Page 5 of Taken By Storm

While she turned off the fans, Levi lowered the front plywood, snapping the lock in place. Then he returned to the counter, grabbed his pie, and followed her out, holding the cash box and iPad she used for credit payments, while she locked the stand door.

“Okay, then,” she said, taking her tech from him. “Thanks again for everything.”

Levi lifted his chin toward her truck. “Get in. I’m going to follow you back to your place.”

Kasi gestured to the dirt road. “It’s only a mile down the driveway, Levi.”

“And you just passed out. So I’m going to follow you.”

Kasi, like everyone else in Gracemont, was no stranger to Storm stubbornness. Remi had it in spades, as did everyone else in her family. “Arguing about this will be pointless, won’t it?”

This time, there was no mistaking anything because Levi gave her a genuine, bona fide grin. Well, it was probably more smirk than grin, but it was still sexy as fuck.

“What do you think?”

Issuing her girlie bits the “down girl” command, she shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She climbed into her family’s ancient “farm use only” truck and started it. She always said a small prayer before turning the key because they needed this truck, desperately, and there wasn’t enough money in the coffers to buy a new one. Or even a new-to-them, used piece-of-shit one.

Kasi considered the ever-growing pile of bills in the kitchen and, as always, her chest tightened with anxiety. Paying the bills and dealing with the farm finances used to be her mother’s job, but since her death, it had fallen to her.

Hell, all of it had fallen to her.

Mama had been the driving force on the farm, the one basically pulling the strings, for as long as Kasi could remember. It wasn’t that her father was incapable. It was just that her parents simply knew where their strengths lie and, in their case, it was with Mama making the decisions and Daddy doing the backbreaking manual labor.

Daddy was a simple man, with simple pleasures. He preferred digging in the dirt, singing along to country music on the radio, and watching TV. Not that he was lazy. That wasn’t the case at all. His brain was just wired differently. He had trouble prioritizing and organizing and even making to-do lists, so everymorning, he’d come downstairs, grab his honey-do list of daily chores from Mama—ranked in the order he needed to perform them—and went on his merry way. And the best part about their relationship was the fact Mama had been his polar opposite, a type-A personality from the word go, who’d loved ruling her roost.

It had worked for them, and Kasi had always viewed their marriage as one of the best ever. Because despite their differences, they were the most “in love” people Kasi had ever known. She lost count of how many nights she’d come downstairs to spy them slow dancing together in the kitchen. The first time she’d seen it, she had only been seven, but finding someone who would dance with her in the kitchen had rocketed to number one on Kasi’s list of #lifegoals.

Parking in the driveway between the farmhouse and the barn, Kasi shut off the engine and climbed out of the truck. She expected Levi to wave and turn around, so she was surprised when he parked his truck right behind hers and got out.

“I’m home,” she announced, waving jazz hands in his direction. “All safe and sound.”

Levi nodded as he headed toward the bed of her truck, reaching in to grab the buckets.

“What are you doing now?” she asked.

“Helping you off-load. These go in the barn?”

“Uh. Yeah.” She grabbed the second load of baskets, trailing him. Once they entered the barn, she pointed to a table by the front door. “I just leave them there. Pete and Paul will refill them first thing in the morning.”

The Riley twins had worked on her family’s farm for the past twenty years, both men starting part-time when they were still in high school, then coming on full-time after graduation. They lived with their mom just a few miles down the road.

Unlike the Storms, the Riley brothers hadn’t been blessed with good looks, both sort of doughy faced with pockmarks left behind from too many years of acne. They also hadn’t scored much in terms of intelligence or personality, either, and Kasi was one-hundred percent certain neither of them had ever gone on a date before. God, they’d probably die of mortification before they could even work up the nerve to ask someone out.

Both men were seemingly satisfied to live out their days at home with their widowed mother. Their dad had been killed before Kasi was born, but she knew the story of how he’d died after his tractor rolled, crushing him beneath it when the twins had been just three years old.

Kasi could count on one hand—with fingers left over—the number of conversations she’d had with the Rileys in the past two decades that hadn’t involved farm business. But they worked hard, and they’d been a godsend since Mama’s death. Kasi wasn’t sure where she’d be without them, but she feared she might have to find out sooner rather than later, if she couldn’t find a way out of the farm’s financial straits.

Levi placed his stack of baskets next to hers, then followed her out of the barn.

“Okay, well, thanks for all your help today, Levi. I really appreciate it. I, um…” She wasn’t sure what else she could say. “I need to get dinner on the table. Bye.”

Levi turned to go. She remained where she was because watching him walk away was the icing on the cake when it came to her favorite part of the day. Damn, his ass was fine.

He’d only taken a half dozen steps when she realized he wasn’t walking to his truck but to her house. Then he stopped when he noticed she wasn’t walking with him.

“What are you doingnow?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time in the last thirty minutes.

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