turned four. I can handle reading a bedtime story.”
“Yippee!” Belle charged upstairs before Hannah could come up with an excuse.
The lights blinked again and Brandon frowned. “Do you have frequent outages?”
“Enough.”
“Where do you keep your flashlights? I’ll get them out in case you lose power while you give the ballerina a bath.”
“In the laundry room drawer, but I usually use the hurricane lamps on the mantel. Matches are with the flashlights. What did you find out from Mason?”
“Very little. Gathering info is a finesse job. It’ll take time, but I’ll get to the bottom of it. Do you know the families who live on the street behind you?”
“No. Why?”
“Mason kept checking the woods. I’ll see what I can get on your neighbors.”
“Why?”
“Just a hunch.”
“What kind of a hunch?”
“Nothing concrete.”
The lights went out before she could press for more. Belle cried, “Mommy!”
Brandon pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and hit the flashlight app. Hannah had left hers in her purse on the kitchen counter.
“Wait here. I’ll get you a light.” He left and returned a moment later with a box of matches. “Your flashlight batteries are dead. Do you have more?”
“Mason dropped the flashlight the night he tried to sneak out. I suspect it’s the bulb.”
After lighting the kerosene lamps, he handed her one. “Take care of Belle. You have city water and a gas water heater. She can still have her bath. I’ll check on Mason.”
Of course Brandon knew all the details about her house. He’d been a huge part of the purchase process. If not for him, she would never have been able to convince Rick to buy the old home she’d fallen in love with the moment she’d seen it. Brandon had been the one to shadow the inspector, and when Rick had been daunted by the amount of work the house needed, Brandon had pointed out that the previous owners had already done all the expensive renovations, leaving only cosmetic projects incomplete. He’d helped Rick make and prioritize the renovation list.
That Brandon had been such a huge part of their lives had made his failure to protect Rick even more difficult to comprehend.
They climbed the wide stairs side by side. Wind rattled the windows and whistled under the eaves. It was comforting to have someone else here to help with the weather this nasty. And that was crazy, because she’d handled every previous outage just fine by herself. She pushed that feeling aside, and on the landing, they went in opposite directions—her to her daughter, him to her son.
After giving Belle her bath and dressing her for bed, Hannah left the lamp on the table and headed for Mason’s room. Brandon had one hip parked on the corner of her son’s desk. Both he and Mason looked comfortable together. Even though she hadn’t made a sound Brandon looked up. “He has Rick’s head for numbers.”
“Yes. He does. Belle has picked out her book. She’s waiting for you. I’ll take over here.”
He rose and crossed the room. Their shoulders brushed as he passed, and static electricity zapped her, making her gasp. Brandon paused and their gazes met in the darkened room. The electricity between them had to be due to the storm. She hustled to Mason’s side and settled in to check homework, but her thoughts were anything but settled. She kept listening for sounds from Belle’s room.
Finally, Mason closed his book. “He’s pretty cool. Brandon, I mean. I can see why Dad would have wanted to be his friend. He knows stuff.”
She didn’t want her son comparing the men and have Rick come up short. “Yes. He does. But your daddy did, too. He was smart in a different way.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m going to leave the light with you. Be careful. It’s an open flame and fuel—”
“Moooom, I know!”
She returned to Belle’s room but paused outside the door to listen as Brandon read a much-loved tale using different voices for each character. Undetected, she observed the reflection of the man and child in the bed via the mirror hanging over Belle’s dresser.
Brandon was propped against the headboard, book in hand, looking as if he belonged there. His long legs, crossed at his ankles, were on top of the quilt revealing his sock-covered feet. Her daughter lay trustingly beside him with her folded hands beneath her cheek, eyes heavy lidded and close to sleep. A pang of yearning hit Hannah so hard it took her breath. Rick used to read in bed, and Hannah had often fallen asleep at his side.
How would it feel to be curled against Brandon’s side as trustingly as Belle? She shook her head. Thoughts like that were disloyal to Rick. Her husband had never known the simple joy of reading stories to his daughter. He’d been killed on the eve of Belle’s first birthday. Pain and regret rolled through her.
Then she realized Brandon had gone silent. She caught him watching her in the mirror and she couldn’t look away. Her pulse quickened. Why? Why did he have this effect on her?
He closed the book and eased from the bed. After gently covering Belle, he gathered his boots off the floor and the lamp from the table and joined her in the hall.
“She’s out, but she fought it,” he whispered. Lamplight and hushed voices engulfed them in intimacy.
His attention shifted behind her—to her bedroom. It lingered, scanned. Lightning flashed, illuminating her bed and the half-dozen throw pillows that hadn’t been there when he’d last slept in that same bed. Lord, she didn’t need to think about him between those same sheets.
Then his gaze swung back to her. The flickering light picked out the golden flecks in his irises. She felt vulnerable even though he couldn’t possibly know that her obsession with pillows was because she couldn’t bear to sleep in an empty bed.
He lifted his arm, the one holding the light. Her breath caught. An image of Brandon propped against her headboard flashed in her mind. Only in this picture his chest was bare and his legs were beneath the covers. Heat rushed through her.
The atmosphere changed, becoming as electrically charged as the storm raging outside. Her heart pounded harder, but it was barely audible over the thunder rumbling the house.
“After you,” he said.
What was wrong with her? He was indicating the stairs, not the bedroom. She blamed her unwelcome thoughts on her conversation with Lucy. She did not want Brandon. Not in that way. She had to get him out of her house. She turned and quickly descended the stairs. On silent feet he followed her, the edge of his circle of light nipping at her heels. In the foyer he set the lamp on the console table and stepped into his work boots.
“So you’ve read bedtime stories before,” she said to break the awkwardly intimate silence.
“I read to the twins
