The Weather Girl

by Amy Vastine

  Summer swiped at her own tears before they fell. Fear and doubt overwhelmed her. She was terrified of making the wrong decision, but she knew one needed to be made. It was like being asked to choose between divorcing parents. How did someone choose one love over another?

  “Summer, we love you,” Mimi said, taking hold of her hands. “We want you to be happy. Tell me this job with Ryan won’t make you happy.”

  “It will and it won’t.” She couldn’t ignore the way her heart ached when she imagined telling Travis about the other job. It would have been hard enough to leave her grandparents, but Summer had to go and fall in love with a man who had broken down all of her walls so effortlessly.

  “Any of this indecision have to do with that mighty fine looking man who’s walking your dog with Big D right now?”

  Summer shrugged, unable to speak around the lump in her throat. Maybe it had more to do with Travis than she wanted to admit.

  Mimi nodded as one side of her mouth smiled. “He’d probably go with you if you asked. Something tells me that boy would follow you anywhere. The way he looks at you reminds me of the way your mama used to look at your dad, and we know how that worked out.”

  That was impossible. How could she ever ask Travis to give up everything to follow her dreams? The man deserved to figure out what his own dreams were first. “Maybe I’m too afraid to do any of this,” she admitted. “Maybe Big D is wrong. Maybe I’m not brave enough.”

  “Try,” Mimi said softly. “Try it and see. We’ll all survive here. You won’t be gone forever.”

  Mimi always led with her heart. She did what felt right. Big D thought things through, did what he knew was best. Both of them were telling her to take this leap.

  After a few minutes had passed, the front door opened and Storm came racing in, tongue out and tail wagging. Big D and Travis followed behind him. Travis’s blue-gray eyes were definitely overcast.

  “Everything okay in here?” Big D asked.

  The two women nodded and tightened their hold on each other’s hands.

  “We should let you and Travis work this out,” Big D said, holding a hand out for his wife. He tapped the toe of his shoe against Summer’s foot. “We’re glad you’re all right. No more fights on moving vehicles, though.”

  Summer managed a small smile. “Promise.”

  Mimi gave her a hug before taking her husband’s hand. She walked over to where a solemn Travis stood. She squeezed his arm and whispered something in his ear. His head lifted, his eyes saying all the things he was holding back. Mimi gave him another reassuring pat on the shoulder and headed for the door.

  Travis’s stare burned her skin as Summer said goodbye and saw her grandparents out. She leaned back against the front door after shutting it. Not sure what to say, she waited for him to speak first. His silence enveloped her like a scratchy wool blanket. It didn’t take long for the weather facts to flow freely.

  “Did you know that a small thunderstorm can hold as much as thirty-three million gallons of water?”

  He finally looked away, his gaze dropping to the floor in front of him. “That’s a lot.”

  “There was once a storm that hit Dell City with hurricane-strength winds. Destroyed an airport hangar.”

  “Scary,” he replied without his usual interest.

  “At any particular time there can be almost two thousand thunderstorms occurring in our atmosphere. Luckily, they aren’t all that extreme and most aren’t deadly.”

  “Who’s Ryan?”

  She swallowed hard. It was the easiest question he could have asked, but still hard. Her mouth went dry. Hearing Ryan’s name made her want to call him. And if she called him, she would accept his job offer. That terrified her. “He’s a friend of my parents.”

  The clench of his jaw made her nervous. “Your grandfather said he’s a television producer.”

  “He’s that, too.” Summer pushed off the door and headed back into the living room. She resumed her pacing in front of the small fireplace.

  “He offered you a job.” He wasn’t asking.

  Feeling cowardly, she used the excuse her grandmother had just told her was no longer valid. “Yes, but it means leaving Mimi and Big D.” And you. “It requires lots of travel and I’d be based out of New York.”

  “What kind of job is it?”

  Summer didn’t want to talk about it, knowing there was no way to downplay how good the opportunity was. “I don’t know. He wants me to track storms as well as visit places that have experienced some of the wildest weather in history.”

  “It’s like This Day in Weather History, only a whole hour instead of thirty seconds, and on location instead of in the studio?”

  It wasn’t like that. It was a thousand times better than her little idea. “It doesn’t matter because I’m all my grandparents really have. My aunts don’t visit, don’t help.”

  “It sounded to me like they want you to take the position.”

  “What they want isn’t as important as what I want.”

  “This job that’s supposedly perfect for you, isn’t what you want?” he challenged.

  What she wanted was the courage to tell him she was in love with him and would stay if he felt the same, but the words were lodged in her throat. There was a part of her that hoped he’d come out and say it first, that he’d profess his own love and ask her to stay.

  Instead, Travis threw his thumb over his shoulder. Her silence spoke all the wrong things to him. “I’m going to head out. You have a phone call to make and I need to... I have to... There are some things I should...” He couldn’t finish, but didn’t have to. Summer knew he was running away.

  “I’m sorry I told Ken I quit,” she managed to choke out as he made his way to the door.

  Travis’s hand stilled on the doorknob, but he didn’t turn around. “I’ll call you later.” He pulled open the door and slipped out without a goodbye. But that was exactly how it felt—like goodbye.

  * * *

  SLEEP ELUDED SUMMER that night. She tossed and turned, overthinking all the things she had and hadn’t done that day. She’d gotten into an actual fight. She’d quit her job. In a moment of passionate hate, she had done the one thing she was sure she wouldn’t be able to muster up the courage to do.

  She hadn’t told Travis how she felt about him. Instead, she’d come clean with him about Ryan’s offer. And he’d left her to make a decision—a decision she still had to make.

  She hadn’t called Ryan or Ken, although Ken had called her more than once. She’d let his calls go to voice mail and prayed the next time the phone rang it would be Travis. Travis didn’t call.

  She flipped onto her back, staring at the ceiling fan as it spun around slowly. The nights were cooler this time of year. Summer had the windows open and the air-conditioning off. Tonight’s low was predicted to dip down to sixty-three. That was average. Tomorrow’s high was eighty-seven. That was slightly above normal. The sun and heat were getting old; they needed some rain. The storms that came with the tornado didn’t produce much precipitation. West Central Texas still suffered from drought.

  Summer recited the highs and lows for the week over and over in her head, hoping it would lull her to sleep. When that failed miserably, she thought about how different things were when she’d woken up this morning. She was looking forward to seeing Travis at the parade and couldn’t wait to wrap her arms around him and sneak a sniff of his cologne. He smelled better than any man she knew.

  Rolling over on her stomach, Summer hid her head under her pillow. She should have told him she loved him. Travis probably thought the job with Ryan was a done deal. He probably thought their relationship was over before it even began. He was wrong, though. She owed it to him and to herself to tell him how she really felt. As Big D said, she was braver than this.

  S
ummer climbed out of bed and checked the clock. It was after midnight, but that wasn’t going to stop her from taking a leap of faith. She grabbed her phone off the dresser and typed out a text she figured Travis would read when he got up. It was a simple invitation to go running in the morning. She’d miss church and lunch with her grandparents, but it was worth it. She hit Send and crawled back into bed, proud of herself for having some sort of plan. It was right when sleep began to find her that her phone beeped with Travis’s reply.

  Meet me at Red Bud @ 8.

  RED BUD PARK was quiet and uncrowded, so different from the last time they’d been there. Summer twirled Storm’s favorite toy and tossed it for him to chase. The dog returned with his slobbery rope in his mouth and dropped it at Travis’s feet, as if he knew who had the better throwing arm. She tried not to let it hurt her feelings, which wasn’t so hard once Travis picked it up and threw it a good sixty yards.

  “I see what everybody’s been going on about. That’s some arm,” Summer said as they watched Storm run like lightning. Her hand shielded her eyes from the sun.

  “I could throw a football a lot farther than that slimy thing.” He wiped his hand on his shorts.

  The plan was to run together, but the black Lab was the only one getting any exercise at the moment. With the exception of their awkward greeting when he arrived, Travis hadn’t said much. He didn’t ask her if she had called Ken or Ryan. He didn’t even comment on the weather. Still, it looked as though he had something to say.

  Storm returned and lay down a few feet away. The poor dog was out of breath, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He kept his toy out of Summer’s and Travis’s reach, in need of a breather. Summer began to stretch her legs. She needed to run until her muscles burned and her chest ached. Anything to distract her from the tension that floated around and in between them, filling all the empty spaces like a dense fog.

  “I came here last night,” Travis finally said. “Hank, the hot-air balloon guy, met me.”

  Summer’s head snapped up. “How did that happen?”

  He stopped and cleared his throat. His jaw clenched a couple times before he was able to continue. “I was going to surprise you last night, but I guess things got messed up.”

  The guilt felt like a ten-pound rock in her stomach. She hadn’t meant to ruin his plans. “Did you jump?”

  “I had him take me up and hook me to the cord. I stood there for the longest time, trying to convince myself that I could do it. It was seriously the scariest thing I have ever done.”

  “But you did it,” she said proudly. “Next time we’ll have to do it together.” Summer sat down in the grass and looked up at him. He was a hulk of a man, but his face was soft and gentle. He wore running shorts and a sleeveless UT T-shirt. His arms made him the kind of man who should always wear shirts without sleeves. If Ken really wanted to get to number one, he needed to buy Travis some sleeveless suits.

  “I did it. I jumped and screamed and thought I was going to die.”

  Summer laughed. How she wished he had invited her along to see that. “It is truly terrifying. I’m scared every time I go up.”

  Travis shook his head. “I have a picture of you standing in that balloon basket right before you jumped.” He looked into the sky as if she were still up there. “There was this complete calm about you. I remember how alive and energized you were after the fact, but before you jumped, you were cool as a cucumber. You’re truly one of the bravest people I know.”

  His compliment made her smile, but she felt ashamed, and she ducked her head. She didn’t feel very brave lately. Even Big D saw through her. She’d been living in this limbo, refusing to make the tough decisions, avoiding the emotions that were making themselves crystal clear. “Jumping out of a balloon doesn’t make me brave. And just because I looked calm doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared.”

  Travis cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “I need to tell you something,” he began. “I was waiting for the right time to do it, but I don’t know what the right time is anymore.”

  Summer looked back up, concerned. “You know you can tell me anything.”

  “I’ve been lost and afraid for a really long time now. Afraid of failing. Afraid of making the wrong decisions. Before my injury, I thought I was infallible. Afterward, I felt I had failed everyone who ever believed in me.”

  “That’s not true. That might be how you felt, but I can’t believe that’s how everyone saw it.”

  “Trust me, there are people I have most definitely failed. But you, I don’t want to fail you.”

  He could never fail her. She wanted to say that, but her anxiety pushed the most recent weather facts out of her mouth. “Did you know New York City averages about twenty-two and a half inches of snow a year?”

  Travis let out a breathy laugh and held out a hand to help her to her feet. He didn’t let go once she stood up. “That’s a lot of snow.”

  “Not really. Not in comparison to Rochester or Ithaca. Those nor’easters are brutal, dumping almost a hundred inches of snow some winters.”

  “We sure are spoiled here in Texas.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. This was why she loved him. He understood her better than anyone. He never let her weirdness get in the way. He took her hand in both of his. “You changed how I look at myself. You made me believe I should ask for more from life than what I already had. You challenged me to see the world in a different way and not let the fear keep me from trying something new. You were exactly what I never knew I needed.”

  The way he looked at her seemed to mirror the way she felt about him. In his eyes, she could see he respected and cared about her. There was also something bigger, something she felt in the center of her chest.

  There was love.

  He was in love with her as she hoped. Just as she was in love with him. Summer’s stomach did a flip-flop and she could feel her heart in her chest. Love did that. It made your heart double, triple in size and press against your ribs. It made you feel alive as nothing else could. She couldn’t let him say it first. If he said it first, he’d think she was just reacting to him when she said it back. She was the one who was supposed to make the declarations this morning.

  Travis kept talking while Summer silently fretted. “I need you to know I appreciate that you liked me even when I didn’t like myself.”

  “I don’t like you,” she interjected impulsively. Travis frowned, making her smile. Just like when she stood in that balloon basket, this calm before the storm took over. She was ready to take the leap. “I love you. I’m in love with you, and I want to stay here with you. I’m not taking the other job.”

  Instead of kissing her and professing his own feelings, Travis let go of her hand and took a step back. “Summer,” he groaned. “Why are you doing this to me?” That couldn’t be good. He turned his back to her and clawed at his hair. “You have to take that job.”

  “I don’t,” she asserted, tugging on his arm to make him face her. “I thought about it and I want to see where this relationship goes. I won’t be able to do that thousands of miles away. I love you, Travis. I’m staying in Abilene.”

  His hands slipped from the top of his head to cover his face. “I’m not.”

  “What?” Summer’s oversize heart began to beat double time. “What are you talking about?”

  He dropped his hands to his sides. Gone was the love and respect she thought she’d seen in his eyes moments ago. Now there was only a pain that made her chest ache. She stared down at his feet and tried to stop herself from bursting into tears.

  “I’m taking a coaching job in Alabama. I can’t be the reason you don’t follow your dream. We both have to move on, Summer. It’s the best thing for both of us.”

  “Alabama?” It was the only thing that registered. He’d taken a job in Alabama. She should have known bett
er. She was a fool. A complete fool for believing he could be in love with her. He wasn’t here to tell her he loved her. He was here to finish off that goodbye.

  The worst thing about the way love caused your heart to expand was that it hurt that much more when that stupid, overinflated organ split down the middle. It was a lesson Summer wouldn’t soon forget.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE UNIVERSITY OF Alabama’s campus was beautiful, rich in history and traditional architecture. Travis took a tour of the Quad, which used to host the football games back in the early days. Now the Crimson Tide’s facilities were some of the most impressive in all of college football. The entire coaching staff was welcoming, and the offer they put on the table was hard to refuse.

  Travis loosened his tie as he looked out the window of his hotel room. This was the job his father was telling him to take, the one that was supposed to be perfect for him and what was left of his skill set. Even Summer had once said he was an excellent motivator.

  Summer.

  She had moved to New York two weeks ago, and nothing was the same. Not the station, not Abilene—not Texas, for that matter. Alabama offered Travis the chance to get away from everything that reminded him of her. It was a clean slate. A fresh start. Yet, as Travis listened to the head coach and all of the assistants go on and on about their program, as he stood in the middle of the huge stadium, he realized something important. He didn’t want to coach football quarterbacks. He didn’t want to be part of the football machine at all. The kid coming from Odessa deserved a coach whose heart was in it one hundred percent. Travis wasn’t even in it half that much.

  He turned down the offer with a “thank you, but no, thank you.” Travis decided he needed to stop doing what made his old man happy and figure out what made him happy.