Into the Storm (Signal Bend #3)(87)

He chuckled. “You look great in green.” He picked her up and set her on his lap, her back to his chest, then pulled the neck of her t-shirt aside and nipped at her shoulder. She could feel his erection under her ass. She lay back and let him touch and taste her as he wished; when he opened her shorts and slid his hand under the lace of her thong, she spread her legs wide and reached her arms over her head, threading her fingers into his hair.

Before she closed her eyes and gave herself over to him completely, she imagined this room being theirs. One bed.

oOo

Shannon stood behind the front desk, staring at the closed dining room doors. Thunder crashed outside, and rain pelted the windows. The Barton-Kovacs wedding had been moved indoors due to the storm, and she was shifting nervously back on forth on her pumps, waiting for the ceremony to be over. Then she and her event staff had an intricate dance to undertake, distracting the guests in the parlor while the dining room was flipped for the reception. It was the first time that weather had not cooperated for a wedding. They’d been ridiculously lucky, but they were paying for that early good fortune with a squall that had turned the gravel lot to soup.

The front porch had canvas screens that could be dropped to protect the space from weather, so the guests had used the dry porch to collect themselves after their mad dash from the lot. Shannon had had people with big golf umbrellas ushering guests in, so there had been minimal spoilage of fancy clothes.

Megan, the bride, had been disappointed to lose her garden wedding, but Shannon had been prepared for the storm, and the dining room had looked like a place for a wedding, not a meal. Shortly, though, it would need to look like a place for a meal again.

To both Show’s and Lilli’s evident relief, she’d finally hired an actual night manager, as well as firming up the part-time assistant manager schedule. Vicki had been working strictly on-call, covering Shannon’s rare time off. Now she was working all non-wedding weekends and Shannon’s regular days off, their schedules overlapping a bit during peak times. Show had been leaning on Shannon; he was tired of coming in second to her job. The transition was awkward, because they were still working on his house, so they were still living in the apartment here. Nobody intended to move into the apartment she was vacating, but Shannon found it strange to come out in the morning to find somebody working behind the front desk.

Somebody that wasn’t her.

The house was almost done, though, and then Show would move back, and she would go with him.

Over the course of the past few weeks, they’d stripped wallpaper and painted the walls. Show had stripped and polished the hardwood floors. She had emptied out all the cabinets and closets and packed away every last trace of Holly. And Show had filled Rose and Iris’s room with new furniture and toys, hoping that one day they’d visit and sleep there again.

They’d need still more furniture eventually. Shannon had the pieces from her apartment, and a bit more in storage, but what she had wouldn’t fill that house. But for now, they had enough to be comfortable.

Getting Show to have an opinion about home décor was a consistent challenge, but she was resolute. He would be present in the home they shared.

She checked the time on her laptop and resisted the urge to open the doors and peek in. She knew that Steve was keeping an eye out from the kitchen and would let her know when it was time for their well-

rehearsed scene-change. Looking for something to keep her mind occupied, she checked Facebook. Oh— Adrienne had added some new pictures.

She hadn’t seen Adrienne since that first, bizarrely wonderful and horrible visit. They kept in touch like this, though, and they were getting to know each other. She was in Europe for the summer, traveling with two girlfriends, living the youthful dream of Eurail passes, hostel beds, and purposefully aimless wandering. Shannon had missed that part of youth, the purposeful aimlessness. She’d been driven to make something of herself, and had never really stopped to think about what else the world held for her.

Adrienne wanted to be a photographer. No—that wasn’t right. She was a photographer. But she wanted to make it her career, too. She took lovely, moody photographs. Although she posted the usual selfies and shots of her and her friends being silly in front of historical monuments, she also posted shots that were obviously taken of things and places no one usually saw. They had depth and dimension and always a clear emotion. Drama. They were good. Shannon wasn’t an expert, but she thought they were great.

Steve opened the door between the parlor and the kitchen, and Shannon looked over to see him nod.

Okay. Showtime. She closed her laptop.

Just then, a huge bolt of lightning lit the sky on fire, the thunder crashing right on top of it, and all the lights went out.

oOo

By the time the power was back on, nobody cared. The reception was now candlelit, with battery-operated pillars and tapers on every table and in every sconce around the dining room and parlor, and the kitchen, running its own emergency generator, had barely paused in its preparation of the meal. The small band had simply shifted to unplugged status—yet another benefit of the small venue. When, after about two hours, the lights came up again, there was a moan of protest, and Shannon and her staff turned most of them back off.

Show had come in during the reception, easing quietly along the wall and going straight back to her apartment, blowing her a subtle kiss, just a purse of his lips. She’d gone back during a lull to say hi, and he was sitting on the sofa with a beer, his shirt, beanie, and boots off, watching a baseball game. The combination of his bare chest and the domestic simplicity of the scene had made it very difficult for Shannon to go back to work.