Jill Shalvis: Storm Watch

She let out a half smile, full of sympathy. “Still decompressing?”

“Yeah.” More than she could possibly know, and it was a reminder, a cold slap of hard reality that he had decisions to make for a future he didn’t want to face. So it was him who turned away this time, needing to break eye contact, needing to not let her in his head.

She was quiet as he bent to put on his shoes. “When we had the big fires here last year, I worked four straight days without much more than a few catnaps. My entire life was the E.R., treating the firefighters, the victims, and when I finally got off duty and out into the parking lot where I’d left my car, I had the weirdest thing happen.”

He straightened. “What?”

“I broke down.” She lifted a shoulder. “I just sat on the curb and cried like a baby for half an hour. I have no idea why.”

He could picture it. Hell, he’d lived it. “That was sheer exhaustion, Lizzy.”

“Yes. After only four days of hell.”

Knowing where she was going with this, he shook his head. “Don’t.”

She walked toward him. “I have to.” Her gaze touched over each of his features, feeling like a caress. “I felt that way after only four days of adrenaline and fear and craziness, so I can only imagine what it’s like for you after years.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Very fine.”

Her words made him want to smile but he held back because she didn’t stop moving until they were toe to toe, until she’d once again put a hand on his chest.

Clearly she wasn’t finished with hacking at his hard-earned self-control.

“I’m sure there’s a transition period,” she said very quietly, giving him something he hadn’t had any of and didn’t want because it ripped at that control more than anything else could-sympathy. “Between what you’ve been doing, and being here…” Her hand slid over his chest until she laid her palm right over his heart, which was not nearly as steady as he’d have liked. “I imagine there’s a disconnect. A gap.”

She had no idea. “The size of the equator,” he agreed, not thrilled that his voice came out low and hoarse.

She was quiet another moment, then reached for his hand. “Don’t worry, Jase, I’m sure it’ll come to you, what you want to do.”

Well, he was glad she was sure. Because he wasn’t.

The moment broken, she dropped her hands from him and turned away.

He slipped into his rain gear while she did the same. He put two first-aids kits inside his backpack and shouldered it.

“Two?” she asked.

“Who knows what we’ll need.”

“There’s only a couple of inches so far.”

“Yeah, but even one inch in the wrong place can cause flash flooding, which can bring walls of water ten to twenty feet high. Trust me, there’s a whole town out there thinking this is no big deal, but it can turn into one in seconds. Plus, if we find Cece and she’s in labor-”

“When.” Her voice was unyielding as she corrected him. “ When we find her.”

“If she’s out there,” he promised, “we’ll find her.”

“Yeah.” She broke eye contact, getting busy with adjusting her rain poncho.

Reaching out, he lifted her chin, ran the pad of his thumb over the cut on her cheek. “We’ll find her.”

She nodded, hugging herself in all those layers. He had to work hard not to add his arms to the mix. He’d come here wanting to feel nothing, but look at him, feeling emotions all over the place. Shaking his head at himself, he opened the door and, as the wind and rain drafted in, reached for her hand.

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

She looked up into his eyes. “Thank you.”

He took in the craziness of the storm. Power lines down. Trees doubled over. Several inches of rain sloshing at the curbs. A flash of Matt’s face came to him, and his gut tightened. “Don’t thank me yet.”

CECEMANN PACED THROUGHthe contraction. Miraculously, it was her first real pain, meaning it was the first one to make her want to twist some guy’s nuts off.

Actually, make that every guy’s nuts off.

Not so miraculously, she didn’t like this whole labor business, not one little bit. “Okay,” she said to her belly, rubbing the insidious tightness swirling through her gut. “I need you to give me a little more time. Can you do that, hold on for your momma? Please?”

The pain actually faded, and she let out a breath. “Thank you. Because I promised your aunt Lizzy we weren’t in labor yet, so let’s just keep that promise, okay?”

She’d read in one of the hundred books that Lizzy had brought her that even once her water broke she still had twenty-four hours before things went wrong.

That hadn’t happened yet so that was good. “Real good,” she whispered, with no idea if she was talking to herself or the baby, but she thought, hoped, if she said it out loud, it would make it so.

She moved to the window of the second floor of the small condo she’d rented a few months ago-her first true sign of independence. Every day the place gave her a sense of panic-the expenses were a weight about as heavy as the baby-and also a glorious, heady sense of pride. She was making it, on her own…

She looked out into the wildest weather she’d ever seen, and had a moment before she reverted and wished her sister was here. Lizzy would know what to do. She always knew what to do. She was Cece’s lifeline, and had been nearly all her life.

She’d come, Cece knew, assuring herself, even though she’d told her not to. Lizzy would come when she got off work, and being as bossy as she was, she’d probably demand they go straight to the hospital.

Which might actually be a good idea. She had a feeling it was time. All she needed was a ride. If she had a neighbor she trusted, that’d be one thing. But she’d never been good with trust. Unless it was a gorgeous guy. Those she’d trusted too easily, and look where that had gotten her.

The next pain hit her unawares and left her reeling. “Oh, shit,” she whispered. This was going to suck golf balls, and forget being a grown-up, she wanted Lizzy. She tried calling her again, to admit that maybe she was in labor, but her damn cell phone went dead.

And she had no electricity to charge it.

Oh, God.

Screw not trusting a neighbor, she needed one. Problem was, the condo on her right was empty and for sale. She’d known someone had just bought the condo on her left, but she hadn’t yet seen any sign of life. She imagined waddling over there, knocking, then greeting whoever answered with, “Hi, there. Ever delivered a baby before?”

The thought made her shudder.

No. No strangers. It was bad enough the father-to-be was a stranger, coaxing her into his badass truck one night, dumping her he next.

God, she hated the helplessness. She thought about walking to the hospital. From here it was only two miles, but in the storm, with contractions, that might as well have been a marathon. Besides, it was too risky. She could fall. She could get halfway there and go into the final stages of labor, alone. That thought terrified her even more than having a stranger help her.

Karma was such a bitch. “I’ve turned my life around,” she reminded the room. “I stopped finding trouble. I stopped letting it find me.” She’d even gotten a real job. She was going back to school, taking classes at the junior college. She was making it all work, for the first time in her life, taking charge of her own destiny instead of letting it rule her. “I am!”

But Karma wasn’t listening.

“I promise,” she whispered to God, to Lizzy, to whoever listened to such recklessly whispered promises, “if I get out of this mess, this last mess, I’ll keep it together. I will. Just give me one little break!”