Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
But she did.
By the time it was Teri’s turn to hop on his back, the woman no longer looked worried. Her kids were out of danger.
And then it was over. The rain continued to come down in buckets, but it was over.
At which point, nothing short of an act of God could keep Natalie in the truck.
Chapter Twenty-Two
August trudged up onto the shore, sweatpants waterlogged, skin scraped from the debris that had passed him in the water. He accepted a blanket from one of the emergency workers and waved off the applause, relieved and gratified enough just to see the Frasier fivesome reunited. But he had one destination in mind. The truck. The woman.
Getting her the hell out of there and back into his house, where it was safe.
And he didn’t need to wait long to reassure himself she was all right, because Natalie was running toward him in her nightshirt.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life—and easily the most terrifying. They were still in a volatile situation with the rain continuing to come down at an alarming rate. If the road behind him could be flooded in seconds, the one they were standing on could, too. Don’t get him started on landslides and falling trees and power lines coming down.
“Get back in the truck,” he called, his voice hoarse from shouting.
Of course she kept coming. Didn’t slow down at all.
The nightshirt clung to her, black hair stuck in damp curlicues to her neck and cheeks. No shoes. Was she hoping to round off this fine fucking morning with a tetanus shot? Or was she more of a hypothermia girl?
If only she wasn’t the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld in his life, maybe he could hold on to his anger. But he was aching everywhere, all over his body, for her touch, because he’d had the same recurring thought during the rescue.
What if the last time I saw her, I was shouting at her? What if that’s how she remembers me? After all, there was always risk involved with every mission, no matter how big or small.
Around ten yards away from August, she stubbed her toe on the road and the dinner they’d eventually gotten around to eating around midnight nearly came back up.
“Natalie,” he growled, ready to admonish her for leaving the safety of the truck when he was damn well on his way to be with her, anyway. But the lecture died in his throat when she leapt into his arms with a sob, her body shaking like a washing machine during the spin cycle. “Hey.” He kept his voice as soft as possible, but it was thicker than pancake batter. “Everyone is okay, princess. Everything is fine.”
“What the hell,” she strangle-whispered into his neck. “Like, what the hell?”
August carried her over to the open passenger-side door of the truck, but he walked slowly, because there was nothing in the goddamn universe better than holding this woman, except for maybe holding her in a safe, dry location. “What’s the matter? You’ve never seen a flash flood before?”
She clung harder. “No!”
“Civilians.” He sighed, tickling her ribs a little. “Stay off this road during storms. The elevation puts it lower than the creek bed.” She said nothing, so he poked her. “Promise me, Natalie.”
“Okay. I promise.” She leaned back a little and her puffy eyes and red-tipped nose nearly made him stumble. “Of course, if I ever got stuck out there, you’d just strap on a harness and come rescue me. Totally calm and casual, as if you’re heating up a microwave dinner.”
He took stock of his body, cataloging the chaotic buzz at the base of his throat, the vibrations in his fingertips. The rippling of his heart, which whipped into breakneck speed at her words. “For the record, I’m not calm. I’ve got enough pent-up adrenaline to flip this truck and maybe run a half marathon. If you were the one I had to rescue, Natalie . . .” He shook his head, and kept right on shaking it until he probably looked insane. “I wouldn’t have been coolheaded enough to put on the harness. I’d have jumped in and swum.”
The picture she’d painted in his head—of herself stranded on the island of her blue car in the middle of a swift current—made his arms and knees weak, so he set her down sideways on the passenger seat before he did something humiliating, like collapse in the middle of the road. He was attempting to rein in his stampeding adrenaline and it took him a moment to notice how she was looking at him. Softly, with teeth-marked lips and eyes heavy with moisture, her breasts shuddering up and down. Vulnerable in a way he’d never seen her before. Walls down.
“I don’t think one month is going to be enough anymore,” she said haltingly, swiping at her eyes and hiccupping through a gulp of air. “We might need to renegotiate our terms.”