Storm Front (Reunited Hearts) Read online

  Storm Front

  Rachel Curtis

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Curtis. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  After changing paths unexpectedly, Tropical Storm Lydia was about to slam into the Virginia coastline. While the storm was technically no longer a hurricane, the predictions of danger and damage were serious, and the whole area was being evacuated.

  Allison Dent was still trying to get out.

  She steered her small SUV through the curves of a two-lane road, fighting to see through the blinding sheets of rain the wind whipped nearly sideways. She could have taken the interstate, but she’d wanted to avoid the traffic, backed up for hours with the region’s last-minute evacuees.

  No one had expected the storm to come this way, so no one was prepared.

  Allison had been taking a much-needed vacation in the cottage on Sunset Cape Island that her family had owned for twenty years. Her parents had bought the cottage cheap, but expanding tourism had turned it into a very valuable piece of property. Allison still held onto the cottage for sentimental reasons and because she needed a retreat from her hectic life in Washington D.C.

  She should have left the coast hours ago, but she kept running across ideal human interest stories. Like the gruff man who ran a rescue shelter for beagles and who refused to leave until he’d loaded up every one of his thirty-seven dogs. Or the preacher who personally ensured the safety of each elderly member of his congregation, driving them out of town in his ancient Volkswagen van.

  For hours, Allison had been taking notes and snapping pictures like a madwoman. She’d recently gotten a promotion at the D.C.-based web magazine she’d worked for. Just four years out of college, she was still fairly low on the totem-pole, but these kinds of stories about such a newsworthy event could transform her entire career.

  Finally her sense of self-preservation had caught up to her ambition, however, and now she was on her way out of the danger area.

  She’d made it off Sunset Cape and was trying to get farther inland as quickly as she could. She knew these back roads by heart, since she’d grown up in a small town about an hour away, but the wetland forests looked foreign, almost alien, in the torrents of rain and fierce wind.

  This was just the edge of the storm. It would only get worse as the day progressed.

  She leaned forward in a futile attempt to see the road clearly and clung to the steering wheel as the wind threatened to pull her SUV to the right, into the thin, bending trees. She kept toward the middle of the road, assuming no driver would be foolish enough to head in the opposite direction—toward the ferocity of the storm.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, mirroring the frantic slapping of her wipers. She swiped one hand and then the other on her pants, having broken out in a cold sweat.

  She kept telling herself she’d be all right. In another hour, she’d be out of the path of the storm.

  One day, she would have to truly consider how far she was willing to go in order to advance her career.

  But right now she just needed to see the road through the rain.

  Her wipers, even at top speed, couldn’t begin to handle the amount of water hammering the windshield, so she didn’t see the approaching vehicle until it was almost too late.

  Her whole body tightened like a fist as she suddenly saw the headlights of a luxury SUV directly in front of her. Her crisis instincts kicked in, and she reacted without thinking, stomping on the brakes and veering to the right.

  Her tires hydroplaned for a moment before they found traction again. She managed to slow her car enough to stop with just a jarring jerk when her front right tire slipped into the ditch.

  The other vehicle wasn’t so lucky.

  He too had veered away, but he’d been going faster than Allison and had hydroplaned even worse. The dark SUV skidded sideways and crashed headlong into a clump of trees.

  Terrified and nauseous, Allison scrambled out of her car and fought her way through the wind and rain to the other vehicle. The SUV was much bigger and more expensive than hers, but the front end was damaged and the airbag had inflated.

  Panting and squinting against raindrops, Allison fumbled at the door handle with wet hands, afraid the driver was seriously injured.

  It was locked. So she pounded on the driver’s window with both fists.

  The airbag was deflating, and she almost groaned with relief when she saw the man in the driver’s seat turn his head. A pair of blue-gray eyes blinked out at her through the wet glass.

  Not registering anything but the need for them both to get out of this weather, Allison pounded again on the door.

  He slowly moved a hand to open it.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, pulling the door open all the way. The wind was so loud she almost had to scream.

  “Yeah. I think so.” His voice sounded rather fuzzy, however, and he didn’t try to move.

  She noticed blood on the side of his head. “You must have hit your head. Can you drive? Do you need help?”

  He blinked again, obviously disoriented by the blow to the head.

  Finally, his appearance registered in the blur of Allison’s adrenaline-fueled mind. The man was young and dark-haired with handsome, familiar features. Even dazed and injured, he radiated a cool, confident charisma that she recognized from a long time ago.

  She gasped as she realized who it was. “Michael?”

  * * *

  Michael Martin was furious.

  He was mostly furious with himself—for insisting on absolute privacy at his beach house and thus cutting himself off from vital sources of information like the phones, television, and internet. He’d needed a real rest, an escape from his tumultuous personal life and the bloodthirsty reporters who kept hounding him for comments on his broken engagement with Gina Lane.

  But it had been inexcusably foolish of him to break all ties of communication and therefore miss the warnings about the approaching storm until it was almost too late.

  By the time he’d felt refreshed enough to turn on his phone and the news, it had been too late to call in a helicopter or private plane. He had no choice but to drive, and now the interstates were hopelessly clogged.

  Although most of his anger was directed inward, he now was also furious with the insane woman who’d been driving in the middle of a narrow two-lane road. He was also furious with his SUV.

  For the amount of money he’d paid for it, he expected it to function better than its skid across the wet road.

  After he crashed into the trees and was hit with the airbag, he sat dazed and disoriented from the impact, conscious of a pounding pain on the side of his head.

  Only when a woman, obviously the infuriating, middle-of-the-road driver, yelled at him was he was able to pull his thoughts together. She spoke his name, so she must know who he was, but he couldn’t process anything about her appearance except a loud, shrill blur outside his door.

  “You hit your head,” she shouted through the wind. “Can you get ou
t? You better not drive. You can come with me.”

  This plan sounded reasonable, since he was pretty sure his car was now un-drivable, but he winced at her grating voice and wished she’d just shut up.

  With some effort, he unbuckled and heaved himself out of the driver’s seat. To his mortification, he swayed on his feet, a wave of dizziness overtaking him.

  The woman put an arm around his waist in support. Even through his blur, he recognized that her wet, bedraggled body was still warm, soft, and curvy. If she wasn’t so damned shrill, she might be an attractive little thing.

  It was hard to tell in these conditions, however.

  He leaned on her by necessity as they limped across the road to her small, mid-priced vehicle. The raindrops stabbed painfully against his skin, and the wind threatened to knock them both down.

  By the time they reached the other SUV, Michael’s head pounded so fiercely that his vision darkened. He was afraid he was concussed, but there was nothing to do about it now. He fought to remain alert, although his mind kept wandering foolishly.

  The woman’s shoulder-length, brown hair was plastered to her head, but her fair skin seemed to glow in the grayness of the afternoon, glistening with the moisture from the rain. And her fitted white t-shirt was sopping wet, clearly revealing the lacy texture of the bra she wore beneath it—not to mention the full swell of her breasts and the peaked outline of her nipples.

  Absurdly, he felt his body react. He wondered what she would feel like in bed with him, crying out breathlessly, moving eagerly against him.

  She dried her hands off on the seat so she could pull the SUV back on the road. “If we keep going in this direction, we should be out of the worst of this in an hour or so.”

  Michael shook his head, his fuzzy thoughts finally landing on something relevant. “We can’t,” he said, wishing his head didn’t hurt so much. “A flash flood took out the old bridge past Raveloe. That’s why I was heading back.”

  The woman gaped at him for a minute, her cheeks whitening visibly. “But it’s an hour back to the interstate.”

  He leaned against the headrest and closed his eyes, trying to think. “I was listening to the weather on satellite radio, and we’ll be in the middle of the worst of it in a couple more hours. These roads are barely passable now. I’m not sure we should risk going back to the interstate.”

  The woman made a whimpering sound but didn’t fall apart like he’d feared. “Cell phones don’t work out here even in good weather. Should we just find some place to hunker down?”

  “I think we better. No other options I can think of.”

  She was silent for a minute. Then she said, a note of hope in her voice, “The old Graves place is just a couple of miles away. They rent it out sometimes, but it’s sure to be vacant now. The road turns off before the bridge. It’s made of stone and has three floors and a finished basement. That might be the safest place around.”

  “Take us there.” Michael didn’t care if he sounded curt or domineering. He wasn’t even thirty, but he’d inherited a fortune and control of a lucrative web retail company when his father died last year. He was used to being in charge, and this was an emergency situation.

  Courtesy could wait for some other time.

  Without objection, she carefully backed her SUV onto the road again and started off through vicious gusts of rain.

  The roar of the weather produced an almost hypnotizing effect on Michael, and he zoned out, attempting to plan out what he’d do when they got to the house but mostly just willing his head to stop aching.

  He’d reached a pleasant stupor when he felt a startling poke on his arm.

  “Hey!” the shrill woman said, “Don’t fall asleep.”

  He grunted and opened his eyes to glare at her.

  “Don’t fall asleep.” She was trying to focus on the road but kept darting looks over at him. “I think you have a concussion. Don’t fall asleep.”

  He sneered at her, although the rational part of his mind knew she had a point. She was rather bossy and obnoxious, although prettier than he’d realized initially. It wasn’t just her small, lush body. She had vibrant green eyes and full, sensual lips. The wet hair and skin did nothing to detract from her obvious allure.

  Checking him again, she frowned when she caught him staring. “You’re not going to be sick, are you? Because I’m happy to drive you somewhere safe, but Florence Nightingale I’m not.”

  The ironic snap to her voice was familiar, and suddenly several details about her appearance coalesced into knowledge. “I know you.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Just figuring that out, are you? Nothing like a blow to the head to dull one’s wit.”

  Despite his injury and the urgency of the situation, Michael couldn’t help but feel a swell of appreciation for her cleverness and composure. She was indeed obnoxious—always had been—but remarkable just the same. “Allison Dent.”

  “It’s been a long time,” she said, facing the road again, her shoulders tense as she concentrated on steering the vehicle through the storm.

  They’d grown up in the same hometown—Whitesville—not too far away from here. He was several years older than her, but everyone knew everyone else in that town.

  She continued, “It’s not hard to keep up with your doings, though, since they’re always plastered over newspapers and gossip blogs.”

  He frowned, remembering how he’d been practically forced into hiding recently by the merciless journalists who thought both his business and personal life were fair game.

  Michael hated reporters.

  “You wanted to be a journalist, didn’t you?” he asked, rubbing his head and trying to stay awake. “Please don’t tell me that’s what you are.”

  She gave him a curious look.

  With another surge of anger at the most recent invasion of his privacy, he said in clipped tones, “Journalists are my least favorite people at the moment, so I might need to find an alternate rescuer.”

  “No worries. I’m a harmless administrative assistant. I guess you’ve been hounded pretty hard, huh? That’s what you get for getting engaged to someone as photogenic as Gina, putting a rock the size of my fist on her finger, and then breaking it off without explanation.”

  Michael eyed her coldly, not appreciating the sardonic note in her voice. She had no idea what had happened with Gina, who’d been in the same class as Allison back in their hometown, and he had no intention of allowing the painful truth to show up in a news cycle.

  Allison had always been smart and ambitious. She might not be a reporter, but she could easily speak to one. He wasn’t about to share anything private with her.

  The conversation faded as the weather got even worse. The rain was dumping down so violently Michael couldn’t see even a few yards in front of them. He was amazed that she was able to keep the SUV on the road.

  He only relaxed when she pulled the car into a driveway and put it in park in front of the door of a large house. The lines of the house were blurred from the rain, but the structure was made of gray stone and reminded Michael of a castle.

  He was still a little unsteady on his feet, the dizziness returning as he hauled himself out of the passenger seat. Allison came around to support him again, saying the side door would be easier to break into, and they slowly hobbled around the house.

  Michael was vaguely mortified by his own weakness and helplessness, but he couldn’t help but enjoy the feel of Allison’s body against his. She wasn’t tall but she was lusciously formed, with rich curves he found himself staring at as they walked.

  Now that he knew who she was, his physical responses to her were even stronger.

  She wasn’t just a beautiful stranger.

  Allison was a woman he’d taken to bed, when both of them had been young. A night whose sensual memory still hadn’t left him, even seven years later.

  * * *

  Allison had been only eighteen and Michael twenty-two, but she’d been an intern for his fath
er that summer, so they’d been thrown together a lot.

  He’d been very young himself—working in his dad’s company for the summer before he started his MBA—and he’d wanted her more than he should.

  Finally, one evening he’d been weak. He’d given into temptation.

  They were working late in the office, alone, when her sparkling eyes, tender smile, and soft warmth became irresistible.

  Michael had kissed her, and she responded—passionately.

  Soon they’d moved to a big sofa in the office where he lost himself in her completely.

  She was a virgin, but she wasn’t afraid. Her hands, mouth, and body were eager as she rocked and writhed beneath him. Michael was overwhelmed with her sweetness, her innocence, and her fire.

  Allison had wanted him for him, and he knew it as he sank inside her for the first and only time.

  After the initial discomfort, she’d grown pliant and fervent beneath him. She moved with his intensifying urgency, meeting each of his thrusts, and their rhythm grew more and more frantic as pleasure built up between them.

  Michael had been surrounded by the fresh fragrance of her hair and by the sound of her pretty moans and gasps. She panted hotly against his neck as her body tightened, and her fingers clawed at his back when her tension crested into climax.

  His own tension had unleashed at her breathless cry and at the deep tremors he felt run through her.

  The rush of pleasure was more than physical. He felt satisfied in a way he’d never experienced in sex, cradled in the hot sweetness of her body.

  It was just the one time, but he shouldn’t have given in to his desire at all.

  Life soon took them apart.

  But the shuddering of her body in his arms, her needy kisses against his lips, the way she breathed out his name with her panting…he never really forgot.

  * * *

  Allison didn’t know why she’d lied to Michael about being a reporter, but something about the bitterness in his eyes had troubled her, and she hadn’t wanted to risk any further conflict in such a crisis situation.