Page 56 of A Soldier's Return

“Yes. That’s all,” Eli said. “I just wanted to talk for a moment about the plan next week for my dad’s return. Good luck with your show.”

She flashed him a grin as she grabbed her backpack and hurried out the door, humming some of the lyrics he recognized from the night he and Melissa had gone to see her.

“I’m off, too,” Carmen said. “I have to head to the grocery store. Every time the wind blows around here, the grocery stores run out of milk.”

She hurried off after Tiffany. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he and Melissa were alone.

She jumped up from her desk and grabbed her sweater and her purse. “I need to go, too,” Melissa said.

No, he wasn’t imagining things. She was doing her utmost to avoid his company. He knew it was for the best so they didn’t cross any more lines, but he missed her with a fierce ache.

“Big weekend plans?”

She made a face. “Cody’s coming to pick Skye up again tonight. He wants to have her the whole weekend until Sunday this time, so I need to help her pack. He wants to get out of town before the storm hits. I tried to convince him it wasn’t a good weekend for his visitation, but he insisted since he’s going to be busy next weekend. Also, his sister is in town and she hasn’t seen Skye in about a year.”

“Go take care of what you need to at home. Don’t worry about things here. I’ll lock up.”

“Thank you.”

She gave him a stiff nod, gathered her purse from under her desk and hurried for the door.

That was the most personal conversation they had shared in days. He felt an ache, missing the warm, funny woman he had come to know since returning to Cannon Beach.

It was better this way, that she had put up these walls between them, but he felt an ache.

How had she reacted when he’d said he would only be there another week? He hadn’t been able to read her. Had she been relieved? Or would she miss him as deeply as he knew he would miss her?

He rubbed at that ache in his chest. Somehow Melissa had worked her way inside his own careful walls. She was there, lodged against his heart, and he didn’t know how he was going to push her out again.

Chapter Ten

The storm hit about four hours after Cody left for Portland with Skye in his impractical sports car.

Melissa sat in the window seat in the sunroom she loved, watching the waves grow higher as the sky darkened with rolling clouds.

Storms always made her blood hum. One good thing about formerly being married to a professional surfer—they had always lived next to an ocean. Whether it was Mexico or Hawaii or Australia, no matter what coastal area she and Cody and Skye had been living, she had always loved watching storms hit land, as long as she could observe the drama from somewhere safe.

She wasn’t as crazy about being in the middle of them. She had been, a few times. Once she had been working at a hospital in Maui in the midst of a Category 3 hurricane and had worked for thirty-six hours straight when her coworkers couldn’t make it to the hospital because of the storm.

Skye loved storms. She would have loved this one. Her daughter would have found it a great adventure to cuddle together and tell stories by candlelight. She missed her with a deep ache, which she knew was perfectly ridiculous. Somehow Melissa had to get used to these weekends without her child. She wanted her daughter to have a relationship with her father, and Skye and Cody couldn’t truly have that through only occasional phone calls and video chats.

Melissa had lost her father when she was fourteen and still felt the emptiness of that. She didn’t want Skye to grow up being resentful or angry that Cody wasn’t in her life. Somehow she had to come to terms with being without her and fill the void with friends and hobbies.

The power went out two hours later, as she expected. Through the window, she could see only darkness, which told her Brambleberry House wasn’t the only structure hit. It appeared power was out up and down the coast.

Fortunately, her e-reader was fully charged and would last for hours, and she had already gathered all the emergency supplies she might need during a storm.

She wasn’t looking forward to a long night alone in the dark, but she tried to make her situation as comfortable as possible, lighting candles she had gathered earlier and carrying pillows and blankets to the window seat.

If the winds increased in intensity, she would probably feel safer away from the windows and the possibility of shattering glass from flying tree limbs or other debris, but for now she didn’t feel in harm’s way.

She was just settling in with her book when she heard a knock at the door.

“It’s Rosa,” she heard from outside. “And Fiona.”

Melissa hurried to the door and found her friend standing in the entry holding two lit candles, her Irish setter at her side.

“This is some kind of storm, no?”

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