Riding the Storm (13 page)

“That wouldn’t be very nice of me.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

He cupped her cheek, savoring the soft, smooth curve. He traced the contour of her mouth with his thumb, then pressed into the lush fullness of her bottom lip. Her mouth opened in an evocative gasp, and moist heat blew across the tip of his thumb and skittered along every highly charged nerve ending.

“Are you going to listen to me this time?” he asked, zeroing in on that beautiful mouth. “Or do I need to keep talking?”

Now she was watching his mouth, and the wistful, wishful yearning in her eyes sapped the last of his patience.

He swallowed hard. “Jolene?”

“I don’t know about talking.”

She kneaded her hands against his chest, plucking loose a hair. Nate cringed at the nip of pain, suspecting it wouldn’t be the last trial she’d inadvertently put him through before this day, this encounter, this assigned partnership was over. But he held himself still, waiting for some sign in those searching eyes that she’d made her decision. That she believed he found her sexy and attractive. That it was okay for a man like him to feel those urges for her.

Then her hands stilled, and her eyes met his. She smiled. “Wouldn’t you rather just kiss me?”

Nate breathed a mammoth sigh. Normally he had the patience of Job running through his veins, but he’d really hoped he wouldn’t have to go through with that talking part. “If you insist.”

He thrust his fingers beneath her ponytail and pulled her in for a leisurely kiss. Her sweet, full lips blossomed beneath his gentle exploration.

“Mmm.”

Her soft, contented sigh was music to his ears and a balm to his soul.

But Jolene Kannon-Angel had yet to grasp the whole
leisurely
concept. Whatever doubts she had about herself or his interest, she bulldozed her way past them. She threw her arms around his neck, knocked him back against the arm of the sofa and pulled herself right into his kiss.

“Whoa.” Catching her around the waist, Nate shifted his balance to keep them from falling overboard.

“Too much?” Her arms stiffened. She frowned against his mouth.

The instant she began to retreat, he tightened his hold and pulled her squarely down on top of him.

“No. More than I expected.”

Nate quickly got up to speed and joined her.

Reclining halfway, he smoothed his hand down her back, palming a handful of her bottom to align her lower body with his. He nipped at her lips, teasing, tasting. Their legs tangled together. And if her foot jarred his knee, he didn’t care. Her hands were on his hair, her breath was in his mouth. And somehow she managed to get her hip nestled against his groin, protecting the baby from too much pressure and driving him crazy.

“Just right.” He pulled the band from her ponytail and let her hair fall loose around his hands, over her shoulders. The silky tips brushed against his chest and tickled his jaw. “Absolutely right.”

Nate kissed her—soundly, thoroughly. It was a
greedy affirmation of life, a reward for cheating death, an outpouring of passion and heart he’d never really allowed himself to tap into before.

And Jolene, bless her eager impulses, was there with him every step of the way. She kissed him back with her own untutored, uncensored, go-for-broke style he was learning to love.

She ran her palms across his beard stubble and giggled in delight. She followed the same path with her mouth. Her teeth closed around the jut of his chin.

“Is that okay?” she asked.

“Mmm.”

“How’s that?”

“Shut up, woman.” She pulled one hand between them, skidding over his wound. “Ow.”

“Sorry.” Pushing herself up, she kissed the spot.

Her hand skimmed lower, catching a taut male nipple. Nate groaned at the lightning strike of pure pleasure that jolted through him. Misreading his agony, she shifted and kissed him there. “Angel,” he protested, “you’re killing me.”

In the very best of ways.

Jolene’s hands seemed to find every ache, every scrape. Her hot mouth and eager lips were there to apologize each time. She worked her way down his chest, dipped her tongue in his navel. Moaned and cooed and made him crazy.

It was the biggest adrenaline rush of Nate’s life. More exciting than any bull ride, more thrilling than any ambulance call.

She eased the hurts of his body. Soothed the pain in his soul. Wakened his heart with unexpected hopes.

“Angel.” He wanted to thank her. He needed her to understand even half of what she was doing to him. For him.

Nate gripped her by the shoulders and dragged her mouth back up to his. He rolled over, let her slide to the couch beside him. “This man…” He claimed her mouth. “Is definitely…” He unzipped her jacket, desperate to get inside to touch as much skin as she had. “Hot…” The buttons of her blouse went next. “For…” He twirled his tongue around hers, tasted the sweet hot temptation she offered. “You.”

He slipped his hand inside her blouse and palmed her breast through its lacy cover. Her body jerked. “Nate,” she whispered in that soft, sexy voice. He twirled the eager nipple between his fingers and thumb and she squirmed. “Nate.” A heated gasp. He pushed aside the jacket, the shirt, the lace, and captured the straining peak in his mouth. “Nate!”

His name. Her voice. Adrenaline rush.

Her frantic fingers dug into his hair and held him against her as he laved the pert pink bud. Slipping his hand down to the swell of her belly, he gently cupped the proof of her utter femininity, all the while boldly savoring how masculine, how whole, how potent this woman made him feel.

He slipped his thigh between her legs. She clenched his hard muscles. Rubbed. Sought her own release.

“Nate? This is so good. I never…Please…”

He raised his mouth to reassure her with a kiss. “Easy, angel.”

If she was this ready, this needy, he’d see this ride through to its conclusion. For Jolene, at least. He slipped his hand inside the elastic panel of her jeans. She whim
pered as he nudged her through the damp crotch of her panties. She buried her face in his neck. Sighed. When he slipped one finger inside her, his own body jerked at her instant response. She was so tight. So hot. So ready. So—

A loud explosion ripped through the air outside, rattling every window in the house and plunging the room into darkness.

Nate wrapped her in his arms and pulled her tight against his chest.

Jolene screamed. “What was that?”

She snatched her hands away and tugged at her clothes, shoving Nate’s sore shoulder as she scrambled up onto her knees. He cursed.

“Sorry.”

She
was apologizing? “Sounds like a transformer blew,” he said.

“The electricity’s out. I have candles and supplies in the bathroom.”

Nate swung his legs to the floor. His knee and groin both protested the sudden movement. “Hell.”

Lightning flashed, giving him a glimpse of Jolene zipping her jacket over her unbuttoned blouse and wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. Double hell.

He’d gone too far with her.

The bright light flashed long enough to leave him blind in the darkness that immediately followed. But he didn’t need to see to know what a colossal mistake he’d made.

Seducing Jolene?

Playing around on the couch like a couple of teenagers discovering what sex was all about?

Sating his own selfish needs when it sounded like the whole state of Texas was blowing down around their ears?

I need a volunteer.

Keep my daughter safe.

Dead baby on the side of the road.

“Nate!”

Nate cursed. Every muscle in his body tensed as the pain of every failure, every lost chance buffeted him inside and out.

“Nate!” She latched on to his arm and shook him from his waking nightmare.

“I screwed up, Jolene.”

“Screwed up what? You’re Mr. Responsibility. You don’t screw up. I must have done something wrong.”

Lightning flashed. He saw blue eyes, wide as saucers. That need to rescue every lost soul was stamped on her face.
She
would rescue
him.
Crazy. He’d been too damn distracted to pay attention to how much danger they were in.

Some rescuer, some protector, some hell of a man he was.

The winds roared past, like an angry bull charging straight for them. No communication. No electricity.

Urgent fingers clung to him in the dark and begged for answers. “Nate, talk to me. What’s wrong? Did I—?”

“You’re fine! You’re beautiful. Sexy—”

The front window blew out of its frame.

Nate grabbed Jolene and dove to the floor, covering her body with his as splinters of shattered glass flew across the room. A tidal wave of rain followed in its path, hitting them with the same fury as the flooded arroyo.

“What the hell is going on?” Jolene cried, burying her cheek in the rug beneath him.

Nate got to his feet, locked his arm around her waist
and scrambled for cover. In seconds he was closing the thick bathroom door and sinking onto a sleeping bag beside Jolene.

The whole house rattled on its foundation, reminding him of an earthquake. Dishes fell in the kitchen, crashed to the floor. Another window shattered. Nate tucked Jolene beneath his arms and shielded her as bits of plaster crumbled from the ceiling and rained down on top of them.

He had to shout to be heard.

“Damon’s here.”

T
HE ABSOLUTE QUIET
finally woke her.

Jolene shoved her hair off her face and sat up, blinking her eyes against the dim light shining through the open door.

Feeling disoriented, she rubbed her tummy. “How did we sleep through a hurricane, sweetie?”

She was covered in a blanket, sitting on a pallet of open sleeping bags on the floor of the master bathroom. The hazy illumination was coming from a bedroom window. The generator must have kicked in, and the yard light had come on. It was bright enough to cast light, but no warmth. The eye of the storm had come.

And she was alone.

Nate had left her.

A sickeningly familiar feeling of abandonment washed over her, leaving her queasy and cold and fully awake.

Jolene glanced down. The collar of her misbuttoned blouse stuck out above the zipper of her faded jacket. Without a braid or ponytail to control it, her hair was a tangled mess. Of course, she had on no makeup. Her lips felt chapped. And she had to pee like nobody’s business.

With such an attractive lump to wake up next to, no wonder Nate had skipped out.

With a resentful sigh, Jolene grabbed her flashlight, found her shoes and climbed to her feet. She’d bet good money her mother never woke up looking anything but drop-dead gorgeous. She poured a cup of water from one of the bottles and rinsed her mouth, ran a brush through her hair and put her clothes on right. Of course, she could bet equally good money that her mother would never allow herself to be caught in the middle of a hurricane or any other natural disaster.

That’s when she smelled the rich aroma of spices and charcoal in the air. “What the heck?”

Jolene ventured out of the john and followed her nose outside. She swept her light past the devastation in her living room—shattered glass and leaves sprinkled liberally over every piece of soaking wet furniture, splintered frames from the windows gouging out chunks of her prized wood floors, the branch of an old scrub pine, stripped of needles and lying in front of her television console.

The kitchen had been hit, too. Piles of broken dishes had been swept into the corner by the trash can. Her fridge and freezer stood open, empty and dark, while the contents had been packed into a cooler with ice or stacked neatly on her island countertop.

Jolene continued massaging her tummy at the odd sight. “I don’t think the hurricane picked up after itself.”

Nate.

She refused to pay mind to that little flurry of hope that quickened her pulse. Maybe Nate hadn’t left her behind so much as he’d gone on to do something else.

“Nate?” Jolene pushed open the back door and went outside. The ominous silence in the air spooked her
more than the constant bombardment of the storm had. After finding a secluded spot to relieve herself, she headed around to the front and stared at disaster. The circle of illumination cast by the yard light revealed a world of chaos in the place she called home. Beyond the fringes of light, there was nothing but blackness and the threat of Mother Nature lying in wait to do even more damage.

“Oh, my God.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Nate’s calm voice called to her from across the yard, where he was pulling out broken limbs and chunks of wood from the corner of Rocky’s pen. She aimed the beam of her flashlight at his reassuring presence.

Jolene’s first thought was that her father’s jeans were too big for Nate’s slim hips, and Joaquin’s white T-shirt was too small for Nate’s more muscular frame. Her second thought, the one that made her swallow hard and say a grateful prayer, was that she was just plain glad to see him.

Maybe a little too glad, she cautioned herself.

That tight white shirt showed every flex of muscle as he worked. She couldn’t resist watching him move, his limp minimized by the power and precision that defined the rest of his body. Even bruised and battered, she’d found that body an irresistible treasure to explore. But for now, maybe forever, she’d have to content herself with just looking.

Tucking away any yearnings or regrets that lingered from almost making love for the first time on her couch, Jolene concentrated on safer feelings, like the security
she’d felt when he’d held her in his arms during the worst of the storm.

“If this is
good,
I sure don’t want to see
bad,
” she answered at last. “You should have gotten me up. I would have helped.”

“It’s the middle of the night. You needed your rest. I needed some fresh, dry air.” And some distance from her?

Jolene crossed the yard, picking up pieces of trash along the way. “What is it now, about one o’clock in the morning?”

“A little after.”

Maybe hunger accounted for the uneasy feeling that lingered in her stomach. She could hope it was that simple and not a symptom of confused feelings or thwarted lust. “Have you had a chance to assess the damage?”

Broody, her lab retriever, and Shasta, a pint-size terrier mix, darted in and out of the shadows around Nate’s feet, guarding the place, supervising his work, checking out anything interesting that crossed their path. Seemed they’d adopted their California guest much more quickly and easily than she had.

Nate scratched Shasta behind the ears, then tossed a stick for Broody to fetch. The big dog gladly bounded off into the darkness. Seemed as if Nate had no problem dealing with them, either.

Just their owner.

“Not too much beyond the obvious,” Nate told her. “The animals are all accounted for, though.” He shooed Shasta away from the bull’s pen. “Even Mr. Stud here seems to be doing all right for himself.”

Bits of debris clung to Rocky’s hide, but there were no visible signs of injury beyond the cuts he’d sustained
from the barbed wire. The bull chewed on the leafy end of a branch that had blown into his pen. He had the gall to stare accusingly at Nate, as if the storm had interfered with his wanderlust and somehow the humans were to blame for the inconvenience.

“Lily shouldn’t have worried,” Jolene said. “I’m not sure anything can kill that bull.” If only the rest of her property could be so tough. She slowly turned with her light, taking stock of the destruction.

The tractor shed was little more than a pile of twisted metal siding wrapped around the tractor and old beater truck that had been parked inside. Shingles from the barn roof were scattered across the ground. And there was debris everywhere. Leaves, branches, tumbleweeds, items she couldn’t identify. What looked like a little girl’s dollhouse sat in the pile of trash Nate was stacking beside the barn.

Jolene walked over and inspected the toy’s mud-stained interior. “I wonder where this blew in from. Someone’s going to be missing it.”

“I hope the girl it belongs to is in better shape. That her mother got her down into a basement or took her to a public shelter.” Nate tossed an armload of loose planks onto the pile and went back for another load.

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced.

What was it that caused him such pain? She suspected it went far beyond ripped-up skin or a shattered knee. But if he didn’t want to confide in her, she wasn’t going to ask. As much as she’d loved that teasing, talkative, passionate side of Nate, she sensed that he needed to reassert his self-control in order to cope.

Though whether he was coping with the past or the present, survival or regret or her, she had no idea.

“Can’t this wait ’til morning?” She picked up some downed branches and added them to the pile. Keeping busy seemed to distract them both from uncomfortable thoughts. “I’m assuming that’s your work in the kitchen, too?”

“I wanted to make sure Rocky was secure and the generators were working. Since we don’t know how long we’ll have to conserve electricity, I thought we’d better do something with the food before it went bad.”

But spoiled food wasn’t her primary concern. She thought of her father and the hundreds of evacuees he was responsible for. If Turning Point had been hit like the Double J, Mitch Kannon would need every volunteer he could get to help out. “You don’t think power and communication will be established anytime soon?”

Nate shook his head. “I doubt it. And with power out, roads flooded and communication down, I doubt anyone’s looking for us yet, either.”

Jolene dumped her load. “So it’s just you and me for a while longer, huh?”

“Looks that way.”

Adam and Eve, stranded in a weather-beaten version of Paradise. Only Adam was brooding and distant and Eve didn’t know how to handle a man who wasn’t her father, friend or patient.

Jolene suddenly felt edgy and uncomfortable as she recalled in vivid detail every sweep of Nate’s hands, every claim of his mouth on her body, every delicious word they’d shared on the couch before the hurricane hit. Her breasts beaded into painful nubs, her lips tin
gled, and the female heart of her grew heavy and damp between her legs.

She braced her hand against the side of the barn and clutched at her belly. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to regain control of her body’s raging hormones. She’d never…No man had ever…And, God, she’d wanted him to finish. She’d wanted…

“Jolene?” Nate’s concerned voice cut through her wanton thoughts.

No teasing voice, no soft seduction.

He’d come up right behind her. She could feel the heat from his body, though he didn’t touch her. She turned, still clutching her stomach, feeling light-headed and pale. Thankfully, Nate was a paramedic, not a mind reader.

“Are you hungry? I know you and the baby need to eat regularly.” Oh, yes. Very practical. Very Nate. “I fired up your propane grill in the garage and I’m cooking some steak and eggs for a late-night snack.”

That would explain the yummy smell she’d detected earlier.

Jolene forced herself to slowly exhale.

Hungry? Yes. Though not necessarily for food. But she could never admit that.

Fixing a smile on her face, she glanced up into those serious brown eyes.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’ve been hungry for the past five months.”

J
OLENE WANTED TO COVER
her ears and scream. The pounding of the rain and wind had been relentless for the past few hours.

Just as her father had told her, the back wall of the hurricane was even more powerful than the outer bands or front wall had been. The rain still fell, insulating them inside the house. And though they had no official report to go by, she suspected the wind could be clocked upwards of one hundred miles per hour. The bathroom was shrouded in darkness, save for the candles she’d lit.

But even candleglow couldn’t dispel the tension gnawing at her. She must have been transmitting her restless energy because Nate leaned down from his seat on the edge of the tub and slid a tray with some of the snacks she brought in earlier across the sleeping bag to where she sat on the floor, leaning against the door.

“Here. You haven’t tried dessert yet. A pudding cup or applesauce?”

Jolene gave a nervous laugh. “It’s hard to think about eating in the middle of a hurricane.”

“My grandpa Nate believed the best thing to do in a crisis was eat. He also loved desserts and thought they should be served at the beginning of the meal.”

She peeled off the pudding container, picked up a spoon and took a bite. “I think your Grandpa Nate was a very wise man. Are you named after him?”

He nodded. “My older brother, Robert, was already named after my dad. Grandpa was our only other living male relative. Family tradition.”

“So you were close?”

“He raised us until I was twelve.” He read the curious question in her arched brows and answered it matter-of-factly. “My parents died in a car crash when I was one. So we went to live on Grandpa Nate’s ranch. He was the only parent I ever really knew. I was twelve
when he died. My brother, Kell, was eighteen and legal by then, so he, Jackie and I stayed together and just sort of took care of each other.”

The fact that he’d glossed over the difficult childhood he and his siblings must have had, went a long way toward explaining those
life
things he kept under such strict control. Jolene’s throat constricted as she worked to control some feelings of her own. Her compassionate heart thumped loudly enough in her chest that she wondered if Nate could hear it over the storm.

“I’m sorry about your folks and your grandpa. That must have been hard on your brother, having a family to take care of at that age.”

Nate scooped out the last of his own pudding cup and shrugged as if there was nothing remarkable about his family’s story. “Kell was going through some personal stuff, just out of high school, trying to be in love and make his place in the world. He gave up a lot for us. Always made sure there was a roof over our heads and somebody to answer to. Jackie and I were still in school, but we held down the home-front. Turned myself into a pretty good cook and ranch hand.”

Watching him double-check the flashlight batteries and drinking water supply, Jolene got the feeling that Nate had done a lot more than cook meals to help his family.

“Sounds like you and your brother and sister are as close as Dad and I are.”

Nate propped some pillows against the tub and settled onto the floor opposite Jolene. “It’s easy to see that Mitch adores you.”

“It’s mutual, believe me.” Just mentioning her father
and the deep bond they shared helped Jolene tune out the storm.

Damon’s dramatic arrival had kept Jolene from thinking about how close she and Nate had come to making love, and talking with Nate these past few hours had dispelled any awkwardness she might have felt. Nate had shared enough about his past to help her understand that grave sense of responsibility he carried on his shoulders. But now she chose a more neutral subject. “Tell me about California. All I know is that’s where my mother lives now, with some Hollywood exec type.”

She nearly choked on her next bite of pudding. Had she actually said that out loud? She’d wanted to keep Nate talking, not delve into her own past.

Nate was nothing if not observant. “Is that what you’ve got against California? Your mom? Your stepdad?”