Taken by Storm Read Online Free Page A

face. “Tell me you don’t drive like this. You’ll kill yourself or someone else.”
    He took a step toward her, brushed her cheek with his fingertips and frowned. His dark-as-midnight eyes radiated hurt. “I don’t have anything left.”
    A sharp pain hit her in the chest. “Don’t say that.” She let out a huge, shaky breath and felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
    It was too much. She should’ve stayed away.
    She thought she’d done the right thing. She’d left, kept the secret, and she hadn’t hurt MJ by revealing the truth. She moved on with her life. She might think of MJ and cry every single day for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t be with him and not tell him what she knew. She hated keeping secrets from him, but she could never hurt him with the truth.
    So, she did the only thing she could. She resigned herself to a life without him.
    MJ walked by her and opened his bedroom door. Withhis hand still on the knob, he looked back at her. “My dad found out about me today.”
    A second jolt rocked her chest like an electric shock. He’d waited so long for his dad to find out about him—that he even existed—and she hadn’t been there for him when it finally happened.
    But she was here now.
    Before she could speak, he turned away and shuffled into his room, collapsing on the bed. Maddie followed and shut the door behind them. “MJ, what did he say?”
    “Nothing,” he mumbled into his pillow. “The Old Man got my dad’s girlfriend to come here so he could break the news to her, use her as the messenger. She told my dad about me and he took off. She doesn’t even know where he went.”
    This was the worst possible outcome, and over the years she and MJ had considered them all.
    “What if he finds out about me and doesn’t want anything to do with me?” MJ asked, sitting on the branch beside her, high up in the willow tree beside the lake.
    Maddie watched their feet dangle and sway, side-by-side. It was the summer after eighth grade for her. She’d be a freshman in high school in the fall. She knew everything, or thought she did. “Of course he’ll want to be your dad. Why wouldn’t he?”
    MJ shrugged his boney, ten-year-old shoulders. “What if he doesn’t, Mads?”
    She elbowed him in the side, making him laugh. “Then I’ll kick his butt.”
    He elbowed her back. “Like you could.”
    She swung an arm over his shoulder. “For you, I would.” She squeezed him against her. “I promise.”

    Maddie walked over to the head of MJ’s bed. She reached out to brush a hand over his hair, but drew it back. “Want me to find him and kick his butt? I did promise after all.”
    She heard him sigh into his pillow. “You made a lot of promises.”
    Maddie let herself fall onto the bed beside him. Sitting at his side, she put a hand on his back. He was warm under the soft cotton T-shirt. She wanted nothing more than to snuggle up against him and make him forgive her.
    She longed to tell him the truth. He couldn’t think she honestly wanted to leave him. It wasn’t fair.
    But this wasn’t about her. And it wasn’t the time for secrets to come out. “What can I do?” She rubbed her hand in circles, hoping to give him some comfort.
    With his head still turned away in his pillow, he reached for her and pulled her down next to him. He didn’t say a word, just kept his arm tucked around her waist.
    Maddie slid her left leg over his right and laid her head on his back where her hand made small circles.
    He was drunk. Maddie knew this would never be happening if he was sober, but she’d take it.
    She stared at the full moon glowing between the slats in the blind covering his window. The repetitive motion of her hand and the friction of his shirt against her palm lulled her into a trance. For the first time in forever, she wasn’t searching for some answer inside herself. She was just feeling and breathing and living for each second as it came.
    MJ’s steady breathing slowed and she