Hell on Wheels: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Karen Leabo

  She stared at him, as if mesmerized by his voice. With their gazes locked and their mouths within inches of touching, Roan had a brief, insane notion that they might actually kiss. Then Victoria abruptly jerked away from his touch, shuttering her eyes.

  “The unknown can kill people,” she said curtly.

  Her words had a chilling effect on Roan. He immediately backed off and did not mention borrowing a car again. She was right. When people took the elements too lightly, when they casually messed with something they knew nothing about, they could die. He better than anyone understood that.

  Victoria’s eyes were crossed and her fingers cramping from so much time at the laptop computer. Roan had long since grown bored. He’d paid their bill and stepped outside to smoke, much to Victoria’s relief. She needed a few minutes to pull herself together.

  She hadn’t meant to snap at Roan. But the idea of chasing tornadoes with nothing but a phone and a radio scared the bejeezus out of her. Tornadoes weren’t always visible from a distance. An HP storm—high precipitation—could be wrapped up in rain. Without the benefit of the ham radio storm spotters and the up-to-the-minute Weather Service bulletins, she and Roan could drive right into the middle of a tornado and never see the danger until their car was in the top of a tree.

  She shivered at the thought, then reminded herself she had nothing to worry about. She and Roan were going nowhere without the Chasemobile, and that was final.

  She couldn’t really blame Roan, she thought as she closed her computer. He probably thought she was an overcautious fussbudget. But until he experienced a twister firsthand, he wouldn’t understand her overriding respect toward storms, or her insistence on caution.

  Even then he might not agree with her if he was as devoid of survival instinct as Amos believed.

  She gave the map she’d plotted one final, longing look before folding it in half. Better to miss the action than put herself or anyone else at risk.

  Roan reentered Candy’s Cafe just as Victoria was standing and stretching the kinks out of her back. “Hey, they have a pioneer museum here, in the city hall,” he said in the same tone of voice he might have used to announce that he’d struck gold. “Let’s check it out.”

  A pioneer museum? Oh, well, what else was there to do? She’d analyzed the data to death, and a little walking would do her good. Besides, his grin was infectious. “All right, you sold me,” Victoria said. “But I think I’ll put my computer back in the van.”

  That chore taken care of, they headed down Main Street to the unassuming city hall. Roan opened the door and ushered her inside.

  The Pioneer Museum, in the coolness of the basement, was a hodgepodge collection of nineteenth-century farm and ranch implements, moth-eaten clothing, deeds and land grants, and samples of barbed wire. The skulls of long-dead cattle were mounted on the walls at regular intervals, staring down with hollow eyes. Sepia photographs depicted the pioneers’ lives.

  Fixating on the distant past wasn’t high on Victoria’s list of interesting things to do. She soon grew weary of the musty museum, but Roan didn’t. He read every single description of every exhibit, sometimes out loud, his astute blue eyes taking in every detail.

  She had to smile. His enthusiasm reminded her of a little kid, full of wonder and curiosity. While she tried to stuff her head with weather data, he seemed to have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about everything under the sun. If there was anything pleasurable about hanging around this rusty, moldering stuff, it was watching Roan take it all in.

  “You’re not really liking this, are you,” Roan said.

  Victoria jumped. Her mind had been on her earlier calculations, and she hadn’t felt Roan come up behind her. Did he have to stand so close? She could feel his breath on her hair and the heat of his body radiating toward hers.

  “Uh, well … I guess history isn’t my strongest suit,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you say you were bored?” He immediately dragged her upstairs.

  Victoria was glad to get out into the fresh air again, even if it was hot. She paused outside the city hall to study the sky. It was clear blue, with just a few flat cumulus clouds.

  “Doesn’t look like much of a storm day,” Roan commented.

  “Not here,” Victoria agreed. “But a hundred and fifty miles away, those cumulus towers are already forming.” She glanced at her watch, then toward the garage, tempted. New data would be available.…

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Roan said, taking her by the hand and practically dragging her in the opposite direction. “You’re better off not knowing what’s happening a hundred and fifty miles away. You’ll only torture yourself. C’mon.”

  She sighed and followed him meekly. He was right. She didn’t really want to know what she was missing.

  Next thing she knew, he ushered her into an ice cream shop called the Dairy Dilly. His hand at her waist was completely innocent, yet it sent pleasurable shivers through her body. He could be so damned appealing when he wanted to be. She hadn’t missed the fact that he was trying awfully hard to keep her entertained, thus distracting her from their dismal situation.

  And he was doing a pretty good job.

  Victoria reveled in the air-conditioning for a few moments as she studied the Dairy Dilly’s twenty-something flavors. “I’d like a small vanilla cone, please,” she said decisively to the clerk.

  A strangled noise came from Roan’s direction. “A vanilla cone?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You are sorely lacking in dietary imagination, Vicky.” He stepped in front of her. “We’ll have a triple-decker hot fudge sundae with pistachio mint, peanut-butter banana, and, ummm, mocha fudge. And two spoons.” He turned triumphantly toward Victoria. “Now, doesn’t that sound adventurous?”

  “It sounds nauseating. And my name’s Victoria.” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

  “Oops, sorry. I slipped.”

  “You do that a lot.”

  “C’mon, Vic-TOR-ee-ah,” he said, enunciating her name until it sounded like it had ten syllables instead of four. “Try the sundae. If you don’t like it, I’ll buy you that plain ol’ vanilla cone. Deal?”

  She couldn’t imagine why her choice of ice cream made any difference to him, but to keep the peace, she agreed. A few minutes later she found herself sitting across from him, skeptically contemplating the quivering mound of ice cream.

  Roan handed her a spoon. “Dig in.”

  She took a small sample. It was good—very good, in fact. She took a second, larger bite, and then a third. Roan joined her, mixing all three flavors on his spoon at the same time.

  “You want the cherry?” he asked.

  “Do you?” she countered.

  “I asked first.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, we’re acting like a couple of teenagers at the malt shop. Please, eat the cherry. I won’t be able to sleep tonight knowing I deprived you of it.”

  He laughed, dangled the fruit enticingly in front of her, then snatched it away and popped it into his own mouth, pulling it off the stem with his teeth. Victoria watched, fascinated despite herself. He had a sexy mouth.

  “What’s wrong with acting like kids?” he asked when he’d thoroughly chewed and swallowed the morsel. “I get the feeling maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like to just relax and enjoy something for its own sake, without analyzing it to death.”

  She narrowed her gaze. Was that really how she impressed him? An uptight scientist utterly incapable of having fun?

  “I told you before, I’m very focused when it comes to a chase trip,” she said, trying hard not to be offended. “If you got to know me under other circumstances, you would have a different impression of me.”

  “Indeed. I’d like to test that theory.”

  The suggestive look in his eyes left no doubt as to what “other circumstances” he had in mind. Her heart flipped over and she felt heat rushing to her face. What in the world was she to make of him? And what
was she to do about her response to him? If he pressed his advantage even a little, she would melt into a whimpering pool of sexual acquiescence.

  She shook her head to dispel the unwelcome images taking shape in her head, then took another bite of ice cream. A click and a whirl caused her to look up again.

  “Will you stop that?” she said testily. She did not particularly want to be captured on film in her present state. She was sweaty and out of sorts, and she probably had ice cream on her nose or something just as bad.

  “I like taking your picture, especially when you don’t know I’m watching you. Your every thought is expressed right in your face, did you realize that?”

  “I certainly hope not!” she sputtered. If that was true, she was in deep trouble.

  FIVE

  After the ice cream, Roan found more distractions in Haynie, Oklahoma, than Victoria had thought possible in such a dinky town. First they walked to the local high school and watched the baseball team practice. They ambled through a residential neighborhood where one of the fenced yards housed a Shetland pony, which they petted and fed handfuls of grass. Roan took more pictures. By then Victoria was getting used to it, so she didn’t object.

  Next they found a park, where Roan played Tarzan on the jungle gym and Victoria rocked gently to and fro on a swing, letting the breeze cool her. As he hung upside down from his knees, his T-shirt rode up, revealing rippling stomach muscles and more smooth, tanned skin than she needed to see.

  When he decided to walk the highest bar like a tightrope, Victoria’s pleasure turned to panic. God, he was going to break his neck. “Cut it out, Roan. You’re scaring me.”

  He rolled his eyes, but he did climb down and came over to where she was sitting. “Want me to push you?”

  “No,” she answered, wary.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll push me too high, even when I tell you to slow down, and you won’t stop until I scream and threaten to kill you.”

  He flashed a guilty grin. “You sound like you’ve had your share of experience with mean little boys on the playground.”

  “You got it.” She looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Let’s get back to the garage and see if Leon is finished yet.”

  “Okay,” Roan said agreeably. He’d been nothing today if not agreeable. Taking her hand and pulling her up from the swing, he said, “Now, answer truthfully. Breaking down in this little town hasn’t turned out to be so god-awful bad, has it?”

  She smiled. “It could have been worse. And thank you for keeping me … distracted. But I warn you, when I find out just exactly what we missed, my mood will go downhill in a hurry.”

  “Then I’ll have to find some new way to, er, distract you.”

  The man was incorrigible, and he was getting bolder with his sexual innuendoes. But something deep inside her, something she couldn’t name or explain or rationalize, let him get away with it. Perhaps it was because she suspected he wasn’t serious, that he was only trying to get a reaction out of her.

  Victoria already had her credit card in her hand as Leon totaled up the bill. When he gave her the charge slip, she barely even registered the amount before scrawling her normally neat signature. She was eager to check the data again.

  Moments later she was staring at the computer screen and sighing. Oswego, Oklahoma. That’s where the action would break, and they were three hours away. But if they hurried, they might make it.

  Roan was leaning against a wall, chatting with one of the gas jockeys.

  “Move it or lose it, Cullen. We’ve got a lot of time to make up,” she called to him as she unlocked the passenger door, then walked around to the driver’s side.

  Roan jumped at the sound of her voice and quickly bid the other man good-bye. “Ever consider a career in the military?” he asked as he climbed into the van.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got a bit of the drill sergeant in you.”

  “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. But there’s a chance we’ll still make it.” She reached behind her and retrieved a handful of maps from the seat pocket. “Here,” she said, handing them to Roan. “There’s an Oklahoma map in there somewhere. Find a highway that leads to Oswego.”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!”

  She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Cut it out.”

  Roan quickly plotted their shortest route to the small eastern Oklahoma town, and Victoria drove as fast as she dared. Two hours later she was encouraged by the darkening sky. The temperature outside had dropped considerably, and intermittent reports of high winds and pea-sized hail came over the ham radio. She jumped when a “beep beep beep” sounded from the weather station, followed by the announcement that the Weather Service had issued a T-box.

  “All right, now we’re cooking,” Roan said in response to the tornado watch.

  “We’re still seventy-five miles away from it,” Victoria said gloomily. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”

  “Do we have to stop when it gets dark?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t chase what I can’t see.”

  “Hmm.” He didn’t sound particularly pleased with her answer.

  The ham radio spotters kept up a consistent chatter as the van approached Oswego. One reported a rotating wall cloud—the precursor to a tornado—about four miles north of town. Although visibility wasn’t as good in this part of the state because of the trees, Victoria could see the supercell off in the distance. Adrenaline surged through her veins, and the air seemed to be charged with the power of the storm as the atmospheric pressure dropped.

  “Find a good road north,” she said, tapping the map Roan had spread out against his thigh.

  “I’m looking,” he said impatiently.

  Another “beep beep beep” grabbed their attention. This time it was a tornado warning—a funnel cloud had been sighted.

  Victoria let out a string of curses.

  “Vicky!”

  She turned on him. “You call me Vicky one more time and you’re walking.”

  Roan’s hurt expression made her want to bite her tongue out. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t do it on purpose.”

  She eased her foot off the gas and took a deep breath. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s stupid for me to let the stress get to me like that. But this is very frustrating! If we just had another fifteen minutes—”

  “Highway 64A,” Roan interrupted. “That should be the intersection just ahead.”

  Victoria made a kamikaze turn onto rural route 64A, which turned out to be a twisting two-lane blacktop. “Are you sure about this?”

  “It’s the only decent road leading north.”

  Excited voices came thick and fast over the radio now, describing the tornado. According to their eyewitness accounts, the twister was long and spindly, churning across open pastures. Then abruptly the voices stopped. One man finally reported, “It’s gone back up. Show’s over.”

  “That’s it,” Victoria said, expelling a long breath. “It’s over, and we missed it.”

  Sure enough, when they crested the next hill they met up with several vehicles parked haphazardly along the roadway, including TV station vans. Some of the cars she recognized as belonging to fellow storm chasers. Most were quickly packing up their video cameras and tripods, ready to zoom off to the next likely cloud in hopes of catching another storm.

  She pulled up next to Eddie and Marilyn Dunne, a couple from Dallas who were amateur weather enthusiasts and regulars on the chase scene for several years.

  “Victoria!” Eddie greeted her, looking surprised. “We were wondering where you’d gotten to. Jeff Hobbs said you were out and about, and I couldn’t believe you weren’t here. Everybody’s here,” he said, gesturing toward the dozen or so cars. “Did you see it?”

  “I’m afraid not.” She quickly introduced Roan to the couple, then asked, “What did I miss?”

  “Just a little ol’ rope of a storm, that’s all,” Marilyn said, assessing Roan wi
th lazy green eyes. “Wasn’t on the ground more than a couple of minutes. But it was kind of pretty, backlit by the sun and all. I think I got some nice stills.” She patted the camera dangling from her neck.

  “No damage or injuries, I hope?” That was always the first thing Victoria wanted to know about any tornado.

  “No, I’m sure not,” Marilyn said.

  Eddie signaled for her to hurry up. “There’s another wall cloud on the other side of town,” he announced.

  “And I suppose we’re going after it,” Marilyn said with a soft laugh. “You know how Eddie is. He wants to chase to the bitter end.”

  By that time most of the chasers were hopping into their vehicles and taking off with some urgency.

  “You mean there might be another one?” Roan asked.

  “Could be. These things often occur in clusters.”

  “Well, hell, let’s go, then!”

  Victoria pulled back onto the highway, working her way into the queue of cars driving like maniacs. “Shoot, we’re in a lot more danger from these crazy drivers than we are from any storm,” she said as someone came within inches of rear-ending the van.

  “Is it always this crowded?” Roan asked.

  “Lately it seems that way. Several years ago, when I first got into this business, you would never see this many chasers on the road at one time. Chasing has gotten to be a very popular pastime. I really miss the days of just me and Amos and the sky. I don’t know how long it’s been since we witnessed a tornado by ourselves.”

  “You miss him, don’t you.”

  “Of course I do. But I must say, you’ve been … well …”

  “A pain in the butt?”

  “No, that isn’t what I was going to say.” What had she been going to say? That he was fun? A good sport? A helluva lot sexier than his uncle? She finally settled on “You’ve been quite good company.” She covertly glanced in his direction to gauge his reaction.

  To her surprise, a slow smile spread across his face. “You’re not so bad yourself, Vic—Victoria,” he said, correcting himself before he committed another nickname sin. Just when she was about to respond with a pleasant rejoinder, he added, “And you’re real pretty when you’re mad.”