She opened the door leading out to the back porch, only to be met with a blast of wind and rain.
“Yikes,” she cried. She slammed the door shut and locked it and went to the front door, then out onto that porch.
Sheltered from the wind and rain, Katie sat down in the chair next to the door and clasped her hands in her lap. The rain was at downpour status, forming a gray curtain between her and the streetlights. Water was pouring off the roof into the gutters and gushing through the downspouts, and the longer she sat watching it, the more mesmerizing the rain became.
The urge to step off the porch out into the deluge was strong, making her wonder if it could wash away her past, leaving her clean and new, like being baptized. But the intermittent lightning within the storm took away that choice.
And then through the rain she saw the lights in Sam Youngblood’s house suddenly come on and imagined Sam hurrying to his girls to calm their fears.
He was an interesting man. She’d guess he was in his midthirties, and the phrase “tall, dark, and handsome” could have been coined for him.
Square jaw. Roman nose.
Chiseled features.
Sea-blue eyes.
A man’s man.
Police chief.
Raising two little girls on his own.
One might say he was remarkable.
And so she sat watching as the lights finally went back out across the street. Knowing children as well as she did, she guessed that whatever had happened had been dealt with. In a flight of fantasy, she wondered if Sam Youngblood made house calls to end adult nightmares. What she wouldn’t give to be rid of them.
She had no idea that Sam had paused on his way through the house to look out his front windows. At first all he saw was the rain, and then in a flash of lightning, he caught a glimpse of someone sitting in a chair on Katie’s porch.
It was her!
His girls weren’t the only ones disturbed by the storm. He hated the thought of her over there alone, living with the memories of demons that had passed through her life, and without thinking he opened the front door and walked out into the storm. The porch did not shelter him from the blast of wind and rain, but he wanted her to know he saw her. He wanted her to know she was not weathering a storm alone.
***
A gust of wind whipped around the corner of the house, making Katie shiver. Her feet were cold, and her summer pajamas weren’t nearly warm enough for this. It was time to go back inside.
And then in a flash of lightning, she saw Sam, chest bare to the storm and his pajama bottoms plastered to him like skin. She didn’t know whether to acknowledge his presence or just sit, but she no longer felt so alone.
And then he lifted a hand, and before she thought, she waved back.
He stood a moment longer and then went back into his house, leaving her all too aware of her surroundings. The storm had given her a false sense of safety within the darkness, until his sudden presence was a reminder of her vulnerability. With the energy of the storm around and within her, she went back into the house, her hands trembling as she locked the door.
No way was she going to sleep now. Not with the sight of Sam’s rain-soaked body still fresh in her mind, so she went to the kitchen, turning on lights to guide her way.
It occurred to her, as she sat having milk and cookies, that her food choices often matched the food choices of the children she taught. She was a child at heart, still looking for a family to love her.
***
Sam woke up before the alarm went off and lay within the silence of the house, thinking about the woman across the street. Maybe because he knew so much of her past, there was a part of him that felt led to protect her future. He knew the highlights of who she was, but he didn’t know the things that mattered, like what made her laugh. What she liked to eat. Her favorite color. What music she liked. And what she liked to do for fun.
And the moment all this went through his mind, he panicked. He had his hands full being a cop and raising kids. He didn’t have a spare second of his life to devote to even considering a relationship. What was even scarier was that she was the first woman since Shelly died who’d made him want one.
Even though he knew the loneliness of being left behind.
Even if she was so achingly lovely.
Even if she lived across the street.
He scrubbed his hands across his face, then threw back the covers and got up. Life was already pulling at his conscience, reminding him to get himself ready so he could feed his babies, get something ready for their lunch, and hope to God he got them through one more day without issues.
He heard them stirring as he was buttoning up the shirt on his uniform, so he went across the hall to get them focused before they started bouncing on the bed.
“Good morning, my sweet girls,” Sam said as he sat down on the mattress.
“Daddy!” they said in unison, and crawled out from under the covers and into his lap.
He pulled them close, feeling the warmth of them in his arms as they wound up for the day. Within minutes, they were talking in rapid-fire bursts of questions and information, ending with “What’s for breakfast?”
“It’s a surprise,” Sam said. “Get dressed and make your bed, then come find out.”
“We love surprises,” Beth said as they both bailed out of his lap.
“And I love you,” Sam said, but they were already digging through their dressers for clothes, which was his signal to go make a little magic in the kitchen. It was going to involve a microwave and precooked food, but he felt no guilt. He was a cop, not a chef.
By the time the girls came flying into the kitchen, he had created his own version of Happy Meal breakfasts. Sausage and egg on an English muffin, with little hash-brown nuggets and vanilla pudding cups. The icing on the cake was the “prizes,” because there was always a prize in a Happy Meal.
Being the father of little girls meant keeping a stash of all things girlie. So he’d pulled out kits of stick-ons for their fingernails and laid a little kit beside each of their plates.
The girls stopped at the table, eyeing the daddy version of an Egg McMuffin, their own little hash browns, orange juice, and a prize.
“Happy Meals! We have Happy Meals! Yay!” Evie cried.
“Yay!” Beth echoed.
“Dig in, but no playing with your prizes until you’ve eaten,” Sam said.
“Promise!” they chimed, and climbed up in their chairs.
“Where’s yours, Daddy?” Evie asked.
“I ate mine while I was making yours. I have to leave as soon as Miss Roxie gets here. Busy day for Daddy.”
“Poor Daddy,” Beth said, and before he could stop her, she’d opened her prize, peeled a rainbow star off the sheet of stick-ons, and stuck it on his thumbnail. “You deserve a prize, too.”