Page 27 of Taken By Storm

Levi pushed away, only a few inches, watching as Kasi blinked a few times, trying to shake off the remnants of the kiss. When her eyes cleared, her forehead furrowed. Her damn brain had kicked in.

“I don’t think I understand what’s going on here,” she admitted.

Levi grinned. “I know you don’t, but I don’t want you to worry about it. You’re dealing with a lot of hard shit right now, but this…” He pointed his finger at her and then himself. “This thing between you and me? It’s going to be the easiest thing in the world. Trust me.”

Her expression cleared and she nodded. “I do trust you. And I like the sound of easy.”

He chuckled, then stole one more quick kiss before saying good night.

As he drove down the dark driveway, he couldn’t help but smile.

Levi liked the sound of easy too.

Chapter Five

Levi put the hammer down when his cellphone started ringing, frowning as he glanced at the screen.

“Paul?” he said, answering quickly. He’d exchanged phone numbers with the Riley twins yesterday, telling them to let him know if they had any issues on the farm.

Kasi would kick his ass all the way to next Tuesday if she knew he’d done that, but he didn’t care. He was determined to take as much off her plate as possible.

“Hey, Levi. Wanted to let you know Pete’s going to open the stand, so we’re not going to finish picking the green beans today like we planned.”

“Why is Pete opening the stand? Where’s Kasi?”

“Her brother drove her to the hospital.”

“What?” Levi left his tools where they lay, dug his keys out of his pocket, and headed to his truck.

“Took a tumble in the barn. Hit her head on a shelf. I cleaned up the blood.”

“Blood?” Levi threw his truck into drive and kicked up gravel as he pulled away from the cabin. In addition to the B&B his parents operated, there were ten rental cabins located around the farm. Mina had pulled him aside after the family meetingthis morning to ask if he could fix a few loose boards on the porch of this one, since it was vacant the next month.

Mila intended to give it a bit of a facelift. Every two or three years, she chose a cabin to renovate, so they didn’t all get run-down at the same time. Once he was done, he’d intended to head to Kasi’s to try to mark a few more things off her honey-do list.

“Head wounds bleed,” Paul said matter-of-factly, like every word he spoke wasn’t shaking Levi to the core.

Pete and Paul Riley were good workers, but damn if they didn’t have the personality of rocks. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen either man laugh, just as he’d never seen them get upset or angry or…anything. Their lives consisted of work, home, and church. And that was it. They didn’t go out to bars, didn’t date, and didn’t attend any of the local town events.

“Was she conscious when Keith took her to the hospital?” Levi took a turn a little too quickly, struggling to keep his phone pressed to his ear with his shoulder. He should have put the damn thing on speaker.

“Yeah. Kicked up a fuss about going, but her brother was pretty shaken up and insisted.”

That made two of them. Levi’s opinion of Keith just rose a few levels.

“Good for him. I’m heading to the hospital now. I’ll see about getting one of my cousins to man the stand so you and Pete can finish harvesting those beans.”

While Kasi hadn’t said as much, he got the sense when he’d mentioned her ledger that she was worried about money. Pete had confided yesterday that the green beans they were harvesting were supposed to be delivered to the local grocery store, as well as a couple of restaurants tomorrow. If money really was an issue, Kasi wouldn’t want to miss those deliveries.

Paul grunted, which Levi assumed was his way of saying goodbye because the call disconnected right after that.

Tossing his phone in the center console, he tried to calm down as he drove off the mountain. It wouldn’t do any good for him to wreck his truck trying to get to her. Of course, that didn’t mean he slowed down because he couldn’t get the image of Kasi hitting her head on a shelf out of his mind. Once he got onto the main highway, he called Remi, who promised to head over to Lucky Penny Farm to work the stand for Kasi.

If Remi was wondering why the hell he was racing to get to her best friend and the hospital, she didn’t ask. Obviously, her brain hadn’t kicked in on that fact yet—too worried about Kasi’s accident—but she’d start asking questions soon enough. Not that he had a problem with her asking because he was going to tell her the same thing he’d told Kasi.

She was his.

Period.

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