Almost Just Friends (Wildstone #4)(14)

She led them back to the living room and pulled up the top of the coffee table, revealing a compartment that held blankets and pillows. She threw one of each at him and gestured to the couch.

He’d slept on far worse.

“Meow.”

They both turned to look at Sweet Cheeks.

“The couch is his tonight,” Piper told the cat. “You’re with me.”

Ten minutes later, Cam was lying on the couch, his feet hanging off one end, staring up at the ceiling wondering how one simple hug had felt like so much more. In the matter of a single evening, Piper had turned him around and upside down, taking him completely off mission. At the thought of that mission and what had precipitated it, he braced for the now-familiar pain. It hit on cue, slicing through his chest, making the cat’s scratches feel like a caress.

He’d gotten way off mission tonight. He’d come to make sure his dad was okay after Rowan’s death. Because God knew, Cam wasn’t. Not even close. But the other part of his mission related to a promise he’d made to Rowan. Cam intended to fulfill that promise no matter what, at any cost. Just thinking about it, remembering he was never going to see Rowan again, his chest got so tight that he couldn’t breathe for a long, torturous moment. When his lungs finally released, he sucked in air for a few beats. He was still concentrating on that when another crack of lightning and an ensuing boom of thunder hit, rocking the house on its foundation.

He heard running footsteps, down a hall, down the stairs. Bare feet . . . and then incoming, which was a woman landing right on him.

Burrowing in tight, Piper pressed her face to his throat.

Drawing her in as close as he could, he pulled her under the blanket with him, wrapping her icy form up tight, reminding himself that this was about comfort and absolutely not about her sweet, warm, curvy bod plastered to his. She was clutching something in her hand—her journal. “You sleep with that thing?” he asked.

“I was making a shopping list.” Her voice was muffled against his skin, and he smiled.

“In the dark?”

“My phone’s got a flashlight.”

“Your phone also has a notes app,” he said.

“I like to write by hand. It soothes me.”

He’d laugh, but every time either of them shifted even a little bit, he could feel every inch of her against him. “How’s that working for you tonight?”

“Clearly not so well. I’m . . . not a fan of these violent storms.”

He was getting that. “Did something happen to you in a storm like this?”

Silence.

A tactic he’d used often enough, so he got it. “Storms used to freak me out too.”

She lifted her face to look at him.

He was guessing she hadn’t looked in the mirror because she still had mud on her nose and cheek.

“What did you do? To get . . . not freaked out?” she asked.

“My mom and I used to hide in the cellar. In hindsight, my fear probably came from her anxiety, but at the time I didn’t know that. I just knew I was five years old and terrified because my mom was.”

“Was your mom young?”

“Yes, very. And bipolar.”

Her eyes went soft and sympathetic. “That must have made things really difficult for you.”

He shrugged and ran a hand down her back. To soothe, he told himself, but she was still cold, so he wrapped both arms around her, and for the longest moment, they just stared at each other, sharing air. Until, once again, lightning lit up the room for a single heartbeat, with the inevitable crack of thunder right on its heels.

Piper remained rigid, silent and tense enough to shatter, until he slowly pulled her in closer, sliding a hand up her back to palm the nape of her neck, where he rubbed at the muscles that were tight with tension.

“I lost my parents in a storm like this,” she whispered.

A shock of surprise went through him. “Ah, Piper. No.”

“It was in the DRC—the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was a crazy storm, and my siblings and I got sent home to Wildstone just as it started up because one of my brother’s friends had just been killed by rebel forces.”

Okay, and now he understood her earlier mysterious bomb comment, far more than he wanted to.

“My parents decided it was no longer safe for us kids,” she went on. “Gavin was . . .” She shook her head. “In shock. Devastated. We all were.” She drew in a deep breath. “So plans were made for the three of us to come here and live with our grandparents. We got out okay, and our parents were going to follow within the week, but . . .” She closed her eyes. “There was crazy flooding. The clinic was over capacity when the water rose unexpectedly and everyone inside died. It was a whole bunch of years ago, but violent storms like this one seem to bring it all back. The guilt and everything.”

Yeah. He knew exactly. “If you’d stayed, you’d have died too, and Gavin and Winnie.”

She nodded. “I know. But it’s small comfort sometimes.”

“I get that.” So much more than she could possibly know. “Anyone who’s been through what you have would be triggered by tonight’s insane storm.” His hand was still on the nape of her neck. Her skin was soft and he stroked his thumb back and forth, trying to comfort her, which wasn’t something he’d thought himself capable of.