Riding the Storm

by Julie Miller

  Was that stoic silence—interspersed with bouts of bossing her around—the way he dealt with his pain? Did losing control of a situation give his handicap, as he’d called it, a chance to sneak in and take control of him?

  Guilt that her actions might have aggravated his “old injury” flared inside her. In a gesture that had become habit of late, she cradled her left hand against her tummy, soothing the baby when she couldn’t soothe herself.

  She’d lived with guilt all her life. Despite her father’s love, she’d grown up with the irrational notion that she should have been someone different, done something better to make her mother love them enough to want to stay.

  She should have married Joaquin the first time he’d asked her, but she’d been holding out for some mythic ideal of happily-ever-after. When it became clear that Prince Charming was never going to show his face in tiny Turning Point, she’d settled for caring and being cared for.

  If she’d said yes sooner, she might have learned to feel passion for her dear friend. She might have made love with her husband, instead of being the freakish virgin who’d conceived her child in a hospital lab.

  If she’d been artifically inseminated sooner, the baby would have been here by now. If she hadn’t delayed, there might have been a chance to save Joaquin. She’d have a companion for life instead of a grave to tend.

  As though sensing her troubled thoughts, Joaquin, Jr., shifted positions in her womb. Gently, she caressed the spot where life was stirring inside her. Her son would never know his father, never know what a kind, good man he had been.

  But he’d know her love. Her baby would never lack for that.

  If it was enough. If she could be enough.

  Way too many ifs.

  Jolene rubbed her stomach, unsure whether the baby was restless, or if her own self-doubts were responsible for the queasy feeling rising in her gullet. Heck. Maybe she should blame her oddly introspective mood on the rough road and the weather—or the unsettling presence of that wounded know-it-all from California.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Nate’s hand go still. Automatically, hers did as well. She was going to add mind-reader to the list of things that irritated her about the visiting paramedic. While he might not be truly psychic, he had a way of noticing her moods and movements that was distinctly unsettling.

  Wes and Cindy cuddled between them, whispering sugary apologies to each other over and over, sneaking kisses. But the honeymooners weren’t enough of a distraction to keep Jolene from sensing the ripple of awareness radiating across the truck cab. Goose bumps puckered along her arms and legs, and she knew the sudden sensitivity had nothing to do with the damp clothes that stuck to her skin.

  Nate was watching her now. As sure as the touch of his hand, she felt him.

  An upward glance gave her a glimpse of whiskey-brown eyes, shaded by that omnipresent ball cap. But his gaze was no less piercing, no less questioning.

  She slipped her fingers back to the steering wheel and peered into the dull, drab excuse for daylight outside.

  What now? she wanted to shout. Where was she falling short this time? How was she pushing his worry buttons? Did he blame her independence for the ache in his knee?

  She gripped the wheel tighter and pressed on the accelerator. It was his own fault! He should have just let her fix the damn tire instead of doing all that lifting and bending.

  Of course, when he’d picked her up, she’d gotten absolutely no sense that there was anything weak or disabled or hurting about the man. His chest had been hard and warm against her back, his arm strong and secure.

  She’d been startled when the car had shifted. Despite the deceptive gentleness of its movement, thousands of pounds of drifting metal could be unpredictable. She could have been struck or pinned beneath it.

  But Nate had saved her. He’d picked her up, lifted her out of harm’s way, held her tight. He’d saved her. Saved her baby.

  For a second time.

  Jolene rubbed her tummy again.

  “You okay?” Even though she’d been thinking about him, knew he’d been thinking about her, Nate’s low-pitched voice surprised her.

  She’d felt edgy from the moment he’d caught her watching him at the fire station. The deteriorating weather, the stupid mistakes she’d made, the close calls they’d had didn’t help. But she wasn’t about to tell him she wasn’t feeling like herself today, that she hadn’t felt normal since he’d volunteered to be her shadow-slash-savior for the day.

  “I…” It was a weak start to an explanation she hadn’t come up with yet. Her stomach suddenly growled, protesting the passage of time since breakfast and reminding her that she was eating for two now. The grumbling sound echoed loudly through the cab, earning a giggle from Cindy and turning Jolene’s cheeks red.

  Wes grinned. “Somebody’s hungry.”

  Baby Joaquin, at least, had given her an easy, honest out to deflect Nate’s concern and depersonalize her thoughts about him. “What a surprise, huh?” Jolene joked. “I guess we’re ready for an early lunch.”

  Wes and Cindy took the bait and laughed. But not Nate. He remained serious as ever. “If Mrs. Browning doesn’t have something we can fix, there are power bars in the med kits. We’ll get you and the baby fed ASAP.”

  Funny how he could sound comforting and condescending at the same time. “Despite what you probably think, California, I’m prepared for emergencies like this. I keep snacks in my purse.”

  Nate twisted his neck, looking into the extended cubby space behind the front seat where she’d stashed her bag. “Where are they? Do you need something right now?”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “We’re fine. I—”

  “Here.” He held out a package of cheese and stick crackers from her purse, extended them across the seat like a peace offering.

  Jolene slowed the truck and looked down at the strong hand that held the snack out to her. It was a simple gesture, purely practical. Still, a yearning—something unexpectedly needy and all too feminine—surfaced inside her, disrupting her protest. What would it be like to have someone looking out for her and her baby? Especially someone with the considerable caretaking skills Nate Kellison possessed?

  What would it be like to put her faith and her future into someone else’s hands and know she wouldn’t be left alone again?

  She slid her gaze up along the sturdy arm and ample shoulder. Even the tanned column of his throat and prominent outline of his jaw indicated strength.

  But when she looked into his eyes, she saw no warmth, no emotion whatsoever. They were as unsmiling and serious as ever.

  “Eat,” he ordered.

  Poof. So much for that wayward fantasy. It was probably just hunger, or hormones out of whack, that had allowed her to consider liking—perhaps temporarily lusting after—California Kellison for even one crazed moment.

  He sat back, peeled open the package and removed a cracker, handing it off to Cindy, who held it out to Jolene. “Go on,” he urged. “Junior needs it.”

  Practicality won out over wounded pride. Jolene took the cracker from Cindy’s fingers and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing around her reluctant thanks. “This should tide me over.”

  She was just another rescue project to him, another call. Maybe, if she put a positive spin on things, she was a temporary partner he felt obligated to protect.

  But she was nothing special.

  Too skinny, too annoying, too small town—she would never be anyone special. Especially to a cocky California dude who had no clue how to lighten up.

  So she went back to taking care of herself. “I’ll eat the rest when we get to Lily’s. We’re almost there.”

  Cindy pointed over the dashboard into the rain. “Look out!”

  Jolene saw the man a second later. He was stumbling along in his cowboy boots, turning into their path to circle around a soupy bog of mud and water.

  “Damn crazy…” Nate muttered.

  “Idiot!” Jolene slammed on
the brakes, pitching them all forward. Fortunately, with seat belts on—Wes and Cindy sharing one—and the road sucking the tires to a stop, no damage was done. “Everyone okay?” Jolene verified.

  A chorus of yeah’s and fine’s and what-the-hell’s answered her as she set the gear into Park and honked the horn.

  The man in the road slowly turned, shoving his well-creased Stetson back on his thinning gray hair and squinting into the headlights. Jolene shook her head. She didn’t have to be a native Texan to assess the situation. Rail-thin cowboy, decked out in faded bandanna and worn leather chaps, walking the road while a storm brewed around him—and no horse in sight. He’d lost his mount and was hiking back to civilization.

  She didn’t have to be the man’s next-door neighbor, either, to recognize the stoop in the old cowboy’s back or the string of colloquial curses rattling off his lips. Standing in front of her was one of Turning Point’s most cantankerous characters.

  “Deacon Tate.” Jolene huffed his name out on a sigh that revealed both irritation and affection.

  “Why am I not surprised you know this guy?” Nate grumbled. “Don’t any of you Texans have enough sense to stay in out of the rain?”

  Jolene ignored the rhetorical question. “Lily said she’d lost contact with him early this morning. His radio’s probably with his saddle. Wherever that is.”

  Deacon, a Rock-a-Bye employee for more years than she’d been alive, had obviously been thrown from his horse. And judging by the way he’d cinched his left arm beneath his belt, at least one of his old bones had been damaged in the fall. Jolene unhooked her seat belt.

  “Stay put,” Jolene and Nate ordered in unison, each sliding out their respective door and hurrying around the hood of the truck.

  Nate was shaking his head and blocking her path by the time they met in the middle of the road. “I can handle this.”

  She tipped her chin up, squinting against the rain that pelted her face and chilled her skin. “So can I.”

  “Go finish your snack. Feed your baby.”

  “When we get to the house.” She pointed to the ten-foot-high brick pillars only a few yards away, marking the main entrance to the Rock-a-Bye. She quickly scooted around Nate as he turned to look. Hooking her hand through the crook of Deacon’s good arm, she led him toward the relative shelter of the truck. “C’mon, old-timer. No sense in all of us getting soaked to the skin.”

  “Miz Angel.” Deacon would have tipped his hat if he could. “Mighty glad to see ya.”

  Five strong, insistent fingers closed around her upper arm and pulled her away. “No sense in you getting soaked, period.”

  Clasping Jolene in one hand and supporting Deacon in the other, Nate guided them both back to the driver’s side of the cab.

  “Careful, California.” She eyed him over her shoulder, not wanting to struggle too hard with Deacon so close beside her. “I’m starting to think there’s some sort of sexual discrimination going on here. That you don’t think I can do my job because I’m a woman. Or worse, because I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” Nate stopped and loosened his grip, instantly freeing her. “There’s no…” With a sharp huff of breath, he helped Deacon find a seat on the running board of the truck. Then he straightened, squared his shoulders and leaned in close enough that the bill of his cap shielded her face as well as his own from the rain. “I’m following your father’s orders,” he articulated between tightly clenched teeth. “Trying to keep you safe. I didn’t realize what a daunting task that was going to be when I volunteered.” He ticked off her transgressions on his fingers. “You talk too much. You act before you think. You take better care of everybody else than you do yourself or that baby. And it’s Nate. Why the hell can’t you call me Nate?”

  Jolene held his gaze, steamed in it. Caught fire inside and withered in the face of it. She’d been wrong to think this man didn’t show any emotion. There was plenty of something—anger, frustration, fear—brewing in those dark eyes.

  Fear?

  Her self-defense mechanism instantly went on the fritz. Instinctively, she reached out. To soothe, to comfort. Not quite to touch him, but to finger his collar, to idly straighten the damp material into a pleat it could no longer hold.

  What did a take-charge California boy with broad shoulders, steely control and a soul-piercing stare have to be afraid of?

  “I didn’t really mean to accuse you of anything,” she told him. “You just…you tend to be a little on the bossy side. Okay, a lot on the bossy side. I’m used to thinking and doing for myself. I might not be a licensed paramedic like you, but I have eight years of experience doing this kind of thing. I’ve survived pretty well so far. So have the people I’ve helped.”

  A deep sigh expanded his chest beneath her palm. “Maybe you just do things differently down here in Texas. I know you get firefighting and first-aid training as an emergency volunteer. But you insist on taking risks you don’t need to. I’m used to the people I work with following procedures and listening to common sense.”

  “Caution and common sense aren’t always the same thing. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and watch when there’s a hurricane on the way and I can do something to help.” Jolene’s hand settled over the rapid, sure beat of his heart and maintained contact as he exhaled. He stood close enough for her to smell the ozone on his skin, along with the tangy clean scent of the man himself. Lordy. Why did he have to smell so darn delicious? The keener sense of smell she’d enjoyed for the past five months was keeping her from making her point. “I won’t…You can’t…” Her words seemed to stick in her throat. “I intend to do my job.”

  “So do I.”

  Stalemate.

  She wanted to argue her skills and independence. She wanted to stroke her fingers across the stern set of his mouth and ease his concern. She wanted to snuggle up against that chest and absorb his warmth and strength.

  She did none of those things.

  Deacon’s embarrassed cough startled them both. “Um, should I stop by when it’s a better time for y’all?”

  Jolene snatched her hand away.

  “Sorry.” She and Nate glanced down at the grizzled man’s amused smile and apologized in unison.

  “I’ll go grab a med-kit.” Remembering she was here as a trained first responder, not a lovelorn teenager, Jolene turned to the back of the truck.

  “Stay put.” Nate’s touch was almost reluctant on her arm this time. “I’ll get it.”

  Jolene nodded, then turned her attention to Deacon. “What hurts?”

  “What doesn’t? I don’t hit the ground as easy as I used to when my horse puts up a fuss.”

  Jolene pulled a penlight from her pocket, hiked up her pantlegs and squatted in front of him, doing a cursory check of pupil reaction and inspecting him for any head injuries.

  Deacon’s reactions were just fine, and he seemed more interested in the curve of her belly as her overalls stretched across her midsection than he did in his own condition. “How’s Joaquin, Jr.?” he asked.

  Coherent thoughts and speech. A good sign. “He’s just fine,” Jolene answered, dropping her hand to cradle her tummy. “Though he was kickin’ up a fuss a minute ago because I haven’t fed him lunch yet.”

  Deacon nodded. “Old grouses like me and little ones like J.J. like to keep a regular schedule. Get cranky if we don’t.”

  Jolene smiled, as she was meant to, but her focus had already moved on to the bruising and awkward angle of his left forearm.

  She seemed to be surrounded by cranky males today.

  Nate came up behind her and set the med-kit on the ground beside her before he spoke. “That arm’s broken.”

  “Duh, Sherlock.”

  The sarcastic response leaked out before she realized that he wasn’t expressing doubt over her diagnostic abilities. He was simply stating a fact.

  Shrugging in lieu of an apology, Jolene gingerly unhooked Deacon’s belt and inspected the break more closely. It took her a minute to r
ealize that Nate had positioned himself in such a way as to block most of the rain that the truck couldn’t shield her or her patient from. That simple action gave her a chance to dry Deacon’s arm and work more efficiently.

  “Where’s Buck?” She hoped the question about his horse would distract Deacon while she probed the injury.

  He bit out a curse but didn’t complain. “Back at the barn, I expect, out of this mess. He got spooked by some lightning, dumped me down a ravine and took off. I hiked to the road instead of heading straight home, since I didn’t want to run into that bull on foot. Been walking about an hour.”

  “And you haven’t checked in with Lily?”

  “Not since this morning. Been riding over hell and yonder, looking for that dag-blamed, son of a…” His faded hazel gaze darted up to hers. “Sorry. Rocky broke out of his pen sometime last night.”

  “Any luck finding him?” She opened the kit and pulled out the supplies to clean the lacerations on his arm.

  Deacon muttered a graphic opinion about the bull’s behavior. “Sorry, ma’am. I found him, all right. If his stud fees hadn’t paid the bills during this drought, I’d have shot him for being such a pain in the ass. Whoops. Sorry.”

  Jolene grinned. His salty language was a fair tradeoff for the pain she must be causing him. “I know Rocky’s reputation. Do you think there’s any chance of him wandering home by himself?”

  Deacon shook his head. “The water’s starting to fill all the sloughs and arroyos leading into the Agua Dulce. That bull’s got himself stranded in between ’em—if he ain’t drowned himself yet. Wouldn’t see I wanted to help him. I was trying to get him up to dry land, herd him back to the corral. But all he saw was a cowboy fixed on telling him what to do, and he sure wasn’t gonna have none of that. Those danged Santa Gertrudis got too much stubbornness in ’em. Between Rocky and the storm, old Buck couldn’t wait to get back to the barn.”

  Nate shifted on his feet behind her. “Santa Gertrudis. That’s a Brahma-Shorthorn cross, right?”

  Huh? California knew about Texas cattle?

  “Yessir.” Deacon tipped his hat back, a glint of admiration in his wrinkled face. “Rocky’s the number one S.G. in Texas. You new around these parts?”