Creatures of the Storm Read Online Free

years.
    “You’re okay,” Lisa said, and they both knew
what that meant, too.
    “I am. I am. It will be different now.”
    “I know. I mean it,
I know .”
    They stopped talking for a while and cried
together.
     
* * *
     
    Ken let it go on for as long as it needed to.
He didn’t interrupt. He wasn’t sure he could have if he’d wanted
to. Finally the two of them disentangled, laughing at the confusion
of tubes and twisted sheets. Lisa rubbed the heel of her hand
across her cheeks to wipe the tears away before she looked at him
directly.
    “Hi,” she said. “I’m okay, really.”
    “I know you are,” he said
thickly. “I mean, the doctors said… I talked…” Ken put his hands
over his eyes to hide his own tears, but he couldn’t stop them.
“ Christ ,
Lisa. Christ …”
    Rose, standing close beside him, put a hand
on his chest and made small circles, an oddly intimate, comforting
gesture, like rubbing a baby’s back. “It’s okay, Daddy,” she said
quietly. “She’s alive, and so am I, in spite of my best
efforts.”
    He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “In spite of
your best efforts,” he repeated, almost laughing. “How old are you
again?”
    “I’m a hundred and twelve in dog years,” she
said, “and you made me that way. Come on. Sit down here.” She
pulled a second chair close to the bed, and Ken hovered over it,
unsure what to do.
    He and Lisa hadn’t
exchanged more than twenty words in a row since the day he’d left.
All he knew about what she was going through was what Lisa told
him, and that only came in dribs and drabs. He knew about her
realtor business, of course, and he had a sense of how bad things
were. Why won’t you take any money? He wanted to ask. Why
not let me –
    Lisa pressed her lips together and scowled.
“Don’t be an ass,” she said and gestured at the chair. “Sit down.”
Lisa caught a glimpse of a khaki uniform moving in the hallway.
    “Is that a policeman at the door?” she
asked.
    “Yeah,” Ken told her. “He’s been guarding you
since we got here.”
    The officer stirred as if he knew they were
talking about him. He turned and stuck his head in the door, a
handsome, dark-haired head with thick black brows and piercing
eyes.
    “You’re awake!” he said, smiling.
    “Yup,” Lisa said, pushing her hair back. She
hated the feel of the IV in her wrist.
    “I’ll get the doc, then. By the way, I’m Bo
Cameron, Deputy Sheriff. We wanted to make sure you were okay.” He
flashed a smile and ducked away.
    “What is that about?” Lisa asked.
    “They want to get your statement about the
accident as quickly as they can, I think,” he said, glancing at the
empty doorway. “About that ATV.”
    Lisa let her eyes fall shut. She was already
tired. “I didn’t see much,” she said. “You probably know more than
I do.”
    “Yeah, I told the EMTs what I saw on the way
here. Guess they passed it along to the Sheriff.”
    “Sheriff? God, this is a one-horse
town.”
    “Actually, we’re saving up to buy our horse.
Give it another couple of years.”
    Ken couldn’t stop looking
at her. He felt like a starving man in front of a three-course
meal. He wanted to her to look at him, him, so he could tell her about
dragging them from the wreck while it was still steaming in the
downpour, about the wild ride to the Borrego Clinic in the ’57
Chevy ambulance, about the argument in the ER when he refused to
leave them. But he couldn’t open his mouth. He couldn’t even bring
himself to take her hand.
    God, he thought. I’m an idiot. I’m such a
fucking idiot.
    Lisa turned her head and opened her eyes,
looking with great concern at her daughter. “What about you? Any
injuries?”
    “I’m fine,” Rose assured
her mother. “Clean bill of health, as if I’d let these guys touch me to find
out.”
    The bizarre storm rumbled and hissed outside
the hospital room’s picture window. Lisa’s eyes flickered to the
glass, then back to Ken. “I thought you said