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Lizzy was well aware that this was all her hang-up, that Cece was smart enough to evacuate, but Lizzy had been the mom for so long she couldn’t rest until she knew for certain.
Especially now that Cece was pregnant…
Unfortunately Lizzy’s car wasn’t equipped for driving in these conditions. Her tires were shot, and with the roads under a few inches of water, there was no way she could get to Third Avenue, where Cece had moved shortly after her transformation six months ago.
She’d called her neighbor, an ex-cop named Mike, but he hadn’t picked up. She’d left him a message to keep an eye on her place, and let her know if anyone showed up there. Her next call had been to Dustin. They were friends from the hospital where Dustin, an EMT, often delivered patients. She had a whole group of friends from the hospital who would have helped, but for proximity reasons, she’d tagged Dustin as her best bet. He could get to Third in the storm with his SUV. All she had to do was find him. She knew he wasn’t scheduled to work at the firehouse today, and he wasn’t at Cristina’s place—she’d checked.
Which meant he had to be home. Hopefully.
“Going to get more than twenty-four inches of rain,” the deejay said. “Crazy.”
Two feet of rain, Lizzy thought, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel. Two feet in California. It boggled her mind. On a good day, Santa Rey was a sweet, little, quirky, fun beach town, with tourists filling the unique downtown streets, enjoying the outdoor cafés, shops and art galleries while skate-boarders and old ladies alike vied for the wide oaklined sidewalks.
Not today.
Today, Lizzy was alone on the roads, the beach void of the surfers and tan seekers.
She turned onto Dustin’s street, water spraying up on her windshield from the already flooded curbs, blinding her for a second. The only car in his driveway was a Jeep she didn’t recognize, but Dustin had a huge garage. If he was home, and she hoped like hell that he was, he’d be parked inside. Pulling up the hood on her thin hoodie sweatshirt, she opened her car door.
And stepped into several inches of water.
The icy wetness seeped up into the hospital scrubs she hadn’t taken the time to change out of, the thin cotton clinging to her calves and sucking the breath out of her lungs. She eyed Dustin’s house, which, like her own, was on a raised foundation, as were most of the other houses on this street, and therefore elevated off the ground. Hopefully, the concrete footings would be enough to keep them from flooding.
Unfortunately, Santa Rey sat squarely between a set of low, gently rolling hills on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west, in a little nature-made bowl of a valley.
Now with fifteen-foot swells threatening to rise even higher, and the heavy rainfall steadily sliding down the mountains with no growth to stop it thanks to last year’s tragic wildfires, that bowl was filling up.
Leaving the town in serious trouble.
By profession, Lizzy was good in an emergency. Her job depended on it. She was strong of mind and body and spirit, and she knew how to be cool, calm and collected.
Or at least appear that way.
But right now, she was having a hard time. She just needed to see Cece, and then she’d relax.
Sloshing through the water up Dustin’s front path, the driving wind nearly knocked her off her feet. At the door, she pounded her fist on the wood to be heard over the unbelievable din of the storm raging around her, and reached for the doorknob at the same time, surprised and relieved when it turned in her fingers. “Hello!” she called out into the dark house. “Dustin? It’s me…”
The living room and kitchen lights weren’t on, but she saw a light coming from down the hall. She turned back and fought the front door closed. “Dustin? Cristina?”
In answer, a shadow came along the hall. A very tall, built shadow, over six feet. But here was the thing—Dustin wasn’t six feet. Plus he had a long, lanky runner’s body that tended toward skinny.
Truth was, Dustin looked like Harry Potter all grown-up, complete with the sweet and kind characteristics—not like his body had been honed into a lean, mean, fighting machine.
Such as the one heading toward her.
Uh-oh.
He kept coming at her, in tune to the house shuddering and moaning around them, like something out of a horror movie, and she reminded herself that horror movies made her laugh. But she instinctively moved back a step, tripping over her own two very wet feet and—
Landed on her ass.
She’d been doing Tae Bo for at least five years. She should be able to kung fu his ass—all she had to do was stand up and execute a roundhouse kick—
Except the shadow crouched down to her level. “Are you okay?”
The question only further scattered her brain. Why would a bad guy ask her if she was okay? “Keep your mitts off me.”
“Okay.” He lifted them in surrender. “Are you the woman who called here? Do you need help?”
Dawn had barely broken and, with no lights, he was still nothing more than a dark outline of a man. A very tall, built man that she blinked up at. “How did you know I called?”
“Because I was trying to get to the phone. I couldn’t find it, and then when I did, the battery was dead.”
He didn’t sound like a bad guy. He sounded like a sleepy, slightly irritated guy who’d been woken up, his voice low and raspy.
“You hung up too fast,” he told her.
Yeah, definitely irritated.
And also, oddly familiar. Who the hell was he?
Chapter Two
“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” he asked her. “Are you okay?”
Lizzy knew that voice. How did she know that voice?
Why did she know that voice?
The guy straightened to his full height. She heard a click, and then the room was filled with light from a lamp next to the couch.
Her bad guy was wearing a pair of army-green boxer briefs.
And nothing else.
Well, except a gorgeous body that appeared to have been chiseled with the same care and build of a Greek god, layered with sinew and sleek, tanned skin and dipped in testosterone for good measure.
Holy smokes. “Um.” She shoved back her hood. “I’m looking for Dustin—” But as she focused in on him, specifically on the tribal band tattoo on his biceps, she broke off her words. He had a tat on his pec, too, a military troop number, which was new, but the one on his arm was not, and her gaze jerked up to his face.
His voice had been familiar for a reason, and her confusion vanished, replaced by shock and surprise, and not a happy one at that. Yeah, she knew him—as the bane of her existence.
At least that’s who he’d been in high school—Jason Mauer.
Dustin’s brother.
He was staring at her, as well, full recognition on his face. “Wow. Lizzy Mann, all grown up.”
“I was about to say the same.”
At her bring-on-the-icicles tone, his lips curved. “So you’re still uptight and pissy, I see.”
“I have my moments. You still an ass?”
He laughed, the sound low and rusty, as if maybe he hadn’t laughed in a long time. “Have my moments.” He eyed her scrubs. “Dr. Mann now, right?”
Everyone in Santa Rey had known she’d gotten a full ride scholarship to UCLA to follow her childhood dream of becoming a doctor. Apparently he didn’t know that she hadn’t actually gone, that she’d stayed here and raised Cece, and was only now pursuing that dream again, thanks to a grant her hospital had just awarded her to go to medical school in the fall. “No. Just Lizzy. What are you doing here? I thought you were in the National Guard.”
“I am. Was.”
“You’re out?”
He spread his hands and lifted his shoulders, as if not sure. “In between gigs, I guess you could say.”
Because their last names had both started with M, she’d sat next to him in every single class from elementary school all the way through to graduation. She hadn’t talked much—she hadn’t been able to, what with tripping over her tongue every time she so much as looked at him.
Which hadn’t mattered because he hadn’t looked at her in return. He’d been far too busy being both a football and a basketball star. Oh, and being popular. And going after every girl in school—except her.
Yeah, when it came to Jason, her teenage memories were all some variety of the same theme—humiliation and resignation. That wouldn’t be the case for him. He’d been a restless student, far more into his sports than his studies, but it hadn’t mattered. Not with his easygoing, laid-back charm. The teachers had fallen all over him, always making Lizzy help him catch up when he missed school for a game. That she’d been so shy as to make that nearly impossible had amused him to no end. He’d spent endless hours entertaining himself at her expense, either making her repeat a lengthy explanation just to watch her trip over her tongue, or playing dumb until she’d lose her patience with him.
And then he’d lean back with all that athletic grace and gorgeousness, all stretched out and lazy as hell, and grin.
She’d hated him.
And she’d loved him.
Horrifying and simple as that.
It’d ended when they’d graduated. He’d left immediately for the National Guard, and she’d gone off to UCLA—except she hadn’t. Nope, her dreams had been sidelined when her parents had gotten themselves killed flying over the Grand Canyon in a stunt plane—their anniversary gift to each other.
And she’d given up her scholarships and stayed in town to raise her thirteen-year-old sister.
“So, talk about a blast from the past, huh?” he asked in that low, sort of gravelly voice that used to make her squirm in her seat.
Yes, but since that past, she’d found her guts and courage, and now her tongue behaved, never tripping her up at the sight of a cute guy.
“Married with kids?” he asked.
“No.”
He smiled. “Not feeling that big three-oh breathing down your neck?”
“No.” For most of the time they’d ever spent together, she’d either wanted to kill him or have his babies. Apparently that was still the case. God, she’d been so young, and very naive, and she hated that reminder. If he’d so much as quirked a smile in her direction, she’d have done anything he wanted. Luckily, he’d never known the power he’d held, and she was no longer that girl. Nope, she was a twenty-nine-year-old woman, who absolutely did not want to think about his smile, and the way it still activated all her good parts.
It’d taken a long time, but painful experience by painful experience, she’d toughened up, learned to speak up for what she wanted. Mostly, she’d also learned that things worked out much better when both parties were enamored.
Not that that had happened in a while. After a series of missteps in the man department, mostly due to her own inability to fully connect to someone because when she was so busy with Cece, she’d decided to try something new and had gone off men altogether. Cristina had joined her for a while, but then she’d done the unthinkable and fallen in love with Dustin.
Leaving Lizzy alone on her penis embargo.
Well, not completely alone. Her sister had far more reasons than anyone to give up on men, as she’d just about tried the entire male species, at least all the wild ones anyway. She looked at Jason. “Definitely not feeling the big three-oh breathing down my neck.” Her life was just beginning, actually. “Do you know where Dustin is?”
“I don’t.” He stepped toward her, the light from the lamp bathing him in a soft glow that only emphasized the gorgeousness up close and personal. She tried not to stare at him and failed.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The closer he got, the harder it was for her to breathe, so no. No, she wasn’t okay.
Not by a long shot.
Her legs had turned to overcooked noodles at first sight of him and, despite her resolve, her brain had gone to mush. She could tell herself she’d gotten over him a damn long time ago, but the truth was, if he so much as crooked his pinkie finger in her direction, she was going to regress to that pathetic teenager she’d once been, and melt in a little puddle of longing at his feet.
Lord, this would be so much easier if he’d put some clothes on—
The wind cracked, and with it came an ear splitting thunk that shook the house and removed her from her lustful reverie, causing her to jump nearly right out of her skin.
“Just the trees along the side of the house,” he murmured, turning his head to look out the window. “Which should have been trimmed.” He turned on another light, and…and her brain stuttered to a halt as her eyes ate him up. It was like an opened bag of chips, she couldn’t stop herself.
“It’s getting bad out there,” he said, shifting back to her, his gaze searching her face. “Are you okay?” he repeated.
Oh, man. Man, oh, man. He’d changed, too. He was far quieter, far more intense.
And the most devastating—kind. When had that happened?
She came up to his shoulder. Which meant that her face was right at pec level, and now there was so much light…Don’t look, she ordered herself. Don’t—
She looked. And when her gaze dropped, so did her IQ. She couldn’t help it, he was just so perfectly made.
He put a finger under her chin and lifted it up. Right. He’d asked her a question. Was she okay? A question that brought her firmly back to the present. And the present was looking tricky. No Dustin meant no SUV, and no SUV meant she’d have to go it alone, and that wasn’t going to be easy. “I’m fine. I’m just worried about Cece. It’s probably nothing but I just want to go check on her.”
“Cece,” he said. “Your sister? Troublemaker Cece?”
He remembered. Damn. He was hot and sharp, which just didn’t seem like a fair distribution of gifts. “She called me last night at work. She said she was fine, no contractions or anything, but now I can’t get a hold of her, and—”
His eyes widened. “She’s pregnant?”
“Yes. And her cell phone is off. I’m thinking she evacuated, that it’s okay, I just need to get a damn life,” she said with a self-conscious laugh. “She’s growing up and moving on, and I need to do the same, but I just can’t go to higher ground and relax until I’m sure.” Because a very small part of her couldn’t trust her sister to do it, even though she should be able to.
It was asinine. “I can’t get to Eastside in my car. I was hoping to borrow Dustin’s SUV.”
“Okay.” Jason shoved his fingers through his hair and let out a breath, the movement of his arms stretching and flexing all sorts of muscles that pretty much made her mouth dry up. “Where’s her husband?”
“There is no husband. The father of her baby ran so fast her head is still spinning. I’d really hoped to find Dustin here.”
“I’ll have to do.”
In truth, he looked a lot like his much kinder, gentler brother. He had dark hair, cut military short. Like Dustin, he had light gray steely eyes that she knew could be warm and playful, or cut like steel.
But unlike Dustin, Jason had an edge, which had only sharpened over time, from his intense gaze to his physique, honed by the military.
