Page 130 of Small Town, Big Storm

“Will you grab that box from the shelf for me?”I ask, and maybe my heart should be pounding, maybe I should be panicking.

It’s only been weeks since Storm came back into my life and upended everything I thought I knew.

Maybe I should still be worried he’ll leave again.

That he’ll leave me, leave Holly, leave this town and our life behind…

But my heart knows that’s not true.

Because he loves me too.

“Which box, Poppyseed?”he asks, already standing by the closet and looking up at the shelf.

“The one with the pink lid.”

He stretches, his tee lifting—giving me a glimpse of those glorious abs I admired this morning while he “swam” in his back yard—and snags the box, carrying it over to me.

“Sit,” I order gently when he sets it on the bed.

Questions in those gray eyes.

But he obliges me and sits.

I open the lid and know the moment he realizes what’s inside when his body goes stiff.

Gently, I pull out the memory book and open the cover.

“Holly Abigail Baker,” he murmurs, running his finger over the words I’d written six years ago.“You named her after my mother.”He looks up, his eyes shining with emotion.

I nod.“Seemed fitting that she have a piece of you too.”My mouth hitches up.“Aside from your eyes, of course.”

He exhales shakily.“Pop,” he begins, his face so gentle I know I’m going to lose it if I don’t focus.

“Let me give you some time back?”

Another slow, shaky exhale.

Then he nods.

So, I turn the page.

“Fuck, she’s beautiful,” he rasps.

I laugh.“Sully always said all babies are ugly.”The outrage on Storm’s face has me laughing again.“I know.I felt the same way.I yelled at him right there in the delivery room.”

“Good,” he grumbles, turning the page.

“Of course, then he held her and Holly had him wrapped around her little finger, and she was the most beautiful baby in existence.”

This time he scowls as he says, “Good.”

I point at one of my favorite pictures.“Clover took this.”

“You look incandescent.”

“I was,” I murmur.“And scared out of my mind.I’d carried her, pushed her out, but they were just going let me take her home?”I shake my head, chuckle.“I wasn’t qualified for that!”

His lips twitch.“I can imagine.”