Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1)

by Sharla Lovelace

  She nodded. “Well the friends are dancing now, so—” she laughed. “So we’ll see.”

  Zach was dimly aware that Valerie took off for parts unknown. Restroom, maybe? Spain? It didn’t matter, because he was a dipshit and an idiot and deserved to stand there watching Maddi dance and talk and throw back her head and laugh with Eli.

  He could have walked across the damn room and asked her to dance instead of the convenient woman sitting at his table. The one trying to hook up with his brother.

  Eli’s whole face looked different out there. Lighter, relaxed, younger. What was it about Maddi that brought that out in him? He never laughed or relaxed anymore around him. Or around any of them. And Maddi, poking Eli in the stomach over something and giggling—almost flirting—no, definitely flirting.

  “Fuck,” Zach said, turning in place, not really knowing where to go. And then his eyes landed on Monroe, leaned back in his chair, staring at him. “Damn it,” he muttered, letting his feet carry him forward while his brain gathered armor.

  Stopping in front of Monroe, he looked down at him. Monroe didn’t get up, didn’t appear to feel diminished by Zach standing over him. He had to like that about the guy.

  The two men looked at each other for a couple of long beats.

  “She’s okay,” Zach said finally. “I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

  Monroe got up then and stood so they were eye to eye. Not menacing or threatening. Just very present. “See that you do,” he said, and then walked in the general direction of the buffet table.

  Zach understood what he meant, and it wasn’t about the storm chasing. “Bar,” he said through his teeth.

  “Careful,” said Hannah, sauntering up behind him as he bellied up to the worn wood. “Your green is showing.”

  Zach cut a sideways glance at her as she nudged in beside him. “My what?” he asked, irritably.

  “You look ready to chew glass,” Hannah said. “They’re just dancing.”

  “What are you and Boudreau up to?” he asked, needing a subject change.

  There was a pause as she averted her eyes. “Nothing, not that it’s your business.”

  “I’ve broken his nose once for you,” Zach said, recalling the brotherly takedown they did when Jonah got Derrie pregnant and crushed their sister’s heart. “And Levi did things to his car that can never be proven in a court of law. Simon, I think, did something to his computer the last time y’all were doing nothing.”

  Hannah chuckled. “Sounds like y’all need a life.”

  “Or you do,” Zach said. “Before you get one of us arrested.”

  “So back to you,” Hannah said with a smile. “Jealousy isn’t pretty on you.”

  “Hmm, what was that you said?” he asked. “Oh, yeah. Not your business.”

  “Just trying to help you out,” she said.

  “I’m not jealous,” Zach said.

  “Oh, please,” Hannah said on a chuckle as she palmed a freshly sweating bottle. “Don’t play me. You showed up here and you hate yourself for it and you don’t know what the hell to do now. So you jump out on the floor like something out of Urban Cowboy and then get pissy when she does the same with Eli?”

  Zach stared at her. “I don’t like you right now.”

  Hannah laughed, nearly spitting out her beer. “Then my work here is done.” She patted him on the back. “Quit worrying about me. Go dance with her, moron. It’s what you came here for.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  So how are you really doing?” Eli asked after the first song came to an end and the second one started. Maddi noticed him looking around, presumably for the woman he and Zach were chatting up earlier. The one Zach had hit the dance floor with. Ass hat.

  “I’m good,” Maddi said. “If you need to—”

  “Your lying skills haven’t improved over the years,” Eli said, his normally hard, dark eyes going soft. He squeezed her hand. “Surprised to see you out here with Hannah after that—conversation today.”

  Maddi closed her eyes for a brief second, letting her feet just carry her on their own. “Yeah, I’d like to just skip over that memory if that’s okay with you.”

  “Evidently all is okay now?”

  Maddi chuckled. “With Hannah it is,” she said. “Or I think so, anyway.”

  “Her bark is worse than her bite,” Eli said. “She buries a lot of crap, I think.”

  “She does.”

  “And you?” he asked.

  She laughed. “I wish I could bury crap. I tend to wear it all over me like a bad outfit.” Eli laughed, and she swatted his shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me!”

  He pretended to duck. “I’m just laughing because it’s true. Like right now—you’re all ate up with my brother being here.”

  Maddi scoffed. “I am not.”

  “Lie.”

  “Please!” she said. “He was just off dancing with some other woman!”

  “Only because he was too antsy to stay sitting down,” Eli said. “He’s been watching you like a moony teenage boy all night. She was actually talking to me.”

  “See?” she said. “He’s an ass.”

  “Won’t argue that,” he said, making her laugh. “But what if he’d asked you?”

  Maddi’s mouth went dry and her scalp started to sweat. “I—I’d—”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, turning her with a grin. “You can’t even answer.”

  “Eli, that was a hundred years ago, and we are all adults here, and I—”

  “—never loved anyone like that before or since—or some words to that effect,” Eli said, making Maddi’s skin burn. “Did I get it close?”

  “Fuck, I can’t believe I said that,” Maddi said, dropping her head, watching their feet move. She wished she could crawl down there and be trampled into the floor.

  “Hey,” Eli said. “Hey.” He jiggled her hand till she looked up. “You’re a tough woman, Maddi. Don’t let him get under your skin.”

  “He lives under my skin, Eli,” she said softly, a little mortified that she said that out loud, but unable to stop. “He never left.”

  Eli’s brows came together, his scar moving with them. “Lord,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Y’all wear me the hell out,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Y’all—what y’all?” she said, feeling a little like Hannah, asking if a boy had been talking about her. “What did he say?”

  Eli looked past her. “Time to figure out that answer,” he said as the song ended.

  Maddi narrowed her eyes. “What answer?” Even as she spoke the words, she felt the presence behind her and turned, her hand still in Eli’s.

  “Can I have the next dance?”

  Zach caught Eli’s look as he handed Maddi over to him. It held all kinds of warnings, mostly hinting at consequences if he hurt her, and a little extra in there about him being a fucking idiot.

  “I got this,” Zach said under his breath as Eli brushed past him.

  “See that you do,” Eli growled.

  Zach shook his head at the echo of the words and looked into Maddi’s questioning eyes.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  Zach gave a wry grin. “Brotherly love.” It was a fast two-step, thank God, something requiring concentration. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Still have it?” he challenged.

  One little eyebrow raised, challenging him back. God, how he loved that.

  “Try not to step on anything,” she said, the last word going a little shaky as he slid his hand under her hair.

  That was going to take all the focus he could muster. “Try to keep up.”

  He was glad he’d had the previous dance with Valerie to remind his body how to operate, because it went like a well-oiled machine. Flying around the floor, he guided her through
the other couples like a race car on a busy highway, spinning on the turns, throwing her out for twists, and loving how she expertly came back in without missing a step. Once upon a time, they’d owned this floor, and clearly some things didn’t leave.

  He didn’t take his eyes off her as she moved, her mouth in a cocky little grin, hair tossing around, blouse baring one shoulder after another, those red boots that probably weren’t hers but looked hot as hell on her as she maneuvered the floor.

  Zach didn’t even realize he was grinning, too, as the song came to an end and they both laughed as they caught their breath.

  “Damn, woman,” he said.

  “Told you,” she said with a cute little shrug.

  Then the lights dropped, the music slowed, and the singer drawled a “Let’s slow things down a bit” into the microphone. Couples crammed the already-crowded floor, and Zach and Maddi were sandwiched inside. He was aware of all this happening, but the look in her eyes as he pulled her closer was all he could see.

  “You okay with this?” he said next to her ear as his hand slid along the bare skin of her back. Fuck. Was he?

  “Yeah,” she breathed, looping her fingers into a back belt loop on his jeans.

  There was about a ten-second attempt at keeping a respectable space between them, and then finally, she was his. God help him, Maddi was in his arms. The crowd and the movement and the tightness required to dance the turns—legs moving between legs and bodies moving together, feeling the heat of her skin against his arm and the increasing press of her body against his—turned it into something else entirely.

  Zach’s face was in her hair; her scent was everywhere. As they moved in unison, their bodies formed together, remembering how to be one. He didn’t even hear the music anymore when she buried her face in his neck and moved her hand up to his back. It was familiar and foreign at the same time. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had felt this way in his arms. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt—period—with a woman in his arms. They didn’t affect him like—God, he wanted more. This was real, this was the way they used to be, this was them at the core. He could feel her heart pounding, feel her hands trembling. He wanted to touch her face, and his hands came up to do just that as the song crooned to an end and there they were. Her mouth was centimeters from his and her eyes—fuck, he could drown in there.

  And the lights came up.

  Maddi couldn’t breathe. Literally. She’d done the stupid thing, she’d done the fucking nonbreathing-touching thing and got herself all wrapped up in Zach and now—now she was so close to his mouth and his hands were in her hair and she could feel every ounce of heat against her body and her girly parts were panting, and—shit, there was no air. And his eyes—oh, holy hell.

  “Hey, the song’s over, lovebirds,” said some chick in another dimension as she sashayed by to an upbeat tune that was starting to break through Maddi’s brain.

  “Shit,” Maddi choked out, pulling away like she was stuck in quicksand. It felt cold and messed up and—shit, she needed cold. She needed to go jump in a bucket of ice. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice blending in with the noise. He didn’t move. He just kept looking at her.

  With everything she could pull together, she turned and walked off the dance floor, weaving in and out of the moving couples, nearly getting knocked over by a particularly ambitious one, until she made it past the railing and then kept going. All the way to the bar. Maddi knew she probably still had a beer on the table, but she didn’t even look for the table, didn’t look to see if Hannah was there, didn’t stop walking until she literally ran into the bar. Which she then gripped with both shaking hands.

  “God help me,” she whispered. “God help me.”

  “What can I get you, hon?” the bartendress asked.

  “A freezer?” Maddi said, grabbing a napkin to blot her face. At the confused look, she held up a hand. “Frozen margarita.”

  “Make that two,” said Hannah from behind her. “You okay?”

  Maddi turned, fanning herself, looking around for signs of Zach. “Perfect,” she said, her voice unnaturally high. “Why?”

  “Well, considering that was the closest I ever want to come to watching my brother have sex, I’m thinking you might not be,” she said.

  Maddi shut her eyes. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  “And I now need the tequila as bad as you do,” Hannah said.

  “Where—where is he?” Maddi said, raking her hair back and lifting it to fan her neck.

  “He left,” Hannah said, reaching past Maddi to grab both their drinks.

  “He what?”

  “Left,” Hannah repeated. “Walked right out the door. Didn’t say a word.”

  Maddi needed to sit before she fell. Walking straight to the nearest empty table that wasn’t even theirs, she sank onto a stool.

  “I’m screwed,” she said, more to herself than to Hannah. “I’m—” Maddi shook her head. “I can’t do this.” Hot tears burned her eyes as she looked at Zach’s sister. “I have a fucking job to do, and I can’t do it.” The memory of his hands on her, the smell of him still on her—it was intoxicating. “I can’t keep—”

  “Yes, you can,” Hannah said, grabbing Maddi’s free hand. “Take a drink.”

  Maddi licked the salt from the rim and took in a mouthful of the frozen beverage, letting the mixture of cold and alcoholic burn slide down her throat and freeze her brain.

  “Took a drink,” she said, closing her eyes and taking another one. What the hell, she wasn’t driving. Getting shitfaced plastered seemed just the ticket. Sort of. “Oh, my God, Hannah, this is—this is—”

  “This is real life,” she said, the no-nonsense in her tone pulling Maddi out of her own head. “His life. Yours,” she said, gesturing with her head. “You’re here to do a show, Maddi,” she said. “And then go back home.”

  Home. That felt like it was on Saturn.

  “Don’t mess with him if it’s not going anywhere,” Hannah said. “Don’t mess with yourself. It took him too long to get whole again, I don’t want to watch either one of you spiral like that.”

  Maddi blinked back the tears that wanted to come. Hannah was right. She was the clearheaded one—maybe not about her own jacked-up situation, but definitely about this one.

  “You’re right,” Maddi said, her voice still shaking. Her hands still shaking. She could still smell him on her blouse—yeah, Hannah wasn’t getting that back. Ever. God—focus, Maddi! “You’re—” She nodded in lieu of words, and blew out a slow breath. “It’s all good.”

  Hannah let out a bark of a laugh. “It’s all good? Girl, you are a million miles away from good.”

  “I know,” Maddi wailed softly, dropping her head onto her forearms. “Shit, what was I thinking? That I could come here and drop into the middle of all of this like nothing happened? I’m an idiot.”

  “Kinda,” Hannah said.

  Laughter bubbled up through the tears in Maddi’s throat. “You’re such a bitch.”

  Hannah chuckled and patted Maddi’s hand. “I go with my strengths.”

  Maddi laughed again, stress and weariness giving way to a fit of the giggles, which Hannah caught as well. When they could breathe, Maddi held up her margarita glass and clinked Hannah’s. She’d missed this.

  “God, we’re a mess. I’m sorry,” she said. “For leaving this behind. I won’t do that again.”

  Hannah gave her a long look and nodded, clinking Maddi’s glass again. “To tonight.”

  “To really good tequila.”

  “To insufferable men,” Hannah countered.

  Maddi laughed and raised her glass higher. “To future decisions—may they be smarter than we are.”

  Hannah tilted her head and downed a large swallow. “Feeling confident about that one?”

  “Not in the slightest,”
Maddi said, making Hannah choke on her mouthful. “That’s why I need a witness.”

  “Hey,” said Monroe, appearing at her side. “You okay?”

  “Good,” Maddi lied. “All good.”

  “You’re a horrible liar,” he said.

  “So—Dad?” she said.

  Monroe sighed. “A talk for another time.”

  “He’s bowling now,” she said.

  “Good for him.”

  “I’m just saying,” she said. “He’s retired and he’s got hobbies and stuff. Mom says he’s different.”

  Monroe just nodded. “Good for her.”

  Maddi looked into the eyes so much like her own. “We need to do this more,” she said. “We live in the same city. Lunch or something.”

  “Deal,” he said, pulling her nearly off the stool for a hug. “Gotta go right now, though. Call me when you’re back in the office.”

  “Will do,” Maddi said.

  “Be careful,” Hannah said, piping up for the first time like she’d just found her tongue.

  Monroe turned around. “Totally will.”

  There was a bit of long eye contact, and Maddi chuckled.

  “Good to see you again, Hannah.”

  “You too.”

  Zach swept his front porch like a man possessed. He was. It was only six fifteen in the morning and he’d already cleaned out the pantry, the fridge, thrown out a bunch of magazines and stacks of junk mail he never got around to reading, and was seriously thinking about building some plant shelves for the bare front porch.

  Not that he had any plants, but if he had shelves he might.

  He stopped and leaned on the broom, rubbing his tired burning eyes. Wishing that the action would rub the previous night’s memory out of his mind.

  “You all right?”

  Zach’s head snapped up. Being remote as he was, he didn’t get a lot of traffic, and usually he heard it coming. Unless it was Eli, sneaking up on foot like a ninja warrior.

  “I’m fine,” Zach said, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  Eli shook his head, stepping up on the porch. “Nothing. Just thought I’d take a walk.”