Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1) (7 page)

So in one sense, he did owe her the respect of not blowing up if she dabbled in this new idea. If she’d pulled a string or two, as Simon said, Zach could let it go. Or could he? He knew her intentions were in the right place, but for once he wanted something of his own, outside of her money-laden reach. Another reason his furniture business stayed under wraps.

Traffic was better this time around, since the going-to-work pileup wouldn’t be for another hour, so cruising through the streets to the big glass building was a breeze. He pulled into the front parking lot and drove straight to the Infinity TV van. He could see the bottom half of a female sitting in the passenger seat with her feet up on the dashboard, in snug jeans and sandals. Good potential.

For about thirty seconds. When he pulled next to them, she got out, and his stomach threatened to come up in his throat.

“Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.

“Wait, that looks like—” Hannah began, leaning forward over the center console.

“Is that Maddi?” Simon asked.

Zach’s skin started to tingle from the rush of anger that spread through his veins. Or that’s what he told himself it was. He ran his hands over his face and back through his hair before looking back at her. She was looking right back at him, her dark hair blowing around her face, arms crossed over her chest and eyes as dark as the angry clouds up ahead.

Maddi dug her nails into her arms as Zach opened his door and got out to face her. She held her chin up, trying to look braver than she felt. Hoping he hadn’t noticed her nearly fall out of the van. She was trying too hard to look cool and confident, which she was anything but. Her heart was on some sort of race from hell, and she knew she needed to take some breaths and calm down if she was going to pull this off. There was no table between them this time, no bosses to bluff. Nothing but air and history between her and the one man she’d ever let break her.

And she was voluntarily riding into the one thing she feared the most.

“Why are you here?” he said, his voice low.

“Because my boss couldn’t be,” she said through her teeth, releasing the death grip she had on her own arms to move hair out of her face. “And she wants this.”

“Oh, I can see that,” Zach said. “She misses the meeting, misses the ride-along, but she’s all about it.”

“It is what it is, Zach,” Maddi said. “I didn’t ask for this, either, but it’s my job. Are you going to have a problem with it?”

Zach’s eyes bored into hers so hard she had to resist the urge to reach for the car door. For anything to hold her steady. Finally he took a deep breath and stared off toward the dark clouds in the distance.

“I can do it if you can,” he said.

“Good. Let’s get on with it, then,” she said with more bravado than she felt. She crooked a finger at a man who appeared from the back of the van.

The way his gaze drilled into her when she met it again forced her to look away. There was something—old, and painfully familiar there. He’d done that in the meeting as well, and it made her thoughts go all dizzy. She couldn’t afford dizzy.
Remember the stairs
, she reminded herself, and relaxed as the ice returned to her veins.

“This is Rudy, my cameraman,” she said, as the two men shook hands.

“Simon and Hannah are in the truck,” Zach said, for which Maddi wanted to jump up and down. She was so grateful for something to do that didn’t include trading uncomfortable moments with Zach. And he looked like all the wind had been knocked out of him. Good. He needed to be knocked somewhere, all right. “You remember them?” he added.

“Of course,” she said, giving him a look. She moved past him and leaned in the window slowly, smiling at them as well as to herself. Maybe the airheads had something on this positioning idea after all. “Hey, long time no see!”

Zach glared at the band of darkness up ahead while they did the niceties. He just wanted to get back on the road and somehow make this normal. He needed normal, and the electricity in the air was beginning to make him itchy.

He knocked on Hannah’s window while Maddi laughed with Simon about how short his hair was now. Her raised eyebrow as the window lowered made him blow out a breath.

“Interesting secret you kept,” she said without moving her lips.

“It wasn’t supposed to be her,” Zach said. “And I just found out she worked there yesterday.”

His heart warmed toward his sister when she looked Maddi’s way as if she were looking at a rotten tomato. She’d loved Maddi like a sister once upon a time, had been one of her best friends. And felt nearly as bereft as he had when Maddi left. Then she got mad.

“You okay?” she asked.

He looked at the woman chatting with his brother like old times. The woman he thought he’d never lay eyes on again. The woman that currently had his fucking hands shaking and his head on a rotisserie.

“Jesus,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his pocket. “Yeah.”

Hannah’s left eyebrow rose as she took in the movement. “I can see that. Don’t let her get to you.”

Zach swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a second so he could get where he needed to be. He needed cold, analytical thinking. No emotion. He blew out a slow breath and tuned out the sound of Maddi’s laughter just three feet away.

“I’m good,” he said, opening his eyes and winking one of them at his sister.

Hannah smiled. “And she’s going to sit through a possible tornado? Really?” she asked under her breath.

Zach closed his eyes again and clenched his teeth together. “This is so fucked—” Inhaling sharply, he turned and slapped a hand on Rudy’s back. “This is Rudy,” he said. “Rudy, this is my sister, Hannah, our photographer and videographer.”

Hannah gave her most dazzling smile and held out her hand. “Hi, Rudy, ready for some fun?”

“Okay,” Zach said, pulling himself back to business. “Here’s the plan. See that band of nasty over there?” Maddi and Rudy looked where he was pointing, at the line of looming darkness that had grown even more in the last twenty minutes. “We’re driving straight into that.”

“Yay,” Maddi said, adding a little laugh that Zach didn’t buy.

“Stay right behind me, and be careful,” Zach said, reaching for the radio Hannah was already holding out the window. “This handheld radio is already tuned to ours. If you get into trouble and you can’t get a cell signal, just press and talk and we’ll hear you.”

Maddi handed the radio to Rudy. “He’ll take that. I’m supposed to ride with you.”

“Say what?” Hannah asked, her eyebrows lifting.

Maddi smiled at her. “Yep.” She opened the back door, forcing Hannah to back up and move over. “My boss wants me in the thick of it—her words—and asking questions. I can’t very well do that from the other car,” she said, getting in and closing the door. “Rudy has a roof cam so he can film from behind and maybe catch something good.” She smiled at Hannah. “Like old times, huh?”

Hannah met Zach’s eyes. “Like something.” She looked disgusted. He agreed. Nothing about this was going to be good.

“Holy hell,” Zach said under his breath, getting back behind the wheel. “Rudy, you gonna be all right, bud?”

“I’m good,” he said, speaking for the first time.

Rudy didn’t appear to be all that good, but Zach had the impression he didn’t have much choice in the matter.

“All right,” Zach said, glancing back at Hannah and Maddi, who were both in the process of tying up their hair. He shook his head at the surrealness of it. “Get your game faces on. We may hit this thing a little sooner than expected.”

“What are the little radar things on the top of the truck?” Maddi said as they pulled away. “I don’t remember that.”

“Portable anemometer,” Simon said. “We didn’t have that before. Measures wind speed.”

“And what’s the laptop for?” she asked him.

“It’s what I use to spot the storm-cell activity,” Simon said, pointing out the radar screen he’d pulled up. “I can see exactly what it’s doing, what direction it’s moving, and where the really bad shit—stuff—is.”

“So I know where to go,” Zach finished.

“Don’t you mean where
not
to go?” she asked.

“Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Hannah said. “But you know Zach.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Maddi echoed.

Zach met Hannah’s gaze in the rearview mirror and let out a long slow breath. It was going to be that kind of day.

“I can also report directly to the National Weather Service from here,” Simon said, keeping the subject rolling. “We can call it in or do it online. Depends on conditions.”

“I thought you said you had two vehicles you did this with now,” Maddi said. “Where’s the other one?”

“We don’t always bring both,” Zach said. “This isn’t supposed to be a huge event, and Eli had something to do.”

Eli came up with something to do. Probably doing crossword puzzles in his office or rearranging his files or anything to avoid being a part of Zach’s evil plan.

“So, are you married, Maddi?” Simon asked, making Zach want to pull the car over and pummel him. “Kids? Dogs?”

Maddi chuckled behind him. “Nope. I’d love to get a big dog one day, but that requires a yard, which requires a house.”

“Which requires money,” Simon added.

“Exactly,” she responded. “Which requires the crazy hours I work—and allows me no time for my dream dog.”

“So what do you do?” Simon asked.

“I’m the assistant to the associate producer,” she said. “And yes, that’s as useless as it sounds.”

“Hey, you’re there,” Simon said. “It’s a start.”

“It’s been
a start
for a long time,” Maddi said dryly. “I’m ready for a move.”

“Didn’t you want to go be a big shot on CNN? Or Fox News?” Hannah asked.

Zach gave his sister a look in the mirror. That was kind of mean.

“Yeah, well,” Maddi said. “Real life, and all that.”

For twenty-nine more minutes, Maddi asked questions, commented on the vehicle, the clouds, the equipment, and Zach endured it because he had to—and the subtle sweet aroma of her scent, and the sound of her voice got him through it. Until a big fat raindrop splatted against the windshield.

“Here we go,” Zach said.

“Pull over,” Hannah said.

“Why?” Maddi asked.

“Look at that shelf cloud,” Hannah said. “Damn, that’s beautiful.” She grabbed her other camera from a bag on the floorboard as Zach pulled to the side of the road.

“So you just stop and take pictures?” Maddi asked.

“Somebody has to,” Hannah said, pushing open her door. “Remember?”

More big drops hammered the windshield. “It’s raining,” Maddi said, as if that would change her mind.

Hannah chuckled, her eyes lighting up. “Yes, it is.” She shouldered her bag and the video camera as well. “Just a few shots, Zach.” Two minutes later, Hannah was back in, stray curls blown free and stuck to her wet face. “Wind’s picking up.”

They pulled out onto the highway again, the van following them amidst pummeling rain. Chatter on the radio increased as other storm chasers in the area chimed in. The darkness loomed over them like a claw, and even through the slicing windshield wipers, Zach could see it. Feel it. The promise of what was to come as the air changed.

That’s how he always knew. Regardless of Simon’s reports, of what anyone on the radio said, he knew when it was coming. The change of the pressure on his skin, on his brain—it fueled him like a drug.

But Maddi had grown quiet, and he wished she was sitting where Hannah was, so he could see her face in the rearview mirror. He wanted to know she was okay. It felt more and more wrong, her sitting through this.

“You all right, Maddi?” he asked finally, needing the reassurance.

“I’m fine,” she said, attempting cocky that didn’t quite play that way. “Just worry about what you’re doing.”

“We’re good back here,” Hannah said, palming her camcorder.

“Talk to me, Simon,” he said as the rain became a wall of white, blowing at an angle he could only see by where it hit his window.

“Jesus,” Maddi breathed, gripping his seat.

Damn it, he could feel her fear behind him, and he couldn’t stand it. If something happened to her again because of him . . . but it wouldn’t. He just had to keep his wits about him.