Chapter Fifteen
By the following Tuesday, Rob still hadn’t managed to carve out time to go for a walk with Hannah.
He had some free hours here and there, of course, but he didn’t want their time together to be rushed.
And he wanted to make sure they had enough time so they could locate the spot she was looking for.
If that foundation was out there, he wanted to find it with her. For whatever reason, it seemed important to her, and that was enough for him.
He and Brian were in the house, relaxing after an unseasonably hot and humid day. It had felt more like August than early June, and since they’d been clearing some woods on the western side of the campground where they were hoping to add two more sites, they were beat.
“It’s not supposed to be this hot in June,” Brian said, giving the ancient and slightly inadequate window AC unit a sour look. “They said there’s supposed to be a bad, slow-moving storm, but that it was going to stay south of us.”
The words had barely left his mouth when a flash of lightning lit everything up for a few seconds.
Stella bolted from her bed and launched herself onto Brian’s lap.
She wasn’t exactly a lap-size dog, but Brian slid down the chair a little, making his lap as large as possible.
The dog curled up in a ball while also managing to get her head under the hem of Brian’s T-shirt.
The thunder came in a long, low rumble.
“Way to summon the thunder,” Rob said. “Maybe you could manifest us a winning lottery ticket.”
“It wasn’t a gunshot, at least,” Brian said, his arms wrapped around Stella.
“Nope.” Rob sighed, going to look out the window. He couldn’t see Hannah’s camper from here. “Maybe we should assign somebody to pay more attention to the weather.”
“Again, they said it was going to miss us. They were wrong, obviously, but it’s not like we can change it.”
“No, but we could...” He let the words trail off because it was true. He couldn’t change the weather, even for Hannah.
The lights dimmed and then flickered, but the power didn’t go off. With a curse, Rob leaned closer to the window, but it didn’t matter. He still couldn’t see her site.
“Hannah’s terrified of thunderstorms.” He shoved a hand through his hair, remembering that she coped by turning on all the lights in the camper to minimize the lightning.
If the power went out, the camper could run off the battery, but those lights weren’t as bright.
And he was just worried about her. “I’m going over there. ”
“The storm’s here. The sky’s going to open up any second and it’s going to rain like hell.”
“I don’t care.”
“You know the rules, Bobby.”
Rob clenched his jaw for a moment, stopping the harsh words that wanted to spew out. Then he took a deep breath before speaking. “I thought we weren’t doing that crap anymore.”
“I told you I wouldn’t give you a hard time, but Danny and Joey have both expressed some concerns about it.”
“What do they even know about it?”
“You know how they all talk down there. And were you trying to hide it? Because eating alone with her at the cookout and feeding her from your plate probably didn’t do you any favors.”
“She was eating from my plate. It’s not like I was hand-feeding her.”
“It attracted attention. You know how it is.”
Rob spun to face his brother. “Then fire me. Buy me out. Do a hostile takeover. Whatever the punishment is, do it.”
Brian regarded him for a long moment, and then nodded once. “Okay. If you think she needs you, then go. I’ll leave the outside lights on, assuming the power holds, but take your cell. If you don’t come back, I’m going to assume you’re with Hannah, so call if you need me for anything.”
As predicted, the storm let loose the rain when he was only halfway to Hannah’s camper and Rob was instantly soaked to the skin. Even though he ran most of the way, by the time he got to her site, he knew he was too wet to go inside. But he was still going to check on her.
He knocked loudly in order to be heard, and then stepped back so she could swing the door open.
She had a fleece blanket draped over her shoulders, despite the hot day, and her face was pale. “What are you doing running around in this storm?”
“You told me storms terrified you, so I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. And not too afraid.”
“I’m in a tin can surrounded by trees in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm. What could I possibly be afraid of?”
He would have laughed if she hadn’t looked so distressed. “If the power goes out, will you be okay?”
“I’m not okay already, but I have an LED lantern that’s pretty bright.”
Another clap of thunder cut off her nervous chuckle and she leaped back from the door.
“I’ll go so you can close the door,” Rob said, turning away.
“Wait. Will you...do you have to go?”
“I don’t have to be anywhere,” he said, but she didn’t move. He tilted his head slightly, a small smile playing with the corners of his mouth. “I can just sit here under the awning and you’ll know I’m here.”
Then thunder rumbled and she moved away from the door and waved him in. He climbed the steps and pulled the door closed behind him. It wouldn’t do much to mute the sound of the storm, especially with the rain pounding the metal camper, but it would help.
“Oh, you’re soaked.”
“You should have made me stay under the awning.” He looked down at the growing dark patch on her floor mat where he was dripping.
“I’ll grab you a towel from the bathroom.”
He laughed. “I’m pretty sure a towel’s not going to help. I’ll just hang out here and drip.”
Just then, lightning lit up the darkness so intensely, even her blackout curtains didn’t help. Hannah gasped and grabbed the front of his hoodie, jerking him away from the door.
“It’s okay,” he said, cupping his hand around the side of her neck so his thumb could stroke her cheek. Her pulse was racing under his palm, and her skin was pale.
There was no way he could stand her being like this.
“I’ll be right back.”
“No. You can’t go out there.”
“I’m not. I’m going in the bathroom super quick to get a towel.”
He didn’t just grab a towel, though. After closing the door of the tiny bathroom, he managed to strip down to his boxer briefs, which were slightly damp around the bottoms, but miraculously dry for the most part. The wet clothes, he dropped in the bottom of her shower.
Putting them back on later was going to suck, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Then, even though boxer briefs were no more revealing than shorts or swim trunks and it seemed unnecessary to him, he wrapped the towel around his waist.
When he left the bathroom, Hannah was standing in the same spot that he’d left her. She had her eyes closed and her hands over her ears, and she was trembling.
He didn’t blame her for being scared. Thunderstorms didn’t bother him, outside of worrying about property damage, but this was a bad one and being in a tin can definitely didn’t help.
When she opened her eyes and she saw him, her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“I’m not naked under the towel. I mean, boxer briefs aren’t much, but I didn’t want to soak your cushions with my wet jeans and—”
“No, it’s fine. As distractions go, it’s a good one.” Until another flash of lightning made her jump. “I’m not usually this bad. But this one seems really close for some reason.”
“Because it is close.” And he didn’t want to say anything to her, but it was supposed to last for a while. This wasn’t one of those quick storms that hit hard and fast at the end of a hot and humid day. “Do you want to sit down?”
She looked at the dinette, which had the panoramic windows. Even with the heavy curtains, he could see she didn’t want to sit there. There was a window next to her bed, too. It was smaller, but it would still light up.
Rob looked around, helplessness starting to set in, but then he saw the thin throw made of dark, plaid flannel. He could work with that.
“It’s Blanket Fort of Doom time.”
“Blanket Fort of Doom?” Hannah hugged her arms to her chest as Rob started moving around.
“Trust me. You’ll love it.”
She didn’t really have a choice, since she’d practically begged him to come in. What had she been thinking? Not only did he probably have to check on other campsites besides hers, but he’d stripped off those wet clothes. That meant, at some point, he was going to have to put them back on.
But he seemed content, so she stood back and let him do his thing. As she watched, he took the cushions off the dinette benches and carried them to the back of the camper.
“Oh, nice pillow situation,” he said, referring to her nest. “That helps.”
He stood the dinette cushions on end at the head and foot of the bed. It probably wasn’t easy since he had to keep grabbing at the towel. Another lightning strike, which seemed impossibly close, made her freeze with fear. On the plus side, it kept her from telling him he could drop the towel.
Then he took her flannel throw and draped it over the top of the cushions. It took him a couple of tries to get it to stay, and he used a few throw pillows to anchor the dinette cushions, but he succeeded in making a cozy-looking tent out of her bed.
“Okay, crawl in there,” he said. “We can probably leave the side facing the cabin up so it doesn’t get too hot.”
We? Hannah walked by him, trying not to brush against his naked skin, because if she touched him, she might want to keep touching him. She heard him rummaging around, but by the time she’d climbed into the tent, he was behind her.
“It’s a small space, but I promise I’ll be a gentleman,” he said, crawling in after her.
If she was feeling at all sexy, she might have told him how disappointing that promise was, but she was afraid her voice would be squeaky from fear instead of sultry.