Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1)

by Sharla Lovelace

  “You need stitches,” Eli said. “Fucking right between your kidney and your lung.” He wheeled on Maddi before Zach could even turn around. “You!” he yelled. “Why are you here?”

  Maddi felt like she was standing in a Salvador Dalí painting, watching the world bend and twist unnaturally before her. The sky was twisted and yellow. The earth was dotted with fence pieces and car parts and sheet metal and things that didn’t belong. Her van was upside down, the family in front of her was beat up and bleeding, and now Eli—the one person who always had her back—was screaming at her.

  “Eli—” Zach began, reaching out.

  “No,” Eli said, pushing his hand away. “This is done.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maddi said, lifting her chin. She knew she deserved their wrath, but she wasn’t going to be flattened, either. “I made a misjudgment, Eli. I thought I could just—”

  “You thought?” Eli said, walking closer to her. She crossed her arms over her chest and took a breath for strength. “Your job was back there, Maddi,” he said, pointing toward Cody.

  “And then you pushed us out of what we were here for,” she retorted.

  “For good reason!” Eli yelled, his scar reddening. “We do this for a living, Maddi, we know when it’s mediocre, when it’s mild, and when it very well might be the last time we ever do it.” He took another step closer, close enough for her to see the anger shaking his whole body. “I’ve seen those times. This was one of them.”

  She’d never seen him that mad. That enraged. It took the air right out of her. “I said I was sorry,” she said, attempting a calm she’d lost sight of hours before.

  “I told you to stay home for a reason,” he seethed, closing his eyes for a second as if he had to rein it in or go Tasmanian devil. “I love you, Maddi, you know that,” he forced out. “But this stunt you pulled put everyone in danger. You, your cameraman, my—my family,” he shoved out through his teeth. “My family could have died here because of you.”

  Maddi felt her insides breaking down as she tried to maintain her composure.

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t tell me you’re sorry again!” he said, backing up. “I trusted you.”

  “If you trusted me, you wouldn’t have shot out our tires,” she shot back.

  “Do you see why?” he said, advancing right back into her face. “Shit, Maddi, even with that, look what you set into motion. Zach threw everything out the window, every safety precaution we have, to go save your ass, and look at them!” He pointed to the dirty, bloody, soggy group behind him. “This isn’t normal, Maddi!”

  “Enough,” Zach said, his voice rough, his tone leaving no doubt. “That’s enough. She gets the point.”

  “I don’t care if she does or not,” Eli said, holding his hands up and walking back to his vehicle. “This is done. I am done.”

  “Eli,” Hannah said.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “This is everything I worried about, and she just proved it true. So did Zach.”

  “What?” Zach said, pulling out of his daze.

  “You heard me,” Eli said, stepping off his course and walking closer to Zach. “You said you could handle this. Keep your head in the game.” Zach’s jaw muscles tightened, but his eyes looked miserable. Maddi’s stomach turned over at what he must be realizing.

  “I got us out of there, Eli,” he said. “I did the best I could.”

  Eli nodded. “Yeah, you did. The best you could for having to go rescue someone in the middle of it. Someone who had no business here. But you put everyone at risk for a woman—”

  Maddi sucked in a breath as Zach closed the space between himself and Eli in seconds, nearly putting them nose to nose.

  “That woman was going to be my wife, Eli,” he said, his voice cracking at the end. “What the fuck would you do? Oh, you don’t know because you’ve never loved anyone that much.”

  “Don’t,” Eli growled, grabbing Zach’s collar.

  “Stop!” Hannah cried. “This isn’t over, y’all. We have to go check on Mom. Remember that all that fucking matters thing a minute ago, Eli? Well, Mom’s in this fucked-up circle of love, too.”

  Maddi couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe; she just stood there frozen until Rudy touched her shoulder and made her yelp.

  “You okay?” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” she whispered back, amazed that with the thundering her heart was doing she hadn’t had a coronary yet. “Are you?” Realization crashed through her. “Oh, my God, Rudy, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  He was shaking his head as she babbled, holding up hands that were covered in cuts.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Calm down.”

  She clamped a hand over her mouth, and hot tears fell over her fingers.

  “I’m so sorry,” Maddi breathed.

  He winked at her. “It’s okay.”

  Eli backed up and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he gestured to Rudy. “Come on, bud, you can ride with us. I’ll get a truck from the shop to come deal with the van.”

  Rudy gave Maddi a questioning look of loyalty, but she nodded, unable to speak. He headed to Eli’s vehicle and silently got in. Quinn gave Simon another troubled look, and he smiled down at her.

  “I’m good,” he said. “I promise.”

  Reluctantly, she walked away, hugging her arms around herself. Hannah hugged her as she walked by. The silence was deafening as Eli sped away and Maddi stood there with Simon and Hannah and Zach.

  “Let’s go,” Zach said, breaking the awkwardness, moving stiffly toward his vehicle.

  Simon limped behind him, and Hannah moved like she was haunted.

  Maddi felt like she had broken something important. Like she had stolen the spark plug from a machine so well in tune it never faltered, and now she was watching it stumble and fail.

  She got in quietly, in the back with Hannah, and shut her door, just before something surprising happened. Hannah took her hand.

  Maddi stared down at it, dirty and scraped up like hers was, and squeezed it.

  “You were right before,” she whispered, staring straight ahead. Maddi looked at Hannah’s profile, her eyes red and wet but somewhere else. “I thought I’d seen evil before, but never like that,” she said, taking a shaky breath and letting it go slowly. “I have now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Zach was at a loss for what to say. For what to do. Maddi was mute in the backseat, not speaking a word since Eli lit into her. He didn’t really know how to feel; there wasn’t a black or white to it. Eli was right. All the way, he was right. About Maddi screwing up, about the show getting in the way, about his not keeping his head in the game, about all the bad things coming true. All of it. But Eli didn’t need to get nasty and personal about Maddi, and he didn’t need to tear into her quite that harshly. She didn’t know what she was doing. But then that circled right back around to the fact that she had no business out there. At all.

  And Zach shouldn’t have made that comment about Eli’s love life, either, but—well, he’d pushed the Maddi button. And that button was sending him to some crazy places lately.

  He looked in the rearview mirror to catch her eye, but she was looking out her window, looking like she was wishing to be sucked right out the door. She had that look again. The same look she’d had when she bailed the last time.

  Zach nodded to himself and faced forward. She was already gone. He went the long way to avoid driving through town and possibly seeing a repeat of the past.

  “Shit, look at that,” Hannah said, pulling him from his thoughts.

  He looked in the mirror to see where she was looking, and she pointed to the left. To the giant oak tree that had always been. That had survived the tornado from seven years ago. The tree that told them where to turn to go home. It was uprooted whole and lying in the field, like it
had finally decided to go to sleep.

  “I don’t want to see the house,” Hannah said, tears in her voice.

  “It’ll be fine,” Zach said, his own gut clenching. It had to be fine. He didn’t want to see any of them, his mom’s, his, Harlan’s. It was like driving to a slaughter and hoping the guy with the axe lost his way. “Simon, how far did it go?”

  Simon was tapping on his laptop, searching for information.

  “Looks like it pulled up just south of here,” he said. “I don’t see any patterns after that.”

  “So your place and Hannah’s and Quinn’s should be okay,” Zach said.

  “Yeah,” Simon said. “We should be fine.” Zach saw him look at his back, where he’d stuffed a towel he’d found. “You need to get to a doctor, Zach.”

  “I’m fine,” Zach said. “There’s time for that later.”

  “Not if you lose all your blood,” he said. “I’m not really up for carrying anyone right now, so please don’t bleed out.”

  Zach smiled. “Love you too, bro.”

  Turning right at the brick-fence house, no one spoke. That house had no roof. The one next to it had a tree through the window. People were milling about in the ditches, moving small trees out of the road. No one else was driving but him. It felt like a war zone. One he’d seen a million times in other places. The destruction, the loss, the feeling of hopelessness. He’d only felt that personally one other time, and it was rushing back in on him with a vengeance.

  “Oh, God,” Maddi breathed, uttering sound for the first time since they’d gotten in the car.

  A whole family was hugging out in the front yard, or what once was a front yard. There wasn’t a house to be in front of anymore. There wasn’t anything. All that was left was a slab and a chimney, and not even all of that.

  “Jesus,” Zach said. “I know that feeling.”

  Maddi met his eyes in the mirror that time, but he was the one to look away. That day was all over him suddenly, and remembering the fear he’d felt then accompanied by the fear he’d felt multiple times today was almost too much. He couldn’t even comprehend how much he’d nearly lost today. Her. Simon and Hannah in the car with him. Simon being carried off. Even Eli and Quinn, if things hadn’t worked out right.

  He hadn’t kept his head in the game. He’d kept it cool to get them out of the situation he’d put them in. That wasn’t the same. And it almost hadn’t worked.

  Zach made one final turn into his mother’s long driveway, onto the Chase property line, driving over small limbs that were thrown about like pickup sticks. He stopped when a large tree blocked the way. And Eli’s vehicle.

  Eli had just gotten there as well, and they were getting out.

  “Have to walk in from here,” he said, not making eye contact. “You two okay to do that?”

  “I’m fine,” Simon said, limping to a place to walk around so he wouldn’t have to climb over the tree.

  “Simon,” Quinn said, looking worried.

  He stopped and smiled at her. “It’s okay.” His smile faded quickly, though, as he looked ahead, and Zach knew he was anxious to get there and dreading it at the same time. He knew the feeling.

  “Don’t have a choice,” Zach said, pulling the bloody towel from under his shirt and ignoring Eli’s change of face. “I’m going in there.”

  “Zach, we need to get you to—” Eli began, concern replacing the scowl.

  “I’m going in there,” Zach repeated, following in Simon’s easier footsteps.

  He was going, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He knew he had a decent wound, and that he didn’t need to make it worse. Maddi and Hannah made the climb with Eli and Quinn, none of them speaking. Zach shook his head at the whiplash change from the family hug twenty minutes earlier. It brought dysfunction to a whole new level.

  All of that blew away with the wind when they rounded the corner to their mother’s house. Hannah grabbed Simon’s arm, and Zach physically backed up a step. Most of the house was okay, but a large tree had uprooted and landed on top of what was the big family room. Carving it into a canoe, all the way to the foundation.

  The family room. Where everything happened. Where their whole lives happened, even still. Where the big table he and his dad made—Zach closed his eyes and didn’t let himself go there yet. It wasn’t about things yet. First, they needed to make sure of the people.

  “Maddi,” he said, his voice sounding funny to his ears. “Everyone got out of there before you left?”

  “We all left at the same time,” she said under her breath. “Your mom and Cracker and your grandmother and the crew.”

  Zach turned. “Harlan?”

  She shook her head. “Not when I was here.”

  “Let’s go,” he said, turning up the road to his house, walking with a purpose his body was railing against. He didn’t care. He’d deal with that later.

  He felt Maddi walking next to him, felt her presence, smelled her scent even after fear and a car wreck and rain and mud had their way with her. But he had to put all that aside. Because she was leaving. He felt it in his gut.

  Rounding a curve, he breathed a sigh of relief that his house was still there, followed by a sick feeling once he saw the two large front windows blown out. That was okay, though, as he quickened his pace again. If broken windows and a little water damage were all he had to worry about, he could deal with that.

  When they got closer, however, it showed an uglier face. Debris and pieces of trees sat in his living room, ripping a hole in his couch. And a small tree trunk stuck straight out of the wall to his bedroom, as if someone had used it as an ice pick.

  He walked through his bedroom to a set of doors on the other side, opening the one on the right. It looked like closet doors, but the right one opened to another steel one. Zach knocked, assuming they didn’t lock it, but pulled a wad of keys from his pocket just in case. The door swung open to some relieved faces, everyone crammed together.

  His mother rushed forth, a growling Cracker in her arms. “Honey, y’all are all right,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I was a damn wreck. You could hear it all over us. I heard glass.”

  “Yeah, there’s some damage,” Zach said, averting his eyes. Behind her was Gran in her chair, looking annoyed with Derrie and Brax nearly sitting on her. “Doing all right, Gran?”

  “Will be when I get out of here,” she said with a wink. “But I have to say, this was a good idea.”

  Best that my money could buy, was what he knew she wanted to say.

  People filed out, taking deep breaths as if they’d been holding them the whole time.

  “Hey,” he said to Derrie. “I’m glad y’all made it.”

  “Thank you for offering,” she said, glancing at Hannah. “Thank you.”

  Hannah gave a small smile, and Zach knew what that cost her, but it had been the right thing to do.

  “Mom, your house—” Hannah said, changing the subject to something Zach was dreading.

  His mother’s face fell. “What?” She swallowed hard and her eyes filled again. “Is it gone?”

  “No,” Zach said, shaking his head. “But the—the family room is.” God, that killed him. “It’s kind of gone.”

  “Has a tree lying in it,” Hannah said.

  His mom took a deep breath, let it go slowly, and nodded. “Well, the important things are there.” She hugged Cracker closer to her. “And here. All of you are safe.” She frowned as she looked closer at Simon. “What’s wrong with your face? Your arms?”

  Simon made a show of looking down like it was a surprise. “Nothing, just got in the way of a few things. Zach needs stitches,” he added quickly.

  Zach gave him a look. “Traitor.”

  “Why do you need stitches?” their mom asked, circling back on him.

  Zach waved a hand. “It’s fine.”

 
; But his mother had already spun him and assessed the damage. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” she muttered.

  “I’ll deal with that later,” he said, turning around, tired of everyone scoping out his wounds.

  “You’ll deal with it now unless you want me and my sewing kit doing the deed,” she said.

  “Mom,” he said, pulling her back with his tone. “Where’s Harlan?”

  Her face fell. “He never answered his phone,” she said. “I called at least twenty times.”

  Zach turned on his heel. “I’ll be right back,” he said, meeting Eli’s eyes on his way out. “I know you need to go check your own things, but can you hang here for a second? I don’t want her going back to the house by herself.”

  “The road may be blocked getting over there,” Eli said, knowing where he was going.

  “I’m not taking the road.”

  Eli nodded and Simon slapped his shoulder. “We got this.”

  “Zach, you need to quit moving around,” Maddi said, “You’re getting pale.”

  “Then come with me,” Zach said. “If I pass out on the way, you can call for help.”

  “That’s not funny,” his mom said.

  “Mom, I have to go check on him,” he said, wheeling around. “I just do.”

  She paused and then nodded. “I know you do. Just walk, please. Don’t run.”

  “Just stay here, please,” he countered. “Don’t go home.”

  “Can we go outside?” she said. “Cracker needs to pee.”

  “Please,” he said, passing Maddi and trying not to think too much on anything. Unfortunately, that wasn’t working. Everything he didn’t want to ponder on was beating on him like a drum.

  “Where are we going that isn’t by road?” she asked, following him without him asking again.

  “Follow me,” he said, breaking into a jog. “You don’t remember?”

  “Stop running,” Maddi said.

  “Stop nagging.”

  The jogging didn’t hurt. Twisting and moving and sitting hurt. And he needed to get there. Now.

  He moved quickly down the path behind his house, relieved when the little workshop came into view, still fully intact if not missing a few shingles. Thank God for that. It was all he had left of his dad, and that would have been a hard pill to swallow.