Скачать книгу

but pans clattered despite her efforts. She pulled out the largest pots she found, then tried to juggle them with a couple of dish towels and the lantern. This no-electricity thing could get old very fast.

      The other bedroom door flew open. “What are you doing out here?” Gavin sounded both sleepy and irritated.

      “I’m sorry I disturbed you again,” she replied over her shoulder. “The roof in this bedroom is leaking in two places. I’m trying to catch the water before it does any damage.”

      “Well, hell.”

      Moments later, he knelt beside her with another towel, though she’d already mopped up most of the standing water. His now-bare shoulder brushed her arm as they reached out together, and she felt a jolt of electricity shoot through her. Just static, she assured herself, scooting an inch away. She stuck a pot beneath the leak and heard the rhythmic strike of drops against metal.

      “Should we try to move the bed away from the leak?”

      “Nowhere to move it to.” He picked up the other pot and set it on the top bed. Now the water splashed in stereo, thumping against the pots like miniature drumbeats. “There are waterproof covers on both mattresses. I’ll strip the beds and try to dry everything tomorrow.”

      He turned toward her, his partially shadowed face inscrutable. “Obviously you can’t stay in here. That dripping would drive you nuts.”

      “True.”

      He let out a sigh and motioned toward the doorway. “Looks like you’re sleeping in my bed tonight.”

      Her heart gave a hard thump simultaneously with the loud clap of thunder that accompanied his words.

       Chapter Two

      Jenny woke with a start Saturday morning at the sound of a closing door. Disoriented, she blinked her eyes open, only then remembering that she’d spent a restless night on the sleeper sofa in the cabin’s living room. Gavin had offered the use of his bed, but she’d refused. She wouldn’t displace an injured man from his bed because of a mix-up that was no fault of his own. Not to mention that the thought of crawling into sheets still warm from his body had been disconcerting enough to make her toes curl.

      Though the fold-out mattress was comfortable enough, she hadn’t slept well, and the noisy storm had been only part of the reason. She’d lain awake for a long time trying to come to grips with the reality that after all these years her ex-boyfriend lay only a few feet away. Old memories—some bittersweet, some wrenching—had whirled through her head, leaving her too tense to relax. It had simply never crossed her mind that she might run into Gavin at the cabin she’d only visited before with him. Some might say there was a complicated Freudian explanation behind her decision to come here to consider another man’s proposal, but that was ridiculous. It had been the peace and quiet that had drawn her here, certainly not nostalgia.

      Gavin stood in front of her when she turned her head toward the front door. Dressed in a gray T-shirt, jeans and boots, he was damp and mud-splattered. He pushed a hand through his wet hair, which was so long it touched the back collar of his shirt, indicating he’d missed a couple of cuts. He still hadn’t shaved, adding to his roguish bad-boy appearance. Her pulse jumped into a faster rhythm at the sight of him. If she’d had any doubt that she still found Gavin strongly attractive, that question was answered definitively now.

      “Sorry I woke you,” he said.

      Self-conscious, she swung her feet to the floor and pushed herself upright, trying to smooth her tousled hair. It bothered her to think he’d walked right past her as she’d slept, leaving her feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. That was a little hard to deal with this morning.

      Light filtered in through the windows. She could hear rain still falling on the roof, though the height of the storm had passed. She saw no lights burning inside, so she assumed the power was still out. “What time is it?”

      “A little after eight.”

      Later than she usually slept, but she hardly felt well-rested. “What’s it like out there?”

      His response was blunt. “A mess. Lots of limbs on the ground. There’s a big tree over the road a few yards from the house, totally blocking the drive, and I’m sure there’s flooding beyond that. You’re lucky you got here when you did last night. You won’t be leaving for a while yet. No way to get down the hill in your car.”

      Not promising. She moistened her dry lips before asking, “Is my car damaged?”

      “A few hail dings. You were fortunate. A good-size limb fell only a couple feet away from your hood.”

      While she was relieved her car hadn’t sustained damage, she wasn’t sure fortunate was the right word to describe her current situation. “How long do you think it will take for them to clear the tree from the road?”

      “Them?”

      “The county? Highway department? Whoever does that sort of thing.”

      “Highway department doesn’t take care of rural gravel roads. And the tree’s on private property, so the county isn’t going to deal with it. I’m sure they have their hands full elsewhere. From what I saw on my phone news feed, there was quite a bit of damage around this part of the state last night.”

      “Oh.” She swallowed, feeling suddenly a bit panicky at the thought of being trapped here with Gavin for much longer. It wasn’t that she feared for her safety—but she couldn’t say the same for her peace of mind. “So, what are we going to do?”

      “I’ve got a chain saw in the back of my truck. I was planning to do some light trimming and clearing this weekend, anyway, assuming my shoulder cooperated. I’ll tackle the tree when the rain stops, but it’s going to take a while with only the one sixteen-inch saw. As for the flooding, you’ll just have to wait for that to recede. There’s too much water over the road for you to risk driving through it, even if you could figure out a way to get around the tree. You’d be swept into the river before you made it across.”

      Unsurprised that he hadn’t planned to let his injury stop him from the work he’d wanted to do, she twisted her fingers in front of her. “How long do you think it will take for the flooding to recede?”

      He glanced upward, silently indicating the still-falling rain. “This county remains under a flash flood alert. It’s going to take a few hours for all the water to drain off once the rain stops.”

      “Have you heard from home? Was there storm damage in the Little Rock area?”

      He shook his head. “The worst of the storms were confined to this part of the state.”

      She was relieved that her family and her business had escaped the brunt of the storms she’d so foolishly driven into, but she wasn’t looking forward to spending several hours alone here with Gavin and their shared memories. “Surely I can get out somehow. Is there a back road, maybe?”

      “Look, Jenny, I’m no more pleased about this than you are, but you might as well face facts. You’d be risking your life to try to make it down that hill now.”

      She sighed and pushed her hair out of her face, silently conceding his point. At least he wasn’t pretending to be delighted to have her here. If there was one thing she remembered about Gavin Locke, it was that he had always been bluntly, sometimes painfully, honest.

      “You had planned to stay for three nights, anyway,” he reminded her. “It’s not as if you have anyplace else you need to be today.”

      “True. But I had expected to be here alone.”

      “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

      “That’s not what I meant. I’m the one who’s intruding.”

      He made a dismissive gesture, though he didn’t assure her that it was no bother

Скачать книгу