Page 75 of Rebel Moon

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”

“And?”

“There have been … things … that have transpired between us. But we both know it’s too risky to go beyond this month. She’s got her clinic to run. We’ll be back to normal life in the new year. Regardless, I’m caught in a web of secrets. Feels like I can’t so much as look Jack in the eye. I’m being slowly tortured.”

I cursed under my breath. “This whole temporary world we’ve been living in has created havoc for us. I’m sorry.”

“I keep telling myself that a month with her is better than no time at all. But as the days go by, I’m starting to wonder if I was right about that. The longer we’re together, the more I want.”

“I wish I had some advice for you, but I’ve got nothing.”

“Same goes for me,” Grant said.

“I guess we just sit here in front of the fire until the storm blows over.”

“If only it were that easy.”

We both knew we weren’t talking about the snowstorm.

20

MADELEINE

This storm had made my whole world disappear. When I’d gotten back from Blake’s, I’d stood at my window and watched stormy weather eat the ranch. First the pines, then the fire pit, Knox's cabin—all of it swallowed into a roaring gray-white nothing that pressed against the glass like it wanted in. My cabin had started creaking and shuddering, with wind screaming in a high continuous shriek down off the mountains. It wouldn’t stop.

I’m not one who scares easily. I helped raise my sister, sat in boardrooms with men who thought they could eat my lunch for breakfast, negotiated terms for my clients without a moment of apprehension. However, being by myself in what felt like nothing more than a wooden box that nature could crush in a second scared me senseless. This storm didn’t care about who it harmed. There was nothing personal about it. No way to reason or negotiate with it. I had to simply wait it out. Alone.

The lights had flickered several times and then went out completely.

That’s when I really started to freak out. I hate the dark. I associate it with childhood. All the times we had the lights turned off until my mother could pay the bill. Other times, storms took out entire blocks of electricity. We were always the last neighborhood to have our power back. They saved the poorest for last.

Now I was here in the dark, with the storm raging, and I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a scared kid. The only place I could think to hide was the bathroom. There were no windows there.

Thank goodness my phone and earbuds were charged. My phone wasn’t getting reception but I had playlists saved on my phone. I turned one on that I’d made of old school country. For years, I’d listened to it when I needed to feel safe, and today was no exception.

I’d curled up on the bathroom floor with my back against the tub and wrapped myself in a blanket. I closed my eyes, red and swollen from crying, and let the music drown out the shriek of the storm.

All my life, music had been the only thing that had ever allowed me to truly escape. It had not let me down today. I’d stayed in the bathroom for an hour at least, with Dolly, Emmylou, Reba all singing in my ears. Like angels, they transported me to another world. I could forget everything in the middle of one of their songs.

Not everything. Not Knox. He was fifteen feet away, in his own dark cabin, alone. Why had I walked by him when I’d had the chance to be with him, to be ushered inside where it was safe and warm? I could have been in his arms during this horrific storm instead of crying in the bathroom.

I sat alone in the bathroom for several hours, trying to drown out the storm with the music. At some point, my phone lit up with a text. I pulled one earbud out. The storm immediately rushed back in.

There were three texts. The times stamped strange and clustered, all delivered at once the way they do when the signal's been down and something finally punches through.

Ivy

Is Knox with you?

Ivy

Mads PLEASE answer me. Is Knox in your cabin? Nobody can find him and he's not answering his phone. Please tell me you’re okay and that he’s there with you. I’m freaking out.

Ivy

Grant found him. He's OK. But he was out in the storm. Grant saw him leave your porch and wander out in the storm. Apparently, Knox got lost but Grant used the rope thing and somehow saved him. It’s nothing short of a miracle. Grant pulled him out of the snow down by the creek. He’d gone that far off the path! A few more minutes and he might have ended up in the water. But he’s fine. He's with Grant at his cabin. Please tell me you're OK too, the second you get this. I don’t know why you wouldn’t answer your door when Knox knocked.

I read it three times.