by Abby Niles
She made it to the door before she heard him move behind her with a string of angry mumbles. At least it was just resentment bringing on this anger. She knew what the resentment stemmed from—having someone catch him at the mercy of his emotions. Rick had caught her one time. Though she hadn’t been raged out like Mac had just been. She’d been in sobbing hysterics. There had been some throwing, though. And fury at who she’d lost.
As soon as they walked into the kitchen, Skylar bounded up to them with the pale pink pig clutched to her chest. “Bacon was fine.”
Gayle forced a broad smile for the child. “I told you he would be.” She glanced at Mac. A sheen of sweat coated the gray pallor of his skin. The adrenaline was fading now. “Hey, Skylar, why don’t you go up to your room to play a bit? I think we’ll stay over here until your daddy gets home.”
“Can I play Skylanders?”
“You betcha.”
“Awesome. Daddy never lets me play.” She raced from the room.
Worry shafted through Gayle as Mac collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table, resting his elbows on the wood and burying his face in his hands. She hurried into the bathroom and grabbed the first aid kit from the cabinet. As she stopped at the table, she slid it in front of him. He lifted his bowed head and glared at the box.
“All right, handsome.” She banded her arms around herself, still shaken from what she’d witnessed. “Time for you to open up.”
His jaw clenched. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And I said tough shit. Consider it penance for being such a buttmunch.”
He remained stubbornly silent. Damn it all to hell.
“Listen. I’ve known there was something going on with you, but I didn’t pry because I don’t like anyone prying in my business. But when I find a man beating the crap out of something in a mindless rage, I need to know what the hell triggered it and why.”
“I thought you said you were going to make coffee.” There was still an angry bite to his words. Hmm. So anger was his coping mechanism. Suddenly, a whole lot of her encounters with him made a whole lot more sense. What had she done before to set it off? Clearly, there had been so much more underlying that exchange.
She held her ground and hiked an eyebrow. “I’ll make the coffee when you start talking.”
He slowly turned his head and glared at her with all the scary fighter he had in him. Before, it had made her hesitate. Not now. It was a mask. A façade to keep from dealing with deeper issues. She was sure of it.
She kept hers stubborn and pointed. A standoff. A battle of wills. She would win this one. The man desperately needed to talk.
For a full minute, they both refused to give. Finally she said, “I always get what I want, handsome. I can do this—All. Day. Long.”
“Fine. You want to know my whole life story, here you fucking go. Did you know I grew up in this flat, hellish land?”
Ignoring the anger behind his words, she ambled over to the coffeepot and started the process to fulfill her end of the deal. “No. I didn’t. Was it here in Cheney?”
“No. Emerald fucking Springs. You would know about that place, wouldn’t you?”
She froze while putting the lid back on the coffee grounds and briefly closed her eyes. Oh, God, no. “When did you move to Atlanta?”
“When do you think?”
Pressing her fingers to her mouth, she stared down at the canister. The timing was there. She pulled her hand away from her mouth, flicked the machine on, inhaled deeply to compose herself, and turned to face him. “You were in the EF-5 tornado, weren’t you?”
He stared straight at her. He didn’t need to confirm it. Behind the hostility, the answer was etched clearly on his face. Tortured. Traumatized. God, the whole town had been destroyed. People killed…
“I wasn’t where I was supposed to fucking be,” he said, anger vibrating his voice.
She swallowed and quietly pulled out mugs. What did he mean by that?
“I was in a restaurant that wasn’t mine, helping some friends. Not knowing that decision would be the worst fucking decision I’d ever make.” He shook his head. “The tornado struck and while I was trapped under a goddamn refrigerator worried about myself, my home was being destroyed.”
“Tell me.”
“The restaurant was full for early dinner. Full. We scrambled, trying to get everyone tucked in somewhere. I was the last one, but there was no more room. So I crawled under the sink, wrapped my arms around the pipes, and started praying. The roar. I’ll never forget the roar…the screams, the glass shattering. The fierceness of the wind as it literally destroyed everything around me. I got pinned, until Lance found me and pulled me free.” His face contorted in pain before he wiped it away with a murderous scowl. “It was my day off. I should have been home.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Because I wasn’t, my wife was killed and I was left to find her.”
His wife. Mac had lost the woman he loved. Stunned, Gayle sank into the chair across from him, unable to form words.
Mac shook his head, and she knew he was seeing the agony of the moment all over again. God, how she wished she could ease his pain. But how could she, when her own still felt just as fresh?
“She was ten weeks pregnant.” He stared straight ahead, but the anger was gone from his voice. Instead it was filled with detachment. Monotone. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
God, a wife and a child. Fuck. That was worse. A lot worse.
Gayle took a shuddered breath as a tear slipped down her cheek. She quickly dashed it away. “Jesus. I’m so sorry, Mac.” And she was. More than he could know.
Needing to touch him, comfort him in some way, she cautiously took his hand in hers, grateful when he didn’t yank away.
“I left Kansas a month later and haven’t looked back once. Not until Lance called. How the hell do you say no to a man who saved your life?” Mac stared off across the room. “He didn’t do me any favors by pulling me out that day.”
She understood that train of thought, though she was long past her own death wish. But in the beginning there had been many, many months when she’d struggled with her grief, and she’d also wondered if she would be better off dead. Not knowing how to move forward, with a future so uncertain.
He took a deep breath, tugged his hand from hers, and scrubbed his face. A moment of hurt pinged her chest, but she let it go. People wanted comfort in their own way. Mac didn’t seem to want any. The fact he let her hold his hand, even briefly, was a small miracle.
“The first crash of thunder today brought every damn memory raging back. It’s being back in the fucking place. It’s just one miserable reminder after another of the worst day of my life.” He suddenly glared at her, and there was an accusation in his eyes she didn’t understand. “And you go after those things. How can you deliberately get close to a tornado? Be so damn excited about the possibility of one forming? Don’t you understand the pure devastation those things bring to people’s lives?”
Ah. So that was his issue with her.
Not her unconventional lifestyle but that she chased tornadoes. Okay, not the first time her job had gotten a bad reaction…though never quite to this degree before.
But how would he react when he found out why she did what she did?
“Oh, I understand.” She gave a sad smile. “All too well.”
He frowned, his anger and accusation slowly giving way to uncertainty. “What?”
“Seven years ago, I lost my parents, my sister, and the man I’d been dating since my senior year in high school to an EF-5 tornado.”
She didn’t bother with the details. Now wasn’t the time. This was about him. She just wanted him to know she truly did understand.
Mac sat up, staring at her. “Lost them…to a tornado?”
“I was finishing up my master’s in atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville when it happened. Weather has always fascinated me, but I had never chased until the year after they died.”
She sighed, and at his silent query, she explained, “I needed to know…how tornadoes worked. Why they happened. I wanted to further tornado research so others didn’t have to die the same way as the people I loved. I’ve dedicated the last six seasons to doing that. Facing them head-on helped me a lot in dealing with what had happened. Maybe you should try it.”
He jerked back. “Fuck, no. I have no desire ever to experience one of those bastards again. No way would I deliberately seek one out.”
Lifting her palms, she said, “Just a suggestion. I get it. But if you change your mind, the invitation is there.”
“I won’t be taking you up on it. What you do is fucking crazy.”
He’s seen even more than you have. The reminder calmed her and kept her from responding to the insult. “What I do has helped a lot of people, Mac. You may not understand it, but don’t belittle the research I’ve invested the last six years of my life in, simply because of your past.”
He stared at her for a moment, then swallowed and gave a jerky nod. “Fair enough.”
Her feelings still smarted from his attack earlier that afternoon, but knowing the events that drove him had pretty much wiped away her anger.
“So, can we call a truce?” she ventured.
A long pause followed, then he said, “This…this thing between us…it’s not happening. It can’t. Not like the other night.”
The renewed hurt that pierced her chest surprised her. “Because I’m a risk taker?”
He exhaled. “I can’t start caring about you, Gayle. I can’t go through that horror again. And you’ve got to admit, with your job, the chances are pretty good.”
Caring about her? She frowned. She really hadn’t considered that night as anything more than she’d enjoyed with other men. She simply liked sex. But the implication of Mac’s words tweaked her chest in an odd way. The understanding smile she offered him felt fake, strained. “Fair enough,” she parroted his words. “But can we be friends?”
“We can try.”
Try. At least the warning was there this time, right? She wouldn’t be blindsided. She’d make sure not to get too attached. Make that, at all. With the emotions his struggles had stirred in her, she was at risk of starting to care about him. She had such a damn soft heart, wanting nothing more than to support and comfort when something bad was going on with the people she called friends.
But men tended to trample all over women like her. Thankfully she had learned her lesson, had learned to keep her distance and reserve her compassion for those who truly appreciated it.
He’d warned her, and she planned to heed the warning. The man may have gone through hell, but if he couldn’t get past her job to see who she really was beneath all that, then they had no possibility of any kind of real friendship.
Oh, yeah. She would tread very carefully around Mac Hannon.
Chapter Seven
Standing with his feet spread in front of the screen door in the kitchen three days later, Mac scowled as he watched Gayle and a dark-haired guy stuff plastic containers in the back of a souped-up Nissan Xterra. The black SUV was wrapped in the WKKS News weather team logo with a radar image in the background. The bumper on the front was not a stock bumper, but the kind of sturdy grill that protected the headlights, usually seen on vehicles for off-roading. An assortment of antennas protruded from the roof along with a whole bunch of odd-looking equipment.
Her tornado hunting vehicle. The guy had backed it out of the barn behind her house about thirty minutes ago.
A storm system must be brewing somewhere. Fucking fantastic.
Shaking his head, Mac turned away, closed the inside door, and strode through the kitchen to collapse on the living room couch. He threw his arm over his eyes, blocking out the late evening sun. In the days that had passed since Gayle had found him in the barn, they hadn’t really had much interaction with each other. Friends was definitely not the path they were on. It was more like they tolerated each other’s presence. For him, he didn’t care for the raw and exposed consciousness he had when he was around her. She had seen him lose control. Every time he saw her, he was reminded of that.
“Hey, man,” Lance asked, shaking Mac’s foot. “You awake?”
“Yep,” he responded without removing his arm.
“I just got a lead on a repo I’ve been hunting for a few weeks. I’ll probably be gone most of the night.”
“K.” Lance’s presence loomed over Mac and he heaved a sigh. “What?”
“You want to come with? I invited you down here, and I just keep leaving you by yourself.”
“Nope. And you invited me here to help you train, which we did this morning and for the past three days. I’m fulfilling my end of things. I don’t need company. Go earn your money, Lance.”
“But after—”
“Go.”
Lance hovered for a while longer, but eventually his footsteps faded down the hall. Seconds later, the front door closed. His friend had been acting like a fucking helicopter mom since Mac had told him about the other night. This was exactly why he never confided his personal shit to people. They got all weird afterward.
Even the damn training sessions with Lance had been tense, as though his friend thought Mac was fragile or something and wasn’t putting all his strength into it. How was the jackass going to prepare for a fucking fight if he didn’t go at training 100 percent? It took Mac laying one on him hard for Lance to finally snap out of his kid-glove approach.
Why didn’t people understand Mac didn’t need anyone? He was totally fine being alone.
He shifted to his side and stared at the coffee table. Tires crunched on gravel as the SUV drove around the house toward the front. So they were off on their exciting, action-packed tornado adventure. Worry for Gayle built in his chest. No. He didn’t care…he didn’t.
What he cared about was getting some sleep, which had eluded him since the barn. He closed his eyes again.
A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and his eyes snapped open. His entire body stiffened. The windows were now dark instead of bright from the afternoon sun. Well, at least he had successfully escaped into the oblivion of sleep for a while. The lack of nightmares was just a testament to how exhausted he was.
Slinging his legs over the side of the couch, he sat up blinking. What had woken him up, anyway? A brilliant blue flash lit the room. His breath seized in his lungs. Another streak of lightning brightened the darkened area.
Trapped. Heavy. Couldn’t breathe. Complete darkness except for the strobe of lightning. Screams. So many goddamn screams.
Fuck! He flicked on the lamp on the end table so the bursts of light weren’t as palpable. He worked his neck from side to side, trying to rid his body of its increasing tension. Just a storm. That was all. He would not let his mind fuck with him.
A deafening crack rattled the walls.
The scrape of the car as the bumper slipped closer to his head. Desperation to free himself. Lance suddenly there.
Cold sweat beaded on the clammy skin of his upper lip. Trembles quaked his hands as the airway in his throat seemed to shrink. He sucked in a whistling inhale and jerked to his feet.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Do something. Anything.
The TV.
Lightning flashed twice as a clap of thunder immediately followed.
His destroyed home. Nothing left. Bellowing her name. Frantic. Terrified.
Roaring his fury, Mac grabbed a throw pillow and hurled it into the hall. Cursing, he strode to the large flat screen, his strides stiff, awkward. Another bright strobe made him stumble away from the windows.
A pile of debris. A bloodied hand. The white gold wedding band and encrusted engagement ring sparkling in the sunlight.
He knotted his hands in his hair, squeezing his eyelids closed. No. No! Don’t remember.
The bushes outside began to scrape against the glass as the winds picked up. He snapped his head up, and his breath strangled as he stared at the branches flat
tened against the windowpanes by the howling wind.
The slim fingers remaining motionless. Not even a twitch. He paralyzed with fear. The realization dawning. The refusal to believe.
White dots danced before his eyes. He sucked oxygen into his lungs, then hurried to turn on the television.
The growing violence of the weather outside beckoned him into oblivion—into the past—and, goddamn it, one trip back into hell this week had been enough.
He forced himself into the kitchen, yanked open the fridge, and grabbed a beer. Another violent crack shook everything around him.
Flinging rubble off her. Lifeless blue eyes. Fence post jutting from her chest.
He jerked and dropped the bottle on the floor. Glass and beer exploded all over the hardwood floor. Motherfucker! He fucking hated this.
He grabbed a kitchen towel and dropped it on the spilled beer, then snatched a new bottle from the fridge, twisted off the top, and took a long guzzle as he watched white lightning splinter across the sky.
Dead. His wife. His child. Dead.
His throat closed, the brew getting stuck on its way down. Choking, he cupped his mouth as the beer spewed out and over his fingers. Some wet his shirt, the rest plopped onto the floor.
Fury took over and he launched the bottle against the wall. The loud crash of the glass shattering, the beer gushing, gave him a momentary sense of relief. He heaved deep inhales, fists clenched tight at his sides.
The heavens opened up and torrential rain smacked against the windows, rattling the panes. The wind howled. The limbs beat the glass.
He failed. Failed to protect her. Failed to protect his child. He failed them both.
Just as he lifted his arm to hurl another bottle, a loud pounding had him shuddering out of the memories. The noise came again, and his gaze snapped to the door. He flung it open to find Gayle standing on the top step. Drenched hair clung to her face and droplets of water dripped off the tip of her nose and chin. A sage-green tank top molded wetly to her skin, while her khaki shorts dripped water down her legs to her muddy bare feet. A shiver racked through her, knocking him out of his stunned stupor.