Heart of the Storm

CHAPTER TWO

THE CHILL WAS already creeping into Sandy’s small house, and Brody knew whenever the power didn’t come back within a few minutes, it could be an hour or it could be a while. And a while with no heat was no fun.

“I can’t stay here with Noah,” Sandy said, as if she’d been reading his mind. “He’s too little.”

“You don’t have a wood stove or a generator or anything?”

“We don’t have a wood stove because of Mike’s allergies. And we had a generator, but it died and we haven’t gotten around to having it fixed yet.”

“Space heaters?”

“Mike has a torpedo heater for the shed, but it’s not really meant for in the house. And I don’t think we have any kerosene for it, anyway.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, considering the options. If Mike hadn’t been able to get the generator running, there was no sense in Brody standing around in the cold, tinkering with it. But Sandy was right. Noah was too little to weather having no heat with not even an estimated time for power restoration.

“How about Mom and Dad’s?” he asked. He could drop them off, have a quick cup of coffee and then, hopefully, still get out of town and to a hotel.

“The way Dad smokes?” Sandy shook her head. “A quick visit’s one thing, but Noah can’t stay there.”

“We might make it to a hotel, but we’d have to leave now.” The motels in Tucker’s Point were all closed for the off-season, so they’d have to go inland or down the coast. He’d take the chance alone, but not with his sister and a baby in the car. “It’s already white-knuckle out there.”

Sandy stood in front of the window, gently bouncing the blue bundle in her arms. “We can’t risk that. I think we should head to the school before it gets any worse.”

He agreed, but that didn’t make it sit any easier. The plan was to get in, get out and not see anybody but his sister and her family and maybe his parents if he had the time. The plan didn’t include sitting around an elementary school gymnasium with whatever percentage of the population of Tucker’s Point showed up.

The only saving grace was that there wouldn’t be too many people from his old neighborhood. The fishing families tended to be a hardier bunch and more self-sufficient, so they’d weather the storm better.

“Brody?” his sister prompted.

“Yeah. We should go.” He reached out to take the baby from her. “Gather up whatever you’ll need and we’ll go before it gets any worse.”

It wasn’t a fun ride. Front-wheel, all-wheel or four-wheel drive didn’t matter on ice and his fingers were strangling the steering wheel before he even reached the end of Sandy’s road. With her neighborhood in darkness, it wasn’t bad, but when they passed through areas that still had power, the ice refracted lights and pierced his eyeballs.

He crept along the streets and with every slip of the wheels, he grew more conscious of the precious cargo sleeping in the backseat. Sandy was quiet, probably not wanting to distract him, and they both breathed a sigh of relief when he finally reached the end of Oak Street and turned into the school lot.

“Do you want me to carry Noah?”

“You can get our bags in one trip if I take him, but I’ll leave him in his seat so he’ll be protected if I fall on the ice.”

“Hold on to the handle if you do fall.” Brody chuckled. “Otherwise he’ll go on one hell of a first sledding trip.”

They made it to the double doors marked as the shelter entrance without falling and Brody set their bags down to hold the door for Sandy. After picking them back up, he followed her in, blinking under the bright lighting.

“We have to sign in,” Sandy said. “They need to know who’s here, plus if there’s a problem in my neighborhood, they’ll know where I am.”

He set the bags next to her feet. “I’ll take care of it. Wait here.”

“No, wait,” he heard her say as he turned and stepped toward the woman with the clipboard.

Just as the woman with the clipboard turned toward him.

“Delaney?”

* * *

THE CHAOS AROUND Delaney faded into the background as her eyes met Brody’s, and her breath caught in her throat.

The last thing she needed was to be snowed in with Brody Rollins.

He’d changed during his five years away. His clothes looked expensive and his dark hair was obviously being professionally cut now, rather than hacked at by his mother in the kitchen when it got shaggy enough so it fell over his eyes. At twenty-seven, his face had matured and he had an air of confidence he’d never had before.

But that rough and dangerous boy was still there, simmering under the thin layer of polish. As always, the girl inside who’d loved him immediately yearned for his touch, but that girl needed to behave so she didn’t embarrass herself.

Holding the clipboard against her chest, as if it were some kind of cheap plastic armor, Delaney forced herself to smile. “Hi, Brody. It’s been a long time.”

“It has.” He didn’t return her smile. Instead, he looked at her so intently she felt as if she was being memorized. “You look great.”

If women with windblown ponytails, crowd-wrangling crazy eyes and a fresh coffee spill down the front of her favorite Red Sox sweatshirt were his thing, more power to him. “Thanks. You do, too.”

Oh, crap. The sweatshirt. Delaney clutched the clipboard tighter, as if she was trying to hide the baseball logo on the front. Maybe he wouldn’t notice her sweatshirt—so much her favorite, the hem and the end of the cuffs were a little on the frayed side—had been his, once upon a time. He’d pulled it off and made her wear it one night when they took a late-night walk by the shore. It had been in her dryer, waiting to be folded, when he took off.

After crying into the sweatshirt off and on for days, she’d washed it again and thought about returning it to Brody’s mom. She knew it was his favorite, after all. But she hadn’t gotten the rings, the picket fence, the two-and-a-half kids or the black Lab she’d been waiting for, so she’d kept the damn sweatshirt.

“I guess I’m supposed to tell you we’re here or something?”

Oh, she knew he was there. The racing pulse, tingling body and muscle-memory wondering why she wasn’t in his arms let her know Brody Rollins was in the room.

An unhappy squawk from the baby seat Sandy was holding gave her an excuse to break eye contact with the man. Throwing a newborn into the mix was going to be a challenge. People would already be cranky about being displaced from their homes and trying to sleep on cots in a school gymnasium. Noah fussing to be fed every few hours, especially during the night, would grate on already raw nerves.

“Okay,” she said, putting on her professional face, “let’s get you checked in. And we have a very limited number of privacy screens, but I’ll make sure you get one, Sandy.”

The act of writing down their names and Sandy’s address helped calm her nerves. They had no medical concerns to note, other than Sandy having given birth two weeks before, and she listed the medications new mom and baby had. They had to sign acknowledging they understood the rules of the shelter and would abide by them, and she was doing okay until Brody stepped close to take the pen and clipboard from her.

He smelled delicious. Slightly damp wool and leather and a hint of a very masculine cologne. Like money, she thought. He didn’t smell anything like the Brody Rollins she’d known.

And it was probably deliberate. Because everything about the man seemed to trigger a memory; she remembered the amount of time he’d spend in the shower, trying to scrub the scent of fishing off his skin before taking her out on a date. He’d hated that smell—been ashamed of it—even though she’d never complained.

As soon as he’d finished signing his name and handed back her clipboard, she put as much distance between them as she could without appearing obvious. “Let’s put you guys in that back corner. It’s a low traffic area, so maybe Noah will be able to sleep.”

After leading Brody and Sandy to the cots in the corner, Delaney slipped through the double doors they’d hung a sign on that read No Admittance Without a Volunteer and into the main hallway of the school. The doors swung closed behind her and she stepped to the right so she could lean her head against the wall.

There was not enough ice cream in the world to take the edge off this situation, even if she could get home to her freezer.

Of course, the jerk had to look amazing. Not that he could have gone too far downhill in five years, but now he was a man who’d make her look twice even if he was a stranger on the street. That kind of delicious packaging on a man she’d loved with all of her heart, though, was making her head spin.

She needed to focus. After taking a deep breath, she straightened and walked toward the closet where they’d stashed the few privacy screens they had. If they left them in the gym, a brawl would probably break out for them.

Once she’d handed it off to Sandy, Delaney would go back about her business of running the emergency shelter and do her best to ignore Brody. It wasn’t what she wanted to do. Now that she’d come face-to-face with him, all the questions that had haunted her were rattling around in her brain, demanding answers.