8. Storms Brewing #2
“No,” he says, honest enough to stop me. “But she’s safe.”
I nod.
He doesn’t make it a fatherhood monologue or share his worry. He just goes into the next exam room and keeps working.
By late afternoon, the clinic finally empties.
The town has given up pretending the weather is manageable. We close, leaving messages on voicemail and signs on the door that say emergencies should call 911, which half of Coupeville will ignore and call us anyway.
Doc locks the front door while I start resetting rooms.
The storm pounds away at the building.
“You hear that?” Doc asks from Exam Two.
“I’ve heard this building make every sound imaginable.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
“I’m a beacon of warmth.”
He appears in the doorway with a stack of used linens. “I was going to say menace.”
He passes close enough behind me that I feel the movement before I see him. My body notices him now with humiliating frequency.
The bigger problem is the man himself. The way his shirt pulls across his shoulders when he reaches for the cabinet. The way he looks at me and doesn’t rush to fill every inch of space between us with words.
The lights flicker once.
I look up. “No.”
They flicker again.
“What the…” Doc says.
The lights go out.
Black drops through the clinic so completely that the storm seems to grow louder. Rain pounds the roof while the wind licks at the building, trying to find a weakness.
The emergency lights flicker, then fail to come on.
“Wonderful,” I say.
Doc’s voice comes from my right. “So, another item for the to-do list?”
I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. The beam catches the edge of the counter, a rolling stool, Doc’s shoes, then climbs up him.
He’s standing calm in the dark, head turned toward the front of the building.
“Supply room has the emergency kit,” I say.
“Let’s go.”
I know this clinic blind. Twelve steps to the hall. The supply room door sticks if you pull too high on the handle. The left shelf has gloves and gauze. The right shelf has cleaning supplies.
The emergency bin is gray, ugly, and wedged beneath a stack of disposable gowns because no one plans for darkness until they’re standing inside it.
The wind hits again and a sharp scrape drags along the outside wall.
Doc closes the door most of the way behind us, leaving it cracked. “What was that?”
“Branch, probably.”
The supply room is too small for both of us, which I discover with immediate and aggressive clarity when he steps in behind me.
My phone beam shakes over the shelves. Thunder booms outside. Rain and wind slap branches against siding.
I reach for the emergency bin. It’s on a shelf just out of my reach. I normally get the step stool, but that requires another trip down the hallway in the dark.
“Here.” His arm brushes past my shoulder in the tight quarters. He lifts the bin down easily.
Obnoxiously easily.
“Thank you,” I say, like a civilized person.
“You’re welcome.”
He sets the bin on the floor. I crouch, phone propped awkwardly against a box of masks so the beam points into the bin. Batteries. Flashlights. A weather radio. Two ponchos still in their protective sleeves.
Doc crouches across from me and picks up a flashlight and looks into the box. “The batteries are corroded. Let’s put a note on the calendar to change these out twice a year.”
“Good idea. We can do that with supply orders too, right?”
“Yeah, we can.”
I press my lips together. We’re cooperating, getting along, and becoming collaborators. And damn if that doesn’t fuel my attraction to him.
He glances at me
The weak phone light catches his face from below, the hard line of cheek and jaw, the open collar of his shirt, the dark concentration in his eyes. He is right there, bigger than the room, steady in a way that has nothing to do with calm and everything to do with control.
My fingers fumble on a package of batteries.
His hand covers mine before they spill.
My body makes an opinion known.
I pull my hand back and grab the first working flashlight. “Found one.”
He clears his throat. “Great.”
I put fresh batteries in the second flashlight. Doc fits them in while I hold the phone. His hands are certain, precise, almost gentle with the cheap plastic casing.
The storm cracks open.
There is no better way to describe the sound.
A violent split outside that reverberates through the building and into your bones. Wood groans, giving way under force, followed by a heavy impact just outside the building wall.
It startles me, and I jump, crashing into the shelf beside me hard enough to send a plastic tub sliding toward my shoulder.
I twist away too fast. My foot catches the bottom shelf.
Doc moves before the tub hits the floor.
In one swift motion, Doc’s hand closes around my wrist and pulls me toward him as his other arm slides across my back and yanks me out of the way. The tub crashes to the floor where I had been standing.
My phone skids across the floor, beam spinning against shelves and ceiling before it comes to rest under the bottom rack.
For a few seconds, neither of us says anything.
I can’t.
The storm keeps raging outside, but in here all I know is him.
My hands are splayed against his chest. His heart is beating hard under my palms. His arms are locked low around my back, and every part of me that has been pretending all day runs straight into the truth.
I want him.
His mouth. His hands. The weight of him. The controlled strength I keep seeing and ache to understand.
“Annie.” His voice is rougher than I’ve heard it.
I lift my head.
The flashlight on the floor throws a pale strip of light across his shirt and my wrist. I can feel the rise of his chest quicken under my hand. I try to control my breath, but do a terrible job of pretending I’m unaffected.
He looks down at me, his hands loosen, then slide up my back, pulling me closer.
He leans in and whispers, “Tell me to let go.”
My heart beats out of my chest and I’m sure he can feel it. My mind races.
I should let go. Step back.
There are practical things that need our attention.
But I don’t care about any of it.
I slide my hands up, cup his jaw, and whisper, “No,” as I pull his lips down to mine.
This is the end of whatever control I had left.
Our mouths collide before either of us can decide not to.
And I’m not stopping.