Hell on Wheels: A Loveswept Classic Romance (10 page)

Wondering how he would kiss had been bad enough. Now that she knew, his effect on her was twice as devastating. Why did he have to be so all-fired … masculine?

After the meal Roan seemed to come to a decision. Victoria could almost see his chin tensing with resolve as he paid their bill. His blue eyes glinted with a new determination. Or was she only being fanciful?

No, he was definitely up to something, she decided when, as they were loading their gear into the van, he lit a cigarette right in front of her. Until that point he had considerately restricted his smoking to times they were apart.

She closed the back doors of the van and turned, only to find herself practically chest to chest with him. “So you’re just going to ignore what happened last night, is that it?” he asked. The question was issued amiably enough, but there was an edge to his smile.

“That was my general plan, yes,” she said, trying to sidle away from him. She couldn’t think when he was so close.

He placed both hands against the van on either side of her, effectively trapping her. “Unh-unh. Stay here and talk to me. Was that one kiss so earth-shatteringly awful?”

“No, of course not. It was a very nice kiss, as kisses go.”
Understatement of the year
. “But it was unwise, and you know that as well as I do.”

“So you want to ignore it?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Does that mean you want to ignore me as well?”

“I haven’t been ignoring you.”

“Not ignoring me, exactly. Freezing me out is more like it.” He flicked away the half-smoked cigarette. “You and I, we had a rough start. But I thought we were
beginning to get along. I thought we were starting to understand each other. I thought … ah, hell, what am I doing?” He pushed himself away from the van, away from her, looking completely disgusted. He walked over to the smoldering cigarette he’d discarded and stomped on it with far more force than necessary, practically grinding it into dust. “You ready to leave?”

Guilt nagged at Victoria’s conscience. Her behavior had been intended to protect herself, to put a barrier between them. But she hadn’t intended to hurt Roan’s feelings, which was apparently what she’d done. It had never occurred to her that rough-and-tumble Roan Cullen would have the sensitivity to be stung by her coldness.

All right, so maybe her perception of him was lacking. Before she’d met him, she’d painted him in her mind as a macho hotshot, and much of what she’d seen during their first meeting had reinforced that impression. But she ought to know by now that there was more to him. She’d seen glimpses of compassion, especially the previous day, when he’d worked so hard to keep her entertained while the van was in the shop.

He didn’t deserve what she’d given him this morning. “Roan …”

But he’d already walked away, climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Determined, she opened her door and slid in beside him, but she didn’t start the engine. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I had to put some distance between us. Keeping things on a more formal, less personal level seems like a good idea.”

“You could just say, ‘Roan, don’t kiss me again.’ That would work.”

No, it wouldn’t, she argued silently. Because next time she might have been the one to kiss him. The distance had been for her benefit as well as his.

“Yeah, well, never mind,” he said. “Let’s just get on the road and forget this whole stupid discussion.”

“No, I can’t forget about it. I’ve obviously hurt your feelings, and I never meant—”

“You didn’t ‘hurt my feelings,’ for God’s sake,” he interrupted, throwing his hands in the air. She should have guessed he wouldn’t admit to anything as unmanly as emotions. “I just don’t fancy spending the next week and five days with an iceberg.”

“An iceberg!” she sputtered. But when she stopped and thought about it, that was a pretty apt description of her demeanor. “Well, better an iceberg than a raging forest fire.” She hadn’t realized she spoke her last sentiment out loud until she looked at Roan and saw the hardness in his face soften to gentleness tinged with amusement.

“You mean with a little effort I could turn you into a raging—”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” she retorted, leaning her forehead against the steering wheel. But her face, at any rate, was certainly flaming.

Roan’s long, hearty laugh sounded like it came from somewhere deep within him. Although Victoria should have been incensed that he would be amused at her expense, somehow she couldn’t find any more anger inside herself. That laugh was a terrific ice breaker, and she
actually smiled at the absurdity of the whole situation. She leaned back and folded her arms, waiting to see what he would say or do next.

When his laughter died down, he offered her a new proposition. “Okay, Vic—Victoria,” he said. “I think I understand your position a little better now. And I agree that any, er, physical involvement between us would be dumb. So how about this: If I promise to be a perfect gentleman for the rest of this trip, will you stop treating me like I have leprosy?”

Victoria made an unladylike snort. Then a giggle escaped, and finally a full-blown burst of laughter. “You, a perfect gentleman? On what planet?”

“Hey, with the exception of one or two minor lapses, I’ve done okay so far. C’mon, Vic, be a sport. I’m offering to curb my baser instincts, and all you have to do is be nice to me. I’d say you have the easier task. I’m easy to be nice to.” He extended his hand to her. “Deal?”

“Golly, how could I say no?” She gingerly shook his hand, and he smiled at her, a devilish glint in his gaze. Somehow, she got the feeling that Roan would be hard-pressed to remain a “perfect gentleman” for twelve minutes, let alone twelve days.

Given the day’s disastrous start, the drive up into Kansas went relatively smoothly, Roan thought. Despite the tongue-in-cheek manner in which he and Victoria had made their “deal,” he was determined to honor his promise to her. He kept his flirtations on a strictly surface
level, and even made every attempt to use her full name, although “Vic” slipped out of his mouth more often than not.

To her credit, she’d stopped snapping at him every time he transgressed. In fact, she seemed warmer and more human than he’d ever seen her. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

Ah, hell, he liked it too much. She was getting under his skin in a big way. Everything about her turned him on, from the slope of her cheek to her dainty, long-fingered hands, to her long, denim-clad legs. Even her voice, so soft and feminine, tickled his senses like a feather.

He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but her coldness that morning had cut him to the quick. He’d thought she was acting that way out of some misguided desire to punish him for the perfectly natural urge he’d followed to kiss her. It was only after she’d made that “raging forest fire” comment under her breath that he realized her behavior had been a natural self-protective instinct. Immediately he’d felt different about everything.

He was glad they’d talked things out. He was not particularly looking forward to spending countless days with her, unable to touch her. But that’s how the chips had fallen.

It was better that way, he reminded himself again and again. She wasn’t the type of woman for a casual fling, and he wasn’t the type of man to offer anything more. Permanence wasn’t in his vocabulary. Even if he’d wanted it—which he didn’t, he told himself firmly—he didn’t believe he was capable.

“I’d always heard Kansas was flat,” Roan remarked as they traveled along a rural highway with acres and acres of newly greening wheat fields stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see. “They weren’t kidding. It’s even flatter than Oklahoma.”

“Great tornado-chasing country,” Victoria said. “How far are we from the target area?”

“About forty miles, close as I can estimate,” Roan said. There hadn’t been a sign or a mile marker in quite a while.

“Close enough. We’re early, for once.”

Roan scanned the horizon. “These clouds don’t look too menacing.”

“Just wait. Pretty soon those innocent-looking, puffy little clouds will start building higher and higher—if the cap isn’t too strong—and we’ll have ourselves a dandy tornado. Mark my words.”

He didn’t know what she meant by “the cap.” He decided not to ask. He’d had enough meteorology education for a lifetime. “Quite the little optimist today, aren’t you?”

“Hey, the signs look good. What’s the town we’re heading for? Oh, yeah, Barricklow. We can stop there, gas up, grab some lunch—”

“And check the data again.” He knew the routine by heart.

Barricklow, Kansas, wasn’t quite as small as it looked on the map. It featured a real downtown area, complete with an old movie theater, a radio station, and a chain department store. Victoria drove aimlessly along the
quaint streets until she found a likely-looking cafe for lunch.

“You don’t like fast food,” Roan said.

She wrinkled her nose. “I try to watch my diet when I’m on these trips. We don’t get very much exercise.”

Immediately Roan thought of a dozen ways he and Victoria could burn off a few calories, all of them X-rated.

“We can go someplace else if you’d rather,” she offered, misinterpreting his moment of contemplation for hesitation about her choice of restaurant.

“Oh, no, this is fine.” He opened the door and ushered her in ahead of him, forcing his gaze and his thoughts away from her delectable body. If he was going to survive this trip, he needed to give his mind something to focus on besides Victoria Driscoll.

Engine parts. Anytime he felt his willpower ebbing, he would mentally take apart the engine of the old Ford LTD he used to own. Didn’t prisoners in solitary confinement do that to keep from going crazy?

After they’d browsed the stained, dog-eared menus and made their selections, Victoria got downright chatty. She asked him all sorts of questions about his childhood, his education, his work. He actually found the conversation pleasant, since it kept his mind off other, more forbidden subjects. Was it possible he and Victoria were becoming … friends?

When their sandwiches arrived, he turned the tables on Victoria, asking her about her childhood, her friends, her garden, her job at the Weather Service, how she got hooked up with Amos. And she answered obligingly,
much more open about herself now that the parameters of their relationship had been established.

Only one of his questions produced any hesitation, and that was when he asked her about her father.

“He died when I was twelve, very suddenly,” she replied in clipped tones. “Fortunately, he left my mother and me very well provided for.” And that was all she offered.

Sensing the subject was somehow tender for her, he didn’t push—just as she didn’t push when he made a similarly brief mention of his younger sister’s death. They were starting to trust each other, but that trust stretched only so far.

As she paid their bill at the cash register, Roan noticed an advertisement for a bungee-jumping attraction. “Hey, look at this,” he said, pointing out the flyer in the window to Victoria.

“Hmm?” she said distractedly, still stuffing her change into her purse.

“Bungee jumping. Ever tried it?”

Her eyes widened. “Certainly not. And I suppose you have?”

“Actually, no. I’ve always thought it sounded like fun, but I never really had the opportunity. Want to go take a look?”

She appeared horrified. “Absolutely not. Bungee jumping”—and she said it with a delicate curl of her upper lip—“isn’t on our agenda.”

“But you said yourself that we have hours to spare, and we’re smack in the middle of the target area. If we have time to kill—”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, thanks. Time to kill doesn’t mean time to kill ourselves.”

“Okay, then, how about if I hitch out there while you do your computer thing, and then you can pick me up on your way out of town.”

Now she seemed downright agitated. “No, really, Roan, I don’t think you should. You could break your neck.”

“Aw, come on, you sound like my mother.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it
is
dangerous. I saw this piece on that home video TV show where the rope broke and this guy was paralyzed—”

“The rope won’t break. That’s a one-in-a-million occurrence.”

She pursed her lips and looked down at her feet.

The diner’s cashier, a middle-aged woman with a mountain of dyed black hair atop her head and painted-on eyebrows, chose that moment to interrupt. “Say, if you’re thinking about that bungee-jumping thing, I’d highly recommend it,” she said. “I did it yesterday—biggest thrill of my life, I’m telling you. My kid did it twice. And some of the profits are going toward the Lion’s Club summer camp program, so it’s for a good cause.”

“See there?” Roan said. “What do you think?”

“I can’t stop you from doing it, if that’s really what you want to do,” Victoria said quietly. “But I don’t see the point in risking your life merely for the sake of a thrill. I just … wish you wouldn’t, that’s all.”

God, her lower lip was trembling. Did the thought of him breaking his neck really upset her that much?
“Okay, I won’t do it,” he said. “But let’s at least go out there and watch. I’d love to get some pictures. And frankly, if this tornado thing doesn’t pan out into some decent video footage, I need to make this two weeks count for something in the bank.”

Once he’d capitulated, she immediately softened. “Okay, we’ll go watch.”

They went back to the van so Victoria could go through her by-now-familiar data-pulling process. She didn’t spend as much time as she usually did, declaring after only a cursory inspection of the information that little had changed since the morning. All systems were go. They would drive north of town, find the highest vantage point, and wait to see what the clouds would do.

“The bungee-jumping platform would be a pretty high vantage point,” he said.

She sighed. “All right, all right, we’ll go watch a bunch of fools participating in a suicidal activity,” she said. “But I don’t see what’s so amusing about it.”

They found the bungee-jumping outfit in a huge discount-store parking lot on the edge of town. The platform was so high that the people on it looked no bigger than ants. On the ground below them was a huge expanse of some type of cushioning device.