Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance by Vesper Vaughn Page A

ears are ringing, and I feel the soft fabric of people passing by me, buffeting my body. I’m squeezing Luke’s hands and I’m aware of him speaking to me. But I can’t hear him. He lets go of my hands and I cry out “No!” without meaning to.
    “Ella, Ella. Look at me. Look at me.” I shake my head and my ears clear, and Luke has grabbed my shoulders and bent down to meet my eyes. “It’s okay. The basement’s just over there. You’re okay. But we gotta move, alright?”
    “Don’t let go of my hand,” I whisper back to him, fear coursing through my body. He grabs my hand and leads me toward the stairs. We queue up behind the few remaining people and descend underground. I can smell the earth and the vague scent of mildew. A rickety lightbulb hands in the middle of the ceiling, the earthen walls filled with thin roots. Somebody’s put up studs and started paneling the walls, but they haven’t made it far.
    Tanya comes rushing over to us and hugs me. “It’s alright, baby girl,” she says. “Storm’s pretty far away and looks like it’s going to miss us by a wide mile.”
    The hum of conversation around me somehow makes its way into my ears, down to the middle of my chest where my fear is sitting and clears it up. I realize that I’m still holding Luke’s hand. I still don’t let it go. He makes me feel safe, and he’s clearly not in a hurry to leave me. He steers my body to a rickety chair and offers it to me. “Sit,” he says.
    I shake my head. “No thanks, I’d rather stand up.” I’m biting my lip and my heart is still pounding. Someone turns on a weather radio and the feedback shrieks through the underground space. A few people yell from the discomfort of the noise.
    “Sorry!” says the radio operator. Everyone shushes everyone else and I hear the weatherman’s voice.
    “…stormchasers indicating the storm is headed toward the Buxwell area. It’s an F3 at this point…”
    The noise around me falls back to a ringing sound. Luke squeezes my hand and whispers in my ear. He’s all I can hear right now. “It’s been awhile since you’ve been through this. Storms change track all the time. All the time. You remember that? How many times were we on the phone with each other across town and you swore a storm was coming right for you? And how many times did it change?”
    “All but once,” I say. And here are the tears that have been pushing at me all this time, threatening to spill over and swallow me whole.
    “You will be fine, Ella,” he whispers again, his breath hot on my ear. Suddenly I’m not afraid anymore. Suddenly I just want to be wrapped up in his muscular arms, the rainy smell of his skin bathing me, washing me, rinsing me clean. I want his lips on mine. I want Luke.
    “It’s moving!” someone yells. “They say it’s going east of here.”
    There’s no one and nothing east of here. Everyone sighs with relief. Alexa runs over to me, Teddy in her arms. He’s asleep, his lanky body lax and breathing slowly. “This kid sleeps through everything,” she says with a smile.
    “You okay?” I ask her, pulling my hand away from Luke’s.
    She nods. “Barely. I only just got here when the sirens went off. Sky went from clear to green and cloud-filled in about five seconds. It’s gonna be a bad season, Ella. That’s what everyone’s saying.”
    I nod, trying to push her words out of my head. Her eyes go wide when she realizes what she’s just told me.
    “Oh. Ella. I’m sorry I didn’t mean-“
    I shake my head. “I’m fine. Just something to get used to again, that’s all. We don’t really have tornadoes out in California. That’s all.”
    Alexa looks skeptically at Luke. “Alright,” she replies.
    Luke grazes his fingers over my shoulder. “You want to head back upstairs? Everyone else is.”
    I swallow and shake my head. “I’m not much feeling like a party. I’m kind of tired.”
    Alexa smiles. “I hate to be a downer but I need to get Teddy home.