No Place Like Home. Robin Nicholas

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СКАЧАТЬ rounded the truck, dust swirling, making him shield his eyes with his hand. He yanked open the door and shot onto the seat. Firing the engine, he swung the truck in a U-turn, skidding out of it to tear down the road, spraying gravel.

      Mariah drew a choked breath at the sight of the churning funnel through the rear window, and her sense of unreality effectively vanished. But Rafe had only to keep heading south and they would drive out of the storm.

      “We’ve got a right mover, Jeremy,” Rafe shouted into the CB mike. “I’m on a gravel road, west of 281. Are you in the path of the storm?”

      Jeremy’s voice crackled over the airwaves, barely distinguishable as he transmitted. “…road ends…get the hell out—”

      For Mariah, the last was clear enough.

      “Hang on!”

      She gripped the dash as Rafe turned the wheel sharply, heading east on a strip of gravel—straight on a course of interception with the storm.

      And he’d called her crazy.

      Had he actually made her feel safe from the storm? Had she actually wanted to kiss this madman?

      This morning, thirty had felt old. Now it seemed much too young to die.

      Mariah flinched, a cottonwood branch skidding across the truck’s hood. Her imagination, never lacking, conjured vivid images of what else the tornado had sucked up and sent spinning—plant life, homes, the people in them.

      Ann Taylor.

      How could Rafe take these risks after the death of his wife? His daughter depended on him. He was nothing like the responsible family men her father, brother and brother-in-law were. Not at all the kind of man she should want to kiss.

      The next gust shrouded the road before them with thick dust, dragging against the truck until it seemed to crawl. A dark wall of rain closed in, slashed with lightning and rimmed with streaks of bright white. Relief left her weak. “The tornado is gone! Vanished! There’s only rain now!”

      “It isn’t gone,” Rafe said tersely. “We just can’t see it. And that isn’t just rain. It’s a hailstorm.”

      A tornado they couldn’t see. Like some invisible stalker. And hail. Somehow she suspected it wouldn’t be the tiny stones she used to collect from the sidewalk after a summer rain.

      The first drops fell, a light rain that grew louder as hailstones littered the road and ricocheted off the hood. They came harder and faster, like her heartbeat.

      Rafe dragged a blanket up between the seats. “Cover up, in case the windshield takes a hit.”

      How would Rafe protect himself? She’d raised the thick quilt to her shoulders when a large stone struck the glass with a resounding crack. Dropping the blanket, she snatched tape from the dash, ripping off strips and slapping them across the new star in the window, stemming the flow of rain-washed air. Wind rammed the truck, a jarring reminder of the lurking tornado. They could die—and in that moment, all she could think was how she’d never had a child.

      “Hang on!”

      Rafe swung the truck in a southbound turn onto 281 and floored the gas pedal. Within moments, the hail stopped. The rain let up. A mile later, they’d driven from beneath the dark canopy of clouds, the skies lightening, the wind lessening to a breeze. Mariah searched for the tornado, but there was only the dark storm rotating across the prairie, leaving a broken trail behind.

      Rafe stopped the truck, killing the engine. Her heart pounded in the silence. Gold-tipped fields of winter wheat waved gently on the roadsides in soft sunlight.

      “You okay?” Rafe gripped her shoulders, his gaze delving into her eyes. A life-affirming awareness pulsed between them. Then he released her, pulling the blanket from her grip, tossing it to the rear. “I’d better survey the damage.”

      The closing of the truck door jolted her. A delayed trembling shook her, the nearness of their brush with disaster striking her anew. They’d almost been killed.

      And it was all his fault.

      Mariah pushed out of the truck, tromping around front in her scarred shoes and tattered stockings. The flow of clean, damp air over dusty ground and dry pavement only heightened her awareness of nature’s unpredictable power. Ignoring the curls that frizzed across her face, she vented her emotions in a shaky voice. “This is all your fault.”

      Rafe straightened from the smashed headlight he examined. “We’re safe now. And if I remember right, it was your idea to come along.”

      His calm after the storm infuriated her. “You almost got us killed!”

      Frowning, he twisted off the remains of a broken antenna. “Another way you might look at it is that I saved both our a—”

      Mariah knocked the antenna from his hand. “I think you drove us into that storm just to scare me.”

      His angry gaze bore into hers. “I drove us out of that storm the only way I could. We had a close call, but believe me, it could have been worse.”

      “All in a day’s work?”

      “That’s right.”

      The sun burned over them, warming already heated tempers, fueling underlying sparks before Rafe turned away, continuing a post-storm inspection she suspected he made on a regular basis. He was probably already planning his next chase.

      And she wanted no part of it. Her near brush with death had come with a revelation. She knew why she wasn’t sleeping at night, why her work was lackluster, why she noticed children everywhere. She wanted a child, and a dependable man to love her.

      She strode to the back of the truck. Her gaze blazed over Rafe, who was nothing like her dear old dad or her brother. “Take me back to my car. And don’t worry—I want nothing to do with writing your story.”

      She gave him no chance to reply, stomping back to grasp the handle on the passenger door.

      Her breath caught in her throat. Rafe stood at the edge of the highway, the incessant breeze tugging his hair, his clothes. He stared after the departing storm, clearly craving to give chase again.

      He was crazy.

      And she was crazy for wanting him.

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