Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1) (6 page)

“That’ll jack us up, you know that,” Simon said, narrowing his eyes. “We’re a machine when we get in the zone, Zach, we can’t afford to have someone babbling in the background.”

Zach nodded. “Noted. No babbling. We’ll tell them to shut up and be still or they get the duct tape.”

Simon smirked. “And if they say
they’re
running things?”

“Then it’s over,” Zach said, pushing off the counter. “Simon, I’m not selling us out to do this. I’m trying to do something
for
us. I’m serious when I say I won’t sacrifice quality or safety to do some show if it’s not working out.”

Simon nodded slowly, as if mulling that over. “And this ride-along? What does that entail?”

“A producer named Nicole and one cameraman.”

Humor passed through Simon’s eyes. “Nicole, huh?”

Zach rubbed at his face. “If I said she was butt-ugly and covered in hairy moles, would you still ask that?”

“Is she?”

Zach shook his head and reached for a skillet. “I have no idea, I haven’t seen her yet, but everyone else in that office is hot, so what the hell.”

Maddi’s face swam before his eyes. God, he needed to get her out of his head.

Simon laughed. “What are you doing today?”

Zach shrugged. “Staining Mom’s bench. Might do some fishing later.”

“Must be rough to be you, man.”

“Yeah, it’s all candy,” Zach said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He held up the carton of eggs. “Want some?”

“Fried?”

Zach gave him a look. “No, Little Lord Fauntleroy, it’s a scrambled kind of day.”

Simon shrugged. “Nah, too healthy for me. I’ll grab a donut and coffee on the way home.”

“You kill me,” Zach muttered. “Eat like a linebacker, wouldn’t know how to do a sit-up, and yet—”

“And yet I couldn’t bulk up like you and Eli and Levi if I spent the rest of my life trying,” Simon finished, rising from his stool. He ran a hand through hair that hadn’t really moved since the evening before. “What can I say? You get to look like you, I get to eat like me.”

“Touché,” Zach said, saluting him with a spatula.

“By the way,” Simon said, heading for the door. “There’s some nasty-looking crap out there with potential. Projected to blow up around Montague County day after tomorrow. See if your TV people want to hang with that.”

Zach turned in mid–egg crack. “So you’re on board?”

“So far,” he said with a crooked grin. “Or maybe I just want to see this Nicole person.”

“What about that whole conflict thing with your station?”

Simon shrugged. “Manager told me that as long as I’m not mentioned as working for Channel Four, it’s okay. Let’s just play this first one by ear.”

Zach raised an eyebrow. “What have you been taking?”

Simon did nothing by ear. He planned his grocery shopping by the weekly sales flyer and had chore days on a whiteboard. He grinned again. “Living on the wild side, little brother.” He paused. “By the way, don’t let Eli get under your skin.”

Zach looked Simon’s way and then back at the bowl he was opening eggs into. “About what?”

“About any of it,” Simon said, leaning on the door. “The show, the money, what you do—sometimes I think he looks for things to climb on you about because you’re the closest target.”

Zach frowned as he scrambled. “Closest to what?”

“To Dad.”

Maddi held her head up as she got off the elevator, trying to feel better about her appearance than she actually looked. Yesterday, she’d dragged out that white dress she only wore on special occasions. Telling herself it
wasn’t
just in case she crossed paths with Zach. And then loathed herself for stooping to something so pathetically wily and insecure.

Today she was back in her standard black skirt and silk blouse that she had multiple colors of, courtesy of the discount store by her house. With dark circles under her eyes and a headache from hell, courtesy of the long night on her porch.

It was okay until she looked straight into the smiling face of Blakely. The girl had her hair up today in some elaborate twist Maddi would never be able to pull off, with strategic curls falling down in the right places. A royal-blue dress that looked like she was sewn into it carved out her cleavage perfectly.

“Good morning, Miss Hayes,” Blakely sang out.

Maddi smiled in response, muttering expletives under her breath. She shook her head. “God, let it go, Maddi.”

“Excuse me?”

Maddi turned to her left as Nicole came out of her office.

“Nothing,” Maddi said. “Just going through my to-do list.”

“You’re a better woman than me,” Nicole said, falling into stride next to her. “I can’t think about anything until the second cup of coffee.”

Maddi chuckled and stopped at her office, tossing her bag into a chair. “It’s delirium,” she said. “And I’ve already had three cups.”

“Damn, I should be pulling you off the ceiling,” Nicole said, one hand propped on her hip, her red hair pulled up in a chic knot.

Maddi shook her head. “I didn’t sleep at all last night, so it’s actually just keeping me conscious.”

Nicole’s right eyebrow lifted. “Problems?”

Yes. And yesterday he was sitting two feet from her. “No,” Maddi said. “Just—one of those nights.”

Nicole was all right. She could be kind of a girlfriend when she wanted to be, but she was also Maddi’s boss. And moody. And tended to pull that rank-and-snarl when pushed into a corner, so Maddi was always careful just how much to share with her. She kept it light, fed Nicole just enough personal information to keep things real, and most
certainly
didn’t tell her about Zach.

When Nicole first came to her office, excited about a news clip she’d seen and wound up over a brewing idea, Maddi had been excited, too. They had been brainstorming for a year over something new to bring to the Infinity table. Something theirs. Working on the already-established shows was fine, but that was like pushing a cart that’s already being pulled. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing they couldn’t do with their eyes closed.

Storm chasers!
Nicole had said, nearly bouncing with adrenaline. And Maddi had felt her spine meld into the chair.

It’s been done
, Maddi had countered.

Not with a family of them
, Nicole had gushed, and then showed her the footage.

Watching Zach speak to the camera had lit her up from the inside out and took her breath right out of her chest. It was surreal. And terrifying. And a subject she never thought she’d deal with again. When Nicole asked her what she thought, her gut reaction was to bail. To trash it. To douse that fire before it started. It would have made things clean and out of her life again if she could have been convincing enough.

But damn it, it was a good idea. The family angle, the emotional side, the history they had—her professional side knew it was shiny and full of potential, and was already ticking off the boxes of what to do and how to do it. How to make this project golden. To hell with who it was. With the paralyzing fear the subject matter struck in her bones. It could be the break they had been waiting for.

“I’ll be good after one more cup,” Maddi said with a grin.

“Well, get it down, then,” Nicole said, laughing. “We have work to do. Hey, Mr. Woodbriar told me himself that you did well in the proposal meeting yesterday.”

Maddi’s eyes widened and she chuckled. “Okay.”

“What?” Nicole said, coming inside farther.

“I don’t know what they can say I did,” Maddi said, digging her coffee cup out from under two file folders. “It was more Woodbriar and Brown than anything, and—”

Maddi stopped, unsure of the propriety of continuing.

“And what?” Nicole prompted.

Maddi shook her head. “Nothing. It was my first time in on a meeting with a new client, I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“Why?” Nicole said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, it was just so—attacking.”

Nicole flinched. “Attacking?”

“Yeah, like—I thought we were proposing the project to the client—”

“We didn’t?” she asked.

“We did, but not till the end,” Maddi said. “The whole first half was basically Woodbriar shooting at him with all the research he’d done on the family, and pointing out all their weaknesses.”

Nicole’s mouth opened, then closed. “Well—he does do all that behind the scenes. I mean his people do, I don’t know that he does anything.” She sat on Maddi’s desk. “With fiction, it’s different. The actors are playing a part—if they have skeletons, it’s not so much a part of what’s on-screen. But reality shows are a different animal. They do run extensive background checks to see what’s going to be broadcast out to millions of people.”

Maddi nodded. “But?”

Nicole licked her lips. “But—it’s not normally brought up in the client meeting. That’s usually all rainbows and promises.”

Maddi snatched her cup and walked out with Nicole. “Definitely no rainbows,” she said. “They totally put him on the defensive. Then wooed him back.”

“What the hell?” Nicole said under her breath. “Did you get a sense of any of it?”

Maddi paused. Giving that tidbit would be showing her hand. But how long before that was shown anyway?

“I have the feeling it was about Za—Mr. Chase’s grandmother,” Maddi said. “Evidently she has connections.”

Nicole looked at her. “Annabelle Chase. Yes, I’ve heard of her, and she funds their business, but why is that an issue?”

“I don’t know,” Maddi said. “I’m just saying, Woodbriar swung it like a bat.”

“Ladies,” came a voice to their left as they entered the break room. A voice attached to what Maddi had come to associate with a weasel in an expensive suit.

“Brown,” Nicole said, her voice going cool.

“Good morning,” Maddi said, going straight for the coffeepot.

“Good job yesterday, Madison,” Brown said as Maddi turned. “Although it wasn’t your place to be there.”

Nicole sighed. “Brown, I told you, I had an emergency come up with
Crash
. Maddi was fully on board with
The Chase
. She’s working on this project with me.”

“
Madison
is an assistant,” he said. “It’s me that should be fully up to speed and briefed for client meetings if you can’t find the time. I had to wing it in there in front of Woodbriar.”

“Yes, I heard about that,” Nicole said. “What was with the firing squad?”

Damn it, Nicole
, Maddi thought. She just threw her under the bus.

Brown rubbed at his face and grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the stack, darting a glance at Maddi that wasn’t entirely pleasant.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I wasn’t
up to speed
on that angle, either.” Filling his cup with hot-and-black, he turned back. “And for God sakes, if you want her taken seriously in your absence, call her Madison.
Maddi
sounds like some hayseed hick,” he tossed over his shoulder on his way out.

Maddi’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t even look at Nicole, who in all fairness was frozen in place and not looking at her either.

“I’m standing right here,” Maddi whispered to the void he’d left behind.

Chapter Five

T
he pungent aromas of wood, wet earth, and
old
filled Zach’s nose as he entered the little workshop behind his house. He loved it in there. It once belonged—for lack of a better word—to his dad and Harlan Boudreau, although in reality it hadn’t actually
belonged
to either one of them. It was an abandoned shack they’d found out in the middle of the woods built over the creek like a bridge. They adopted it and fixed it up. Tinkered and made things in there when they weren’t off chasing psycho raindrops.

Harlan grew up and bought the land on one side of it, Josiah bought the other side, and Gran bought the adjacent plot that Josiah actually built a home on. She didn’t think being that far into the woods was suitable for him and his family, and clearly made enough of a stink about it that he went along. Harlan eventually added on to his little patch of earth as well, buying up what most people thought was useless soil and splitting it up between his sons. Jonah put goats and chickens on his and made a decent living for himself. Zach was never a big fan of Jonah, especially where his sister was concerned, but he had to concede that Jonah was a hard worker. Jack, on the other hand, just used up oxygen. He did the bare necessities to get by and usually lived off whatever woman he was seeing at the time. Harlan didn’t talk about him much, and Zach couldn’t blame him.

In all the improvements to the land, the little workshop remained. Zach had built his house in front of it with his own two hands, because he couldn’t imagine a more perfect location, something connected to his father.

Zach remembered sitting in there watching his dad build the amazing pieces that now graced his mother’s home, inside and out. Helping him and Harlan lug wood in and out of there, over the steps on either side. Hanging over the rail to watch the fish swim under the building. Among the sawdust and tools, surrounded by the smell of wood and metal and grease, and the sound of water moving under their feet, Zach thought it was the coolest place on earth.

That was before his dad and Harlan had their falling out and went their separate ways. Zach never knew what the feud was about, and neither did his siblings, but he was probably the most affected by Harlan’s absence. He questioned his parents repeatedly until Josiah banned the topic outright, and before Zach could push the issue, his dad was gone. And his mother shelved that subject forever.

Regardless, the Chases and the Boudreaus shared a town and a calling, and Zach always had a soft spot for the old man. He may be crass and quicker to act than to think at times, but he knew his shit. No one knew how to read a storm off gut instinct like Harlan and his dad had.

Zach sank into a wooden chair that was damn near more comfortable than his recliner, and closed his eyes, knowing full well exactly what they’d land on when he opened them. His body knew the feel of this space centimeter by centimeter, what was on every shelf, what was next to what on the table, the walls, and even the bare-raftered ceiling. The smell of sawdust and the different types of wood he had stored there. He could identify them if he were struck blind tomorrow. There weren’t many days that went by that Zach wasn’t there, working on something.

Making a living.

Building deer stands.
Eli’s words rankled in his gut, but he knew it was somewhat his own doing. Zach didn’t talk about what he’d carved out for himself, the business—such as it was—he was building back there in the little shack everyone had mostly forgotten about. His family thought he just messed around back there, piddled with his tools a little, went fishing. He hadn’t wet a hook in years.

He didn’t tell anyone about the repeat business he was starting to get just by word of mouth from delighted customers. His custom pieces were works of art, a combination of modern technology and old-school woodwork techniques that he made around his other life as a Chase. For some reason, he couldn’t bring it to the light just yet. It needed to succeed first. Be a little more substantial. More something, so that the next time Eli made a fuckhead remark like that, he could shove the numbers in his face.

His dad had wanted to do the same thing, but he never had the time to take it outside of a hobby. With the storm-chasing life and five kids, his craft never made it past filling his own house. And passing his skills to his son. Simon’s words echoed in Zach’s head. He was his dad’s son—there was never any doubt of that. He was cut from the same cloth, had the same interests, the same adrenaline when it came to the chase. And out of all of them, he knew he looked the most like him.

He opened his eyes and focused immediately on a framed photo up high on the wall across from him. The whole room had photos lining the walls above the shelves—all pictures his mother had taken over the years. Josiah always framed his favorites and brought them out here, especially the black-and-white ones.

Zach’s favorite was the one of him and his dad making the big massive table that now adorned the family room. It was made of four different types of wood, all inlaid and stained to bring out the different colors and grains. He was about sixteen at the time, and his mom had captured them deep in their work, head-to-head in stern concentration. The resemblance was uncanny.

Zach let his gaze travel over the other photos, till they landed on one that made him get up. It was of Hannah and Maddi posing to be cute and Zach photo-bombing them from behind. They were young—it was before they were dating because Maddi still had her braces, but only just. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d noticed that photo. God, they were such babies back then.

So much still ahead of them—good and bad. He’d thought she was it. Even being the flirt he was at a young age, and being fully aware of the effect he had on the opposite sex, once Maddi Hayes put her claim on him, he wasn’t interested in other girls. When he put a ring on her finger later, he thought it was forever. She was all he ever wanted, and he lost her. To a storm.

No. He lost her to being stupid.

“Are they ready to go?” Simon asked as the Dallas skyline came into view. “How much farther?”

“About twenty minutes,” Zach said. “I called the station yesterday evening and talked to Brown Broussard, the head producer. He said it was all a go.”

He could see a line of darkness on the distant horizon that he knew from experience was likely to be unpleasant, but it was about an hour away. If they didn’t dawdle around, anyway.

“Did you tell them to pack a bag just in case this thing lingers and we need to snag a motel?” Simon asked.

“Yep,” Zach said. “And if Nicole looks like she sounds on the phone, I’m hoping there’s a
just in case
.”

Simon laughed and Hannah groaned from the backseat, thumping him on the back of the head. But that was okay. He sounded like himself, like the asshole playboy he was known to be and not the man who’d stayed up all night running what-if scenarios from seven years ago.

“Ow, by the way,” Zach said, attempting a halfhearted swing behind him.

“You deserved it,” Hannah answered. “You’re such a pig.”

Zach rubbed at his eyes. It was too early again. Why didn’t storms ever roll in around noon? It always seemed like what they were handed happened at the crack of dawn.

“Nowhere near pig potential, little sister,” Zach said. “Besides, her cameraman might be a looker, too. Everyone else in that place seemed to be.”

“Or he could be married and bald and walk with a limp,” Hannah said, bunching up a blanket under her head. “Cameramen tend to be housed in the secret basement.”

“There’s no secret basement in this place,” Zach said. “Everything is nice.”

“Besides, I’m not fishing,” Hannah said, eyes already closed.

“Really?” Zach said, nudging Simon as he watched her in the rearview mirror. “Is our Hannah off the market?”

“Our Hannah is sleeping the next fifteen minutes, so hush,” she said, kicking the back of his seat.

“Why didn’t Quinn come?” Simon asked.

“She had an early shift,” Hannah mumbled. “Besides, two cameras plus a TV camera seemed a bit ridiculous.”

“I’d rather look at her than some fat, bald cameraman,” Simon said, looking out the window.

“She’s too young for you.”

“She’s thirty!” he said, looking back at her with disdain.

“Which made her twelve when you were sixteen and screwing Lori Wallace on the back patio,” Hannah said, her eyes still closed.

“You screwed Lori Wallace?” Zach asked, giving him a thumbs-up. “Way to go.”

Simon turned back around to face forward and shook his head. “I don’t even want to know how you know that, Hannah, but it’s all beside the point.”

“Twe-elve,” she said in a singsong voice.

“Do you really want me to start breaking down stats on your boyfriends?” Simon said.

“And Quinn is taken,” Hannah continued, ignoring his remark.

“For now,” Simon said, smirking. “There’s time.”

Zach chuckled, always entertained by Simon’s easy confidence that Hannah’s petite and stunning assistant and roommate would one day walk away from a two-year engagement and fall into his arms.

They drove the next few minutes in silence, he and Simon watching the weather band in front of them. There was something about that time just before the first raindrops hit that always struck Zach with a weird mixture of excitement and dread. Like walking into someone else’s house uninvited, and the consequences were unknown. He never really understood the dread part, because in his heart he loved it, but it was still there. Like a tiny whisper in the back of his brain.

Taking the exit toward the TV station annoyed him, and he popped his neck to shake it off. They hadn’t even entered the picture yet and they were already in the way, but Zach refused to let that thought take root. That would be Eli talking, and he wasn’t even with them on this one.

“Do you think Gran has her fingers in this?” Zach wondered aloud.

Simon’s head snapped up from his screen. “Why do you ask that?”

Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. Just seems like this is happening really easily.”

Simon leaned his head back for a moment and appeared to study the road ahead. “Not impossible to imagine. She’s done sneakier things.”

“Like buying Eli’s bank loan and refinancing it under
AC Enterprises
with no interest?” Zach said.

Simon laughed. “She never did cop to that one, but I mean, come
on
.”

“He was so pissed.”

“I can’t blame him,” Simon said. “Trying to do something actually on his own, and here swoops in Queen Granabelle.”

“And Levi’s house mysteriously getting paid off after five years?” Zach said. “Your history professor—”

“Oh, don’t even get me started on that,” Simon said, shaking his head. Zach knew he was remembering when, during a particularly difficult semester, his most challenging professor suddenly was awarded tenure in exchange for passing Simon. Not that Simon could ever prove it. But with Annabelle on the university board and his lower grades falling off the curve all of a sudden, it was hard not to question that coincidence.

“Her heart’s always in the right place,” said Hannah from the backseat, not moving from her fetal position. “She makes sure
you’re
taken care of.”

Zach twitched at the comment. “I’m just saying it smells a little like déjà vu,” he said, blowing out a long breath. “I don’t know.”

“Would it really matter, though?” Simon asked, looking at Zach. “Would
you blow it off if you found out she was pulling a string or two?”

Zach watched the road disappear under them, stripe by stripe. “I don’t know.” And that was the truth. As everyone loved to keep pointing out, he didn’t have a real job. Not a structured one. He thrived on being at a storm’s beck and call, and he loved working with his hands, and he was a master at both. And for some ungodly reason, Gran understood that. Encouraged it. Probably because she didn’t encourage it with her own son. For a long time, she
did
take care of Zach, but for the last year and a half he hadn’t cashed her checks. They were stacked in his desk, waiting for the time he could come clean about his side business and hand them proudly back to her. Either she knew this and wasn’t saying anything, or her accountant sucked.