chapter 23
Saturday, September 8, 7:43 a.m.
Gabrielle turned her knees from the water splashing against the door of the hansom cab. She peered over the edge. The water was higher than when they first entered the cab.
She leaned back from the sight of the water level having inched its way up from the crushed shell road toward the cab’s footboards as it approached the corner of Bret’s street. She had lost track of time. How long had it taken to travel this distance through the rising floodwater?
The cab veered to the right. Following the gradual descent of the road, it slowed to a sluggish halt as the water swiftly rose up the sides and near the hub of the wheels. The horse neighed, snorted, and kicked the water.
The trap door on the roof slid open. “That’s it, folks,” the driver said, peering down at them from his perched rear seat. “Lizzie won’t go any further. Ride is on me but you’re on your own now. Best we all hightail it out for higher ground.”
He looked up at the blackened sky. “Maybe them Cubans was right after all. Sure looks like a bad one rollin’ in.”
Bret grabbed Gabrielle’s hand and squeezed. “We’ll be fine now, darlin’. We just have to wade through it like everybody else.” He opened the door and stepped down into the flowing, knee-high water.
For a few moments there was a lull in the wind and Gabrielle felt a numb, heart-sunken silence fall between the sky and the flowing water.
She didn’t want to move from her dry seat, hoping that Lizzie would have a change of heart and take them safely to Bret’s home.
As Gabrielle hesitated she heard the cracking and crashing of falling wood coming from the direction of the beach.
She turned around and looked south toward the Gulf. The sky and water seemed to rumble toward them from the distance, murky and swift, in a rushing sound of flying debris and shattering planks of timber.
“Don’t be frightened,” Bret said. “It’s only small cottages right on the beach.” He waded around the cab. “Only fools and tourists build there. It never takes much to blow them down.” He held his hands up toward Gabrielle.
“Bret?” Gabrielle turned around, looking back up the street toward the center of town. “My house is north where the ground is higher. Don’t you think it would be better—”
“What are you afraid of?” He stared at her. “After the last bad one in ’86 I had the house raised twelve feet. It lasted then and it sure as hell will get through this.”
The driver disconnected the horse from the cab and was wading through the water leading Lizzie back the way they had come. He stopped and waved one last time before turning the corner. A moment later a door mat-sized piece of broken roofing bumped against the spokes of the cab’s front wheel, paused, then floated by.
Gabrielle looked anxiously around at the people struggling through the streaming water amidst the rising yells of men, women, and children calling out to each other. “I’m . . . I’m not sure.”
Bret lowered his arms and made a few playful splashes in the shifting water with his hands. “Which one is it, Gabrielle? Not sure about my house withstanding another of mother nature’s temper tantrums, or not sure about riding out a storm with a murderer alone in his house?”
Gabrielle stamped her boots on the floorboards. “I didn’t say you killed Timothy!”
“That’s right. You haven’t said a damn thing.” Bret turned and started trudging away from the cab through the water.
Another booming thunderbolt struck down from the sky. A more vast and dense spreading of black clouds swept over Gabrielle’ head as the water rose again up the sides of the cab’s wheels. She stood from her seat and called. “Bret?”
He kept moving through the water, shifting his shoulders and hips from side to side.
This time she took in a deep breath and raised her voice. “Bret!”
His back was still toward her, moving steadily away from the stranded cab.
“Bret McGowan!” Gabrielle screamed. “You’re the coldest, cruelest man I’ve ever known! How dare you leave a woman alone like this! Get back here this instant!”
Bret stopped and turned around. “Just testing the current, my dear.” He smiled. “I was deciding whether to carry you or let you work your way through it like everybody else.”
Gabrielle put her hands on her hips. “And?”
He shrugged. “You’re a big girl now, Gabrielle, and your riding attire will go a long way in protecting your modesty from the elements.” Bret smiled. “And I’m sure most Galveston ladies wish they were dressed the same at this moment.”
“You bastard! Why, I never—” She looked down at her boots. The water was already covering the floorboard.
“If you’re coming, Miss Caldwell, you’d better get a move on. Storm and tide wait for no one.”
Gabrielle gritted her teeth and gripped the inside door handle. She turned around with her back to Bret and lowered her leg over the edge into the swift-moving water until she felt the crunchy top of the shell-covered road.
Summoning her courage against the dark current, and the infuriating man who stood in the middle of it, she lowered her other leg, submerging herself up to her thighs.
Still clutching the handle for support, she was afraid to let go of the only thing grounding her to that spot. “Bret . . .”
“Don’t worry, Gabrielle.” His strong, wet hand was on her shoulder, helping to guide her down. “I’ll be right here with you. I told you. It’s going to be all right, darlin’. Everything is going to work out just fine.”
In the sudden agony at the thought of changing her mind, Gabrielle held onto Bret, her cheeks flaming against the cold wind and her heart falling like a weight into the rising current.