Sins of the Storm Read Free

the—” he started. “Where the hell—” And then he was reaching for her, destroying the distance and the years between them, and pulling her into his arms.
    She should have stepped back. She knew that. But for a moment it felt so good and right, to be there in that room, in Jack’s arms. Again. To hear the hard rhythm of his heart and to breathe in the scent she remembered from so long ago. He’d left Bayou d’Espere for active duty, had put his life on the line and lived through the kind of atrocities most people didn’t even want to read about. But, God help her, the scent of soap and sandal-wood still clung to him.
    Maybe that’s why she stiffened. Maybe that’s why she tried to pull back. But her movement only dislodged her baseball cap, and then it was Jack pulling away. Jack lifting his hands toward her face—
    Jack stepping back.
    That shouldn’t have hurt. It was what she wanted. She hadn’t come back to Bayou d’Espere for him, knew there was no way to pick up where they’d left off. She’d always been like a kid sister to him—little Cami with her pigtails and freckles—long after she’d quit seeing him as a surrogate big brother.
    She’d been warned. Her cousin had told her about the explosion that had ended his Air Force career and the accident that had taken his wife. But nothing she’d heard, nothing she’d imagined, had come close to preparing her for his eyes. Once, they’d dazzled. Now they—
    She made her living through carefully chosen words. But here in this old bedroom, she couldn’t think of a single word to describe what she saw in Jack’s eyes. Violence. Regret.
    Isolation.
    A cop’s eyes, she rationalized. A veteran’s eyes. Even as the thoughts formed, she dismissed them. She’d seen eyes such as Jack’s before, many times, in person and in pictures. They were not the eyes of a cop, or a soldier.
    “You’re real,” he muttered, and the edge to his voice cut deep. “Sweet Mary, we looked for you—”
    She didn’t want to hear it. “Think we can put that down now?” She detoured him with a glance to the gun in his left hand. A Glock, she realized. Standard police issue. “I promise I’ll behave.”
    She’d meant the words to be light. She’d meant the words to break the tension, toss the two of them back onto familiar territory. To make him quit looking at her as if he didn’t know whether to pull her back into his arms—or throw her in jail.
    But as the silence breathed between them, she realized her mistake. Time moved forward, not backward. The familiar territory they’d enjoyed as children no longer existed.
    “I know you have questions.” Everyone did. “And I’ll answer them as best as I can,” she added as a shiver ran through her. Because of the damp, she told herself. Not because of the memories, and not because as a child, she’d always believed this room, where several of her ancestors had been born—and died—felt cooler than the rest of the house. “But guns—”
    Jack’s eyes met hers, and in them, at last, she saw him. Saw Jacques. Saw him tearing through a briar brush and squatting before her, saw the lightning flash as he reached for her and pulled her into his arms, held her.
    She’d been twelve years old.
    He’d been fifteen.
    A gun, she’d cried against his wet jacket. God, he has a gun….
    “Jack,” she whispered for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, and on his name, her voice broke.
    He flipped the lock and shoved the gun into the holster around his shoulders. Then he stunned her by unfastening it and sliding it from his body, tossing it behind the crates. “No guns.”
    “Thank you.” And finally, finally she could breathe.
    He chose that moment to move toward her again. “Christ, Camille…” He lifted his hands to her face, but retreated without touching. “It’s really you.”
    The warmth of his body invited her to step closer. Somehow, she didn’t. “It’s me.”
    “We thought—”
    “I