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she could kiss goodbye was her dream of becoming a corporate executive.
    Rain pounded on her windshield. Gray skies filled the eastern horizon. Wind whipped the palms and sent loose fronds skittering across the road. Stephanie cringed asanother bolt of lightning struck offshore. Determined to outrun the storm and the need building within her, she pressed harder on the accelerator.

Chapter Three
    With the rainstorm raging behind her, Stephanie sped up the westbound ramp onto the Beach Line. From the crest of the next humpbacked bridge she saw nothing but empty road. It told her exactly what she did not want to know—she was the last person off the island. A chill prickled her arms and she pressed her foot nearly to the floor until, at last, a set of red taillights appeared in the distance. She paced the car ahead while ominous weather reports spewed from the radio.
    As if she needed another reminder of how right Officer Lincoln had been, her cell phone rang the second her tires hit the mainland. Her anxious parents needed reassurance. It was hard to sound breezy and carefree while winds buffeted her car and another squall rattled the roof, but she downplayed the danger and focused on her safety.
    “I’m fine,” she insisted. When the radio announcer disagreed, she spun the dial until country music filled the car. Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” wasn’t the most reassuring choice, but it was better than the storm warnings.
    “I’ll be perfectly safe in Orlando. I’m practically there already.” She crossed her fingers so her parents wouldn’t know she was lying.
    Rain squalls stretched the hour-long drive to ninety tense minutes. When she finally steered into the crowded parking lot of the middle school marked on the map Officer Lincoln had given her, her cell phone began to ring insistently. She found a lone vacant slot at the end of the building and blew out a deep breath, promising she would one day thank the man who had evicted her from her house. Before it quit ringing, she grabbed her cell and glanced at the 321 area code and the unfamiliar number.
    Was someone from Space Tech calling to warn her of the impending storm? A bit late, she thought, and straightened.
    “Stephanie Bryant,” she said mustering the most professional voice her frazzled nerves allowed.
    “Stephanie, this is Brett. Where are you?”
    Her brow puckered. Memorizing all the Space Tech employee names was still on her To Do list, but she was almost certain there was no Brett on the payroll. “I’m sorry. Who is this?”
    “Brett. Brett Lincoln.”
    Oh. Him. She dropped her work voice.
    “Brett, huh?” she teased. “So, you have a first name other than ‘Officer’?”
    “All my life,” came the dry response. “Have you reached the shelter yet?”
    If a sense of humor lurked beneath that rough cop’s exterior, she hadn’t found it. She eyed the mortar that ran between the concrete blocks of the shelter’s sturdy walls and tried again. “No, I decided to ride it out at the house.”
    His response was immediate. “Not a chance. Your place is locked up tight and your car isn’t there.”
    The jury was still out on the humor thing, but he had checked. Concern was also a good quality.
    “Don’t worry. You made a believer out of me. I’ve justarrived at the shelter and I’m headed inside as soon as we finish. Anything new on the weather reports?” The constant hurricane warnings had been so unnerving she had opted to stick with the country western station broadcasting from someplace called Ocala.
    Brett’s voice deepened. “They say the eye will come ashore before daylight.”
    Stephanie gulped. An intercom crackled in the background and Brett asked her to hold. The interruption gave her a chance to pray that her Cocoa Beach home would still be there when she got back.
    “I have to go,” Brett said.
    There was something else she needed to say. “Um, if I haven’t told you already, thanks. Thanks, for