described as free and easy with their affections, the kind who placed no demands on him, who knew that his job came first. Definitely not the sort of women to take home to meet his mother, who bemoaned his failure to marry on an almost daily basis. The only time she let up was when he brought Tom home for a meal of her famed pork roast, black beans and rice. Then she served up marital advice along with the food. Tom enjoyed her cooking too much to complain.
Of course, right now it didn’t much matter whether Allie was a saint or a sinner. She was someone who needed his help, and that was all that mattered.
He intently studied the collapsed home again, looking for the best possible access, using Shadow’s watchful stance as a guidepost to Allie’s location.
“Shouldn’t you hurry?” the elderly neighbor asked, wringing her hands anxiously.
“Better to do it right than rush and cause more injuries than whatever she’s suffered so far.” Thinking of his grandmother and how she would feel under these circumstances, he took a moment to cup the woman’s icy hands. “It’s going to be okay.”
No sooner were the words spoken than he heard a feeble cry for help from deep within the rubble. The sound tore at his heart. Knowing that there was nothing he could say, that words of reassurance would quite literally fall on deaf ears, he settled for reassuring her friend instead.
“See, there? She’s alive. We’ll have her out of there in no time,” he said optimistically. “In the meantime, why don’t you go over to the first aid station that’s been set up and let somebody take a look at that cut on your forehead. Looks as if you might have a sprained ankle, too.”
“At my age, hobbling’s normal. As for the cut, it’s nothing,” she said, facing him stubbornly. “I want to be right here when you bring Allie out. She must be terrified. She’ll need to see a familiar face.”
Ricky recognized the determined set of her jaw and gave up arguing. Like his abuela, this woman knew her own mind.
He looked around until he caught sight of Tom, who had assembled the necessary rescue equipment and was ready to get started.
“All set?” his partner asked.
Adrenaline kicked in as it always did when the hard work was about to begin. Ricky nodded.
“Let’s do it,” he said with an eagerness that always struck him as vaguely inappropriate. Yet it was that very anticipation that had driven him to take on such highly dangerous work in the first place. True, what he did sometimes saved lives, which was incredibly rewarding, but it also tested his skill and ingenuity at outwitting the forces of nature and near-certain death in the aftermath. A part of him craved that element of risk.
Often he was halfway across the world. Today, however, he was in his own backyard, so to speak. Somehow that raised the stakes.
He thought of the elderly woman’s assessment of Allie and grinned. He had to admit that his anticipation was heightened ever so slightly by the promise that when this particular rescue was over, for the first time he might be face-to-face with an angel.
