“Jake!” Gillian said, her voice panicked. “You, you saved
us!”
“This place has been abandoned for years, ”one of the
searchers, a police officer, said. “How did you end up here?”
“It’s a long story,” Ryan said.
“I like long stories,” Jake said, icily. “You can start with
what happened to your clothes.”
Ryan, who didn’t seem at all bothered by the situation, bent
down and picked up his shirt, which had fallen at Gillian’s feet.
“I was in town, on vacation,” he said, putting on the shirt.
“I had an aunt who used to live here,” he added, as an afterthought.
“I’d heard about the bad weather, like everyone else, so I decided
to head back to my hotel. That’s when I saw Gilly.”
While Ryan was talking, Gillian had managed to turn
around and, as discreetly as possible, slip into her shirt.
“I was shopping, remember?” she said, turning to Jake. “I
was heading back, too, but the car wouldn’t start. And then, Ryan
was driving by, and he saw me, and offered me a ride. And it just
so happened that we’re both staying at the resort, which made it
really simply,” she said, talking on excitably. “Except we got
caught in traffic and were out in the middle of the storm. And there
was a big tree in the road, and we had to swerve to miss it. But,
we hit another tree. And then, an even bigger tree fell on the car.
And, I tried to use my cell phone to call for help, but it fell in a
puddle. So we had to run up here to get out of the storm,” she said,
finally taking the time to stop and breathe.
Jake cleared his throat and looked slowly from Ryan to
Gillian.
“So, what happened to your clothes?” he said.
“Well,” Gillian said, “there was a tornado, and the whole
cabin was swaying, and we had to hide. But, then the windows
starting blowing open. So we had to use our shirts to tie them shut.
And we weren’t quite sure when it was going to be over, so we left
them there and just fell asleep on the bed.”
“I see,” Jake said.
Ryan glanced over at Gillian. If she was trying to talk her
way out of this, she was only succeeding in making them look
more guilty - if that was possible.
“I didn’t know what we were going to do,” Gillian said to
Jake. “But, now you came and saved us, ” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jake said, dryly. “It looks like Ryan
had things pretty much under control.”
“Well, “ one of the officers said, trying to defuse a
potentially bad situation, “I guess everyone’s all right then. It’s a
good thing we saw the car. It lead us right to you.”
Gillian looked over at Ryan, for the first time. She hadn’t
dared to before, for fear of what someone, most of all Ryan, might
be able to read in her eyes.
Jake, on the other hand, hadn’t taken his eyes off Ryan.
And he hadn’t missed what just passed between the two of them.
“Gillian, why don’t you go with the officers. They’ll take
you back to the car. I just want to have a few words with Ryan,”
Jake said.
“I....um,” Gillian said slowly, looking back and forth
between Jake and Ryan, not knowing what to do.
“Go ahead,” Ryan said to her. “It’s all right.”
Gillian looked at Ryan one last time, silently begging him
not to fill in the rest of the story, before finally leaving with the
officers.
