He carries me back down a familiar set of stairs and past his truck, through to a narrow doorway that has more stairs leading down still.
“It’s not the Ritz, but it’s safer for now,” he reminds me. Another groaning and snapping sound from outside making me jump.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, ushering me through the door and flicking a switch so I can find my way down.
“Where are you going?” I gasp, suddenly terrified at the thought of being alone.
“Bathroom. And to grab a few things. I’ll be like two minutes,” he tells me.
“I’m coming with you,” I protest.
“To the bathroom?” he asks, raising both brows before patting my head. “Just get down there and make it cozy will ya? There are some blankets and a big old couch we can lie on,” he instructs me.
“Be careful,” I add, not liking it when he turns to go.
He’s right though. Ben’s always right.
The not-too-small space looks like a concrete bunker. Neatly stocked with solid metal shelves that have everything from dehydrated food and rows of bottled water, to a huge couch with a table and chairs, a big flat screen, and more boxes stacked from floor to ceiling than I could count.
It’s warm too, not cold or damp like I imagined it.
True to his word, Ben’s back in no time and has another gas heater under one arm, which he hooks up to a nozzle in the floor by the wall.
“We’ve got filtered fresh air down here too, so we won’t suffocate if the door’s closed,” he adds.
Not something I was even worried about until you mentioned it. Thanks.
The gravity of the whole situation hits me, and although I’ve never felt it, I suddenly feel very claustrophobic.
“Can’t we just stay upstairs?” I ask, an edge to my voice.
“We can leave the door open, no need to barricade ourselves in here,” he suggests, making me feel a little better.
“Hey?” he asks tenderly, coming over and taking me by the elbows. “We’re gonna be okay. I’m just being Mr. Safety is all.”
“Once this storm passes, we can breathe a little easier, maybe even have some fun that isn’t you watching me track a storm on a computer, alright?” he asks gently, rubbing my arms and I stab a nod.
“I just feel so—” I try to tell him.
I don’t know how I feel. Except that the most wonderful thing has happened to me at the same time the most serious thing is happening around us.
“I’m scared, Ben,” I confess, grateful when he takes me into his huge arms again, sharing his warmth and kissing my head as he tells me not to worry.
In no time he’s set my mind at ease again, making a little camp for us both on the huge couch, even he can fit on it with me and there’s room to spare.
He props his laptop on his knees and brings up a smaller version of everything he was looking at earlier.
“It’s boring, I know. But I kinda have to do this,” he explains, but I don’t mind.
I snuggle closer to him on my side, hooking my arms around one of his and watch him work until I can’t keep my eyes open.
Returning to my favorite dream, I tumble helplessly into the deepest, most satisfying sleep I’ve ever had.
Chapter Ten
Ben
I could watch her sleep all night. And I almost do.
This storm, it’s worse than even the department predicted. With all their up-to-the-minute satellite predictions, it shifts and changes so often, so quickly, that by the early hours I’m glad we came down to the basement.
The ranger station is designed to withstand a category five hurricane, wildfires, and catastrophic earthquake, but I don’t mind saying I have my doubts more than once when I hear what’s happening upstairs from down here.
Once I know Stacey’s asleep, I ease myself from our comfort and shut the door to our little bunker, if only to block out some more of the terrible noise from above.
There’ll be more work than ever once this does pass, and I wonder how I’ll manage to keep her here for longer.
It’s selfish I know, but I want her here from now on and like that first kiss, I know when I do claim her properly, there’s no turning back.
No going home to her dad.
She’s mine and I want her here, with me.
It pains me to even think it, but I know I’ve made the right choice. It’ll hurt Greg like nothing else, save when he was left alone all those years ago with his only daughter, a tiny baby girl.
As if by sixth sense, my inbox chimes.
An email from the man himself.
I hate to admit it, but my face changes. I feel it furrow into a knot at the thought of hearing from him. Knowing full well I’ll have to face him about Stacey and me, even though she’s convinced we could try to go on pretending.
Like he’d never find out.
Yeah well, Greg. Thing is, Stacey just decided late last night that she wants to move to the middle of fucking nowhere and utilize the spare room at the Ranger Station. Whaddya think?
Nah.
No way would he buy that. But I open his email and it’s just as I thought.
He’s only worried about his daughter. Hoping for an update and thanking me again for watching out for her.
Oh, I’ve watched over Greg. And I’ll do more than watch over her before this weekend’s through if I have my way.
It should bother me, it should be tugging at me like it did before I had my face between her thighs.
But somehow, another part of me, the part I know belongs to Stacey as much she belongs to me now, just doesn’t care what her dad thinks.
She’s old enough, an adult. She can make her own decisions and she has.
Thank God she has because it’s also made me the happiest I’ve ever been. Like my whole life has been leading up to this moment.
I haven’t seen Greg much since taking the post out here, not a huge amount of time off and I try to spend what time off I do get doing my own thing.
I have a place in the city and a ranch I’m in the process of restoring, but now all of that seems clearer too.
Like it has proper meaning.
They’re not just buildings or investments.
They’re homes.
Homes for our family. The family I yearn to plant inside Stacey when she’s ready of course. I can’t make her do anything nor would I want to.
I want her to want me the same way I do her before anything else happens.
I smile at the thought. It’s a different kind of turn on. A long term one that extends out across our whole life and beyond.
Little Ben’s and Stacey’s, running rings around their old man on the ranch or in the suburbs. It wouldn’t matter to me.
What matters most is family, belonging. Love and trust. Those are things that matter most to me.
Stacey shifts in her sleep, reaching out for my arm just when I get back into our makeshift bed, making me forget everything when I feel her hand curl around my arm before she snuggles back down to sleep.
Even as I watch the swirling, angry red spiral on my screen moving this way and that, its most dangerous area hovering so close to us right now, I don’t feel anything but peace.
I’ve found her, the one I was probably searching for in plain sight all these years.
The girl I’ll make my own, the young woman I’ll grow old with and see more than one hurricane through together too, no doubt.
The hours pass and before long I’m just watching her calmly. Watching the rise and fall of her chest and feeling her against me.
But no matter how much I love this, no matter how much I know I love her, her father’s face keeps surfacing to the front of my mind.
I know it’ll be sooner than later that we will have to have it out, with neither of us ever being one to skirt around important things.
Judging by the weather graphics though, we’ve got at least tonight and most of tomorrow to ourselves.
And if that tree ou
tside is anything to go by, there’s gonna be more debris and downed power lines than clear paths in or out of the park.
We really could be stuck here for weeks.
I almost feel guilty for having the thought as I grin broadly to myself.
Almost.
Until I look down at her again.
She’s my reason for everything now.
For now, we have a roof over our heads and plenty of time, I tell myself.
Time to explore each other but also time for me to catch up properly with Stacey. I want to know about her college exploits, her studies, and what she wants to do with her life.
I can’t just assume she wants to be kept barefoot and pregnant on a ranger’s salary.
Although that idea does make me smile again.
When my folks passed on, older parents themselves when they had me, they left me more than comfortable.
I don’t need to do the Ranger thing, but I like it.
I almost feel tempted to wake Stacey up so we can talk about it when I remember she needs her rest and so do I, but there’s no sleep for me. Not now, not when I can see and feel just how sweet life can be if only I’d just let it run its course.
The same magic formula that’s brought her to me, brought us together like this.
I eventually doze off for a bit, jolted awake by another huge crash from outside somewhere.
If I can hear it down here in our concrete cube, it’s bad but everything seems to be holding up inside.
Stacey likes her sleep, I can tell. Or maybe she needed more rest than I thought?
I wince a little at the memory of telling her dad I’d like to keep her under observation.
The only observing I’ve been doing is of a more intimate kind.
Nothing to do with her symptoms of exposure to the elements.
I slip a finger over her wrist, and with my free hand, I gently touch her brow.
She’s warm but not feverish. Her pulse is completely normal, and the little smile playing on her lips tells me everything I need to know.
My patient is fine.
It’s way too early to wake her, and even though my left arm is asleep from her lying on it, I decide I can’t wake her just yet.
My free arm stretches for the laptop, and checking everything again I can see what I was preparing for most.
The eye of the storm is a good forty miles out, with the most destructive winds and rain right over us still, the cell looking like it’s doubled in size since I last looked and according to the forecast, it’s only gonna get bigger before it blows itself out.
If I was alone it’d feel like a curse. Bad luck.
But with Stacey by my side now I kind of feel like the storm is almost a metaphor.
The power of our attraction, our passion condensing right over the little ranger station, and it hasn’t reached its peak yet.
Eventually I feel her moving next to me, stretching her toes under the blankets and making a little mew of contentment before opening her eyes.
Mine waiting to wish her good morning.
She frowns, closing one eye again.
“You’ve been watching me sleep…” she murmurs. “I hope I didn’t—” she almost says, but I let her know she didn’t.
If she was cute last night, she’s adorable in the morning. I want to hold her, kiss her. Taste her all over again, but I remind myself just as quickly that Stacey never was a morning kind of gal, and it’s not even really morning.
Not a proper, get out of bed hour of the morning anyway.
“I need the bathroom,” she murmurs quietly, drifting back to sleep before her eyes both open again.
“I’ll go up with you,” I tell her. “Wait by the door, I mean,” I explain as I help her up.
She seems stiff, bow-legged, and her expression when I ask explains everything to me.
“I’m just fine, Ben. The best kind of ache I’ve had...ever,” she smirks, yawning and stretching before finally letting me kiss her.
“I must look gross. Morning breath,” she protests, but I don’t get that. I see and feel the most beautiful girl in the world.
“I’ll see if the roof’s still on,” I offer, walking her to the bathroom door before quickly scouting the interior of the living quarters of the station.
Seems in one piece.
Should I chance a real breakfast and coffee?
Stacey shuffling back to me, wrapping her arms around me as she notes the unchanging gale outside.
“We should head back down. There’s a whole world of instant coffee and food, if we just add enough hot water,” I tell her, trying to make it sound exciting.
She murmurs her okays and in no time she’s back under the covers and I get to play Ranger, making us both a rehydrated coffee, and eggs with something else from a pouch.
Chapter Eleven
Stacey
“I thought hurricanes only lasted a few hours?” I ask, not minding the distraction or our new surroundings.
Being so close to Ben is way better than anything else and I still feel like I have to pinch myself.
Like all this could still be a dream.
Ben shrugs. “Hurricane John in ’94 lasted a month, technically. But they usually blow themselves out within twenty-four. This one though…” he adds thoughtfully.
“How can a cloud stay in one spot for that long?” I ask, but then I hold my hand up. I don’t want to know. I want my camp coffee and whatever hot goop Ben has in those military style metal tray thingies.
It looks gross but smells great, and it is.
“Not bad,” he remarks. “For survival food.”
I can tell we both silently agree that a month of it would be unbearable though.
Actually, I’d prefer it if this was our only survival food. I’ll never pick at any steak dinner Ben puts in front of me ever again.
I get the feeling, apart from following procedure, Ben’s playing protector too for my sake, which is so sweet.
I can’t tell if it’s my actual heart telling me that or just reflux from so many powdered eggs.
And unlike my dinner from last night, I finish every scrap, suddenly wondering if seconds are allowed during a hurricane.
“We’ve got sweets,” he offers deadpan, reading my mind and looking more animated once he brings over a selection of foil pouches for us to choose from.
We’re not really roughing it. Ben has an electric kettle down here, and even the big plasma screen is still streaming news as well as movies.
For now.
It takes a stack of foil pouches to satisfy a Ben-sized hunger, and I almost keep up before he asks me if he can check some network news, to get an idea of what’s happened overnight.
I readily agree, eager to know more myself.
“You don’t have to ask me to watch TV in your own place. It’s your job too,” I tell him, and he nods. Letting me know with a glance that he’s only being polite.
I offer to clear up the ‘dishes’, but he’s already on it, passing a trash chute on his way back to the kettle, asking if I want another cup of camp coffee.
I hoist myself up onto my elbow, watching him.
“Ben Slater, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were enjoying this ‘natural disaster.’ How long has all this sat down here, unused and waiting for just such a weekend?” I add smiling.
“It’s not how I would’ve planned a weekend alone with you,” he says grimly, looking down before his eyes suddenly light up again.
“Once we’re able to, I’ll take you over to the ranch. If it’s still standing,” he adds, making a face so funny we both have to laugh.
“The ranch?” I have to ask. “I thought you had a condo downtown?”
He almost speaks but clamps his lips shut. Thinking for a moment before he tells me.
“My folks, when they passed…” he says, and I feel awful for even bringing it up, but he insists he go on.
“I don’t know how much your dad has told you about my life,
now or from the past, but I was left a lot of real estate. All the grandparents and even great grandparent’s stuff too. And my great-great-grandparents,” he adds softly.
He’s not boasting, but I can tell he’d feel awkward talking about this sort of thing to anyone else.
I wonder if my dad even knows.
“A ranch does sound impressive,” I add and he smiles.
“Oh, the ranch is mine, bought and paid for with my own two hands,” he laughs, holding his huge mitts out, laughing to himself still.
“I just wonder if it’s still standing. This storm went right through it yesterday, before I—”
“Before you had to come find me?” I ask, a pang of guilt running through me.
“I’d give up everything, all of it just to have one more night with you,” he whispers, kissing me so tenderly I almost cry at just how beautiful Ben Slater actually is as a person, especially as the person I know I want to spend the rest of my life with already.
Ranches and property be damned.
I want Ben. The man.
My man.
“You okay?” he asks, tracing my hair back behind my ear as I nod, sniffing back emotion.
“I’m better than that,” I answer. “You’re really something else, Ben.” I let him know. “You really could send a girl head over heels, you know,” I break off, finally overcome with feelings for him I don’t yet understand myself.
I only want for him to hold me again, to quiet my mind with his touch.
To feel the warmth of his body against mine and the softness of his lips on my hair, on my own lips again.
And he does all that and more.
Ferrying me back to a blissful state, stroking my hair after kissing everything better, and laying me down.
Only voicing his own thoughts that all sound like new ways he can make me feel better.
Safer and happier.
“There it is,” he remarks grimly, jutting his chin towards the giant screen TV, edging the volume from the remote loud enough so we can both hear it.
“That’s where this little cloud’s already been,” he says. “I can bet once it passes over us here we can expect the same.”
Ranger Ben: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 6
