by Shirley Jump
Which would leave the entire forecast in the hands of the not-so-capable Duncan Henry and the even less capable but more accurate Mr. Magic 8 Ball.
“Do you think you could help me study the Doppler software later?” Wally asked. “I took one of those courses, you know the kind NOAA offers? But, geez, it’s pretty complicated.”
Complicated was the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. Complicated was a Mensa test. Those two combined, with a couple of quantum physics equations thrown in for good measure—that was the Doppler software.
Duncan kept as much distance between it and himself as possible. He already had his hands full with his Magic 8 Ball and its triangle of twenty possible answers.
Not to mention the growing triangular mess of his own personal life. Meeting Allie Dean had added one more complication at a time when he definitely didn’t need complications.
In the early days of his weather job, he’d signed up for a few classes through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s local offices. They held regular seminars to help weather forecasters stay current, or add to their resume. But always, when Duncan had attended one, some emergency had come up with Katie. He’d ended up leaving early, absorbing only the lecture gravy—and none of the meat.
“I hate to bother you because I know you’re pretty busy.” Wally’s face nearly matched his red hair. “If you could sit with me, just while I go through it”—he hastened to add, his hands waving exclamation points—“to let me know if I get off on the wrong track—”
“Wally, I really don’t have—”
“Don’t say no, Mr. H. Please.” Earnest appeal took over Wally’s ambitious face. “You’re the only one who’s ever taken any time with me.” Wally scowled. “That Elvin at Eleven has no patience at all.”
Duncan bit back a chuckle at the reference to the evening weatherman, known for his posturing and not much else. Steve had tried getting rid of him several times, but the station owner liked Elvin and thought the late night forecaster had “Willard Scott appeal.” Either way, Duncan suspected most of the Willard Scott audience was snoozing well before the eleven o’clock broadcast. Even if they weren’t, Elvin’s deadpan delivery and lack of a Smucker’s smile undoubtedly worked better than a handful of Ambien.
“Please, Mr. H.?”
“All right.” Duncan rose and exited his office. Maybe in going over the software with Wally, Duncan would learn a thing or two. Or ten.
And be distracted from his thoughts of Allie Dean. He hadn’t gotten much done today anyway, because every time he looked at his computer or tried to sort through the paperwork on his desk, he saw her. Thought of her.
Of what had almost transpired at the farmhouse—until his real life had intruded once again.
Wally nearly bounded over to the WTMT-TV weather station, a bank of eight computers, each running different forecasting tools. The center computer held the Doppler software, the crowning glory of WTMT-TV’s state-of-the-art weather delivery system. Wally looked at it, reverence clear in his eyes, nearly salivating on the screen.
“Why don’t you sit there?” Duncan gestured to the chair in front of the screen. To the right, a monitor ran a continual radar image, sweeping every few seconds over the Tempest area. Nothing but clear skies, not so much as a drop of rain, though Duncan could see a green squiggle wending its way in from the west.
Wally slipped into the chair, wriggling it closer to the laminate counter. Mouse in hand, he clicked through different screens, taking notes on the pad beside him. “This is just so cool. I love this program.”
“Why don’t you, ah, tell me what you’re doing as you do it,” Duncan said as the screens whipped by in a confusing array of data. “You know, kind of a verbal rehashing.”
“Good idea, Mr. H.” Wally tapped the screen. “I’m reading the beam values at different radii from the radar, then checking the wind shear within the beam value. Like this.” Wally demonstrated with a few mouse movements, chattering the whole time about the wonders of the program, using words like radial velocity and spectrum-width data. Duncan nodded as if he understood, but the majority of it whizzed past his brain. No stopping at Go, no paying two hundred brain cells into the clueless-weatherman head.
“So, when a tornado springs up,” Wally said, “we can tell right away.”
“Because we’d see the path,” Duncan replied, interjecting what little he remembered from his classes and what he’d picked up over the years. The knowledge was there, in the back of his mind, but standing on it felt about as reliable as quicksand. So he stuck to the basics, shying away from anything too concrete. “Storms like that can gather strength and go from nothing to something pretty damned serious in a hurry.”
“You ever experience one, Mr. Henry?”
“One what?”
“A tornado.”
Duncan shook his head, grateful for that one bit of luck. “You know Indiana—tornadoes are as plentiful as corn in the summer. But Tempest has been lucky. No twisters have touched down here in fifteen years.” And with any luck it wouldn’t while he was at the weather helm. By the time he pieced together the stream of data the Doppler software was spitting out, the red zone would already be here—and Tempest would be reduced to rubble.
“Geez, a tornado would be so cool. I hope we get one someday. I mean, not a big one. I don’t want to see people get hurt or anything, but still, I’d love to be here when it happens.”
“Yeah.” Not. Duncan didn’t want to be the one in charge when a tornado came calling. The Magic 8 Ball didn’t have a triangle for HOLY SHIT: HERE COMES A SPIRALING CONE OF DESTRUCTION.
“What’s this thing again?” Wally pointed to a screen that referred to “backscattering convariance matrix.”
“Uh, that’s complicated,” Duncan said. “We’ll get into it another time.”
Wally spun on the stool and looked at Duncan. “But Mr. H., it’s storm season. If I don’t know about this stuff, how can I help you?”
The kid had been pressuring Duncan for months to spend a full day going over everything in more depth. Hell, Duncan should be asking Wally to do that for him. But the intern, like all of Tempest, believed Duncan was some kind of weather god, and all because of that damned toy. Five minutes into explaining and it’d be clear Mr. Magic 8 Ball should be the one on the credits, not Duncan. “You know plenty, Wally. Don’t worry about it.”
“But, but—”
“Wally, I said I don’t have time for this. God, you’re like a terrier with a rawhide. Let it go for today, will you?” Duncan said, harsher than he’d intended. “I have a damned forecast to put together.”
The look of admiration dimmed in Wally’s eyes. He spun out of the chair.
“Aw, Wally, I’m sorry.” But the intern had already shrugged into his IU jacket and started heading for the door.
In the end, the Wizard of Oz had been exposed as a fraud. Duncan knew it was just a matter of time before someone peeked behind the curtain and saw that he was all an illusion, too.
Allie stood on the wide verandah of Duncan Henry’s palatial downtown house, trying to get up the nerve to knock. An hour ago, she’d gotten a figure from Jerry—bartering with the stingy producer like a used-car dealer, practically begging him for an extra few thousand.
“I didn’t get to where I am by throwing money around, Sugar-pie,” he’d said. “I got it by being a tight-fisted greedy SOB. People respect that shit in the land of milk and honey.” He took a drag off a cigarette, then exhaled. “You going to get that location sewed up today, or do I have to send in Scotty to finesse the deal?”
“Scotty couldn’t finesse a tree.”
“You got that right.” Jerry laughed. “Scotty’s about as smooth as a whale in a fishbowl. But he’s got experience, Sugar-pie, and he knows how to get people to sign on the dotted line.”
“I’ll get it done,” Allie promised. “Jerry, I need—”
“Good. Make it happen.” He’d hung up, e-mailed the contra
ct to her—or more likely had the new PA e-mail the contract—with another dire warning about the unemployment line if she screwed up.
Allie drew in a breath, then raised her hand to knock on the door.
“You one of those people selling magazines out the back of their car? To pay for your college trip to Germany or some other hooey?”
Allie turned. Earl Hickey, Tempest’s mailman for as long as Allie could remember, stood on the sidewalk beside his rusty pickup. The truck idled hard, shaking like a go-go dancer.
“No, no magazines. I’m here to see Duncan.”
Earl tipped back his John Deere cap, revealing blue eyes so light, they looked gray. He studied her, a scowl etched into a face as lined as a wet napkin. “You’re an outie, aren’t you?”
“Outie?”
“Out-of-towner. They come here, get a kick out of watchin’ the corn grow or pickin’ pumpkins, and then they complain about the lack of ‘services,’ like they expect Tempest to be some kind of mini New York City.”
Bad memories were one thing that never died in Tempest. When John Henry had bought and promptly bankrupted—the state’s largest tire factory it had made national news for a day or two, drawing in reporters from the major networks, giving Tempest its moment in the sun. Driving locals, especially Earl, crazy with the overrun of “outies.” Earl had complained up a storm, sitting in Margie’s diner, holding court until the hubbub subsided and something else caught the NBC peacock’s attention.
Allie wasn’t surprised Earl didn’t recognize her. He’d shoved the mail into the Gray family’s bent, beaten mailbox faster than a ten-year-old swiping a pack of Doublemint at the 7-Eleven. He’d never been much for conversing—only complaining, as her dad liked to say.
“I’m not here to watch the corn. Just a little…business. That’s all,” Allie said.
“Well, good.” He harrumphed, studied her some more, his eyes squinted against the sun. “Name’s Earl. Earl Hickey. You need something—something beside your mail”—he held up the stack meant for Duncan’s house—“you come see Earl. I also own the tire shop at the end of Main.” He glanced back at her Taurus. “I’ll give you a deal on some steel-belted radials. Good for long-distance travel. Should you be going back to where you came from.” He arched a brow in question.
“I’m all set, thank you,” she said firmly. “That’s a rental anyway.”
“Glad to hear it. Last thing I need is another house on my route. People movin’ in, buildin’ property where there weren’t any before. Messes up the whole science of mail delivery. Tempest is just fine the way it is. We don’t need any kind of population explosion.” He eyed her, as if she meant to pop out a set of quintuplets.
“I assure you, I’m here for business only with Duncan.” Yeah, good luck sticking with that, her hormones chided.
He plodded up the steps, brushing past her to slide the mail into the slot, stepping back and waiting for it to hit the floor inside with a soft thud. “I ain’t going to ask what you want with Duncan. But you keep one thing in mind. That boy and his sister have had a spate of bad luck.” Earl didn’t elaborate, just glanced at the top floor of the house, let out a sigh, then turned sharp eyes on her. “I don’t pass the sins of the father down onto the son, but that boy, he’s been carrying the Henry load on his shoulders for years. Gave up his whole life to do it. Ain’t many people like that in the world. Duncan’s a good man and speakin’ as a representative of the people of Tempest, I’ll tell you we won’t stand by and see anyone messing with him.” Once again, Earl raised his gaze to the upper floors of the Henry house. “Or any of the other Henrys.” Then he left, puttering down the road, stuffing envelopes into streetside mailboxes.
Once again, the Duncan Henry of today and the one she remembered appeared to be complete opposites. Either he had a split personality, or maybe…
Duncan was no longer the boy who had stood her up at the prom? Whose family had ruined hers and so many others in this town?
Allie would not soften her stance where Duncan Henry was concerned. He was still a Henry, and regardless of what Earl might have said, she knew better than to trust a man with that last name.
She’d get Duncan’s signature on this agreement and stay away from him.
No one answered her knock, even though Duncan’s car sat in the driveway. Allie went down the porch steps and around to the back, a path she had followed once when Vanessa and she had tried spying on Duncan while he swam in his backyard pool.
She paused, closed her eyes, seeing that day again so clearly she could almost smell the suntan lotion on her skin, hear the soft lap of the water in the pool as Duncan swam laps. Even at fifteen, he’d had a body that would have made Brad Pitt’s pale in comparison.
She’d stood there, agape, staring at the flash of pale skin that showed along his waist when he did a turn at the end of the pool, sending Allie’s adolescent hormones into over-drive. She and Vanessa had erupted in a nervous fit of giggles and ended up scrambling out of his yard before they’d been caught spying.
After that, Coppertone-laced fantasies haunted her dreams for a year straight. She’d never looked at a tan line the same way again.
The pool had been closed up, but Duncan was still this evening’s main attraction. For a second, she watched as he worked a garden plot in the back of the Henry land. She forced her pulse to slow, her body not to react—business only—but she’d already lost the battle.
She might as well have asked time to stop. Her body didn’t give a damn what his last name was. Didn’t bother with past history. With the ramifications of attraction.
He’d taken off his shirt, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his chest, the droplets running a skinny river down the center of his back and disappearing at the edge of his dark blue shorts. He had a spade in his hands, and he was turning over the soil with a vengeance, leaving behind a wide ten-foot long swath of freshly turned dirt.
He dug in, biceps flexing, chest muscles bunching, thighs hardening as he bent, then flipped the huge hunk of dark, rich earth to the side. He moved to repeat the whole process, then caught sight of her and shoved the spade down.
Damn. Just when she’d been enjoying the view, too.
Duncan leaned an arm over the spade and smiled, his eyes unreadable behind dark sunglasses. “Are you here to tell me the answer to my question?”
“What question was that?”
“What’ll it take to get into your bed?”
“Are we bargaining now?” She inhaled and forced her mind back to the reason she was here, not the Coppertone fantasies running rampant inside her. “Because I want your farmhouse and I’m prepared to pay for it.” She held up the contract from Jerry. “Four thousand a day.”
He scowled. “I don’t care if you offer me forty thousand an hour. I said no.” He went back to his digging.
“Why? The place is only collecting dust.”
“As it should.” Another hunk of dirt, with the hunk in front of her ignoring her presence.
She kicked off her heels, then stepped barefoot into the fresh earth, stopping in front of him. “What’s a girl got to do to get your attention?”
He didn’t pause, didn’t look up. “Strip? It worked pretty well before.”
She let out a gust of frustration, then put her foot down on the clod of earth caught in the spade’s belly. “I’m trying to negotiate with you, Duncan.”
“What you want is nonnegotiable.”
“I’m from Hollywood. Everything there is negotiable.”
“Everything?”
She thrust her fists on her hips. “What’s your price?”
“You.”
“I’m not for sale.”
“Then neither is my property.”
“Listen, if this is some scheme to get sex—” and a part of her wished that were true, because after his kiss, every ounce of her did—and always had—want to have sex with Duncan Henry, “—then you can forget it. I’ll give you a check. Not my body.”
“Pity.” The lazy grin she’d seen him give a hundred other girls spilled across his face. When she’d been seventeen, she would have sacrificed an entire Oreo cookie factory to see that smile on his face when he looked at her.
Two days ago, she’d fallen for that smile. She’d let herself be distracted by the fulfillment of that adolescent fantasy and nearly become another page in the Duncan Henry legend. She was already a footnote, an aside entitled HOW TO DITCH YOUR PROM DATE AND STILL GET HER NOTES ON TRIG.
Stupid. Even rats in a maze learned from their mistakes.
A burst of unresolved anger surged anew in her chest at that grin. And at its continued power over her.
“Duncan, you are the same—” She cut off her words before she finished the sentence and undid her careful cover.
“The same what?”
Damn. “The same as…” She glanced down at her feet, sinking into the soft earth. A squiggly pink line slimed across the surface. “This earthworm. Low and dirty.”
He laughed, a deep sound that came from somewhere far inside him. “Thanks.”
She’d expected outrage, upset. Anything but laughter.
Damn this man. He kept tossing her plans upside down. “For comparing you to an earthworm?”
“No. For making me laugh. I needed that today.”
“Did you give a bad forecast and now everyone hates you? Nicolas Cage already made that movie, you know.”
Duncan glanced toward the house, then back at her. “Something like that.” He paused a moment, then released the spade. Set deep in the dirt, it stayed upright. “I’ve had a hell of a day and I’d like to end it on a nice note. Would you like to go to dinner? You and me. No strings.”
She considered him. Considered playing with fire a second time. “Will you let me plead my case about your property?”
“Only if you let me plead my case about kissing you again.”
One corner of her mouth turned up. Traitorous hormones, staging a mutiny. He was the enemy. To her family, her goals. But every time she tried to remember that—