Page 153 of These Summer Storms

He whispered her name to her temple. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m with you.”

The words shook something loose, bringing her back to reality. “I was worried.” She opened her eyes and, over his shoulder, took in the damage. The tree, hundreds of years old, its canopy green and lush and wet with rain, was now spread across the lawn, through the stunning windows, and atop her father’s desk, the desk chair disappeared from view. “Oh my god,” she whispered, her heart beginning to pound again. “You could have been—”

“Hey.” The word was firmer this time, pulling her attention back to him, the light from the electric lantern casting shadows over his face as he set it down, by their feet. Straightening, he framed her face, directing her gaze to his. He grabbed one of her hands and pressed it to his chest. “Feel. I’m here.”

He was. As steady and strong as ever.

She kissed him to prove it, and it wasn’t gentle or easy, it was harsh and rough, seeking proof that he was there and he was alive and the chaos that rained down upon this place and her family was nothing when faced with this man, who was somehow able to keep it all at bay.

He grunted his pleasure at the way she claimed him, her fingers sliding into his hair, pulling him closer, and he deepened the kiss, licking into her, lush and perfect and wicked enough to shake her out of her worry and into something much more powerful:want.

Before she could make good on that, he pulled away with a little disappointed groan and said, so close she could taste the words rather than hear them, “Not that I don’t love that you came running to save me, but didn’t we agree that I’m the one who is supposed to be protecting you?”

She pressed a kiss to his handsome mouth and smiled. “Didn’t I tell you? I was a Girl Scout.”

He grinned. “Really?”

She shook her head. “No. But I like the cookies.”

“I like you,” he said, with a delicious growl, pulling her closer and kissing her again, and it didn’t matter that they were surrounded by halfan oak tree and a wall of shattered glass. It only mattered that he was well, and Alice wasn’t afraid to admit that she cared about something. Someone.

She pulled back from the kiss. “You weren’t at the desk.”

He shook his head. “I was in the vault.” She looked to the book vault, the door still open, as he explained. “Your loathing aside, I thought maybe we shouldn’t keep a Picasso on the floor.”

“Ordinarily, I would say something extremely artistically sacrilegious about the cultural veneration of that man,” she began, her hands sliding along the back of his neck, pulling him down for another kiss. “But right now, I’m pretty happy you got your views on art history from the patriarchy.”

He laughed. “Maybe you could design a syllabus for me or something.”

“Deal.” She grinned. “You’ll despise him by the time I’m done with you.”

He pulled her close again, and she turned her face into the spot where his neck and shoulder met and took a deep breath.

One of his big hands stroked down her spine, firm and smooth, checking in on her. “Good?”

Was there an answer to that? Everything had fallen apart. “I don’t know.” She was telling the truth. “I mean, all the secrets are out, and that’s good, right? But my mother—even after everything I expected from her…I never imagined this.”

“Anger and grief get tangled,” he said, the words a rumble against her. “Sometimes it can be impossible to separate the two. Or differentiate them.”

“It doesn’t forgive what she did. Then or now.”

“It doesn’t,” he agreed. “You all get to decide the path from here.”

He didn’t try to explain it away or diagnose her mom or clean the slate, and Alice appreciated it even as his words underscored the work the family had ahead of them.

Franklin Storm, trailblazing genius, dead at seventy, leaving a power vacuum in the tech world. In the real world. And nowhere moresignificant than here, in his family. Who were they without him? How did they close the door on Before, and mark time in After?

Jack pressed a kiss to her temple, as though he could hear the thoughts. “You’ll find a way. Whatever comes. And, whatever it is, Alice, I’m with you.”

She met his gaze. “Do you promise?”

“I promise,” he said, so sure and strong that she believed him, going up on her toes as he leaned down to meet her, rough and urgent, as though he could kiss the memory into her. “Do you promise you’ll remember that?”

“I promise,” she whispered.

Somehow, in this wild week, full of every conceivable feeling and a fair share of inconceivable messes, she’d found this man, steady and strong and safe. And though she wouldn’t say it (there was no saying barely a week into knowing someone), she feared her feelings for Jack were as unavoidable as the tree that had crashed into this room minutes before.

Thankfully, before Alice embarrassed herself and told him so, her siblings arrived, storming into the room like Victorian throwbacks with their lanterns and candles.