Daisies in the Canyon(42)

“Got to take this call. If I lose you, I’ll call back,” he said.

She waited a couple of minutes before his voice returned. “That was the dispatcher. She knows that I’m plowing and wanted me to know that the bad weather is comin’ in the next twenty minutes. If we want to get out of here before it hits, we’ll have to stop now. It’s pouring down in Silverton and we could get stuck in the mud if we don’t leave. We’ll leave the old truck and take the tractors back to the barn. Just follow me.”

“I’m on my last round. Let me finish it first,” she said.

“Hurry. The dispatcher said it’s got some power behind it. They are blowing the sirens to warn folks in town to take shelter,” he told her.

She finished that round, whipped around the corner, and saw red taillights coming across the end of her field. The lights stopped and Cooper was suddenly out of his tractor running to open the gate for them to pass through. When both tractors had cleared enough space, he stopped and jogged back to shut the gate, waving at her on the way.

Lightning split the dark sky and thunder rolled off the edges of the canyon. The old work truck would be stuck out there until the mud cleared up, but there was no way they could drive three vehicles back to the ranch.

She pulled in beside where he’d parked and could see him coming toward her. In the semidarkness, with the eerie aura of a storm surrounding him, his swagger was even more pronounced than usual. He’d removed his coat and the plaid shirt he’d worn over an oatmeal-colored thermal undershirt was unbuttoned, flapping in the wind like Superman’s cape. The sleeves were pushed up to his elbows and his broad chest stretched the knit shirt so tight that she could see the ripples of stomach muscles.

“Thank you, Abby. You are a lifesaver.” He threw an arm around her shoulders and together they walked the short distance to her truck.

The big rolling black clouds brought more bursts of lightning and deafening thunder, but she felt safe with his arm around her. She shivered and he drew her near as he opened her door.

“Cold?”

“I hate storms. The static in the air reminds me of a hurricane.”

He drew her closer. “We don’t get hurricanes in this part of Texas. Maybe a tornado, but never a hurricane. You seen many?”

“Not a lot. I was deployed when that big one hit several years ago, but the one I do remember hit us when I was about fourteen. We lived on the strip above the store in an apartment. The wind damaged our roof and the water got into the shop, but it didn’t ruin any of the equipment. After the power was restored we were able to get opened up in a couple of weeks, but it was pretty scary.”

“At that age, you probably thought the sky was falling.”

“You’ll laugh, but I thought the ocean was coming to get us,” she said.

Actually, a hurricane hadn’t been a lot different than the feeling she had when he touched her or kissed her, or even shared pecan pie with her. Different circumstances arranged the nerves in different ways, but when it was all said and done, it took her breath away and made her heart race.

“Good night, Cooper.”

He leaned into the truck and cupped her face in his hands. Thumbs rested on her jawbones. One of his pinky fingers traced her lips, sending jolts of electricity far greater than the lightning through her body. His eyes closed slowly as if he wanted to look at her and kiss her at the same time, and then his lips touched hers, gentle at first. His hands moved to the back of her head to hold her steady as he deepened the kiss. Ripples went from her scalp to her toes and, defying gravity, traveled right back up her legs to her spine and right up to her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and moved closer to him, biting back a moan the whole time.

“Good night, Abby,” he said hoarsely when he broke the kiss. “See you Sunday when we get home. I’ll call you over the weekend.”

He slammed the door and the first drop of rain hit the windshield. She slapped the steering wheel and fussed at herself for not stopping this thing in the beginning. Now it would be ten times—no, a thousand times—harder to end.

“Friends, my ass. Friends don’t kiss like that,” she said.

Years ago, with raging teenage emotions and desires, she had known the excitement of that first kiss, that first sexual experience with the boy she’d thought she’d marry someday, and the misery of the first major breakup. On her first deployment, afraid of being killed in a foreign country, there had been a tall, dark soldier whom she’d thought she was in love with for a brief time. The sex had been better; the breakup hadn’t been as devastating. But the sex with Cooper was a thousand times hotter.

She started the engine and turned the truck around. When she reached the end of the lane and turned north, the rain got more serious. As she drove under the Malloy Ranch sign, the wind picked up and a streak of lightning split the pregnant clouds wide-open. Forget about raining cats and dogs or even baby elephants, this was hurricane-quality wind right there in the middle of the canyon.

Visibility was so limited that she slid to a greasy stop mere inches from the yard fence. There was no doubt she would get wet from truck to house, so she opted to go through the back door. She could leave her wet boots and clothes in the utility room and not track mud all over the living room carpet.

The cold rain, blown with gale-force winds, stung her eyes and face and even her underpants were soaked by the time she grabbed the doorknob—only to find it locked.