Dreams in Moonlight

Part 28

A week later, Mallory was on her way back from Seth and Evie's house when her car spluttered having just ploughed through a deep puddle of water that had no doubt entered her exhaust. It had been raining pretty hard for most of the last few days and the journey to and from their house was proving to be rather problematic.

For several seconds Mallory sat in her car wondering whether to stay put, or attempt to walk back to Evie's place. She wasn't sure that was a good option given it was a good few kilometers back and the rain did not look like it was going to let up.

She was about to reach for her mobile to phone them to ask if they could come and get her when the headlamps of an on coming car crested the bend in the road.

The ute pulled alongside her car, and despite the fact the windows had steamed, she knew who it was and groaned in despair.

Greg came round to the passenger side, opened the door and clambered in. For a few seconds rain pelted through the open door.

"What are you doing out here?" He asked as he closed the door behind him as quickly as possible.

"Sitting in my car. Enjoying the weather." She retorted.

His brows rose as he looked over at her. "Sarcasm? Mallory? Not nice." He wiped a hand over his wet hair, pushing it off his forehead.

"What are you doing out here?" She asked him, his jacket was soaked, as were the lower part of his trouser legs.

"The road home is cut off." He shifted and water flicked off his hair, "Sorry about that." He said as Mallory wiped the droplets that had reached her. "Thought I'd head for Evie and Seth's place to cadge a bed. You'd better turn around too, the river broke it's banks, the road is flooded back there."

"Oh." That meant she'd have to head back to Evie and Seth's place too.

"So why did you stop here? A premonition about the road?" He teased.

She huffed. "No. I drove through a bit of flooding on the road, the engine died." And it was just starting to dawn on her that if the road had started flooding behind her, then the road to Evie's place would also be underwater

Greg had reached the same conclusion. "Ah." That meant that the road to Evie and Seth's place was under water. "Guess the river broke there." He frowned. "Which means they are out of the question too."

"I was going to phone them to ask them to come get me. I'll check with them whether the road is clear."

Putting action to words, Mallory dialed up Evie.

"We were starting to worry." Evie told her. "Sam and Elsie just phoned to say the river broke its banks in several places. Our place is currently cut off. Where are you?"

"About six kilometers down the road. Greg's here too."

"He is. Oh right."

"Apparently the road ahead is also submerged."

"Oh dear."

Mallory heard Evie and Seth talking.

"Are you past the Maddingly crossroads?" Evie asked.

"Yes, I think so."

"Well head back to that cross roads and take the left, from your side, the road starts to climb."

Mallory knew the road. "It's the track to Lyndsay's ridge."

"Yes. About two kilometers from the junction there's a shed. The road climbs steadily, and it isn't a sealed road, but it should be ok as it is higher ground. Our guys use the shed during the winter as a stopping off place for coffee break, when they are moving our stock. It's not big, but it has heating and supplies."

"Ok. Right. We'll go there. It's either that or sit it out in the car."

"The shed would be drier and more comfortable. Give me a call when you get there. Ok?"

Mallory nodded.

They took Greg's ute, and it wasn't hard to find the shed. Evie kept the shed well stocked. So apart from basics like tea and coffee making options, there were also cans of soup, cans of baked beans, and lots of packets of dry crackers and other snacks.

Mallory made the call to Evie to let them know they were ok, and Greg went about getting the heating and lights on.

Heating was oil fired, and once Greg had got that switched on, it wasn't long before the shed warmed up. There were three battery powered lamps, and lots of spare batteries. So it wasn't long before the shed was lit with soft glow of the lamps.

"Well, this is better that I'd expected." He shrugged off his soaked jacket and draped it on the lone wooden stool. Mallory had removed her jacket and hung it on a peg on the closed shed door.

The shed was not very big and given the amount of stuff it housed, it was also rather cramped. But it was dry, and it was warming up fast.

It was just gone ten at night, and after attending to the simple tasks of getting the room warm and lit, that left Mallory standing in the shed as she hesitated about sitting on what appeared to be a divan couch at the far end of the shed. A couch that currently supported Greg, who was busy removing his work boots.

"Are you planning on standing all night?" Greg asked as he placed his boots along side cartons of feed stock.

Mallory glanced around wondering whether she could find somewhere to sit that did not involve sitting next to him.

"You might want to take your shoes off, they look wrecked."

Which was true. But then traipsing through mud and what seemed like pool deep ponds was hardly likely to make the leather appreciate the drowning. She sat on the divan beside him and pried her shoes off. They were ruined. To be expected. She put them beside his boots. While it had been wet, it had not been cold when she'd headed over to Evie and Seth's place. Her skirt and tshirt were dry because her mac was water proof, but her feet were soaked. He like Mallory only had a tshirt on below his coat, and though the lower part of his jeans were soaked through and through, above his knees the jeans were relatively dry with just patches where the water had dripped from his coat onto his thighs.

"Are you likely to start panicking if I take off my jeans? They are starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Mallory looked around. "There might be something you can wear."

"Doubt the tea towels will make much of a difference." He told her and started to unbutton and unzip his jeans.

"You could wrap the blanket around you." She got to her feet alongside him and tugged off the cover blanket they had been sitting on.

"If I'm wearing the blanket what are we going to use to cover us when we go to sleep?"

"Sleep?" She looked askance.