Colton Storm Warning Page 18

  He finished dressing, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him reach for the weapon that she only now realized he’d put on the floor within reach last night. Ever the bodyguard.

  Then he stood looking at her for a silent moment. “Ash,” he began, and his tone was full of so much regret it was the spark to her fury. If she were the type who resorted to physical violence, she would have slapped him. Hard.

  “I told you not to call me that! You don’t have the right anymore.”

  He went very still. And when, after a moment, he spoke, that cool, detached professional she’d first encountered in the hotel lobby was back. In force. “You’re right, Ms. Hart. I need to go topside and assess damage. Please stay here and—”

  “I’m not staying down here, wondering.”

  “I need to make sure there are no hazards, things that could fall—”

  “The tornado hit some time ago.” And what should have been terrifying had turned out to be the sweetest moments of her life. But what she had wanted more and more of, he apparently didn’t want at all. Didn’t want her. She hated the way even her thoughts sounded whiny. Made herself focus. “Wouldn’t everything that’s going to fall have done so already?”

  “There could still be things that could be dislodged and cause injury. I’ll take a quick look first.”

  “And if you get killed by a falling chimney, what am I supposed to do?” she asked, her voice dripping with false sweetness.

  “Just stay put,” he said, not even blinking at her snark about his possible death. “Elite will be out here soon if I don’t report in.”

  He walked out into the main cellar. When she stepped out behind him, she saw that he was headed not for the stairway up into the house but the hatch, where the morning light was getting brighter. This had the effect of making it look as if he’d stepped into a spotlight. Her breath caught as the light poured down over his tall, lean body, reminding her too, too vividly of that body naked in her arms, against her skin, driving into her with sweet, luscious force, driving her upward to an explosion she thought would likely ruin her for any other man.

  She shoved the very thought out of her mind as he started up the steps. “Why that way?” she asked and was pleased to hear she’d managed an almost matter-of-fact tone.

  “Because I can at least see this is clear. There could be anything piled up against the inside door.”

  Meaning the whole cabin could be in rubble. She felt a qualm at the thought of him losing this place that had clearly been a family refuge. The thought of that unique hammered-metal antique ceiling being scattered to the winds, lost forever, made her unaccountably sad. She had felt...not just safe here—and she knew that was more because of Ty than the place—but comfortable. At home. She liked the simplicity of it, the lack of flash and glamour and the focus on comfort and relaxing. She even had come to like—well, not like, but at least not mind—the being cut off part. It had taken her a while, but eventually she had stopped unconsciously reaching for her phone all the time. If nothing else, this had taught her just how truly addicted she was to the darn thing. She was going to have to work on that, when this was over.

  Over.

  If the cabin was gone, this part would certainly be over. She wondered what would happen next, but didn’t give it a great deal of thought. It occurred to her that Simon would have insisted they stay here in the cellar, where they had food, water and were relatively safe, until the authorities rescued them. But Ashley had spent a lot of time in parts of the world where there were no authorities interested in rescue and had learned you needed to at least try to help yourself. She knew perfectly well she’d be doing exactly what Ty was doing, in that case.

  She didn’t dwell on that, either. She was too busy watching as Ty undid the rather aggressive-looking latches that held the hatch in place. The man was a pleasure to watch move, no matter what he was doing.

  Right. And he regrets what he was doing with you last night. It was wrong, a mistake, it never should have happened. He couldn’t make it any clearer.

  Some reasoning part of her, the part she seemed to have trouble hanging on to around him, understood. He was a professional, he had a job here, and that job did not include getting involved with...the subject. The client. Her. But neither of them had asked for this. And she, at least, had certainly never expected to react to the man the way she had. As if he’d been what she’d been waiting for her entire life. Even if that was how she felt, it would be crazy, suicidal even, to show that so soon. She’d known the man less than...ten days. What was that, a fraction of a single percent of the days of her life?

  She gave her head a shake before her brain could dart down that rabbit hole. She watched as he swung the heavy hatch open, and more light poured in. It seemed the calm after the storm had arrived, and with it clear, or at least bright, skies. But she felt no relief, no joy of survival. Because as he started up and out, as she watched that long, lean, powerful body move, all she could think of was what else he’d said, and the wrenching tone in which he’d said it.

  Meaningless? Is that what you call something I’ll never ever forget? Something I’ll torture myself about for the rest of my life?

  “Well, Mr. Ty Colton,” she murmured when she knew he couldn’t hear, “I may just have to make sure you really do never ever forget.”

  Chapter 29

  Ty was a little surprised when he clambered out of the hatch and found the cabin still standing. Not undamaged, but still standing. A quick scan of the surroundings didn’t show anything immediately threatening, so he called back down into the cellar, “It’s okay, if you want to come up.”

  He was startled when she popped up beside him a split second later. Obviously she’d already been on her way up.

  “Good,” she said, with surprising cheer. “I didn’t really want a chimney to fall on you. It would spoil all my plans for later.”

  His head snapped around and he stared at her. That sounded like... It couldn’t mean what it sounded like. But she was smiling, a rather private, knowing smile that made him wonder if maybe it had meant exactly what his clearly overstimulated—and attracted—brain had provided, complete with full-color images.

  He fought down the surge of heat that rocketed through him at the idea. The thought of having her again, the light of day gliding over that silken skin and lithe, limber body was enough to make him want to head back down to that bed right now.

  Finally deciding anything he said in this moment would likely get him in trouble, he said nothing and tried to focus on inspecting the damage. The chimney was indeed still standing, although the roof around was missing a lot of shingles. The deck furniture was gone, except for the big table, that was dangling over the edge lopsidedly. One of the large front windows was a spiderweb of broken glass radiating from the probable impact point of the branch he saw lying on the deck. But a look through the unbroken window showed that, save for some things knocked over and another broken window in the kitchen, things appeared fairly stable. And the door to the cellar was clear.

  “It looks good. Can we go in?” Ashley asked.

  “I want to check the propane tank first. I don’t smell anything, but I want to be sure. And look for any power lines down that might cause a problem when the power comes back on.”

  She nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  She turned away, as she went pulling some sort of elastic band out of a pocket and tugging her dark brown hair back into a tail. Practical, but all it made him want to do was pull it back off again so he could thread his fingers through that soft silk. Which made him think of it trailing over his body as it had last night, stroking him in a way he’d never known could curl his toes.

  Damn.

  He headed for the big propane tank at a much faster pace than he’d intended, because he was sure if he didn’t get away from her, he would say something stupid. Not that anything he’d say c
ould be stupider than what he’d done, but at least he could avoid compounding the issue.

  Once he was as certain as he could be that the tank and the lines to and from it were intact and no explosion was imminent, he just stood there for a moment, pondering the unpleasant fact that he didn’t want to go back to the house. He didn’t want to face her. He had no business even worrying about that when he needed to be assessing damage and reporting in.

  Lecturing himself every step of the way, if only because it kept him from remembering last night, he went. Ashley appeared completely able, unlike himself, to focus on what should be first on the list.

  “The structure looks fairly good. Besides the roof damage, there’s some siding missing on the north side and another broken window in the kitchen. And that,” she said, gesturing at the deck railing he’d already noticed was missing. “I haven’t looked inside yet.”

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and headed for the door to the cabin. Once inside, he was relieved to see that except for some debris in the living room near the broken window, and the same in the kitchen, things looked pretty intact.

  Me, not so much.

  He didn’t look at her as she followed him into the kitchen. He picked up the landline phone. As he’d expected, it was dead.

  “No flying refrigerator,” she said.

  “Not this time.” He supposed he should be glad she could joke. Or not. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything right now, and that was a state he was unaccustomed enough with to be beyond unsettling.

  “How long does it usually take for the power to come back on?”

  He didn’t look at her. Didn’t dare. “Depends on how much damage was done. There were likely places that got hit much worse than we did.”

  “Just wondering if we should keep it closed to retain the chill for a few hours, or give it up and eat everything.”

  He still didn’t look at her. “Whatever you want.”

  “On the other hand, you could simply stand there and radiate chill,” she said sweetly. “Everything would be frozen within an hour.”

  His head jerked around then, almost involuntarily. Just in time to see her turn on her heel and walk into the living room, where she began to pick up some things that had been knocked over.

  “Don’t mess with the broken glass.” The words were out before he could stop them, and before he could think about the wisdom of speaking in the tone of an order to an already-pissed-off woman.

  “Why?” she asked, and her voice was even more deadly sweet now. “Afraid I’ll cut your throat with it?”

  He let out a long breath. “I wouldn’t blame you if you tried.”

  She straightened, indeed holding a shard of glass that would do the job. “I won’t say it isn’t tempting at the moment. But while I may have made a mistake about your feelings, I knew my own, and the decision I made last night was mine.”

  He stared at her. It was a moment before he could get any words past the tightness in his throat. “The only mistake last night was mine. I should never have let it go so far.”

  “It? It?”

  He’d handled many things in his life, faced more than a few tough situations in his work, and yet he felt utterly incapable of dealing with a woman this angry. Especially since he deserved every bit of it.

  “I need to check in,” he said roughly, and headed down the hall. With his luck at the moment, the battery backup on the comms had failed along with everything else, or something else would go wrong.

  But it hadn’t, and there was an undertone in Mitch’s voice that told him it was a good thing. “Man, the boss has been walking the floor since sunup. The chopper’s just about in the air.”

  “Stand down, we’re okay. A little damage to the cabin, but it’s still standing. Power’s out, so we’ll need to relocate.”

  “I’ll set up the secondary location,” Mitch said. “How soon you figure on leaving?”

  “Right now, but I don’t know what shape the roads will be in.”

  “You had better,” Ashley said from behind him, “think about what shape your car is in first.”

  He frowned and turned to look at her. Damn, that was stupid of him. He’d assumed it was the wind blowing things around that had set off the alarm. But if the car was actually damaged, that was going to make things trickier. They might need that helicopter evac after all. “Hang on, Mitch,” he said, as his partner started to speak.

  “I didn’t get to that part of my outside look around,” Ashley said.

  Before what had happened last night had caused a different kind of heat between them.

  “What part?”

  “A tree came down, partly on your car.” For a moment, sorrow seemed to show in her expression. Sorrow that they might be stuck here, together awhile longer? No doubt. Before he could speak, she added softly, “The tree.”

  It took him a moment to realize what she meant. That it was the big cottonwood, the one Uncle Shep had planted. And a whole new possibility for why she’d looked sad popped into his head. He was probably gaping at her, but he couldn’t seem to help it.

  “Ty?”

  Mitch’s voice snapped him out of his daze. “I’ll get back to you,” he said. “I need to see if we have transport or not.”

  A minute later, he was on the inland side of the cabin, staring at the mess the big tree had made coming down. The only good things he could see were that it hadn’t come down on the cabin, because it would have likely destroyed the upper floor, and that the main trunk hadn’t hit the SUV. As it was, several large limbs had. The windshield was cracked and the hood had a serious dent that ran from one fender to the other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know that tree meant something to you, to your family.”

  He didn’t know what to say to this woman who moments ago had been furious with him. This woman who had both frustrated and inflamed him. Who had both made him angry and sent him to physical heights he hadn’t even known were possible.

  The woman he never should have laid a hand on, let alone everything else he’d done to her and let her do to him.

  Emotions he wasn’t used to dealing with roiled inside him and needed an outlet. He walked over to the front of the car and grabbed a branch to test the weight. It wasn’t going to move easily. He went over to the main limb that was on the car and could barely budge it thanks to the resistance of the wide groove it had made in the hood of the vehicle.

  “Maybe you should try starting it before you kill yourself trying to get that tree off of it.”

  He looked at her across the damaged hood, through the branches of the downed tree. Her expression was as neutral as her voice had been. His mouth quirked. “Good point,” he conceded.

  He didn’t make the mistake of thinking she wasn’t still angry with him, but for the moment they seemed to have a truce. He dug into his pocket for the keys as he walked toward the driver’s door near where she stood.

  He was nearly there when a sharp crack split the air. That was no tree limb breaking. He whirled as two more came in rapid succession. A metallic bang told him something had hit the vehicle.

  No question.

  Shots.

  Chapter 30

  It happened so fast Ashley was barely able to process it. Ty dived across the three feet between them. He took her down to the ground, the thud nearly knocking the wind out of her. Then, her mind still that half second behind, she realized he was shielding her with his own body.

  He’d drawn his own weapon as he did so. He fired a couple of rounds in the direction the shots had come from. The shots were impossibly loud, and she couldn’t help wincing. Ty’s free arm tightened around her as if in reassurance. And then he all but forced her up to her knees, pushing her to crawl to the relative shelter of the SUV. She had to tug at her blouse, which seemed to have caught on something, the wa
y it was oddly clinging. Then she winced again as Ty shot once more.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  “Come on,” Ty muttered from where he was crouched beside her. “Shoot back, jackass.”

  Ashley nearly gasped. “You want them to shoot again?”

  “I need a read on exactly where he is.”

  So he’d been hoping to draw return fire. It made sense, but didn’t make her any happier.

  All the while, Ty’s attention was fixed across the clearing. And stayed there when he asked, “You remember how to work the comms?”

  “Of course. Do you want me to go call for help?” Her mind was already racing. She’d go around the side of the house, away from the shooter, and go in the side door she’d noticed. If it was unlocked, there was that. She—

  “Not unless you have to,” he said, cutting off her rampaging thoughts. He gave her an odd sort of smile, then, to her surprise, reached out to touch her cheek. But shortly after, he was all business again. “Keep the engine block between you and the clearing.”

  It was clearly an order, and while she understood the physics of it, she didn’t understand why he—

  He was moving, in an oddly fluid sort of crouch, toward the back of the big SUV. Away from her. The pistol he carried was in both hands, in a grip she was certain meant he was planning to shoot again. Surely he wasn’t going to go out there? She nearly screamed at him not to be stupid.

  “Ty!”

  He glanced back. “Stay down!”

  And then he stepped out from the cover of the vehicle, weapon raised. And in that instant it came to Ashley so clearly it was undeniable. This was not a man who would ever, in anything, sit and wait to be rescued. He would take action. In this case, he would take out the threat, or die trying. It was why he’d reminded her about the communications setup.

  And that moment when he’d smiled and touched her had been a “just in case.”