Mark’s been with me long enough to know what I’m asking. “Need me to check on things?” he asks right away, the edge gone from his voice.
“Yeah.”
“Done.”
No questions asked. He’s like a goddamn guardian angel.
“I owe you.”
“You need something else, you call me,” is his only response before the line goes dead.
I take a turn faster than I should in this weather and dial my brother. It might be ten-thirty on a Sunday night, but he’s no doubt sequestered in his office, starting his workweek.
He answers on the second ring. “Gray?”
I swerve around a downed tree branch. “Eliza’s living out of a boat at Joe’s place, and she just called me. It’s flooded. Bilge pump doesn’t seem to be working.”
“You heading there now?”
“Yup.” I take a breath, knowing I’m about to hit him with a big ask. “Any chance you can swing by the farm, grab the manual pump, and bring it to us?”
I could do it myself, but it’d add ten minutes to the drive, and I can’t accept that kind of delay. Not with Eliza sounding the way she did, ready to crumble with panic. And not with her stubborn tendency to try to solve problems herself.
She better be inside that car.
“Done,” Anson says.
I wince. “I know it’s late and Lala?—”
“Stop,” he cuts me off. “Lala loves adventures.She’s either going to go crazy for this, or she’s going to sleep through the entire thing. I’ll see you soon.”
I end the call, beyond thankful. He might be a tight-ass, but he’ll drop anything for the people he loves.
The last two minutes of my drive are a collage of shit visibility and lightning strikes, and then I’m racing over potholes in the marina’s gravel lot until I’m next to Eliza’s little car. It’s the only other vehicle in this lot.
It’s also empty.
Fuck.
The pond is a mess of white caps and dark, churning water as I jog down the slick dock, vibrating underfoot as boats clang into it. Eliza’s vessel is easy to spot, its mast bobbing at the end of the row, the only boat here big enough to hold a livable cabin.
And if I had any doubts, the person-shaped shadow scurrying around the tilted deck confirms it.
Goddamn this woman.
“What the hell are you doing?” I bark as I bear down on the boat.
She must not hear me over the wind and rain, because she keeps furiously filling buckets and dumping them over the side—in afucking tee-shirt.
Thunder growls in warning, lighting up the sky with white-hot energy as I hop onboard. “Eliza!” I bellow.
She hears me this time, stumbling, and the full bucket in her hands drops into the open bilge hatch beneath her. Her mouth falls open, hair plastered to her face, eyes blinking through the rain.
Without another word, I move in and haul her over my shoulder. Not caring that I’m being a Neanderthal, I march to the cabin.
“Grayson!” She wriggles against me, and I clamp an uncompromising hand around her thighs.
Even infuriated, my blood heats at the feel of her bare skin and the knowledge that her perky ass is right next to my face. If she was mine, I’d swat it for this stunt.
