Page 58 of Storm Warning

Really? She wanted to know about that right now?

He grabbed his plate and hers and stood. “Do you want more to eat?”

“I’m good for now.” She closed her eyes. “You’re stalling.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to fall asleep on me. Let’s sleep on it. You get the bed and I’ll take the sofa.”

But it was too late. Remi had conked out. Great. He didn’t want to be a jerk and leave her to sleep on the sofa while he had the bed.

He stood, then urged her to stand too. If he picked her up like some damsel in distress, she might actually slap him. Her eyes grew wide. “What—”

He took her hand to lead her. “I’m tucking you in. I’ll be on the sofa if you need me. You’re safe.” But he wouldn’t promise because no place was a hundred percent impenetrable.

Hawk was surprised that Remi let him tuck her in, and she smiled as she sank into the bed and onto the pillow, closing her eyes. “Night, Hawk.”

“Good night.” He covered her up, fighting the urge to lean down and press a kiss on her cheek.

Well, he lost that battle. He leaned in and kissed her forehead.

She was asleep and hadn’t felt a thing. Just as well.

23

Something feels wrong.

It gnawed at the back of her neck.

Her agitation growing, Remi tossed and turned, then finally opened her eyes. The room was dark, but light filtered in from beneath the door.

Heart pounding, she sat up and gasped.

Where am I?

Oh ... yeah. Hawk’s place.

Listening to the muted sounds of rain dancing on the concrete outside, she released her pent-up breath and eased back onto the pillow. The storm wasn’t as violent here on the other side of the Olympic Mountains. Was that the reason she felt unsettled? She’d grown accustomed to the crashing waves and now her mind, her heart, missed those sounds. The absence of those comforting noises made her feel displaced.

The sounds. Remi sat up again. She had thought that Hawk reaching for her, his hand, had triggered the memory. But that wasn’t it at all. Hanging from the rope over certaindeath had been what triggered her memories. It was the rope, not Hawk. She wasn’t exactly sure how or why, but she just knew that’s what it was.

The crashing waves and the rope were sensory details.

She struggled to breathe as the past came roaring back. She dreaded and welcomed it at the same time. Squeezing her eyes shut, she let images overwhelm her mind as violent sensations rushed through her.

Remi was there now, in the past, living it all over again.

They had to hurry and get out. She had to escape. Cole reached out of the helicopter for her and pulled her inside. The next few moments were a blur. Then suddenly the helicopter hovered over water. Remi was falling into the blackness. The darkness. The Baltic Sea?

Another image slammed into her. An explosion in the air. Debris falling to the water.

She gasped. Couldn’t breathe.

Anguish filled her, and she pressed her face into the pillow and sobbed. Everyone had probably died. Remi lifted her face and swiped away the tears. Cole Mercer wasn’t dead. And Remi had survived. Had Cole jumped? Her thoughts remained fuzzy about much of what had happened and why she had even been on that helicopter. Remi wasn’t sure she wanted to know what happened. Sitting up in the bed now, she continued to wipe at the tears that wouldn’t stop coming.

She thought about the Nebraska farm and her childhood. She’d just been a normal kid growing up in a rural community, and then living on the outskirts of Omaha had felt like living in the city. She and Mom had done okay for themselves.

God, I miss that. I wish I was back there and Mom was still alive. Why’d she have to die so soon? If only she was still alive.

Remi would be there with her now. Maybe they would have expanded the house. Added rooms. Created some kind of new recipes they could sell at the local mom-and-pop shops, which would have been a lofty goal for the two of them. Running a bed-and-breakfast had been a big step. But they’d been happy.

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