“Only second to you,” she shot back. Their glance held a moment longer.
“Where are the Walkers?” I asked, looking for them in the wavering light. Everyone’s here except for them…”
“Oh my God,” Maggie pulled back from me sharply. “How the hell could I have forgotten?” She grabbed at me arm. “They left for the farmhouse… hours ago. What if they got caught on the road?”
Emergency services had arrived and were busy clearing the remaining debris from the staircase. A paramedic was checking each person before they were taken back up and into the mottled, fading daylight. The four of us stayed together. And we were the last ones up to see the devastation.
“It could have been a hell of a lot worse,” I said aloud, keeping Maggie at my side. “F-1… 2, maybe… Mother Nature might have blown off enough steam… for now…” I glanced around, getting my bearings. “The Walkers are most likely fine, but I have to make sure, Maggie. I want you to stay here with Ryan and Dean. I’ll use the two-way to keep in touch as long as I can… I’ll only be gone…”
“No!” she spat out. “Not without me, not again. I’m not letting you leave me again.”
Dean took her arm gently, but she pulled away sharply. “I’m not leaving him,” she said, her eyes strong, her voice firm. “You may not like it, Dean… you may not understand the way that I feel… the way that I’ve always felt.” She looked from his face to mine. “I love you, Joe,” she said simply. She turned to face her brother. “I love him.”
“And I love her, too,” I said gently to Dean, facing him.
“I don’t want this to come between us… not between any of us. But Maggie’s no child anymore. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known and she knows her own mind. I love her, and I’ll never hurt her. I’ll also never give her up.”
Dean drew in a breath to speak. Then I saw Jackie reach over and take his hand. It was a tiny movement, but it was there. He exhaled and stayed silent, but I could see in his eyes that he hadn’t accepted it.
“We have to go find them,” Maggie said determinedly. “If they didn’t make it to the farmhouse, and there’s another storm…”
I looked at Dean and his face was grim. “She isn’t going with you,” he said to me. He turned to face her. “You’re staying here with me, where it’s safe. Hell, I’ll go with Joe, but I want you here… It’s too damned dangerous…”
“He’s right, Maggie,” I added. “I’m going alone. I want you here… Stay with Jackie and the others. I’ll be back in a few hours…” I touched her face and felt Dean bristle. “I need you to wait…”
“The Walkers are my responsibility,” she said stiffly. I could tell by the set of her mouth how angry she was. “And to hell with you both, if you think you can discuss me as if I’m not even here.” She planted her feet and stared us both down.
“Don’t do this, Maggie,” Dean said, his eyes dark and his tone a warning…
“It’s already done,” she replied coldly.
28
Maggie
The sky had grown darker by the time we were on the road. The thunderheads were still visible, but the winds had died down fast and the air was finally still. We were both a mess, tired, and dirty… Joe was angry at me, but I flattered myself that he was proud, too. I watched him at the wheel, and he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Come here,” he said, seeing my look from the corner of his eye. He pulled me next to him and I took my first deep breath in forever.
“I was afraid you’d never come back,” I confessed. “The storm hit and you hadn’t made it back. I felt the way I did when I was little and you’d left for college. Like I’d never see you again… like it was all over.”
“I’m not that easy to get rid of, Maggie,” he said back easily. “And I’m going to have hell to pay when we get back. I’ve never seen Dean so furious… He’s right, you know. You should have stayed behind… you do take risks. And he may never forgive me for wanting you… He doesn’t want to see you hurt. Neither do I.”
“You won’t hurt me, Joe… not as long as we’re together…”
He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. “Do you remember the day I pushed you on the swing? I promised you I’d always be here… And I am.”
I also made you promise to marry me, I thought, feeling foolish at the memory. But it was just a promise to a child, to soothe her aching heart. A promise easily made and forgotten. But I still treasured the memory.
Joe turned the radio on and it hissed static. He turned the old knob back and forth, finally giving up. His hand came to rest comfortably on my thigh, and suddenly I wished I’d worn anything but long denim jeans. It felt like forever since I’d felt his hands on my skin.
It had only been yesterday…
I fought to stay awake as the old tires bumped a steady rhythm along the road. I kept my eyes open until I knew we were close. The light was almost entirely gone, and I rested my head against Joe’s solid shoulder and let the silence soothe me. I wanted to sleep, in a warm, safe bed. I wanted to wake up, back home in his arms…
“We’re here, baby.” I opened my eyes. Surely it had only been a minute...?
“Their truck is here… It looks like they made it just fine.”
The porch light flickered on and the front door opened. “Maggie… Joe…!” Margie leaned on the screen door as Ron came out to greet us. “You two look like… oh, my God… we heard on the news that a storm touched down close to town…”
“It touched down on top of the church,” Joe said, as we sagged down onto the sofa together. “Everybody’s fine… we just had to make sure you were, too.”
We spent the evening at the kitchen table, sharing the soup that Margie had made and telling them all that had happened.
“It’s been quiet as a mouse out here,” Ron said. “Who’d have thought…? We’d end up missing all the excitement…”
I leaned heavily against Joe’s arm. It had only been an hour since we’d arrived, and the food had made me relaxed and sleepy. Margie smiled at me indulgently. “Why don’t you two head up. I’ve got the dishes, and I’d imagine a hot shower would feel pretty good before bed. We’ve got the room off the kitchen…” She tipped her head toward a short hall. “Plenty of rooms upstairs…”
I thanked her from the bottom of my exhausted heart, and leaned against Joe as we climbed the stairs. Tired as I was, images of us flashed in my mind. The silky feel of his skin… the way that he’d touched me. He opened the door to the room we’d shared just last night… a lifetime ago… And I remembered the taste of him on my tongue…
He laughed softly when I reached out for him and caught my wrists in his big hands. “I know, Maggie… Me, too. But you’re exhausted, sweetheart. You need to sleep.”
I pressed my body against him, even as he held my wrists. My breasts pressed into his chest… I knew he wanted me, too…
“Tomorrow,” he promised gently, as he picked me up and carried me to the bathroom. He undressed me, as the old clawfoot tub filled with deliciously steamy water. Then he picked me up and put me in. Desire fought hard against the weight of weariness. My body responded to his touch as he began to wash me. But sleep was pulling me away, as teasingly and seductively as his gentle hands. The winds began to blow again outside, and the last thing I remembered was his voice as I drifted off…
“There’s nothing that won’t wait until morning, sweetheart. We have tomorrow, and a thousand more after that. Just sleep, Maggie…
Just sleep.”
29
Joe
Forecast highs near 115, tornado watch in effect for the next twenty-four hours. Warnings imminent.
Although everything had turned out fine, at least in regard to the Walkers, I was still unsettled about Maggie’s decision to come along. Dean would be imagining the worst right about now, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d crossed the line… way the fuck past the line… and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to fix that between us. Maggie should
have stayed behind. But she was stubborn, and driven, and determined to have her way. And it was one of the things I loved about her most…
We hadn’t been asleep longer than an hour or two, Maggie a little longer. When she’d fallen asleep in the tub, I’d eased her out and wrapped her in a towel, drying her without waking her. I had tucked her into bed and quickly washed myself. I’d brushed my clothes off as well as I could. Then after taking a long, hard look at her, innocent and vulnerable, I’d dressed again before laying down next to her. It was my own best chance at a little sleep.
But the winds had started again. Enough to rattle the old windows… enough to wake me out of a dream. It had been all about Maggie, luscious and sweet and wet… and when I opened my eyes, she was there. Real and warm and soft beside me. She reached out and lit a fire inside me…
“Is it starting again?” she asked. I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her. The sheet that had covered her was gone. She was all bare, tender skin.
“No, baby,” I said, reassuringly. “It’s just the wake behind the storm.” I ran my hands down her body gently and felt her nipples begin to stiffen. I ran my thumb over one until it was hard and thick as a marble. Then I shifted her onto her back and took it into my mouth.
“Oh… Joe…,” she moaned in the darkness. I sucked harder and she writhed underneath me. “I don’t want to wait for anymore tomorrows…,” she gasped. She tangled her hands in my hair and arched her back. “No more tomorrows… no more waiting…
This is what I want,” she said, unzipping my jeans and taking me into her hands. “There is no perfect moment to wait for… There’s just now… and now is what’s perfect…”
I stripped away the last of my clothes and eased my weight down on top of her. She opened her thighs and wrapped her legs around me, cradling my hips in hers… my cock buried in the warmth of her swollen lips. As far as we’d gone before, it was the first time, touching her this way… my cock to her sweet pussy. As badly as I needed to thrust my way inside, I knew I had to hold back… She needed to be ready, very fucking ready, to take me.
I reached down, leaving my cock where it was, and slipped my fingers into her liquid depths. She was tight, but she was soaking wet and slippery, too. I pushed in another finger, working her hard little clit with the head of my cock. She spasmed on my fingers, and I thrust them in deeper.
“Give me one, sweetheart,” I groaned into her ear. I licked and sucked at her nipples, pushing her on. She responded like flame to open air, and the heat from her body rose, carrying her scent to me. The civilized man in me gritted his teeth and held back. The animal in me responded to his mate. I took her earlobe in my teeth and pulled her to me, biting and kissing along the long stretch of her neck. I pushed three fingers into the hilt and felt her push back against me for more. She was ready… she was so fucking ready… Whatever pain she would feel would be lost in her pleasure…
I felt her orgasm begin to swell and that’s when I took her. In one swift movement, my fingers were gone and my head was pushed just inside her swollen lips. “Christ… Maggie…,” it was my turn to moan. I’d tried to go slowly, but she’d wrapped my waist with her hips, crying out with demands of her own. She bucked with her hips and I felt the head of my cock reach her sweetest, deepest spot. My balls were tight against her ass. She’d taken every last inch of me…
I ached to take her in long, pounding thrusts. But she was tight… so fucking tight… I bit into my lip and rocked gently, an inch at a time until she was moving along with me. We worked slowly at first, but our bodies were made for each other, and before long we had found a rhythm all our own. I was moving in full, deep strokes now, and our breathing was as fast as our heartbeats.
‘I love you… my sweetheart… my darling.” I buried my face in the curve of her throat, my cock in the heat of her precious flesh. “You belong to me now,” I breathed. I pulled a long stroke out and paused to see the look in her eyes. “Tell me,” I demanded harshly. “Tell me now…”
“I love you,” she gasped out, clutching my back and digging in her nails. “I belong to you…”
In one hard stroke, I was inside her again… our bodies one… along with our flesh and our blood and our souls. I felt her climax explode as I felt the first hard pulse of my seed spill inside her…
I filled her with everything in me… the love and the desire. I filled her with the promise of every tomorrow, and I felt the answer in her response. She held on, biting my shoulder and calling my name. I could feel the amazing power of her climax, and still I pushed her on. We demanded everything from each other and gave everything we had. Together, we rode the storm that enveloped us… wave after crashing wave of need and its fulfillment.
The last thought in my mind was her… just her. She’d been so fucking right...
There could be nothing more perfect… than now.
30
Maggie
It was the wind that woke me again. The glass windowpanes rattled in their wooden frames, and I could feel the old house shift almost imperceptibly.
“Maggie,” Joe was already up. “Get up, baby. I need you to get up and get dressed.”
It was the warning in his voice. I was alert in seconds and pulling on my jeans and shirt. “It can’t be happening again. It was over… it blew itself out.”
“I hope to God you’re right,” he answered. “But these fucking things have a will of their own. She may have just been gathering…”
I pulled on a boot and grabbed a storm lantern. “We need to get downstairs… wake up the Walker’s.” I opened the bedroom door shouting over the building roar. “There’s got to be a cellar!” We were halfway down to the kitchen when the winds began to shriek in earnest.
“Ron… Margie!” Joe tore open the door to their room, finding them up and terrified. “Is there a storm cellar? Did you see a door?” He was screaming over the storm now, not knowing if they could even hear him.
Ron was moving his mouth, but the words were lost. He had Margie by the arm and was pulling her toward the hall. She grabbed hold of the bedpost, shaking her head, her eyes wide and her face stricken with terror. Together, the two men half dragged, half carried her down the narrow hall. Ron pointed to the door at the back of the kitchen.
“Storm cellar… Storm…!” he screamed, and suddenly I knew. Joe did, too. I could see it in his face.
We had to go out into the tornado.
“You… hold… on,” he yelled, taking my hands and wrapping them around his heavy belt. I pressed myself against his back and made fists around the leather. He opened the door and the wind screamed around us. Through the rain and the flying debris, we could see the mounded outline of an arched stone cavern.
“Go!” he screamed, and Ron wrapped his arms around his wife, and together they ran. Just then, there was a shattering sound and the house moaned as if in agony. I looked up in time to see the old roof above us dissolve and fly away, up into the swirling vortex of the night. For a moment, I stood spellbound… and then Joe’s powerful hands locked over mine. The next thing I knew, he was running… I tried to run, too, but the wind swept my feet from the ground. I saw the old truck lift from the ground and crash into the gnarled remains of an oak. I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of tearing metal… Just as we reached the cellar’s entrance, all sound stopped.
The entire world had fallen into utter silence…
A gentle dusting fell around us, almost like snowfall… the fine, silty remains of devastation.
“The eye…,” I whispered in the still air…
“Move… now!” Joe grabbed me by the arms, and we ran the last few yards to the cellar. The entrance was narrow and low to the ground. I had to scramble on hands and knees to get through… to get down inside the long, dank cavern.
As soon as I was safe, he stood up, searching for the Walker’s. “You stay there,” he ordered. “No matter what, you stay there, Maggie.” We looked at each other for one last moment, a moment filled wi
th love and fear… and understanding…
“I love you…,” he said simply, before he turned away.
I called back to him, but I knew he couldn’t hear. The winds had begun to moan again.
I watched through the narrow stones for as long as I could see him…
And before I could take another breath, he was gone.
31
Joe
Maggie was safe. No matter what happened, at least she was safe.
I hooded my eyes with one hand, searching for Ron and his wife. They’d been right behind us… I ran for what was left of the house. The walls stood like rows of shattered teeth… the roof was gone… the entire upstairs…
I found Margie yards away, injured but conscious, and picked her up in my arms. She had an ugly gash across her forehead and both knees were bleeding badly. “My husband,” she said, her eyelids flickering. “He was holding my hand… where’s my husband…?”
I ran with her for the shelter. Maggie was waiting and helped me to get her inside. Together, we laid her down on the cold stone floor. Her head lolled from side to side, as she called Ron’s name.
“Is he alive?” Maggie whispered. “Did you see him…?” She had the storm lantern in her hand and gave it to me.
I shook my head and pulled her roughly to me. I rested my cheek on her hair for a moment, working to catch my breath.
“I’ve got to go back out,” I said. “There’s not much time… I didn’t see him… He may already be gone. But I have to know for sure…”
Maggie pulled my face down to hers, and I kissed her with every ounce of strength left inside me. It lasted only a moment, but in the touch of her lips and the sweetness of her tongue, I felt the promise of the years that waited ahead of us. She was all I ever wanted… but now I had to go…
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