One Breathless Night(34)

It felt like he’d had the same idea. It was a slow burn, where every inch of him had a place in her memory, one she could pull out when she needed to. Even as she stroked him, his hands had touched her in the same way. Wanting to pause the world for an hour while they touched each other everywhere.

“I don’t want to go home,” she whispered, her mouth very close to his ear. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“Me, too,” he whispered back, and she thought she heard a break in his voice.

He had to move to do it, but he found a way that both of them could keep exploring. Now, they could kiss.

Perfect. Talking was overrated. And she couldn’t quite trust herself not to cry.





17

RICK’S CELL PHONE rang at 3:45 a.m. He tried to grab it quickly and quietly, but Jenna had awakened at the first ring.

“Okay,” he said. “No, it’s fine. “

He was leaving. Jenna wasn’t groggy anymore. The most likely reason for him to get a call at this hour was a tornado.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice almost free of the postsleep slurring. “Except for Gordo. Maybe Elizabeth? And if she can’t, try Jonah. Yeah. Okay. Thirty.” He hung up and looked at her. “Rotten timing but duty calls.”

“A tornado? Is it close?”

“Nope. About four hours away, heading for Topeka, but it’s not even a tornado yet. The projection is high for a cluster event, so my team will drive up with a new kind of mobile radar and see what we see. The bad part is I doubt I’ll be able to get back before you have to leave. I wanted to take you to the airport.”

“But a cluster event. You must be excited about that, yes?”

He turned to her, moving close enough to kiss. “Yeah. There’s a lot we need to learn about them. But what’s way more important is that I wanted to make out here before we made out in the car before we went to the airport.”

“Well, if there’s going to be a tornado, maybe I won’t be able to go tonight?”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. Your flight might see a bit of rain, but not much, so, the worst you’ll have to put up with is snoring neighbors. Are you able to sleep on a red-eye?”

She knew he was changing the subject, and she let him. There wasn’t much she could do to stop him from driving four hours straight into danger. She doubted she’d sleep until Rick was home safe. “Yeah,” she said, hoping the lie didn’t show. “I’m out the minute we take off.”

His smile was so tender it made her whole chest constrict, and that was a precursor to crying, which she absolutely refused to do. He did this all the time. It was part of his job, for heaven’s sake.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, touching her cheek. “I’ll be able to text you during the drive, although there’s no telling what kind of communication we’ll have when we’re in the thick of things. But I’ll definitely let you know when it’s over, okay?”

She nodded again and then kissed him, hugging him so tightly she’d probably leave a bruise.

Why in hell had she been so excited to see Ladyhawke? She hadn’t slept well because of it. The disagreement she’d had with Rick hadn’t been about the movie. It had been about them. About their future together. Even if he did come home safe and sound, new tornadoes would form, tearing apart lives like a scythe cutting wheat. She wished she hadn’t learned so much about them. Like what the enhanced Fujita scale actually meant, and how there wasn’t anything a person could do when the roof of a barn was swept up and smashed your truck to a tin can.

But what she could do was be an adult, and not make him feel any guilt at all.

“Thank you for my housewarming gift,” he said when they ended the kiss. “You’re right. It was a perfect popcorn bowl. And man, that lasagna? You should go into business for yourself. Seriously, best lasagna ever.”

Jenna couldn’t help smiling. “Well, look at that. To absolutely no one’s surprise you’re still, above all, a very nice man.”

He winced. “I try.”

“It makes all the difference. Now leave, because if you think I’m staying awake at this hour you’re nuts. Oh, wait. I can get the coffee going. You must have a thermos somewhere, right?”

“I’ll get coffee at the lab. And I’ll text you. Damn it, I miss you already.”

She sniffed, but smiled right up until he walked into the master bath. And was left with nothing but his scent clinging to his pillow.

It was amazing how quickly he was dressed. Another quick kiss on her temple, a hand over her hair, then he and his heavy Doc Martens clomped downstairs. She heard him drop something in the kitchen. It didn’t sound as if it broke.

After that? Silence. Sadness.

Endings.

* * *

OF COURSE, HIS TEAM had rushed in after getting the call. They were students from the University of Oklahoma, each of them very excited about what was to come. They’d hit the road quickly—after all, this is what they’d been trained for—and they all knew what to do. Now, in the truck, when they weren’t trying to get comfortable, they were telling jokes, mostly about him. Standard protocol on these excursions, but only if they liked the boss. He wasn’t complaining, just groaning and rolling his eyes. He was also texting Jenna like a seventh grader because he had seen the fear in her eyes. She really was a terrible liar.

He texted her a bit about the group. Three of the six had been on a tornado run with him before, and the other three had attended classes at U of O, including some he taught. The closer they got to the storms, the higher the tension rose. But each of them understood that they were going to make a difference. The data they collected was ultimately going to save lives. Hell, he was excited, too.

And while he couldn’t do much to assuage Jenna now, once he was clear of the storm he’d call her. Let her know he was still in one piece. And some time in the future she might be interested in listening to what he did on these expeditions. Rick recorded everything once the action started, and explained every observation. Jonah would be filming, too, which was even better, because she’d see that it was safety first, always. And that his equipment and his team were never closer than a mile to any active core.

In his whole career, no one on any of his teams had ever been hurt. He wished he could say that across the board, but sometimes, shit happened and weather, despite all they knew, was fickle. Not that anyone had died, but in 2008, one of the teams had been banged up something fierce. A freak vortex, something they didn’t understand too well back then, had caught them by surprise.

The science had blossomed in the last ten years. Thrilling stuff. He loved what he did. Where he worked, at the center of everything tornado.

“Come on, boss. It’s your turn.”

“What? It isn’t my turn if I didn’t know you were playing.”

“Haven’t you been listening?”

“No.”

Elizabeth, a promising grad student who’d be working at the lab next year, pulled out Rick’s thermos of coffee. “We’re talking about why we got into climatology. And it’s your turn.”

“Well, who went before me?”

The kids laughed. “You’re first.”

“Hell, no. Ask Jonah and his group to go first, and then if we don’t like it we can shut off the walkie-talkies, say it was a glitch.”

“Uh, boss.” Aja, who worked on the Mesoscale Predictability Experiment, held up her two-way radio. “They’re already on.”

There was a lot of grumbling from the truck in front of them. Rick made the “gimme” motion to Aja and she handed him the walkie-talkie. “All you have to do is be interesting. It’s not too much to ask.”

“Then you go first,” came a voice he didn’t immediately recog— No, it was hipster James, with his weird goatee and too-short tight pants.

“Fine,” Rick said, speaking into the stupid device. For all he knew, this was all going to be recorded. “Okay, when I was just a year old and first learning to talk—”

Elizabeth snatched the walkie-talkie out of his hand. “Okay, Dr. Sinclair, if you don’t want to tell us, fine. We’d rather hear about your girlfriend, anyway.”

“My what?”

“The beautiful Jenna.”

“What the hell?” Rick shook his head. “I thought this was supposed to be about how we came to climatology.”

“Well, now it’s about you and Jenna,” Aja said. “Much more interesting.”

He sighed. There wasn’t one person in either vehicle that had less than a 4.0 GPA, and this was what they wanted to hear. “You’re all fired. Each one of you. When we get back, you can collect your last paycheck.”

“Fine,” Elizabeth said. “Tell us about when you were learning to talk.”

“It’s a mind-boggling story. Which I’m certainly not going to tell now. You guys ruined it.”

“But she is pretty,” Aja said. “I saw her in the break room.”

He couldn’t hold back his smile. “Yes, she’s a beauty. Smart as hell. Funny. Teaches English. Makes the best lasagna I’ve ever had.” He played with his cell phone, waiting to hear the ding of her reply. “She’s great. In every way but one.”