Page 133 of These Summer Storms

Neither of them noticed the storm rolling in.

Chapter

19

Sam was on theporch swing off the kitchen when Alice rounded the back side of the house, soaked to the bone from the heavy rain, hoping to sneak in unnoticed.

The storm had arrived in the middle of the night with lightning brighter than she’d ever seen and thunder rolling up through the Bay. When she’d jerked awake, Jack had been there to pull her into his arms and press a hot kiss to her neck. He then found his way to pressing hot kisses in a dozen other places while she discovered that thunderstorms kept secrets even better than old houses.

After they’d caught their breath, the two of them lay tangled in his sheets and tracked the storm as it moved closer and closer, like a friend, keeping everything at bay.

Making Alice wish it would stay forever.

When she’d woken again just before dawn, it seemed like it might do just that, the rain still coming in sheets, turning the light in the boathouse gray-green and rockingThe Lizziein her berth. In the distance the fog bell rang, muffled by the rain and the wind and the island.

Alice slid out of Jack’s warm bed for the second time that week, not wanting to and still knowing she had to; if her family discovered where she’d spent the night, they’d have ammunition for years.

That, and she wanted to keep her memories of that night pristine—not just the sex (unmatched), but all the rest…the stories, the quiet laughter, the lingering touches (perfection). And the companionship, different from anything she’d experienced before, and enough to make Alice wonder if there was more than a night between them. More than a week.

Even as she knew it was impossible.

Nothing that began on this island, in this chaos, would survive away from it.

So, she left him warm and sleeping, his guard down, and decided to restore her own armor, vowing to protect herself as she prepared for whatever this new day—the first day of the rest of the Storm family lives—would bring.

The fact that it brought Sam first was inauspicious. Alice’s stride barely broke when she noticed her brother, and she was pretty proud of the way she corrected, deciding immediately to ignore him.

Her eyes trained on the screen door, she didn’t look over, not even when Sam called out, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care,” she said, pausing on the porch to shake off the rain.

“I couldn’t let you leave.”

“Of course you couldn’t. You’re consumed by greed and you’re an asshole,” she said, finally looking at him. “But you look like hell, so that’s something.”

“I didn’t sleep.”

She narrowed her gaze. “No? Did you finally realized what a shitty brother you are?”

Sam winced. “I’ll make you a deal—you don’t bring that up, and I won’t bring up the fact that you’re doing the walk of shame from the boathouse at sixa.m.”

“I’m not doing the walk of shame,” she said. She wasn’t ashamed, so she won on a technicality.

She reached for the screen door, already charting her path to the foyer to grab her bags, and then upstairs to shower and change. At which point she’d have to think about what came next.

And where.

And with whom.

She’d barely pulled the door open when Sam said, “I couldn’t let you leave because Sila left.” Alice stopped and looked back to see her brother’s defeated look. “With the kids. After the funeral.”

She let the door slam into its seat even as she slid in next to him on the swing. “I saw you guys fighting yesterday but…I don’t know…she’s always pissed at you for something.”

“Sometimes I’m pissed at her, you know,” he defended.

“Yeah, but I always thought that was your deal—just…two terrible people being terrible to each other.”

He flashed his middle finger, but his heart wasn’t in it.