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She opened her mouth to protest that he’d been working hard all day, but he cut her off with a wry, “It’s your last chance. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon. Go on. You must have something to do to get ready for your show on Friday.”
It was for the best, she knew. Her real life with the boys would include only the five of them, so the sooner they adjusted to that reality the better off they would all be. It was only right.
She just couldn’t decide why it felt so wrong.
SUSAN HEARD THE WIND pick up around two in the morning. It whispered in the trees behind the house but within minutes had grown to a roar. Branches scraped against the house and the windows; she heard the trash can at the side of the house fall over, the chimes on the patio tinkled as though trying to play some up-tempo jazz piece.
And then she heard the first rumble of thunder. It was in the distance, low as the crackling of paper.
Oh, no. She hated electrical storms. She had no childhood trauma to trace it back to, no logical explanation for the serious fear that built in her when thunder rattled overhead and made the house shake.
It wasn’t hereditary because her mother had always slept through them, surprised to hear in the morning that there’d been a storm.
She remembered sitting in the middle of her bed as a child, knees pulled up to her chin, eyes closed against the flashes of light as she rocked herself and waited for the storm to end.
The second clap of thunder came, considerably closer and therefore louder.
“This is ridiculous,” she told herself firmly as she swung her legs to the floor. She was a mother now. She couldn’t cower in the middle of her bed. She had to check on the boys, bring in the chime before it woke the whole neighborhood, put the trash can in the garage.
A peek into the rooms showed the boys still sound asleep. She adjusted blankets, tucked in feet, then left both doors slightly ajar as she ran downstairs to haul in the chimes.
As she did so, a brilliant flash of lightning lit the sky and she hurried back inside, the bamboo tubes riotously noisy in her hands. She closed the doors and put the chime on the dining-room table.
But she wasn’t fast enough to cover her ears before the clap of thunder struck, louder, closer, reverberating long enough to laugh at her attempts at courage.
But she made herself function. The trash can. She had to bring in the trash can.
She opened the kitchen door into the garage and reached to the side for the light switch—and collided with a solid object trying to occupy the same space.
Shock was followed instantly by terror. She screamed as a hand reached out to catch her arm, the sound bloodcurdling even to her own ears.
“Susan, it’s me!” Aaron said, flipping on the light. He was still holding her arm, looking as though she’d alarmed him as much as he’d alarmed her.
She stared at him, unable to speak.
“I heard the trash can rolling around,” he explained, “and I thought I’d better bring it in before you had to chase it into the next county. I’m sorry I frightened you. I didn’t realize you were up.”
“It’s all right,” she whispered, her heartbeat choking her. “I…didn’t know you were awake.”
Light filled the dark house like sunshine, then was snuffed in an instant as thunder crashed and rolled, the noise deafening and interminable.
Susan wasn’t sure whether to cover her ears to block the sound or her mouth to hold back the scream. She decided to cover her ears and bite her lips.
Aaron flipped off the garage light, stepped into the kitchen and pulled the door closed.
“Are you afraid of—?” Lightning flashed and thunder struck again, sounding as though a truckload of cymbals had overturned on the roof.
All pretense of courage gone. Susan wrapped her arms around Aaron’s chest and held on. It helped considerably when he enfolded her, providing a haven against the next barrage of sound, and the one after that.
SEPARATING HER FROM HIM, Aaron speculated with a smile in the darkness, would probably require surgery. She was holding him so tightly, it felt as though she would join him in his skin if she could, as though their bodies may already have fused in a few places.
“I don’t like…thunder,” she said against him in a quiet moment, her fingers still clutching the back of the T-shirt he’d pulled on with his jeans.
He ran a hand gently between her shoulder blades. “And I thought this was just a very bold seduction,” he teased.
She raised her head long enough to give him a scolding look, then lightning flashed and she buried her face against him again as the harsh sound followed.
He noticed she was trembling and felt sure it was due as much to her mid-thigh-length nightshirt as it was to her fear of the storm.
He swung her up into his arms and carried her to the sofa bed in the family room. He sat down with her and pulled the blanket over her.
“You’re probably thinking,” she said in a frail voice, “that it’s ridiculous for a grown woman to be afraid of thunder.”
“No,” he said. “I was just wondering if you’re warm enough.”
She sighed and let her head fall against his shoulder. “I’m fine. You’re very warm.”
“Mmm.” Actually he was getting a little hot. Hotter than was really safe under the circumstances.
“I can’t believe this hasn’t awakened the boys,” she said. “They were sleeping soundly when I checked, but it wasn’t this bad then.”
“I’m sure they’ll come looking for us if they wake up.”
“Are you comfortable?” she asked.
That was a tricky question. His body was comfortable. The blanket covered him, too, warding off the nighttime coolness of the house. But the softness of her in his lap, the loop of her arms around his neck, the silken skin of her cheek against his throat was making him decidedly uncomfortable.
She wasn’t his type; he’d concluded that already. And she considered him a failure at familial relationships.
But his traitorous body seemed unaware of that. It was reacting to a scenario going on in his brain that involved stretching out on the soft sofa and making the best of a promising situation.
Then she lifted her head off his shoulder and looked into his eyes at the same instant that lightning lit the room. He saw that complicated need in her worried gaze.
And he realized he’d been wrong earlier when he’d thought that she needed him out of the way.
It wasn’t that at all. It was that she’d wanted him out of the way for some reason he didn’t entirely understand, but she really needed him to stay. He felt it in the arms around his neck, in the trusting inclination of her body against his.
Suddenly he had a clearer understanding of her. He seemed to be feeling the very same things, only in reverse.
Whatever this was between them, he didn’t need it. But he realized now in the quiet darkness that he wanted it.
He really wanted it.
Chapter Four
Aaron felt Susan’s heart beating against him. She seemed to be looking for something in his eyes. Or perhaps she’d found it and was trying to understand it.
He sighed, accepting the inevitable.
“Yes,” he said, brushing away a strand of hair caught in her eyelashes. “I’m staying.”
Pain shot into her eyes. “I don’t want you to stay,” she whispered, her voice halfhearted and completely unconvincing.
“Yes, you do. You don’t want to want me to, but you do.”
She repeated that to herself, then frowned at him. “And how would you know that?”
“Your heart’s beating against mine,” he replied. “It’s calling my name.”
She rolled he eyes. “Hearts do not call. I don’t hear anything.”
“It’s not a sound,” he said. “It’s a readout. In your eyes.”
She closed them then and groaned, leaning into his shoulder again. “You’re misinterpreting,” she insisted softly. “It’s just because I’m afraid the boys won’t ever respond to me the way they do to you. They’re guys, after all. Hard to understand.”
He chose not to tell her that entangled in her need for him because of what he could do for the boys, he’d read a need that was for her alone.
He laughed. “We’re not that complicated. We just want to be loved, obeyed and fed deli sandwiches.”
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