He dug into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
She reached out and tugged on his shirt. She pressed her lips together, but a giggle escaped. Then as if someone had replaced the oxygen with nitrous oxide, she tossed back her head and laughed so hard, tears rolled down her cheeks.
Taryn moved closer to her. “I think she’s lost it.”
“Maybe we should check for a head injury,” Jack said.
Drake stared at her for a long minute. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. When his sister introduced them a few days ago, it was as if he’d been punched him in the gut. For a few moments, he hadn’t been able to breathe.
This was the friend Taryn had told him about? Honestly, he still thought of his sister as a child, so her friends were automatically lumped into the same category. But Allie was all woman. Had her beauty been limited to her outer appearance, he wouldn’t have given her another thought, but hers went bone-deep. It hadn’t taken more than a brief conversation with her about her experience with cancer to see her strength and her enthusiasm for life. She hadn’t allowed her illness to break her spirit, and she hadn’t let a little tornado break her either. He admired her for it.
Shaking his head, he smiled and laughed right along with her, releasing all the stress of the last ten minutes. The more he laughed, the more relaxed he became. Apparently, laughter was contagious, because Jack and Taryn joined them.
They’d survived the tornado without anything more than a couple scratches and dents. If he’d learned anything today, it was that he’d better seize his opportunity before he lost his chance. Life was short. It was time to put his promise into action. Tonight, he’d do everything in his power to make Allie his.
Chapter Two
“Hey, it’s Tornado Allie,” called Eric as he and his wife spotted her sitting on a high stool at the hotel bar.
She gave a small wave, her cheeks heating as the other storm-chasing guests hooted and hollered for the fifth time since she and Taryn had shown up for a celebratory drink. Apparently the story of their dangerous brush with the tornado and her subsequent laughter had made its rounds before they’d returned to the hotel.
Now everyone called her Tornado Allie.
She’d been called worse.
They were lucky. A different tornado had hit a nearby town and destroyed several homes and a school.
Allie sipped on her second mojito, already feeling the effects of the first. In the past, she’d merely slammed shots for the sole purpose of getting buzzed. Now she planned to actually taste her drinks.
Mojitos were yummy.
A husky rumble of laughter from across the room made her stomach drop and her nipples harden underneath her tank top. She pivoted on her chair and glanced over her shoulder at Drake standing between Miranda and Natalie like the filling in the middle of their sandwich. She didn’t doubt for a second the girls were thinking the exact same. She couldn’t blame them.
Mojitos weren’t the only yummy thing in here.
Like her, he had taken a shower to wash away the grime and dirt from the accident. Still wet, his hair was a couple shades darker than his normal caramel color, and it curled at the ends, especially around his ears. Rather than wearing another one of his official Blow Me Away shirts, he’d thrown on a simple white tee that accentuated his thick, ropy biceps.
The guy would look great on television. He had a straight nose, high cheekbones, full lips, and long eyelashes, all of which taken individually would appear quite feminine, but together on Drake—100 percent tasty alpha-male goodness.
How did a storm chaser get such a hot body? What did she really know about him other than he was Taryn’s older brother?
Since they’d met, she hadn’t seen him lose his cool once, and with more than a dozen guests—several of them at one time or another complaining to him about mundane things that would have driven Allie crazy—it couldn’t be easy. Yet through it all, he’d remained controlled. Even when the tornado had thrown their van like a die-cast car, he’d stayed calm.
What would it be like to have all that control concentrated on her?
“Earth to Allie. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Taryn waved her hand in front of Allie’s face.
She realized she’d missed what her friend had said. “Sorry. I was lost in thought.”
“Care to share?”
“Care to share what you and Jack were doing in the shed?”
Allie had seen all the signs of Taryn having the hots for Jack. Every time those two were within twenty feet of each other, the chemistry was so combustible, Allie was surprised it didn’t end in a chemical meltdown.