of the animals minded.
* * *
Hope raised a fist to the storm, but it raged on all around her. So stupid.
“How could you get stuck?” she asked herself for the twentieth time. After a big, resounding boom, the power had gone out for good. At only two in the afternoon, it looked like early evening, the black clouds and gloomy skies blocking most light. Knowing she’d have to get at least a flashlight, she’d bundled up, gotten in her car, backed out...and off the driveway into the swampy yard where she remained.
Damn it, she was a good driver! How could that have happened?
She wasn’t sure what to do, but she’d need her car before Monday morning because she had to go to work. Ivey was visiting with Corbin, and no way would Hope interrupt.
Biting her lip, she considered things. Was Lang alone in the bigger house? Or had he gone out, too?
When her phone rang, she jumped so hard it felt like her heart had bounced against her rib cage. Without seeing who it was, she swiped her thumb over the screen and yelled, “Hello?”
There was a second of charged silence, followed by a laugh. “Catch you at a bad time, Hope?”
Her jaw dropped. Lang. “I’m sorry! It’s the storm... I can barely hear with the rain so loud against the roof of my car.”
“You went out in this mess?”
“Um...” She looked through the window where it appeared a pond was forming around her car. “Sort of?”
“Sort of, meaning what?”
“I was going to the store for a flashlight and candles and stuff. Maybe something to eat that didn’t need to be cooked. But... I’m stuck.”
Calm and patience personified, he asked, “Stuck where?”
“In my driveway?”
“You don’t know?”
She narrowed her eyes. “In my driveway.”
“How’d that happen?”
Was he laughing at her? From somewhere usually hidden, her temper popped out. “I’m hanging up now.”
“No, wait.” She could still hear the grin in his voice. “That’s why I called. I was going out to the store, too, and was going to ask if you needed anything, but hey, why don’t I just pick you up and we can go together?”
Several things happened at once. Her heart jumped into overdrive. Heat rushed over her skin. Dread threatened, but it ran neck and neck with eagerness. “I, um...”
“Hope.” His tone sounded incredibly gentle. “We could hit up the store, then grab food and after that I can take a look at your car.”
“It’s stuck in the mud,” she explained, because she wasn’t yet ready to address anything else. “I’m afraid if I keep trying to get it free, I’m only going to tear up the yard.”
“True enough. So what do you say?” He waited. Almost as enticement, he added, “I could be over there in three minutes.”
Before she overthought it, Hope closed her eyes and blurted, “Okay.” Then she clenched all over.
“Awesome.” Still, she didn’t hear any great inflection in his tone. No pressure, but no real excitement, either. “Stay put. I’ll bring a towel.”
As soon as he disconnected, she thought she might hyperventilate. The air inside the car seemed to thicken and grow hot. Deliberately, she slowed her breathing. It helped the tiniest bit. She sat there, frozen, a morass of tingling nerves, until his headlights came up the driveway. He’s safe, she told herself. He understands. It’ll be fine.
Ivey wouldn’t steer me wrong.
That last reassurance did the most to calm her panic. Out of every person she’d ever known, she trusted Ivey the most. Sometimes, Ivey was the only person she trusted.
Pulling up beside her passenger door, Lang put his truck in Park. When he pulled on a hat, she realized he was about to get out, which guaranteed they’d both end up soaked. That got her in gear.
Waving for him to wait, she turned off her car, grabbed her purse and climbed over the console so she could dash straight into his passenger door. With one last withering glare at the angry skies, she pulled up the hood of her coat, opened the door and dashed toward his truck.
The door opened before she reached it, but the truck was high and it took her a second to clamber in.
Sodden, dripping everywhere, she looked up—and caught Lang’s indulgent smile. The roomy cab of his truck seemed to shrink around her until she was too close to him, could see only him, smell him, feel him—
“A little wet out there, huh?”
The ironic words interrupted her building tension, allowing her to work up a smile. “A bit.”
In