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She whispered, “That was way too close,” not really sure if she meant the lightning strike—or what had almost happened between the two of them.
He only kept on watching her, his eyes hot and wild.
And right then, the lights went out.
“Terrific,” Callie muttered. “What now?”
It wasn’t dark out yet—but the rain and the cloud cover made it seem so. He was a tall shadow, filling the space in front of her, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom.
That had been some kiss. Callie needed a moment to collect her shattered senses. Judging by the way Nate braced his hand on the counter and hung his head, she guessed he was having a similar problem.
Finally, he said, “I’ll check the breaker box. Got a flashlight?”
She had two, somewhere in the boxes still stacked against the wall. But she knew where another one was. “In my SUV.”
So he followed her out to her garage, where she got him the flashlight and then trailed after him over to the breaker box on the side wall. The breakers were perfectly aligned in two even rows.
He turned to her, shining the flashlight onto the concrete floor, so it gave some light but didn’t blind her. The rain sounded even louder out here, a steady, unremitting roar on the garage roof. He said what she already knew. “None of the breakers have flipped. I had all the wiring in the house replaced. This box is the best there is. I’m thinking it’s not a faulty breaker. A tree must have fallen on a line, or a transformer’s blown.” The eerie light bouncing off the floor exaggerated the strong planes and angles of his face.
She stared up at him, feeling the pull, resisting the really dumb urge to throw herself into his arms again. Suddenly, she was very close to glad that the power had gone out. If it hadn’t, they would probably be in her bedroom by now.
Her throat clutched. She had to cough to clear it. “We can call the power company at least.” They trooped back inside. She picked up the phone—and got dead air. “Phone’s out, too.”
He took a cell from his back pocket and she got hers from her crossbody bag. Neither of them could raise a signal. He tipped his head up toward the ceiling and the incessant drumming of the rain. “I’m not liking this,” he muttered, grabbing his hat and sticking it back on his head. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” she demanded. But she was talking to an empty kitchen.
He was already halfway down the central hallway to the front door.
“Nate...” She took off after him, slipping out behind him onto the porch.
No light shone from any of the windows up and down the block. It looked like the power was out all around them. And the rain was still coming down in sheets, the wind carrying it at an angle, so it spattered the porch floor, dampened their jeans and ran in rivulets around their feet. Scarier still, Pine Street was now a minicreek, the water three or four inches deep and churning.
He sent her a flat look. “Go inside. I’m having a look around.”
“A look around where?”
But of course, he didn’t answer. He took off down the front steps and across her soggy lawn, making for his pickup.
Go inside? No way. She needed to know what was going on as much as he did.
She took off after him at a run and managed to get to the passenger door and yank it open before he could shift into gear and back into the rushing, shallow creek that used to be their street.
“You don’t need to be out in this.” He glared at her, water dripping from his hat, as she swung herself up to the seat, yanked the door shut and grabbed the seat belt.
She snapped the belt shut and armed water off her forehead. “I’m going. Drive.”
He muttered something low, something disparaging to her gender, she was certain, but at least he did what she’d told him to do, shifting the quad cab into gear and backing it into the street. He had a high clearance with those big wheels cowboys liked so much, so at that point the water running in the street posed no threat to the engine. He shifted into Drive, headed toward Commercial Street, which was also under water. He turned left and then right onto Main.
They approached Rust Creek and the Main Street Bridge. In the year since the big flood, the levee had been raised and the bridge rebuilt to cross the racing creek at a higher level.
He drove up the slope that accommodated the raised levee and onto the bridge. The water level was still a long way below them.
“Looks good to me,” she said.
With a grudging grunt of agreement, he kept going, down the slope on the other side and past the library and the town hall and the new community center with its Fourth of July Grand Opening banner drooping, rain pouring down it in sheets.
“Um, pardon me,” she said gingerly. “But where are we going now?”
He swung the wheel and they went left on Cedar Street. “I’m checking the Commercial Street Bridge, too,” he said grimly, narrowed eyes on the streaming road in front of them. “It’s the one I’m really worried about. Last year, it was completely washed out.”
They went past Strickland’s Boarding House and the house where Emmet lived and kept going, turning finally onto a county road just outside town. It was only a couple of minutes from there to Commercial Street. He turned and headed for the bridge.
It wasn’t far. And there were county trucks there, parked on either side of the street. A worker in a yellow slicker flagged them to a stop and then slogged over to Nate’s side window, which he rolled down, letting in a gust of rain-drenched wind.
Nate knew the man by name. “Angus, what’s going on?”
Angus was maybe forty, with a sun-creased face and thick, sandy eyebrows. Water dripped off his prominent nose. “Just keepin’ an eye on things, Nate.”
“The levee?”
“Holding fine and well above the waterline. It’ll have to rain straight through for more than a week before anybody needs to start worryin’.”
“Power’s out.”
“I know, and landlines. And a couple of cell towers took lightning strikes. But crews are already at work on all of that. We’re hoping to have services restored in the next few hours.” Angus aimed a smile in Callie’s direction. “Ma’am.” She nodded in response. He said, “With all this water in the streets, it’s safer not to go driving around in it. You should go on home and dry out.”
“Will do.” Nate thanked him, sent the window back up and drove across the bridge and back to South Pine, where he pulled into her driveway again and followed her inside.
As she ran across the lawn, her shoes sinking into the waterlogged ground, she knew she should tell him to go, that she would be fine on her own. But for someone he’d called mouthy, she was suddenly feeling more than a little tongue-tied, not to mention downright reluctant to send him on his way.
Which was beyond foolish. If he stayed, it was going to be far too easy to get cozy together, to take up where they’d left off when the lights went out.
She decided not to even think about that.
Inside, she kicked off her shoes and left them by the door. “I’ll bring more towels. And it’s pretty chilly. If you’ll turn on the fire, we can dry off in front of it.” Her new energy-efficient gas fireplace required only the flip of a switch to get it going.
With a low noise of agreement, he turned for the great room off the front hall.
When she came back to him he stood in front of the fire. He’d taken off his boots and set them close by to dry. She gave him a towel and then sat down cross-legged in front of the warm blaze. He dropped down beside her. They got busy with the towels. Once she’d rubbed herself damp-dry, she set her towel on the rectangle of decorative stone that served as a hearth. He tossed his towel on top of hers, bending close to her as he reached across her, bringing the smell of rain on his skin and that nice, clean aftershave he wore.
“Feels good,” he said.
And she was oh, so achingly aware of him. “Yep,” she agreed. “We’ll be dry in no time.”
Her makeshift braid was dripping down her back, so she grabbed her towel again and blotted at it some more, letting her gaze wander to the bare walls he’d painted a warm, inviting butterscotch color and on to her tan sofa, and from there to the box of knickknacks by the coffee table, which she’d yet to unpack....
She looked everywhere but at him.
And then he caught the end of the towel and tugged on it.
Her breath got all tangled up in her chest as she made herself meet his eyes.
And he asked, soft and rough and low, “Do you want me to go?”
She should have said yes or even just nodded. There were so many reasons why she needed not to do anything foolish with him tonight.
Or any night, for that matter.
But the problem was, right at the moment, none of those reasons seemed the least bit important to her. None of them could hold a candle to the soft and yearning look in his eyes, the surprisingly tender curve of his sexy mouth, the way he took the towel from her hands and tossed it back over her shoulder in the general direction of the other one.
“Yes or no?” He pressed the question.
And, well, at that moment, by the fire, with him smelling so wonderful and looking at her in that focused, thrilling way, what else could she say but, “No, Nate. I want you to stay.”
He smiled then. Such a beautiful, open, true sort of smile. And he laid a hand on the side of her face, making a caress of the touch, fingers sliding back and then down over her hair, curving around her wet braid, bringing it forward over her shoulder.
And then reaching out his other hand, using his fingers so deftly, unbraiding and combing through the damp strands. “There,” he said at last. “Loose. Wet. Curling a little.”
She felt a smile tremble on her mouth. And all she could say was, “Oh, Nate...”
And he said, “That first day, back in January?”
“Yeah?” The single word escaped her lips as barely a whisper, a mere breath of sound.
“You had that heavy scarf covering the bottom of your face. And then you took it off. What’s that old Dwight Yoakum song? ‘Try Not to Look So Pretty.’ That was it—how I felt. I hoped you wouldn’t be so pretty. But you were. And you had that hat on, bright pink and green, with those three pom-poms that bounced every time you shook your head. And your hair, just little bits of it slipping out from under that hat, so soft and shiny, curling a little, making me think about getting my hands in it....”
She said, feeling hesitant, “You seemed so angry at me that day.”
He ran his index finger along the line of her jaw, setting off sparks, in a trail of sensation. “I had somewhere I needed to be.”
“I, um, kind of figured that.”
“I wasn’t prepared for you.” Gruffly, intently.
And then his eyes changed, moss to emerald, and he was leaning into her, cradling the back of her head in his big, warm hand.
And she was leaning his way, too.
And he was pulling her closer, taking her down with him onto the hearth, reaching out and pulling the towels in closer to make a pillow for her head.
She asked his name, “Nate?” And she was asking it against his warm, firm lips.
Because he was kissing her again and she was sighing, reaching her hungry hands up to thread her fingers into his damp hair. She was parting her lips for him, inviting his tongue to come inside.
And he was lifting a little, bracing on his forearms to keep from crushing her against the hard floor, his hands on either side of her face, cradling her, kissing her.
Outside, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled and the rain kept coming down.
She didn’t care. There was only the warmth of the fire and the man in her arms, the man who could be so very aggravating, but also so tender and true and unbelievably sweet.
He lifted his head and he gazed down at her and she thought that his eyes were greener, deeper than ever right then. He opened that wonderful mouth to say something.
But he never got a word out.
Because right about then, they both realized that someone was knocking on the front door.
Chapter Three (#ulink_3cdd1bdb-0e34-5507-a149-25ae98f84922)
Nate stared down at Callie. He wanted to kiss her again, to go on kissing her. Maybe whoever was at the door would just go away.
But the knocking started in again. And then a woman’s voice called, “Callie? Callie, are you in there?”
Callie blinked up at him, her mouth swollen from his kisses. “I think that’s Faith....”
Bad words scrolled through his mind as he pushed back to his knees and rose, bending to offer a hand. She took it and he helped her up.
Once they were both on their feet, they just stood there, gaping at each other like a couple of sleepwalkers wakened suddenly in some public place. He took a slow breath and willed the bulge at his fly to subside. Just what he needed. Their neighbor knowing exactly what she’d interrupted, spreading the word that he and Callie had a thing going on. And, okay, yeah. He did have a thing for Callie. But it was a thing he’d never intended to act on....
The knock came again. “Callie?” cried a woman’s voice.
Callie called, “I’ll be right there!”
Both of them got to work smoothing their hair and straightening their still-damp clothes. Tucking in her snug T-shirt as she went, Callie headed for the door. Since he didn’t know what else to do, he trailed in her wake. She disengaged the lock and pulled the door back.
Faith, barefoot in a pale blue cotton maternity dress, stood dripping on the doorstep, holding a battery-powered lantern, a relieved-looking smile on her face. “You’re here. I’m so glad....”
Callie stepped back. “Come in, come in....”
Faith spotted Nate. “Hey there, Nathan.”
“Ahem. Hi, Faith.” He felt like a fool.
But Faith didn’t seem especially concerned with what he might be doing in the dark at Callie’s house. She said to Callie, “Actually, I came over to get you.”
Callie frowned. “Get me?”
Faith’s head bobbed up and down. “It’s happening. The baby’s coming. I’ve been timing contractions, getting everything ready. They’re four minutes apart, about fifty seconds each.”
“Active labor,” Callie said in a hushed, almost reverent tone.
And Faith chuckled, as if having a baby in the middle of a rainstorm with the phones out and no electricity was something kind of humorous. “I’ve been waiting for the phones to come on so I could call my mom and call you over. But the phones aren’t cooperating. And it feels to me like this baby is going to be born real soon now. I... Uh-oh.” She doubled over with a groan, her free hand moving to cradle her giant belly. “Here...comes another one....”
Callie took the lantern from her and shoved it at him. “Here.” Blinking, stunned, he took it. This couldn’t be happening.
But it was.
Nate stood there, holding the lantern high, gaping at the two of them in complete disbelief.
