by Leigh Duncan
He opened his mouth to let Dispatch know the new resident required an escort to the causeway just as Stephanie Bryant stepped through the front door. He watched as she lowered a plastic tub into the trunk of her car. When his eyes locked on a fine view of a denim-clad derriere, Brett’s mouth clamped shut.
“I’ll be tied up for about an hour,” he said simply. Anything more and Doris would demand details. At the moment, there were some things he didn’t trust himself to report.
By the time he logged off, the fitful breeze had died and the shapely Ms. Bryant had retreated into her air-conditioned lair. Brett hoped she knew how to pack in a hurry. Once the winds picked up, driving across the causeway would be more dangerous than staying in Cocoa Beach. And that could be deadly.
He headed for the stack of flattened boxes at the curb. Even if the best happened and the storm slid up the coast without making landfall, floodwaters were inevitable. Wet cardboard was heavier than dirt and would sprout mold before the next tide receded. With the city practically shut down until the storm passed, it was his civic duty to haul the boxes into the garage. The town’s newest resident had nothing to do with it.
Brett swiped his damp forehead. Hurricane Arlene was drawing moisture and heat out of the ocean like a kid sucking on a Slurpee. Until the storm moved close enough to dump her contents on them, the temperature and humidity in Cocoa Beach remained near normal. So it wasn’t the weather that had him in a sweat. No, the delectable Stephanie Bryant had done that all by herself.
If attraction was all there was to it, he would simply ask her out. But something about the petite woman stirred his protective side. Maybe it was the sight of her small wrist in his handcuffs. Maybe it was the way her head brushed against his shoulder. Whatever. He was practical enough to look for a logical reason and quickly found one.
No matter what the crime, women always cried.
The first time one of his arrestees turned on the waterworks, he had still been a probationer and partnered with Jake. Brett would have caved under the pressure, but the older cop had seen it all and knowingly ignored the tears of a teenage shoplifter. When Jake proceeded with the girl’s arrest, her attitude had done a swift one-eighty and earned him a quick kick to the shins. Brett, a fast learner, had hardened himself against crying females after that incident.
But Stephanie Bryant hadn’t cried. He would have spotted so much as a single tear if it had welled in those big blue eyes. Her resolve made her seem all the more vulnerable. When he’d touched her shoulder, it had been all he could do not to draw her into his embrace and whisper reassurance in her ear. From the way she had leaned into him, he was fairly certain she wanted the same. Not that it mattered.
She was wrong for him. Not all wrong, maybe, but wrong enough.
Glossy dark curls and pert red lips might be all right for the next guy, but he had learned a hard lesson from his last relationship with a beautiful woman. The other cops, Jake in particular, had tried to warn him. He hadn’t listened, and they had been right about her. At first, Brett hadn’t understood why the guys called her a “me, me” girl. He was already in over his head by the time he realized she was all about “me.” Me, as in “Honey, don’t go fishing. Stay home with me.” And, “Sweetie, turn off the basketball game. Pay attention to me.”
Stephanie Bryant, with her designer clothes, was the second verse of the same old song. Her beauty came at a price he wasn’t willing to pay. No doubt about it.
Whether or not he completed the half-finished master’s thesis hidden in his desk drawer, he would remain a beat cop with a beat cop’s hours and a beat cop’s salary. A desk job was twenty years in his future. And that was okay with him. He liked his work. He spent his free time with other men who viewed the world from the right side of a badge.
So, maybe he hadn’t seen Tom, Mary and the girls as much as he should. Maybe he hadn’t been fishing in a while. Maybe he had played too much pool and thrown too many darts with the guys at Sticks N Tips. His time at the cop hangout would only last until he got his head on straight about women and relationships.
No, Stephanie Bryant wasn’t his type. But he could enjoy the scenery while he toted flattened boxes into her garage.
He slowed his steps for maximum viewing time. She had traded one expensive outfit for another, and though this one was as impractical as the one before it, Brett had to admit she had spent her money well. The plunging neckline of a silky pink camisole revealed enough cleavage to make his mouth water. The lacy hem ended at her waist, a good three inches above the low-riding pants that now hugged her curves. Imagining his hand resting on her smooth skin, he forced his eyes downward before he embarrassed himself. But down was no good, either. Her pink toenails peeked from a pair of sandals that were all straps and impossibly high heels.
“Heaven help me,” he mumbled. He rolled his eyes skyward where another line of low clouds gathered. Fifteen of the twenty allotted minutes had passed and the time for sightseeing was over. He needed to hustle Ms. Bryant on her way before the rain squall struck, but in the moment he’d looked away, the brunette had disappeared from sight. Deciding he’d wait a sec before giving her a shout, he posted himself at her car’s open trunk.
What people considered too important to lose said a lot about their character. Brett’s instincts, honed razor-sharp by four years on the force, told him Ms. Bryant had filled her trunk with mere trivia. Certain that a quick survey would prove him right, he put his assumptions to the test.
She hadn’t packed much in the way of clothes, he saw with some surprise. He had expected her to label her closet’s entire contents as critical, but a business suit and an overnight bag were all she had added to a trunk filled with boxes and plastic bins. The laptop she had snugged between the boxes and the tire well came as less of a surprise. Even he owned a laptop and he wasn’t a “me, me” anything.
Curiosity got the best of him when he saw a cardboard box labeled with the broad strokes of a Magic Marker. He lifted one corner of the lid. The box contained what it said it did and elicited an honest chuckle. Were s’mores something Stephanie Bryant could not afford to lose? Or did she consider sweets one of the four basic food groups? Either way, the items she’d packed told him he might have misjudged the petite brunette.
The sound of soft footsteps behind him made him drop the lid faster than a hot shell casing. How the woman had snuck up on him he did not know. He hadn’t even heard her front door open. Irritation knifed through him at letting her catch him with his guard down and he plastered on a hasty smile to cover his guilty look. He spun toward her.
“Want some help?”
“Sure,” she answered. The look she tossed his way lit up her face. “If you could put these in the car for me, I’ll lock the door.”
Brett’s smile lost some of its underpinnings when he saw what she carried. In one hand, the soon-to-be-evacuee toted a perfectly acceptable black leather briefcase. From the buffed and groomed fingers of the other dangled a plastic contraption built like a multi-tiered wedding cake. An avocado-green wedding cake filled with a drugstore’s entire cosmetic aisle. On its bottom shelf, jars, tubes and cotton swabs crowded behind a guardrail. Brushes and nail files bristled from the top. In between, an army of polish bottles rallied for the call to paint the world baby-doll-pink.
“Huh,” Brett groused. So much for misjudging the girl. It was time for him to quit sending mixed signals and strike a professional pose.
He grabbed the briefcase and manicure stand and turned his back on her. The pebbles on the porch made a gritty sound as he pictured Ms. Bryant’s weight shifting from one slim ankle to another. She was probably trying to figure out what was going on. He couldn’t blame her. He sort of wondered the same thing until he remembered his whole reason for being here. With a hurricane nearing the coast, the barometer was sinking like a lead weight at the end of a fishing line. The change had to be messing with both their heads.
Slipping the briefcase into an empty spot, he paused
to consider his next move. The stand did not fit into the tiny space left in her trunk so he was forced to move things around a bit. A nudge to one of the plastic bins revealed a Space Tech logo plastered across its top. The sight sent Brett’s stomach into free fall. The remnants of his smile went with it. The files she deemed so important, the things she “couldn’t afford to lose,” were all work-related. As far as he was concerned, that did it.
Ms. Stephanie Bryant was exactly what he did not need—a self-centered career girl, a girl whose designer labels read Ms. Wrong.
“Ready?” he growled. He didn’t bother to turn and face her.
“All set.”
He waited until he heard keys jingle and the light tap of her heels. “Did you pack a cot or a sleeping bag? You’ll need one.”
Like the hurricane building off the coast, her answer drew all the moisture from the air. “I don’t know about the hotels you stay in, Officer Lincoln, but the Marriott provides linens.”
Brett quirked one eyebrow. “Every hotel within a hundred miles of here is filled to capacity,” he said. “You have to go to a shelter.”
“A shelter?” she snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not homeless.”
Too bad she was not his type. He would have enjoyed trading verbal jabs with the feisty little beauty. “A storm shelter,” he corrected as he slammed the trunk closed. “The closest one with any openings is in Orlando.”
Her incredulous look told him the woman still did not believe Hurricane Arlene was within striking distance. If she didn’t believe, she wouldn’t run. Something she needed to do. And fast. He latched on to the task.
“Look. See those dark clouds out there?” He pointed to a spot where the clear blue sky ended and slate-gray clouds began. “That’s a feeder band. It’s the outer edge of a Category 4 hurricane. Arlene’s hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour winds are going to slam this coast in a matter of hours. You want to be somewhere safe when that happens. There won’t be much left standing if we take a direct hit.”
He watched her questioning glance wander to the new roof and concrete walls of the house and knew what she was thinking. He’d be thinking the same thing if he hadn’t seen, firsthand, the damage previous storms had inflicted. Stephanie Bryant was no match for hurricane-force winds. He needed to give it to her straight so she could understand the danger she faced.
“Your house is not safe. It may not even exist after this hurricane strikes. The hotels are full. The closest shelter is in Orlando. You need to get in your car and drive there. If you waste time by stopping at places along the way, you’ll never make it. Trust me on this, you do not want to be on the road when Hurricane Arlene comes ashore. And she’s coming!”
As if emphasizing his point, the first splatters of rain fell on the roof of Stephanie’s car. It was enough to seal the deal. He watched as she practically bolted for the front seat.
Newcomers, Brett thought as he tromped across the grass to his patrol car. They were all the same. They bought riverfront houses and complained that the mangroves blocked their view. They built new homes in low-lying bogs where mosquitoes swarmed. And, unless someone laid down the law, they put themselves in danger by riding out a hurricane on a barrier island.
As rain pelted his windshield and blew in sheets across the roadway, Brett checked to make sure Stephanie Bryant trailed in the wake of his flashing blue lights. She hung so close to his bumper her pinched and hollow face filled his rearview mirror.
Maybe he had overdone it a touch. It wasn’t her fault the season’s biggest storm was within striking distance. For the rest of the short drive to the causeway, he chastised himself for his bad behavior and sought a way to make amends.
HANDS GRIPPING the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles paled, Stephanie followed the flashing blue lights down one deserted street after another. Why hadn’t she noticed that every house in the beachside community was shuttered or boarded up? That yards were devoid of people because all the smart ones had long since vacated? Even the Jet Skis and small boats that had once sprouted from every driveway had disappeared. She balled a fist and struck the leather armrest.
She lived on a barrier island.
Okay, so maybe she was better at negotiating a new benefits package than reading a map, but someone—her Realtor came to mind—might have mentioned such an important fact. If she had known it, she would have insisted on a different house. She would have fled for her life as soon as the first alert was issued.
But, no.
She had spent all day unpacking when she should have been driving as fast as she could back to safety. Back to her parents’ house where she had lived until her big promotion had come through. Up the stairs and back into her old bedroom with its pink, dotted Swiss wallpaper, frilly curtains and white canopy bed built for one.
Okay, maybe she wouldn’t go that far back, but she wouldn’t be here, either. Not driving through a vacant city behind the world’s most cantankerous cop. A man who insisted she cross two bridges and a narrow spit of land minutes before the world as she knew it was destroyed by a hurricane bearing her middle name.
If that wasn’t enough to give a girl wrinkles, nothing would.
Small wonder she could barely speak when Officer Lincoln motioned her to a stop at the base of a bridge. Torrential rain slacked off long enough for him to step from his patrol car without getting soaked. She watched as he grabbed something from his backseat and, pulling his cap low, dashed through the light drizzle and steaming puddles to her car.
“It’s a sleeping bag and pillow,” he said as he opened the rear door and tossed a bundle onto the seat behind her. “Consider it a peace offering. I know I came on pretty strong at the house. It’s my job to get you out of harm’s way and keep you safe, but I didn’t mean to scare you to death.”
So the big burly policeman had a heart. That was a surprise. Stephanie gathered her wits enough to thank him. “I can’t take your sleeping bag, though,” she said. “You’ll need it.”
He overrode her protests. “They have cots for us at the station. And don’t worry about getting it back to me. I know where you live.”
He probably intended the “ah, shucks, ma’am” grin to reassure her, but Stephanie was too busy listening to her heart. It pounded, every beat shouting, “Too late! Too late!” It was too late to run. Too late to get a hotel room. Too late for anything but a nerve-wracking drive into the middle of the state where she hoped to find space in a shelter. She would have floored it all the way to Orlando if she’d known how to get there.
Fortunately for her, Officer Lincoln’s thoughts were a tad more organized. He ripped a hand-drawn map from his notepad and handed it through her lowered window. “It’s a straight shot from here to the shelter. You have a full tank of gas?”
She nodded mutely.
“A cell phone?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t work,” she said. The useless device made a dandy paperweight though. With trembling fingers, she used it to anchor the map into the cup holder.
“It will once you reach the mainland. What’s your number?” he asked.
She gave it to him while he jotted notes on a pad.
“You’ll be all right,” he said. His voice dropped like a lifeline through her open window and she clung to it. “Just follow the map and don’t take any detours.”
His words might have satisfied a Florida girl, but she was from Ohio. She needed more reassurance. She fought an unexpected urge to put Officer Lincoln’s oath to serve and protect to the test by burying herself in his muscular arms. His chest certainly looked broad enough to shield her from the coming storm.
“You’ll be all right,” he repeated. He leaned down until his face was inches from her own.
Wishing she shared his confidence, Stephanie searched for courage and found more than she was looking for in his hooded blue eyes. He leaned a fraction closer. Momentary uncertainty made her check either side of the window where the doorframe supported his weight. Satisfied he was
n’t about to slap the cuffs on her a second time, she finally allowed herself to believe she was about to be kissed. How much she wanted it stunned her.
Her breath stalled. Her lips prepared to be met. Her eyelids drifted down and…
The air pulsed with the glow of a distant lightning strike. Thunder clapped its heels and she jerked back. Cold water dashed her face and drowned her brief fantasy as a sudden downpour drenched the man outside her window. Officer Lincoln pulled away from her car as if he’d been slapped, but he gave her a thumbs-up sign and a wide grin. In the instant it took her window to glide home, water had already begun to pour from the brim of his uniform cap. He signaled her onto the roadway.
She watched him shrink in her rearview mirror, knowing he had her back if she needed him. While she couldn’t deny how good that felt, she gave her head a stern shake. Kissing the police officer would have been a mistake on so many levels. With her future riding on this move and the new responsibilities that came with it, there was no time in her life for romance. One director had already failed at the job, his name quietly expunged, his job reassigned—to her. This time, Space Tech expected results, not excuses. But her schedule was already in shambles and she hadn’t even spent a day behind her new desk. If she couldn’t get things back on track—and soon—the only thing she could kiss goodbye was her dream of becoming a corporate executive.
Rain pounded on her windshield. Gray skies filled the eastern horizon. Wind whipped the palms and sent loose fronds skittering across the road. Stephanie cringed as another bolt of lightning struck offshore. Determined to outrun the storm and the need building within her, she pressed harder on the accelerator.
Chapter Three
With the rainstorm raging behind her, Stephanie sped up the westbound ramp onto the Beach Line. From the crest of the next humpbacked bridge she saw nothing but empty road. It told her exactly what she did not want to know—she was the last person off the island. A chill prickled her arms and she pressed her foot nearly to the floor until, at last, a set of red taillights appeared in the distance. She paced the car ahead while ominous weather reports spewed from the radio.
