From what I can see, you two are so different. How did you get to be such good friends?”
He poured a hefty amount of grounds into the water, then set the pot on the stove.
“In kindergarten and grade school we constantly whipped up on each other. He was always lipping off, daring me to do something I shouldn’t do. And I was the quiet one who exploded when he pushed too far. After a while, we both realized that neither could beat the other one up and we earned each other’s respect.” He looked at her and chuckled. “Thankfully, we don’t test each other anymore. Now that we’re grown men, I’m not sure who’d win. But I do know we’d fight for each other.”
She gravitated toward him and the heat that was now radiating from the stove. “I wish I could say I had a friend like that. But I don’t. In school, I guess you could say I was a loner of sorts. I had friends, but I didn’t build deep bonds with them. I saved all that for my sisters. The three of us are very close.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. My sister is my buddy, too. Although I don’t get to see her much now that she’s moved to Texas. Abe is trying to lure her and Jonas back, but I don’t think he’ll get that done. You see, Jonas is a Texas Ranger.”
“Abe tells me that you’ve driven him to San Antonio a couple of times to visit them,” Maura said. “If I remember right, he said the two of you made the trip to see Alexa and Jonas’s new daughter shortly before he started suffering from vertigo. That’s a long drive to make.”
Quint shrugged. “Gramps won’t fly. He says he doesn’t want to get any higher off the ground than a horse’s back. And when he dies he wants it to be with his boots on. But I don’t want to think of him dying in any fashion. I want to think of him living to be a hundred.”
Maura smiled gently. “And he’s just ornery enough to do it.”
His gaze met hers. “Yeah. He is.”
Something in his eyes, the softness in his voice, drew her to him in a way that was somehow even deeper and stronger than his kiss.
It was a strange sensation and so unsettling that she finally had to turn away and draw in a calming breath.
Behind her, she heard him move away, then the scrape of cans being pushed around the metal shelf. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that he was putting away the sack of coffee grounds. Nearer to her, in the corner of her eye, she could see part of the makeshift bed and though she tried to keep her mind off it, she couldn’t stop herself from imagining how it might feel to lie with him here in the quietness, to feel his hands and lips moving over her body.
“Oh, hell! It’s going to storm!”
Quint’s exclamation had her spinning around just in time to see a huge gust of wind ripping through the doorway and snuffing out the candle on the table. Except for the light coming from outside, the space around them suddenly went dim and shadowy.
“I’ll get the door!” he shouted as he rushed around the counter and hurried to fasten the door.
Maura raced after him and peered through the slatted boards covering the empty squares that used to hold glass windows.
A wall of blue-black clouds was descending upon them at a rapid rate. Cold wind was tearing down the street, ripping clumps of dry sagebrush from the soil to send them rolling in erratic trails toward the opposite end of town.
“Oh, my, Quint, this looks like it’s going to be nasty!”
She’d hardly gotten the words past her mouth when a streak of lightning bolted across the sky and sent her leaping backward from the rickety window. Deafening thunder followed and she wrapped her arms protectively around herself as she waited for the sound to subside.
With the door latched as securely as he could manage, Quint walked over to her. Her face was pale with alarm and he instinctively reached out and circled his arm around her shoulders.
“We’ll be fine,” he tried to reassure her. “And the horses are safely sheltered away from the lightning. So we don’t need to worry about them.”
She looked up at him and tried to smile, but he could see her lips were quivering with the effort.
“I’m okay, Quint. I’m not normally afraid of storms. But in this flimsy old building, the force of it just feels closer.”
He gave her an encouraging grin. “Just think of it this way, Maura. This old store has been here for more than a century. Why should it crumble around us now?”
“Why indeed?” she asked, then just as she was trying to laugh at their predicament another clap of thunder rattled the roof far above their heads. “Oh!”
Grabbing her hand, he urged, “Let’s go to the back. The building is studier there. And the coffee is boiling over. I’ve got to get the pot off the stove.”
By the time they rounded the counter, rain was driving against the old walls with a shuddering force. Behind them, water began to pour through the cracks in the roof and pelt the food they’d left lying on the table.
“You stay here by the stove,” he ordered after he’d dealt with the coffeepot. “I’ll gather up our food from the table.”
“No!” she cried, clutching his arm. “Please. Stay here with me. We don’t need the food!”
Seeing she was becoming really frightened, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against his chest. “All right, Maura,” he said close to her ear so that she could hear him above the deafening sounds of the storm. “I’ll stay right here. Close your eyes, honey. Imagine you’re somewhere nice and sunny. Like on a beach. In a bikini. With me rubbing oil on your back.”
After a moment her shoulders began to shake and when he eased his head back and looked into her face, he could see she was trying to laugh through her fear.
“That’s a wicked thought, Quint Cantrell.”
He kneaded her back while the heat of her body snuggled up against his was a damn sight hotter than the crackling fire in the stove. Even hotter than the lightning crackling around the old building.
“Hmm. A very nice one, too.”
Her head tilted back from his chest and as he looked down into her eyes, he felt something sweet and hot and protective sweep through him all at the same time.
“I—The lightning, Quint. A bolt of it hit too close to me once when I was out riding with my brother Brady. I was knocked from my horse and wasn’t breathing. If he hadn’t known CPR—”
She broke off with a shudder and he didn’t ask her to finish. He didn’t have to. He understood her fear and admired her for not falling completely apart.
“I’m not going to let anything hurt you. I promise.”
Her arms slid around his waist and clung tightly, her face buried into his shirt. The fact that she trusted him, that she was seeking him for comfort and security, swelled his chest and touched his heart in a way that it had never been touched.
“I know,” she said, her voice muffled. “Just hold me.”
