She sighed softly. “Storms rarely bother me, but…”
“Same. But this cabin suddenly doesn’t feel like that much of a barrier against it.”
“Exactly.” Shifting, she looked up at him. “Would it be terrible if I wanted to look at my phone right now?”
Laughing quietly, Axel shook his head. “Not at all. I’m kind of curious too.” He kissed her soundly before climbing out of the bed. “I’ll go and grab it for you. Which bag is it in?”
“Um…the duffel bag. Please.”
Nodding, he stood and stretched—totally aware of the way Maisie was staring at him. Based on her earlier comments, she hadn’t seen a lot of naked men. And probably hadn’t seen one standing so close and stretching because he didn’t feel like putting any clothes on. It didn’t seem like a big deal to just walk around nude, but he hoped he wasn’t making her feel uncomfortable.
Out in the living room, he found his phone on the coffee table and grabbed it before picking up her bag. Back in the bedroom, he handed it to her before climbing back under the blankets with her. Beside him, she rummaged through her belongings before pulling out her phone. Meanwhile, he was already on the app and checking out the forecast.
Rain, rain, and more rain.
Great.
“It looks like the rain is going to stick around, but the stormier part will be over soon,” he told her. “If that’s the case, we’ll be fine here in the cabin.”
She was still staring at her phone while she murmured her agreement. He figured she was reading the weather report for herself and found that he had missed a group text from the guys. It felt a little weird to be lying here naked in bed with Maisie beside him and checking messages, but as he glanced over at her, it looked like she was doing the same, so…
Tapping on the group chat, he felt guilty because it seemed like they were all checking on him.
Connor: Hey, Axel! How’s everything going up there with the storm? Did we sustain much damage?
Walker: What storm?
Connor: Big storm hit the area yesterday and was supposed to linger for a while. I was supposed to fly to Boston but ended up driving. I was just looking at the news and saw that Harbortown was mentioned.
Connor: Seriously, Axel, you need to check in and let us know if everything’s alright.
Slater: I just checked in with my buddy who was supposed to fly you out, Connor, and he said trees are down all over town. Especially on the 87.
Walker: Crap. That’s the only road in and out of the resort.
Walker: If Axel’s not chiming in, it’s possible the cell tower’s down or damaged and he’s not getting any of these messages.
Milo: I’m checking that now. Hang tight!
Connor: Who do we know in town that we can get a timeframe on when the road will be cleared?
Walker: It’s a Saturday, so I doubt anyone’s answering phones at public works. Although they’ve probably got crews out working on restoring power, right?
Slater: Not if the storm’s still raging. That’s a safety concern. It looks like there’s still a lot of lightning strikes in the area.
Walker: Shit! What are we supposed to do?
Axel knew he should jump in and respond, but he wanted to finish reading the entire thread first in case there was other pertinent information.
Connor: We can try reaching out to public works and see if anyone answers, or we can leave a message. It can’t hurt. I’m going to go to their website and see if there are any updates.
Milo: Their website says there’s a massive outage in the area. And from my program, it looks like that includes the resort. The generator was on in the lodge last night but it was turned off this morning. Now it’s on in the cabins. That tells me Axel spent the night at the lodge last night and then moved to the cabin this morning.
Walker: Why the hell would he stay in the lodge?
Connor: It’s a long story, but he had his reasons.
Oh, crap…
