Dee gazed around her, dazed as a deer in headlights at the news crew’s cameras and video recorders. News crew. Which meant their secret relationship wasn’t secret anymore. Which meant it was over.
She knew exactly how flood victims felt when they lost everything.
Chapter Twelve
Around eleven in the morning, Rodney sat with Dee and her parents in a motel room eating fried chicken from a local fast food place. Battling the rapids had given them all an appetite. The room had two double beds, and they had to share it because rooms on high ground were scarce. Each of them had taken a hot shower, and Dee had bought them a change of clothes at a local discount store.
Thank God they were safe. He’d never seen or felt anything as terrifying as that angry river. When they’d gone underwater, he was sure they’d drown. Luckily, the man he’d been trying to save survived as well.
“When can we get out of this rat trap?” Jeremy complained as he paced and glared out the window.
Oily puddles filled every pothole in the parking lot. The rain had finally stopped, and the sun actually dared to peek through the clouds.
“When the water starts receding,” Adele replied as she placed her hands on her husband’s shoulders. “The house will be fine. It got flooded before, remember?”
“Yeah, a little in the basement, but the river’s higher this time. If the first floor floods, too, the place won’t be fit to live in.”
“We could always stay with my mother for a while.”
Jeremy snorted. “That woman has never approved of me. She still calls me that white hippie man.” He paced the room with the vigor of a man half his age. “I, at least, could be out there trying to help more people.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said. “We barely escaped with our lives as it is.”
Wide-eyed, Dee sat on the bed biting her bottom lip. Rodney knew her well enough to read the questions flying through her mind. Would the flood leave her parents homeless? Where would they live? She’d probably have to buy a house close enough to her job and live with them. Her father would hate the city. Rodney wished he weren’t so busy all the time so he could help her.
The concert in Akron started tonight at eight, and he’d already arranged a charter plane to take him there. He’d had to pay double because the airport was swamped with rescue operations. It left at five, but he hated to leave Dee and her family in this state.
Despite the shower, floating in a cold river had left him feeling like shit warmed over, and he had a sore throat. Hopefully, his voice wouldn’t fail him tonight.
Jeremy sat on the bed near the window with his arm around Adele, flipping through a magazine as they rested against the headboard.
“I have a conference call,” Dee announced as she stood by the window.
“You’ve been through a lot in the last few hours,” her mother protested. “Can’t work wait?”
“Work can never wait,” Dee replied, pulling up a number on her phone.
“That job has turned you into a corporate slave,” Jeremy muttered. “Doing overtime you don’t get paid for. Always at their beck and call.”
“Not to mention running down your health,” Adele added. “If you don’t ease up, it’ll catch up with you eventually.”
“No, Barry, I haven’t had a chance to review the case file yet,” she said, ignoring her parents. “We’re in the middle of a flood. My parents had to evacuate their home. I can’t even get to my car or laptop.” A pause. “That’s okay. I’ll stay on the call. Maybe I can still be helpful.”
Then she used a lot of legal terms Rodney was only half familiar with, but her professionalism impressed the hell out of him. Meanwhile, he ate a drumstick with his eyes glued to the TV, hoping the footage of their clench didn’t make it past the cutting room floor. Or, if it had, their faces wouldn’t be visible.
By the time Dee’s call ended, a segment on Wheeling’s flood came on. Rodney leaned closer, and the others gathered around, too. Seeing the high water in aerial views made it look even more dramatic, filling him with chills. They showed the bridge, the cars floating in the water, and several shots of the city.
Whew. No images of them. He took a bigger bite of chicken.
Then an anchorwoman with board-straight black hair and red lipstick took over to give the entertainment news.
“It seems Rodney Walker is having a love affair with the mystery woman he rescued at the Culpeper rally,” the woman said. “Now we know he enjoys a little skinny dipping between shows.”
And there it was. A full closeup with sound. Dee, half naked, shouting she loved him.
“They look kind of cold,” the other anchor, a man with perfect hair, joked.
“I bet they know how to warm each other up,” the woman said with a snicker before moving on to the next news item. Rodney muted the volume and tossed the remote down.
“They took everything completely out of context.” Dee stood with her fists clenched. “We were fighting for our lives!”
Rodney dropped his chicken back into his box and wiped his runny nose with the napkin. Unfortunately, the public would buy the story the way the media had spun it for them. To make matters worse, they’d caught her saying she loved him. There could be no doubt they had a relationship.
His cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen. Big surprise. The caller was Jack. He answered it, but before his brother could speak, he regaled him with details about his flight. Damn. His voice already sounded rough and faded out in spots.
“I knew you were with her,” Jack yelled. “How could you ruin the band like that?”
“If you tracked my cell phone as you threatened to, you’d know I’m in Wheeling, West Virginia. In the middle of
