Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) by Candace Knoebel, Sonya Loveday

“I’ve never liked storms. They’re so… so foreboding and, when I was little, I’d curl up with a blanket around me and hide under my bed until they passed.”
    My stomach contracted from thinking of her small form hiding. Of being that afraid. “Did it help? The blanket, I mean,” I asked, sliding a strand of hair that had fallen against her cheek back behind her ear.
    A nervous chuckle rattled through the air. “No. Well, sometimes it did. It’s just a silly childhood thing I did.”
    “Why is it silly?”
    She shrugged, rolling onto her back. “A blanket is just a thin piece of material. But when you’re small, that piece of material is like armor. Ya know? Like the one thing you can put between you and whatever fear you’re facing.” She curled tighter into a ball. “Which, like I said, sounds completely silly, but there you have it.”
    Her hands scrubbed down her face, and then she rolled back to face me, tucking her hands beneath her delicate chin.
    I caught myself looking at her… really looking at her. I knew what I had to do. What I could do… for her.
    “Give me just a second. I’ll be right back,” I said, getting up from the mattress, practically running for Maggie and Phillip’s room.
    “What are you—?” I heard her say. Her words were stained with laughter as I grabbed the comforter from where we’d dumped it on the floor and headed out of the room. From the corner of my eye, I saw my bag and kicked it into the hallway before retrieving Hannah’s. It would help if our stuff was where we needed it, especially if the storm got worse and one of us needed something. Having it close meant I wouldn’t have to leave Hannah any longer than necessary.
    “Ed!” I heard her shout, still laughing.
    “I’m coming, love,” I called out, but, before I could cross the threshold into the hallway, an angry gust of wind punched against the shutters. The window exploded, sending fragments of glass at me like shrapnel from a bomb.
    Shite.
    I turned, but not soon enough. A shard of glass whizzed by my cheek, slicing my skin.
    “Bloody hell!” I shouted as Hannah screamed for me.
    The wind did its damndest to drive me into the wall. Bending at the waist, I positioned my hands around the doorjamb and, with everything I had in me, I pulled the bedroom door toward me and then dove to the side when it slammed into its frame, sounding like a freight train.
    “Ed!” Hannah shouted, reaching for me.
    I held my hands up to halt her. “Stay back. There are pieces of glass everywhere.”
    The floor looked like a disco ball had thrown up all over it. There wasn’t a spot I dared to step, but I couldn’t stand where I was until the damn storm was over.
    I was well and truly up a stream without a paddle.
    “Hang on, I’ll get the broom!” Hannah shouted over the shrill sound of the wind coming from the half-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.
    I turned back to the closed door. I had dropped the comforter when the window blew out. It lay in a wet heap on the floor, so I shoved it into the gap, breathing a sigh of relief when the ear-piercing screech of wind muffled somewhat.
    The handle of the broom nudged my arm as Hannah stood in front of me wearing my boots. “Stand still for a second.”
    When she bent to her task, I watched as she maneuvered the broom around my feet, clearing a path for me to move out of the way so that she could sweep up the rest of the glass.
    I had to admit, and maybe it was a tad bit ridiculous considering the predicament we were in, but seeing her in my boots, with her hair all disheveled and her clothes all rumpled, had my thoughts on overdrive. Had me thinking back to how close we’d come to giving in to each other back in the shower.
    “Is that okay, Ed?” she asked as she swept the last of the glass into the dustpan.
    “Huh?” I tried to swallow down the thoughts of my hands grabbing her well-shaped backside.
    “I’m going to take the lantern for