The Unexpected Storm

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Ouch was all Candy could think. She watched in amazement as a goofy grin spread over his face. Normal guys didn’t get like that when talking of someone’s baby. “Do you like kids?” she asked.

  “I love them. I have so much fun with my nieces and nephews, two girls and three boys now. Can’t wait to meet the newest addition. Didn’t hear what they named him. I talked to Mom right before we lost power, and Diana and Jed were having trouble agreeing on a name. I can just see them arguing. But Jed has a way with Diana. He’s so protective of her, too, even though she butts heads with him all the time. I know she wouldn’t choose any other life.”

  Candy tried to swallow past the dry lump that had jammed her throat. Just listening to Neil talk about this family, his brothers, she could tell there was so much love there. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a husband like that, a family like that. “Wow, it sounds like you have a close family.” Even to her own ears, it sounded almost wistful.

  Neil was staring down into her eyes, studying her even though it was dark. She wondered what he saw. Even with the flashlight on, she couldn’t see his face clearly, but she could tell he didn’t miss how she was feeling.

  “Tell me about your family,” he said, reaching over and moving a strand of hair from her forehead. His touch was so distracting that she swallowed again, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes clearly, she could feel them burning into her, watching her, studying her as if he was reading her every thought. And that scared the hell out of her.

  “There’s no one.” She said it a little too quickly, but the last thing she wanted to talk about with Neil was her father and why they’d left Detroit all those years ago. “Just my horses, and Ambrose here.” The donkey sighed, curled up in the cubby beside Candy, as if knowing she was talking about him.

  “Why did you stay all by yourself? I mean, it has to be hard for a woman alone, especially out here.”

  At any other time, she would have probably kicked him or called him all manner of horrible names, but there was something about the way he asked that made her sure he had no ulterior motives. “It meant everything to Dad, our place. This is my home. I love it. Where else would I go?”

  For the life of her, she couldn’t decipher what he was thinking, as he seemed to frown before wiping his hand roughly across his chin. That was all she could tell in the shadow of the light. Every sound in that moment seemed to magnify: the way her heart pounded, even the storm that raged around them outside, whistling, banging, and clawing at the roof.

  “Why don’t you try and get some sleep? We could be in for a long night. May as well rest now while we can,” he said.

  Candy rolled over, and Neil pulled her closer, pressing her back into his chest, the curve of her butt and thighs pressed against him. The chill that had raced through her moments ago eased as she tucked the pillow under her head, his arms surrounding her. She sighed, allowing herself to feel safe for the first time—the first time since, well, she couldn’t remember when.

  Chapter 12

  Neil needed to move. Besides the fact that his damp jeans had dried uncomfortably, the agony he felt in the most unbearable of places had him hurting in a bad, bad way, all because the woman who’d filled his dreams for the last few years, and toyed with his every emotion, had her leg tangled with his and had practically draped herself across him, her cheek resting on his chest, her breasts pressing into him, and her hand just inches from the source of his discomfort.

  The last thing Neil wanted to happen was for her to discover his problem, one he’d never be able to solve here and now, not without stripping her bare and turning her slim curves over, setting her under him for a distracting and comforting ride. But he couldn’t do that, not to her. There was something about her that wasn’t just the average pretty face. She was a woman with such deep emotion that she felt everything and took everything on. She could be unreasonable, but she was also the most dependable, supportive, “stand by your man” type of woman, through hell and everything else. She was a woman who could pull every conceivable emotion from Neil, who prided himself on being calm and level headed.

  No, Candy wasn’t a one-night stand, and she wasn’t a distraction, either. He realized that she probably had most guys at a full-out sprint for the hills. She was a commitment, she was a handful, and she was also a very real problem he needed to move, because he was fast losing his sound reasoning to the basic animal instinct of waking her and rolling her over, sampling those luscious pink lips. Except he wouldn’t stop there, not with Candy, because he’d wanted her for so long, the one woman he couldn’t have.

  She mumbled something in her sleep and then slid her hand lower until she bumped the ridge of his erection, and her hand froze. He listened to her breath catch, and in an instant he scooted away and sat up, sending her flying. She cried out sharply, and—idiot!—he could tell she was in pain.

  “Candy, are you okay?” He fumbled for the flashlight and shone it on her, and he didn’t miss her discomfort.

  “My leg is all. I’m sorry, but you moved so fast, dumping me, and I bumped it.” Her face was flaming, and he realized she was humiliated. Hell, he was embarrassed. She must think he was some sex-starved teenager, which he wasn’t. At his age, he could control that urge somewhat, even though it had been a while since he’d been with anyone.

  “I’m so sorry, Candy, but when you moved your hand...” He stopped when she slapped both hands over her face. “I’ll be right back.” Neil started to stand up because he needed some air, to cool down, to get his head out of his pants and back where it belonged.

  But Candy obviously had other ideas, as she grabbed his arm before he could move away. “Neil, I need to use the bathroom.”

  Of course she did. They’d both been stuck in this room for how many hours, drinking water, eating the crackers and nuts he’d brought in. Even the donkey must have thought so, too, as his hoofs scraped the inside of the cupboard. “Ambrose, stay in there.” She reached in and patted him until he scooted down again.

  “Just let me make sure everything in the house is intact. I’ll be right back.” It hurt to move, and Candy was so innocent that he realized she had no clue what she was doing to him.

  “Neil, I don’t hear the banging I did before. Do you think the storm has passed over?”

  Neil opened the door and peeked out, shining the flashlight over the walls and up at the white ceiling. The house was pitch black, as every window was boarded up. He supposed it was the middle of the night. He glanced at his wrist, but the gold watch he always wore was gone. He had no idea where he’d lost it, but then, it could be anywhere, from everything he’d scrambled through yesterday and today. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember putting it on this morning—or was it yesterday morning?—before helping board up the house. Neil walked farther down the hall, listening to the storm outside whipping against the sturdy concrete walls, an awful racket, but everything inside seemed fine. By the time he started back to where Candy was hunkered down, he was feeling somewhat better.

  “Okay, there’s a bathroom right next to us here. The power’s gone, so don’t flush. I’ll get buckets to dump water down and flush it later. There’s water in the tanks, but we can’t drain it, because that’s all we’ve got.”

  Candy struggled to her knees and held the counter as she tried to pull herself up.

  What the hell was the matter with him, standing there like an awkward geek, letting her fumble around? “Stop, let me help you,” he said. He scooped her up as she dropped the blanket, forgetting she was in his t-shirt and those thin panties only, and she looped her arm around his neck. All her soft warmth and bare skin was doing little to calm him. She breathed sensuality through her innocence, and he suspected there was much more to her, something else she was hiding behind some wall she’d erected. He’d figured that much out.

  He set her down inside the bathroom. “Here, I’ll leave you the flashlight.” He handed it to her and started to shut the door to g
ive her some privacy.

  “Neil, I’d like to wash up. Is there water I could use, a washcloth, soap? I smell like Ambrose.”

  “Yeah, sure. Just plug the sink. Use a little bit of water from the tap. It’ll still work, as there’s water in the tank. Don’t use much, and leave the water in the sink. We’ll have to reuse it for now. I wasn’t planning on staying here, so there’s no water stocked up, and who knows how long we’ll have to count on that water? Once it’s gone, it’s gone, Candy.” Neil opened a cupboard beside the sink and pulled out a washcloth and towel. “Soap is right beside the sink. Stay here until I get back. Don’t lock the door. I’m going to check the rest of the house. I won’t be long.”

  He went back into the darkened laundry room and felt around for the second flashlight. He shone it on the big-eyed baby donkey, who started to get up. “No, you stay right there.” He patted the donkey and pushed his back end down, sniffing the pungent air around him. Getting stuck in a closet-like room with a donkey and no open windows was, to say the least, an experience he didn’t want to repeat. There was a reason donkeys belonged in barns, but Candy’s love for animals was a side of her that shone through, along with her passion and her fight-to-the-death attitude. She’d make a great mother. Whoa! He’d better keep that thought to himself. But there was a list of qualities he’d always had and kept in the back of his mind for his future wife. She had to be gorgeous and be the hottest ticket in bed. She had to love children and want to be a mother, his wife, and she had to give up whatever career she had. He wouldn’t play second fiddle, and neither would his children. On that much, he agreed with his brothers. She had to be unselfish, and, in his mind, he used his brother Brad’s first wife as an example. Crystal was the most self-absorbed schemer, and she’d divided his family for years. No way did he want a woman like that, even if she was the best-looking thing around.

  Yes, Candy would be perfect, except...he stopped in the hallway and flashed the light around the foyer at the water dripping and running here and there. How would she fit in with his plans for the resort? He created and put together million-dollar deals, then wined and dined billionaires and state officials. The one thing he knew about Candy was that she wouldn’t be caught dead wining and dining and doing any fancy schmoozing for any million-dollar deals, let alone his for the resort he wanted to build on her land. Yup, that definitely could be a problem, just like the stream of water running down the stone wall that led up the open stairwell to the second floor. He shone the light up to the roofline and over the long crack that spread about twenty feet across it. “Shit.” This was so not good, and what made it worse was that he was practically blind. He didn’t have a clue what was going on outside. He could hear the rain pounding the roof, but it was masked now by the running water hitting the stairs and pooling down. As he walked closer in his bare feet, he realized the floor was wet.

  There was another bathroom to his right, off the office. As he walked inside the larger room, he noticed the floor was damp in there, too. He quickly took care of business and used a small amount of water to wash up, all the while frustrated as all hell because there was one thing he absolutely hated, and that was being blindsided. With this storm, he didn’t know what was coming their way.

  Normally, on any average day, Neil was prepared for anything—like a boy scout should be, his mother had always teased. But Neil liked his world organized. He kept calendars, schedules, lists, and researched everything. He was comfortable when he was prepared, when he was in charge, but right now, with no radio to tell him from what angle the storm was coming in, he was damn uncomfortable. He was strong, capable, smart, able to tackle any problem, but he would bark and growl when blindsided. This storm that had been unleashed around them, on top of them, was hiding everything while setting its full fury on him. He needed a radio, and though there was a radio in the kitchen, the one he really needed was the satellite battery-operated radio already packed in his vehicle. He had to get it.

  He stopped outside the bathroom where Candy was and listened. “Candy, you okay?” He tapped the door.

  “Almost done,” she said as he listened to water dribbling.

  “I’m just going to get a radio.…” The door opened before he could finish. She was holding a wash cloth and wearing his cotton shirt, which barely covered the top of her thighs, and that white shirt had never looked better. He hadn’t realized how much he liked a woman in his shirt, and for a second he imagined wearing it after it had touched her naked skin. He had to clear his throat, but that image was already cemented in his brain. “Are you done? I want to take a look at that puncture when I get back in.”

  “What do you mean, ‘get back in’? Where are you going?” She sounded scared, and by the way she was squeezing that rag in her raised fist, he could almost sense her panic.

  He reached out and slid his hand over her cheek, and she leaned into it. “It’s okay. I’ll be right back. I’m just going to my SUV. If I can get into it, the satellite radio I need is in the back. I think the wind has died down enough that I should have no trouble.”

  “Neil, I don’t think you should go out.”

  “Candy, I’ll be fine. Just stay here until I get back.”

  “Be careful.” She touched his arm, and he felt the shaking in her hand right before she pulled back, as if she shouldn’t have touched him, and glanced away.

  He didn’t stay, because he could hear the water cascading down the wall, and he worried how deep it would get if it kept running. They’d have to go higher, get above the water, but only if he could find a safer place. If the roof was cracked, would it hold, or was it going to come in on top of them? He didn’t like one of the scenarios running through his mind. This was why people shouldn’t stay during a storm. If he hadn’t gotten her, if Stella hadn’t called him when she did, Candy wouldn’t have survived. She needed someone to take care of her and make sure she didn’t walk herself into danger anymore. He nearly stumbled from that thought, because for a minute, he realized that it was something Brad and Jed would say. As he grabbed his slicker from the floor of the laundry room, shoved on his boots, and walked through water puddled at the back door, he realized that he and his brothers weren’t so different.

  Neil opened the door but leaned into it as he cracked it open. The wind didn’t gust like it had, but the rain was falling in buckets. The SUV’s front end was pushed against the side of the house. Rain pounded the ground everywhere as he stepped out and pulled the door closed. He shone the light into the pitch blackness, but he couldn’t see much through the thick rain, as it seemed to come up from every angle. The back end had a tree branch pushed against the tailgate. He shoved at the branches as the windblown rain seemed to have him soaked again. He pulled and yanked on the tailgate, and he tried to shove the thick, long branch jamming against the panel, but it wouldn’t budge. He went to the passenger door and opened it, climbing in over the seat, and then shone the light over the supplies, the food, the sleeping bag. Everything he needed to evacuate and hole up somewhere was still there.

  He shuffled items and found the box with candles and the radio. There was another first aid kit, and he grabbed the box and the sack of food that Ana had packed. He knew there’d be lots, and he was starving for something more than granola bars and nuts. He paused when he spotted his backpack with a change of clothes. Changing into those would be easier than trying to go upstairs to his room, and he’d been considering it even with the way the water was running down the stairwell. Neil looped the backpack over his shoulder and tucked the sack of food on top of the box, carrying it all back into the house. The door blew out of his hands and smacked into the wall, putting a nice hole in the plaster. He set the box down and leaned against the door to shut it, but the wind didn’t carry the same punch it had earlier, and it didn’t take all his strength to shut the door. This could mean a few things and was not necessarily good news, especially if the eye of the storm was directly above them.

  “Neil?” Candy called out
, her flashlight shining at him.

  “I told you to stay put,” he barked, realizing he sounded annoyed.

  “I was worried, and I heard Ambrose whining. He’s scared.”

  Neil didn’t miss the shake in Candy’s voice even though she was doing her best to hide it. That was what she did, another thing he recognized about her, another thing he’d have to work on with her. He realized then how much fun it was going to be.

  “Look, sorry, just let me put this down and I’ll come and help you,” he said, but she was already hobbling into the laundry room, and he caught a whiff of her soap-and-water scent. It was pleasing and so damn hot, probably because she was unassuming, an effortless woman who twisted his heart and his sound reasoning around her little finger. Holy crap, was he in trouble.

  She held the lip of the cupboard as she sat back down, and Neil set the supplies on the floor and pulled out the radio, not missing her wince as she tried to straighten her leg. “Your leg hurts still, Candy.”

  It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t answer him right away. When he looked over at her, she was staring at her hands folded together in front of her. It was too dark to make out her features, but he could see something was wrong: She was worried or upset or something and was holding it all in like she always did. “Candy?” he prodded.

  She glanced over at him and forced a smile to her lips, but even a fool could tell she was hiding something, and Neil was no fool. “It’s not as bad,” she said. “Did you get the radio?”