“Says the water-logged man. You were spontaneous first.”
“I was punctual.Youwere spontaneous.”
“If I get hit by a lightning bolt, we’ll both agree that my spontaneity bit me.” Her clothing became heavy, its dampness pressing against her skin. Droplets rolled down her forehead and cheeks.
Zander looped an arm under her knees, then carried her along one of the decorative pathways that bisected the large flower garden at the heart of the Hackberry Lane Cottages.
He came to a stop in the center of the green space, and she slid to standing. He didn’t release her from his hold.
The water formed a drumming veil around them. All the cottages had vanished from view as surely as the two of them had vanished from view of the cottages. Probably a good thing. Poor Mrs. Witherspoon would call the police if she spotted Britt kissing a man in the middle of a monsoon.
“You’re not allowed to get hit by a lightning bolt,” Zander told her, his hard-planed face uncompromising. “If you did, then I’d have to jump in front of the next one and Aunt Carolyn would be mad.”
“You wouldn’t have to jump in front of the next lightning bolt.”
“Yes, I would.” He spoke soberly. “Because you’re everything to me.”
Heat blossomed in her chest.
“I’d stand in a thousand storms for you,” he said.
He didn’t see her as the pampered youngest sister, the Bradford daughter with too many advantages and too little common sense. She wasn’t as sensitive as she should be. She was overly focused on her work, and in fact, had been known to forget things—even important things she ought to have remembered—for hours and days at a time. She had commitment issues. She could be too reckless and even harmfully self-sufficient.
Zander knew all that. Yet, he’d always chosen to focus on her best qualities, not her worst.
To be valued the way he valued her filled the crevices Britt’s insecurities had chiseled.
Her hands tunneled into his wet hair, and she drew his mouth to hers. Pounding rain without. Pounding emotions within.
———
Dimly, Zander realized that the rain was lessening.
He regretted that it was, because that meant their privacy was lessening, too.
“Do you think Mrs. Witherspoon can see us?” Britt asked against his lips.
“Not yet, but soon.”
“Bummer.”
He stared down into her flushed face, overwhelmed by how beautiful she was....
And an idea slipped into his brain.
He swept saturated tendrils of Britt’s hair away from her eyes. He’d thought of a passcode. A passcode to try on Frank’s cell phone.
He’d thought of it because he now comprehended why Frank had been willing to leave his past life behind, to never again see his family members or be known by the name he’d been given at birth. Frank had been willing to do all of that and far more because of love.
LOVE.
Zander visualized the cell phone’s screen. Five six eight three would spell out the word love.
“Let’s dry off. And go hear a band.” He took her hand, and they retraced their route in the direction of her house.
He’d try his new passcode idea on Frank’s phone when he was by himself. On the off-chance he was right and unlocked the phone, he wanted time to search its contents, think, then settle on the safest course of action alone.
Note passed between Zander and Britt in eleventh grade:
