“Who’s Jase?”
Her tone took on a bit of an edge. “Jason. My son.”
Right. Her kid. Why did he keep forgetting she had one? Wait, make that two.
Probably because you don’t want to remember.
He ignored the internal taunt. Fine, so he wasn’t particularly thrilled that Miranda had two children, but that slice of misfortune wouldn’t stop him from doing his damndest to get her in bed. He’d already made it clear he wasn’t applying for the position of her baby-daddy, and he also wasn’t going to pretend to like kids just to sleep with the woman. Still, acknowledging the rugrats’ existence couldn’t hurt his cause.
“Your son’s not with you?”
She sounded upset. “No, he was at a friend’s house. The parents are dropping him at the school. They just called to say they’re ten minutes away.”
“Good. Once they arrive, get everyone home. The roads aren’t too bad yet, but the weather reports are saying there’s some risk of flooding.” He paused. “Might be some power outages too. You got candles and flashlights at home?”
“Yes, Seth. I also have canned food and bottled water and something called common sense and basic survival knowledge.” Her sarcasm reverberated through the line.
“Good,” he said again. “Call or text when you get home.”
“If I remember.”
“Don’t f**king give me that. If I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’ll get in my car and—”
“Fine,” she interjected. “I’ll call you.”
With that, she hung up, leaving him staring at the phone in frustration. That woman drove him absolutely insane. So f**king independent, determined to do everything on her own, even when she desperately needed help.
He could see why his mother had worried about Miranda moving out here. The women who danced at the Paradis were like a close-knit family, always looking out for one another. They’d mothered Seth to the point of exasperation when he was a kid, and he knew Miranda had experienced that same maternal attention and sisterly devotion. He also knew she hadn’t once asked any of them for help in the four years she’d worked there.
Now that she’d left the Strip, she was completely on her own, raising two kids alone, and Seth worried that she’d never be able to swallow her pride and seek him out if she was truly in trouble.
Or at least that’s what he thought before the doorbell rang nearly an hour later.
Dylan, who’d been watching the storm coverage on the living room television, glanced at Seth in bewilderment. “Expecting anyone?”
He shook his head, getting a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to like what he found on his doorstep.
Setting his beer bottle on the pine coffee table, he rose from the couch and headed to the front hall. He’d only intended to open the door a crack, but a gust of wind blew it open, almost smashing him in the face. He stopped it just in time, then took a second to gape at the three bedraggled creatures huddled on the front stoop.
Miranda’s dark hair was drenched, wet strands glued to her forehead and whipping around in the wind. In her leggings and T-shirt, which were soaked, she wasn’t dressed for the weather, but the children plastered to her were. Two of them, wearing matching yellow raincoats with the hoods up, clinging to Miranda’s legs and wobbling each time they got blasted by a rainy gust.
“You just going to stand there or are you going to let us in?” Miranda yelled, her voice tinny amidst the persistent drumbeat of the rain.
Seth blinked, recovering fast. He ushered her and the children inside, then struggled to shut the door. He was yet again drenched, and new puddles were forming on the hardwood.
He focused on Miranda, whose hazel eyes looked a tad wild as she pushed hair off her face.
“You okay?” he demanded. “What happened?”
She blinked a few times. Glanced around the small entrance, as if she couldn’t comprehend what she was doing there. Then she opened her mouth and said, “My apartment is…”
Seth waited. When she didn’t finish the sentence, he sighed. “Your apartment is what?” he prompted.
Miranda wasn’t the one to respond. Rather, it was one of the dark-haired imps by her side, a little girl with pigtails and big brown eyes peeking out of that yellow hood.
“Underwater,” the girl announced.
He furrowed his brows. “What?”
“We live underwater now.”
Chapter Four
“Like The Little Mermaid, ’cept it wasn’t like The Little Mermaid at all,” Sophie explained in dismay. “It was cold and wet and icky and—”
Miranda snapped out of her shocked trance and placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Hush, Soph. I can explain it to Mr. Masterson—”
Seth snorted.
“To Seth,” she amended, meeting his amused gray eyes. “I’m so sorry to just show up like this. I had your address in my phone and I didn’t want to drive all the way back to the school when your house was so much closer. Imperial Beach is closer to Coronado than it is to the city—” Wonderful, now she was giving him a geography lesson. “And I couldn’t call because there was no signal and—” she gulped, trying to collect her composure, “—Ginny and Elsa live in studio apartments and I didn’t want to put them out, but I remember you saying you had a spare room and…”
She was too mortified to keep going, so she stopped talking altogether.