Stormy Weather

Dan Evans

Trying to blink the water out of his eyes, Dan stepped up onto the shelter of the deck at the Wade house. Water ran off him in rivulets and he was covered from head to foot in heavy mud. He shed his hat and coat, pulled off his boots and, after a little thought, stripped down to his underwear.

Ben and Liana were still on their honeymoon, so no one was at home except him. It would probably be a lot better to leave his muddy clothes out on the deck for the time being. Going through the glass door, Dan stopped for a moment to look at the rain.

It was nice to see it from inside for a change, he thought to himself. It had been pouring solidly for a good five or six days. Much of the Glen was flooded and, from what he had heard, there had been a lot of property damage. For the past two days, Dan had been out helping the ranch hands sandbag the area near the creek.

The Wades' log house was safe, being on a steep rise. There were two creeks on the property however, and the stables were built not far from one of them. They hadn't really been too worried in the first couple of days, but then the creek had begun to rise rapidly. It was Charlie Prince who'd suggested the sandbags and every man on the ranch had been out stacking them since then.

Dan put on a pot of coffee and then got into a hot shower. He thought he'd never felt anything so wonderful in his life. For a full thirty minutes, he just stood there letting the steaming water run over him. As the warmth began to seep back into his body, his thoughts moved from the flooding and the problems it was causing to something more pleasant--Libby Tyler.

The warmth of the water reminded him of the warmth of her body pressed against him. The warmth of her lips on his. Made him think of how warm that bed of hers at the inn would have been that night...

Dammit, Dan, he thought to himself. You don't want to have to switch to a cold shower after just getting in out of all that rain and mud! Just quit! Besides, if she hadn't been drunk that night...

If she hadn't been drunk that night, would she have ever looked at him? Well, she had accepted that date with him. The dinner he'd asked her to and then cancelled a couple of hours after making it. She'd seemed disappointed over the phone. Had said maybe they could plan something again sometime.

As Dan dried himself off and dressed after his shower, he went back over all of it again. Women didn't just throw themselves at Dan Evans. He'd never in his life had that happen to him before Libby that night. Critically, he looked himself over in the mirror.

It wasn't necessarily that he was ugly. He had the limp he'd had since his teenage years, so long that it didn't bother him any more, but then he'd never wondered about that from a woman's point of view. It was more his personality. He'd always been quiet and thoughtful, instead of being charming and good at conversation like Ben Wade. Now, there was a man at whom women threw themselves. Hard.

Dan had been surprised when he'd met Liana. He'd not thought of anyone like her as being Ben's type, although he wasn't really sure what type she was. Demure, he'd probably have called her, if this were a different time period.

Libby, though- She was talkative and straightforward. She had confidence--maybe sometimes faked a little more confidence than she was actually feeling, he thought to himself with a little smile. Not a lot like Alice.

In the kitchen, Dan poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. His wallet lay there, where he'd tossed it this morning before going out to join Charlie and the rest of the boys. Picking it up, he flipped past the pictures of his sons, Mark and William, to look at the third picture in it. His ex-wife, Alice.

He'd known her since they'd been in high school. She was pretty and blond, tended to be more quiet, kind of like Liana, but Alice had strength and plenty of it. When Mark was very small and they'd found out he had a chronic liver disease, it had been Alice who'd kept her chin up, who'd kept the family going. Dan, himself, had been devastated at first. Felt unable to do anything for awhile except go to work and come home, and sit at Mark's bedside and watch as he slept. But Alice had kept things at home normal.

Their divorce had happened six years ago and, still, not a day went by when he didn't think about her. He'd tried telling himself often enough that he was being a fool. That he should move on and just let things be over. Dan wasn't sure, though, just what moving on meant. Working for Ben Wade had been a nomadic kind of life for him. Other than the almost constant travel had been the fact that what they were doing was illegal. It wasn't exactly an ideal kind of life to bring a woman into.

Libby was the first woman he'd met since the divorce that he'd felt any real attraction for, other than basic physical attraction. He was drawn to her in a way he didn't understand. He'd always been attracted to quiet women like Alice.

Then, there had come Libby, bold as brass and, even though they'd never even so much as been out on a date, had asked him to spend the night with her! Dan wasn't quiet sure how to deal with a woman like that. If it had been a one-night-stand kind of thing, he would have understood, but Libby didn't seem to be that type.

Shaking his head, he got up to make himself a sandwich. Then something came to him. How was Libby getting along in all this rain and flooding? Was she working? Reporting something for the newspaper? Was she out running around in all this, maybe getting herself hurt or stuck somewhere?

Before he could think twice about it, Dan picked up the phone to call her.