“But I will.” Bri leaned her shoulders back against the wall and stuffed her hands in her pockets. “My dad just got out of the hospital.”

“I know, baby, and that’s one reason I’m staying. You know he’s not going to leave.” Caroline crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Bri’s shoulders. “When you go in today, I’ll head over to Nelson’s. We’ll be fi ne.”

“If you’d just go inland, I wouldn’t have to worry,” Bri said, afraid

• 231 •

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she sounded like she was whining. In fact, she was pretty sure she was whining.

“What are you scared about, baby,” Carre said gently.

Bri shook her head.

Carre bumped her pelvis into Bri’s and bit her lightly on the tip of her chin. “Say.”

“Cut it out,” Bri said grumpily.

“Nuh-uh.” Carre nibbled on Bri’s lower lip. When Bri cupped her butt, she smiled. “Better. But you still have to talk.”

Bri growled and skimmed her hand under the back of Caroline’s T-shirt.

“We’re not having sex,” Carre whispered, kissing the corner of Bri’s mouth. “We’re just having a moment.”

“Thirty seconds will do it.”

“Yeah,” Carre said breathily, “maybe. But you’re not getting thirty seconds. Not unless you tell me what you’re scared of.”

“A couple weeks ago, I thought my dad was going to die,” Bri said so quietly Carre could barely hear her.

Carre grew very still, holding Bri. Waiting.

Bri took a shaky breath. “That was really scary.”

“I know, baby.”

“No, you don’t know what I mean.” Bri cupped Carre’s face. “I love my dad, I do. But you…with you it’s different. I won’t be able to come take care of you if things get bad. If something happens to you because I’m not there, I’m going to lose it for good.”

“Oh, baby, no,” Carre whispered. She threaded her fi ngers into Bri’s hair and caressed her neck. “I’m going to be fi ne, and you are going to do what you need to do, because people are depending on you. And because it’s your responsibility and that’s who you are.” She kissed her softly. “Don’t you think I’m afraid for you?”

“I’ll be okay.”

Carre smiled. “You expect me to trust you, but you have to trust me, too.”

“Just be okay. Okay? Please.”

“Promise. I love you.”

Bri rested her forehead against Carre’s and closed her eyes. “Me too. So bad.”

“Got thirty seconds?”

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“I just got dressed.” Bri said, sounding unconvincing.

“Okay. A minute and thirty seconds, then.” Carre grabbed Bri’s hand and pulled her toward the bed. “Get over here and give me something to think about until I see you again.”

“Two minutes,” Bri muttered, fumbling with her belt. “I’ve got at least two minutes.”

❖

At the sound of a gunshot, Reese grabbed the marine next to her and dove for cover, scrambling with one hand for her weapon while shielding the body beneath her with her own. She swept the ground in front of her, and her right hand closed over the grip of her revolver.

“Keep your head down,” Reese grunted, yanking her weapon free from its holster.

Tory clamped both hands around Reese’s wrist. “Reese! Reese, we’re safe. You’re home. Reese!”

Forms took shape in the murky light. The desert, cold and black as death at midnight, blindingly bright and scorching in the light of day, faded from her mind’s eye and Reese saw her living room, her kitchen, and beneath her, her wife. “Tory. God, Tory. Did I hurt you?”

“Darling, no, of course you didn’t.” Tory smiled shakily. “Put your gun away, darling.”

Reese stared at the weapon gripped in her hand and Tory’s fi ngers clenched around her wrist so tightly they were white. “I’m sorry. God.

What was that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a tree coming down.” Tory released her hold on Reese’s arm. “It doesn’t matter. Everything is all right.”

“No it isn’t.” Reese pushed away, re-holstered her weapon, and slumped back against the sofa, not looking at Tory. “Did I hurt you?

I’m sorry.”

Tory sat up in the narrow space between the sofa and the coffee table, which had been pushed aside when Reese had pulled them off the sofa and onto the fl oor. Her hip ached from landing on it, but that wasn’t what hurt her. Reese looked haunted, tortured, and she simply couldn’t stand it anymore. She got to her knees and straddled Reese’s lap. She held her lover’s face in both hands and forced Reese to look at her. “You are not to say that to me anymore. You have never hurt me.

• 233 •

RADCLY fFE

You never will. You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re exhausted.

That was instinct. Your instinct to protect me. To protect those you love and are responsible for. I love you for that.”

Reese’s eyes were bruised with uncertainty, and Tory slid her hands higher, into Reese’s hair. She leaned down and kissed her. “You did your duty. You served when called. You have nothing to be ashamed of just because part of you questioned why you were there.” She stroked Reese’s face. “I let you go, because I knew that you had to, but I’m not ashamed that I didn’t want you to go. I won’t apologize for that, and I won’t apologize for saying that I don’t want you to go again.”

“Tory,” Reese whispered, circling her waist. She laid her cheek between Tory’s breasts. “If I didn’t have you I’d be lost.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Tory murmured, brushing her lips over Reese’s forehead. “But you don’t have to worry about it, ever. I promise.”

“I have to go to work soon.”

“I know. So do I.”

“I wish you weren’t going to be here for this.” Reese kissed the base of Tory’s throat, then lower between her breasts.

“I can’t be anywhere else. You’re here, and I won’t leave you. And I have a responsibility too.” Tory reached between them and opened the buttons on her blouse, then cradled Reese’s cheek against her breast.

“Listen to my heart. It beats for you. You and only you, for all my life.”

Reese shuddered and Tory felt tears on her skin.

“I know you’ll be careful,” Tory said, “and so will I. And when this is over, we’ll make love and I’ll make sure you know just exactly where you belong.”

“As if I could forget,” Reese whispered, tilting her head back and grinning weakly.

Tory smiled. “Well, I’ll enjoy reminding you just the same.”

❖

Nita curled up in the big chair in Deo’s bedroom and watched Deo dress. She loved to see her move, especially naked. When she stretched to pull pants off a hanger in her closet, the muscles in her back and shoulders bunched and rippled. Her ass tightened, and Nita had a quick

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memory of running her hands over those muscles and digging her fi ngers into them as Deo thrust between her legs. She must have made a small sound because Deo turned in her direction.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Deo narrowed her eyes and studied Nita in the soft light from the bedside lamp. Nita’s skin held a hint of heat beneath the smooth tan surface. “You’re thinking about sex.”

“No I’m not.”

“Uh-huh.” Deo stepped into her briefs, then pulled on her pants.

Naked from the waist up, she walked toward the dresser on the wall behind Nita. She stopped by the chair, leaned down and kissed Nita soundly, then kept going. “Yes you are. Why don’t you want me to know?”

Nita was about to make a fl ip reply about preferring to take her by surprise, and then the entire building shook, rattling the windows in their casements. The room dimmed as the scant light from the cloudy gray sky disappeared. Rain hammered against the skylight. A small TV on Deo’s dresser was turned down so low the sound of the weatherman’s words were barely audible, but the map behind him with its large red arrows and heavy black circles centered over the New England coast told the story with dramatic effectiveness. Nita appreciated, as she hadn’t until that moment, that before the day was out they were all likely to be in deadly danger. “I can’t look at you or think of you without wanting you, and that makes me uncomfortable.”

Deo jerked a white T-shirt over her head, then grabbed a clean khaki work shirt from a pile in her dresser drawer. Leaving both untucked, she settled onto the arm of Nita’s chair and regarded her contemplatively. “Desiring me doesn’t feel good.”

“Actually,” Nita said softly, “it feels wonderful.”

“But.”

“If I forget-0.8 “i 0 o9 o6637 Tc 0.s9Rhe4l745 -0.00015575 Tc -91d.4n 000bT 9c4062 0 T o66900545 Tc 230.661 bed a cle 2-189.471 3cs y

• 235 •

RADCLY fFE

“Another set of these.” Nita gestured to her jeans and T-shirt, far more casual than her ordinary work attire. “When I got home this morning, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting back there anytime soon.

I came prepared.”

“This morning? Meaning you were out all night?” Tory asked as they hurried down the hall.

“Uh-huh.” Nita held the door open for Tory, who gripped the handrail to steady herself on the slick stone landing as the wind threatened to upend her.

“Must have been something special to get you driving around in this last night,” Tory shouted as they linked arms and dashed towards the Jeep where Sally and Randy huddled in the back seat, waiting.

“I didn’t plan on it,” Nita shouted back. “But she is special.”

Tory spared Nita a quick glance as she pulled open her door.

“Deo?”

“Yes.” Nita bolted for the other side of the car and clambered into the passenger seat.

“Everybody all set?” Tory called, glancing briefl y over her shoulder to Sally and Randy. At the chorus of yeses, she put the Jeep into four-wheel-drive and sluiced her way out of the parking lot that now resembled a small pond. She wanted to get Randy safely home, and she wanted to get into town. She’d be needed there, and she’d be closer to Reese.

With too much water sheeting over the windshield for her to see anything at all, she gripped the wheel and drove the road from memory, praying she wouldn’t hit a downed tree or electric wire. The tension inside the Jeep was hot and thick, but her people—her friends—were good in a crisis, and she trusted them to handle whatever might come.

She spared a second look in Nita’s direction and grinned.

“Deo, huh,” she muttered under her breath. “Good for you.”

“Yes,” Nita whispered. “Yes, I really think she is.”

❖

The lobby of Town Hall with its wide, curving staircases fl anking each wall was bustling when Tory, Nita, and Sally arrived. Tory immediately dispatched Sally to set up a triage area in a shallow alcove just inside the front doors, and she went in search of the medical staging

• 240 •

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area. From the cacophony of voices growing louder with each step she took, Tory surmised that a fair number of the townspeople had already decided to take shelter there rather than ride out the wind and water at home. She slowed at the foot of the stairs as she spied someone she hadn’t expected to see.

“Nelson! What are you doing here?”

Nelson Parker, fi fteen pounds lighter than his usual weight, still looked imposing in his sheriff’s uniform. He grinned sheepishly. “I’m not doing anything here I wouldn’t be doing at home. Just minding the phones.” He pointed to a short wave radio and an array of receivers lined up on a nearby table. Caroline sat at one end of the table with a stack of fi les in front of her. “Someone’s got to coordinate the various response teams, and I told Gladys to stay home with George and mind their house. Talking doesn’t take much energy. Besides, Caroline won’t even let me lift the report folders.”

Tory frowned. “As long as all you do is talk. And you don’t leave this building. I mean it.”

“I understand.”

“Have you seen Reese?”

“Just a little while ago. There’s some folks cut off way down at the West End where the roads are fl ooded out. She took one of the big trucks down to get them.”

Tory bit her lip. She wanted to call Reese just to be sure she was all right, but she probably had patients waiting. “Will you let me know when she gets back…or if you hear from her?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks.” Tory headed up to the auditorium on the second fl oor. A large banner with a red cross made it pretty hard to miss the emergency medical station. So did the tall dark-haired woman in a white T-shirt and black jeans who sat on a stool suturing the forearm of an elderly woman.

“KT!” Tory exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t want to miss the party,” KT said, shooting Tory a grin.

“I already told her she was foolish,” the sprightly octogenarian said, giving KT a fond look. “Coming in this direction when everyone else is going the other way. Of course, the girls are prettier out here.”