I woke up to the memory of Maggie in my arms, and the picture of her face on my pillow. I turned without waking her, to watch her sleep in the silvery morning light.

She stretched, sensuous as a cat, and opened her big brown eyes. “You’re here.” She smiled as the memories flooded back. “And we’re naked…”

I kissed her long… achingly long, aroused all over again by the teasing look in her eyes and the taste of our mingled flesh on her tongue. “It’s six-thirty. We ought to get back on the road.” I plucked a pale strand of her hair out of her eyes. “Dean’s going to be out of his mind.”

She sat up, forgetting the coverlet that slipped down and bared her beautiful breasts. “Oh God, he’ll be thinking something terrible has happened.” She got out of bed and gathered up her clothes. “Do I have time for a shower?” she asked. I stood up and collected my own clothes from the floor. Her eyes stopped at my erection, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Go on, Maggie,” I said, giving her sweet little ass a swat. “I’ll scare us up some breakfast and we can be on the road by seven.” She gave me a pouty look that dared me to change the plan. “If I join you in there, Dean will be sending a whole posse after us.”

She grinned and turned her back on me. I headed for the kitchen with everything but breakfast on my mind. As the coffee perked, I leaned back against the tile counter and pictured Maggie’s tender body, lathered and slick with soap.

“Where in the hell have the two of you been all night?” Dean asked without stopping. He was unloading CPR dummies for the first aid class. He and Jackie were teaching at the church today. Ryan and Henry had taken kits to distribute at the school.

“Ryan said the two of you never made it back yesterday. What’s with that?”

I looked over at Maggie’s face. “We got caught by a storm on the road,” I said calmly. “Hail… big stuff. I didn’t dare head back. Hail like that can be a sign that something worse is on its way.”

Dean straightened up and looked at me, then Maggie. ‘Well, I asked you to keep her safe for me,” he said. “I guess you kept your word… Thanks.” He clapped his heavy hand sharply on my shoulder and headed back to the truck for more. “Could use a hand,” he shot out over his shoulder.

Maggie and I shot a look between us, and I left her to welcome a handful of students who’d arrived for the class. I caught up with Dean and gathered up an armload of headless plastic torsos. His back muscles were visibly tight and the veins stood out on the sides of his neck.

“How was the class?”

“Great. How the fuck was my sister?” he shot back without facing me.

“Keep your voice down…,” I began. He cut me off.

“Goddamn it, Joe.” He finally turned to look me in the eye. His were dark, menacing. “I’ve known you for a lot of fucking years, and I know that look… Yeah, that one. The one that says you got laid last night.” He slammed the back of the truck shut.

“It isn’t anything like you’re thinking, Dean. I swear to God, it’s not.” I ran a hand roughly through my hair and down my bristly jaw. “We need to talk.”

“Fuck you and your talk. I know you’re no asshole, Joe. I’ve seen you with women in the past. You’d never intentionally hurt anyone… I know that.” He sighed hard, from the gut. “But this is little Mags we’re talking about. You’re thirty-three… she’s twenty fucking two. She isn’t like the others, Joe. You’ll hurt her.” His eyes, still dark with anger, pleaded with me. “She’s just a kid.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but that was the moment Ron and Margie burst through the back doors to lend a hand. They were tirelessly cheerful and oblivious to what they’d just interrupted. Together, we all gathered up the last of the supplies and headed back inside.

I spent the rest of the day snapping stills and making notes on my laptop for the TexStar spread. Dean’s words echoed in my head.

Ron and Margie had taken one of the trucks back to the farmhouse to pick up Ryan’s forgotten laptop. And Maggie and I had shared a brief moment before I took the van and made a circle, visiting all the other locations to check on their progress. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what Dean had said. In only a single day, we’d handed out almost half of the materials we’d brought. And more than a hundred people had been given disaster prep kits that they could never have afforded to buy. This trip was already an enormous success for her, and I didn’t want a cloud hanging over it. I’d talk to Dean again… I’d make him understand. Somehow, I had to find a way to make him accept us.

Thunderstorms, violent ones, had been building all day. Walls of dense, dark clouds formed in the distance, and a tornado watch had been announced for the entire area. It was hardly unusual this time of year, and watches were common enough. But as I drove back to the church and back to Maggie, I felt a deep unsettling in my chest and in my belly. Like the moment of stillness, when a glass falls from your hand… but hasn’t yet hit the floor.