Chapter 6
*EMERSON*
My back foot raised as Knox pulled me close. The wind battered the door behind him, but Knox held it closed. His tongue swept against my lips, and I opened, giving him access. As the storm raged outside, Knox raged in my chest.
“Alaska?” he asked as he pulled away.
I sucked in a breath and let out a nervous chuckle. “Alaska?”
Was he serious with that question? I thought it was a moment of passion? If that were true, why did it sound my heart thumping against my chest? And why did the idea not sound that crazy to me?
Knox had his mouth open, either ready to kiss me again or provide more Alaska information—I was okay with either—when a terrible creak came from outside the cabin.
We both froze.
I stepped closer to Knox just as he pulled me in. “What was that?”
“It must be getting bad out there.”
We both stared at the shuttered window as if we could see outside of it. “The storm just started. There’s no way we’re at the worst of it yet.” Even a fast-moving storm took hours, and they normally slowed as they hit land.
“If this isn’t the worst of it, then prepare for it to get bad,” Knox said.
I hid my eye-roll. What was I doing kissing a man who didn’t even understand storm systems? Clearly, I’d lost my mind for a moment there. It was the muscles. They clouded my brain. That and the raging storm outside, the loss of my boat, and all the other shit.
The ground shook outside the cabin as a terrible crash rattled the windows. Our overhead lights flickered twice.
My eyes widened, but Knox held me tightly. “Sounds like we’ve got a tree down.”
“The generator was good. Right?”
He nodded. “As long as a tree doesn’t land on it, we should be good.”
“Great,” I said, not totally feeling it. Storms—even big ones—didn’t normally scare me, but it’s also not like life had been going my way lately.
The room dropped into darkness.
“Shit,” Knox said as we stared at the light, waiting for it to come back on.
It didn’t.
I grabbed his shirt. “I thought you said the generator was working?”
“It is, but someone has to go turn it on.” We waited another full minute, which is a long damn time when you’re standing next to a hot guy with a mini hurricane happening a few feet away.
“They’re not coming back on.” It sounded obvious, but someone had to say it.
Knox shook his head. “I’m going out. Turn off everything you can in here so we don’t draw too big of a charge when I flip the switch.”
“Are you going to take your shirt off again?” I asked, the words sticky in my mouth.
It didn’t matter. By the time I finished my question, Knox already had his shirt over his head. “It’s raining worse now. Stay inside. I’ll be right back.”
Good thing he volunteered because I was not going out there in the storm, even for a generator.
I waited until Knox pushed his way outside, the door heavy as the wind battered it from the other side, and then raced to the kitchen to unplug a simple single-cup coffee maker and flick off every visible light switch.
“Ahhh!” I yelped as the gray tabby I’d rescued forgot how she owed me her life, as she jumped at me from the top of the short refrigerator. “How the hell did you get up there?”
Her claws dug into my shoulder as she clung to me for safety. I held her and bit my lip as her claws sank deeper into my skin when the fridge clicked to life.
The cabin’s front door smashed against the wall, and Knox ran into the room. “Are you okay?” he asked, his gaze scanning the room, looking like he wanted to take on someone in hand-to-hand combat.
I pointed at the tabby. “She’s scared.”
“She’s probably flea-ridden.”
Ugh. Why was it that every time I had good feelings about this man, he opened his mouth and ruined them? “You cannot talk that way about Princess Penelope.”
“Emerson, you don’t even know if she’s a girl, and we have bigger problems.”
I walked to him, getting a better view of his naked chest before he rubbed off the water droplets with a small towel from the kitchen and redressed himself. “The storm?”
“That and Rex taking a liking to you.”
Whatever. “I’m not worried about some man with a name like Rex.”
Why in the world were he and Calder worried about something so ridiculous?
“You should be.”
I turned Princess Penelope around as much as she’d let me. “What I’m really worried about is if she’s a princess or a prince. Do you see balls?”
Knox’s mouth hung open. “I am not looking for cat balls,” he said in utter disgust.
His sheer expression of absolute discontent set me off, and I repositioned Princess Penelope back on my shoulder as the laugh broke free.
The next morning I rolled over, my arm flopped on the bed, and I jarred awake when it hit a body.
A human body.
“Morning, sunshine,” Knox said in bed next to me. “I told you we’d get through.”
I wanted to say something snotty back, but at the sight of his naked chest, my brain went blank. “Whatever.”
“We didn’t even need a pillow wall like you wanted.”
My mouth fell open, but then I snapped it closed in case I had morning breath. “You suggested the line of pillows.”
We’d battened down the hatches—as my grandpa liked to say—and then Knox cooked us a dinner from the cabin’s cupboard. We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the cabin, weathering the storm, and discussing life.
Knox told me all about his life in Alaska. Every story he told made the place seem more reasonable. Happy and perfect, even.
At some point we’d ended up in bed—just talking—and I fell asleep listening to stories of his cabin and how he couldn’t wait for the first big snowfall. It also seemed like he missed his dog Whiteout.
We didn’t talk about the kiss.
Or his suggestion that I make Alaska my next great adventure.
And if he wasn’t going to bring it up, I wasn’t going to bring it up either.
The silence stretched out for another minute as we stared at one another until Princess Penelope jumped on the bed and head-butted Knox.
“She likes you,” I said, grabbing her from his pillow.
He smiled. “She’s not the worst.”
That was an improvement. Give him any more time and he’d fall in love with her.
The quiet settled in, and I got nervous. “Well, I guess it’s time to brush my teeth.”
Knox watched as I practically sprinted out of bed and raced to the bathroom. I swear I even heard him chuckle as I closed the bathroom door. But screw him. Someone had to do something. If one of us hadn’t gotten out of that bed, we’d end up kissing again.
And I was not kissing the SEAL for a second time.
A little while later, I stepped out onto the porch right behind Knox. He threw a fit about getting to go first. It’s like he expected there to be ninjas waiting for us.
“See, it’s fine,” I said as I walked out and then paused and sucked in a breath. It was not fine. Everything smelled… clean, fresh, as if Mother Nature wiped the slate clean. The sky was a washed-out blue with happy, fluffy clouds floating past us, leaving shadows behind.
“For a storm that sounded like God himself was calling, it really isn’t that bad,” Knox said.
I pointed to the far side of the cabin. A massive oak with Spanish moss pooled around it lay sprawled out in the yard. Its roots were exposed, as if someone had yanked it from the ground. “Just that one tree.”
Probably the one we heard fall.
“We were lucky out here,” he said, stepping off the porch to round the cabin. His phone rang, and he answered quickly before giving a few quick “Yeahs” and “Uh-huhs” before ending with a “Will do.”
“What was that about?” I asked, being nosey.
He shook his head with a smile that said he was going to tell me anyway. “Calder said the streets are pretty flooded, but the town lucked out. He wants us to check out your place.”
“My apartment?” Did he know something we didn’t?
“Yeah,” Knox said, grabbing a small branch from the yard that had blown off in the storm. “If Rex planned to send a message, that’s the time and place he’d do it.”
What was up with his obsession with this Rex guy? “Are we expecting Rex to leave me a message?”
He tilted his head to the side. “Let’s just say he has an MO. If he’s interested, he’ll have made a move by now.”
It seemed like a lot for one dude. Why didn’t he just ask for my number?
Knox walked past me, close enough that I caught the scent of his soap. I breathed in a deep gulp of it. How was he so irritating and attractive at the same time?
Hot body.
Horrible mouth.
I hated that the longer I was around him, the mouth part didn’t bother me as much.
Knox drove—the car we used on the way in had no damage—and I sat quietly in the passenger seat for about three minutes of the drive.
“Do you think Princess Penelope will be okay in the cabin alone?” I asked as he drew closer to my apartment.
He sighed. “I think we should have put her outside like she belongs.”
“Knox,” I smacked his shoulder. “She’s so skinny. Someone has to take her in.”
His smile grew, letting me know it was all a joke. He had fallen for that cat. “We’ll get her a can of tuna or something after this.”
A thick tree trunk blocked the entrance to my parking lot. Somewhere in the distance a chainsaw buzzed, but it sounded like it had a ways to go until it made it this far. We parked outside the parking lot and got out, ready to go the rest of the way on foot.
“Are you okay?” Knox asked, somehow sensing my unease as I met him at the front of the vehicle.
I nodded. “Yeah, I just hate the feeling of life being out of my control.”
He snorted. “Welcome to life, babe.”
Yeah, but why my life more than anyone elses?
“Wait,” I said and tugged on Knox’s arm as we made it into my parking lot. “There’s a guy standing next to my car.”
I hated that everything from yesterday had me on edge, but I also trusted him.
The tall guy, wearing a leather jacket in this heat, which made him extra suspicious, had leaned himself against a light pole as if he belonged here.
His hands were shoved into his pockets, and he had a baseball cap pulled low.
Something in my gut said he was not a resident. I’d certainly never seen him before.
Knox’s body grew still in a way that screamed danger. If he hadn’t been on my team, I’d have been extremely worried. Like running in the other direction, worried.
“That’s not normal,” I said, thinking of the posture and leather jacket.
Knox shook his head and whispered, “No, it’s not.”
We inched closer but made it less than three feet before the man straightened and looked directly at us.
He smiled, and my stomach flopped upside down.
“Shit,” Knox said and backed up a step, but it was too late.
Another man stepped out from between two parked trucks. Then another. My pulse hammered in my wrists and chest so loudly I swear Knox probably heard it.
The man by the light pole moved over the sidewalk. He removed his hand from his pocket, bringing out a small, black gun.
“Knox!” I yelled.
A gunshot—one loud crack—smacked through the air.