Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) (9 page)

“Hang on, I’ll get the broom!” Hannah shouted over the shrill sound of the wind coming from the half-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

I turned back to the closed door. I had dropped the comforter when the window blew out. It lay in a wet heap on the floor, so I shoved it into the gap, breathing a sigh of relief when the ear-piercing screech of wind muffled somewhat.

The handle of the broom nudged my arm as Hannah stood in front of me wearing my boots. “Stand still for a second.”

When she bent to her task, I watched as she maneuvered the broom around my feet, clearing a path for me to move out of the way so that she could sweep up the rest of the glass.

I had to admit, and maybe it was a tad bit ridiculous considering the predicament we were in, but seeing her in my boots, with her hair all disheveled and her clothes all rumpled, had my thoughts on overdrive. Had me thinking back to how close we’d come to giving in to each other back in the shower.

“Is that okay, Ed?” she asked as she swept the last of the glass into the dustpan.

“Huh?” I tried to swallow down the thoughts of my hands grabbing her well-shaped backside.

“I’m going to take the lantern for a second and grab the first-aid kit. You okay waiting here?”

“Okay?” I snorted. “I’m a man, love.”

She rolled her eyes, tossing a
whatever
over her shoulder as she disappeared, leaving me in the dark with visions of sugarplum kisses and nice, perky breasts dancing in my head.

“IT SOUNDED LIKE AN EXPLOSION went off when the window let go. I thought you were dead.” Hannah dabbed something that burned like acid when it touched my skin.

The only good outcome from what happened was Hannah snapping out of her fear and squashing it to help me.

“I’m glad I’m not,” I said through a wince. “Dead, that is,” I added with an attempted chuckle.

She rolled her eyes at me and gathered up the first-aid kit. “Me too. Otherwise, I’d have to ride out the rest of this storm on my own and I don’t think I’d make it.”

“Have ye ever been through a storm like this before?”

“No, and I never want to again,” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

The wind hadn’t let up, not entirely, making me wonder how long we’d remain huddled in the confines of the hallway. How long did a hurricane take to blow itself out?

“Well, lucky for ye, ye have excellent company.” I puffed my chest out, wiggling my eyebrows.

She got to her feet, first-aid kit clutched in her hands. “Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head. I’m gonna put this back.”

“Oh, it went to my head. Several times, love,” I mumbled under my breath.

Our bags, while wet, had been zipped closed so no glass made it inside of them. While Hannah was in the bathroom, I pushed them against the wall on the other side of the hallway in case we, for whatever reason, needed to leave it. The last thing we needed was to trip over them.

Maggie and Phillip would have a huge mess to come home to.

The worst part was the shrill whistle blowing past the gaps of the bedroom door. Sounded like a woman being bloody murdered, it did. Wracking my brain, I tried to think about how I could fix it.

“Ed?” Hannah called from the bathroom.

I poked my head inside as she pointed to a linen closet.

“Look what I found.” She pointed to an abundance of towels along with stacks of blankets and sheets.

An idea clicked into place.

“Do ye know anything about hurricanes?” I asked Hannah, trying to recall what little I knew. There was something about an eye. However, not having to deal with such storms back home, it wasn’t forthcoming in my memories.

“A little. Why?” she answered, pulling a comforter and sheets out of the linen closet.

I took the sheets she handed me. “Remind me again, there’s an eye to the storm, right?”

“Yeah, it supposedly gets really calm and then all hell breaks loose again,” she replied with a worried look on her face.

“Nothing we can do about that but get through it, yeah? But I think I know how we can make that bloody noise go away.” I tipped my head in the direction of the aggravating sound.

WHEN THE WINDS DIED DOWN, we grabbed all the towels, and whatever else we could get our hands on, and opened the door to Maggie and Phillip’s room. There wasn’t any helping the damage that already happened inside, but Hannah did rescue Maggie’s overturned jewelry box and a handful of pictures.

The door was an absolute bitch to close with all the towels and washcloths in place, but we managed.

Once we had that taken care of, Hannah spread out a clean comforter on the mattress in the hallway, sprawling on top of it with a groan. “Come to Rum Cay, Hannah. It’ll be fun, Hannah,” she mumbled. “I never want to see this island ever again,” she said, propping herself up to look at me with those incredible blue eyes.

“Up until today, it’s been good.” I tried to put a positive spin on it for her.

Her impossibly thick lashes fluttered. “Yeah, I know. Don’t listen to me, I’m just tired.” She sighed, burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

I knew how she felt. Even though it had been a little over six hours since we’d learned of the storm, it felt like we’d been at it forever. Seeing how Hannah handled the first half of it worried me about how she’d do when the eye moved over us… and all hell broke loose again.

“It’ll be worse, you know,” she said, sitting up and putting her arms around her knees.

“Will it now?”
Damn.
I didn’t need to know that.

“Yeah, the backside of the storm is stronger, or at least I think I remember hearing that,” she said as her head bent down to rest on her knees.

I leaned heavily against the wall. “We’ll get through it. Together.”

She turned her head to peer up at me. “Storms like this don’t bother you?”

I shrugged. I’d been through heavy storms, but nothing like what we were huddled up against. At least it wasn’t blowing drifts of snow over the rooftop. I’d gone through one particular storm as a child where the fire kept getting doused out by the wind, and my parents huddled us close under a tent of blankets and several layers of clothing just to get through it.

Being so young, I didn’t fully understand the severity of the situation we’d been in at the time, because my father had done his job at keeping us safe and warm and, in doing so, kept my mother calm. What I remembered most was how we rode the storm out under a makeshift tent that seemed sort of magical in my childhood memories.

Maybe that would work again.

Pushing myself from the wall, I strode out to the kitchen and grabbed two chairs, and then went back and grabbed two more.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked as she watched me set the chairs against the mattress before disappearing into the bathroom.

“Ye’ll see,” I called back at her.

A few sheets and a couple of curse words later, I stood back, smiling at my accomplishment.

“I can’t believe you built a tent.” She lay on her back, looking up at the floral-printed sheet stretched over our heads.

“Correction, I built us the
best
damn tent on the island.” The smugness of my idea made me feel somewhat cocky.

She turned on her side to face me, her hair spilling over her shoulder. “Ed, I really appreciate everything you’ve done to help me get through this.”

I crossed my arms behind my head, secretly pleased she was happy with what I’d done. “Think nothing of it, love,”

“No. I mean it. Not many men, well, maybe none of them, would have put up with my fear. I’m sure most would have already bolted. Hurricane or not.” Her eyes didn’t meet mine as her finger traced an invisible pattern on the quilt.

A heart.

I rolled over onto my side and reached out to touch her chin when her eyes met mine. “Who hurt ye, love?”

Her mouth quirked on one side as she answered, “No one hurt me.”

I called her out on her lie. “Your reaction earlier tells me that’s not true. I’ve seen what violence does to a person. Ye thought I was going to knock ye ‘round.”

Her eyes closed tight. Just that simple admittance burned holes through my stomach.

“I can promise ye on the moon and stars above, Hannah, I’d never lay a hand ye didn’t want on ye.”

Her lashes fluttered open as her eyes sought mine. “I know. I don’t know how I know… but something in my gut tells me that. And that in itself scares me.”

I took her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over the soft curve of her warm knuckles. “Why?”

The innocence in her eyes struck me hard… right through the heart as she said, “Because you’re not like any guy I’ve ever met before. At least… not from what I’ve seen so far. You’re funny and kind. You’re strong, but you’re not arrogant. Well, at least not in the pig-headed kind of way that always has me running for the hills. You’re like—”

She paused, her hands flying up in the air as if she was trying to grasp exactly what she was trying to say, and then a sort of calm smile overcame her face as the answer seemed to settle in.

“You’re like that unattainable list I made when I was younger of everything I’ve ever wanted in a guy, but knew I’d never find.” She stilled, blowing out a long breath before continuing, “You’re what I know I can’t have. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

My heart swelled inside of my chest with her admission, and then deflated more than I was prepared for. I wasn’t sure I knew just how much I really liked her until that moment. Until I knew, looking in her eyes and hearing from her lips, we wouldn’t be a
thing
.

And maybe that was for the best, because I wasn’t so sure I could handle another heartbreak. Maybe, what we could find on the island, during the storm, didn’t have to be something that grew into something more, but could be something that helped heal those old wounds.

That could take two lonely, broken hearts, and separately mend them back together.

The shadows of the past swept out with her exhale, removing every reason why I shouldn’t take her in my arms and never let her go.

Damn the consequences. Damn the past. Damn the future.

I ached to pull her against me. To bury myself inside her and never come up for air. I wanted to claim her and all of her fears, making them slink away with my presence alone. I wanted it so badly my entire body shook with the need of it.

I had to have her.

“Did ye know inside this tent, all time stops?” I asked, feeling my way through the emotion she’d set loose inside of me.

She chuckled. “Oh yeah? How does that work?”

I let go of her hand and moved closer to her, propping myself up on my elbow to look down at her as she rolled over onto her back.

“Here, but only here, in this tent, is our own world. There are no rules. It’s just us, and that’s it,” I said, tracing my fingers down her arm as she shivered under my touch. Another round of goose bumps broke over her skin as she sucked in a sharp breath.

And just like that, something caught fire in her eyes. “I was never one for rules anyway,” Hannah said, reaching up and grabbing my neck as she pulled me down against her for a searing kiss.