Page 92 of Taken By Storm

Her resolve cracked, but only for a second. If he hadn’t been standing so close and looking at her so attentively, he might have missed the sorrow in her eyes before she locked it away.

“Goodbye, Levi,” she whispered.

He left the house, forcing himself to take each step that led him farther and farther away from her.

All he could think as he drove home was how final that goodbye sounded.

Chapter Fifteen

Kasi stared out the fruit stand, her vision not focused on anything as she played last night’s conversation with Scottie and this morning’s confrontation with Levi over in her mind. She couldn’t reconcile how she’d been floating on cloud nine, happier than she’d been in a long time, after waking up in Levi’s arms.

Then, today, it was as if the bottom had fallen out of her world.

Fortunately, it was Saturday, which meant a decent stream of people coming through. Staying busy helped but for the last twenty minutes or so, she’d been alone, and it was giving her too much time to think.

She glanced down at her cellphone, resting on the counter in front of her. She’d reached for it at least twenty times since opening the stand. Half of those times, she’d planned to call Levi to beg him to forgive her for doubting him, to tell him she loved him—because she did—and that she wanted to be with him. The other half, she’d been determined to call Scottie to tell him to pick up this godawful engagement ring.

Her hand never touched the cell.

Because despite the whirlwind of emotions ravaging her, there was a category five tornado that overtook all the rest.

The image of her father, standing in that doorway, missing her mother so much, the pain enveloping him was almost tangible. She couldn’t take anything else away from him. It simply wasn’t in her to do so.

Her father and Keith—and the farm—were all she had left.

That’s when she realized it wasn’t just her father’s feelings that were making this decision so hard. It was her feelings as well. Because their home meant so much to Kasi, as well. It held her entire lifetime of memories.

The farmhouse was the only home she’d ever known, where she’d grown up, where she’d gotten her first kiss—a peck on the back porch from Shane, her first “boyfriend” when she was just thirteen. He’d ridden his four-wheeler from his family’s farm nearly two miles away just to say hi. It had been a quick, awkward, no-tongue peck, but Kasi swore to Remi later that she’d seen actual fireworks. And when that eighth-grade romance had ended two weeks later, her mother had comforted her in the living room, holding her when she cried, promising her there would be other boys.

The farmhouse was where she and Remi had gotten ready for homecomings and proms together, blasting Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga while they did each other’s makeup and fussed with their hair for hours. Their senior prom dinner hadn’t been in a fancy restaurant but in her kitchen. Mama had pulled out a pretty tablecloth, tall candles, and served her, Remi, and their dates sparkling cider in champagne flutes and chicken alfredo on her wedding china.

The kitchen was where she’d spent hours with her mother, learning how to bake, the two of them singing along to Tricia Yearwood and Martina McBride, using wooden spoons asmicrophones. It was where she’d snuck down as a child to watch her parents slow dance, long after she should have been asleep.

And it was the place where her mother had died.

She’d always known she would leave home someday, but there was a big difference between moving a few miles away with a husband and seeing her childhood home foreclosed on. Whenever she’d been younger and looking ahead, Kasi had envisioned a future where she would continue to bake with her mother, still work in the stand, and visit her parents every Sunday for dinner.

Kasi was no more able to give up her home than her father was.

So the cell had remained on the counter, and she’d spent the last few hours fighting desperately trying to make the most difficult decision of her life.

Kasi wondered how differently she might have felt if Scottie’s proposal had come pre-Levi Storm. Would she have viewed it with a more open mind? Would she have even considered it a good thing?

Scottie wasn’t an unattractive man—physically—and while he was creepy and stuffy and arrogant and full of himself and…

Yeah.

No.

She would have hated the proposal even if Levi hadn’t been in the picture.

“Fuck,” she muttered, pushing her hair out of her face aggressively enough that it hurt. She winced, then recalled Levi pulling her hair whenever they had sex. God, that was ridiculously hot.

Everything he did was hot.

Even this morning when he’d dragged her into the pantry against her will.

She snorted to herself.

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