Snow Day: Heart of the Storm / Seeing Red / Land′s End
Snow Day: Heart of the Storm / Seeing Red / Land's End
Jennifer Greene
Barbara Dunlop
Shannon Stacey
Tucker’s Point three-day forecast: stormy with a chance of romanceHEART OF THE STORM by Shannon StaceyBrody Rollins is back in tiny Tucker’s Point, Maine, for the first time in five years, and now he can’t escape…from former neighbors, old regrets or maddening glimpses of his ex-fiancée.SEEING RED by Jennifer GreeneStranded at her grandparents' seaside cottage, Whitney Carr prepares to face the blizzard alone. But unexpected help soon arrives—in the form of her high school sweetheart!LAND’S END by Barbara DunlopTessa Ambroise is furious when her ex shows up on her doorstep. What's worse, he's bent on turning her aunt's historic seaside estate into a hotel. But the snow piling up outside the mansion puts both their plans on hold.When a child goes missing, this perfect storm of cramped quarters and freezing temperatures brings old flames closer together…whether they want to be or not. But will they go separate ways once the sky clears?
The Ex-Wife
Megan McNeil is genuinely happy to escort her little girls to their father’s wedding in Kauai, Hawaii—even though she feels like a third wheel. One gorgeous groomsman definitely disagrees. But are they both carrying too much baggage to begin a new romance?
The Best Man
Devlin Marshall won’t let anything spoil his buddy’s big day—not even his own rocky marriage. Secrets and mistrust have divided him from his Amy, but the love in the air seems to be catching’
The Sister
Family comes first. Deep down, Gabi Foster knows it, but this holiday is hurting her career. Can a sweet, sexy surfing instructor convince her that love is worth more than a business deal?
Praise for
New York Times bestselling author
Shannon Stacey
“The perfect antidote for the winter doldrums.
Stacey’s family drama is equal parts steamy romance and coming-of-age story.”
—RT Book Reviews on All He Ever Dreamed
“Shannon Stacey is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. Her…books are always full of fun, warm characters, great small towns
and really sexy relationships.”
—USA TODAY on All He Ever Desired
“A fun read with characters you latch on to
and don’t want to let go of.”
—USA TODAY on Slow Summer Kisses
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author
Jennifer Greene
“Greene’s lowcountry romance is heavenly, filled with memorable characters [and] Southern charm.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Baby Bump
“Distinctive characters and witty dialogue…
make this one a sweet, delightful read.”
—RT Book Reviews on Little Matchmakers
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author
Barbara Dunlop
“A charming, laugh-out-loud holiday story’
Dunlop’s characters are passionate,
multilayered, warm and funny.”
—RT Book Reviews on
The Billionaire Who Stole Christmas
“Fun, fiery and utterly delightful.”
—RT Book Reviews on An After-Hours Affair
SHANNON STACEY
New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey lives with her husband and two sons in New England, where her two favorite activities are writing stories of happily ever after and riding her four-wheeler. You can contact Shannon through her website, www.shannonstacey.com (http://www.shannonstacey.com), or visit her on Twitter and Facebook. You can also email her at shannon@shannonstacey.com.
JENNIFER GREENE
USA TODAY bestselling author Jennifer Greene has sold over eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA—a Silver Medallion in 1984—followed by over twenty national awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame. In 2009, Jennifer was given the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer is currently raising two Australian Shepherds, is married to her own personal hero and lives in orchard country near Lake Michigan. Visit her website at www.jennifergreene.com (http://www.jennifergreene.com).
BARBARA DUNLOP
USA TODAY bestselling author Barbara Dunlop has written more than thirty-five novels for Mills & Boon, including the acclaimed Colorado Cattle Barons series for the Mills & Boon Desire line. Her sexy, lighthearted stories regularly hit bestsellers lists. Barbara has twice been short-listed for Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award. Visit her website, www.barbaradunlop.com (http://www.barbaradunlop.com).
Snow Day
Heart of the Storm
Shannon Stacey
Seeing Red
Jennifer Greene
Land’s End
Barbara Dunlop
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Heart of the Storm (#udab75635-24f3-51db-9883-b1b8a05e85b0) by Shannon Stacey
Seeing Red (#litres_trial_promo) by Jennifer Greene
Land's End (#litres_trial_promo) by Barbara Dunlop
Heart of the Storm
Shannon Stacey
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#uebb1046b-5f0a-56ea-a50c-c9e46ff41ca5)
CHAPTER TWO (#u5aead34a-3620-5be6-94c0-72d17b181fe9)
CHAPTER THREE (#u2dfae753-d51e-553a-b2ac-2bc117cf46aa)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uf19c3c7f-37bc-5b6d-b459-10c16dc9add5)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u190e6c1f-19b7-5361-aec6-b1d8fa57dfa3)
CHAPTER SIX (#uf71f4e9c-826e-5c42-904e-13758deeb11a)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
NOTHING MADE DELANEY WESTCOTT happier than four o’clock coming around on the last business day of December.
Being the deputy municipal clerk in her hometown of Tucker’s Point, Maine, was usually a low-key job she enjoyed, but the stampede of people who’d realized it was the last day to register their vehicles would try the patience of a saint. And Delaney was no saint. Even after four years in the office, she had to brace herself for the panicked rush between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
“Highway robbery if you ask me,” Mrs. Keller muttered, slapping her checkbook down on the counter, just as she did every single year.
Delaney half expected the leather checkbook cover to creak and release a plume of dust and moths when the woman opened it. “How was your Christmas, Mrs. Keller?”
“I would have spent less on presents if I’d remembered you were going to rob me blind again.”
Every year, Delaney thought again. “Did your grandbabies enjoy the holiday?”
Mrs. Keller’s face, as worn and creased as her checkbook cover, softened. “They sure did.”
“I heard Courtney had the croup again. Is she feeling better?”
“That baby takes after her mother,” she said, shaking her head. “I swear my Becky spent half her childhood bent over a pan of hot water with a towel draped over her head. Now she has to do the same thing with Courtney.”
By the time Delaney finished processing Mrs. Keller’s registration renewal, the woman had forgotten her complaints and she even offered a “Happy New Year” on her way out. When you worked with the public in the town you’d grown up in, it didn’t take very long to get everybody’s numbers. Mrs. Keller had a reputation for being cantankerous, but she was a marshmallow when it came to her grandchildren.
Ten minutes later, Delaney looked up to take the paperwork from the last customer of the year and almost laughed. Mike Huckins had a rumpled and frazzled look about him that went beyond the post-holiday haze the rest of the town was in. Having a two-week-old baby would do that to a man.
“Sandy called me in a panic,” Mike said. “She totally forgot we had to register the car this month.”
“At least you guys have a good excuse.” Delaney took the handful of crumpled papers from him and smoothed them out. “How’s Noah?”
“Loud. But he’s doing good.”
“And Sandy?”
Mike sighed. “She’s exhausted, of course. But she’s doing good. You should stop in and visit for a while if you get a chance.”
“I will. New moms don’t get a lot of company.”
“They sure don’t. Brody’s coming in Sunday, though, for an overnight visit.”
Delaney froze, except for her fingers, which curled into fists and crumpled a paper she’d just smoothed.
“Sandy hasn’t seen her brother since we all went to Vegas for our wedding,” Mike continued, “so you can just imagine how excited she is.”
Unlike Delaney, who hadn’t seen him in the five years since his mother handed her the note he’d left, telling Delaney he loved her, but he was leaving town and wasn’t coming back. So sorry.
But now he was coming back to Tucker’s Point.
She went through the very familiar process of renewing Mike’s registration while he talked about their new baby, but part of her mind couldn’t let go of the fact Brody was returning to town.
Even through locking up the office and driving to the market, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, which made her angry. He hadn’t cared enough to tell her he was leaving town, so he wasn’t worth thinking about. She’d done enough of that crying herself to sleep every night for weeks after he’d left. So he was going to his sister’s overnight. Big deal. Delaney would simply put off visiting Sandy until she was sure he was gone and, since she planned to spend the weekend curled up in front of her television, there was no chance she’d run into him.
She was surprised to see how full the parking lot was, even for a Friday afternoon. Then she remembered it was New Year’s Eve and figured there was a run on booze and snacks. Surprisingly, there had also been a run on bread and milk, she found as she wandered up and down the aisles a bit.
“Did the weather forecast change while I was at work?” she asked Cindy, the cashier, when it was her turn to check out.
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Not that I’ve heard. A little snow, but everybody’s stocking up like the ice storm of ’98’s on its way back through.”
“That was a doozy, for sure.” And now that she was a volunteer for the town emergency shelter, should it need to be open, she hoped they wouldn’t have another storm like that anytime soon.
She took the scenic road home, which took her along the coast for a few miles before turning back inland to the house she’d grown up in and had rented from her parents since they made the decision to move to Florida three years before. Driving calmed her and she desperately needed that. She needed to leave thoughts of Brody in her past, where they belonged.
Pulling off into a scenic area, she pulled a granola bar out of one of her grocery bags but, after a moment’s hesitation, she traded it for the candy bar she’d bought on impulse. This day definitely called for chocolate therapy.
Unfortunately, off in the distance beyond the gray winter ocean, she could make out part of the roof of the Ambroise estate, which never failed to make her think of Brody. It was a beautiful place, set out on a jutting piece of land, and she used to daydream about winning the lottery and buying it. Brody could quit fishing and they’d fill the place with kids.
It hadn’t worked out that way for anybody. Sophie Ambroise had passed away and, thanks to working in the town hall, she knew the place had been rezoned from residential to commercial. Somebody would turn it into a hotel, she thought. Brody had left town and Delaney certainly hadn’t won the lottery.
With her mood matching the turbulent waves below her, Delaney pulled her car back onto the road and headed for home. She was going to spend the weekend with her television, a couple of good books and the gallon of ice cream that had simply jumped into her cart.
Come Monday morning, she’d go back to work and Brody would go back to wherever he’d come from. Life would go on.
* * *
THE PLAN WAS simple. Fly into Portland on Sunday and rent a car—upgrading to an all-wheel-drive model in deference to the snow—and then drive into Tucker’s Point. Once he’d done the ooh-and-ah thing over his newborn nephew, he’d spend the night and then drive right back out again Monday morning.
Brody Rollins didn’t intend to spend one minute longer than he had to in his hometown. He’d left the place five years ago, and he hadn’t thought anything could drag him back again. Then his only sister, Sandy, had her first child. Her need for her brother to see baby Noah had, over several phone calls, overcome his reluctance to ever step foot in Maine again.
Even though the “Welcome to Tucker’s Point” sign was as familiar as the area it welcomed him to, Brody relied on the rental’s GPS to guide him off Route 1 and through town. It was a blessing that Sandy’s husband, Mike, worked for the town instead of fishing, so they had a small house in a residential section away from the harbor. Not the picturesque marina for the tourists, but the rough and dirty harbor the lobster boats called home. Sandy’s residence wasn’t necessarily in the postcard-pretty part of town, but it wasn’t one of the run-down houses by the docks they’d grown up in, either.
He finally found the place—a small, tidy Cape with green shutters, set back from the road—and pulled up the driveway, parking behind the well-used navy sedan Sandy had described. After killing the engine, he climbed out and stretched his back, inhaling deeply.
At least the frigid temperature and falling snow neutralized the smell. The briny air, reeking of fish and desperation, was so pervasive he’d bought himself all new clothes when he left town because he was convinced he could still smell Tucker’s Point no matter how many trips he made to the Laundromat.
At the time he’d made do with stiff, coarse jeans and thin T-shirts from the discount store. Now his jeans were almost as soft as his merino-and-cashmere-blend sweater, and the soles of his boots weren’t worn through. He didn’t squander his money on fancy labels, but what he did buy was good quality and made to last.
Brody was halfway up the walk when the front door opened and, despite his reluctance to return to Tucker’s Point, his heart squeezed at the sight of his sister. It had been two years since he’d seen her, and being a wife and new mother had changed her. She had the soft, rounded look of a woman who’d just had a baby, and her long, brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. She was a little pale and had dark circles under eyes the same soft shade of green as his, but he guessed that came with the new, first-time-mom territory.
She hugged him fiercely. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“I’ve missed you.” He squeezed her back, then chuckled when an angry shriek echoed through the house. “I guess it’s time to meet my nephew.”
Sandy led him to the bassinet set up in the living room and lifted Noah out. His volume level didn’t go down any but his sister passed Noah to him, anyway. Brody held the tiny bundle of ticked-off baby, looking down into his face. It was red and scrunched up, and Brody thought he was cute as hell.
“He looks just like you do when you’re hungry,” he said, smiling at his sister.
“Funny.” She took the baby, changed him, and then curled up at one end of the couch. “Will this bother you?”
“Nope.” His sister breastfeeding her son wouldn’t bother him anywhere near as much as the ear-splitting decibels the miniature kid was presently producing.
He walked to the window, giving her a little privacy while she got Noah settled. “It looks like it’s changing over to ice. And the wind’s picking up.”
“I’m still doing the sleep when the baby sleeps thing, so I haven’t even watched the weather. Mike said he’d be working overtime, but he didn’t say anything about ice.”
“Neither did the radio. Some snow, but no mention of ice.” Driving in snow was no big deal, but the last thing he wanted was for Tucker’s Point to become an ice rink and keep him from catching his plane home tomorrow.
They caught up while she fed Noah. She told him how well working for the town was going for Mike, and asked about his business. He flipped real estate and the market was tight, but he was careful and still had enough money in the bank so he slept at night. They talked about the baby and how she and Mike were still debating on whether or not she’d return to her job keeping books for the local doctor once her maternity leave was up.
She’d just finished laying the baby back in the bassinet when a massive gust of wind hit the house, driving ice against the window panes and making her jump. “It’s getting bad out there really fast.”
“Hopefully this is just a fluke and it’ll turn back over to snow pretty soon.”
“Are you going to see Mom and Dad while you’re here?” Sandy asked the question in a casual enough tone, but the way she picked at the side of her thumbnail gave away her tension.
He didn’t want to. Walking into that shabby and depressing little house he’d grown up in was the last thing he wanted to do. “Did you tell them I was coming?”
“I might have mentioned it to Mom.”
Of course she had. “I might stop in for a few minutes on my out tomorrow.”
As tempting as it was to accidentally run late and not have time, he’d do it.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his parents. He did. Talked to them all the time on the phone, and his mom had even mastered Facebook so she could keep tabs on him. And he’d seen them during the past five years. Once, when he’d been working in Connecticut, he’d talked them into driving down for a weekend at the casino on his dime. And, two years ago, when Sandy had announced her engagement to Mike, he’d talked them all into joining him in Las Vegas for what was the wedding trip of a lifetime for a couple from Tucker’s Point.
He’d simply managed to avoid seeing them in their natural habitat, so to speak. Just thinking about his childhood home, with its ancient brown tweed couch and insulation-deep stench of cigarette smoke and the sea, made him feel claustrophobic.
But Brody had hurt his mom enough by taking off in the middle of the night five years before. He couldn’t hurt her again by avoiding seeing her when he was only a few minutes away.
He tried not to think about the other woman he’d hurt, maybe even more than he’d hurt his mother.
Delaney Westcott had been expecting a future with him. They were nearing the point of proposal, followed by a wedding, a cheap apartment over a fishermen’s bar and babies. Instead, she’d gotten a note telling her he was gone because he didn’t have the guts to face her.
“You need to spend more than a few minutes with them,” Sandy said in an admonishing tone that made her sound just like their mother.
“I’ll visit for a while. More than a few minutes. But I can’t stay too long because I have a plane to catch so I can get back to work.” And out of Tucker’s Point.
That was when the power went out.
* * *
CHAOS REIGNED IN the school’s gymnasium. Delaney wanted to pretend it was the controlled kind of chaos, but if somebody had control, it wasn’t her. All she had was the clipboard. And a growing stream of people who did not want to be there.
At least it was keeping her mind off the fact Brody Rollins was back in town. Mostly.
She’d gotten the phone call shortly after the storm took its unexpected turn for the worse. Homes were already losing power and there might be a lot of ice and wind yet to come, so it was time to open the town’s emergency shelter at the school.
There were several other volunteers helping the displaced get settled. At this point in the storm, they’d get mostly the elderly and families with small children, which made for an interesting mix. But if the storm didn’t ease up or change back to a more manageable snowfall, people would start risking the weather to get a warm bed and some food as the temperature dropped—both outside and in their houses.
She hadn’t even gotten around to opening her ice cream yet. If her power went out and it melted, she was going to be really bummed. She’d need it after this.
When she saw Mrs. Palmer approaching her, she almost groaned aloud. “What can I do for you?”
“Where are the jigsaw puzzles? We always do puzzles.”
“I’ll bring them out in a little while. Right now we’re trying to get the cots, blankets and food situation taken care of.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
Delaney smiled and did not suggest the woman help with the cots, blankets and food situation. Nobody would thank her for that. “Maybe you could see if Penny needs any help?”
Penny was so going to make her pay for that later. Probably tenfold, even. But Delaney needed to get the cots set up because she had the chart from the fire department and if everything wasn’t up to the safety code, they’d have to do it again. It was a lot harder once people started showing up.
At least Mike and Sandy had a generator, which meant even if Brody was there with her and the power went out, he wouldn’t be showing up at the school. It was hectic enough without throwing in a lost love. Not that he’d been lost. He’d deliberately left her behind without even telling her goodbye.
Hopefully she’d get through this storm and his surprise return to Tucker’s Point without telling him hello.
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.
Why hadn’t he told her he was leaving? Why hadn’t he at least said goodbye? Had asking her to go with him ever crossed his mind, or did he deliberately leave her as well as Tucker’s Point behind? And why hadn’t he loved her enough to stay?
She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of bringing it up, though. Especially in front of people she knew. It wasn’t as though knowing the answers would change anything. All it would do was rip open old wounds and not change the bottom line. Brody knew where she was. If he wanted her, he would have come back for her.
Feeling steadier, Delaney carried the screen into the gym and walked it over to the corner where Brody and Sandy had gathered three cots together.
“I hope you don’t mind we took an extra,” Sandy said. “If Mike gets a chance to sleep, he’ll probably come here.”
“It’s fine. If we do end up with a shortage of cots, I might have to steal it back if he’s not here, but we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” She leaned the screen against the wall. “I’ll let you guys figure out how you want this after you get situated.”
“Thanks so much, Delaney,” Sandy said.
Delaney managed not to look Brody in the face even once during the exchange. She could do this, she thought, as she brushed off her hands and started walking away. Ignoring him wouldn’t be so hard.
“Hey, Delaney?” She turned and her insides quivered when his mouth lifted into that boyish grin she’d always been a sucker for. “Nice sweatshirt.”
* * *
BRODY WAS DOING everything in his power not to watch Delaney as she moved around the gym, doing whatever needed to be done. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a comic book hero and his powers were limited.
She’d barely changed at all in the five years he’d been gone. Her dark blond hair, judging by the length of her ponytail, was a little longer. And she’d put on a little weight, but it looked good on her.
Seeing her in his sweatshirt, though, was twisting him up in ways he hadn’t thought possible. He’d looked for it the night he’d left town because it was his favorite and he didn’t want to leave it behind. Then he’d remembered pulling it over Delaney’s head and helping her shove her arms in the sleeves because she’d been shivering in the ocean breeze.
Brody had been tormented for weeks after he left town, imagining her wearing the sweatshirt and missing him. Eventually he figured she’d get over him and his prized Red Sox sweatshirt would go to Goodwill or be used to wax her car.
He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact she was wearing it tonight. Was it just something she grabbed out of the back of her closet? Or did she still think of him when she wore it?
“Stop staring at her,” Sandy hissed. “You’re making it more awkward.”
Forcing his attention away from Delaney, he looked down at Noah, who was starting to squirm in his car seat and make squeaky noises that were cute at the moment, but bound to get louder in a hurry. “I’m just looking around.”
“If you were looking around, you’d know half the people in here are watching you watch her, hoping for good gossip.”
“Nothing to gossip about.”
“Everybody knows Delaney and half of them know you broke her heart. There’s definitely gossip.”
He rolled his eyes, mentally adding her comment to the why Tucker’s Point sucks column. “Old news.”
By the time Sandy got Noah out of his seat, the baby was at about half volume and Brody reached for the folding privacy screen Delaney had leaned against the wall. As he looked it over, trying to figure out the best way to fold it out for maximum privacy, he glanced around the gym again. He didn’t figure a screaming baby was going to go over too well.
A few guys threw dirty looks their way, and Brody felt his temper rising. Maybe he’d made himself into a successful businessman and the calluses were gone, but there were some things a guy from the rough part of town didn’t forget. Like how to throw a punch.
“Brody.” Sandy’s elbow jabbed his ribs. “Brody! Don’t even start.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“I know that look and I’m telling you don’t even think about it.”
Brody shrugged, more to ease the tension from his shoulders than in response to her words. “That guy in the green sweatshirt was a couple years behind me in school. A punk with a big mouth.”
“Now he’s just a dad here with two young kids who are probably already on his last nerve and he’s thinking about how a newborn’s going to make it so much worse.”
Now that she mentioned it, Brody saw the two boys near the guy. Young and full of the frantic energy that came with being up past their bedtime, they were roughhousing and showed no signs of being tired. A newborn in their midst definitely wouldn’t make the guy’s life any easier.
“Can you do me a favor?” Sandy asked after he’d wrapped the screen around their cots. “I’m supposed to drink a lot of water when I’m nursing. I drank one bottle already and I couldn’t fit anymore in the bags. Can you get some from the kitchen?”
At least it was something to do. Brody had a feeling if this power outage stretched on, he’d be begging for busy work. He wasn’t a guy used to sitting around doing nothing. But he only got halfway across the gym before he ran into an old friend.
“Hot damn. If it ain’t Brody Rollins.” Donnie Cox didn’t look much different than the last time Brody had seen him, downing shots after a good haul. Worn flannel shirt, faded jeans and unlaced work boots with duct tape over one toe. “Heard you were back in town.”
Brody shook his hand, noting the hard, ragged calluses across Donnie’s palm. It had taken almost two years for Brody’s hands to smooth to the point they weren’t something people—usually women—commented on. “It’s good to see you again, Cox.”
“Yeah, I brought the wife and mother-in-law over when the power went out, but I’m going to go back out and do some welfare checks. Hate being cooped up.”
“Married, huh? Congratulations.”
“I married Becks. Big surprise.” Donnie and Rebecca were not only high-school sweethearts, but had been together since junior high. They’d never dated anybody but each other, as far as Brody knew. “I’ll be a dad in four months, too. Our first.”
Brody said all the right congratulatory words, but mentally he was acknowledging that guys he went to school with being married and having kids made him feel a little as if he was missing out on something. Sure, he’d been working hard and putting money in the bank, but he’d be thirty soon. It wouldn’t be long before he started looking for a wife and planning a family.
As the thought took hold in his mind, his gaze was drawn to Delaney. If he hadn’t left town, they’d be married now. Probably have at least two kids. And he’d work his ass off every day just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table while Delaney scrounged for coupons and did laundry that would always smell like a fishing boat.
He couldn’t regret not letting them turn into his parents. But he regretted not having her. He regretted that a lot.
“It was good to see you, man,” Donnie said. “I need to get back.”
He shook Donnie’s hand, and then continued toward the kitchen. Delaney seemed to be the only volunteer there and he didn’t know where they kept the water, so he headed toward her. When she saw him coming, her expression grew guarded and he hated that.
“What can I do for you?”
So formal and cold. She’d been his best friend once and her voice had always made him feel good, whether she was talking about her day or whispering sweet invitations in his ear. “Sandy’s out of water and she’s supposed to drink a lot when she’s nursing Noah. She said you’d have some.”
“We lock the kitchen at night, but water we keep in the coolers under the main table so people can help themselves. Feel free to grab some.”
When she started to turn away, he said her name to make her stop. He didn’t know what to say to her, but he couldn’t stand getting the cold shoulder. Not from her.
“Was there something else?”
“I’m sorry.” It seemed like a good place—the only place—to start. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye.”
She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her shoulders a little in a very familiar defensive reaction. When she was afraid a conversation might make her cry, Delaney’s body language closed up, as if she were wrapping herself in a protective blanket. He wasn’t surprised he remembered that. There wasn’t much he’d forgotten.
“Thank you for the apology, Brody. I did get your note, though. That was thoughtful of you.”
Ouch. So it was angry tears, not sad tears, she was afraid she might shed in front of him. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“No, thanks.”
“Come on, Delaney. I want to talk to you. If you just give me a little consideration, I’ll—”
“I’ll give you the same consideration you gave me. How about that?”
“I did what was best for you. For both of us.”
“That’s weak, Brody. Really weak.”
Maybe it was, but it was all he had. “Delaney, seriously, can we talk?”
“No, Brody, we can’t. I have to dim the lights and start spreading the word it’s quiet time so maybe these kids will get some sleep.”
“After that, maybe we can slip out in the hall and talk?”
“There’s nothing to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
She left him standing there alone, feeling as if there were a whole lot of things he wanted to say to her, but the words were all stuck in his throat. No matter how straight she tried to play it, there was still pain in her eyes. He’d known her too long and too well to miss it.
The least he could do while he was stuck here was try to make that pain go away.
CHAPTER THREE
BRODY WASN’T SURE what time it was when he opened his eyes. The gym was quiet, except for the creak of cots as people tried to find comfortable positions in their sleep and an unfortunate amount of snoring. Glancing up at the row of small windows at the top of the walls, he could see it was still dark. And if he listened closely, he could hear icy precipitation still being slapped against the glass by the wind.
Now that he was awake, he had to take a leak, so he rolled out of the cot as quietly as he could and stepped out from behind the privacy screen in his socks. The polished floor was slippery, but he was afraid if he tried to get his shoes out from under his cot, he’d jostle Noah’s car seat. Since it felt as if it had only been about ten minutes since the last time the boy cried, nobody wanted that.
Movement near the set of exterior doors serving as the shelter entrance caught his eye. A woman, who thankfully wasn’t Delaney, was talking in quiet tones to a man. Across the gym, in the dim lights they had to leave on 24/7 for safety reasons, he saw it was Sandy’s husband, so he made his way over.
When the volunteer turned to point in the direction of their cots, Brody lifted his hand and waved as he approached. “Hey, Mike.”
They shook hands. “Glad you made it into town, Brody. Sorry you can’t get back out, though.”
He was, too. “Spending some quality time with the loudest baby in the history of man.”
Mike grinned. “Kid’s got a set of pipes.”
“They letting you crash for a while?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing we can do with this ice and, barring anybody trying to get here, everybody’s off the roads. We’ll sleep for a few hours, then start checking on people. Thanks for getting Sandy and Noah here, by the way.”
“It was no problem.”
“I could have driven them here, but I wouldn’t be able to stay because it’s all hands on deck. I appreciate you being here to help with the baby.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he lied. “We got three cots, and we’re behind that screen over there.”
Once Mike had gone to join his family, Brody made his way to the men’s room. The lights were brighter in there and, when he stepped back into the gym, he had to stop for a moment to let his vision adjust.
He found himself looking around the huge room, looking for Delaney, but all the sleeping, blanket-covered lumps looked the same. He guessed she was probably over near the entrance, so she’d wake up if somebody went in or out, but he wasn’t sure.
Stupid to be looking for her, anyway, he told himself as he made his way back to his cot. She wanted nothing to do with him, and he couldn’t blame her. But as he tucked his arms under his head and stared at the gym ceiling, he couldn’t stop the slideshow of the loving, laughing Delaney he’d left behind from playing through his mind.
Light was streaming through the windows the next time he opened his eyes, and he realized it was Mike grabbing his outerwear and boots that had awoken him. “Heading back out already? Was there breakfast?”
“Little girl’s missing. Mother went into her room this morning and she wasn’t in her bed.”
“Oh, shit.” Brody swung his feet to the floor and scrubbed his hands over his face. “She’s not hiding anywhere in the house?”
“They searched it so thoroughly I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to rehang the Sheetrock. She’s not there.”
Brody stood and picked up his bag, careful not to jostle Noah’s car seat or Sandy’s cot. “I can be ready to go in ten minutes, if you can wait.”
“Dressed like that, I’ll spend more time taking care of you than looking for April.”
The little girl’s name was April. Brody’s gaze fell on his sleeping nephew and his breath caught in his throat. Somebody’s child was out there in this storm and her name was April. “I’m not stupid. I’ve got winter gear, including boots, in the trunk of my rental.”
“Can use the extra eyes and ears, then.”
By the time Brody washed up and changed his clothes in the men’s room—which wasn’t ideal, but was all he had—the activity level in the gym had ratcheted up a notch. There were more men pulling on cold-weather gear and a group of women scrambling to brew coffee and put out doughnuts.
Delaney was one of them, and she scowled when she saw him. “You’re not going out there, are you?”
“I’m going to go out with Mike. I can be an extra set of eyes.”
“You’re not dressed to be out in this kind of weather.”
He took the disposable cup of coffee she handed him and noticed she’d put one sugar and a splash of milk in it, just the way he liked it. “I’ve got a good coat and some boots in the rental. I’ll be fine.”
“Brody, nobody expects you to go.”
“So you all think I’ll just sit here drinking coffee while a little girl’s lost out there in this storm? Thanks a lot.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, her jaw set in a grim line. Then she shook her head. “Fine. Be careful and don’t do anything stupid.”
Not much in the way of a vote of confidence. Brody downed a couple of doughnuts and another cup of coffee before heading outside to get his stuff out of the rental. The wind stole his breath and the sheets of freezing rain made walking a challenge, but he made it to the car and back without killing himself.
By the time he was ready, a guy named Baker who was—according to Mike—a volunteer with the fire department, had handed out location assignments.
“Okay, people,” the guy said. “Most of you know April, but for the few that don’t, just watch for a nine-year-old girl who isn’t safe at home where she belongs. She’s wearing a purple coat, a white hat with a purple pom-pom and pink boots. Let’s bring her home.”
As they filed out of the gym, Brody looked back at Delaney. He caught her watching him, and he raised a hand to say goodbye. She turned away.
* * *
BREAKFAST WAS NOTHING short of a nightmare. Being a short-order cook for a large group of cranky people who hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep was even less fun than registering vehicles for a mob of people who’d forgotten it was the last day of December.
One of the reasons they used the elementary school for the town shelter, rather than the high school, was the fact the kitchen was attached to what they called the gym, but was actually a multi-purpose room that doubled as the cafeteria. With space, a kitchen and restrooms in a central location, it was the perfect space.
What was not perfect was people passing through the line and settling for doughnuts, pastries and cold cereal when there was a fully stocked school kitchen behind them. Some of the women wanted to fire up the stoves and turn the place into the neighborhood diner. Delaney was going to lose her voice explaining over and over why that wasn’t possible.
Lunch would be primarily do-it-yourself sandwiches, but she wasn’t looking forward to supper.
As soon as she could escape the serving line, she brewed more coffee and then grabbed a box of trash bags. There were at least half a dozen garbage barrels in the gym and it seemed as if every time she turned around, they were full again.
It also annoyed Delaney to no end how much she worried about Brody. No matter what she was doing or what minor crisis she was handling, in the back of her mind she was constantly aware of just how long he’d been gone. And it had only been about three hours. Though she didn’t forget he’d been born and raised in Tucker’s Point, she worried five years in warmer climates had made him soft.
“I’m sorry, Delaney.”
She hadn’t even noticed Sandy standing next to her, gently bouncing the baby on her shoulder.
“I wouldn’t have come,” Sandy continued, “but the house was cooling off way too fast and Noah’s too little to weather it out.”
Delaney jerked a full bag out of the garbage can and shoved down on the contents so she could tie it off. “Of course you had to come, Sandy. Don’t even worry about it. If he gets too fussy, we’ll take turns walking him and...well, people are going to have deal, that’s all.”
“Thanks, but I was talking about Brody. I’m sorry for bringing Brody here.”
Delaney sighed and looked at the sleeping baby. Noah looked a lot like Sandy, who looked a lot like Brody. Her heart twisted as she wondered if her and Brody’s babies would have looked like little Noah.
“It’s been five years,” Delaney said in a quiet voice. “And it was inevitable I’d run into him eventually. I’m fine. Really.”
“I wish I could have given you a heads-up, at least.”
Delaney laughed. “Then I might have stayed home and made s’mores over emergency candles and who would be here to take out the garbage?”
“Would you really have avoided him?”
“I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see him.” Delaney sighed. “Fine, it’s a little hard.”
“At least you didn’t bean him with your clipboard.”
“I thought about it. You know, he’d been acting weird for a couple of weeks before he left.” She gave a derisive snort. “I thought he was working up the nerve to ask me to marry him.”
“Oh, Delaney.” Sandy looked as if she was going to cry, so Delaney focused her attention on putting a fresh bag in the can. “We thought he was going to propose, too.”
“Guess he fooled us all.”
“I don’t think he meant to. Not that it helps any, but I think he was scared and confused.”
She wasn’t really in the mood to hear Brody defended, but Sandy was his sister, after all. Delaney knew she was only trying to help. “It was a long time ago. I’m over it.”
That was a lie, but Sandy was too busy shifting Noah’s weight to her other shoulder to see it on her face. Delaney hadn’t spent the last five years—okay, four and a half years, maybe—pining away for Brody Rollins, but she hadn’t found a man to replace him yet.
She’d dated. She’d even had a couple of relationships that might have grown serious enough to head to the altar and give her the family she wanted if her stupid, stubborn heart had been able to give up on the man who’d broken it.
But, even though she’d met some really nice guys who would have made good husbands, she hadn’t met one yet who made her feel the way Brody had. And, judging by her reaction to being around him, maybe still did.
* * *
THE ONLY THING worse than driving back into Tucker’s Point was riding shotgun around Tucker’s Point during an ice storm. The big plow truck with the massive sand-and-salt hopper on the back went okay, but it was still white-knuckle tense in the cab, especially with a little girl lost.
Brody kept his focus on the passing scenery, eyes peeled for a flash of purple or white or pink, but he saw nothing but the town he’d grown up in. They’d been at it for hours, going around the outskirts since people were searching the main downtown area on foot.
“This is a waste of time,” Mike said, not for the first time. “She’s not going to be walking down the side of the road. She’s hiding somewhere. Taking shelter.”
“You never know what a kid will do. She could be trying to walk home right now.”
“Not giving up. Just think it’s a waste of time. Now we’ve not only got a lost kid, but a whole lot of people who should be safe inside are out looking for her.” He handed his Thermos to Brody, signaling he was ready for another hit of coffee.
He poured Mike half a cup, strong and black, then screwed the lid back on. His brother-in-law was going to start getting jittery soon if he didn’t lay off the caffeine. “Hopefully somebody will find her soon.”
“Yeah. If it was Noah out there...” Mike swallowed some coffee, then shook his head. “I’d want every able-bodied person in the whole state of Maine out looking for him.”
Brody had to agree. He’d only known Noah less than a day and he’d already take on a pack of dragons with nothing but a butter knife for the kid.
“If this gets any worse, we’re going to have to head back,” Mike said in a grim voice. Ice was sheeting over the windshield so fast the defroster and wipers could barely keep up, and the kids could play pond hockey on the streets. “They’ll keep looking. Red’ll be out on Betsy—that John Deere of his—and they’ll keep searching on foot. Some of the guys have ATVs with chains on the tires. They’ll go out.”
Brody could hear the reluctance to give up in Mike’s voice, but he had to agree. Conditions were moving past treacherous and straight into deadly. “It’s like you said. She’s probably hiding somewhere under cover, anyway. It’s the door-to-door searches that’ll turn her up and we don’t want to pull people off that to come rescue us.”
He looked out the window, still looking for a flash of purple, while Mike radioed in for an update and to voice his concerns.
Cased in glittering ice, his hometown looked beautiful and peaceful, like something out of a snow globe. And he had to admire the way the town pulled together. He’d been listening to the chatter on Mike’s radio and this was a community that knew how to stand together and help their neighbors.
Maybe it was only as a grown man he could appreciate qualities like that. Growing up and in the few years after he graduated from high school, he’d felt nothing but resentment. Now he’d seen a little more of the world. Played cards in places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas and Miami. Flipped houses in almost every kind of suburban neighborhood, working his way up to some commercial stuff. It was easier to appreciate the bonds a town like Tucker’s Point fostered and why people might stay instead of getting out at the first opportunity, like he had.
“We’re heading back in,” Mike said, breaking into his thoughts. “We’ll take a different route back to cover the ground, but they’re pulling the road crews in.”
Brody would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved, but that didn’t make it any easier to abandon the search. And with Mike, Sandy and Noah together as a family, Brody was going to be left to his own devices, and there was nowhere to hide in the gym. Either for him or for Delaney.
They were almost back to the school when Mike changed the subject from his job, which Brody now knew more about than he’d ever wanted to, to the past. “We might have run with different crowds, but I remember you used to date Delaney. Sandy said you were still together when you moved away.”
There was no question, but his brother-in-law seemed to be waiting for some kind of response. “Yeah.”
“Must be weird, seeing her again.”
Now that the sucker punch of seeing her face had been absorbed, Brody was starting to like the idea of seeing Delaney again.
They definitely had unfinished business between them.
CHAPTER FOUR
BECAUSE, DESPITE HERSELF, she’d been watching for his return, Delaney knew the first thing Brody did when he walked through the gym door was scan the room until he found her. Their eyes met and she held his gaze until Mike said something to him, drawing his attention.
She was in trouble. Now matter how often she reminded herself of how badly he’d hurt her, the magnetism that had first drawn her to Brody and the chemistry that pulled them together were still as strong as they’d ever been. He was a rip tide that would suck her in and pull her under, but some reckless part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and dive in headfirst.
But several members of the road crew, besides Mike, were arriving, so she went into the kitchen to brew a fresh urn of coffee. Most of them would crash for a while, but she wanted to have it ready, just in case.
“Miss Delaney?” The small voice startled her, and she turned to see Mariah Turner standing in the doorway. “Did those men find April?”
“Not yet, honey.” Mariah and the little girl who was lost would be classmates, she realized. And no matter how discreet adults tried to be in their conversations, she’d obviously overheard somebody talking about April. “There are still people out there looking, though. They’ll find her, honey.”
“Did she run away?”
“I don’t know.” Delaney gave her a comforting smile. “Did she say anything about running away? Was she unhappy at school?”
“Nope. But if she didn’t run away, did somebody take her?”
Delaney didn’t know what to say. There was no training for this during the town’s emergency response drills. “I don’t know what happened to April, Mariah. But we’re going to think positive thoughts and when the searchers find her, we’ll be able to ask her ourselves, okay?”
“Okay. Can me and my sister have some oyster crackers?”
That she could deal with. She reached into a big box the restaurant had donated and took out two packets of oyster crackers. They were good snacks for antsy young people. Tasty, crunchy and—most importantly—not loaded with sugar.
“Thanks, Miss Delaney!” Mariah skipped out, almost colliding with Brody.
“Whoa!” He did a side step to keep from tripping over the child, then smiled after her. “The world was a less complicated place when a package of oyster crackers made everything better.”
“I’d give anything to have half her energy right now.”
“I was hoping for some artificial, caffeine-fueled energy.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.” The conversation was so...normal, Delaney could hardly believe she was having it with Brody. “The fresh stuff’s still brewing, but there’s some left in that pot that’s not too old.”
“It could be motor oil and, with a little cream and sugar, I’d drink it right now.”
“Bad out there?”
“Pretty bad. I think I’m going to be here awhile.”
Was that a warning? “Sandy will be happy to hear it. She’s missed you.”
“I can help with Noah, too.”
“And John and Camille must have been happy to see you.”
“I, uh...haven’t been to see them.” She gave him a look designed to make him feel like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, but he only shrugged. “I was going to stop by on my way out of town tomorrow, but the power went out.”
“Sandy talked to them while you guys were out. Not for long because Noah woke up in a really bad mood, but she said they’re doing okay.”
“They’re hardy. And stubborn.” He took a sip of the coffee and, when he closed his eyes to savor it, she looked away. “I really am sorry about the way I left town, Delaney.”
She forced herself to shrug, as though it was all so far in the past it didn’t hurt a bit. “It’s been five years.”
“Which means you’re five years overdue for an apology. I should have called you after I left.”
“You know what would have been better? If you’d called before you left.”
His mouth twisted and she saw the guilt on his face. “I knew if I told you I was leaving, you’d be hurt and I’d see it on your face. I was afraid you’d cry and I wouldn’t be able to walk away from you.”
“Oh, clearly it’s all my fault, then. Shame on me for loving you, I guess.”
“I knew if I stayed, eventually I’d hate you.”
She blinked, feeling his words like a slap across the face.
Brody shoved his hands through his hair. “I hated fishing. I hated my parents for not wanting a better life. I hated this town. If I stayed for you, in time I would have hated you, too.”
“I thought we were happy and that it would be enough.”
“You were happy because, at the end of the day, you went home to your parents. No matter how much time we spent together, it wasn’t the same as being married and on our own. It wouldn’t have been a few years as my wife before you were exhausted from doing laundry that smelled like low tide no matter how many times you washed it and trying to pay bills and feed kids on short pay. And I would have been a bitter, chain-smoking drunk, just like my old man.”
If that was truly his vision of their future, it was no wonder he’d run. “The fact you couldn’t tell me that just proves it wasn’t meant to be. You saw me as a burden, not a partner.”
“Delaney, I—” He was interrupted by the angry shriek of a newborn echoing through the gym. “Damn. Mike’s exhausted. I’m going to go see if I can walk the baby and let him and Sandy get some rest.”
She nodded, simultaneously relieved this conversation could end and disappointed he was walking away from her. It was probably for the best. He couldn’t unbreak her heart and, even if he could, nothing had changed.
Tucker’s Point was her home and it was a place he didn’t even want to visit, never mind return to for good. They could be civil—maybe even friendly—but there was no point in looking into the past. Brody Rollins wasn’t part of her future.
* * *
THERE WAS NOTHING like trying to keep a fussy infant soothed and quiet in a gym full of people to kill a guy’s new and fragile urge to start a family.
His arms ached, he had a tweak in the small of his back, his shoulder felt damp and his feet hurt. And, when he’d managed to sneak a peek at his watch mid-jostle, it had only been a half hour.
Parenthood was not for sissies.
He had nobody to ask for help, either. Not long after Mike and Sandy lay down, he’d seen Delaney slip behind a screen to the cot she and another volunteer were taking turns using. With those three people all napping, Brody was essentially alone in a room full of people.
He’d walked away from this community and he knew, from the looks he’d been getting, they hadn’t forgotten he’d snuck out in the dark, leaving them, his family and Delaney behind.
“Why don’t you let me help you with him?”
A woman who looked vaguely familiar stood next to him. While it was a relief to know he wasn’t alone, after all, he wasn’t too sure about handing Sandy’s baby over to just anybody who asked.
“I’m Dani Harbour.” He must have looked blank, because she arched one eyebrow at him. “I was a year behind you in school.”
“Delaney’s friend.”
“Yeah, Delaney’s friend.” The you jerk was implied by her tone. “Let me walk Noah for a little bit. You look beat.”
She knew the baby’s name. And it’s not as if she could go anywhere. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“In this town, we help our friends and neighbors.” She paused. “Sandy and Mike are both.”
Just so he knew he wasn’t either. “I appreciate it.”
He handed Noah to Dani and then pressed his hands to the small of his back, twisting to work the kinks out. Relaxing was an entirely different thing, however, and he found himself hovering as the storm’s refugees took turns passing the baby. While he appreciated the way the community stuck together, that was his nephew they were playing hot potato with.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Sandy emerged from behind the screen almost an hour and a half later. Noah was obviously winding himself up for a good bawl and even the comfort of snuggling against Rebecca Cox’s really ample breasts wasn’t doing it for the little guy anymore. He wanted to eat.
Sandy looked well-rested, though, which was good. With her husband safe and her baby being looked after, she’d managed a power nap she desperately needed. She smiled when she spotted them and made her way over.
“Time for the little monster to eat,” she said, taking Noah from Becks. “Thanks for babysitting. I feel so much better now.”
“You needed the rest,” Brody said. “I wish you could have slept longer.”
As he said it, he caught Delaney slipping out of her sleeping area through the corner of his eye. She should have slept longer, he thought. Wearing herself out taking care of things did nobody any good.
She disappeared in the direction of the bathrooms and, when he saw her again, she was fresh-faced and looked ready to tackle whatever the next thing on her list was.
Well, she wasn’t going to tackle it alone. Brody wasn’t used to sitting around and he was more than capable of helping in any way he could. He made his way over to the check-in table, where she was drinking orange juice and reading something on her clipboard.
“What can I do to help?”
She jumped, almost dropping her plastic cup of juice. “Brody! Don’t sneak up on people.”
“All I did was walk. What are you reading?”
“I’m trying to find anything at all I can to justify putting off the next thing on my list.”
If Delaney was avoiding it, it couldn’t be a pleasant task. “What is it? I can help.”
She sighed, dropping the clipboard on the table. “It’s time to go around and clean and disinfect. With so many people in one place, it’s important to stay on top of the germs so I have to wipe everything down with bleach water.”
“Point me towards a bucket, oh fearless leader.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t really see you in rubber gloves with that sweater and those shoes.”
“What about them?”
“I know quality when I see it, Brody. It’s obvious you haven’t had to do manual labor in a while.”
That wounded him for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I’m not afraid of hard work. I might have crews to do the heavy lifting now, but don’t forget I’m from here—from the docks. I know hard work.”
Her eyes met his and she tilted her head, as though he were a puzzle she was trying to solve. “Gee, Brody. That almost sounded like hometown pride there for a second.”
“I’m just saying I can do whatever you need done. That’s all.” Pride wasn’t an emotion he connected to his childhood.
“I’m not going to turn down the help. Let’s go get the stuff.”
He followed her through the double doors in the hallway, trying to keep his eyes above her waist and not on the gentle sway of her hips as she walked. Especially since they were being watched. They were always being watched in the gym as people kept watch for any scrap of gossip.
The supply closet was next to the gym, and he waited while she found the right key on the ring he assumed the school supplied to the emergency management volunteers. The small room must have been on the same circuit with the gym because, when she flipped the switch, the overhead light flickered and turned on. He followed her in and wrinkled his nose at the chemical smell.
“I saw that,” she told him, amusement in her voice. “I can probably find you other work, like holding Mrs. Cameron’s ball of yarn while she knits, if this is too much for you.”
The amusement in her eyes and the light teasing in her voice dragged him back to five years ago, when Delaney had been his only joy. The hours he’d spent with her had been the bright spots in a dismal life, and his body reacted to their achingly familiar chemistry with a rush of desire.
Her eyes widened when he stepped toward her, needing to touch her again. “Brody...”
“Delaney.” There were shelving units behind her and she couldn’t retreat. “Have I mentioned how much I’ve missed you?”
He watched her face, looking for anger or rejection or anything negative, but all he saw was the hot blush across her neck and cheeks, and her eyes focused on his mouth.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered.
It had been inevitable from the second he stepped through the doors and saw her for the first time, he realized. Five years hadn’t cooled what sizzled between them. Under the ashes of his abandonment, the embers burned and now the fire flared again. This was the only woman he’d ever loved and there was no way he could stop himself from touching her.
* * *
BRODY WAS GOING to kiss her. Delaney knew the man more intimately than she’d ever known any other, and his intention was made plain in the hot and hungry look in his eyes and the way he moved toward her.
She should shove him away. There were plenty of other things he could do that didn’t require being near her. Kissing him was a dead-end road and she should bang a U-turn before she ended up stuck in that lonely place she’d ended up before.
But she was going to let him kiss her because she had no resistance against him. She never had. And she wanted the kiss, too.
With his hands braced against the shelves on either side of her head, Brody lowered his forehead until it came to rest gently against hers. His eyes closed and she knew he was fighting the same internal battle she was.
A kiss would be a very bad idea.
“Kissing you is a bad idea,” he whispered.
At least they were on the same page.
“But I want to,” he continued. Definitely on the same page. “It’s all I can think about. And I don’t have to wonder what it’ll be like. I know kissing you is like pulling a royal flush in a high-stakes game. It’s a total rush and nothing will ever beat it.”
Warmth curled through Delaney and she felt the soft breath of his sigh over her face. She placed her hands on his chest and felt his body stiffen under her touch. She could push him away. She should push him away.
Instead, she ran her palms over the soft wool of his sweater and up to his shoulders. A slight nudge, pulling him in, was all it took. His mouth covered hers and the sweetness of it tugged at her heart.
His lips were gentle and she shivered when his tongue danced over her bottom lip. He was savoring her, and she reveled in the sensations that swept through her. No matter what her mind said, her body and her heart knew this kiss. Nobody had ever made her feel the way he could with a simple touch of his lips.
Delaney’s fingertips bit into Brody’s shoulders as he deepened the kiss, but she still didn’t pull away.
She knew she should. Letting herself get too close to Brody Rollins would bring her nothing but a second helping of heartache, and yet there was something about his kiss that felt so right. His tongue danced over hers and she leaned into him as his hand slid up her back. Her body remembered this—the feel of his touch—and wanted more.
It was the sound of the door handle jiggling that finally gave her the strength to break away.
Good lord, a quarter of the town was just a few feet away and here she was, making out with Brody in the custodian’s closet like a teenager.
“Delaney?” It was Alice, one of the other volunteers, and Delaney slipped out from between Brody and the shelves as the door opened.
“I’m in here. What do you need?”
Alice’s gaze bounced between Delaney and Brody a few times, and Delaney was dismayed when she saw understanding dawn in the other woman’s eyes. This would be a nice bit of gossip for everybody to chew on for a while. “Sorry. We’re running low on paper towels.”
She grabbed a few rolls, balancing them in her arms, and then gave Delaney a quick smile on her way out. “I’ll just...go. Take your time.”
Delaney wondered if she’d meant that to sound as suggestive as it came out. “Just grabbing some bleach, rags and buckets. We’ll be right out.”
When the door swung shut behind Alice, Delaney had to stifle a groan. Even if she hurried, half the people in the gym would know she’d been kissing Brody Rollins in the supply room before she got out there. The news would trickle through to the other half whether she was in the gym or not.
“I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Brody said quietly.
“I didn’t exactly put up a fight.”
“No, but now everybody will be talking and...I’m sorry.”
She grabbed two buckets and put a cleaning rag and a plastic gallon of bleach in each one. They’d fill them with hot water from the kitchen. “At least it’s only a matter of time before you get to leave. Again. So you won’t have to hear it.”
“Delaney, come on.”
“At least this time you have to sign yourself out so, as long as I’m manning the clipboard, I’ll know you’re going this time.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, making her stand still. “I don’t know how many times I can apologize for not telling you in person I was leaving.”
“Screw the note, Brody. Has it occurred to you I’m having a little trouble with the fact you didn’t ask me to go with you?”
He didn’t know how to make her understand. “If I’d asked you to go, you would have wanted to think about it and make plans and...I don’t know. Sort through all your stuff and come up with a whole pile of stuff you wanted to take.”
“Like any normal person would.”
“If I’d had to wait for you, I would have lost my courage. I drove out of here in a beat-up car with a duffel bag of clothes and two hundred bucks in my pocket because right then, at that moment, I was more afraid of staying than leaving.”
“Fine. Just don’t lie to me—or to yourself—and say that right then, at that moment, I factored into your decision at all.”
He blew out a breath, then took one of the buckets from her. “You sure know how to take the blush off a good kiss.”
That was the point. “I have work to do.”
She left the supply room and hurried into the gym before he could say anything else.
They worked in silence, washing down almost every touchable surface in the gymnasium with the diluted bleach mixture. He took some good-natured ribbing from some of the guys about his bright yellow rubber gloves, but Delaney tried to ignore the rich sound of his laughter. She tried to ignore the way he stopped to talk to people now and then, rebuilding old bonds he’d severed so unexpectedly.
But no matter how much she tried to focus on the past and wrap herself in a security blanket of old hurts, her gaze was drawn to him time after time. More often than not, he’d catch her looking and his expression would be pensive, as if he were trying to gauge her mood. And she was keenly aware that most of the people in the gym with them were watching them watch each other.
Probably making little tsk sounds under their breath. Poor Delaney. That Rollins boy broke her heart once and now she’s going to let him do it again. Foolish girl.
That thought finally ignited the anger and resentment his kiss had cooled and she held on to it throughout the rest of the day. Even when he helped her clean up after they’d served supper to the crowd, she managed to be polite and appreciative, but decidedly detached.
But when they dimmed the lights and everybody around her started drifting into restless sleep, Delaney lay awake, staring at the ceiling because every time she closed her eyes, she relived that kiss again.
And ached for another.
CHAPTER FIVE
TUESDAY MORNING CAME early, thanks to the kids who couldn’t sleep in when away from their homes. Or maybe kids never slept in. Brody didn’t have a clue, but he knew these kids were up and at ’em like a horde of two-legged, overeager roosters.
Brody sat on the floor, his back up against the wall. He felt trapped and restless and, from all reports, the freak storm wasn’t abating any. He’d already powered up his phone to deal with some email, including responding to the message from his office manager, who thought her boss being stuck in a school gym was the funniest thing that had ever happened.
He’d helped serve breakfast, with nary a word from Delaney. Then he’d suffered through watching her lead the kids in a fun but energy-burning morning exercise. It had been torture, watching her bounce and shimmy, but it would be worth the physical suffering if the kids napped later.
Brody was nodding off himself, his head against the hard gym wall, when Sandy nudged him with her foot. He took Noah and, after nestling him in one arm, used his free hand to help guide his sister into a sitting position.
“I turned my phone on for a few minutes and I had a voice mail from Mike.”
Her voice had a serious undertone that immediately concerned him. “He’s okay, right? Did he go off the road?”
“No, he’s fine. But I had asked him to stop by and check on my parents—our parents, I mean—and their power went out Sunday night shortly after ours did. Ma had the burners on the stove lit, trying to stay warm.”
“They’ve been without heat for two nights?”
“Yeah, but you know how Dad is. He can’t smoke in here, so he didn’t want to come.”
Brody shook his head, not surprised by their stubbornness, no matter how stupid it was to use your gas cookstove for heat. “I hope Mike gave them a stern lecture.”
“He did. He also made them pack a bag and they’re on their way here. I just missed his call, so they should be here any minute.”
Great. His parents were just what this involuntary group reunion was missing. Though seeing them here was better than having to step foot in the house he’d grown up in. “I’m surprised he got them to leave. They can be pretty stubborn.”
“He said he told them I was having a hard time here because he couldn’t be with me and Noah.” She paused to smile. “And he told Ma you were stuck here and couldn’t get away.”
“Smart guy.” He paused, debating on how best to phrase his next question. “Did he tell her anything else?”
“You mean that you got caught making out in the janitor’s closet with Delaney Westcott?”
His sister wasn’t known for being subtle. “We were not making out.”
“Not what I heard.”
“We weren’t.” He cleared his throat. “I kissed her, though. Just a kiss.”
“Just a kiss because that’s all there was to it, or just a kiss because Alice walked in on you before it was more than just a kiss?”
“Leave it alone, San.”
“I’ve known you my whole life, so I know you can be an idiot sometimes. I didn’t know you had a mean streak, though.”
That pissed him off, but he forced himself to stay relaxed. He’d figured out pretty quickly babies were sensitive to the emotions of the people holding them. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn’t force the kiss on her. Trust me.”
“You’re playing with her emotions and that makes you a jerk.”
“Is that just your opinion or did the fine people of Tucker’s Point discuss it and come to a consensus?”
“Except for a few incurable romantics who think you came back to sweep Delaney off her feet and carry her into the sunset, it’s pretty much a consensus.”
“Great.” He shouldn’t care what a bunch of people he hadn’t seen in years and wouldn’t see again in the near future thought of him, but it stung a little. Why did going out in the world and making something of himself make him a bad guy? And he wasn’t the first guy to break things off with a girl, either.
Brody wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he was so relieved to see his parents enter the gym he wanted to let out a cheer. The conversation with Sandy was over. He didn’t like having his relationship with Delaney poked at and prodded. He didn’t know what was going on himself, so he couldn’t very well explain it to anybody else.
After Sandy stood up, she took Noah, freeing him to stand. His butt hurt from sitting on the hard floor, but there were only so many places to sit and the women and older men had dibs by right. The floor was actually more comfortable than trying to sit on one of the cots, but it didn’t make getting up any easier.
His mom met him halfway across the gym and Brody hugged her so tightly, he lifted her right off the floor. “It’s good to see you, Ma.”
“Let me look at you.” She took a step back and cupped his face in her hands to get a good look. “I swear, you get more handsome every time I see you.”
“With a mother as beautiful as you, it’s inevitable.”
She laughed and swatted his arm. “Go say hello to your father.”
He hugged his dad, though the embrace was brief and he left the old man’s feet on the floor. “Looking good, Pop.”
“You, too, son. Glad you were here to take care of your sister and little Noah.”
“Sandy would have been fine, but I’m glad I was here, too. And, trust me, if I’d known you had no heat, I would have gone after you and Mom, too.”
John Rollins scoffed. “We were fine.”
“That’s why mom was warming herself over a stove burner?”
“Now you sound like your brother-in-law. I swear, you two nag like a bunch of women.”
“Hey,” his wife and daughter said at the same time.
Brody laughed and took their bags. “I guess we should get you two some cots. Squeeze them over by ours.”
“Delaney said she’d get them,” his mother said, and he saw the speculative gleam in her eye.
Damn. A growing audience to whatever—if anything—was going on between him and Delaney wasn’t helping matters any. “That’s good. Once you warm up, you’re probably going to sleep for hours.”
As if on cue, his mom yawned. “I gotta smooch on my grandson for a little while first.”
Another entry in the why babies were good column. They were excellent distractions when you needed to change the subject. “He’ll be glad to have another familiar body to cuddle with. He’s been passed around a lot.”
“I hope he doesn’t get sick.” She took Noah from Sandy, fussing over him as he waved a tiny fist at her.
“Brody’s been doing his best to keep that from happening,” Sandy said, her voice light with amusement. “You should see him in his rubber gloves, scrubbing things down with bleach water. It’s really cute.”
His dad gave him a skeptical look. “Rubber gloves?”
“There’s not a lot of call for splitting wood, changing motor oil or other manly endeavors, Pop. I help where I can.”
“Women love a man who’s not afraid to do a little housework,” his mother added, giving him a knowing look.
Please God, Brody thought, let the storm stop soon.
* * *
DELANEY WASN’T IN too bad a mood for a woman trapped in a school gymnasium. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, but nothing—not even painful memories of kisses or intense looks from the woman whom she’d always thought would be her mother-in-law someday—could dim the satisfaction of a job being done well. Even with the added stress of Brody and his family in the group, she’d received several compliments on how smoothly the shelter was running.
She even smiled at Brody as he approached her, fighting the urge to turn and run. Or at least hide behind something so everybody wasn’t watching for her reaction to him. “What’s up?”
He gave her the smile she knew was meant to charm her into doing his bidding. “Any chance we can go poking around the classrooms for a jar of buttons or something?”
“Why would there be jars of buttons in the classrooms?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Or... Oh, paperclips! Some boxes of paperclips would do.”
“The classrooms are locked.”
“You have the keys. At least you did when we got the bleach.”
Busted. “We’re not stealing office supplies from the school, Brody.”
“Borrowing. We’d be borrowing office supplies for the children.”
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, realizing he wasn’t going to leave her be until he got whatever he was after. “Why do the children need boxes of paperclips?”
“Because we have no poker chips.”
“Why do the children need poker chips? Just who is we?”
“The older kids. Some adults, too. Pop and I are going to teach them how to play poker. Everybody’s bored and my parents are starting to bicker. Most of them know how to play already, though, so we’ll have tournaments once the ones who don’t grasp the basics.”
He looked excited about it, so she refrained from laughing at him. “Don’t you think Go Fish would be more appropriate? Maybe Rummy? And we have about five hundred jigsaw puzzles.”
“Mrs. Palmer has laid claim to most of the puzzles and she gets really nasty if you don’t do all the outside pieces first.”
“It’s easier that way.”
“She slapped Mr. Bergen’s hand. He’s gotta be almost seventy. A kid could have nightmares for life.”
This time she did laugh, until he laughed with her and the warm sound tied her stomach in knots. “You’re trying to distract me from your plan to corrupt our kids by teaching them to gamble.”
His green eyes sparkled with amusement, so she focused on his mouth. That was a mistake. “As corruption goes, it’s fairly mild.”
“But why poker?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
Delaney sighed. She knew he was good at it. During downtime on the boats, the guys played poker and they learned young. He’d tried to teach her how to play a few times but she was so bad at it, even the incentive of winning her clothing piece by piece couldn’t overcome his impatience with her.
“Do you know how I made my money?” he asked, his tone serious now.
“When Sandy and Mike were buying their house, she said you answered a lot of questions for her because you flip real estate.”
“But I bought my very first flip property with money I won on the poker circuit. That’s how I got out of here and how I got my start.”
She hadn’t known that, but it concerned her even more than the possibility of gambling for paperclips raising some judgmental eyebrows. “Brody, don’t fill these kids’ heads with big dreams of gambling their way out of here.”
“What’s wrong with big dreams?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Nothing. But a lot of these kids will grow up and fish or work for little more than minimum wage and be just fine. The ones who dream big will either fight for their dreams or they won’t. Just because you got lucky doesn’t mean there are shortcuts.”
“Delaney, I’m not going to lure the adolescent population of Tucker’s Point away with me like some kind of poker-playing Pied Piper. It’s just something fun to do for the in-between crowd and the older folks who don’t want to play—and I quote, ‘baby games’—or risk getting their hands slapped by Mrs. Palmer.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll help you scrounge up fake poker chips, but you have to get permission from parents for the younger kids.”
“Deal.”
“One of the first grade teachers is a good friend of mine. We’ll forage in her classroom.”
She knew even as she led Brody through the doors into the main hallway that tongues would start wagging the second they closed behind them, but it couldn’t be helped. Sending another volunteer to accompany him wasn’t really an option because she wasn’t totally comfortable rummaging around the classrooms and she was personally responsible for the big ring of keys. Only the fact Patti Worth was a personal friend made it okay.
The squeak of their shoes on the waxed floor was the only sound as she led him down a maze of hallways to the door marked by a sign reading Miss Worth in colorful, hand-drawn letters. Delaney felt slightly naughty as she unlocked it and slipped inside, but she wasn’t sure if it was being in the classroom, or being alone with Brody.
And they were very, very alone.
“It’s so quiet here,” Brody said, kicking the door closed behind him. “Makes me want to grab a pillow and blanket and hide under the desk until the storm’s over.”
“I wish we could use the rooms, especially for Sandy and Noah, but there are rules and most of them boil down to insurance and liability.”
“You wouldn’t even sneak down here for a power nap?”
She gave him a stern look, and then glanced around the room to find the most likely hiding spot for boxes of paper clips. “It’s against the rules.”
“You always were a good girl.”
The way he said the words—the warm timbre of his voice—had flashbacks rolling through her mind. Stolen kisses. His hand sliding up under her sweater for the first time. Making love in a borrowed boat under an endless sky. “Not always.”
“No. Not always.” He was closer and, when she turned, she found himself close enough to touch.
This time he kissed her swiftly, with no time for deliberations. His mouth was demanding and she surrendered to him, tired of fighting her feelings. The kiss went on and on, until her knees were weak and it seemed as though his hands on her back were all that were keeping her from falling.
When he broke it off, he kept his face close to hers, his arms wrapped around her. She liked being in his arms. She felt safe there, and treasured. The world had always seemed right when she was in Brody’s arms.
His breath was warm against her cheek and she closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of him. Reality seemed to shift between the present and their past. His subtle, expensive aroma and the feel of fine wool were strange, but the feel of his body against hers and the way he touched her was so familiar her heart ached.
When his hand cupped the side of her face, she turned into it, savoring the feeling of his thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“Your skin is so soft,” he said in a quiet voice. “Every time I touched you, I hated my hands. They were rough and callused and you deserved to be touched by somebody whose hands didn’t scratch like sandpaper against your skin.”
“I loved your hands. Strong and capable. You worked hard and you loved hard. That’s what your hands meant to me.”
“I want to make love to you again, Delaney.”
Words clogged in her throat. Reasons why they shouldn’t. Confessions of just how badly she wanted that, too. But none of them came out.
“I don’t have any protection,” he said after a long moment of silence.
“And this is my friend’s first-grade classroom. I can’t have sex on her floor.”
“Or her desk?”
“Oh, God no.” She laughed, burying her face in his sweater. “I’d never be able to look her in the face again.”
“So we have to stop.” He paused, as if waiting for her to argue, but she was silent. “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to, either.” She took a deep breath. “But we have to.”
“Then we need to stop touching now.”
Very reluctantly, she backed away from him. Her face felt hot and flushed, and he looked a little hot and bothered himself. “Let’s find some paperclips and get you back to your poker buddies before they come looking for us.”
Brody held her hand for the walk back to the gym, and Delaney couldn’t help but feel things had changed between them. The hurt that had flared up when she saw him again had faded away and they were falling back into their old passionate but comfortable relationship.
She needed to remember that relationship she’d been so comfortable in had ended in pain and tears, though. Five years ago, Brody had kissed her and held her hand, and then he’d taken off in the night. No matter how good it felt to have him back, Delaney couldn’t forget he was only there because he couldn’t leave.
He released her hand before going through the doors into the gym, but not before giving her a quick kiss. Then he looked into her eyes for a few seconds. “I’d ask if you want to play with us, but now I remember just how bad your poker face is.”
She wanted to ask him what he saw in her eyes, but before she could work up the courage, he’d opened the door, brandishing the boxes of paper clips as though he’d been foraging for food and returned with a bounty.
Delaney watched as a group of kids swarmed him, their excitement obvious. But then she noticed Camille watching her watch her son and turned away. She was going to have to work on that poker face.
* * *
“HARD TO BELIEVE you made a living out of playing poker, son.”
Brody snorted, but it was hard to deny the fact his pile of paper clips was significantly smaller than the old man’s. “Maybe it’s strategy. Sucker you in and make you feel safe so you start betting large.”
“Or maybe you’re spending too much time watching that girl and not enough time watching your cards.”
If Delaney had been in the casinos and back rooms, fussing over people and checking things off her clipboard, Brody would probably have about two dollars to his name and be living in his car. If he still had one. She was one hell of a powerful distraction.
“What girl?” one of the kids asked. Jason, he thought his name was. He was the son of the guy who’d been a mouthy punk in school but was now, as Sandy had said, just a dad stuck in a room with his two boys waiting for the storm to end.
“No girl. My dad thinks he’s funny.” But he couldn’t keep himself from glancing in Delaney’s direction.
She caught him looking and smiled. He smiled back. The awkwardness between them had eased up and she wasn’t dodging his gaze anymore. He liked that. A lot.
“Much more of this and I’ll take everything you own,” Donnie Cox said, laying down his cards and sweeping the pile of paper clips into his own growing pile.
“Dammit.” Brody tried to force his attention back to the game.
“That’s a bad word,” Jason said. Really loudly.
“Sorry,” Brody said in the general direction of all the heads that swiveled to glare at him.
Most of the younger kids had grown bored with all the thinking that went into playing poker and were, probably much to Delaney’s delight, off playing Go Fish along with some game that seemed to consist of the kids slapping each other’s hands every time a jack turned up in the pile.
Once Jason moved on, probably lured away by the idea of slapping his brother, the guys played a few more hands before they lost interest. Brody shuffled the cards, strangely comforted by the familiar feel and motion in his hands, but he didn’t deal again.
“Becks is after me to pump you for information, you know,” Donnie said. “Took you guys quite a while to find paper clips considering every room in this building is, you know, a school room.”
“Delaney wasn’t comfortable taking them from just anybody’s classroom. One of the first grade teachers is a friend of hers, so we had to walk all the way to her room. And back.”
“Not judging. I wouldn’t mind a little alone time with my wife right about now.”
Brody wanted to point out he and Delaney hadn’t had that kind of alone time, but he figured it would go in one ear and out the other. People seemed to have made up their minds they were a couple again and nothing he said was going to keep the speculation down. It would only make them more determined to be right.
Maybe they were. He really wasn’t sure what was going on with them, but whatever it was felt right to him. It felt natural to kiss her and hold her hand in the hallway. What hadn’t felt natural was ending things in the classroom before it got any more physical. He’d wanted her badly—hell, he still did—but he hadn’t packed condoms for his less-than-two-days trip back to his hometown.
He glanced up again and caught Delaney looking at him. She was pretending to listen to the women around her talking, but the steamy look in her eyes almost made him flub his shuffle and blow cards everywhere.
“You two have to stop making eye contact,” his dad said, “or your mother’s going to get all kinds of ideas in her head.”
Brody jerked his attention back to the cards and dealt them out, without even asking if his dad and Donnie wanted in. He needed the distraction because he was starting to get ideas of his own in his head.
And those ideas were going to get him into nothing but trouble.
CHAPTER SIX
THINGS WERE QUIET in the gym on Wednesday morning. Nobody was sleeping soundly and it was starting to take a toll on people. And the sense of adventure was wearing off for the kids. They wanted their video games and favorite foods and their freedom. Everybody was doing their best to stay upbeat, if only for the children, but spirits were flagging.
Even if it came with an air of depression, Delaney was thankful for the quiet. She’d seen so much of Brody from a distance. He played with the kids and talked with the adults. Helped out wherever he could. Nobody would ever guess he’d been dragged back into the community against his will.
But she liked sitting on the floor with him in a quiet corner, on small cushions he’d made by folding up their blankets. They were side by side, and he had a sleeping Noah cradled in his left arm and the fingers of his right hand were laced through hers.
She’d be lying if she said it didn’t tug at her heart, the way they were sitting there like a little fake family. He was so good with Noah—and with the other kids—and she’d done a lot of thinking about what a good dad he’d be. Way too much thinking, actually. Images of him as a dad were getting all tangled up with her increasingly ticking biological clock and leading her down an imaginary path to heartbreak.
He’d been telling her about his early days on the poker circuit, when he was scrimping and saving every dollar he could make at odd jobs to pay his way into tournaments. It didn’t sound as glamorous as she’d first imagined, and she wondered how she would have fared if he’d taken her with him. Probably not very well. She wasn’t much of a risk-taker and never had been.
“I thought about you a lot in those days,” Brody said. “Correction—I still think about you a lot. I’ve missed you.”
“Not enough to pick up a phone and give me a call?” It was hard for her to reconcile all the times he’d told her he missed her and thought about her with the fact he’d never reached out to her.
“Sandy’s never forgiven me for the way I left, so she never mentions you on the phone and I was too proud to ask, but whenever I thought about you, I wanted to imagine you married, with some cute kids. A dog and a picket fence and a minivan.” There was a hint of sadness and maybe regret in his voice.
“Haven’t gotten there yet. Seems a little odd, though, if you missed me so much, that you’d imagine me living happily ever after with somebody else.”
“I needed you to be happy in my head, Delaney. If you were happy and had a good life, it made missing you worth it.”
She leaned her head against the wall and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “You felt less guilty, you mean.”
“That, too. But mostly I’d picture you living a life I couldn’t give you and know I made the right decision.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Tell me about your life now,” she said, because she was tired of rehashing the past. Maybe it was a little like rubbing salt in old wounds, but she wanted to picture him in his world.
“I work a lot. Actually, that’s pretty much all I do. If I’m not on a site dealing with a remodel, I’m meeting with real estate agents or financial backers. When I’m home, I’m usually on the computer, researching foreclosure lists and property values and a whole lot of boring stuff.”
“So what you do now is as risky as poker. You’re just gambling with properties instead of on cards.”
He chuckled, then bounced his arm gently up and down when Noah squirmed. “Maybe, but luck gets less of a say. I have good instincts, but I also do my research. Flipping real estate might be a gamble, but I stack the deck in my favor.”
“Where do you live?” It felt ridiculous, having to ask that question, but at least it was a reminder he’d made a life for himself somewhere else, and it didn’t include her.
“I have a condo in Connecticut, but I travel a lot. I don’t have an office to speak of, even though Marjorie picked the title office manager for herself. She runs things for me, but out of her house.”
He lived in Connecticut. Only a couple of states away. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that. She wanted to ask him what his condo looked like, maybe so she could picture him in it, but she didn’t want to sound weird.
“Sandy doesn’t tell me much about your life,” she said. “I think she’s afraid to say something that might hurt me, so I know almost nothing about the last five years of your life.”
“Just work, like I said.”
What about women? Of course he’d dated. He was young and attractive and he’d never wanted for female attention, even when she’d been on his arm. But had he been in love since Delaney? She didn’t think a marriage and divorce would have stayed quiet with his family still in Tucker’s Point, but what about other serious relationships?
He squeezed her hand. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, the answer is no.”
“What do you think I’m thinking?”
“I haven’t loved anybody else since I left you.”
Delaney had to blink back the tears that suddenly blurred her vision. “I tried to replace you. It didn’t work.”
“Good. That would make us sitting here together a lot more awkward.”
She laughed softly and turned her head to see Noah looking at her with his solemn baby eyes. “He looks like you.”
“He definitely has a lot of Rollins in him. Mike and Sandy should probably start bracing themselves for his teen years.”
At the sound of his uncle’s voice, Noah shifted his intense gaze to him. He seemed fascinated by Brody’s face, not that Delaney could blame him. Brody was looking a little scruffy, like the other men at the school, but it only added a little edge to his good looks.
Watching man and infant gaze into each other’s eyes was too much for Delaney, and she looked away. She couldn’t push back the resentment. Brody had taken her dreams for a family with him when he ran, and that was a hard thing to forgive.
“He’s such a cute little bugger,” Brody said in a painfully soft voice.
“How long do you think it’ll be before he starts wailing?” she asked, looking around to see if Sandy was in sight.
Of course she was. And she must have been feeling the need to nurse because all Delaney had to do was look at her and the new mom was moving toward them. Once she’d taken Noah and gone back toward their cots, Brody slipped his arm around Delaney’s shoulders and pulled her close.
When he kissed the top of her head, she sighed and tried to relax in his arms. There was no sense in holding on to past hurts. Life hadn’t turned out the way she’d thought it would, but she could embrace this moment for the short time it would last.
* * *
BRODY HELPED PREPARE the evening meal and serve it, so Delaney refused to let him help clean up after.
“I like spending time with you,” he argued. “Even if it’s dish duty.”
She laughed. “That’s really sweet, but there’s a rotation and some people have been getting lazy because you’re doing their share.”
He caught her pointed look toward Alice. “Fine. I’ll go hang with Pop for a while. The more entertained we keep him, the fewer times he goes out in the cold for a smoke.”
He found his old man stretched out on a cot, reading a hunting magazine. As far as Brody knew, his dad had never hunted a day in his life, so he assumed the magazine was borrowed from one of the other guys.
“Learning anything?”
“Yeah.” His dad closed the magazine and sat up on the cot. “Learning you can buy pretty much anything in camo.”
Brody sat on the cot next to his dad’s, breathing a sigh of relief. He’d been on his feet a long time, and he couldn’t imagine how Delaney felt. “I think I saw a camo teddy bear at Sandy’s before the power went out.”
His dad nodded, then fell silent for a few minutes. Brody got the impression he had something on his mind, but talking emotions didn’t come naturally to John Rollins. Usually it was Brody’s mom who conveyed their feelings back and forth. “You know your father loves you, Brody” and the like.
“You seem happy, son. You’ve done well for yourself.”
“Thanks, Pop. It’s a lot of work, but I’m pretty happy with where I am in life.”
“Wish you hadn’t broken your mother’s heart doing it, though.”
Brody bowed his head, focusing all his attention on a fuzz on the cuff of his sweater just so he had a place to look. “I don’t know how to explain why I left the way I did without sounding like I’m putting you down.”
“Son, you think I don’t know my work is hard and pretty thankless? Nobody knows more than me that my house ain’t grand and my wife doesn’t have a diamond ring and my truck don’t run half the time. But you and your sister never wanted for a meal, dammit.”
“I wanted more. There was always food on the table and I appreciate that, but I wanted more for myself and if I talked about doing something else, you’d just shake your head and walk away. Fishing was good enough for you so, by God, it was good enough for me.”
His dad was quiet until Brody finally looked up. The old man’s voice was as sad as his eyes when he did speak. “I didn’t know how to want more for you, Brody. I’m a fisherman, just like my father and my grandfather and two generations before him. Hell, your mom’s mother was a fisherman’s wife and so on before her. We don’t know any life but this.”
Brody had to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Maybe it’s because Delaney came from a family that didn’t fish, but every time I’d try to picture our future, I saw her looking tired and older than her age, with worry lines from years of juggling bills.”
“And you saw yourself being me.”
He didn’t know what to say to his dad. The words were true, but admitting it out loud seemed like a cruel blow for a man who’d done his best. He hadn’t been running away from his parents. He was running to the man he wanted to be.
“I went through the same thing,” his dad said. “I was maybe a little younger than you were when you left. Looked around and realized I was going to spend my whole life fishing like my old man and I’d end up just like him. The only difference between you and me at that age is that you had the guts to leave.”
It had never occurred to Brody that his father might have felt that way. And maybe his father before him. “I love you and Mom. I hope you know that.”
“We do. And even though we hated losing you, we’re both proud of what you’ve made of yourself.”
Brody had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “Thanks, Pop.”
“Your big screw-up, though, was not taking your girl with you.”
Yeah, he knew that now. But at the time... “I had two hundred bucks in my pocket and no plans. No safety net. No family. No nothing.”
“Once you started making some money for yourself, why didn’t you call her?”
Brody couldn’t meet his dad’s piercing gaze, so he focused on the sweater fuzz again. “I didn’t have the guts to tell anybody I was leaving. I didn’t say goodbye to her. I guess I didn’t have the guts to call her, either. I thought about it. A lot, actually. But I didn’t think I could take her hanging up on me.”
“Kind of gutless for a young man who left everything he’d known to go off into the world with only two hundred bucks in his pocket.”
“Being cold and hungry wouldn’t kill me, but Delaney turning a cold shoulder to me might have.”
“And now you made the girl fall for you all over again and we all know you won’t stay. Guess that makes you a... What’s that word the young people use nowadays? Douche bag?”
Brody almost choked. “Pop! What?”
“Pretty sure that’s the word I’m looking for.” He gave Brody a sly look. “Unless you’re planning to stick it out this time.”
He wasn’t sure yet what he was going to do, and he couldn’t come up with the words to explain that since his brain was busy trying to wrap itself around the fact his old man had called him a douche bag.
“Sure is a pretty lady,” his dad continued, his eyes fixed on Delaney across the room. “Your mom told me this morning you guys would make pretty grandbabies.”
Babies. Brody watched Delaney lean down to speak to one of the kids and his gut tightened. It was too easy to picture her with a smaller version of herself and maybe a little Brody. She’d be a great mom.
What wasn’t easy to picture was the home they’d live in. Not his condo. It not only wasn’t kid-friendly, but he couldn’t imagine Delaney away from Tucker’s Point. This wasn’t simply the town she lived in or the people she knew. This was her home and they were like family to her. Even an idiot could see that after the days they’d all spent cooped up together.
But he couldn’t picture himself in Tucker’s Point, either. Sure, he’d bonded with people again. There were old friends, like Donnie Cox. His parents and his sister and Mike. And there was Noah. The kid had weaseled his way under his uncle’s skin and visits to the kid would be frequent. He’d make sure the boy could Skype before he could even talk.
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Jennifer Greene
Barbara Dunlop
Shannon Stacey
Tucker’s Point three-day forecast: stormy with a chance of romanceHEART OF THE STORM by Shannon StaceyBrody Rollins is back in tiny Tucker’s Point, Maine, for the first time in five years, and now he can’t escape…from former neighbors, old regrets or maddening glimpses of his ex-fiancée.SEEING RED by Jennifer GreeneStranded at her grandparents' seaside cottage, Whitney Carr prepares to face the blizzard alone. But unexpected help soon arrives—in the form of her high school sweetheart!LAND’S END by Barbara DunlopTessa Ambroise is furious when her ex shows up on her doorstep. What's worse, he's bent on turning her aunt's historic seaside estate into a hotel. But the snow piling up outside the mansion puts both their plans on hold.When a child goes missing, this perfect storm of cramped quarters and freezing temperatures brings old flames closer together…whether they want to be or not. But will they go separate ways once the sky clears?
The Ex-Wife
Megan McNeil is genuinely happy to escort her little girls to their father’s wedding in Kauai, Hawaii—even though she feels like a third wheel. One gorgeous groomsman definitely disagrees. But are they both carrying too much baggage to begin a new romance?
The Best Man
Devlin Marshall won’t let anything spoil his buddy’s big day—not even his own rocky marriage. Secrets and mistrust have divided him from his Amy, but the love in the air seems to be catching’
The Sister
Family comes first. Deep down, Gabi Foster knows it, but this holiday is hurting her career. Can a sweet, sexy surfing instructor convince her that love is worth more than a business deal?
Praise for
New York Times bestselling author
Shannon Stacey
“The perfect antidote for the winter doldrums.
Stacey’s family drama is equal parts steamy romance and coming-of-age story.”
—RT Book Reviews on All He Ever Dreamed
“Shannon Stacey is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. Her…books are always full of fun, warm characters, great small towns
and really sexy relationships.”
—USA TODAY on All He Ever Desired
“A fun read with characters you latch on to
and don’t want to let go of.”
—USA TODAY on Slow Summer Kisses
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author
Jennifer Greene
“Greene’s lowcountry romance is heavenly, filled with memorable characters [and] Southern charm.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Baby Bump
“Distinctive characters and witty dialogue…
make this one a sweet, delightful read.”
—RT Book Reviews on Little Matchmakers
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author
Barbara Dunlop
“A charming, laugh-out-loud holiday story’
Dunlop’s characters are passionate,
multilayered, warm and funny.”
—RT Book Reviews on
The Billionaire Who Stole Christmas
“Fun, fiery and utterly delightful.”
—RT Book Reviews on An After-Hours Affair
SHANNON STACEY
New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey lives with her husband and two sons in New England, where her two favorite activities are writing stories of happily ever after and riding her four-wheeler. You can contact Shannon through her website, www.shannonstacey.com (http://www.shannonstacey.com), or visit her on Twitter and Facebook. You can also email her at shannon@shannonstacey.com.
JENNIFER GREENE
USA TODAY bestselling author Jennifer Greene has sold over eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA—a Silver Medallion in 1984—followed by over twenty national awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame. In 2009, Jennifer was given the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer is currently raising two Australian Shepherds, is married to her own personal hero and lives in orchard country near Lake Michigan. Visit her website at www.jennifergreene.com (http://www.jennifergreene.com).
BARBARA DUNLOP
USA TODAY bestselling author Barbara Dunlop has written more than thirty-five novels for Mills & Boon, including the acclaimed Colorado Cattle Barons series for the Mills & Boon Desire line. Her sexy, lighthearted stories regularly hit bestsellers lists. Barbara has twice been short-listed for Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award. Visit her website, www.barbaradunlop.com (http://www.barbaradunlop.com).
Snow Day
Heart of the Storm
Shannon Stacey
Seeing Red
Jennifer Greene
Land’s End
Barbara Dunlop
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Heart of the Storm (#udab75635-24f3-51db-9883-b1b8a05e85b0) by Shannon Stacey
Seeing Red (#litres_trial_promo) by Jennifer Greene
Land's End (#litres_trial_promo) by Barbara Dunlop
Heart of the Storm
Shannon Stacey
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#uebb1046b-5f0a-56ea-a50c-c9e46ff41ca5)
CHAPTER TWO (#u5aead34a-3620-5be6-94c0-72d17b181fe9)
CHAPTER THREE (#u2dfae753-d51e-553a-b2ac-2bc117cf46aa)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uf19c3c7f-37bc-5b6d-b459-10c16dc9add5)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u190e6c1f-19b7-5361-aec6-b1d8fa57dfa3)
CHAPTER SIX (#uf71f4e9c-826e-5c42-904e-13758deeb11a)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
NOTHING MADE DELANEY WESTCOTT happier than four o’clock coming around on the last business day of December.
Being the deputy municipal clerk in her hometown of Tucker’s Point, Maine, was usually a low-key job she enjoyed, but the stampede of people who’d realized it was the last day to register their vehicles would try the patience of a saint. And Delaney was no saint. Even after four years in the office, she had to brace herself for the panicked rush between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
“Highway robbery if you ask me,” Mrs. Keller muttered, slapping her checkbook down on the counter, just as she did every single year.
Delaney half expected the leather checkbook cover to creak and release a plume of dust and moths when the woman opened it. “How was your Christmas, Mrs. Keller?”
“I would have spent less on presents if I’d remembered you were going to rob me blind again.”
Every year, Delaney thought again. “Did your grandbabies enjoy the holiday?”
Mrs. Keller’s face, as worn and creased as her checkbook cover, softened. “They sure did.”
“I heard Courtney had the croup again. Is she feeling better?”
“That baby takes after her mother,” she said, shaking her head. “I swear my Becky spent half her childhood bent over a pan of hot water with a towel draped over her head. Now she has to do the same thing with Courtney.”
By the time Delaney finished processing Mrs. Keller’s registration renewal, the woman had forgotten her complaints and she even offered a “Happy New Year” on her way out. When you worked with the public in the town you’d grown up in, it didn’t take very long to get everybody’s numbers. Mrs. Keller had a reputation for being cantankerous, but she was a marshmallow when it came to her grandchildren.
Ten minutes later, Delaney looked up to take the paperwork from the last customer of the year and almost laughed. Mike Huckins had a rumpled and frazzled look about him that went beyond the post-holiday haze the rest of the town was in. Having a two-week-old baby would do that to a man.
“Sandy called me in a panic,” Mike said. “She totally forgot we had to register the car this month.”
“At least you guys have a good excuse.” Delaney took the handful of crumpled papers from him and smoothed them out. “How’s Noah?”
“Loud. But he’s doing good.”
“And Sandy?”
Mike sighed. “She’s exhausted, of course. But she’s doing good. You should stop in and visit for a while if you get a chance.”
“I will. New moms don’t get a lot of company.”
“They sure don’t. Brody’s coming in Sunday, though, for an overnight visit.”
Delaney froze, except for her fingers, which curled into fists and crumpled a paper she’d just smoothed.
“Sandy hasn’t seen her brother since we all went to Vegas for our wedding,” Mike continued, “so you can just imagine how excited she is.”
Unlike Delaney, who hadn’t seen him in the five years since his mother handed her the note he’d left, telling Delaney he loved her, but he was leaving town and wasn’t coming back. So sorry.
But now he was coming back to Tucker’s Point.
She went through the very familiar process of renewing Mike’s registration while he talked about their new baby, but part of her mind couldn’t let go of the fact Brody was returning to town.
Even through locking up the office and driving to the market, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, which made her angry. He hadn’t cared enough to tell her he was leaving town, so he wasn’t worth thinking about. She’d done enough of that crying herself to sleep every night for weeks after he’d left. So he was going to his sister’s overnight. Big deal. Delaney would simply put off visiting Sandy until she was sure he was gone and, since she planned to spend the weekend curled up in front of her television, there was no chance she’d run into him.
She was surprised to see how full the parking lot was, even for a Friday afternoon. Then she remembered it was New Year’s Eve and figured there was a run on booze and snacks. Surprisingly, there had also been a run on bread and milk, she found as she wandered up and down the aisles a bit.
“Did the weather forecast change while I was at work?” she asked Cindy, the cashier, when it was her turn to check out.
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Not that I’ve heard. A little snow, but everybody’s stocking up like the ice storm of ’98’s on its way back through.”
“That was a doozy, for sure.” And now that she was a volunteer for the town emergency shelter, should it need to be open, she hoped they wouldn’t have another storm like that anytime soon.
She took the scenic road home, which took her along the coast for a few miles before turning back inland to the house she’d grown up in and had rented from her parents since they made the decision to move to Florida three years before. Driving calmed her and she desperately needed that. She needed to leave thoughts of Brody in her past, where they belonged.
Pulling off into a scenic area, she pulled a granola bar out of one of her grocery bags but, after a moment’s hesitation, she traded it for the candy bar she’d bought on impulse. This day definitely called for chocolate therapy.
Unfortunately, off in the distance beyond the gray winter ocean, she could make out part of the roof of the Ambroise estate, which never failed to make her think of Brody. It was a beautiful place, set out on a jutting piece of land, and she used to daydream about winning the lottery and buying it. Brody could quit fishing and they’d fill the place with kids.
It hadn’t worked out that way for anybody. Sophie Ambroise had passed away and, thanks to working in the town hall, she knew the place had been rezoned from residential to commercial. Somebody would turn it into a hotel, she thought. Brody had left town and Delaney certainly hadn’t won the lottery.
With her mood matching the turbulent waves below her, Delaney pulled her car back onto the road and headed for home. She was going to spend the weekend with her television, a couple of good books and the gallon of ice cream that had simply jumped into her cart.
Come Monday morning, she’d go back to work and Brody would go back to wherever he’d come from. Life would go on.
* * *
THE PLAN WAS simple. Fly into Portland on Sunday and rent a car—upgrading to an all-wheel-drive model in deference to the snow—and then drive into Tucker’s Point. Once he’d done the ooh-and-ah thing over his newborn nephew, he’d spend the night and then drive right back out again Monday morning.
Brody Rollins didn’t intend to spend one minute longer than he had to in his hometown. He’d left the place five years ago, and he hadn’t thought anything could drag him back again. Then his only sister, Sandy, had her first child. Her need for her brother to see baby Noah had, over several phone calls, overcome his reluctance to ever step foot in Maine again.
Even though the “Welcome to Tucker’s Point” sign was as familiar as the area it welcomed him to, Brody relied on the rental’s GPS to guide him off Route 1 and through town. It was a blessing that Sandy’s husband, Mike, worked for the town instead of fishing, so they had a small house in a residential section away from the harbor. Not the picturesque marina for the tourists, but the rough and dirty harbor the lobster boats called home. Sandy’s residence wasn’t necessarily in the postcard-pretty part of town, but it wasn’t one of the run-down houses by the docks they’d grown up in, either.
He finally found the place—a small, tidy Cape with green shutters, set back from the road—and pulled up the driveway, parking behind the well-used navy sedan Sandy had described. After killing the engine, he climbed out and stretched his back, inhaling deeply.
At least the frigid temperature and falling snow neutralized the smell. The briny air, reeking of fish and desperation, was so pervasive he’d bought himself all new clothes when he left town because he was convinced he could still smell Tucker’s Point no matter how many trips he made to the Laundromat.
At the time he’d made do with stiff, coarse jeans and thin T-shirts from the discount store. Now his jeans were almost as soft as his merino-and-cashmere-blend sweater, and the soles of his boots weren’t worn through. He didn’t squander his money on fancy labels, but what he did buy was good quality and made to last.
Brody was halfway up the walk when the front door opened and, despite his reluctance to return to Tucker’s Point, his heart squeezed at the sight of his sister. It had been two years since he’d seen her, and being a wife and new mother had changed her. She had the soft, rounded look of a woman who’d just had a baby, and her long, brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. She was a little pale and had dark circles under eyes the same soft shade of green as his, but he guessed that came with the new, first-time-mom territory.
She hugged him fiercely. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“I’ve missed you.” He squeezed her back, then chuckled when an angry shriek echoed through the house. “I guess it’s time to meet my nephew.”
Sandy led him to the bassinet set up in the living room and lifted Noah out. His volume level didn’t go down any but his sister passed Noah to him, anyway. Brody held the tiny bundle of ticked-off baby, looking down into his face. It was red and scrunched up, and Brody thought he was cute as hell.
“He looks just like you do when you’re hungry,” he said, smiling at his sister.
“Funny.” She took the baby, changed him, and then curled up at one end of the couch. “Will this bother you?”
“Nope.” His sister breastfeeding her son wouldn’t bother him anywhere near as much as the ear-splitting decibels the miniature kid was presently producing.
He walked to the window, giving her a little privacy while she got Noah settled. “It looks like it’s changing over to ice. And the wind’s picking up.”
“I’m still doing the sleep when the baby sleeps thing, so I haven’t even watched the weather. Mike said he’d be working overtime, but he didn’t say anything about ice.”
“Neither did the radio. Some snow, but no mention of ice.” Driving in snow was no big deal, but the last thing he wanted was for Tucker’s Point to become an ice rink and keep him from catching his plane home tomorrow.
They caught up while she fed Noah. She told him how well working for the town was going for Mike, and asked about his business. He flipped real estate and the market was tight, but he was careful and still had enough money in the bank so he slept at night. They talked about the baby and how she and Mike were still debating on whether or not she’d return to her job keeping books for the local doctor once her maternity leave was up.
She’d just finished laying the baby back in the bassinet when a massive gust of wind hit the house, driving ice against the window panes and making her jump. “It’s getting bad out there really fast.”
“Hopefully this is just a fluke and it’ll turn back over to snow pretty soon.”
“Are you going to see Mom and Dad while you’re here?” Sandy asked the question in a casual enough tone, but the way she picked at the side of her thumbnail gave away her tension.
He didn’t want to. Walking into that shabby and depressing little house he’d grown up in was the last thing he wanted to do. “Did you tell them I was coming?”
“I might have mentioned it to Mom.”
Of course she had. “I might stop in for a few minutes on my out tomorrow.”
As tempting as it was to accidentally run late and not have time, he’d do it.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his parents. He did. Talked to them all the time on the phone, and his mom had even mastered Facebook so she could keep tabs on him. And he’d seen them during the past five years. Once, when he’d been working in Connecticut, he’d talked them into driving down for a weekend at the casino on his dime. And, two years ago, when Sandy had announced her engagement to Mike, he’d talked them all into joining him in Las Vegas for what was the wedding trip of a lifetime for a couple from Tucker’s Point.
He’d simply managed to avoid seeing them in their natural habitat, so to speak. Just thinking about his childhood home, with its ancient brown tweed couch and insulation-deep stench of cigarette smoke and the sea, made him feel claustrophobic.
But Brody had hurt his mom enough by taking off in the middle of the night five years before. He couldn’t hurt her again by avoiding seeing her when he was only a few minutes away.
He tried not to think about the other woman he’d hurt, maybe even more than he’d hurt his mother.
Delaney Westcott had been expecting a future with him. They were nearing the point of proposal, followed by a wedding, a cheap apartment over a fishermen’s bar and babies. Instead, she’d gotten a note telling her he was gone because he didn’t have the guts to face her.
“You need to spend more than a few minutes with them,” Sandy said in an admonishing tone that made her sound just like their mother.
“I’ll visit for a while. More than a few minutes. But I can’t stay too long because I have a plane to catch so I can get back to work.” And out of Tucker’s Point.
That was when the power went out.
* * *
CHAOS REIGNED IN the school’s gymnasium. Delaney wanted to pretend it was the controlled kind of chaos, but if somebody had control, it wasn’t her. All she had was the clipboard. And a growing stream of people who did not want to be there.
At least it was keeping her mind off the fact Brody Rollins was back in town. Mostly.
She’d gotten the phone call shortly after the storm took its unexpected turn for the worse. Homes were already losing power and there might be a lot of ice and wind yet to come, so it was time to open the town’s emergency shelter at the school.
There were several other volunteers helping the displaced get settled. At this point in the storm, they’d get mostly the elderly and families with small children, which made for an interesting mix. But if the storm didn’t ease up or change back to a more manageable snowfall, people would start risking the weather to get a warm bed and some food as the temperature dropped—both outside and in their houses.
She hadn’t even gotten around to opening her ice cream yet. If her power went out and it melted, she was going to be really bummed. She’d need it after this.
When she saw Mrs. Palmer approaching her, she almost groaned aloud. “What can I do for you?”
“Where are the jigsaw puzzles? We always do puzzles.”
“I’ll bring them out in a little while. Right now we’re trying to get the cots, blankets and food situation taken care of.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
Delaney smiled and did not suggest the woman help with the cots, blankets and food situation. Nobody would thank her for that. “Maybe you could see if Penny needs any help?”
Penny was so going to make her pay for that later. Probably tenfold, even. But Delaney needed to get the cots set up because she had the chart from the fire department and if everything wasn’t up to the safety code, they’d have to do it again. It was a lot harder once people started showing up.
At least Mike and Sandy had a generator, which meant even if Brody was there with her and the power went out, he wouldn’t be showing up at the school. It was hectic enough without throwing in a lost love. Not that he’d been lost. He’d deliberately left her behind without even telling her goodbye.
Hopefully she’d get through this storm and his surprise return to Tucker’s Point without telling him hello.
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.
Why hadn’t he told her he was leaving? Why hadn’t he at least said goodbye? Had asking her to go with him ever crossed his mind, or did he deliberately leave her as well as Tucker’s Point behind? And why hadn’t he loved her enough to stay?
She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of bringing it up, though. Especially in front of people she knew. It wasn’t as though knowing the answers would change anything. All it would do was rip open old wounds and not change the bottom line. Brody knew where she was. If he wanted her, he would have come back for her.
Feeling steadier, Delaney carried the screen into the gym and walked it over to the corner where Brody and Sandy had gathered three cots together.
“I hope you don’t mind we took an extra,” Sandy said. “If Mike gets a chance to sleep, he’ll probably come here.”
“It’s fine. If we do end up with a shortage of cots, I might have to steal it back if he’s not here, but we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” She leaned the screen against the wall. “I’ll let you guys figure out how you want this after you get situated.”
“Thanks so much, Delaney,” Sandy said.
Delaney managed not to look Brody in the face even once during the exchange. She could do this, she thought, as she brushed off her hands and started walking away. Ignoring him wouldn’t be so hard.
“Hey, Delaney?” She turned and her insides quivered when his mouth lifted into that boyish grin she’d always been a sucker for. “Nice sweatshirt.”
* * *
BRODY WAS DOING everything in his power not to watch Delaney as she moved around the gym, doing whatever needed to be done. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a comic book hero and his powers were limited.
She’d barely changed at all in the five years he’d been gone. Her dark blond hair, judging by the length of her ponytail, was a little longer. And she’d put on a little weight, but it looked good on her.
Seeing her in his sweatshirt, though, was twisting him up in ways he hadn’t thought possible. He’d looked for it the night he’d left town because it was his favorite and he didn’t want to leave it behind. Then he’d remembered pulling it over Delaney’s head and helping her shove her arms in the sleeves because she’d been shivering in the ocean breeze.
Brody had been tormented for weeks after he left town, imagining her wearing the sweatshirt and missing him. Eventually he figured she’d get over him and his prized Red Sox sweatshirt would go to Goodwill or be used to wax her car.
He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact she was wearing it tonight. Was it just something she grabbed out of the back of her closet? Or did she still think of him when she wore it?
“Stop staring at her,” Sandy hissed. “You’re making it more awkward.”
Forcing his attention away from Delaney, he looked down at Noah, who was starting to squirm in his car seat and make squeaky noises that were cute at the moment, but bound to get louder in a hurry. “I’m just looking around.”
“If you were looking around, you’d know half the people in here are watching you watch her, hoping for good gossip.”
“Nothing to gossip about.”
“Everybody knows Delaney and half of them know you broke her heart. There’s definitely gossip.”
He rolled his eyes, mentally adding her comment to the why Tucker’s Point sucks column. “Old news.”
By the time Sandy got Noah out of his seat, the baby was at about half volume and Brody reached for the folding privacy screen Delaney had leaned against the wall. As he looked it over, trying to figure out the best way to fold it out for maximum privacy, he glanced around the gym again. He didn’t figure a screaming baby was going to go over too well.
A few guys threw dirty looks their way, and Brody felt his temper rising. Maybe he’d made himself into a successful businessman and the calluses were gone, but there were some things a guy from the rough part of town didn’t forget. Like how to throw a punch.
“Brody.” Sandy’s elbow jabbed his ribs. “Brody! Don’t even start.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“I know that look and I’m telling you don’t even think about it.”
Brody shrugged, more to ease the tension from his shoulders than in response to her words. “That guy in the green sweatshirt was a couple years behind me in school. A punk with a big mouth.”
“Now he’s just a dad here with two young kids who are probably already on his last nerve and he’s thinking about how a newborn’s going to make it so much worse.”
Now that she mentioned it, Brody saw the two boys near the guy. Young and full of the frantic energy that came with being up past their bedtime, they were roughhousing and showed no signs of being tired. A newborn in their midst definitely wouldn’t make the guy’s life any easier.
“Can you do me a favor?” Sandy asked after he’d wrapped the screen around their cots. “I’m supposed to drink a lot of water when I’m nursing. I drank one bottle already and I couldn’t fit anymore in the bags. Can you get some from the kitchen?”
At least it was something to do. Brody had a feeling if this power outage stretched on, he’d be begging for busy work. He wasn’t a guy used to sitting around doing nothing. But he only got halfway across the gym before he ran into an old friend.
“Hot damn. If it ain’t Brody Rollins.” Donnie Cox didn’t look much different than the last time Brody had seen him, downing shots after a good haul. Worn flannel shirt, faded jeans and unlaced work boots with duct tape over one toe. “Heard you were back in town.”
Brody shook his hand, noting the hard, ragged calluses across Donnie’s palm. It had taken almost two years for Brody’s hands to smooth to the point they weren’t something people—usually women—commented on. “It’s good to see you again, Cox.”
“Yeah, I brought the wife and mother-in-law over when the power went out, but I’m going to go back out and do some welfare checks. Hate being cooped up.”
“Married, huh? Congratulations.”
“I married Becks. Big surprise.” Donnie and Rebecca were not only high-school sweethearts, but had been together since junior high. They’d never dated anybody but each other, as far as Brody knew. “I’ll be a dad in four months, too. Our first.”
Brody said all the right congratulatory words, but mentally he was acknowledging that guys he went to school with being married and having kids made him feel a little as if he was missing out on something. Sure, he’d been working hard and putting money in the bank, but he’d be thirty soon. It wouldn’t be long before he started looking for a wife and planning a family.
As the thought took hold in his mind, his gaze was drawn to Delaney. If he hadn’t left town, they’d be married now. Probably have at least two kids. And he’d work his ass off every day just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table while Delaney scrounged for coupons and did laundry that would always smell like a fishing boat.
He couldn’t regret not letting them turn into his parents. But he regretted not having her. He regretted that a lot.
“It was good to see you, man,” Donnie said. “I need to get back.”
He shook Donnie’s hand, and then continued toward the kitchen. Delaney seemed to be the only volunteer there and he didn’t know where they kept the water, so he headed toward her. When she saw him coming, her expression grew guarded and he hated that.
“What can I do for you?”
So formal and cold. She’d been his best friend once and her voice had always made him feel good, whether she was talking about her day or whispering sweet invitations in his ear. “Sandy’s out of water and she’s supposed to drink a lot when she’s nursing Noah. She said you’d have some.”
“We lock the kitchen at night, but water we keep in the coolers under the main table so people can help themselves. Feel free to grab some.”
When she started to turn away, he said her name to make her stop. He didn’t know what to say to her, but he couldn’t stand getting the cold shoulder. Not from her.
“Was there something else?”
“I’m sorry.” It seemed like a good place—the only place—to start. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye.”
She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her shoulders a little in a very familiar defensive reaction. When she was afraid a conversation might make her cry, Delaney’s body language closed up, as if she were wrapping herself in a protective blanket. He wasn’t surprised he remembered that. There wasn’t much he’d forgotten.
“Thank you for the apology, Brody. I did get your note, though. That was thoughtful of you.”
Ouch. So it was angry tears, not sad tears, she was afraid she might shed in front of him. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“No, thanks.”
“Come on, Delaney. I want to talk to you. If you just give me a little consideration, I’ll—”
“I’ll give you the same consideration you gave me. How about that?”
“I did what was best for you. For both of us.”
“That’s weak, Brody. Really weak.”
Maybe it was, but it was all he had. “Delaney, seriously, can we talk?”
“No, Brody, we can’t. I have to dim the lights and start spreading the word it’s quiet time so maybe these kids will get some sleep.”
“After that, maybe we can slip out in the hall and talk?”
“There’s nothing to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
She left him standing there alone, feeling as if there were a whole lot of things he wanted to say to her, but the words were all stuck in his throat. No matter how straight she tried to play it, there was still pain in her eyes. He’d known her too long and too well to miss it.
The least he could do while he was stuck here was try to make that pain go away.
CHAPTER THREE
BRODY WASN’T SURE what time it was when he opened his eyes. The gym was quiet, except for the creak of cots as people tried to find comfortable positions in their sleep and an unfortunate amount of snoring. Glancing up at the row of small windows at the top of the walls, he could see it was still dark. And if he listened closely, he could hear icy precipitation still being slapped against the glass by the wind.
Now that he was awake, he had to take a leak, so he rolled out of the cot as quietly as he could and stepped out from behind the privacy screen in his socks. The polished floor was slippery, but he was afraid if he tried to get his shoes out from under his cot, he’d jostle Noah’s car seat. Since it felt as if it had only been about ten minutes since the last time the boy cried, nobody wanted that.
Movement near the set of exterior doors serving as the shelter entrance caught his eye. A woman, who thankfully wasn’t Delaney, was talking in quiet tones to a man. Across the gym, in the dim lights they had to leave on 24/7 for safety reasons, he saw it was Sandy’s husband, so he made his way over.
When the volunteer turned to point in the direction of their cots, Brody lifted his hand and waved as he approached. “Hey, Mike.”
They shook hands. “Glad you made it into town, Brody. Sorry you can’t get back out, though.”
He was, too. “Spending some quality time with the loudest baby in the history of man.”
Mike grinned. “Kid’s got a set of pipes.”
“They letting you crash for a while?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing we can do with this ice and, barring anybody trying to get here, everybody’s off the roads. We’ll sleep for a few hours, then start checking on people. Thanks for getting Sandy and Noah here, by the way.”
“It was no problem.”
“I could have driven them here, but I wouldn’t be able to stay because it’s all hands on deck. I appreciate you being here to help with the baby.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he lied. “We got three cots, and we’re behind that screen over there.”
Once Mike had gone to join his family, Brody made his way to the men’s room. The lights were brighter in there and, when he stepped back into the gym, he had to stop for a moment to let his vision adjust.
He found himself looking around the huge room, looking for Delaney, but all the sleeping, blanket-covered lumps looked the same. He guessed she was probably over near the entrance, so she’d wake up if somebody went in or out, but he wasn’t sure.
Stupid to be looking for her, anyway, he told himself as he made his way back to his cot. She wanted nothing to do with him, and he couldn’t blame her. But as he tucked his arms under his head and stared at the gym ceiling, he couldn’t stop the slideshow of the loving, laughing Delaney he’d left behind from playing through his mind.
Light was streaming through the windows the next time he opened his eyes, and he realized it was Mike grabbing his outerwear and boots that had awoken him. “Heading back out already? Was there breakfast?”
“Little girl’s missing. Mother went into her room this morning and she wasn’t in her bed.”
“Oh, shit.” Brody swung his feet to the floor and scrubbed his hands over his face. “She’s not hiding anywhere in the house?”
“They searched it so thoroughly I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to rehang the Sheetrock. She’s not there.”
Brody stood and picked up his bag, careful not to jostle Noah’s car seat or Sandy’s cot. “I can be ready to go in ten minutes, if you can wait.”
“Dressed like that, I’ll spend more time taking care of you than looking for April.”
The little girl’s name was April. Brody’s gaze fell on his sleeping nephew and his breath caught in his throat. Somebody’s child was out there in this storm and her name was April. “I’m not stupid. I’ve got winter gear, including boots, in the trunk of my rental.”
“Can use the extra eyes and ears, then.”
By the time Brody washed up and changed his clothes in the men’s room—which wasn’t ideal, but was all he had—the activity level in the gym had ratcheted up a notch. There were more men pulling on cold-weather gear and a group of women scrambling to brew coffee and put out doughnuts.
Delaney was one of them, and she scowled when she saw him. “You’re not going out there, are you?”
“I’m going to go out with Mike. I can be an extra set of eyes.”
“You’re not dressed to be out in this kind of weather.”
He took the disposable cup of coffee she handed him and noticed she’d put one sugar and a splash of milk in it, just the way he liked it. “I’ve got a good coat and some boots in the rental. I’ll be fine.”
“Brody, nobody expects you to go.”
“So you all think I’ll just sit here drinking coffee while a little girl’s lost out there in this storm? Thanks a lot.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, her jaw set in a grim line. Then she shook her head. “Fine. Be careful and don’t do anything stupid.”
Not much in the way of a vote of confidence. Brody downed a couple of doughnuts and another cup of coffee before heading outside to get his stuff out of the rental. The wind stole his breath and the sheets of freezing rain made walking a challenge, but he made it to the car and back without killing himself.
By the time he was ready, a guy named Baker who was—according to Mike—a volunteer with the fire department, had handed out location assignments.
“Okay, people,” the guy said. “Most of you know April, but for the few that don’t, just watch for a nine-year-old girl who isn’t safe at home where she belongs. She’s wearing a purple coat, a white hat with a purple pom-pom and pink boots. Let’s bring her home.”
As they filed out of the gym, Brody looked back at Delaney. He caught her watching him, and he raised a hand to say goodbye. She turned away.
* * *
BREAKFAST WAS NOTHING short of a nightmare. Being a short-order cook for a large group of cranky people who hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep was even less fun than registering vehicles for a mob of people who’d forgotten it was the last day of December.
One of the reasons they used the elementary school for the town shelter, rather than the high school, was the fact the kitchen was attached to what they called the gym, but was actually a multi-purpose room that doubled as the cafeteria. With space, a kitchen and restrooms in a central location, it was the perfect space.
What was not perfect was people passing through the line and settling for doughnuts, pastries and cold cereal when there was a fully stocked school kitchen behind them. Some of the women wanted to fire up the stoves and turn the place into the neighborhood diner. Delaney was going to lose her voice explaining over and over why that wasn’t possible.
Lunch would be primarily do-it-yourself sandwiches, but she wasn’t looking forward to supper.
As soon as she could escape the serving line, she brewed more coffee and then grabbed a box of trash bags. There were at least half a dozen garbage barrels in the gym and it seemed as if every time she turned around, they were full again.
It also annoyed Delaney to no end how much she worried about Brody. No matter what she was doing or what minor crisis she was handling, in the back of her mind she was constantly aware of just how long he’d been gone. And it had only been about three hours. Though she didn’t forget he’d been born and raised in Tucker’s Point, she worried five years in warmer climates had made him soft.
“I’m sorry, Delaney.”
She hadn’t even noticed Sandy standing next to her, gently bouncing the baby on her shoulder.
“I wouldn’t have come,” Sandy continued, “but the house was cooling off way too fast and Noah’s too little to weather it out.”
Delaney jerked a full bag out of the garbage can and shoved down on the contents so she could tie it off. “Of course you had to come, Sandy. Don’t even worry about it. If he gets too fussy, we’ll take turns walking him and...well, people are going to have deal, that’s all.”
“Thanks, but I was talking about Brody. I’m sorry for bringing Brody here.”
Delaney sighed and looked at the sleeping baby. Noah looked a lot like Sandy, who looked a lot like Brody. Her heart twisted as she wondered if her and Brody’s babies would have looked like little Noah.
“It’s been five years,” Delaney said in a quiet voice. “And it was inevitable I’d run into him eventually. I’m fine. Really.”
“I wish I could have given you a heads-up, at least.”
Delaney laughed. “Then I might have stayed home and made s’mores over emergency candles and who would be here to take out the garbage?”
“Would you really have avoided him?”
“I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see him.” Delaney sighed. “Fine, it’s a little hard.”
“At least you didn’t bean him with your clipboard.”
“I thought about it. You know, he’d been acting weird for a couple of weeks before he left.” She gave a derisive snort. “I thought he was working up the nerve to ask me to marry him.”
“Oh, Delaney.” Sandy looked as if she was going to cry, so Delaney focused her attention on putting a fresh bag in the can. “We thought he was going to propose, too.”
“Guess he fooled us all.”
“I don’t think he meant to. Not that it helps any, but I think he was scared and confused.”
She wasn’t really in the mood to hear Brody defended, but Sandy was his sister, after all. Delaney knew she was only trying to help. “It was a long time ago. I’m over it.”
That was a lie, but Sandy was too busy shifting Noah’s weight to her other shoulder to see it on her face. Delaney hadn’t spent the last five years—okay, four and a half years, maybe—pining away for Brody Rollins, but she hadn’t found a man to replace him yet.
She’d dated. She’d even had a couple of relationships that might have grown serious enough to head to the altar and give her the family she wanted if her stupid, stubborn heart had been able to give up on the man who’d broken it.
But, even though she’d met some really nice guys who would have made good husbands, she hadn’t met one yet who made her feel the way Brody had. And, judging by her reaction to being around him, maybe still did.
* * *
THE ONLY THING worse than driving back into Tucker’s Point was riding shotgun around Tucker’s Point during an ice storm. The big plow truck with the massive sand-and-salt hopper on the back went okay, but it was still white-knuckle tense in the cab, especially with a little girl lost.
Brody kept his focus on the passing scenery, eyes peeled for a flash of purple or white or pink, but he saw nothing but the town he’d grown up in. They’d been at it for hours, going around the outskirts since people were searching the main downtown area on foot.
“This is a waste of time,” Mike said, not for the first time. “She’s not going to be walking down the side of the road. She’s hiding somewhere. Taking shelter.”
“You never know what a kid will do. She could be trying to walk home right now.”
“Not giving up. Just think it’s a waste of time. Now we’ve not only got a lost kid, but a whole lot of people who should be safe inside are out looking for her.” He handed his Thermos to Brody, signaling he was ready for another hit of coffee.
He poured Mike half a cup, strong and black, then screwed the lid back on. His brother-in-law was going to start getting jittery soon if he didn’t lay off the caffeine. “Hopefully somebody will find her soon.”
“Yeah. If it was Noah out there...” Mike swallowed some coffee, then shook his head. “I’d want every able-bodied person in the whole state of Maine out looking for him.”
Brody had to agree. He’d only known Noah less than a day and he’d already take on a pack of dragons with nothing but a butter knife for the kid.
“If this gets any worse, we’re going to have to head back,” Mike said in a grim voice. Ice was sheeting over the windshield so fast the defroster and wipers could barely keep up, and the kids could play pond hockey on the streets. “They’ll keep looking. Red’ll be out on Betsy—that John Deere of his—and they’ll keep searching on foot. Some of the guys have ATVs with chains on the tires. They’ll go out.”
Brody could hear the reluctance to give up in Mike’s voice, but he had to agree. Conditions were moving past treacherous and straight into deadly. “It’s like you said. She’s probably hiding somewhere under cover, anyway. It’s the door-to-door searches that’ll turn her up and we don’t want to pull people off that to come rescue us.”
He looked out the window, still looking for a flash of purple, while Mike radioed in for an update and to voice his concerns.
Cased in glittering ice, his hometown looked beautiful and peaceful, like something out of a snow globe. And he had to admire the way the town pulled together. He’d been listening to the chatter on Mike’s radio and this was a community that knew how to stand together and help their neighbors.
Maybe it was only as a grown man he could appreciate qualities like that. Growing up and in the few years after he graduated from high school, he’d felt nothing but resentment. Now he’d seen a little more of the world. Played cards in places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas and Miami. Flipped houses in almost every kind of suburban neighborhood, working his way up to some commercial stuff. It was easier to appreciate the bonds a town like Tucker’s Point fostered and why people might stay instead of getting out at the first opportunity, like he had.
“We’re heading back in,” Mike said, breaking into his thoughts. “We’ll take a different route back to cover the ground, but they’re pulling the road crews in.”
Brody would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved, but that didn’t make it any easier to abandon the search. And with Mike, Sandy and Noah together as a family, Brody was going to be left to his own devices, and there was nowhere to hide in the gym. Either for him or for Delaney.
They were almost back to the school when Mike changed the subject from his job, which Brody now knew more about than he’d ever wanted to, to the past. “We might have run with different crowds, but I remember you used to date Delaney. Sandy said you were still together when you moved away.”
There was no question, but his brother-in-law seemed to be waiting for some kind of response. “Yeah.”
“Must be weird, seeing her again.”
Now that the sucker punch of seeing her face had been absorbed, Brody was starting to like the idea of seeing Delaney again.
They definitely had unfinished business between them.
CHAPTER FOUR
BECAUSE, DESPITE HERSELF, she’d been watching for his return, Delaney knew the first thing Brody did when he walked through the gym door was scan the room until he found her. Their eyes met and she held his gaze until Mike said something to him, drawing his attention.
She was in trouble. Now matter how often she reminded herself of how badly he’d hurt her, the magnetism that had first drawn her to Brody and the chemistry that pulled them together were still as strong as they’d ever been. He was a rip tide that would suck her in and pull her under, but some reckless part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and dive in headfirst.
But several members of the road crew, besides Mike, were arriving, so she went into the kitchen to brew a fresh urn of coffee. Most of them would crash for a while, but she wanted to have it ready, just in case.
“Miss Delaney?” The small voice startled her, and she turned to see Mariah Turner standing in the doorway. “Did those men find April?”
“Not yet, honey.” Mariah and the little girl who was lost would be classmates, she realized. And no matter how discreet adults tried to be in their conversations, she’d obviously overheard somebody talking about April. “There are still people out there looking, though. They’ll find her, honey.”
“Did she run away?”
“I don’t know.” Delaney gave her a comforting smile. “Did she say anything about running away? Was she unhappy at school?”
“Nope. But if she didn’t run away, did somebody take her?”
Delaney didn’t know what to say. There was no training for this during the town’s emergency response drills. “I don’t know what happened to April, Mariah. But we’re going to think positive thoughts and when the searchers find her, we’ll be able to ask her ourselves, okay?”
“Okay. Can me and my sister have some oyster crackers?”
That she could deal with. She reached into a big box the restaurant had donated and took out two packets of oyster crackers. They were good snacks for antsy young people. Tasty, crunchy and—most importantly—not loaded with sugar.
“Thanks, Miss Delaney!” Mariah skipped out, almost colliding with Brody.
“Whoa!” He did a side step to keep from tripping over the child, then smiled after her. “The world was a less complicated place when a package of oyster crackers made everything better.”
“I’d give anything to have half her energy right now.”
“I was hoping for some artificial, caffeine-fueled energy.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.” The conversation was so...normal, Delaney could hardly believe she was having it with Brody. “The fresh stuff’s still brewing, but there’s some left in that pot that’s not too old.”
“It could be motor oil and, with a little cream and sugar, I’d drink it right now.”
“Bad out there?”
“Pretty bad. I think I’m going to be here awhile.”
Was that a warning? “Sandy will be happy to hear it. She’s missed you.”
“I can help with Noah, too.”
“And John and Camille must have been happy to see you.”
“I, uh...haven’t been to see them.” She gave him a look designed to make him feel like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, but he only shrugged. “I was going to stop by on my way out of town tomorrow, but the power went out.”
“Sandy talked to them while you guys were out. Not for long because Noah woke up in a really bad mood, but she said they’re doing okay.”
“They’re hardy. And stubborn.” He took a sip of the coffee and, when he closed his eyes to savor it, she looked away. “I really am sorry about the way I left town, Delaney.”
She forced herself to shrug, as though it was all so far in the past it didn’t hurt a bit. “It’s been five years.”
“Which means you’re five years overdue for an apology. I should have called you after I left.”
“You know what would have been better? If you’d called before you left.”
His mouth twisted and she saw the guilt on his face. “I knew if I told you I was leaving, you’d be hurt and I’d see it on your face. I was afraid you’d cry and I wouldn’t be able to walk away from you.”
“Oh, clearly it’s all my fault, then. Shame on me for loving you, I guess.”
“I knew if I stayed, eventually I’d hate you.”
She blinked, feeling his words like a slap across the face.
Brody shoved his hands through his hair. “I hated fishing. I hated my parents for not wanting a better life. I hated this town. If I stayed for you, in time I would have hated you, too.”
“I thought we were happy and that it would be enough.”
“You were happy because, at the end of the day, you went home to your parents. No matter how much time we spent together, it wasn’t the same as being married and on our own. It wouldn’t have been a few years as my wife before you were exhausted from doing laundry that smelled like low tide no matter how many times you washed it and trying to pay bills and feed kids on short pay. And I would have been a bitter, chain-smoking drunk, just like my old man.”
If that was truly his vision of their future, it was no wonder he’d run. “The fact you couldn’t tell me that just proves it wasn’t meant to be. You saw me as a burden, not a partner.”
“Delaney, I—” He was interrupted by the angry shriek of a newborn echoing through the gym. “Damn. Mike’s exhausted. I’m going to go see if I can walk the baby and let him and Sandy get some rest.”
She nodded, simultaneously relieved this conversation could end and disappointed he was walking away from her. It was probably for the best. He couldn’t unbreak her heart and, even if he could, nothing had changed.
Tucker’s Point was her home and it was a place he didn’t even want to visit, never mind return to for good. They could be civil—maybe even friendly—but there was no point in looking into the past. Brody Rollins wasn’t part of her future.
* * *
THERE WAS NOTHING like trying to keep a fussy infant soothed and quiet in a gym full of people to kill a guy’s new and fragile urge to start a family.
His arms ached, he had a tweak in the small of his back, his shoulder felt damp and his feet hurt. And, when he’d managed to sneak a peek at his watch mid-jostle, it had only been a half hour.
Parenthood was not for sissies.
He had nobody to ask for help, either. Not long after Mike and Sandy lay down, he’d seen Delaney slip behind a screen to the cot she and another volunteer were taking turns using. With those three people all napping, Brody was essentially alone in a room full of people.
He’d walked away from this community and he knew, from the looks he’d been getting, they hadn’t forgotten he’d snuck out in the dark, leaving them, his family and Delaney behind.
“Why don’t you let me help you with him?”
A woman who looked vaguely familiar stood next to him. While it was a relief to know he wasn’t alone, after all, he wasn’t too sure about handing Sandy’s baby over to just anybody who asked.
“I’m Dani Harbour.” He must have looked blank, because she arched one eyebrow at him. “I was a year behind you in school.”
“Delaney’s friend.”
“Yeah, Delaney’s friend.” The you jerk was implied by her tone. “Let me walk Noah for a little bit. You look beat.”
She knew the baby’s name. And it’s not as if she could go anywhere. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“In this town, we help our friends and neighbors.” She paused. “Sandy and Mike are both.”
Just so he knew he wasn’t either. “I appreciate it.”
He handed Noah to Dani and then pressed his hands to the small of his back, twisting to work the kinks out. Relaxing was an entirely different thing, however, and he found himself hovering as the storm’s refugees took turns passing the baby. While he appreciated the way the community stuck together, that was his nephew they were playing hot potato with.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Sandy emerged from behind the screen almost an hour and a half later. Noah was obviously winding himself up for a good bawl and even the comfort of snuggling against Rebecca Cox’s really ample breasts wasn’t doing it for the little guy anymore. He wanted to eat.
Sandy looked well-rested, though, which was good. With her husband safe and her baby being looked after, she’d managed a power nap she desperately needed. She smiled when she spotted them and made her way over.
“Time for the little monster to eat,” she said, taking Noah from Becks. “Thanks for babysitting. I feel so much better now.”
“You needed the rest,” Brody said. “I wish you could have slept longer.”
As he said it, he caught Delaney slipping out of her sleeping area through the corner of his eye. She should have slept longer, he thought. Wearing herself out taking care of things did nobody any good.
She disappeared in the direction of the bathrooms and, when he saw her again, she was fresh-faced and looked ready to tackle whatever the next thing on her list was.
Well, she wasn’t going to tackle it alone. Brody wasn’t used to sitting around and he was more than capable of helping in any way he could. He made his way over to the check-in table, where she was drinking orange juice and reading something on her clipboard.
“What can I do to help?”
She jumped, almost dropping her plastic cup of juice. “Brody! Don’t sneak up on people.”
“All I did was walk. What are you reading?”
“I’m trying to find anything at all I can to justify putting off the next thing on my list.”
If Delaney was avoiding it, it couldn’t be a pleasant task. “What is it? I can help.”
She sighed, dropping the clipboard on the table. “It’s time to go around and clean and disinfect. With so many people in one place, it’s important to stay on top of the germs so I have to wipe everything down with bleach water.”
“Point me towards a bucket, oh fearless leader.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t really see you in rubber gloves with that sweater and those shoes.”
“What about them?”
“I know quality when I see it, Brody. It’s obvious you haven’t had to do manual labor in a while.”
That wounded him for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I’m not afraid of hard work. I might have crews to do the heavy lifting now, but don’t forget I’m from here—from the docks. I know hard work.”
Her eyes met his and she tilted her head, as though he were a puzzle she was trying to solve. “Gee, Brody. That almost sounded like hometown pride there for a second.”
“I’m just saying I can do whatever you need done. That’s all.” Pride wasn’t an emotion he connected to his childhood.
“I’m not going to turn down the help. Let’s go get the stuff.”
He followed her through the double doors in the hallway, trying to keep his eyes above her waist and not on the gentle sway of her hips as she walked. Especially since they were being watched. They were always being watched in the gym as people kept watch for any scrap of gossip.
The supply closet was next to the gym, and he waited while she found the right key on the ring he assumed the school supplied to the emergency management volunteers. The small room must have been on the same circuit with the gym because, when she flipped the switch, the overhead light flickered and turned on. He followed her in and wrinkled his nose at the chemical smell.
“I saw that,” she told him, amusement in her voice. “I can probably find you other work, like holding Mrs. Cameron’s ball of yarn while she knits, if this is too much for you.”
The amusement in her eyes and the light teasing in her voice dragged him back to five years ago, when Delaney had been his only joy. The hours he’d spent with her had been the bright spots in a dismal life, and his body reacted to their achingly familiar chemistry with a rush of desire.
Her eyes widened when he stepped toward her, needing to touch her again. “Brody...”
“Delaney.” There were shelving units behind her and she couldn’t retreat. “Have I mentioned how much I’ve missed you?”
He watched her face, looking for anger or rejection or anything negative, but all he saw was the hot blush across her neck and cheeks, and her eyes focused on his mouth.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered.
It had been inevitable from the second he stepped through the doors and saw her for the first time, he realized. Five years hadn’t cooled what sizzled between them. Under the ashes of his abandonment, the embers burned and now the fire flared again. This was the only woman he’d ever loved and there was no way he could stop himself from touching her.
* * *
BRODY WAS GOING to kiss her. Delaney knew the man more intimately than she’d ever known any other, and his intention was made plain in the hot and hungry look in his eyes and the way he moved toward her.
She should shove him away. There were plenty of other things he could do that didn’t require being near her. Kissing him was a dead-end road and she should bang a U-turn before she ended up stuck in that lonely place she’d ended up before.
But she was going to let him kiss her because she had no resistance against him. She never had. And she wanted the kiss, too.
With his hands braced against the shelves on either side of her head, Brody lowered his forehead until it came to rest gently against hers. His eyes closed and she knew he was fighting the same internal battle she was.
A kiss would be a very bad idea.
“Kissing you is a bad idea,” he whispered.
At least they were on the same page.
“But I want to,” he continued. Definitely on the same page. “It’s all I can think about. And I don’t have to wonder what it’ll be like. I know kissing you is like pulling a royal flush in a high-stakes game. It’s a total rush and nothing will ever beat it.”
Warmth curled through Delaney and she felt the soft breath of his sigh over her face. She placed her hands on his chest and felt his body stiffen under her touch. She could push him away. She should push him away.
Instead, she ran her palms over the soft wool of his sweater and up to his shoulders. A slight nudge, pulling him in, was all it took. His mouth covered hers and the sweetness of it tugged at her heart.
His lips were gentle and she shivered when his tongue danced over her bottom lip. He was savoring her, and she reveled in the sensations that swept through her. No matter what her mind said, her body and her heart knew this kiss. Nobody had ever made her feel the way he could with a simple touch of his lips.
Delaney’s fingertips bit into Brody’s shoulders as he deepened the kiss, but she still didn’t pull away.
She knew she should. Letting herself get too close to Brody Rollins would bring her nothing but a second helping of heartache, and yet there was something about his kiss that felt so right. His tongue danced over hers and she leaned into him as his hand slid up her back. Her body remembered this—the feel of his touch—and wanted more.
It was the sound of the door handle jiggling that finally gave her the strength to break away.
Good lord, a quarter of the town was just a few feet away and here she was, making out with Brody in the custodian’s closet like a teenager.
“Delaney?” It was Alice, one of the other volunteers, and Delaney slipped out from between Brody and the shelves as the door opened.
“I’m in here. What do you need?”
Alice’s gaze bounced between Delaney and Brody a few times, and Delaney was dismayed when she saw understanding dawn in the other woman’s eyes. This would be a nice bit of gossip for everybody to chew on for a while. “Sorry. We’re running low on paper towels.”
She grabbed a few rolls, balancing them in her arms, and then gave Delaney a quick smile on her way out. “I’ll just...go. Take your time.”
Delaney wondered if she’d meant that to sound as suggestive as it came out. “Just grabbing some bleach, rags and buckets. We’ll be right out.”
When the door swung shut behind Alice, Delaney had to stifle a groan. Even if she hurried, half the people in the gym would know she’d been kissing Brody Rollins in the supply room before she got out there. The news would trickle through to the other half whether she was in the gym or not.
“I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Brody said quietly.
“I didn’t exactly put up a fight.”
“No, but now everybody will be talking and...I’m sorry.”
She grabbed two buckets and put a cleaning rag and a plastic gallon of bleach in each one. They’d fill them with hot water from the kitchen. “At least it’s only a matter of time before you get to leave. Again. So you won’t have to hear it.”
“Delaney, come on.”
“At least this time you have to sign yourself out so, as long as I’m manning the clipboard, I’ll know you’re going this time.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, making her stand still. “I don’t know how many times I can apologize for not telling you in person I was leaving.”
“Screw the note, Brody. Has it occurred to you I’m having a little trouble with the fact you didn’t ask me to go with you?”
He didn’t know how to make her understand. “If I’d asked you to go, you would have wanted to think about it and make plans and...I don’t know. Sort through all your stuff and come up with a whole pile of stuff you wanted to take.”
“Like any normal person would.”
“If I’d had to wait for you, I would have lost my courage. I drove out of here in a beat-up car with a duffel bag of clothes and two hundred bucks in my pocket because right then, at that moment, I was more afraid of staying than leaving.”
“Fine. Just don’t lie to me—or to yourself—and say that right then, at that moment, I factored into your decision at all.”
He blew out a breath, then took one of the buckets from her. “You sure know how to take the blush off a good kiss.”
That was the point. “I have work to do.”
She left the supply room and hurried into the gym before he could say anything else.
They worked in silence, washing down almost every touchable surface in the gymnasium with the diluted bleach mixture. He took some good-natured ribbing from some of the guys about his bright yellow rubber gloves, but Delaney tried to ignore the rich sound of his laughter. She tried to ignore the way he stopped to talk to people now and then, rebuilding old bonds he’d severed so unexpectedly.
But no matter how much she tried to focus on the past and wrap herself in a security blanket of old hurts, her gaze was drawn to him time after time. More often than not, he’d catch her looking and his expression would be pensive, as if he were trying to gauge her mood. And she was keenly aware that most of the people in the gym with them were watching them watch each other.
Probably making little tsk sounds under their breath. Poor Delaney. That Rollins boy broke her heart once and now she’s going to let him do it again. Foolish girl.
That thought finally ignited the anger and resentment his kiss had cooled and she held on to it throughout the rest of the day. Even when he helped her clean up after they’d served supper to the crowd, she managed to be polite and appreciative, but decidedly detached.
But when they dimmed the lights and everybody around her started drifting into restless sleep, Delaney lay awake, staring at the ceiling because every time she closed her eyes, she relived that kiss again.
And ached for another.
CHAPTER FIVE
TUESDAY MORNING CAME early, thanks to the kids who couldn’t sleep in when away from their homes. Or maybe kids never slept in. Brody didn’t have a clue, but he knew these kids were up and at ’em like a horde of two-legged, overeager roosters.
Brody sat on the floor, his back up against the wall. He felt trapped and restless and, from all reports, the freak storm wasn’t abating any. He’d already powered up his phone to deal with some email, including responding to the message from his office manager, who thought her boss being stuck in a school gym was the funniest thing that had ever happened.
He’d helped serve breakfast, with nary a word from Delaney. Then he’d suffered through watching her lead the kids in a fun but energy-burning morning exercise. It had been torture, watching her bounce and shimmy, but it would be worth the physical suffering if the kids napped later.
Brody was nodding off himself, his head against the hard gym wall, when Sandy nudged him with her foot. He took Noah and, after nestling him in one arm, used his free hand to help guide his sister into a sitting position.
“I turned my phone on for a few minutes and I had a voice mail from Mike.”
Her voice had a serious undertone that immediately concerned him. “He’s okay, right? Did he go off the road?”
“No, he’s fine. But I had asked him to stop by and check on my parents—our parents, I mean—and their power went out Sunday night shortly after ours did. Ma had the burners on the stove lit, trying to stay warm.”
“They’ve been without heat for two nights?”
“Yeah, but you know how Dad is. He can’t smoke in here, so he didn’t want to come.”
Brody shook his head, not surprised by their stubbornness, no matter how stupid it was to use your gas cookstove for heat. “I hope Mike gave them a stern lecture.”
“He did. He also made them pack a bag and they’re on their way here. I just missed his call, so they should be here any minute.”
Great. His parents were just what this involuntary group reunion was missing. Though seeing them here was better than having to step foot in the house he’d grown up in. “I’m surprised he got them to leave. They can be pretty stubborn.”
“He said he told them I was having a hard time here because he couldn’t be with me and Noah.” She paused to smile. “And he told Ma you were stuck here and couldn’t get away.”
“Smart guy.” He paused, debating on how best to phrase his next question. “Did he tell her anything else?”
“You mean that you got caught making out in the janitor’s closet with Delaney Westcott?”
His sister wasn’t known for being subtle. “We were not making out.”
“Not what I heard.”
“We weren’t.” He cleared his throat. “I kissed her, though. Just a kiss.”
“Just a kiss because that’s all there was to it, or just a kiss because Alice walked in on you before it was more than just a kiss?”
“Leave it alone, San.”
“I’ve known you my whole life, so I know you can be an idiot sometimes. I didn’t know you had a mean streak, though.”
That pissed him off, but he forced himself to stay relaxed. He’d figured out pretty quickly babies were sensitive to the emotions of the people holding them. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn’t force the kiss on her. Trust me.”
“You’re playing with her emotions and that makes you a jerk.”
“Is that just your opinion or did the fine people of Tucker’s Point discuss it and come to a consensus?”
“Except for a few incurable romantics who think you came back to sweep Delaney off her feet and carry her into the sunset, it’s pretty much a consensus.”
“Great.” He shouldn’t care what a bunch of people he hadn’t seen in years and wouldn’t see again in the near future thought of him, but it stung a little. Why did going out in the world and making something of himself make him a bad guy? And he wasn’t the first guy to break things off with a girl, either.
Brody wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he was so relieved to see his parents enter the gym he wanted to let out a cheer. The conversation with Sandy was over. He didn’t like having his relationship with Delaney poked at and prodded. He didn’t know what was going on himself, so he couldn’t very well explain it to anybody else.
After Sandy stood up, she took Noah, freeing him to stand. His butt hurt from sitting on the hard floor, but there were only so many places to sit and the women and older men had dibs by right. The floor was actually more comfortable than trying to sit on one of the cots, but it didn’t make getting up any easier.
His mom met him halfway across the gym and Brody hugged her so tightly, he lifted her right off the floor. “It’s good to see you, Ma.”
“Let me look at you.” She took a step back and cupped his face in her hands to get a good look. “I swear, you get more handsome every time I see you.”
“With a mother as beautiful as you, it’s inevitable.”
She laughed and swatted his arm. “Go say hello to your father.”
He hugged his dad, though the embrace was brief and he left the old man’s feet on the floor. “Looking good, Pop.”
“You, too, son. Glad you were here to take care of your sister and little Noah.”
“Sandy would have been fine, but I’m glad I was here, too. And, trust me, if I’d known you had no heat, I would have gone after you and Mom, too.”
John Rollins scoffed. “We were fine.”
“That’s why mom was warming herself over a stove burner?”
“Now you sound like your brother-in-law. I swear, you two nag like a bunch of women.”
“Hey,” his wife and daughter said at the same time.
Brody laughed and took their bags. “I guess we should get you two some cots. Squeeze them over by ours.”
“Delaney said she’d get them,” his mother said, and he saw the speculative gleam in her eye.
Damn. A growing audience to whatever—if anything—was going on between him and Delaney wasn’t helping matters any. “That’s good. Once you warm up, you’re probably going to sleep for hours.”
As if on cue, his mom yawned. “I gotta smooch on my grandson for a little while first.”
Another entry in the why babies were good column. They were excellent distractions when you needed to change the subject. “He’ll be glad to have another familiar body to cuddle with. He’s been passed around a lot.”
“I hope he doesn’t get sick.” She took Noah from Sandy, fussing over him as he waved a tiny fist at her.
“Brody’s been doing his best to keep that from happening,” Sandy said, her voice light with amusement. “You should see him in his rubber gloves, scrubbing things down with bleach water. It’s really cute.”
His dad gave him a skeptical look. “Rubber gloves?”
“There’s not a lot of call for splitting wood, changing motor oil or other manly endeavors, Pop. I help where I can.”
“Women love a man who’s not afraid to do a little housework,” his mother added, giving him a knowing look.
Please God, Brody thought, let the storm stop soon.
* * *
DELANEY WASN’T IN too bad a mood for a woman trapped in a school gymnasium. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, but nothing—not even painful memories of kisses or intense looks from the woman whom she’d always thought would be her mother-in-law someday—could dim the satisfaction of a job being done well. Even with the added stress of Brody and his family in the group, she’d received several compliments on how smoothly the shelter was running.
She even smiled at Brody as he approached her, fighting the urge to turn and run. Or at least hide behind something so everybody wasn’t watching for her reaction to him. “What’s up?”
He gave her the smile she knew was meant to charm her into doing his bidding. “Any chance we can go poking around the classrooms for a jar of buttons or something?”
“Why would there be jars of buttons in the classrooms?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Or... Oh, paperclips! Some boxes of paperclips would do.”
“The classrooms are locked.”
“You have the keys. At least you did when we got the bleach.”
Busted. “We’re not stealing office supplies from the school, Brody.”
“Borrowing. We’d be borrowing office supplies for the children.”
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, realizing he wasn’t going to leave her be until he got whatever he was after. “Why do the children need boxes of paperclips?”
“Because we have no poker chips.”
“Why do the children need poker chips? Just who is we?”
“The older kids. Some adults, too. Pop and I are going to teach them how to play poker. Everybody’s bored and my parents are starting to bicker. Most of them know how to play already, though, so we’ll have tournaments once the ones who don’t grasp the basics.”
He looked excited about it, so she refrained from laughing at him. “Don’t you think Go Fish would be more appropriate? Maybe Rummy? And we have about five hundred jigsaw puzzles.”
“Mrs. Palmer has laid claim to most of the puzzles and she gets really nasty if you don’t do all the outside pieces first.”
“It’s easier that way.”
“She slapped Mr. Bergen’s hand. He’s gotta be almost seventy. A kid could have nightmares for life.”
This time she did laugh, until he laughed with her and the warm sound tied her stomach in knots. “You’re trying to distract me from your plan to corrupt our kids by teaching them to gamble.”
His green eyes sparkled with amusement, so she focused on his mouth. That was a mistake. “As corruption goes, it’s fairly mild.”
“But why poker?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
Delaney sighed. She knew he was good at it. During downtime on the boats, the guys played poker and they learned young. He’d tried to teach her how to play a few times but she was so bad at it, even the incentive of winning her clothing piece by piece couldn’t overcome his impatience with her.
“Do you know how I made my money?” he asked, his tone serious now.
“When Sandy and Mike were buying their house, she said you answered a lot of questions for her because you flip real estate.”
“But I bought my very first flip property with money I won on the poker circuit. That’s how I got out of here and how I got my start.”
She hadn’t known that, but it concerned her even more than the possibility of gambling for paperclips raising some judgmental eyebrows. “Brody, don’t fill these kids’ heads with big dreams of gambling their way out of here.”
“What’s wrong with big dreams?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Nothing. But a lot of these kids will grow up and fish or work for little more than minimum wage and be just fine. The ones who dream big will either fight for their dreams or they won’t. Just because you got lucky doesn’t mean there are shortcuts.”
“Delaney, I’m not going to lure the adolescent population of Tucker’s Point away with me like some kind of poker-playing Pied Piper. It’s just something fun to do for the in-between crowd and the older folks who don’t want to play—and I quote, ‘baby games’—or risk getting their hands slapped by Mrs. Palmer.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll help you scrounge up fake poker chips, but you have to get permission from parents for the younger kids.”
“Deal.”
“One of the first grade teachers is a good friend of mine. We’ll forage in her classroom.”
She knew even as she led Brody through the doors into the main hallway that tongues would start wagging the second they closed behind them, but it couldn’t be helped. Sending another volunteer to accompany him wasn’t really an option because she wasn’t totally comfortable rummaging around the classrooms and she was personally responsible for the big ring of keys. Only the fact Patti Worth was a personal friend made it okay.
The squeak of their shoes on the waxed floor was the only sound as she led him down a maze of hallways to the door marked by a sign reading Miss Worth in colorful, hand-drawn letters. Delaney felt slightly naughty as she unlocked it and slipped inside, but she wasn’t sure if it was being in the classroom, or being alone with Brody.
And they were very, very alone.
“It’s so quiet here,” Brody said, kicking the door closed behind him. “Makes me want to grab a pillow and blanket and hide under the desk until the storm’s over.”
“I wish we could use the rooms, especially for Sandy and Noah, but there are rules and most of them boil down to insurance and liability.”
“You wouldn’t even sneak down here for a power nap?”
She gave him a stern look, and then glanced around the room to find the most likely hiding spot for boxes of paper clips. “It’s against the rules.”
“You always were a good girl.”
The way he said the words—the warm timbre of his voice—had flashbacks rolling through her mind. Stolen kisses. His hand sliding up under her sweater for the first time. Making love in a borrowed boat under an endless sky. “Not always.”
“No. Not always.” He was closer and, when she turned, she found himself close enough to touch.
This time he kissed her swiftly, with no time for deliberations. His mouth was demanding and she surrendered to him, tired of fighting her feelings. The kiss went on and on, until her knees were weak and it seemed as though his hands on her back were all that were keeping her from falling.
When he broke it off, he kept his face close to hers, his arms wrapped around her. She liked being in his arms. She felt safe there, and treasured. The world had always seemed right when she was in Brody’s arms.
His breath was warm against her cheek and she closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of him. Reality seemed to shift between the present and their past. His subtle, expensive aroma and the feel of fine wool were strange, but the feel of his body against hers and the way he touched her was so familiar her heart ached.
When his hand cupped the side of her face, she turned into it, savoring the feeling of his thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“Your skin is so soft,” he said in a quiet voice. “Every time I touched you, I hated my hands. They were rough and callused and you deserved to be touched by somebody whose hands didn’t scratch like sandpaper against your skin.”
“I loved your hands. Strong and capable. You worked hard and you loved hard. That’s what your hands meant to me.”
“I want to make love to you again, Delaney.”
Words clogged in her throat. Reasons why they shouldn’t. Confessions of just how badly she wanted that, too. But none of them came out.
“I don’t have any protection,” he said after a long moment of silence.
“And this is my friend’s first-grade classroom. I can’t have sex on her floor.”
“Or her desk?”
“Oh, God no.” She laughed, burying her face in his sweater. “I’d never be able to look her in the face again.”
“So we have to stop.” He paused, as if waiting for her to argue, but she was silent. “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to, either.” She took a deep breath. “But we have to.”
“Then we need to stop touching now.”
Very reluctantly, she backed away from him. Her face felt hot and flushed, and he looked a little hot and bothered himself. “Let’s find some paperclips and get you back to your poker buddies before they come looking for us.”
Brody held her hand for the walk back to the gym, and Delaney couldn’t help but feel things had changed between them. The hurt that had flared up when she saw him again had faded away and they were falling back into their old passionate but comfortable relationship.
She needed to remember that relationship she’d been so comfortable in had ended in pain and tears, though. Five years ago, Brody had kissed her and held her hand, and then he’d taken off in the night. No matter how good it felt to have him back, Delaney couldn’t forget he was only there because he couldn’t leave.
He released her hand before going through the doors into the gym, but not before giving her a quick kiss. Then he looked into her eyes for a few seconds. “I’d ask if you want to play with us, but now I remember just how bad your poker face is.”
She wanted to ask him what he saw in her eyes, but before she could work up the courage, he’d opened the door, brandishing the boxes of paper clips as though he’d been foraging for food and returned with a bounty.
Delaney watched as a group of kids swarmed him, their excitement obvious. But then she noticed Camille watching her watch her son and turned away. She was going to have to work on that poker face.
* * *
“HARD TO BELIEVE you made a living out of playing poker, son.”
Brody snorted, but it was hard to deny the fact his pile of paper clips was significantly smaller than the old man’s. “Maybe it’s strategy. Sucker you in and make you feel safe so you start betting large.”
“Or maybe you’re spending too much time watching that girl and not enough time watching your cards.”
If Delaney had been in the casinos and back rooms, fussing over people and checking things off her clipboard, Brody would probably have about two dollars to his name and be living in his car. If he still had one. She was one hell of a powerful distraction.
“What girl?” one of the kids asked. Jason, he thought his name was. He was the son of the guy who’d been a mouthy punk in school but was now, as Sandy had said, just a dad stuck in a room with his two boys waiting for the storm to end.
“No girl. My dad thinks he’s funny.” But he couldn’t keep himself from glancing in Delaney’s direction.
She caught him looking and smiled. He smiled back. The awkwardness between them had eased up and she wasn’t dodging his gaze anymore. He liked that. A lot.
“Much more of this and I’ll take everything you own,” Donnie Cox said, laying down his cards and sweeping the pile of paper clips into his own growing pile.
“Dammit.” Brody tried to force his attention back to the game.
“That’s a bad word,” Jason said. Really loudly.
“Sorry,” Brody said in the general direction of all the heads that swiveled to glare at him.
Most of the younger kids had grown bored with all the thinking that went into playing poker and were, probably much to Delaney’s delight, off playing Go Fish along with some game that seemed to consist of the kids slapping each other’s hands every time a jack turned up in the pile.
Once Jason moved on, probably lured away by the idea of slapping his brother, the guys played a few more hands before they lost interest. Brody shuffled the cards, strangely comforted by the familiar feel and motion in his hands, but he didn’t deal again.
“Becks is after me to pump you for information, you know,” Donnie said. “Took you guys quite a while to find paper clips considering every room in this building is, you know, a school room.”
“Delaney wasn’t comfortable taking them from just anybody’s classroom. One of the first grade teachers is a friend of hers, so we had to walk all the way to her room. And back.”
“Not judging. I wouldn’t mind a little alone time with my wife right about now.”
Brody wanted to point out he and Delaney hadn’t had that kind of alone time, but he figured it would go in one ear and out the other. People seemed to have made up their minds they were a couple again and nothing he said was going to keep the speculation down. It would only make them more determined to be right.
Maybe they were. He really wasn’t sure what was going on with them, but whatever it was felt right to him. It felt natural to kiss her and hold her hand in the hallway. What hadn’t felt natural was ending things in the classroom before it got any more physical. He’d wanted her badly—hell, he still did—but he hadn’t packed condoms for his less-than-two-days trip back to his hometown.
He glanced up again and caught Delaney looking at him. She was pretending to listen to the women around her talking, but the steamy look in her eyes almost made him flub his shuffle and blow cards everywhere.
“You two have to stop making eye contact,” his dad said, “or your mother’s going to get all kinds of ideas in her head.”
Brody jerked his attention back to the cards and dealt them out, without even asking if his dad and Donnie wanted in. He needed the distraction because he was starting to get ideas of his own in his head.
And those ideas were going to get him into nothing but trouble.
CHAPTER SIX
THINGS WERE QUIET in the gym on Wednesday morning. Nobody was sleeping soundly and it was starting to take a toll on people. And the sense of adventure was wearing off for the kids. They wanted their video games and favorite foods and their freedom. Everybody was doing their best to stay upbeat, if only for the children, but spirits were flagging.
Even if it came with an air of depression, Delaney was thankful for the quiet. She’d seen so much of Brody from a distance. He played with the kids and talked with the adults. Helped out wherever he could. Nobody would ever guess he’d been dragged back into the community against his will.
But she liked sitting on the floor with him in a quiet corner, on small cushions he’d made by folding up their blankets. They were side by side, and he had a sleeping Noah cradled in his left arm and the fingers of his right hand were laced through hers.
She’d be lying if she said it didn’t tug at her heart, the way they were sitting there like a little fake family. He was so good with Noah—and with the other kids—and she’d done a lot of thinking about what a good dad he’d be. Way too much thinking, actually. Images of him as a dad were getting all tangled up with her increasingly ticking biological clock and leading her down an imaginary path to heartbreak.
He’d been telling her about his early days on the poker circuit, when he was scrimping and saving every dollar he could make at odd jobs to pay his way into tournaments. It didn’t sound as glamorous as she’d first imagined, and she wondered how she would have fared if he’d taken her with him. Probably not very well. She wasn’t much of a risk-taker and never had been.
“I thought about you a lot in those days,” Brody said. “Correction—I still think about you a lot. I’ve missed you.”
“Not enough to pick up a phone and give me a call?” It was hard for her to reconcile all the times he’d told her he missed her and thought about her with the fact he’d never reached out to her.
“Sandy’s never forgiven me for the way I left, so she never mentions you on the phone and I was too proud to ask, but whenever I thought about you, I wanted to imagine you married, with some cute kids. A dog and a picket fence and a minivan.” There was a hint of sadness and maybe regret in his voice.
“Haven’t gotten there yet. Seems a little odd, though, if you missed me so much, that you’d imagine me living happily ever after with somebody else.”
“I needed you to be happy in my head, Delaney. If you were happy and had a good life, it made missing you worth it.”
She leaned her head against the wall and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “You felt less guilty, you mean.”
“That, too. But mostly I’d picture you living a life I couldn’t give you and know I made the right decision.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Tell me about your life now,” she said, because she was tired of rehashing the past. Maybe it was a little like rubbing salt in old wounds, but she wanted to picture him in his world.
“I work a lot. Actually, that’s pretty much all I do. If I’m not on a site dealing with a remodel, I’m meeting with real estate agents or financial backers. When I’m home, I’m usually on the computer, researching foreclosure lists and property values and a whole lot of boring stuff.”
“So what you do now is as risky as poker. You’re just gambling with properties instead of on cards.”
He chuckled, then bounced his arm gently up and down when Noah squirmed. “Maybe, but luck gets less of a say. I have good instincts, but I also do my research. Flipping real estate might be a gamble, but I stack the deck in my favor.”
“Where do you live?” It felt ridiculous, having to ask that question, but at least it was a reminder he’d made a life for himself somewhere else, and it didn’t include her.
“I have a condo in Connecticut, but I travel a lot. I don’t have an office to speak of, even though Marjorie picked the title office manager for herself. She runs things for me, but out of her house.”
He lived in Connecticut. Only a couple of states away. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that. She wanted to ask him what his condo looked like, maybe so she could picture him in it, but she didn’t want to sound weird.
“Sandy doesn’t tell me much about your life,” she said. “I think she’s afraid to say something that might hurt me, so I know almost nothing about the last five years of your life.”
“Just work, like I said.”
What about women? Of course he’d dated. He was young and attractive and he’d never wanted for female attention, even when she’d been on his arm. But had he been in love since Delaney? She didn’t think a marriage and divorce would have stayed quiet with his family still in Tucker’s Point, but what about other serious relationships?
He squeezed her hand. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, the answer is no.”
“What do you think I’m thinking?”
“I haven’t loved anybody else since I left you.”
Delaney had to blink back the tears that suddenly blurred her vision. “I tried to replace you. It didn’t work.”
“Good. That would make us sitting here together a lot more awkward.”
She laughed softly and turned her head to see Noah looking at her with his solemn baby eyes. “He looks like you.”
“He definitely has a lot of Rollins in him. Mike and Sandy should probably start bracing themselves for his teen years.”
At the sound of his uncle’s voice, Noah shifted his intense gaze to him. He seemed fascinated by Brody’s face, not that Delaney could blame him. Brody was looking a little scruffy, like the other men at the school, but it only added a little edge to his good looks.
Watching man and infant gaze into each other’s eyes was too much for Delaney, and she looked away. She couldn’t push back the resentment. Brody had taken her dreams for a family with him when he ran, and that was a hard thing to forgive.
“He’s such a cute little bugger,” Brody said in a painfully soft voice.
“How long do you think it’ll be before he starts wailing?” she asked, looking around to see if Sandy was in sight.
Of course she was. And she must have been feeling the need to nurse because all Delaney had to do was look at her and the new mom was moving toward them. Once she’d taken Noah and gone back toward their cots, Brody slipped his arm around Delaney’s shoulders and pulled her close.
When he kissed the top of her head, she sighed and tried to relax in his arms. There was no sense in holding on to past hurts. Life hadn’t turned out the way she’d thought it would, but she could embrace this moment for the short time it would last.
* * *
BRODY HELPED PREPARE the evening meal and serve it, so Delaney refused to let him help clean up after.
“I like spending time with you,” he argued. “Even if it’s dish duty.”
She laughed. “That’s really sweet, but there’s a rotation and some people have been getting lazy because you’re doing their share.”
He caught her pointed look toward Alice. “Fine. I’ll go hang with Pop for a while. The more entertained we keep him, the fewer times he goes out in the cold for a smoke.”
He found his old man stretched out on a cot, reading a hunting magazine. As far as Brody knew, his dad had never hunted a day in his life, so he assumed the magazine was borrowed from one of the other guys.
“Learning anything?”
“Yeah.” His dad closed the magazine and sat up on the cot. “Learning you can buy pretty much anything in camo.”
Brody sat on the cot next to his dad’s, breathing a sigh of relief. He’d been on his feet a long time, and he couldn’t imagine how Delaney felt. “I think I saw a camo teddy bear at Sandy’s before the power went out.”
His dad nodded, then fell silent for a few minutes. Brody got the impression he had something on his mind, but talking emotions didn’t come naturally to John Rollins. Usually it was Brody’s mom who conveyed their feelings back and forth. “You know your father loves you, Brody” and the like.
“You seem happy, son. You’ve done well for yourself.”
“Thanks, Pop. It’s a lot of work, but I’m pretty happy with where I am in life.”
“Wish you hadn’t broken your mother’s heart doing it, though.”
Brody bowed his head, focusing all his attention on a fuzz on the cuff of his sweater just so he had a place to look. “I don’t know how to explain why I left the way I did without sounding like I’m putting you down.”
“Son, you think I don’t know my work is hard and pretty thankless? Nobody knows more than me that my house ain’t grand and my wife doesn’t have a diamond ring and my truck don’t run half the time. But you and your sister never wanted for a meal, dammit.”
“I wanted more. There was always food on the table and I appreciate that, but I wanted more for myself and if I talked about doing something else, you’d just shake your head and walk away. Fishing was good enough for you so, by God, it was good enough for me.”
His dad was quiet until Brody finally looked up. The old man’s voice was as sad as his eyes when he did speak. “I didn’t know how to want more for you, Brody. I’m a fisherman, just like my father and my grandfather and two generations before him. Hell, your mom’s mother was a fisherman’s wife and so on before her. We don’t know any life but this.”
Brody had to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Maybe it’s because Delaney came from a family that didn’t fish, but every time I’d try to picture our future, I saw her looking tired and older than her age, with worry lines from years of juggling bills.”
“And you saw yourself being me.”
He didn’t know what to say to his dad. The words were true, but admitting it out loud seemed like a cruel blow for a man who’d done his best. He hadn’t been running away from his parents. He was running to the man he wanted to be.
“I went through the same thing,” his dad said. “I was maybe a little younger than you were when you left. Looked around and realized I was going to spend my whole life fishing like my old man and I’d end up just like him. The only difference between you and me at that age is that you had the guts to leave.”
It had never occurred to Brody that his father might have felt that way. And maybe his father before him. “I love you and Mom. I hope you know that.”
“We do. And even though we hated losing you, we’re both proud of what you’ve made of yourself.”
Brody had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “Thanks, Pop.”
“Your big screw-up, though, was not taking your girl with you.”
Yeah, he knew that now. But at the time... “I had two hundred bucks in my pocket and no plans. No safety net. No family. No nothing.”
“Once you started making some money for yourself, why didn’t you call her?”
Brody couldn’t meet his dad’s piercing gaze, so he focused on the sweater fuzz again. “I didn’t have the guts to tell anybody I was leaving. I didn’t say goodbye to her. I guess I didn’t have the guts to call her, either. I thought about it. A lot, actually. But I didn’t think I could take her hanging up on me.”
“Kind of gutless for a young man who left everything he’d known to go off into the world with only two hundred bucks in his pocket.”
“Being cold and hungry wouldn’t kill me, but Delaney turning a cold shoulder to me might have.”
“And now you made the girl fall for you all over again and we all know you won’t stay. Guess that makes you a... What’s that word the young people use nowadays? Douche bag?”
Brody almost choked. “Pop! What?”
“Pretty sure that’s the word I’m looking for.” He gave Brody a sly look. “Unless you’re planning to stick it out this time.”
He wasn’t sure yet what he was going to do, and he couldn’t come up with the words to explain that since his brain was busy trying to wrap itself around the fact his old man had called him a douche bag.
“Sure is a pretty lady,” his dad continued, his eyes fixed on Delaney across the room. “Your mom told me this morning you guys would make pretty grandbabies.”
Babies. Brody watched Delaney lean down to speak to one of the kids and his gut tightened. It was too easy to picture her with a smaller version of herself and maybe a little Brody. She’d be a great mom.
What wasn’t easy to picture was the home they’d live in. Not his condo. It not only wasn’t kid-friendly, but he couldn’t imagine Delaney away from Tucker’s Point. This wasn’t simply the town she lived in or the people she knew. This was her home and they were like family to her. Even an idiot could see that after the days they’d all spent cooped up together.
But he couldn’t picture himself in Tucker’s Point, either. Sure, he’d bonded with people again. There were old friends, like Donnie Cox. His parents and his sister and Mike. And there was Noah. The kid had weaseled his way under his uncle’s skin and visits to the kid would be frequent. He’d make sure the boy could Skype before he could even talk.
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Jennifer Greene и Barbara Dunlop
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Tucker’s Point three-day forecast: stormy with a chance of romanceHEART OF THE STORM by Shannon StaceyBrody Rollins is back in tiny Tucker’s Point, Maine, for the first time in five years, and now he can’t escape…from former neighbors, old regrets or maddening glimpses of his ex-fiancée.SEEING RED by Jennifer GreeneStranded at her grandparents′ seaside cottage, Whitney Carr prepares to face the blizzard alone. But unexpected help soon arrives—in the form of her high school sweetheart!LAND’S END by Barbara DunlopTessa Ambroise is furious when her ex shows up on her doorstep. What′s worse, he′s bent on turning her aunt′s historic seaside estate into a hotel. But the snow piling up outside the mansion puts both their plans on hold.When a child goes missing, this perfect storm of cramped quarters and freezing temperatures brings old flames closer together…whether they want to be or not. But will they go separate ways once the sky clears?