By seven, Julianna felt as if the wind shaking the house was howling inside her. Perhaps she could have withstood the elemental onslaught if there hadn’t been an emotional onslaught, too. True to his word, for Jody’s benefit, Gray was treating her as if nothing had happened between them. but Julianna could feel the questions that lay between them, the way she could feel the howling wind.
Taking Dillon’s words to heart, they fixed a meager breakfast in the den, declaring the kitchen off limits. They played Go Fish while they munched on peanut butter sandwiches and drank the last of the milk. Restless, Jody climbed from Gray’s lap to Julianna’s and back again, asking repeatedly when the hurricane was going to be over.
Each of the adults showed the tension in different ways. Paige fidgeted with a lock of hair that fell neatly across one eyebrow. Somehow the uncharacteristic gesture flawed her perfect beauty and made her more human.
Dillon looked relaxed, but there was an underlying watchfulness that communicated his readiness for action if it became necessary. Julianna suspected the rugged Australian could go from his present relaxed sprawl on the rug to a ready-for-action stance in less than a second.
Gray turned his attention to Jody, ignoring the storm unless she talked about it, then patiently nodding while she expressed her fright. His only signs of tension were the starkness of his eyes and the grim line of his mouth.
As the storm built, Julianna found it harder to pretend that nothing was wrong. She would never shake the feeling that the purpose of every storm was to remind her how easily love and life can be destroyed. She knew, though, that she had to act as if the storm was an annoyance, a temporary nuisance that would soon be gone. Turned inside, her fear broke through in subtle ways. Each banshee shriek of the wind made her stomach twist and turn.
By seven-thirty the roar of the wind and clatter of the rain grew so loud that normal conversation was impossible. The adults shouted to each other, trying to make a game out of dramatizing their words to keep Jody occupied until she covered her ears and shut her eyes, too scared to be entertained anymore.
Julianna felt a lump in her throat as the little girl withdrew. She blinked back tears, looking at Gray in mute misery. To her surprise, he was watching her, and she knew from his expression that he understood. He reached for her hand, and, wordlessly, she moved closer, too upset to worry about the consequences. Dillon and Paige moved closer, too, and Julianna felt her other hand gripped in Dillon’s.
Something slammed against the side of the house, and Julianna stifled a cry. They had long since turned off the battery-powered radio. Its weak signal had been inaudible over the storm, but nobody needed a meteorologist to tell them that the worst part of the hurricane was minutes away. The house shook with its force.
As the winds roared louder, they sat in a tense circle, brought together by circumstance but strangers no longer. Now they were united, their tenuous bonds forged by the wind and the rain into friendship.