She took in the stiffening of my body.
“Your brother tried to ruin one of my friend’s lives,” I said softly. “Let’s just say he’s not my favorite person either. Between Tara and Andy? Y’all have a really shitty family.”
Her eyes bored into mine, and she didn’t flinch at my blunt words about her family.
“You have no idea.” She whispered those words. They were barely audible, but I’d heard them. Just as she’d intended me to. “My family? Other than Tyson? They’re the worst people I could ever dream up. However bad that you think they are? Multiply that times ten. Then square it.”
My jaw clenched. “I don’t know much about them at all…at least not beyond what I told you.”
She looked away, her eyes studying the streak of lightning that pierced the darkening gray sky.
“Big storm,” she whispered.
“Big one,” I agreed, looking at the rolling clouds. “Are you safe?”
She looked over at me and then shrugged. “As safe as one can be with a sister, brother, and father like mine.”
Her cryptic words made me want to pepper her with more questions, but then my cell phone went off with my father’s ringtone.
I sighed.
“I have to go,” I said softly as my phone started to buzz consistently. When it stopped, it just started right back up again. “I work with the power company. I’m the guy in charge and if they don’t have my direction, they’re like chickens in the rain.”
She blinked. “I don’t…understand.”
I grinned. “Chickens can drown themselves by staring up at the sky during the rain. That’s my guys if I’m not there. Plus, I like to supervise when they have thousands and thousands of volts of electricity that they’re playing with.”
She stood up, giving Monster one more pat on the head.
When she was straightened all the way, I realized that she was still short, even when she wasn’t in her wheelchair.
She was about five foot two if that. And compared to my six foot four? Well, she was downright tiny.
Her bones were tiny. Her hands were tiny. Her lips were plush but tiny.
I’d break her if I ever held her.
But I immediately shook that thought off. I wouldn’t be holding her. I wouldn’t be doing anything with her.
Nope. No. Nuh-uh.
She smiled at me as Monster tried to worm his way into her arms.
“I like your dog, Liner…”
“Josiah Ampere Paldecki,” I answered. “Liner is something I got when I started working for my dad at the age of eighteen.”
Her head tilted slightly.
“As in Ampere Electric?”
I grinned. “The one and only.”
She followed me to the red line that was in the middle of the floor that led to the bedrooms.
I saw her stop just short of it.
My eyes went to the line that slatted across the floor, butting almost completely up to the front of the nurses’ station, then to her.
“A line you’re not supposed to cross?” I teased.
She shrugged. “Beyond this line is the doctors’ lounges, the private quarters for those that stay overnight, and the pill room.” She jerked her chin up in that direction. “They don’t want us crossing it without permission. And since I’m not a rule breaker, I do as I’m told.”
I winked. “Come on. Cross it. You know you want to.”
Her eyes went to a nurse that was standing near the room she’d indicated had the drugs in it, then went back to me. “I’m sorry…but no.”
The nurse had her eyes locked on Theo as if she was just waiting for her to do it.
“Maybe another time then, darlin’.” I winked. “I’ll see you next week.”
Her face fell. “Next week?”
Was that sadness in her eyes?
I was a masochistic bastard, because I was hoping it was.
“Yeah, next week.” I paused. “At the earliest, to be honest. If the storm’s half as bad as the National Weather Service is predicting it’ll be? I could be gone longer.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Be careful.”
I tugged on a lock of her hair. God, she was beautiful.
“I will, darlin’.”
With that, I took off and tried not to look back.
I accomplished my goal, but I didn’t feel like I’d won.
Not even a little.
There was something about that woman that drew me in, and I couldn’t help but think that the longer I allowed this to go on, the worse it was going to be.Chapter 6Hey girl. You’re looking like a king cake. Let me put a baby in you.
-T-shirt
Theo
The storm was worse than they predicted.
How did I know?
Because a tornado tore through the middle of the town, heading straight for The Bridge.
I’d never, in my entire life, been so scared as when I heard those tornado sirens go off.
The one and only nurse that liked me, Maddyn, who happened to look a lot like me, turned her head and stared at me with a look of horror on her face.
“They’re saying they spotted a tornado headed straight for us,” one of the doctors, Benjamin Wheeler, said. “My wife just called. She said it passed right by our house. Took the neighbor’s house but not ours. She also mentioned that the tornado sirens are malfunctioning, and none of them are going off on the other side of town.”