Page 43 of Shelter from the Storm

Gretchen had even finally succumbed to Remi’s demand to go horseback riding a couple of weeks earlier, and while it was completely terrifying at the beginning, she was sorry when the ride ended. The horse Remi had paired her with had been gentle and so sweet that Gretchen had taken to stopping by the stable every day with a treat for the dear old girl.

But while she’d opened up to Edith, Gretchen still wasn’t comfortable talking about Briggs with anyone else. She was trying to take Edith’s advice, to stop thinking of herself as stupid—something that had been literally pounded into her head for years—but it was a hard habit to break. Waiting for the other shoe to drop had become second nature to her.

So even though Remi, Kasi, Mila, and Nora had begun to include Gretchen in their BFFs text group, and they’d been incredibly generous in sharing their clothes with her, Gretchen still found herself holding back.

It only took a couple of weeks of Gretchen showing up for work in the same two pairs of jeans and a staff shirt before the girls realized how small her wardrobe was. She’d tried to brush it off as simply not being able to afford much, and luckily, they’d bought the lie. In truth, she was too afraid to spend her money on clothing, stashing away as much as she could for…

God. Would she ever truly feel safe anywhere? Ever stop hoarding money just in case she had to run again?

A couple Fridays earlier, Nora had grabbed her at the end of work and dragged her to the house she shared with her sisters, where all three Storm girls went through their closets, pulling things out, demanding she try them on, then giving them to her if they fit and looked good. She’d gone home that night with two enormous trash bags full of the most beautiful pants, blouses, skirts, scarves, and shoes she’d ever owned—and she’d cried as she unpacked it all, hating that even after all their generosity, she couldn’t trust their motives for helping her.

She’d once thought Destiny was her friend, too…so when she’d betrayed Gretchen to Briggs, her ability to trust anyone took a big hit.

Part of Gretchen worried that Remi, Mila, Nora, and Kasi were simply being nice because she was an employee and new in town. Eventually, they’d either get bored of her or show their true colors, and she’d be dropped from the text thread. As such, she tried to keep herself from growing too close to them, because she knew how much it hurt to lose someone she considered a friend.

However, that same reticence didn’t hold true for Theo. He’d remained true to his promise to teach her to drive, and while there had been some heart-thumping near-crashes—she was shit at parallel parking—he’d been nothing but patient and encouraging. She was currently reading the DMV driver’s manual and, if all went well, she was hoping to take the test to get her license early next year. Not that it would matter, because she wasn’t in a financial position to buy a car, but at least it was a step in the right direction toward becoming more independent.

Theo was the polar opposite of Briggs, who’d always been too serious and stern. In the beginning, she’d chalked up her ex’s stoicism to his age. After all, Briggs was twenty years older than her. Now she could see what she considered maturity, had really been another form of control, as he constantly admonished what he considered youthful behavior, telling her he wanted to be with a woman, not a girl.

If she’d had a backbone back then, she would have pointed out that at eighteen, she was a girl.

She shut down that self-recrimination, recalling Edith’s advice. She’d told Gretchen one of the first steps to healing was to reframe her thoughts. While she hadn’t had the courage to speak up back then, each painful experience had been building her strength, instilling in her the bravery she possessed now. She may not have had a backbone then…but she was growing one.

Unlike Briggs, Theo didn’t seek to change her behavior; rather, he encouraged her to express herself, building her confidence by supporting her ideas, laughing at her jokes, and offering genuine friendship. Given her issues, she wasn’t quite sure why Theo was exempt from her characteristic need to keep a distance from new acquaintances. It had taken him less than a week to draw her out of her shell, and less than two weeks for her to consider him a real friend.

Most shockingly, she was beginning to trust Theo—something Briggs had never truly earned. Even when Briggs came to take her from the foster home, proclaiming love, she’d lived in a constant state of fear, expecting him to abandon her like everyone else. And when he started emotionally, then physically abusing her, she realized she’d been right to hold her trust in reserve.

Gretchen leaned against one of the barn walls, her gaze rising to the strings of twinkle lights she and Theo had hung up last week. They’d decided to make them a permanent part of the décor, since it would be too much of a pain in the ass to take them up and down. They figured if people renting the barn didn’t want to use them, they didn’t have to plug them in.

The lights reminded her of the ones strung up in the Gracemont Community Center the night of the Harvest Dance. Theo had warned her the event, which marked the finale of the weekend-long celebration, was a big deal, and he’d been right. It felt as if every single resident of the small town had managed to pack themselves onto the dance floor.

Theo had claimed the dance she promised him. Actually, he’d claimed nearly all the dances—with the exception of the one she shared with Manny, who had playfully spun her around, jitterbug-style, until she was light-headed and dizzy.

She hadn’t lied to Theo when she said she didn’t dance. Briggs hated dancing, claiming he wasn’t about to make a jackass of himself. He was always overly concerned with appearances and how others perceived him. Whenever they attended social events that included dancing, she was forced to sit next to him, watching everyone else have fun on the dance floor.

She had foolishly tried to join in a few times in the early years, but Briggs always lost his shit, screaming at her the entire way home, claiming she’d been acting like a slut, putting on a show for the other men. In the end, she’d simply stopped dancing because it wasn’t worth the hassle.

The night of the Fall Harvest Dance, she never left the floor, drawn into the huge circle of Storms who were all shaking their booties and trying to one-up each other with their crazy dance moves. She still wasn’t sure if she was impressed or horrified by the fact Jace knew every single step to the “Thriller” dance. He seriously could have given Michael Jackson a run for his money.

When the first slow song played, Theo had been right there, claiming his dance. She hadn’t anticipated the effect it would have on her when he pulled her into his arms, softly humming along to Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking out Loud.”

Gretchen had been playing that song on repeat ever since that night, recalling Theo’s strength and confidence as he led her around the floor. She’d shivered when he placed his hand on her back, his thumb lightly caressing her as they swayed. His cheek had rested against hers, the roughness of his beard sexier than she would have imagined. She hadn’t expected him to pull her so close, thinking he would maintain a more proper distance, considering his whole family was there and she was his employee.

Then she realized she felt safe in his arms. She hadn’t experienced a single tremor of fear or panic or anxiety. Just warmth and security and…arousal.

As they danced, his breath was hot against her cheek, her chest pressed tightly to his. And the best part was, that had only been one of at least half a dozen slow dances they’d shared that night. He hadn’t asked a single other woman to dance. Just her. Her heart fluttered even now as she thought of it.

Ugh.

Gretchen shook herself out of her reveries, trying to shut down feelings she really should not be feeling in regard to Theo Storm. There were a million reasons why she should ignore this attraction to her boss, and zero reasons why she should succumb to it. The most they could ever be was friends.

The problem was, she was letting herself get swept away by all these new, unexpected, wonderful feelings because, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t afraid or lonely. In five short weeks, she’d started to feel happy. After a lifetime of shit, she couldn’t make herself push away something that felt so good.

New Gretchen had apparently kicked old Gretchen, with her trust issues and pessimism, to the curb.

Personally, she blamed the romance books she was addicted to, as well as the rom coms she’d been watching with Edith. For so many years, her beloved books had truly felt like fiction because she was certain those beautiful relationships didn’t exist in the real world. Now, as she watched Levi and Kasi together, and as she recalled the story Theo had told her about how his parents met, she found herself wanting to believe in love at first sight or touch.

Because there was no denying the second Theo had touched her hand the first day they met, her world had changed.

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