Page 10 of Collision of Winters
I checked to make sure all I had to do was pull the trigger, and then I sucked in a breath and opened the front door.
“Who’s back there?” I yelled. “My brother’s mad strong, and I’m scrappy as fuck!”
Two dogs suddenly barked, and I snapped my stare toward the dog yard. Holy fuck, they were here. All four of them.
“Take it easy, scrappy,” Wade called. “It’s just me.”
Oh thank God.
He came around the cabin with an armful of twigs for kindling, and I blew out a breath and returned the shotgun to its spot just inside the door.
“You fucking scared me,” I accused.
He chuckled and dumped the kindling on the porch. “Sorry. Storm’s coming in faster than I thought, and its direction has shifted. It’ll hit us head on, so we better get ready.”
“Oh. How do you know? Do you have Wi-Fi at the boathouse too?”
He smirked and removed his beanie. “I have a satphone and a radio. No Instagram or SnapTok.”
I spluttered a laugh and followed him inside. “It’s Snapchat and TikTok.”
“Ban them both,” was his reply. “They’ll rot your brain.”
Sometimes, he wassoold.
But hey, I should definitely be able to call Dad if Wade had a phone that worked.
I closed the door and?—
“Would you look at that. You’ve been busy.” He was looking at the couch and the kitchen counter. He sent me a smile that made me feel a little too good. “You makin’ Yaya’s farm bread?”
“Yessir.” I smiled back and scratched my elbow absently. I loved the look of approval in his hazel-green eyes. When Wade was happy, every feature of him screamed warmth. Our hair color was the same brown, but his stayed sun-kissed a while longer than mine did.
“Attaboy.” He ruffled my hair, and I gave him a shove that made him chuckle. “Looks like the sweet baby brother of the family finally poked his head out.”
“Shut up.”
Don’t shut up. Even though we weren’t related, or even technically foster brothers, I felt included when those termswere used. Yaya had called us brothers from the moment I’d joined the family.
Wade grinned but said nothing, and he glanced back at the couch. “I don’t mind sleeping out here, though.”
I shook my head. “You got that old hip of yours.”
That earned me a scowl. “It sounds cooler when you at least mention the shrapnel.”
There was nothing cool about that. I’d lost my shit the day we’d found out he had been injured in battle. Thankfully, his last tour. Once he’d rotated home, he’d left the service to go back to pursue his goals in the medical field.
A sharp wind trying to push through the cabin caught our focus, and we peered up at the ceiling.
“We’re safe here, right?” I had to ask.
“Without a doubt,” he said firmly. “But we’ll let the dogs sleep inside tonight. I can’t guarantee the shed and the carport won’t get damaged. I’ll secure the vehicles closer to the cabin too.”
For the rest of that day, I helped Wade with storm preparations and desperately wished I had some music to drown out the warnings going off in my head.
Don’t get too close.
You remember the last time you let your guard down. You ended up moving to Dallas.
