Page 15 of Keep Me Safe: A Small Town Suspenseful Love Story

“Feel like taking a trip up to the sand dunes?” Knox asked with a knowing smile as we stepped off the deck.

“Still a huge flirt, I see.”

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

Falling back into the flirtatious banter was so easy, the back and forth sarcastic remarks and small innuendos. Truth be told, I couldn’t remember feeling this relaxed, at least not in the last few months, and it was with the one person I never expected to see again. Yet there we were walking barefoot, side by side in the sand.

It was high tide and there wasn’t a huge amount of beach to walk on, but we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was early enough that people were in school or working and the white sand was empty except for us and a woman walking a fat chocolate lab down by the water.

“You thinking about staying here for awhile?” he asked with his hands in his pockets, his chin angled down and giving me a glorious shot of that chiseled jaw.

I watched as the wind kicked up and pushed his hair around. “For the time being, yeah. I’m kind of at a standstill until they catch this guy. I can’t go home because I don’t feel safe and I can’t afford to live in a hotel for however long it takes the police to find him. I have a little bit of a nest egg saved up and plenty of vacation time, so I guess it works out.”

“Your big city friends won’t let you stay with them?”

I shrugged. “My friends in the city are more of the 'let’s grab a drink and gossip' and less of the 'dump all your problems on me and move in', you know?”

He immediately shook his head. “It sounds like a shitty group of friends.”

I almost disagreed. I wanted to lie to him and say that I had a solid, dependable group of friends back in New York, but I just couldn’t. The women I worked with were nice enough, but it all felt superficial. There was never any depth to our conversations and they never wanted to discuss politics, family values or morals.

I shook my head as I realized how much I didn’t miss the city nor did I miss the people in it. It was also at that moment I realized dark clouds were rolling in. Quickly.

“Uh, Knox, is it supposed to rain?”

When he didn’t answer I turned and found him watching me, his eyes boring into mine with such an intensity it was almost frightening. His high cheekbones looked like they were pointing an arrow directly to his mouth and I found myself mesmerized by how handsome he’d become over the years. He was always cute, but now he looked like… a man.

Christ, was that man making me feel like a woman and not the little girl that left five years ago.

“I-”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, effectively cutting off whatever Knox was about to say.

The clouds came r

olling in fast, dark and angry. I loved it. Being on the beach during a thunderstorm was easily on my top ten list of favorite things. When I was younger my mother would send Robbie and Logan to chase me down and drag me back home whether I liked it or not, knowing I would be on the beach or in the water, staring up at the sky like it was my first time seeing it. The noise, the lightning, the fat rain drops pelting my bare skin.

She’d be waiting at the door with a glass of red wine in her hand ready to scold me for running off on my big brothers.

The memory of the way things used to be made me somewhat sad. It was a feeling of innocence lost, but over the years, my love for the sky and the rain never went away. The rain washed away everything; bad nights and arguments. Tears and stress. It was cleansing, and I always believed that rain was good for the soul.

I stared up at the sky and watched as lightning flashed across the sky in the distance.

“You still love it? After all this time?”

I nodded my head and smiled, looking out at the ocean as angry waves crashed against the shore. “You don’t get to see it like this in the city. It’s not the same. You’re surrounded by buildings and there’s so much noise. It all just feels so polluted.”

Knox nodded his head. “Let’s get back before it starts raining.”

Right on cue, the skies opened up and we were caught in a downpour. Laughing, we took off at a sprint back to the house.

We were both completely soaked by the time we made it up the steps to the back deck, shirts plastered to our skin. My hair was in a tangled bun on the top of my head and I could feel strands sticking to my cheeks and neck. Thunder roared overhead.

“Hurry up,” Knox laughed from behind me as I struggled to get the key in the lock.

I swung the door open and we tumbled inside, slamming the door just as lightning began to light up the sky. We were both soaked, freezing and laughing all at once. My ribs ached but I didn’t even care.

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