When it rains it pours, p.1
When It Rains, It Pours, page 1
WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS
A Romance Short Story
S.E. ROSE
CONTENTS
1. Jade
2. Gunnar
3. Jade
4. Gunnar
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by S.E. Rose
Copyright © 2022 S. E. Rose
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
www.seroseauthor.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This story contains depictions of adult relationships and derogatory language. If such things offend you, then this story is not for you. This story is intended for mature readers.
This story was previously released as part of the Dissent Anthology.
Created with Vellum
Chapter One
JADE
Somewhere between the golf ball-sized hail and the lightning strikes, I decide to park under a bridge. I’m still an hour away from the hospital, but I can’t even see ten feet in front of me and if the hail gets any larger it’s going to crack my windshield and then I will definitely not be seeing anything.
With a sigh, I pull my truck over and park it in the gravel beside the road. For a long moment, I regret the decision to buy this vintage truck. I have no charging station, no high-tech navigation system, and no fancy satellite radio. Heck, this car only has an old cassette player that doesn’t work and an AM/FM radio. Conveniently, I have no radio signal under this dilapidated old overpass. Flipping off the now static white noise, I lean back in my seat.
I dig my phone out of my overnight bag and call my sister. Sally picks up on the second ring, which surprises me.
“Hey, everything alright? Did you run into the storms?” she asks, her voice laced with concern.
“Yep. I had to pull off under this bridge,” I answer as I open the weather app on my phone, but I only have enough service for a call and not data.
“Oh, wow. I’m glad you found a safe place. These storms look really bad,” she warns. I can hear some weather guy talking on the television in her hospital room.
“Sorry, Sally, I’m trying to get there,” I say as I nervously pick at the ripped leather on my car’s bench seat.
“Jade, it’s not your fault that peanut number two has decided to make an entrance during one of the worst weather nights ever,” she replies with a small laugh. I smile. Peanut Number Two. It’s what Sally and Derek have been calling this kid.
“Did your neighbor get Kyle settled down?” I ask, referring to my nephew, or as I started calling him a few weeks ago, the Original Peanut.
“Yeah, he’ll probably sleep through the night, watch a few cartoons, and eat waffles before he knows he’s a big brother.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask tentatively as I try to stop my finger from making the hole in the seat any worse.
“The contractions aren’t that bad yet, so pretty good. The doctor thinks this one will come faster.”
I hear someone in the background.
“Jade, I gotta go. The nurse is here. Call me when you can safely get back on the road, but don’t rush it. There are two more lines of storms behind this one. If you don’t make it until peanut number two arrives, it’s fine. We’ll be here.”
“I’m not missing this. I promise.”
“Love ya, sissy,” she says.
“Love you more. Now, go work on pushing that watermelon kiddo out. I need another niece or nephew to spoil.”
She laughs as we disconnect. I’m glad she’s in good spirits. Sally has been through hell and back. They had no problems getting pregnant with Kyle, but then she had three miscarriages in a row. The last one was bad, and she had complications and was in the hospital for a week. Thankfully, she had amazing doctors and medical care. They weren’t sure she could even have more kids. But then, out of nowhere, peanut number two decided to stick around. She refused to find out the sex and refused to pick names. She didn’t even pull Kyle’s crib and baby stuff out until three days ago.
Two days ago, she asked if I would come out when she got induced. And here I am, trying to get there, except this storm is killing my aunty vibes. I look down at the navigation app on my phone as the romance audiobook I was playing starts back up. I sigh and wish I had an alpha male character with me right now. I roll my eyes at the absurdity of that thought. I’m literally in the middle of nowhere and I’d more than likely find some creepy guy than one I’d want to do anything romantic with.
My mind wonders as I listen to the narrator’s voice. I stupidly tried to beat the weather by taking this back way and now I’m in the middle of nowhere, stuck under an overpass with not another car in sight…until I see a single headlight in my rearview mirror. I squint trying to get a better look but the hail that’s now marble-sized is still coming down and blocking any real view I might have. The vehicle gets closer and that’s when I realize it’s a motorcycle, not a car. The motorcycle pulls off and parks behind my car. The rider is huge. I nonchalantly use my elbow to press the lock down on my door. Great. Now I’m going to get murdered by some crazy biker dude. Perfect. Just perfect.
Chapter Two
GUNNAR
Baxter Mallory is going to kill me. I promised him I’d be there with this bike an hour ago. Baxter is my silent business partner. He’s also a badass ex-special ops security agent. He’s made a shit ton of money protecting famous people. But before that, he used to play stickball with me behind the crappy trailer park where we lived. I once saved his ass from a beating when I covered for him and told his old man that he was at my place. So, when I asked him to invest in my bike shop, he didn’t hesitate.
I promised him I would deliver this new bike to him tonight. He wants to impress a girl. Not sure she’s the type that will be impressed by a bike, but that’s not my problem. Yet, here I am, in a sudden downpour of hail. Fuck. So much for my damn weather app.
I manage to make out the outline of the overpass ahead. I pull in behind an old pickup truck. The hail lightens up a little, but the wind howls through the covered space, and the rain pelts sideways nearly reaching me. I retrieve my phone from my pocket, trying to shield it from the rain as I attempt to look at the radar.
My eyes widen as I see the line of storms overhead followed by two more intense lines of storms. What the fuck? I send Bax a message, explaining my delay and stick the phone back in my pocket. What am I going to do now?
I glance ahead again at the truck. A driver is sitting inside. I pull my helmet off to get a better view. Bright blue eyes meet mine in the car’s rearview mirror. A woman. She glances away quickly. I look down and smirk. I probably look scary as fuck. Well, she’s right to be scared. I didn’t exactly grow up on the right side of the tracks and in this get-up, some pretty little thing like her would probably mistake me for some angry biker.
I look around. There are woods ahead of us. Behind us, on one side of the road is a farm. An old barn sits atop a hill, but the house next to it is boarded up and definitely not inhabited. On the other side of the road is a meadow leading down to a stream with more trees. The farm could have people living on it, but farms out here can be a couple of hundred acres, so who knows how far away we are from an actual occupied home.
The wind howls again as lightning strikes nearby and suddenly the rain is being blown at me. I instinctively put my hands over my head as I grab my helmet.
“Get in!” a voice yells.
I look up to find the woman leaning out of her car window and motioning me to it with one hand. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I grab the key to the motorcycle and run up to the passenger side of her car. I open it and peer inside. The beauty of the woman staring back at me nearly knocks the wind out of my lungs. Her dark hair is pulled up on top of her head. Curly ringlets fall around her face. She has a perfect little nose and lips that I’m currently envisioning around my cock. My eyes trail down to tits that look like they belong on an underwear model. I can see her clench her hands around the wheel nervously.
I hold my hands out, so she can see I’m not a danger.
“You should get in here. It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” she insists. She chews on her lips nervously as she looks at me. Her voice is sultry and low. Everything about her screams sex, yet it also screams that she has no idea how gorgeous she is. Her messy hair, no makeup, old graphic t-shirt, and cut-off jean shorts are not flashy. But there’s nothing she can do to hide her natural beauty. It radiates from her like rays of sunshine. I quickly chastise myself. I shouldn’t be staring at her like this.
I’m about to tell her that I’ll be fine when a tree falls in front of us, and a branch comes flying in our direction. I duck and quickly jump inside the vehicle, slamming the door behind me.
“Damn! That was close,” she whisper yells.
“It wasn’t supposed to storm until later,” I mumble. Water drips from my hair and beard onto my leather jacket.
She turns and reaches behind us, retrieving a towel. “I think you might need this.”
I stare at the towel. “That’s, uh, very kind of you,” I manage as I take it and dry my head off. Either she’s Mar
I set the towel down on the seat between us as I take in the car’s interior. It’s not in horrible condition, but it needs a lot of TLC. There are a few rips in the leather upholstery. And the steering wheel and stick shift have seen better days.
“Jade,” she says as she holds out her hand to me.
I slowly raise mine and as I shake her hand, it disappears inside my much larger one.
“Gunnar,” I reply. I pull my hand away because touching this gorgeous woman is doing things to me. I need to get laid, badly.
I clear my throat. “Hell of a storm,” I mutter, trying to fill the silence.
“Yeah…I, uh, didn’t think it’d hit till later,” she agrees as she stares forward at the carnage in front of us. Branches cover half the road. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to get out of here later.
She picks at one of the tears in the leather of the seat. “Trying to avoid the interstate?” I ask, attempting to put her at ease again with some small talk. Some would say I’m lucky to be a big man, but it’s a curse. People take one look at me and think I’m a monster. And when I was younger, I enjoyed that shit. I wanted people to be scared of me. Hell, if they were scared of me, then no one would hurt me. Even now, it comes in handy, except for this very moment where I don’t want this woman frightened of me.
I glance down and see the branch gave me a nasty cut on my hand. I should be wearing my gloves, but I was being careless.
“Oh,” she says as she follows my gaze. “I have a first aid kit…” She trails off as she dives over the seat, her ass in the air as she rummages around in the back. I stare at her backside because it’s right in my face. She has a nice ass and a dozen dirty thoughts pierce through any decency I have left.
Thankfully, she finishes looking and plops back down on the seat holding a small white box with a red cross on it. She opens it and takes out a packet of alcohol swabs. She looks up at me.
“May I?” she asks as she motions to my hand. I nod and hold it out to her.
She takes it gently in her hands and cleans the cut and then places two bandages over it. Her soft hands caress mine as she examines it.
“There, all better,” she says as she smiles proudly at her work.
“Thank you,” I reply in a low voice. I don’t like it when she pulls her hands away from mine. I want to reach out and take them back, but I stop myself.
“What were you doing out here all alone?” I ask.
Pink spreads across her cheeks and down her neck to her chest. “I…was trying to cut some time off my drive. I’m on my way to the hospital to be with my sister.”
“Oh…”
“How about you?” she asks as she swivels a little to face me.
“I’m supposed to bring that bike over to my buddy’s place. I just hope it gets there in one piece,” I say with a sigh as I glance back at it.
“Are you selling it?” she asks her eyes staying fixed on mine.
“I fix up bikes and sometimes cars. My friend bought that one. It’s vintage, and I restored her for him.”
“That’s cool,” she answers as she runs her hand over the bench seat that we’re sitting on. “I need to work on restoring this beauty.”
I chuckle and she grins at me. Fuck. Her thousand-watt smile could light a whole city.
I poke my finger at the tear she’s been fingering. “It definitely needs a little work.”
“But she has good bones,” she says confidently. “How’d you get into fixing bikes?”
I lean back, remembering my very first one. I look at her and for a moment, I consider lying or glazing over the story, but for reasons I can’t explain, I launch into the story of my first bike, a bike I bought because I couldn’t afford a car. I tell her everything about growing up in the trailer park as the storm dies down outside.
When I finish speaking, she’s curled up with a sweatshirt that she’s pulled out of the back of the truck. I’m beginning to wonder if she lives in this truck because she has so much shit back there.
“You live far from here?” I ask, pausing my story to inquire about her.
She shrugs. “Sort of. This is about halfway between my sister and me.”
I want to ask why her sister is in the hospital, but I don’t want to bum her out if it’s something bad like cancer.
“Thanks for letting me in here,” I say as I look into her bright blue eyes.
She gives me a small smile. “I couldn’t let you stay out there. It was too dangerous. It was probably stupid of me, huh? You could be a serial killer or something.”
“You’re in luck. I only kill people driving convertibles,” I reply with a grin and a wink.
She laughs, and I love the sound of it. Something about it puts me at ease. “Good thing I have a truck.”
“How’d you end up with this jalopy?” I ask, using a word that I’ve heard my grandfather say a million times.
Her smile spreads across her face as she begins to tell me the story of how she got in a bad car accident and her insurance was shit and this car was all she could afford. And then when she could afford a better car, she didn’t want to because she was so attached to this beast.
“Beast?” I ask with a lopsided grin.
She bites her bottom lip, and her cheeks turn pink again. “Yeah…it’s such a big and ugly car that I decided to name it the Beast. You know, like the movie?”
“I have a little sister…I know the movie,” I grunt.
“Right,” she says. She opens her mouth to say something more, but our phones suddenly sound with a weather warning.
We both hold them up to see a tornado warning.
“Shit,” I mutter as I look out at the waning rain. As I crane my head more, I see dark clouds coming behind the lighter ones that are currently overhead. The tinge of green to them does not give a warm and fuzzy feeling.
I turn back and look at the barn.
“We need to run and take shelter,” I command.
“Where?” She looks around as if we are in a field with nowhere to hide.
I point to the barn and her head whips in the direction of my finger.
I open my door. “Come on, Jade. We need to go. Now!”
Chapter Three
JADE
My legs are pumping as fast as I can move them, but it’s not fast enough for Gunnar. He looks back behind us and his face pales.
I go to turn, but he grabs me by the waist and hoists me over his shoulder as if I’m made of air, running us both up the hill to the barn. I look and see the clouds in the distance. One cloud is distinctly funnel-shaped. Fuck.
I hear a thump and turn my head to see Gunnar kick open a door in the stone side of the lower portion of the barn. The barn is built on a hill with this side allowing entrance from a level that’s beneath the ground on the opposite side. He hurries us inside. The building is abandoned. He sets me down and takes my hand, leading me toward the back corner where there are no windows. His eyes dance around the building.
“Stay here,” he yells over the bustling wind outside that is growing louder by the minute.
I crouch in the corner and a moment later he’s back with a large wooden table. He sets it down and we crawl underneath it. He’s practically on his belly because of his size. I pull my knees up to my chest. He hands me something. I frown as I examine it. An old riding helmet.
“No way,” I state as I stare at the old dirty helmet and wonder how many insects live inside it.
He doesn’t answer me, but instead grabs the helmet and shoves it on my head. I wince because it’s too tight.
“It’ll protect you,” he grumbles.
Great. Now I’m stuck in a tornado with some overbearing, alpha biker. The wind keeps intensifying. I feel myself trembling.
All of a sudden, Gunnar’s body is wrapped around mine and he’s pulling me down so that his body covers mine. Pieces of the barn start to blow away and I scream.
