Hell on Wheels: A Loveswept Classic Romance (2 page)

Victoria could only stare in openmouthed shock. The man was unforgivably rude. In the first place, Amos wasn’t exactly a prime target for a gold digger. He lived in a two-bedroom frame house in a modest neighborhood of Lubbock, Texas. He was a tenured professor at Texas Tech University, so he had some security, but he was hardly rich. In the second place, Amos was her friend and mentor, nothing more. Anyone who thought otherwise was an ignorant fool.

Well, at least Roan Cullen had admitted that his assumption was mistaken. Figuring the best defense was to ignore his tactless comment, she stood aside to let him in.

“It’s hotter than hell in here,” Roan said. “Is the AC broken?”

“It’s warm in here because Amos has a fever and he was chilled,” she said, closing the door.

“A fever?” Roan’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Is he okay?”

“Get in here, boy, and I’ll show you okay,” Amos called irritably from the kitchen. “Can’t stand it when people talk behind my back.”

Victoria shrugged and led the way to the kitchen. She had already made up her mind—she wouldn’t go on the road with Roan Cullen. She needed to think clearly and act sensibly while she was chasing. With Roan around, she was sure she could do neither.

“So, what’s this about a fever?” Roan asked as he strode into the kitchen to find his uncle sitting at the table, hunched over a bowl of soup.

“It’s not just a fever, it’s the cold from hell,” Amos grumbled. “And if you don’t want to catch it, you’ll keep your distance.”

“I never get sick,” Roan argued, leaning down to give the old man a hug. Amos was one of Roan’s favorite relatives. They rarely saw each other these days, and Roan wasn’t about to keep his distance.

“Amos, can I warm that soup up for you?” Victoria offered.

Roan turned his attention to the woman who’d answered the door. He had known she would be coming with them on their trip; Amos apparently never chased without her, not since his former chase partner had retired four years earlier. But Roan hadn’t expected to find her firmly entrenched in Amos’s house, playing hostess.

When she’d answered the door she’d been so cool and regal, looking down her nose at him, judging him, that he hadn’t been able to resist saying something outrageous to shake her composure—which he had. But he’d never really believed her to be after Amos’s money, not even all those years ago, when the rest of the family was all fired up about this coed Amos had become so fond of. Amos had more sense than to be taken in by a pretty face.

But Roan hadn’t been prepared for her to be
so
pretty—tall and slender, with a classic cameo face, large hazel eyes, and thick russet hair pulled into a demure braid that trailed halfway down her back. The moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d wondered what her hair would look like loose, falling over her shoulders. Bare shoulders.

Not that she was Roan’s type. He liked women with easy smiles, the kind who flirted and teased and ultimately gave in, the kind who played hard and were willing to put up with his rather lackadaisical approach to commitment. Victoria Driscoll, he suspected, was none of those things. And yet she was intriguing, perhaps the type a staid older man would fall for.

Roan wondered. She certainly moved about the kitchen with ease, as if she were accustomed to it.

“Would you like some soup, Roan?” she asked, all politeness.

“You should try it,” Amos said. “Victoria made it herself. She’s a marvelous cook.”

“Well, in that case I’d love some. Haven’t eaten since lunch, four hours ago.” His smile was met with cool complacency. Maybe he shouldn’t have made that gold-digger crack. He’d meant only to tease her, not turn her into a permanent enemy.

“There’s beer in the fridge, and some cold cuts,” Amos said. “If I know you, you’ll want something more substantial than soup.”

“Thanks, I think I will. It was a long, hot drive from Mississippi.”

“How did the raft race go?” Amos asked. “You win?”

Roan laughed easily. “There were almost two hundred entrants. I was in the lead for a while, but then I hit a snag in some white water. The milk jugs got hung up on—”

“Milk jugs?” Victoria asked, pausing in the middle of ladling soup into a bowl.

“The rafts had to be homemade to qualify.” He located salami, bologna, ham, and cheese in the refrigerator, along with some onion rolls. With practiced efficiency he began assembling a sandwich. “I floated old tires on a base of empty milk jugs. It was a damn good design too. I would have won if I hadn’t gotten caught up on those rocks.”

“Well, you can’t win ’em all,” Amos said.

“I came in third. Won a two-hundred-dollar prize, and a documentary production company bought my film, so it wasn’t a total loss.” He took his sandwich to the table and sat down at the place Victoria had set for him. She put a steaming bowl of soup in front of him without comment.

Well, it was a cinch his rafting exploits weren’t impressing her, which was rather refreshing. He sampled the soup. “Mmm, this is great, Vicky.”

A cold wave seemed to descend on the room, and Roan knew darn well no one had turned on the air-conditioning. Everyone grew very still.

“My name’s Victoria, not Vicky,” she said, her voice crisp.

“Oh, sorry. I’ll try to remember, but nicknames just sort of pop out of my mouth. Most people like them, right, Unc?”

“I don’t,” she said.

Amos frowned disapprovingly, but Roan wasn’t sure whether his uncle was displeased with him, with Victoria, or both of them.

“So, what time do we leave tomorrow?” Roan asked, diplomatically changing the subject.

Amos laid down his spoon. “Roan, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m hanging on to life by a thread. My sinuses are on fire, my eyes are practically swelled shut, and my lungs sound like a calliope. I’m also running a hundred-and-one-degree fever, last I checked. I’m not going anywhere for at least a week.”

“You mean you’re canceling the trip?” Roan’s disappointment was keen. Although he wouldn’t have minded a day or two to recharge his batteries, the thought of canceling the whole trip depressed him. For years he’d wanted to go storm chasing with his uncle, and this was the first time Amos had ever consented to let him come along. He might not ever get another chance to see a tornado up close and personal.

“No, not exactly. You and Victoria can go without me. She needs a chase partner and you need a guide. The arrangement should work out perfectly—provided, of course, that Victoria agrees.” Amos exchanged a meaningful look with his protégé.

Roan could have kicked himself clear to Katmandu. Now he really regretted the gold-digger comment, and he shouldn’t have called her Vicky either. His fate rested in her hands, and judging from the black looks she kept aiming his way, the prognosis wasn’t good.

“I’ll get my stuff from the car,” Roan announced decisively. He left the kitchen, but not before giving Victoria a long, almost challenging look.

She was glad to see him go. She would be relieved of his overwhelming presence for a few minutes anyway.

“You could at least be civil to the man,” Amos scolded.

“Civil? He’s lucky I didn’t ‘accidentally’ dump that soup down the front of his shirt. He called me a gold digger!”

Amos’s bushy white eyebrows drew together in an expression of incredulity. “Gold digger! Good Lord, I thought I’d laid that stupid rumor to rest years ago.”

“It’s okay,” Victoria said quickly, before the professor got all excited and worked himself into another coughing attack. “He corrected himself. Said if I was after your money, I would have married you by now or moved on.”

Amos laughed uproariously at that, prompting a series of hacking coughs anyway. “And what a catch I’d be too,” he said when he’d recovered. “Don’t worry, missy, I think Roan was just rattling your cage. He doesn’t mean any harm. You’ll take him along, won’t you?”

Victoria tried not to look at Amos, at those hopeful, red-rimmed eyes. After all he’d done for her, how could she turn down such an earnest request? “I haven’t decided,” she said once again. “Amos, can you in good conscience send me off for two weeks alone with your nephew? At the very least he’ll drive me crazy. At the
worst he’ll distract me so badly I’ll make a dumb decision and get us both killed.”

“Now, missy, I’ve never seen you get even a little rattled during a chase, and I don’t believe you’ll start now, no matter how, er, distracting my nephew might be.”

“Distracting” didn’t even begin to describe Roan Cullen, Victoria thought.

“Besides,” Amos continued, “he might turn out to be a better chase partner than you think. I’ll wager he’s a great navigator, and you can’t argue with his photographic skills. He’ll blow both of us away in that area.”

“Please, let’s not talk about getting blown away.”

Amos chuckled briefly, but then his expression grew somber. “If you don’t want to chase with Roan, I suppose I could find someone else for him to ride with. Those two kids from the university, John Higgenbotham and Dave Devors. They’re always looking for someone to finance their chase trips, and I’ll warrant Roan would front the money.”

Victoria shivered at the thought of those three on the road together. “John and Dave? Neither of them can forecast their way out of a paper bag, and when they’re lucky enough to find a storm, their main objective seems to be to punch right through the middle of it and do as much damage to their car as possible.”

Amos frowned. “Hmm, you’re right. Roan would only encourage them to be irresponsible. Any other suggestions?”

“What about Eddie and Marilyn Dunne?”

Amos shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to Eddie.
You know how Marilyn is. She likes to chase something besides storms, and she’d be on Roan like mold on cheese.” Amos sighed. “Oh, well, maybe next year. I hope he doesn’t decide to take off on his own to chase storms. He knows just enough about it to get himself in real trouble.”

Victoria couldn’t stand to hear the defeat in Amos’s voice. “Oh, all right!” she said, wondering what she was getting herself into. “I’ll give it a try. But if Roan doesn’t behave himself, I’m coming straight home.”

Amos beamed. “That’s my girl. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

They suspended their conversation when Roan came back inside carrying a cardboard box full of dirty laundry. “Okay if I use your washer and dryer, Unc?” he asked.

“Sure. It’s out on the back porch.”

“I remember.”

Victoria watched him walk through the kitchen. She couldn’t help herself. He had a certain aura about him that drew the female eye. It wasn’t just his taut body either. It was more a sense of quiet but dangerous layers that hid just below the happy-go-lucky surface.

She realized Amos was talking to her.

“… leave the dishes and go watch the Weather Channel. I want to see what’s cooking for tomorrow.”

They sat together on the couch in the living room. Amos made notes on the photocopied blank maps he always kept at the ready. Victoria stared at the screen, but her attention was on the sound of running water and off-key whistling coming from the back porch.

“Just one thing I should warn you about,” Amos said quietly, his eyes on the screen as he penciled in fronts, wind direction, and high and low pressure zones.

“Just one?” she said dryly.

“No matter what happens, don’t let Roan drive.”

It felt great to indulge in a real, hot shower, Roan thought as the stinging spray pelted his shoulders and cascaded down his body. Before the raft race, he’d been on assignment for
National Geographic
, camping in West Virginia with a group of scientists studying black bears. Baths in a nearby river, plus an occasional shave with a battery-powered razor, had kept him reasonably well-groomed, but nothing could compare to a close shave and the hot spray and steam from good ol’ indoor plumbing. This was the second shower he’d taken since his arrival in Lubbock the day before.

He didn’t even mind the razor nick he’d inflicted on his chin.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he heard voices coming from Amos’s office, otherwise known as “Tornado Central,” and he meandered to the open doorway to see what was going on. Amos and Victoria were hunched over a group of maps, seeming to do battle
with handfuls of colored markers. Their conversation made little sense to Roan; something about “convergence” and “diffluence” and “upper-level wind velocities” and “millibars,” whatever those were. They’d been arguing good-naturedly since Victoria’s arrival an hour before.