Holy snowballs, he’s gorgeous. Her gaze fluttered to his mouth, unwillingly reliving the feel of his lips against her skin. And then she couldn’t remember what she’d asked. Or even her own name.
His grin broadened and he started down the hall, toward the stairs. “I’d guess… maybe 1920s?” He shrugged his broad shoulders, the t-shirt plastered to him and unmovable. His jeans hung low on his hips, torn in all the right places, and she realized that for the first time ever, she and Sawyer were completely alone.
No roommates, no teammates, no parents. No Beckett.
She swallowed hard.
“You comin?” He glanced over his shoulder at her.
“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.” She scampered after him, reminding herself again of a happy little dog.
The stairway was wide, sweeping down two floors, and up one more. “It looks like something out of the movies,” she whispered.
“Yeah… if the movies included zombies and vampires.” Sawyer glanced at the stairs, then up and down the hall and above them. Watching for threats.
“Are you scared, Sawyer?” she teased, giggling when he frowned at her.
“Yes I am. As should you be. You have no idea what might be living here.”
“The big, tough Sawyer. Felled by his fear of the dark.”
“It’s not the dark I’m afraid of, Buttercup. It’s what comes out of it in creepy old houses that worries me.” She loved when he drawled like that. It was sexy enough to set her heart on fire.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” She grinned and bounded up the stairs, trying not to shudder as the wind shook the old house and rain lashed through the cracks and breaks. “On a completely unrelated topic… I’ve never seen a storm like this.”
Sawyer smirked. “I’ll protect you from the storm, you protect me from the vampires and zombies. Deal? And why are we going up the stairs?”
“Deal.” She smiled down at him, because he still stood on the third floor and she was almost to the fourth. “I want to explore. Are you coming?”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh and followed her up. “It’s a bad one. We might be stuck here for the night. And I should look at your head.”
“For—for the night?” she gasped, her fingers dancing around the gash in her head. “It’s only a couple miles.”
“Yeah, with lots of washed out roadways and trails and mudslides that will bury you. Sorry, Buttercup. You’re stuck with me.”
You’re the one that had a problem with that, cowboy. Not me.
The fourth floor was smaller than the rest of the house, one giant, empty room. Graffiti scrawled across the moldy walls and broken windows overlooked what had once been the lawns. “Well isn’t this fun,” Sawyer muttered. “Let me look at your head.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and used it for light. “Damn. How’d you do this? It’s a nasty one, Buttercup.”
“A board… fell on my head.”
“See why we don’t go running through the forests in hurricanes?”
She rolled her eyes. “Noted. Is it going to leave a scar?”
He held his phone up, shining it in her eyes. “Nah. Maybe. But you’ll live.” He tore a strip from his t-shirt like it was no problem at all, and dabbed at her wound. She’d tried to do that once—tear her t-shirt — when she’d been in desperate need of something to tie her hair back with. It was not easy.
“You just ruined your shirt,” Savannah breathed, because now she could see, when he moved his arm just so, the chiseled abs underneath.
Savannah whimpered.
His eyebrows immediately pursed in concern. “Does that hurt? How did a board fall on your head?”
“No, it didn’t hurt,” she murmured, trying to drag her mind out of the gutter. “I was standing in the little alcove. A—a shingle or something broke loose from the roof and fell. I happened to be standing where it wanted to land.”
“Did it knock you out?” Now he was holding his phone light in her eyes, studying her pupils. He was so close, she could feel his breath on her neck, and if she was brave, she would kiss him.
But she was not brave, unless it was to protect one from zombies and vampires. So she did not kiss him. “Yeah,” she said instead. “I think so. I fell down.” Nice. Real brilliant.
“This is when being in pre-med school would be helpful.” He bit his lip, which reminded her that she would have sold her soul to bite his lip. Swallowing hard, she stumbled away.
“I don’t need a doctor. I can’t even count how many times I’ve hit my head.”
“Which might be why you can’t count how many times you’ve hit your head.” The wind howled, and the plaster from above rained down like dry hail. “Yeah… this roof sounds like it’s about to come off. Let’s move down.”
Savannah sighed. “Fine. But I want to see out the windows first.” Before he could point out how stupid that was, she hurried across the room. “So pretty.”
She could see the storm, lashing the trees angrily, the clouds roiling through the sky. “That is some storm.”
“Beautiful,” Sawyer said quietly. She turned around to see where he looked, but he still stood in the doorway, watching her. And she let her hopeful mind pretend it wasn’t the storm he was talking about.
And then the roof sank. It didn’t crash down like she would have expected. More like it lifted up and then sank back in. Savannah squealed and raced across the room, shoving Sawyer in front of her and down the stairs. “What did I say?” Sawyer yelled, taking the steps two at a time. “I said it wasn’t safe. I know what I’m talking about!”
“Yes, yes, Sawyer. You win.” Savannah skidded to a stop at the third floor, the one they’d come in on. “I’m going this way.”
Sawyer stopped, too, looking at her like perhaps she had grown another head. “Are you serious?”
“Come on, Sawyer. It’s not like a whole level is going to lift right off.”
“Might I point out that only half this floor is covered by the fourth floor, and the other half seems to have suffered some sort of devastating fire?” He crossed his arms and glared at her.
“Good point. Second floor it is.” Even still, she couldn’t resist one last, sad look at the rooms she would never see.
“Sawyer. Good friend, fast runner, brilliant student, and always the voice of reason,” she muttered.
“One of us has to be.”
She sighed. “Does it ever get old? Being so… reasonable?” Savannah wasn’t sure when, exactly, reasonable had turned into a bad thing. Probably around the time his reasonableness had gotten in the way of her exploring.
“No. I’m always reasonable. Never had a reason not to be.”
She frowned. “There are always reasons not to be. When you’re angry. When you’re tired. When—when you’re in love, perhaps.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Never been in love.”
“Never?” she gasped.
“Nope. You?”
She ran a hand through her hair, which only resulted in it getting tangled. Desperate to free herself before he happened to notice, she tried to wrench it free. “I have been. It didn’t last.”
“Beckett?”
She nodded, then realized that he couldn’t see her. Finally, she got her fingers back, although she lost a good chunk of hair doing it. “Yeah. For the first few months, he was so sweet. I fell hard. But it didn’t last. He was… not very nice quite often. And he seemed confused as to what ‘being faithful’ meant.”
Sawyer stopped mid-step and turned to face her. “Did he hurt you?” he growled, lightning practically shooting across his eyes.
Savannah shook her head. “Not physically, no.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is Beckett’s best friend, you idiot girl! “He… he has his little head games, you know?”
“And he cheated on you?” She’d never seen him so dark and dangerous. Swallowing hard, she nodded.
“But it was an accident.”
“He never told me this.”
It w
as her turn to shrug. “He wasn’t proud of it. He was drunk.”
“Underage drinking?” Sawyer snarled.
Savannah giggled. She couldn’t help it. “You never have?”
“No. My uncle was an alcoholic. I have no desire to start on that path.”
If possible, Savannah adored him more. “My brother-in-law was, too. I don’t drink.”
He gave her a reluctant smile. “Smart girl.”
“Which has already been established, as long as no one reviews my actions today.”
He chuckled, that low and beyond-sexy laugh she loved so much. “Come on, Buttercup.” Sawyer grabbed Savannah’s hand, leading her down the stairs. His fingers twined with hers, his palms calloused, his touch gentle. If her heart had wings, it would be fluttering along in front of her, chirping happily.
She was surprised when he stopped at the second floor. She looked up at him quizzically. “You wanted to explore?” he asked.
Savannah grinned. “Yes!”
CHAPTER SIX
STILL CLUTCHING SAWYER’S HAND, she hurried into the hall. It was long and wide, running east to west with huge windows at each end. The wallpaper here had once been white with little red flowers, and the carpet might have been pink, once. She could see, from where she stood, four doors, all closed. The fire damage had hit this floor, as well — the blackened ceiling disappeared under the gap at the top of the door farthest from them. “I wonder what happened here.”
She started with the first room, peeking inside. “No zombies. No vampires. It’s safe, Sawyer.”
“Good. I don’t have my zombie/vampire slaying pack with me.”
She held up her phone, walking backward into the room. “I think there’s an app for that.”
He rolled his eyes, but smiled. “That was cheesy as heck, Savvy.”
But she’d already moved on. “Look at this!” The room was ‘L’ shaped, and in the middle of the north wall was a hole, surrounded by a banister. She could see down into the room below, and also across the open square to the room next door. “Isn’t this cool? I want this in my house.”
Sawyer watched her bounce through the room, checking out the windows and peering down to the first floor. “What else is going in your dream house?” he finally asked.
“Fireplace, definitely.” She looked up with a quick grin before she went back to her exploring. “Lots of bookshelves. Maybe a fountain in the master bedroom… and lots of trees outside, so when I look out my window, that’s all I can see. Bonus points if it’s a cabin on a lake.”
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “I sort of pictured you for the adorable apartment in the big city kind of girl. Given that you want to be an urban explorer and all.”
She shrugged. “I like nature. Apartments and big cities don’t give you a lot of room to run.”
“Ah. We can’t have that.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He chuckled and followed her out. The next room was the exact same as the first, as was the room across the hall, except where that one looked into the room next to it. Instead of being able to see through the open square, there was a blackened, charred piece of plywood blocking the way. Dark chills shivered down her spine. If there was ever a place that could make her believe in ghosts, this might be it.
She hesitated at the fire room’s door, feeling a definite foreboding. But curiosity, as always, won. The handle was rusted and the door stuck. “It won’t open,” she said pathetically after trying to ram it with her shoulder. All that accomplished was bruising her arm.
Sawyer watched her efforts with a frown from the middle of the hall. “Maybe it’s fate telling you to stay the heck out.”
“Maybe it’s fate saying you were giving those big ole’ shoulders for a reason.” She raised an eyebrow, giving him her best, most pathetic puppy dog eyes.
“That is not the reason I have shoulders, Buttercup.” He didn’t move, unswayed by her adorableness.
No, you were given shoulders that broad just to torture me. Fate is cruel.
She blinked, trying to channel every helpless puppy she’d ever encountered. Finally, Sawyer sighed, pushed her out of the way, and rammed the door open with those massive shoulders of his.
“See? I told you they’d have no problem.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about this conversation,” Sawyer said, following her in.
The rest of the house that they’d seen so far was empty. No furniture, no decorations, no wall hangings. This one, though, was different.
“Oh my gosh,” she breathed, taking tentative steps further into the room. The floor was still intact, but the walls were black and the furniture was mostly burned, unidentifiable heaps. Until she looked closer, her heart dropping. “This was a nursery.”
Sawyer had wandered away from her and was on one knee, poking at something on the floor. When he looked up, he had a small, burned doll in his hand. “It’s like they just closed the door to this room and pretended it didn’t exist.”
She nodded, her fingers running across the edge of a bassinet. The mobile was on the floor to the side, and she had a horrible vision of panicked parents tossing it on the floor after it had fallen on their baby, flames licking the room around them. Her eyes burned with tears and she finally backed up, up against Sawyer’s chest. They left silently, closing the door behind them. Then she turned in his arms and sobbed.
He held her tight, stroking her hair, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. “Hey. We don’t know what happened. Maybe they weren’t here when it happened. Maybe they were on vacation and it was too much work to try to clean it up.”
That wasn’t what had happened, and they both knew it. But she nodded. “Yeah.”
After that, exploring wasn’t as fun. They wandered up and down the second hallway in silence, although Sawyer kept a tight grip on her hand, and she felt like, for the moment at least, she wasn’t fighting the world alone.
Which was stupid, because she wasn’t really fighting the world at all.
The first floor seemed untouched by any fire. The windows were all intact, but the floors were nearly overrun by vines, weeds, grass, all growing up through the floorboards, reclaiming what was theirs. “This, I want in my dream house,” Sawyer said, spreading his arms wide as they walked down the wide hallway. Again, four rooms on each side, and they looked up into the second floor through the square holes.
“The forest floor in place of carpet? It would be hard to vacuum. Or… mow, I guess?”
“Mowing is manly. I can mow.”
She snorted. “Manly. Right. I was the official lawn mower at my house.” She noticed that they both stayed away from the room underneath the burned nursery, and she was grateful.
“I’ve never actually mowed a lawn. We didn’t have grass in Texas. Just decorative rock.”
“No wonder you think it’s manly.”
“On TV, it’s always the man doing it. Name one show that has women mowing lawns.”
Savannah wracked her brain, but came up blank. “I can’t think of any right now. I’m sure it’s because of the bump on the head.”
He laughed, a sound that she would never, ever get tired of hearing. Sawyer didn’t laugh often. Mostly, he just chuckled in that way that melted her into a puddle at his feet, or he snickered. She spent a lot of time trying to get more than just a playful grin, and when she succeeded she tried to memorize the sound, to get her through until she could hear it again.
“Nice use of space,” he said, ducking into the little closet under the stairs. It was dark and close, so close that she was pressed up against him. He looked down at her, and she would swear his eyes dipped to her lips. Her blood hummed through her veins, her mind screamed and squealed and begged, and her eyes drifted closed.
But he did not kiss her. Instead, he left the closet, and then reached back and yanked her out, too. “Duck, Savvy!” he yelled, shoving her to the ground. He threw himself on top of her as the entire stairwell fell around them.
<
br /> They were going to die. It would be her fault Sawyer was dead — and the world would be a much darker place without him.
It felt like the world around them collapsed and crumbled for hours, or maybe years. She wanted to scream or cry or something, but her body seemed frozen in fear, and she waited, absolutely silent, for death to take them.
“Are you okay? Savannah, are you okay?” Sawyer struggled to his knees, reaching for her. She sat up cautiously, unsure whether or not they were, in fact, still alive, and immediately started to cough — the room looked like a dust bowl. I probably survived that collapse to die from asbestos poisoning or something.
Sawyer’s hands ran over the top of her head, along her face, down her jaw and neck, and while she was hyper-aware of the fact that this magnificent building was falling down around them, she couldn’t help the way her body reacted to his touch — even if he was just checking for injuries.
“I’m fine, Sawyer. Are you okay? You were on top.” And then her cheeks flamed, because that sounded so much dirtier than she’d intended. Holy snowballs, floor open up and swallow me now.
Instantly, she regretted that thought, because this place might actually do just that.
Sawyer smirked, running his thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m fine. We dove far enough away that I didn’t get hit. Sorry I smashed you.”
I’m not.
Her laugh was shaky. “It was very brave of you. I will do the same if or when the zombies and vampires show up.”
“I’d appreciate that.” He didn’t move, just sat on his knees, watching her. He was dusty and dirty and his arms were still streaked with dried blood from the window, but still, he was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen.
And she’d been around a while. She’d seen a lot of gorgeous things.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said quietly.
Savannah was suddenly unsure whether they were talking physical or emotional. Maybe he did know how she felt. Was he saying he was going to hurt her and didn’t want to? Was he saying he would never feel the same way she did? Was he saying he knew how she felt and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance she’d get through this without a broken heart?
Star Crossed Hurricane Page 5
