Winning Love (13 page)

The random confession immediately brought a memory of him doing just that in his early twenties, drunk out of his mind. Ally had been horrified, but it was something they’d laughed over for years. A smile came to his lips now. The liquor burned on its way down.

“Never have I ever bungee jumped,” he countered.

Her nose scrunched as she lifted the tiny glass to her lip. Wow. The woman had bungee jumped. He shouldn’t be surprised. She raced tornadoes. They tossed a couple more never-have-I-evers at each other, where Gayle had to take both shots. Because, no, he had never gone to a bridal show, but she
had
entered a wet T-shirt contest. Crazy woman.

Eyes slightly glazed, she studied him silently for a long moment, then inhaled deeply. “Never have I ever gone on vacation somewhere tropical.”

His honeymoon. Two full weeks on the sandy beaches of Aruba. At the memory, warmth filled his chest. As he focused on Gayle, he almost laughed. She was swaying slightly in her seat. He tossed back the shot.

“Never have I ever been interested in weather.” Poor woman was two shots up on him.

She slammed the little glass down, and slurred slightly, “Never have I ever had sex in a strange location.”

“Really? Not once?” Well, that was just…sad. He and Ally had gone through a phase where the whole idea of doing it somewhere where they could get caught was exciting. Man, he hadn’t thought about this stuff in a long time. He’d forgotten…

Hell.

He snorted softly and lifted his gaze to Gayle, realization dawning once again.

She gave him a lopsided smile. “You’re onto my game, aren’t you, handsome?”

Awe filled him. She’d made him think of the good—remember the good. “You really do play dirty.”

She gave him a smug look, then her mood switched to a very unlike-Gayle seriousness. “The past isn’t all bad, Mac. You can’t repress the good memories and focus only on the bad. When is the last time you thought about your wife with a good memory?”

The question stunned him silent for a moment. “How do you—”

“I’ve lost people I love, too, remember?” she interrupted.

Yes, she had. “A very long time. How did you know what to say to trigger the memories?”

She shrugged. “The streaking, I gambled on. You just seem like you would’ve been the type. I was wrong about the bridal show. Thought since you’d been married, you’d been dragged to one. The other two I just kept the subject broad enough so almost anything could fall under it.”

“We eloped, ran off to Vegas. Got married by Elvis.” Another smile came to his face. Damn. It felt awesome to think about her without fighting. To actually smile as a good memory came to the surface instead of allowing the bad to dominate his mind. He returned his attention to Gayle. “The sex one. Were you being serious about that?”

“Oh, definitely.” His jaw dropped, but she swayed forward, an impish smile curving her lips. “It just depends on your definition of ‘strange location’.” She winked. Then she jumped off the stool. “I love this song!”

The song was Bruno Mars’
Runaway Baby
. Mac watched her dance around like a Muppet. The warmth he’d felt revisiting memories of his wife filled him again while watching Gayle. She really was amazing. Warm. Caring. Forgiving. Why hadn’t some man snatched her up? Were they all idiots in this state?

In the field she was in, there had to be a lot of guys who were thrill-seekers like her, who wouldn’t hesitate to jump in an SUV and race straight into a hell that included flying houses and raining farm equipment, as though it was a bright sunny day.

Why did it bother him thinking of Gayle being with someone like that?

He had no future with her. He would never live in Kansas again. She would never leave. And the idea of being involved with a woman who willingly sought out the thing that had destroyed his life—it was incomprehensible. He would never open himself up to allowing a tornado to destroy him a second time.

No, making sure to keep Gayle firmly in the friend zone was the only way it could ever be between them.

S
udden brightness behind Gayle’s eyelids made her stir. Something tightened around her waist, bringing her closer to a hard wall. Blinking open her eyes, she winced against the dull ache in her temples and the cotton of her mouth. Damn vodka. She’d do it again in a heartbeat, though, if it brought back the softness that had relaxed Mac’s typically stern face. Giving him that had meant a lot to her. He’d spent so long dwelling on the bad. He needed to remember the good.

Lifting her head, she studied the broad chest she was using as a pillow. Lord, when had she fallen asleep? She was such a damn lightweight, and doing that many shots back-to-back had hit her like a ton of bricks. She remembered dancing, the liquor scolding her for it, and running to the bathroom before she lost it right there in the kitchen.

She closed her eyes. Well, at least Mac had been distracted.

As she started to sit up, a squeeze on her hand stopped her. Her gaze shot to where it lay on his chest with his hand covering hers. She surveyed their positions. He was sitting up, with his head leaned back against the cushion, while she was nestled under his arm, his palm resting on the swell of her hip. How was she supposed to get up without waking him?

Slowly she slid her hand out from under his. Swinging her legs over the side of the couch, she eased to the edge and watched him. The urge to caress the stubbled cheeks was almost overwhelming, but she kept her hands to herself.

She’d almost not come to the house, had almost turned back, uncertain for the first time about what she should or shouldn’t do when it came to him. The skies opening up had pushed her forward. When he answered the door, his face had been alarmingly pale, his eyes haunted.

If he’d been here alone…

She shook herself. She didn’t even want to think about how this house would’ve ended up.

A crash of thunder shook the house. Even in his sleep, Mac’s body tensed and he mumbled, “No.”

Gayle froze. Should she wake him?

Lightning brightened the room again, followed by another
boom
of thunder. A low moan came from him and he started to fidget, as if trying to escape an unseen menace.

“Mac,” she whispered, touching his face to disrupt the dream.

“No,” he moaned softly.

Stomach knotting at the sorrow in his voice, she took his face between her palms and whispered his name again.

“
Ally
.” A broken plea so full of distress, tears immediately sprang to her eyes.

Ally. That had to be his wife’s name. Obviously, the man was more traumatized by how she’d died than he let on.

Suddenly, he jerked, and his eyes popped open. While he took a moment to register his surroundings, she scooted away and fought to get herself under control, close to crying. He’d lost so much. Been through so much. Even more than she had. Yeah, she’d had to learn to live life without her family and Sam. Though she and Sam had been planning to get married after she finished her MA, she’d been living in Alabama while he stayed in Kansas. The long-distance relationship had never been an issue for them. As it was, she hadn’t gone to bed with Sam every night. Hadn’t seen him every day. The distance hadn’t lessened the excruciating pain caused by the silence of her phone after his death. The ache to receive just one more “Good morning, sunshine” text from him had been poignant.

And then there was her family and the emotional black hole left behind in the house she had grown up in. She’d only returned to her family home a few times a year since going off to college, but even so, the house had never been the same again, after.

But to have a person who was an intimate part of your daily life ripped from you—Gayle swallowed. It was hard to imagine. And to add to the agony, Mac had his own nightmarish experience to relive over and over again. She had been saved from all that.

Hell, she’d never experienced a tornado in the way Mac had. Not even close.

When he finally focused on her, she was sitting on the end of the couch farthest from him. She forced a playful smile on her lips, “Hey there, handsome.”

She used the nickname intentionally. Anything to make him believe she hadn’t picked up on his nightmare. Those were for him alone. She wasn’t sure how often he had them, but having that kind of nightmare was hard enough to deal with, without knowing someone else had witnessed the ordeal.

She should know.

Shaking his head, he pushed up. “Don’t think I’ve woken up to that before.”

“Really? Never? A sinfully sexy man waking from his slumber is so…
rawr
.” She clawed her fingers toward him, putting as much playfulness as she could into the sound and gesture, even though she didn’t feel frisky at all. She was relieved when a small smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, and the sadness faded from his gaze.

Silence fell between them, and she sent up a silent
thank-you
when her cell phone rang. Considering it was two in the morning, it could only be one person.

Even though taking this call in front of Mac was probably a bad idea, she couldn’t ignore it.

“Time to roll?” she asked as soon as she had the phone pressed to her ear.

“Yeah, it is. It’s big, Gayle. We’re looking at our first potential mass outbreak over the next few days.”

All the ingredients needed for the formation of supercells had been brewing for a while, now. They’d known it would be any minute, which was why they’d gone ahead and loaded the SUV that afternoon.

“All right. We need to be on the road by seven am.”

“10-4, boss lady.”

As she hung up, she had a hard time looking at Mac. She wasn’t ashamed of what she did. Quite the opposite. She took pride in helping people, and in the information she fed to the National Weather Service. But after seeing how affected he was by the storms, it was difficult to meet his eyes.

“Do you need to leave?” he asked just as another clap of thunder boomed above them.

She made herself face him. “No. I don’t have to be back at my place until right before seven.”

Nodding, his gaze slipped off to stare at the wall as his nose scrunched. At length, he said, “I saw you packing earlier and heard a vehicle drive away. I’d thought you were already gone.”

“Just preparing. We knew this was coming. That was probably Rick you heard leave.”

Mac never took his eyes off the wall, odd expressions contorting his face. Deep-in-debate-with-himself expressions. What was going on in that mind of his? She remained silent. After a minute, she started gnawing on her bottom lip, after two, she finally asked, “What are you thinking?”

He slowly turned and regarded her for the span of a heartbeat. “I’d like to come, too.”

She stiffened. “Say that again?”

“You did say I could join you on a chase. Correct?”

“I did,” she said cautiously.

“And we both know you didn’t come over here for sugar, Gayle. If you hadn’t come over here, I’m not sure what this night would’ve done to me. I’d already started to go to some bad places before you showed up. But you knew just how to distract me over the last few hours. Now I think maybe you’re right and I need to face this head-on…so I can move forward.”

Crap. Yeah, she had said that. But she’d been thinking more the baby-steps approach. A couple of smaller chases with rope tornadoes out in open fields. Hell, she’d actually been hoping to take him on a few of the many, many busts they went on. Let him see for himself that every time she headed out, she didn’t lasso a tornado and ride cowboy style on its destructive back. Most of the time, they didn’t even see a drop of rain, let alone an event. The damn driving was more of a danger—some of the amateurs out chasing were downright reckless on the road.

The system today, however, had the potential to spawn powerful wedge tornadoes, which meant they were going to see more real action. While predicting the precise location where a twister might touch down wasn’t exact, the intense storms they’d encounter would be much worse than the ones he’d experienced so far this week. He hadn’t had a great reaction to those. Something bigger might push him right over the edge.

“Mac.” She inhaled, then blew it out between her lips. “I don’t think this chase is right for you.”

“Why not?”

How did she say this without it sounding like she was calling him a coward? She wasn’t. Not in the least. The anger was worrisome, though. Mac being trapped inside the small confines of an SUV with multiple storms surrounding him was the equivalent of tiptoeing through a minefield.

“This is a giant trough. We’ll be following it through a few states. We’re going to be gone for days.”

“Lance won’t mind. In fact, I’m pretty certain he would encourage it. I can check with him, though, if you want me to.”

Ugh
. Okay. Different approach. “We spend a lot of time in the SUV. And with a huge system like this, we’re seriously looking at fifteen, maybe eighteen hour days. Wouldn’t you rather go on one closer to home, so you’re not bored out of your mind?”

“I’ll take a book. I wanted to get in some reading while I was here, anyway.”

All right. Upfront and honest it was. “Mac. This is a
dangerous
system. A high-risk front, with the potential to form high-precipitation supercells.”

“I don’t know what any of that means.”

“Supercells are what make the tornadoes. Which means that all that”—she swept her hand to the window and the storm still raging outside—”is nothing compared to what could possibly happen with the huge storms the front could breed. I… I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

Grimacing, she waited for him to get angry, but he calmly studied her as if he was really considering her words, and, boy, she hoped he was.

“I understand.” He nodded, but her relief was short-lived. “I’d still like to go.”

She suppressed a groan and slapped her hands on her thighs. She’d tried. “Okay. You’re a grown man. You can make decisions for yourself. But there is one rule, Mac.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m the boss. You do what I tell you to do. And if you throw one piece of my equipment, I don’t care how big and strong you are, I’m going to throw you. Got it?”