Free Storm the Author's Cut by Vanessa Grant

her.
    "Not dreaming," she said in a low voice. Her words were obscure and almost meaningless, but he knew about waking nightmares. The wind was warm, but she trembled. He drew her into his arms.
    "Tell me." His voice was the voice of the darkness.
    He felt her silent tears on his chest and rocked her gently against him. The roughness of the blanket she wore scratched his chest.
    "My brother was the pilot."
    "You were in the plane with him?"
    She shuddered in his arms. She had flown all day with him, had searched intently, hardly noticing the roughness of their ride. Or had she noticed?
    "You're not frightened of flying now?"
    The wind came over the cliff in a slow acceleration until the blanket whipped around him and her hair blew in intimate patterns on his chest.
    She shivered against him although inside she'd warmed the instant he touched her. "It took a long time before I could fly again." The psychologist every Wednesday for six months while she was at college.
    "Come away from the wind."
    "I'm not cold."
    Her hollow voice frightened him and he got her moving down the path, though she hardly seemed to know or care where she was.
    "Tell me," he urged her, needing to know.
    She pulled against his arms, turning back to look.
    "There was a tree like that," she whispered. "It was half through the windshield and tangled with the plane."
    He was silent, drawing her closer so that her cold body began to warm from his warmth.
    "Cheryl cried all night. I couldn't even turn to see her. She never answered me when I called. Shane—Shane—He..." She shuddered violently, pulling away from his arms, shivering in the warm night air.
    "They all died... Shane and Bob and Cheryl. It should have been me! I brought it on them.
    She heard his voice calling her back. In the midst of the wreckage, alone with her dead in the wild storm, no one had called to her. But now, Luke's voice urged her, "Come here. Come to me. You're cold."
    He drew her away from the cliff, away from the tree that was so like the tree outside the broken seaplane she remembered. He led her down the path towards the pool where the steam rose in lazy warmth. She trembled from the cold of her memories, but he held her in his arms until her shaking stopped. He had found a curved seat and he drew her down with him. When her trembling stopped, she drifted, almost asleep, secure against him.
    The wind was returning. The clouds had masked the moon. Around them the trees rustled, whispering in the darkness. They lay quiet, protected from the wind by the hillside behind them.
    "Better?" he asked softly.
    "Yes." She didn't want to move. His hand was on her arm, on her bare shoulder. She felt his warmth against the coldness of her memories and she curled against him, burrowing closer. The force of her own emotions frightened her and it seemed only his closeness could keep her sane. At the same time she felt self-conscious about the tears she had shed on him. "I'm sorry."
    He moved his hand along her arm, caressing her gently. "We all have our dark nights. Tomorrow the sun will shine. The past will be where it belongs."
    She watched the dark movement of a tree against the sky and tried to think of tomorrow. Somewhere, a part of her knew that reality was tomorrow and Queen Charlotte City and Ken... not Luke Lucas on a stormy, deserted North Pacific island. But the weatherman had issued a storm warning, and he had been right. The storm was everywhere—outside her and within her. Tonight there was only one reality.
    "I cannot imagine tomorrow," she whispered.
    The wind whipped over the cliff, winding down the hillside and over their entwined bodies.
    "Do you want to go back to the cabin?"
    Back to the lonely night and her memories. She felt his hands move on her back, comforting her. His fingers moved over the straps of her bra, tracing soothing fire along her skin.
    "No," she whispered against his neck. "I want to stay out here." She feared the spell would shatter if they moved.
    She