by Robin Kaye
Nicki ran to her room, and he wondered if he should get Bree. He didn’t want to go after Nicki if he was going to scare the crap out of her again. Damn, the look on the kid’s face brought back so many memories, memories he thought were dead and buried. Spilling juice at the breakfast table had earned him a smack on the side of his head that ruptured his eardrum. He wondered what his dad would have done to him if he had single-handedly destroyed a computer and a week’s worth of work.
He shook his head and turned to find Nicki standing there with her hands behind her back. “Hey.” He forced a smile and hoped it didn’t look menacing. He crouched down in front of her. “I wondered where you went. I was just going to call Bree to help me find you.”
Nicki held her hands out. “I went to get my money. It’s not much, but I want to help buy you a new computer since I wrecked yours by accident. I didn’t mean to.”
This smile came naturally. God, he loved this kid. “How much you got there?”
“Twenty-four dollars and sixty-seven cents.” Most of which was change.
“Wow, that’s a lot of money.”
Nicki nodded. “I save whatever I find.” Her eyes went from young and innocent to way-too-old. “You never know when you’ll need it.”
“Thanks for the offer, Nicki, but I don’t want to take your money. You keep that for something special, okay?”
She looked at him with her big brown eyes still spiked with tears. “But you are special.”
Storm tried to swallow a tanker-sized lump in his throat, reached out, and grabbed the kid to pull her into a hug. Damn, his eyes were tearing like a freakin’ pansy. “So are you, Nicki. If I ever have a kid, I hope she’s just like you.” He kissed the top of her head.
Nicki clung to him like a little monkey, and he was in no rush to get away. He’d walk all over Brooklyn with her attached if that was what she wanted. He’d proved to himself that he wasn’t his old man, never would be, and it was as if a whole new world opened up to him. If all kids were like Nicki, he wouldn’t mind a few of his own—as long as he kept his computer away from them. He wondered what his and Bree’s kids would look like. He hoped to hell they’d take after Bree; Lord knew he caused enough trouble as a kid to make him wary of their taking after him. But with a normal family, maybe they wouldn’t be so set on getting into trouble.
“If I ever get a dad of my very own, I hope he’s just like you too.”
“I love you, Nicki.” He held her away a little bit so they were eye to eye. “You never have to be afraid of me. I don’t hit little girls, or even big girls. Ever. Understand?”
She looked at her sneakers, which were covered in orange juice, and dug her foot into the carpet.
He put a finger under her chin and made sure she was listening. “No one should ever hit you. If anyone tries, you come get me, and I’ll take care of him, okay?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He smiled at her tear-stained face and held her sticky hands in his. “You’re a hot mess, kiddo. You go wash up, change your clothes, and then we can go computer shopping.”
* * *
Bree stood in the kitchen, eavesdropping on the two people she loved most in the world and wondering if she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life.
Nicki and Storm loved each other. They might very well be father and daughter, and Bree had kept them apart. Not in a physical sense, of course; the way Nicki clung to Storm showed that much, but not telling Storm what she knew was wrong and so much worse than she’d ever imagined.
Why could she see it now and not a month ago when she and Pete had talked? What she’d done was selfish. Bree had never thought of herself that way; now, she wasn’t so sure.
The last month with Storm had been perfect, and no matter how many times Pete told her that Storm might run if he found out Nicki could be his child, she’d known in her heart he would never leave a child of his own. He would never leave Nicki.
What became glaringly obvious as she watched Storm and Nicki together was that she wasn’t so confident he wouldn’t leave her. Maybe that was why she’d promised Pete she wouldn’t say anything to Storm. She was afraid he’d leave her.
Guilt stole the air from her lungs and burned her eyes. She had to tell him. He might never forgive her and she might never forgive herself, but he had a right to know. She’d already waited too long. She needed to talk to Pete first. She couldn’t break his confidence. Together, they’d have to figure out how to tell Storm.
“It’s just a computer, Bree. It’s not that bad.”
“What?”
Storm had spotted her and pointed to the computer sitting in the dish rack. “I think the hard drive is fried. Nicki spilled her juice on it and then tried to wash it off in the sink.”
“Oh God. You have a backup, right?”
Storm rubbed his neck. “If the hard drive is fried, I figure I’ve lost about a week’s work.”
“You’ve been working every night and not backing up?”
He looked guilty. “You knew I was sneaking out of bed to work?”
Bree shrugged. “I don’t sleep well without you anymore. I rolled over one night to throw my arm around you and found the dog there instead.”
Storm slid his arms around her and laughed. “I’m sure D.O.G. enjoyed the attention.”
“To say the least. But why would you think you had to hide your work from me?”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was just working during business hours in Auckland. There’s a seventeen-hour time difference, babe. Things like conversations on Skype have to be had on their time, not mine. My assistant needs questions answered, and assignments to complete.”
“What happened when you found your computer?”
“I did a lot of silent cursing, and when I looked up, Nicki was shaking. She thought I was going to hit her, Bree. The kid flinched when I reached for her.”
“I know.”
“You were here?”
“No.” Great, now she wasn’t only selfish, but she was also a liar. “I just know Nicki gets scared when she does something wrong. If someone waves a hand near her, she flinches. I took her to a game once, and she was terrified. She doesn’t talk about what happened to her, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the signs.”
Storm fisted his hands. “She’s a great kid, Bree. She should never have to be afraid.”
“And so were you. Look at what you went through.”
“I was a guy.”
“A little boy. I remember when you came here. You had a broken arm, and a cast as big as my whole leg. It went almost to your shoulder.”
Storm shrugged it off.
“You were two years older than Nicki and as skinny as any of those kids from Ethiopia I used to see in National Geographic.”
“I could take care of myself.”
“Not when your dad went after you with a tire iron.”
He flushed.
“I overheard Pete talking.” She shrugged and took his fisted hand in hers, and felt the tension leave him. “Life isn’t fair. At least Nicki will never have to be afraid again. I’ll make sure of that.”
“We’ll make sure of it.” He slipped his arms around her and held her too tight again. Tension and anger flowed through him into her before he relaxed. “We need to talk. Later. But right now, I need to get a new computer. It’s going to take forever just to load the programs I need. Shit.” He let out a frustrated breath. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I’m expecting a call from my boat builder at three about a problem.”
“Okay, do you want me to keep Nicki with me at the bar? She’s supposed to have a playdate at Patrice’s this afternoon.”
Storm shook his head. “No, I need to take her with me. I want to make sure she doesn’t think I’m mad at her. I’ll drop her off at Patrice and Francis’s place on the way home.”
“Okay.” Bree looked into his eyes and saw a sadness that stole her breath.
“Nicki’s been hoarding al
l the money she finds. It’s her emergency stash. I used to do the same thing. Hell, I still do. I guess old habits die hard. It’s her food money, her escape money, and she offered to give it to me.”
Storm looked as if his heart were breaking, for Nicki and for the little beaten boy he used to be, and he was sharing it with her.
He trusted her, and she didn’t deserve it.
CHAPTER 20
Pete jumped when Bree barged into his office, hair flying, red faced, and near tears. The Bree he knew didn’t cry.
“We gotta talk.”
He slid the cigar he’d been sniffing into his drawer and hoped to hell she didn’t see him. She’d open a can of whoopass on him in a heartbeat, and he really didn’t need that right now, especially since she was already upset. He was man enough to know there was no winning against a pissed-off Irishwoman. “What the hell happened?”
She slammed her hands on his desk, whether to stop herself from falling over it or make a point, he wasn’t sure. “We have to tell Storm. Keeping it from him was a mistake.”
“Take a breath and sit down. What’s the matter?”
Bree looked at him, but it was as if she were somewhere else. “Nicki spilled juice on Storm’s computer and then washed it off in the sink.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“No, I’m not.” She straightened and turned away. “We have to tell him. I should have told him the second I found out. God, Pete, what kind of monster am I?”
“Monster?” He heaved himself out of his chair, went around his desk, and patted her back. “Bree, you’re a lot of things, but a monster isn’t one of them. You did what you thought was best at the time. We both did.”
“No, I was so afraid Storm would leave, I didn’t want to tell him.”
“It’s not surprising; he’s left before.”
“But not because of Nicki. Storm would never leave his own child. I’m just not so sure he wouldn’t leave me. Especially now. Who would blame him? He trusted me and I didn’t trust him, and to think I might have been keeping him from his own daughter.”
“You haven’t been doing anything of the kind. You know as well as I do that those two are always together; it’s as if they’re connected at the hip. I’ve never seen Storm connect with anyone like that except for you and his brothers.”
“He thinks of Nicki as a little sister. It’s wrong.”
“It might not be, Bree. We don’t know that. We don’t know anything.”
“They love each other. Storm told her if he ever had kids, he’d want them to be just like her.”
Pete felt a smile crack his craggy old face. “Really? Wow. He’s always said he never wanted kids. I wonder what changed his mind. A man who says things like that is thinking about the future.”
“What kind of future will he want when he finds out the woman who supposedly loves him has been keeping such a secret from him?” She threw herself in the chair and pulled her hair off her face. “This whole situation is like a bad movie of the week, the ones you watch and think the heroine is too stupid to live.”
“You’re not stupid; you’re just human. It’s my fault. I asked you not to tell him. Give yourself a break. Storm will understand.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Pete, he really knows me. He’s going to know I didn’t trust him enough to tell him when I should have.”
“Storm loves you. He’s loved you most of his life.”
“Is love enough, Pete? Am I?”
He hoped to hell it was enough; if it wasn’t, they were all screwed.
* * *
For Storm, shopping for computers with Nicki was almost as bad as shopping for school supplies. It had been almost a month since they braved Staples, and the flashbacks had only just subsided. He ended up having to put Nicki up on his shoulders, afraid he’d lose her in the crush. He learned a lot that day—mothers on a mission were scary creatures, and spoiled kids were even scarier.
Nicki pulled the bag away from her chest and looked inside as if to check that her prize was still there. “Tell me again why you bought me an iPad?”
He didn’t think guilt for scaring the crap out of her was a good answer even if it was partially true. “So that when I have to go away, we’ll always be able to talk and see each other. Plus, you can play games, listen to music, whatever you want…within reason.” He had also bought one for Bree. If the call he was expecting from the boat builder was bad, he might be leaving sooner than expected.
Nicki stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk; people walked around her. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Storm took her by the hand and led her closer to the building, squatted in front of her, and with his hands on her waist, he looked her right in the eye. “I might be. But, Nicki, I have to travel for work sometimes. If I don’t do my job, I don’t get paid. But no matter where I go, I’ll always come back, and with your iPad you can use FaceTime and see me whenever you want.”
Nicki squinted her eyes and looked almost angry. “You promise that you’ll come back? No matter what?”
“I promise, and I always keep my word.”
“Can’t me and Bree go with you?”
Storm smiled at the thought of showing them Auckland, of Nicki wearing a little hard hat at the boat builder’s…. “If you and Bree came with me, who would take care of Pop and the bar? Besides, you can’t miss school. Maybe if I have to travel during summer vacation, you can come with me.”
Nicki threw her arms around his neck, her bag flopped against his back, and she held on tight. “But I don’t want you to go.”
Storm picked her up and grabbed his bag. “I don’t want to go either, but I might not have a choice. That’s the bad part of being a grown-up. You have to do stuff you don’t necessarily want to do. I made a promise to the man who paid me to design his boat, and if something is wrong with it, I might have to go down there and figure out where the problem is.”
“You promise to come right home after you fix whatever’s wrong at the stupid boat builder’s?”
“I promise; I’ll always come home to you and Bree.” And he would. Nothing in the world would keep him away from Bree and Nicki.
“Okay.” She smiled and gave him a big smacking kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go to Miss Patrice’s house and show her and the girls my iPad. I’m supposed to have a playdate with them anyway.”
“Sounds good. I told Bree I’d drop you off when we finished shopping. You’ll have a lot more fun over there. I’ll be stuck in my room for the rest of the day on a call and doing computer stuff.”
“You won’t leave before I get home, will you?”
“I’m not even sure I have to go.” But he had a bad feeling about it all the same. “I’ll tell you what, if I have to go, I promise to stop by Patrice and Francis’s to say good-bye. How’s that sound?”
“Okay.”
Storm put her down and took her little hand in his as they made their way to Pop’s car. If he was going to be spending more time in Red Hook, he’d have to buy a car, because he sure as shit wasn’t going to be tooling around in Bree’s little windup toy. He and Bree would also need a bigger place to live. Yup, they definitely needed to talk. Right after he found out what the hell was going on with his Class 40.
* * *
Bree left her office when she heard Pete’s bark of laughter and found Pete and his cronies bellied up to the bar. She slid under the pass-through and grabbed Pete’s whiskey, then tossed the contents into the sink.
“Aw, Bree.”
“Don’t ‘aw, Bree’ me. You heard the doctors. No booze yet.” She set a seltzer in front of him and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t make me kick you out of my bar.”
“As if you could.” Pete sounded more like a ten-year-old than a middle-aged man with a heart condition.
“It would be a piece of cake if Storm and I helped her.”
The deep bass baritone voice had all the hair on the back of Bree’s neck standing straight up. “Logan!”
She was part ecstatic and part horrified. She wasn’t ready for Logan to come home. Not yet. It was too soon.
Logan tossed a piece of very expensive luggage on the floor and grabbed Pete in a bear hug. “How you doin’, Pop?”
“Happy to be alive and getting better every day.”
Bree ran around the bar and hugged Logan as soon as he let go of Pete. “Why didn’t you call and let us know you were on your way?” She held him at arm’s length and looked him over. His ink black hair was styled within an inch of its life. “Are you using hair gel?”
* * *
Entering the bar through the kitchen, Storm stopped short at the sight of Bree in the arms of a tall, dark-haired man. He’d never been the possessive type, but then he’d never been in love before either. He saw red until he realized the man in question was Logan. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more—that Logan had suddenly appeared or that he used hair gel. His damn brother still hadn’t let go of Bree, and Storm bit down on the urge to pummel him.
He caught Logan’s eye roll, but even his tanned olive skin didn’t hide the pink around his chiseled cheekbones. Leave it to Breezy to put Logan in his place with the hair gel crack. The small diamond in his ear gave him a piratelike quality, which contrasted with the expensive look of his clothes. Logan might be wearing jeans, but they were a far cry from 501s.
Storm never saw any of his brothers as a threat before, but he figured any woman—even Bree—would think Logan was really good-looking if she was into the exceptionally tall and lanky. Storm let out a breath of relief when Logan released her.
“The crush is over at the vineyard, so I caught the first flight out. I thought you were in a hurry to get rid of someone.”
The man looked like Logan, but he certainly didn’t sound like him. Gone was the Brooklyn boy, and in his place was a cultured man with a strange accent. Storm planned to flatten his big brother for that last crack as soon as they were alone together.
Bree shook her head. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“Lucky for me. I heard you hit Storm with a frying pan. Way to go, Bree.” Logan high-fived her, which just increased the urge to pummel him. “Storm saw stars, and not just because it was his first glimpse of you in a long time.”
