portal services decides what to do with me.”
“Portal services?”
Exasperated, Harry said, “The place that puts kids in a home.”
“Oh! Social services. You’re a foster kid.”
He nodded. “Yeah. My mom died.”
Cullen’s heart stopped. Sadness filled him. Hoping he’d heard wrong, he said, “Your mom died?”
He nodded again.
Cullen bent down to talk to Harry on his own level. “Mine did, too.”
“Really?”
“A few months ago. January.” He shook his head in wonder. Time had certainly flown. “It’s been almost a year, but I still miss her.”
“I miss my mom, too.” He caught Cullen’s gaze. “She was sick though. Everybody says she’s happy now.”
Cullen nearly cursed. At the wake when people had told him his mother was in a better place, he’d believed it. But it was cruel to tell this little boy his mom preferred leaving him to staying with him.
“I’m guessing you don’t have any aunts or uncles?”
He shook his head.
Though he hesitated, half afraid of the answer, Cullen asked, “Where’s your dad?”
Harry shrugged. “He’s around somewhere.” Then he flapped his arms in exasperation, as if this is what he’d seen and heard adults do when they talked about his dad. “We’ll find him eventually.”
The kid was just a tad too observant.
The light from the window in Mr. McCoy’s office thinned as Wendy walked farther into the building, but when she reached the main corridor, emergency lights were lit. She scrambled to the door and into the plant. At Benny Owens’s workstation, she snatched the radio and quickly made her way back to Cullen and Harry.
The second she stepped into the office, Cullen caught her gaze. His normally bright eyes were soft, sincere.
“Harry was telling me about his mom.”
“Oh.” She glanced at Harry, who looked up at her with a smile. “You okay, little guy?”
Still smiling, he nodded.
Whatever had happened between the two of them, Harry was okay. He might have even gotten afraid in the dark again and Cullen had taken care of him. Surprising, but good. She turned to smile at Cullen in thanks, but when their gazes caught, that funny feeling happened in her stomach again. Only this time, her chest also tightened. It became hard to breathe. She sort of felt as if she were drowning in the deep pools of his eyes, once again overwhelmed by the strange instinct that deep down he really was a nice guy—
The church bell across the street rang twice, jolting her back to reality.
“Must be two o’clock,” she said, brightly, trying to pretend nothing had happened because nothing had happened. So they’d looked into each other’s eyes? It wasn’t a big deal.
Setting the radio on her boss’s desk, she said, “I forgot about the emergency lights. The corridors are well-lit. The plant has emergency lighting, too.”
She turned on the radio and slowly moved the dial until she found the local station. The announcer said, “The mayor is telling everybody to just sit tight—”
She glanced at Cullen. “Either I have perfect timing or this is an emergency broadcast that’s repeating.”
“To repeat…Trees and power lines are down all over town. Route 81 has been shut down due to accidents.”
Cullen cursed.
She faced him. “What?”
“That’s the only highway out of town. The only way to get to my hotel.”
“I’m sure it will be open before you want to go back.”
“Since I can’t work without a computer, I want to go back now.”
“Good point.”
They both glanced at the radio.
“I’m sorry to say, folks,” the announcer said, “the power company is warning that this is going to be an all-nighter. Get out your candles, light your fireplace, and be careful.”
The announcer stopped talking and a song floated from the radio. Wendy shifted away from the desk. Technically, she and Harry could leave. They could even bake their cookies. She had a gas stove. And a fireplace. They could roast marshmallows and sleep in sleeping bags on the living-room floor.
This could actually be the most fun day of his stay with her.
She put her hand on Harry’s shoulder, took another step back, easing toward the door.
It almost seemed wrong to leave. Almost. The truth was she didn’t know Cullen Barrington. And she was attracted to him. The first man since Greg. That left her feeling odd enough. When she added that he was a playboy, out of her reach, the man who owned the company she worked for, in front of whom she’d prefer to be on her best behavior, not walking around a dark old house with a flashlight…Well, it was for the best that she not invite him to her home. She shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving him to figure out what he’d do for the next twelve to twenty-four hours—in the dark—when she not only had light and warmth, she could also cook dinner.
While he sat in the dark? Slept on the floor with his jacket for a cover?
Damn it!
Why couldn’t her conscience just shut up long enough for her to get to her car?
“Do you want to come with us?”
His head jerked up. “Where are you going?”
“As you said, we can’t work in the dark. So Harry and I are going home. I have a gas stove and a working fireplace in the living room. Even my hot-water heater is gas. We can be without power for a week and the only thing we’ll miss is television.”
“I don’t watch television.”
“Then you should be fine.”
He growled as if annoyed with the inconvenience of humbling himself to go to the home of an employee, and she said a silent prayer that he’d be stubborn enough—or maybe independent enough—to decide he’d rather sit alone in the office, maybe reading files by the emergency lights in the corridor, than go with her.
Please, God…
He pulled in a breath. “Okay. Fine. Let me get my coat.”
Chapter Three
THEY stepped out into the parking lot and Cullen motioned to the right. “That’s my rental car.”
