Page 69 of Love Without Control

Dane turned off the circular saw he was using to cut plywood when I walked into the back yard. He was wearing a heather-gray Henley that stretched over the bulk of his shoulders and jeans that fit in all the right places. Despite the cooler September weather, sweat dampened his forehead. Swiping the wetness away on his shoulder, he flashed me a smile.

Dammit, why is a sweaty man working with power tools so dang hot?And to top it all off, he had a ball cap on backward.

“How did it go?”

“Good. Lilibet is pleased with my progress.”

“She should be,” he said, pulling off his work gloves and stowing them in his back pocket before tilting his head back to look up at the sky. “They’re saying the hurricane should make landfall late tonight.”

I looked down at the two stacks of plywood cut into squares lying on the lawn. “I don’t think we have this many windows,” I remarked.

“I cut extra. Thought I’d go board up Charlisse and Cooper’s windows too. I called Charles, and he said they already have plywood cut from the last hurricane a few years ago, but I’ll drop by and hang them for him.”

“I’ll help,” I offered, and he lifted a skeptical eyebrow at me. “I can hand you the screws or something.”

“M’kay,” he said, walking to the stack and picking up the tape measure before stretching it across the piece of wood he’d been working on. He bobbed his head, apparently satisfied, and added it to one of the stacks. “These are for Charlisse’s house.”

Dane bent, giving me a spectacular view of his ass in those jeans, and picked up a huge stack in both arms. I rushed over and tried to grab the remainder, but the damn things were heavy, and I was only able to carry one.

“Come on, Hercules,” he teased.

Two hours later, we had all the windows covered on our house and the two neighbors’ homes, and we had a big plate of Charles’s brownies on our kitchen counter.

“The man’s a national treasure,” I commented, sliding one off and taking a big bite. “This frosting should be in the Smithsonian.”

“I’m going to fill up the gas cans for the generator,” Dane said, reaching for his keys.

“I’ll get some blankets and pillows ready. Your closet or mine?” I asked, giving him an eyebrow wiggle.

He laughed. “Yours is bigger.”

“That’s what she said,” I shot back, earning me an eye roll from Dane.

“Go take a shower, Wildcat. It’s going to be a long night.”

It was indeed a long night. I did surprisingly well, despite being closed up in a closet for hours during the worst of it. Dane and I ate brownies and played Uno with music from his phone in the background to distract from the storm raging outside the house.

Lilibet was big into music therapy, and she’d told me to experiment with different styles to see what calmed me the most. Turned out it was rock ballads from the eighties, and I listened to a playlist of Foreigner, Journey, Heart, and lots of others while I went to sleep each night.

The final notes of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” faded away as the wind finally subsided, and Dane pushed to his feet. “Sounds like the worst of it has finally passed. I’m going to check the house and then fire up the generator.” The electricity had gone out about halfway through the storm, but, of course, we had lots of flashlights in our little hideaway.

Once we got outside, we found that our house had weathered the storm well, but Charlisse hadn’t been quite so lucky. A large water oak tree had fallen through the roof of her bedroom and blocked the door to her closet, trapping her and Cooper inside. Thankfully, they were physically unharmed.

As the rescuers worked to free them, I looked up at Dane in the moonlight that was finally peeking through the clouds. “Do you think we should—”

“Offer to let them stay with us for a bit?” he filled in, and I nodded, grateful that he seemed to read my mind. “For sure, but we’ll have to move my stuff into your room. It wouldn’t look right if newlyweds had separate bedrooms. Are you okay with that?” His brown eyes darted back and forth between my own.

Was I? I guessed it would be okay. After all, he was a constant presence in my room when I had a nightmare. But he’d always satbesidemy bed, not sleptinit.

Reading my thoughts once again, he said, “I can sleep in the chair or on the floor.”

Hearing him say that out loud left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I shook my head. He’d worked his ass off helping neighbors all day, and he deserved a soft place to sleep.

“No, it’s fine. The bed is big enough for both of us.”

“All right. Let’s go move my stuff.”

Several neighbors were gathered in Charlisse’s front yard watching the rescue efforts, including Charles and Mimsy. The latter was dressed in sneakers and a red floral muumuu, handing out paper cups of coffee to neighbors and first responders. We stopped to inform her that we were going inside to get a room ready for Charlisse and Cooper, and she wrapped us both in a hug, bursting into tears for about the fiftieth time that night.

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