Authors: Kadi Dillon
“Is everything okay?” s
he asked without looking at the food he held out to her.
She could tell he was angry, she just didn’t know why.
“What do you mean?”
“Is everyone all right? No one got hurt, did they?”
“No,” h
e answered quickly
with barely controlled violence
. “No one except for you.”
“Gabe, I’m fine. I’ve had much worse. I didn’t even have to get stitches or anything.” She took the plate when his hand began to shake.
“You keep telling yourself that.” He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
“Gabe.” She called out to him and he stopped, rigid in th
e doorway. “Please don’t go
anywhere yet
. I—
I need you here right now.”
He turned slowly. She saw the change in his eyes
—fury to control—
and he nodded, dropping his jacket into a chair by the door. He crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of it.
“Eat.”
She complied eagerly, eating
every bite and
drinking
two and a half cups of coffee. When he
took her plate to the sink, she tried again.
“What’s wrong?”
His jaw tightened again and the plate clattered in the sink.
“You could have been killed,” h
e said in a flat, angry voice.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing roughly in his throat.
“You ran after a tornado, Tory.”
“I know. I’m sorry I scared everyone. I wasn’t really thinking.”
He smiled now, only a little. “At least you’re honest.”
She
lay
back again against the pillows. “How long are we staying here?”
“Your brother said we’ll move out on Friday.
He’s concerned about you, but I think he wants any excuse to be able to use the gym for a week.
”
She ignored his attempt at distracting her and frowned.
“Today’s Monday.”
“Yes.”
“Why are we wasting a week out of the chase? We s
hould be following that system e
ast.”
Five days in one place?
The thought caused her stomach to churn.
“We would be if you weren’t physically exhausted and c
ut up everywhere.”
“I said I was sorry. And
sorry
isn’t something I usually am
.” She smiled at his frown.
“No, you wouldn’t be would you? You mean everything you do. Why should you be sorry for it?” His hand shot out and grabbed her arm. He pulled her to him and said into her ear, “Ever do that again, I’ll strangle you, you hear?”
She had to giggle. “Yes, I hear.”
He smiled now and hugged her close to him.
She let herself lean and thought five days with him wo
uldn’t be all that intolerable.
Chapter Seven
By Thursday, Gabe
allowed a foul-
tempered Tory to
emerge
from her sick room and join the world again. They walked down the busy street, hands linked like old friends.
Friends, Tory mused. There had been no more blood heating kisses or electrifying promises from Gabe. He
’d been treating
her like an invalid for the most part and would hardly even argue with her no matter how hard
she
tried to provoke him.
Well, Tory thought wryly, enough was enough.
No one discussed what had happened, except Gabe. He wasn’t as angry as he had been when he brought her home from the hospital,
but
there was something bothering him.
He never slept in his room with her,
and
he never left until she was asleep. A few times she awoke during the night to find an empty roo
m. He was always back when she
woke in the morning waiting with a plate of food to force feed her.
“I’ve been thinking,” s
he said after they settled on a park bench to share a giant
, salty
pretzel.
“Uh oh.
”
“No, it’s good,” she hastened to assure
him. “I’ve been thinking of Ashley and Phil. He got out of the hospital today.” She shrugged at his bland stare. “I called and checked. Anyway, they don’t have a storm cellar because they can’t afford one. Every year,
our team
puts on a fundraiser for a city shelter.”
“Oh really?”
He
shoved a piece of pretzel in Tory’s mouth.
“Mmm. This
town has a shelter already.”
“So you intend to
have a fundraiser to earn
money for Ashley and Phil to install a cellar?”
“That’s the idea.
Got any swim trunks, Wills?” She wriggled her eyebrows
at him
and polished off the pretzel.
“A
car wash
?”
Adam asked skeptically.
“Yeah.
It’ll be fun,
” Tory exclaimed
,
bouncing on Adam’s bed. “We’ll have to run it by the team, of course. But I’m not worried. I can be very persuasive.”
“When do you want to have this
car wash
?” Adam asked while he dialed the
room numbers of the rest of the team.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Adam and Gabe both squeaked in unison.
“Sure.
It cost about
three thousand dollars to put in a
storm cellar. I already checked,” s
he said when Gabe opened his mouth to comment. “And whatever we don’t raise, I’ll pick up the slack.”
“No you won’t. I’ll do it. In fact, I should just pay for the whole thing and bypa
ss this whole car wash business,
” Gabe said just as Billy and
Kary
strolled in.
“What
car wash
business?” Billy
asked
.
“Just hold off until everyone’s in here. Tory just hates repeating h
erself.”
Tory stopped jumping on the bed and glared at her brother. “This is a wonderful idea. And you,” she pointed
a finger
at Gabe, “are not paying for it.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is my deal.” She
h
eld up a hand when he opened his mouth again. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
Gabe snapped his mouth closed and clenched his jaw. With his stormy grey eyes narrowed on Tory, he spoke quietly. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Everyone’s here now,
” Billy said.
“Everyone!” Tory exclaimed
,
standing. “We’re having a car wash!”
“Why?” Jac
k and Joel questioned.
“You guys creep me out when you do that.” Tory
shuddered
and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Because a family needs a storm cellar and we need our fundraiser for
this
year. I’m not selling kisses at a stupid booth again.”
“You what?” Gabe asked baffled.
“Sold kisses
a few
year
s ago
in
Kansas City
. It was ridiculous and I refuse to do it again.” Tory shuddered
again, this time
at the clear image of a
sweaty three hundred pound
man popping in a breath mint and slipping her a twenty dollar bill.
“That’s interesting,
”
Kary
said from the corner of the room.
“
Not when it’s your lips, lady.” She waited for everyone to stop laughing at her.
“Car
wash.
Tomorrow. I’ll take care of the signs
and supplies
.” She jumped
off the bed and turned again to address her team. “
Phil’s home from the hospital if anyone was curious. He’s doing well.”
“That
’s good, Tory,
” Billy said
quietly
.
She smiled
at him, knowing that out of everyone, he would get it. Frankie gave her shoulders a light squeeze. She tweaked his beard
and left the room.
Gabe watched her exit the room and exhaled slowly. The girl was a fireball, he thought, listening to the chatter around him
—an interesting mix of toughness, intelligence, and compassion. The last should have surprised him, but every emotion Tory felt or provoked was as
intense as the storms she chased. With extreme independence and exasperating stubbornness came a deep,
profound
empathy for
the
people around her
. She made him feel things he shouldn’t be able to feel right now.
Billy ran a ha
nd through his shaggy hair, shaking his head
. “What’s she got going on thr
ough that head of hers now?”
“You know Tory. Best thing to do now is grin and bear it. Car wash, tomorrow. Guess
I got to go buy a suit.” Adam
grimace
d
.
“Same here. I don’t think I packed one.” Gabe thought about Tory in a suit and had to bite back a groan.
He’d been a perfec
t gentleman the past four days—
taking care of Tory, listening to Tory, and being a friend to Tory. It was slowly driving him mad.
Every minute he had to spend with her in that little room was pure, agonizing torture. He had to see her all soft and rumpled when she woke up every morning. He had to see her when she was warm and sweet in her sleep. He’d penetrated some of the layers to her and could help but admire what he saw.
She was strength and compassion bundled into a desirable little package.
Gabe left Adam’s room and went to his own. He smelled her there, he thought as he crossed the room to start a fresh pot of coffee. Once he had that done, he sat down at the table with his laptop and opened the file he’d been secretly working on.
He scanned the list of miniature pictures as they displayed on the screen. He’d been taking snapshots of the team throughout the season. He had a project in mind and took some time every night to work on it. It would be a gift to the team when his time was up.
He ignored
the way
his stomach turned as it did every time he thought of leaving. After the
season ended, he would no longer have an excuse to hang around Tory or the other team members. Hell, he thought wryly, he had plenty of shots for his portfolio. He was basically paying five grand a month to spend time with Tory.
He saved the picture of Adam at his tripod and went
on to the next photo. He paused—his fingers going still as they hovered over the keyboard—
when Tory’s picture emerged on the screen. His heart took several hard knocks agai
nst his chest and his stomach sa
nk the way it did every time he thought of that moment.
He hadn’t even meant to take this picture. His mind had already told his feet to move—to chase after Tory, but his thumb had
pressed the button on the
shutter
release on its own accord. Gabe zoomed in and stared at the picture,
once again
facing the moment that had cost him hours of sleep.
There was a white house in the background
. The
massive tornado
was
breaking it apart. A
small, tawny haired girl
ran
toward it, her hair was flying all around her.
The image brought back the same helpless feelings he’d faced as he’d watched in horror as someone’s home was destroyed and
their
life turned upside down.
The picture was amazing,
superb. It would make him thousands of dollars. It would give him
more
endless nights of no sleep.
He sighed and drank the coffee that had gone cold. After grabbing
his wallet and camera bag
, he left his empty room. Tory would be back after she bought the supplies for the car wash. She’d act nonchalant about the whole thing, but he knew she would be as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. Adam would tease her and she’d hide her embarrassment behind a wall of verbal insults and sneers.
God, he was starting to love her.
Tory
picked out a turquoise bikini with a sparkling diamond
in the center. Being the height of swimming season, her choices were somewhat limited, but she liked the color even if the bottoms were a little too skimpy.