Taken by Storm (Perfect Storm #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

A ugust was a bitch.

Because it was hot.

Too freaking hot.

Kasi Mills felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of her neck and along her spine. She sat still on her stool, marking the progress of the perspiration all the way to the waistband of her shorts, cursing the summer heat.

Every now and then, she got a brief blast of less-hot air from the two rotating fans she’d set up in the back corner of her family’s small roadside fruit stand, the “storefront” for all the produce grown on Lucky Penny Farm.

This current stand was an improvement on the original as at least now, it was a permanent structure with electricity. Her father had replaced their old stand—which had been little more than a series of three long wooden shelves covered with a bit of awning—five years earlier.

While this new stand was larger, it would be a stretch to say they’d stepped up from fruit stand to farm market. Regardless, the stand had a concrete floor and an actual door so shoppers could walk into the shed, which boasted three full walls lined with shelves containing large baskets of green beans, apples, peaches, berries, tomatoes, corn, and more.

The front was a bisected wall, with a hinged top half that served as an awning when opened. There was a tiny checkout station in the center of the space, which was where she was perched. Daddy had built the stand so that she and Mama weren’t constantly reloading their truck at the end of each day with all the buckets of unsold fruits and vegetables. Nowadays, she simply lowered the large piece of plywood at the front that revealed all their wares, padlocked it, and called it a day.

Kasi did a visual scan of the table along the front wall where she kept the home-baked goods, such as pies, bread, cakes, and cookies that made their stand so popular. Kasi’s mother had been the world’s greatest baker, and she’d passed those skills—and recipes—on to her. While they did a fair amount of business with the produce, the pies were the true star of the Lucky Penny Fruit Stand show.

Which was why, with only a half an hour until close, Kasi was completely out of the loaves of home-baked bread, Bundt cakes, and apple pies—today’s featured flavor.

Well. Not completely out.

There was one tucked away, saved—as always—for Levi Storm, though he’d never made that request of her. In truth, Levi didn’t know that she started every single one of her days trying to determine which pie was the best so that she could tuck it on a shelf behind her, hidden away until just a few minutes before his arrival.

It was a completely silly thing to do, but her schoolgirl crush on Levi had started…well, when she’d been a schoolgirl.

Ninth grade to be exact.

Levi’s cousin, Remi, had been her best friend since birth, so Kasi was no stranger to Stormy Weather Farm, a large property nestled on the side of a mountain and home to the hottest men in Gracemont.

No, strike that. The hottest men in Virginia.

The Storm men had been setting hearts aflutter in their tiny neck of the woods for decades. Seven brothers, all single, all so pussy-meltingly hot, they sometimes didn’t seem mortal.

Levi was the oldest brother, and even though he was thirty-seven, the fair women of Gracemont hadn’t yet given up hope on the stubborn bachelor finding love with one of them and settling down. Not that it made a damn difference in Kasi’s life if he did have a change of heart regarding his single status.

Because…again…Kasi was and always had been Levi’s baby cousin Remi’s best friend. So when Kasi’s crush began in ninth grade, she’d been fourteen, Levi twenty-seven. He’d spent a great deal of that summer working in the family’s vineyards without a shirt on, and while Kasi had never noticed or given a shit about such things prior to that year, puberty kicked in hard because, damn…

She saw him that year, with his long brown hair, full beard, mahogany-colored eyes, chiseled jaw, and even more chiseled abs. He was tall and broad in a sexy lumberjack way, and he struck her as the kind of guy who could pick a woman up, toss her over his shoulder, and carry her off to the bedroom without even breathing heavy.

Not that she knew that for sure. Or from personal experience.

Because ten years later and well into womanhood now, Levi noticed one—and only one—thing about her, apart from her status as Remi’s bestie.

Her pies.

Every single day for the last few years, at the end of his workday and just a few minutes before she closed, Levi drove off the mountain to buy a pie. It was, and always had been, the highlight of Kasi’s day. She’d watch his truck make the turn onto the country lane that ran in front of her family’s farm, which was the cue for her to grab her best—hidden—pie and place it on the table. Levi would come inside, give her a quick nod of the head—the quiet man’s hello—pick up the pie, bring it to the counter, and hand her a twenty. Every single day, she tried to give him his change, and every single day, he said, “Keep it,” in that dark-chocolate voice of his that sent her pulse racing. Then he’d give her another nod—this one a goodbye—and that was it.

The sum equivalent of her daily bright spot.

How fucking sad was that?

Kasi lifted her hair away from the back of her neck, desperate for some relief from this unbearable humidity. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine colder things.

Ice skating on the pond at Gracemont Park.

Sledding down the hellacious hills on Stormy Weather Farm with Remi.

Building a snowman with her kid brother, Keith.

The visualization didn’t work.

Probably because being hot and sitting in a pool of her own sweat wasn’t her predominant complaint at the moment.

Exhaustion was.

So, instead, she kept her eyes closed, steadied her breathing, and started counting down the hours until she could climb between the crisp, cool cotton sheets on her bed.

Sadly, the hourly countdown would take some time because she was a long way away from bedtime, from laying her head on her soft pillow and falling asleep. Back in her carefree days, she was a champion sleeper, the queen of REM dreams, hers always vivid and epic and wonderful. Nowadays, the best she could muster were a few hours of restless, tossing-and-turning sleep that left her even more exhausted come morning.

Being tired had become a regular thing in her life the past eight months, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

She jerked when someone cleared their throat.

Kasi’s eyes flew open, and she was shocked to discover Levi standing right in front of her counter. How the hell had he parked in front of the stand and walked in without her noticing? Had she actually fallen asleep sitting up?

She lowered the arms that were still holding her hair and realized she hadn’t put his pie out on the table.

“Oh, Levi,” she said. “I, um, I held a pie back for you because they were going so fast today.” It was a lie, but she doubted he’d see through it. After all, he was her most reliable customer.

She rose from the stool, moving a little too quickly. Gray spots blinded her as she was overcome with a wave of dizziness. She tried to reach out for the counter but her hands found nothing but air, and for a split second, she became aware that she was going down, her gaze focused on the concrete floor.

Her last thought was this is going to hurt , before things went black.

When she opened her eyes, Kasi realized two things simultaneously. She was lying on the floor and her head was in Levi’s lap.

“Did I pass out?”

Levi nodded, scowling, though not with anger. He looked worried as hell. About her. If she was more lucid, she’d probably have some sort of misplaced feelings about that.

As it was…

“I’m going to call nine-one-one.”

Kasi shook her head as she reached out to grip his wrist, preventing him from grabbing his phone from his back pocket.

“No. That’s not necessary. It was just the heat. I didn’t drink enough water today.”

For a second, she was afraid Levi was going to ignore her and place the call anyway.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, attempting to rise. Levi helped her, a steady hand on her elbow, a firm arm around her back.

Those touches would have thrilled her if her sticky shirt wasn’t clinging to her skin.

Real sexy, Kass.

Once she was off the floor, she sank back down on her stool. Levi hovered close, his hand still on her arm, until he was sure she wasn’t going to fall off it. Then he walked over to the tin she filled with ice and bottles of water every afternoon, returning with one. He twisted off the cap and held it out to her. The ice in the tin had melted long ago, so the water was basically lukewarm rather than cold, but still…it was wet.

She drank a few small sips before starting to put the bottle on the counter. Levi crossed his arms and lifted one eyebrow, making it clear he expected her to drink it all.

She lifted the water and drained it. Putting the bottle container on the counter, Kasi felt her arms, looking for scrapes, feeling for bumps.

“What are you doing?” Levi asked.

She frowned. “I didn’t hurt anything when I fell.”

“That’s because I caught you.”

“Oh.” She could feel herself flushing, but this time the heat didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. “Uh. Wow. Quick reflexes.”

Why? Why couldn’t she speak to Levi without sounding like a complete moron?

Levi must have noticed her red cheeks because he grabbed another bottle of water and handed it to her.

She uncapped it and pretended to take a sip, just to appease him.

“How much sleep did you get last night?”

His question took her aback. So much so, she just answered it, albeit in a vague way.

“The usual amount.” Which was about four hours. Not that she mentioned that part.

“When did you last eat?”

“Breakfast,” she replied again, wondering if he would consider a few slices of the apples she was using in her pies as breakfast.

“What happened to lunch?” With each question, Levi’s voice got deeper, his frown more pronounced. Again, she didn’t get a sense he was angry at her. It was more like he was worried, but in a grumpy, sexy way.

Kasi worked hard not to let herself read anything into his concern, even as her romantic heart swooned. Levi was a nice guy, who’d known her most of her life, and she’d just fainted. He’d be concerned about anyone in the same position.

“I didn’t have time for lunch. The farm truck got a flat, and I had to change it before I loaded it with the trays of baked goods and buckets of produce.”

Levi glanced around, and she could practically read the question he left unspoken. She was surrounded by food right now, which meant, she could have literally eaten all damn day if she wanted to. The thing was, she didn’t eat the fruit stand food because they needed every penny they could earn from it.

Levi raked his hair out of his face with his fingers. God, she loved his hair. All of his brothers were more clean-cut, their hair shorter and more stylish. Levi didn’t go for that, allowing his thick, unruly hair to grow long enough that it brushed his shoulders, giving him this wild mountain man look that was ridiculously hotter than it should have been. Kasi knew his long hair and beard weren’t style choices so much as Levi was just a hard worker, and shit like getting his hair cut and shaving probably fell very low on his to-do list.

“You changed the flat?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes, silently warning him to tread lightly. She might be a woman, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself. “I did,” she answered shortly.

“Good. Sounds like my lesson stuck.”

It took Kasi a minute to remember that Levi had been the one to teach her and Remi how to change a tire the summer they turned nine. She wasn’t sure why he thought two young girls needed that particular lesson at that point in their lives. It could have simply been opportunity presenting itself because he’d had a flat, and they’d been driving Remi’s aunt Claire crazy, running around the yard and howling like wild banshees, while she was hanging laundry on the line. For thirty minutes, Levi had kept them entertained and somewhat quiet while instructing them on how to change a tire.

“It did.”

Levi crossed his arms again, drawing her attention to thick biceps she wouldn’t mind grabbing hold of and swinging from like a monkey in a tree.

“You’ve lost weight, Kasi. You’re too skinny. And those circles under your eyes are so dark it looks like you’ve got two black eyes.”

Kasi didn’t reply for a second because there was way too much to unpack in all of that. For one thing, she didn’t think Levi ever noticed anything specific about her, since her presence in his life was that of a background character. She was someone he acknowledged but didn’t pay much attention to…sort of like the mailman you give a quick wave to when he hands you your mail, or the grocery clerk you thank before picking up your bags and leaving the store.

And for another thing, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually said her name, their conversation limited to that damn “keep the change” exchange.

No. That was wrong. She did remember the last time.

It had been just after her mother’s funeral in January. He’d taken her hand, squeezing it gently, and said, “I’m sorry, Kasi.”

Half the town had said those exact same words, but for some reason, Levi’s were the only ones that had offered her a split second of comfort.

Shaking off that dark memory, she put one hand on her hip and tilted her head, trying to make light of his too-astute observations. “Levi, please. Stop with the compliments or my head will swell.”

His lips tipped at the edges. Not really a grin, but she still felt a sense of pride in it because Levi’s smiles were too few and far between. He wasn’t a miserable man. Not at all. Just a serious one. Whenever she caught a glimpse of his smile or heard him laugh, it felt special, so the idea that she’d almost made him smile…well, that was a big win.

Kasi rose from her stool, aware Levi was hovering close in case she went down again. Reaching for the lower shelf, she pulled out his pie. “Apple today.”

He took it from her, reaching for his wallet.

Kasi waved her hand. “On the house. For catching me,” she said with a grin.

Levi grunted, another part of his unique communication skills—like the nods—that she’d come to understand. This grunt meant no. And he proved her right when he pulled a twenty from his pocket and put it in her hand.

“Do you want to do the dance where I ask if you want change, and you say keep it?”

Levi grunted again. This one amused. “We can skip that today.”

“Suit yourself, but it seems a shame to break the streak, big guy. I thought we really had something going.”

“Have you always had such a smart mouth?” he asked.

She laughed. “Hell yeah. You seem to be forgetting my best friend is Remi Storm.”

Levi nodded, probably because that response made sense. “I didn’t forget.” Remi was the reigning queen of sarcasm and quick quips, with Kasi coming in a very distant second.

“Besides,” she continued, wondering if she hadn’t hit her head at least a little bit because normally she wasn’t quite this chatty, especially with Levi. “You’ve never paid much attention to me. Let’s face it, for most of my life, you saw me as the tomboy running around your family’s farm, causing havoc with Remi.”

“You were a kid,” he pointed out.

“Yeah. I was .” Kasi didn’t have a clue why she stressed the word was so hard. That certainly hadn’t been her intent, but when Levi narrowed his eyes, taking a harder look at her, she wasn’t sorry she had.

Score one for passing out.

Or maybe it was utter exhaustion causing her loose lips.

“Well, I hope you enjoy your pie,” she said dismissively, feeling a bit awkward under his too-intent gaze. “See you tomorrow.”

She spun around, not bothering to wait for his goodbye nod, and took a minute to grab the trays she used to transport the baked goods from the farmhouse to the fruit stand. She was surprised when she turned and realized Levi hadn’t left. Instead, he grabbed the empty baskets she’d stacked earlier to replenish with produce back at the farm.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“You’re closing up, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Levi said, like she was six eggs short of a dozen. “I’m helping.”

“Why?”

Levi rolled his eyes, then jerked his head toward the doorway. “Come on, Kasi. We’re losing daylight,” he said sarcastically.

He led her out of the stand and over to her truck, helping her load it with the trays and baskets. Today had been a good day, so they each had to make a couple of trips. Once the truck was loaded, Levi remained where he was.

Kasi hesitated when it was clear he wasn’t leaving. “Shouldn’t you be getting home for dinner?”

“What else do you need to do?” he asked, instead of answering her question.

“I just need to turn off the fans, grab the cash box and iPad, and lock things up.”

“Okay.” He nodded, returning to the stand—and stopping at the door when he realized she was still by the truck.

Kasi frowned, confused. “What are you doing?”

“This would go a lot faster if you actually helped.”

She smirked, walking past him and into the stand. “ Now who’s got a smart mouth?”

Kasi wasn’t sure, but she thought for a second she heard Levi chuckle. However, when she turned to look at him, his face was just as solemn and serious as always, so she decided it was her tired brain playing tricks on her.

While she turned off the fans, Levi lowered the front plywood, snapping the lock in place. Then he returned to the counter, grabbed his pie, and followed her out, holding the cash box and iPad she used for credit payments, while she locked the stand door.

“Okay, then,” she said, taking her tech from him. “Thanks again for everything.”

Levi lifted his chin toward her truck. “Get in. I’m going to follow you back to your place.”

Kasi gestured to the dirt road. “It’s only a mile down the driveway, Levi.”

“And you just passed out. So I’m going to follow you.”

Kasi, like everyone else in Gracemont, was no stranger to Storm stubbornness. Remi had it in spades, as did everyone else in her family. “Arguing about this will be pointless, won’t it?”

This time, there was no mistaking anything because Levi gave her a genuine, bona fide grin. Well, it was probably more smirk than grin, but it was still sexy as fuck.

“What do you think?”

Issuing her girlie bits the “down girl” command, she shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She climbed into her family’s ancient “farm use only” truck and started it. She always said a small prayer before turning the key because they needed this truck, desperately, and there wasn’t enough money in the coffers to buy a new one. Or even a new-to-them, used piece-of-shit one.

Kasi considered the ever-growing pile of bills in the kitchen and, as always, her chest tightened with anxiety. Paying the bills and dealing with the farm finances used to be her mother’s job, but since her death, it had fallen to her.

Hell, all of it had fallen to her.

Mama had been the driving force on the farm, the one basically pulling the strings, for as long as Kasi could remember. It wasn’t that her father was incapable. It was just that her parents simply knew where their strengths lie and, in their case, it was with Mama making the decisions and Daddy doing the backbreaking manual labor.

Daddy was a simple man, with simple pleasures. He preferred digging in the dirt, singing along to country music on the radio, and watching TV. Not that he was lazy. That wasn’t the case at all. His brain was just wired differently. He had trouble prioritizing and organizing and even making to-do lists, so every morning, he’d come downstairs, grab his honey-do list of daily chores from Mama—ranked in the order he needed to perform them—and went on his merry way. And the best part about their relationship was the fact Mama had been his polar opposite, a type-A personality from the word go, who’d loved ruling her roost.

It had worked for them, and Kasi had always viewed their marriage as one of the best ever. Because despite their differences, they were the most “in love” people Kasi had ever known. She lost count of how many nights she’d come downstairs to spy them slow dancing together in the kitchen. The first time she’d seen it, she had only been seven, but finding someone who would dance with her in the kitchen had rocketed to number one on Kasi’s list of #lifegoals.

Parking in the driveway between the farmhouse and the barn, Kasi shut off the engine and climbed out of the truck. She expected Levi to wave and turn around, so she was surprised when he parked his truck right behind hers and got out.

“I’m home,” she announced, waving jazz hands in his direction. “All safe and sound.”

Levi nodded as he headed toward the bed of her truck, reaching in to grab the buckets.

“What are you doing now?” she asked.

“Helping you off-load. These go in the barn?”

“Uh. Yeah.” She grabbed the second load of baskets, trailing him. Once they entered the barn, she pointed to a table by the front door. “I just leave them there. Pete and Paul will refill them first thing in the morning.”

The Riley twins had worked on her family’s farm for the past twenty years, both men starting part-time when they were still in high school, then coming on full-time after graduation. They lived with their mom just a few miles down the road.

Unlike the Storms, the Riley brothers hadn’t been blessed with good looks, both sort of doughy faced with pockmarks left behind from too many years of acne. They also hadn’t scored much in terms of intelligence or personality, either, and Kasi was one-hundred percent certain neither of them had ever gone on a date before. God, they’d probably die of mortification before they could even work up the nerve to ask someone out.

Both men were seemingly satisfied to live out their days at home with their widowed mother. Their dad had been killed before Kasi was born, but she knew the story of how he’d died after his tractor rolled, crushing him beneath it when the twins had been just three years old.

Kasi could count on one hand—with fingers left over—the number of conversations she’d had with the Rileys in the past two decades that hadn’t involved farm business. But they worked hard, and they’d been a godsend since Mama’s death. Kasi wasn’t sure where she’d be without them, but she feared she might have to find out sooner rather than later, if she couldn’t find a way out of the farm’s financial straits.

Levi placed his stack of baskets next to hers, then followed her out of the barn.

“Okay, well, thanks for all your help today, Levi. I really appreciate it. I, um…” She wasn’t sure what else she could say. “I need to get dinner on the table. Bye.”

Levi turned to go. She remained where she was because watching him walk away was the icing on the cake when it came to her favorite part of the day. Damn, his ass was fine.

He’d only taken a half dozen steps when she realized he wasn’t walking to his truck but to her house. Then he stopped when he noticed she wasn’t walking with him.

“What are you doing now ?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time in the last thirty minutes.

“Walking you to your door.”

“Why?” It was a stupid question, but she couldn’t quite keep up with this version of Levi. She was used to the strong, silent type who barely spared her a sideways glance. This guy seemed to be in no hurry to leave. And while she liked it, she was struggling to understand his motivation.

The crush she’d harbored for too long wanted to interpret his actions as interest. The pragmatist figured it was just Levi being a good guy and a good neighbor.

Le sigh.

He crossed his arms. “You ask a lot of questions. Or actually just the same one. Over and over.”

She grinned, amused by his observation. This Levi, the one who talked, made her want to push his buttons just to see how he’d respond. “Not that’s it’s doing me any good. You’re only answering about half.”

Levi walked back to her, not stopping until he was about a foot away. He was so close, she had to tilt her head back to look at him. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been this close to Levi in her life—with the exception of when she’d just had her head in his lap—and the way he was gazing down at her meant their faces were close together.

Close enough that she could see the flecks of green swirling within those deep mahogany eyes of his.

“I’m walking you to your door because that’s what a gentleman does.”

She detected the slight scent of peppermint on his breath, and she wondered if it was from toothpaste or mints. Not that it mattered. Peppermint had just climbed to the top of her list of aphrodisiacs. She licked her lower lip, her heart fluttering when Levi’s gaze slid down, watching her tongue swipe across it.

“Oh,” she replied, cursing how fucking breathless she sounded. It took her a second or ten, but Kasi finally managed to break herself from the spell that was Levi, taking a step back. “You don’t have to walk me. I’m perfectly capable of getting to the house on my own.”

Levi’s scowl was back, and this time, it wasn’t concern but annoyance driving it.

Yeah. That felt more normal.

She and Remi had been twin tomboy tornadoes when they were kids, so she was no stranger to the countless exasperated looks Levi had flashed her way over the years. Clearly, he still viewed her as his baby cousin’s friend. The idea that he would forever see her as a kid rather than the woman she’d grown to be, hurt a little. But it was also a good reminder that her crush was destined to always remain just that.

A crush.

“Okay, well. Goodbye,” she said, infusing her words with as much cheer as she could manage before turning and heading back in the direction of the barn, wishing it wasn’t so hard to walk away from him.