Page 28 of Love in the Storm

She looked away. “Just realistic. Not everyone has a perfect life.”

Asa watched her, noting her tells–averting her gaze, fidgeting her fingers in her lap, and the way she chewed the inside of her cheek.

“Hey,” he whispered.

She reluctantly turned to him.

When he had her attention, he held her gaze, daring her to open up to him. “What’s your life like?”

She slowly shook her head. The motion was almost indiscernible, but it told him more than her words. “Nothing like yours.”

He couldn’t imagine it was so different. She didn’t have a family, but she had jobs, and they lived in the same town. They both went to church and had friends. That didn’t sound so different.

Without warning, she stood. “Let’s play a different game. I saw Clue in one of the upstairs closets.”

Asa stood, unsure if the quick change in subject was a gift or not. “I don’t know how to play that one.”

Lyric shouted over her shoulder as she started up the stairs. “Well, I’ve never played poker, so it’s your turn to be at a disadvantage.”

Asa rubbed his fingertips over the bandage on his head. He’d been at a disadvantage since yesterday. What was it going to take to get Lyric to trust him? One minute they were talking, and the next minute she was running.

Asa staredat the page in front of him. He’d checked off the cards he’d been dealt, but he hadn’t been able to eliminate many others. This game was going to take forever.

Lyric hid her clue sheet behind her hand and scribbled.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

She looked up, and her feigned innocence wasn’t convincing. “Nothing.”

“Did you just mark something off? How could you have eliminated anything?” he asked.

She laid her sheet face-down on the rug. “It’s a secret.”

“You’re cheating.”

“I am not!” She picked up the dice and rolled a combined nine. She hopped her character piece on the Clue board, headed for the pool in the center.

Asa sat up straighter. “What are you doing?”

Lyric tapped her red piece in the middle of the board and looked up at him. Narrowing her eyes, she whispered, “I’m not doing anything, Mr. Green. Just making an accusation.”

“There is no way you could already know the answer.”

“Oh, but I do. It was me, in the observatory, with the candlestick.”

Asa stared her down. “There’s no way.”

Lyric smiled. “But there is.” She reached for the folder that held the answer, and Asa lunged for it at the same time. They wrestled over the folder, until Asa fell over on the board and Lyric toppled beside him. She was laughing, but Asa was determined to get to the bottom of this.

He stretched out on the floor, holding the folder out away from her as he opened it. She fell into another fit of laughter as he pulled out the cards–Miss Scarlet, the observatory, and the candlestick.

Sitting up, he stared at the cards. “How? How did you know?”

Lyric rested her chin on his shoulder. “You’re too easy to read.”

He turned his head, realizing too late that shewas so close. Less than two inches separated them, and her smile was even more powerful this close.

“What does that mean?” His words were low, born of the half-breath he’d been struggling to take.

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