CHAPTER TWO
Washed In
Piper woke to silence, which was somehow louder than the storm had been.
Not peace, exactly. Just the absence of last night's fury — no wind battering the shutters, no thunder splitting the sky in half. Only the soft hiss of rain and the odd distant grumble, like the storm had gone off to sulk over the next county instead of raging directly overhead.
She sat up into filtered gray light. The blanket Beau had given her was still around her shoulders, its warmth long faded, its weight still, oddly, a comfort.
He wasn't on the couch.
A kettle whistled somewhere in the house.
She pushed her hair out of her face and padded into the kitchen on bare feet, floorboards cool and worn smooth beneath her, and stopped dead in the doorway.
Beau stood at the stove. Shirtless.
He hadn't heard her yet, which was a small mercy, because she needed a second to adjust — to the wide plane of his back, muscle shifting as he lifted the kettle and poured it over grounds in a French press, to the scatter of old scars crossing one shoulder, pale against tanned skin.
Not the kind you got from a single accident.
The kind life left behind on purpose, or refused to let you forget.
She cleared her throat.
He didn't turn. "Mornin'."
"Do you always make coffee shirtless, or is that a special occasion?"
Now he turned, and she regretted the question instantly. He held a mug like it weighed nothing, low-slung sweatpants and an expression that said he knew exactly what effect he had on people and had decided, some years ago, not to care.
"Didn't know I had company till you wandered in," he said, voice still warm with sleep. "Otherwise I'd have put on a bow tie."
She rolled her eyes and took the mug he offered. Warm. Strong. Not sweet. Exactly like him, though she wasn't about to say that out loud.
"How bad is it out there?" She nodded toward the rain-streaked window.
"Road's gone."
She froze mid-sip. "Gone?"
"Flooded. Creek came up about three hours ago. That's what woke me."
Her pulse ticked up. "Radio? Scanner? Anything?"
He crossed to an old battery-powered set in the corner and switched it on.
Static, then the flat drone of a local announcer: ...
emergency alert in effect for Briar County and surrounding areas.
Residents are advised to shelter in place until water levels recede.
Do not attempt travel on rural roads or low-lying bridges...
She rubbed her forehead. "I'm supposed to be reporting on this."
"You're living it," Beau said, shutting the radio off. "Story can wait."
"I'm not good at sitting still."
"Noticed."
She shot him a look, but her mouth tugged sideways despite herself. "So what now?"
He leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. "Now we wait."
She looked past him, out the window, at a front yard that had become a lake overnight — not deep enough to reach the porch yet, but close, water swirling brown and thick with broken branches and, absurdly, a half-sunk trash bin that clearly wasn't his.
"Are we in any danger?"
"Not unless the rain keeps up another full day. Place is built on a rise. Cellar's dry. Power's still on, for now. Food for two weeks."
"Even with me eating your grilled cheese supply?"
"You're lucky you're cute."
The words landed before he seemed to fully register having said them. Something flickered across his face — surprise at himself, maybe, or the particular alarm of a man who'd just handed away information he hadn't meant to give up. Piper turned slowly.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Oh, no. We are not skipping past that. Did you just call me cute?"
"You're also loud, bossy, and have no respect for property lines."
"So — a cute menace?"
"Something like that."
She grinned, and he shook his head and turned back to the coffee, not quite fast enough to hide the smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
"I need a shower," she said, pulling the flannel tighter. "You don't happen to keep a guest robe and spa slippers lying around?"
"Hall closet, middle shelf. Don't use all the hot water."
"You saying that like you're going next."
His eyes met hers, and the heat in them made her heartbeat stumble.
"Maybe I am."
She fled before she could say something stupid, like you should join me.
?
The bathroom was small and clean, old tile, a narrow tub-shower combo. She peeled off the flannel and stood under the spray until the water ran cold, and when she came out ten minutes later, damp and pink-faced, Beau was waiting in the hall with a towel.
"For the hair," he said, eyes flicking over her once before he looked away, deliberately, like a man practicing a discipline he hadn't fully mastered.
"Thanks." She tried to sound unaffected. It didn't work, not with him watching her like she was the only steady thing in a flooded county.
He turned and left without another word. She didn't exhale until he was gone.
By midday the rain had eased to a drizzle, though the damage was already done — road still impassable, power flickering once before the generator caught with a grumble. She found Beau in the barn, hauling feed buckets for the goats like the storm had never happened.
"You're really not fazed by any of this," she said from the doorway.
He didn't look up. "Storms don't care how you feel. You can panic or you can work."
"That's the whole philosophy? Feed the goats, ignore the chaos?"
He straightened, dusting his hands. "Pretty much."
She stepped inside. "What do you do when you're not feeding goats or scaring off reporters?"
"You always this curious?"
"Occupational hazard."
He walked past her, close enough that her skin prickled. "Come on. I'll show you the shelter."
She followed him down a stone path curving behind the house to a squat concrete outbuilding half-sunk into the earth, flanked by trees and ringed with sandbags.
Inside, it was cool and dry and relentlessly organized — shelves of supplies, backup batteries, canned food, stacked water, all of it labeled in block capitals in a hand she was starting to recognize.
She let out a low whistle. "You weren't exaggerating."
"I don't exaggerate." He pulled a cord and a single bulb lit the space.
She walked its length slowly, cataloging. "You could live in here a month."
"Two, if you ration right."
"You always expect the worst?"
"I prepare for it."
"Is there a difference?"
"One keeps you alive. The other just makes headlines."
The jab wasn't accidental, and she let it pass without comment, because arguing would only prove his point.
Instead she reached for a small framed photo on one of the higher shelves — dusty, slightly crooked, a boy of nine or ten sitting in a hay field, grinning at the camera, sunlight catching hair the color of wheat.
"Is this you?"
Beau turned. Went still at the sight of the frame in her hand, the way a man goes still when someone's picked up something breakable without knowing it.
"Yeah." A long pause. "That was before."
"Before what?"
He didn't answer, and she didn't press, though she wanted to. Wanted to badly enough that the wanting surprised her — this hunger to know the whole shape of him and not just the parts he chose to show.
They came out of the shelter into thick, humid air, the rain finally stopped, the land soaked and sullen, puddles glinting like scattered mirrors under a bruised sky.
?
Back inside, the fire had been stoked again, fresh logs cracking as heat pushed into the room.
Piper sat on the rug in front of it, legs crossed, hair drying in loose waves.
Beau brought two bottles of water from the pantry and lowered himself to the floor across from her — close enough that she noticed, far enough that it felt deliberate.
For a while they just sat there. The quiet between them had lost its edge somewhere in the last hour. It felt less like a standoff now and more like company.
"Why journalism?" he asked.
She blinked. "That's the first thing you've asked me that wasn't a veiled insult."
He arched a brow, waiting.
She shrugged. "I used to think stories could save people."
"And now?"
"Now I think they just remind people they're not alone."
He studied her, firelight catching the planes of his face. "You've been alone a long time?"
The question landed harder than she expected. She looked at the fire instead of him. "Yeah. I guess I have."
He didn't offer sympathy, didn't rush to fill the silence. He just let it sit, which was its own kind of kindness — the rarest kind, she was starting to think, the kind that didn't need anything back.
"He called me that night," she said, before she'd decided to say it out loud at all.
"Twice. I was on deadline, chasing a quote for a segment nobody remembers a year later, and I let it go to voicemail both times, because I always answer the story first. By the time I called him back, it was a state trooper who picked up his phone. "
Beau's hand found hers on the couch and didn't let go.
"I don't even remember what story it was," she said. "That's the part I can't forgive myself for. I chose something I don't even remember over the last time my brother needed me, and I've spent every assignment since trying to prove it wasn't a pattern."
"It's why you never say no to a story," he said slowly, understanding arriving in real time. "Even mine."
"Even yours." She looked at him, raw. "I told myself I drove out here for the byline. I think some part of me drove out here because I've gotten very good at running toward whoever might need me next, so I never have to sit still with the one I didn't reach in time."
"What about you," she said finally, pulling her knees to her chest, needing badly to turn the current away from herself before it swept her under. "Why the farm? Why stay?"
He considered it a long moment, like the answer lived somewhere he had to dig for. "Lost someone on this land, once. Some people run from wreckage like that. Others build on top of it so it never gets the chance to catch them flat-footed twice."
"And you?"