Men of Courage II (16 page)

“Thanks, guys,” Cooper told them, reaching out to shake hands with each of them again.

Marty followed suit. “We all still make a pretty good team, if I do say so myself.”

“You were trained by the best,” Cooper said dryly, making everyone laugh.

“Speaking of that,” Ryan said, pausing long enough to exchange looks with the rest of the team. “The first
supercell went west of Denton, on through here, then pulled east of Cincinnati. But the system isn’t done yet.”

Cooper frowned. “What’s up?”

“You know how huge this system is. Two more cells have formed north of here, heading south, southeast.”

Marty frowned. “Denton might take a direct hit then.”

“We’re tracking it best we can, but with spotty power, it’s been a bit risky.”

“So what are you proposing?” Cooper asked, although he already had a feeling what was coming.

The rest of the team came to stand behind Ryan. “You, uh, you two up for some chasing?”

Cooper looked at Marty, and despite everything that had happened to them today, there was no denying the spark he saw in her eyes. “I’m guessing that’s a yes?” he asked her.

“Might as well find out how well we still work together.”

“Oh, we work together just fine,” Cooper assured her, his eyes only on her.

More catcalls followed, until Ryan jokingly pulled them apart. “Hey, hey, if I don’t get to have a wedding night, you two don’t get to be all googly-eyed and mushy with each other, either. I’m tempted to break you guys up just so we make sure we focus on the storm.”

“Where he goes, I go,” Marty told Ryan, causing a few more whistles.

She ducked around Ryan and slid her hand into Cooper’s, who gripped it perhaps a bit more tightly than necessary. It felt good, being part of a team. A team of two.

“So what are we waiting for?” she asked the group. “Let’s go find us a twister.”

They all crossed the field toward the group of trucks clustered on the side of the road. As they got closer, Cooper saw they’d cut the downed pine trees into sections and rolled the chunks out of the way so they could get through.

Ryan noticed the direction Cooper was looking and said, “Nothing stops us from getting down a road if we need to.”

“I’ll be sure to pack my own chain saw next time,” Cooper assured him, and then he and Marty began walking down the road toward his truck. He leaned down and asked her, “You sure you’re up for this?”

“I feel strangely energized,” Marty told him, lips curving in a deep smile. Then she looked back over her shoulder and called out, “Hey, Ryan, what direction are we heading?”

“Heading back the way you came, then up 17. We can call in from the gas station in Pike and get an update, then plan from there.”

“Okay, thanks!”

Cooper examined his truck, but it looked pretty much as Ryan had said. The back bumper would need replacing, but all in all, he’d been exceedingly lucky. He glanced inside the truck to find Marty was already in the passenger seat, strapped in, with his maps spread across her lap. Exceedingly lucky, indeed, he thought.

He climbed in and pulled on his seat belt. “All ready, navigator?”

“Yep. Turn around and head straight that way.” She pointed behind them.

“I thought Ryan said we were heading north.”

She just smiled at him.

Cooper caught on. His grin was slow and full of appreciation. “Isn’t this sort of risky, heading off into the unknown without any maps or charts?”

She leaned across the seat, heedless of the maps she was crushing as she tugged him to her for a resounding kiss. “We seem to do pretty well in risky situations.”

“You’re right,” he said, kissing her back as he revved up the truck. He spun gravel as he whipped the truck around, waved to Ryan and the crew, and took off in the direction Marty had given him. “I’m thinking I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Jill Shalvis

Dear Reader,

There’s nothing more satisfying than a love story—unless it’s a love story with a dash of adventure. Leah Taylor and Wyatt Stone both go to work one day thinking everything is status quo, but a terrifying storm and a blast from the past change everything. Soon they find themselves facing danger and their own hearts.

Perilous Waters
was an exciting story for me to write. The research for my hero was especially interesting and I met quite a few new friends interviewing real-life heroes.

And look next month for Wyatt’s brother’s story in the Harlequin Temptation line.

Happy reading!

Jill Shalvis

L
OOKING AT HER
was like getting sucker punched. Wyatt Stone put a hand to his gut and watched with disbelief as the elegant blonde got into his Bell helicopter. Everyone around them stared as well, and he couldn’t say he blamed them. At five foot ten, no one could miss her, but it was more than her height. She had the kind of face and willowy body a man remembered.

And Wyatt remembered perfectly well. Mostly he remembered the look of her excellent backside as she’d sashayed it right out of his life.

These days, no one got the best of him, but once upon a time, this woman sure as hell had. Leah Taylor
had not only broken his heart, she’d ripped it out and run it through a shredder.

But that had been years ago and Wyatt was over it. He was here working, piloting the local TV station’s reporter for her morning traffic report, as he did every morning. He’d heard that Sherry had transferred to desk duty, but not who was going to replace her.

Apparently, that would be Leah. She seemed startled, too, for a single beat. Then she recovered and smiled with warmth in her eyes.

He simply hardened his and faced forward again, glad to already have his helo running so he couldn’t hear her greeting over the roar of the engine and whipping blades.

Maybe he was hallucinating and it wasn’t really Leah. After all, he’d had a harrowing night last night. As a member of the Search and Rescue squad, he’d pulled two teenagers out of a raging river after they’d brilliantly decided to go swimming after a series of tornadoes had passed through. The rescue had been brutal, but he wasn’t
that
tired. And unfortunately, neither was he hallucinating. Though it’d been ten years, there was no mistaking Leah.

She seated herself and slipped into a set of headphones. She spoke into the mike with that devastatingly soft, husky voice, the one that had always brought to mind hot, screaming sex. And just like that, all those
years melted away and he was a stupid, horny eighteen-year-old all over again.

“Hello, Wyatt.”

He actually twitched at the sound of his name on her lips. The chopper matched his heart’s pounding beat, but he purposely calmed himself the way he did before heading into one of his treacherous search and rescues. Unfortunately this was no SAR, but just the routine flight he took five mornings a week. To support his helicopter habit, he rented himself out to southern Ohio radio and TV stations, flying their reporters on their various beats.

“Aren’t you going to say hello back?” his biggest heartbreak asked, as if she really were thrilled to see him.

Odd, given how far and fast she’d once run from him. “What are you doing in my chopper?”

She blinked. “I’d have thought the small-town gossip would have preceded me. I’m back in Denton. I’m reporting for KROM, working on morning traffic and human-interest stories.”

“Maybe you coming back to Ohio wasn’t a big enough deal for the gossip train.”

She cocked her head, studying him as if startled and confused by his unwelcoming reaction. “I just thought you’d have heard, is all.”

He said nothing as the station’s cameraman climbed aboard. Wyatt flew with Jimmy Austin often. Jimmy
handed Wyatt a can of Red Bull, and in return Wyatt tossed him half of his convenience store breakfast burrito, a morning ritual.

Jimmy grinned broadly at Leah. “You’re new, but I’m willing to share. No cooties, I promise.” He offered her a bite, which she refused with the smile that had once decimated Wyatt, making him sweat beneath his breath as he took them in the air, probably more abruptly than he might have. Leah slapped her hand on the armrest and fought for balance as she hurriedly strapped herself in.

Wise move, sweetheart.
His brief satisfaction was ruined by her self-deprecating grin to Jimmy.

“For your first day on the job, you’re doing just fine,” Jimmy told her, smiling back.

Suddenly Wyatt felt like snarling. Instead he concentrated on the sticks in his hands, on the pedals beneath his feet, all of which kept the helo stable.

“So you’re a pilot,” came her voice in his ear. “I think that’s wonderful, Wyatt.”

He glanced into his rearview mirror and met her fathomless sea-green eyes. “And you’re a TV morning traffic reporter. I’d have thought checking for errant cows would be far too boring for you.” It used to be he’d look into that turbulent gaze of hers while buried in her body to the hilt, feeling like he could happily drown in her.

Because the memories of that got to him good, he
pitched to the right—again too sharply, but sue him—and gave her an up-front and personal view of County Road 275E below. Yeah, maybe love had been enough for him once, but now he cruised through life on a different high, the rush of adrenaline and danger.

“I came back because I needed a different pace.” She was looking at him instead of the road beneath them.
Damn it, Leah, stick to the job.

“New York can burn out a person,” Jimmy said helpfully, closing his mouth and shrugging when Wyatt glared at him.

“Yes, it can,” Leah agreed softly.

Wyatt looked away, concentrating on anything else, the light wind, the bright sun, keeping his feet on the ball, holding them even. He didn’t want to hear the world of sadness and regret in her voice, didn’t want to hear or see her at all. She reminded him of a different time, of high school dances and late night make-out sessions, of stargazing on his tailgate and sharing ice cream and hopes and dreams. He stared hard at the world below, forcing himself to take in the green rolling hills, the broad-leaf forests, the farms, the recent flooding they’d suffered due to an extremely wet season.

“I’d hoped to run into you, Wyatt.” Leah was gripping her clipboard to the front of her expensive, chic-looking suit that seemed far too…New York. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah. Look, could you do your job? We’re wasting fuel.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes, which made him feel cruel. He told himself he didn’t care.

Jimmy divided a confused look between them, as if trying to follow a tennis ball in a long volley. “So you guys know each other.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Leah said, meeting Wyatt’s gaze, then looking away from the mirror at what she saw in his. “But it was a long time ago,” she added softly.

“Oh, I get it. You two used to…” Jimmy waggled his finger back and forth between them and lifted a suggestive, amused eyebrow. “Really? Right?”

Wyatt narrowed his eyes and Jimmy obediently shut his mouth.

Leah fiddled with her equipment for a moment, before gesturing to Jimmy that she was nearly ready for her live broadcast.

Apparently, she’d dismissed him, just as she had all those years ago.

Not this time.
Oh, no. If there was any dismissing to do this time around, it would be
him
doing it. All he had to do was live through the next twenty minutes with the sight of her in his mirror, the scent of her teasing his nostrils, and the memories of far more floating in his head.

T
WO DAYS LATER
Leah was still reeling. Coming back to her hometown after so long away had been her own doing, for reasons she still couldn’t think about without losing it, but she hadn’t given a lot of thought to how it’d feel to actually be here.

Or how hard it’d be to face certain parts of her past.

Or one particular part anyway. Wyatt looked the same as he had ten years ago, and yet…not. He’d grown into that once-thin, lanky, too-tall eighteen-year-old body, adding bulk in the way of sleek, tough muscle. His eyes were still cobalt blue, but colder than they’d been, at least when he’d looked at her.

Don’t go there.
But it was hard not to. Once upon a time they’d shared everything. Homework, their love of movies, the back seat of his truck. As seniors in high school, they’d been lost in the moment.

Until a bigger moment had come along for her. A chance to get out of Denton and make something of herself.

She blew out a breath and walked the length of the house she’d rented, dodging all the boxes around her still waiting to be unpacked. It’d been a month since the nightmare. It’d taken three weeks to close things up in New York—quit her job, lease her apartment, say goodbye, something she’d never been good at. For lack of a better idea, she’d come here.

Her new job had the same title as her New York one,
reporter,
and yet the day-to-day implementation of it couldn’t have been more different. In New York she’d tackled big critical issues, politics, war, economics. She’d traveled far and wide, and seen and done things she’d never forget.

She’d loved it, thrived on it.

And in the end, it’d nearly killed her.

Don’t go there either,
said her sensible inner voice, the one that had gotten her through some very rocky times. Leah prided herself on being tough and impenetrable on the outside, but she happened to have insides
as soft as a marshmallow—attributes that had served her well on the job, not so well in relationships.

As proven by her absolute and utter lack of relationships at the moment.

In any case, she was ready for a new beginning, in a small town where crime was practically nonexistent and the big story of the day was the weather. Granted, it’d been a devastating spring for much of the Midwest, with a historical number of tornadoes. But the end of June had finally arrived, and soon the season would be over.

After slipping into her shoes, she left her place and got into her car to drive toward her day’s assignment. She was going to meet Jimmy at Diamond Lake to interview a group of college students for tomorrow’s show. The plan was that the budding photographers would take them out on their new roaming lab, a refurbished houseboat, to show off their techniques at sunset.

Driving down the two-lane highway toward the lake, she passed farm after farm. The wide open spring-drenched green hills weren’t anything like the concrete city she’d gotten so used to in the past ten years, and yet she didn’t feel homesick for New York at all.

In fact, as she drove the tension fell away from her in waves, and so did the tarnished, cynical cloud she’d worn like a cloak. By the time she could see the sparkling, deep blue water, she felt as if a huge weight
had been lifted off her chest, one she hadn’t realized she’d carried.

She was home now.
Home.

She liked the sound of that. Hopefully here she could find herself again, relax, take a deep breath. Maybe even be happy again. She could grow some roots, reconnect with old friends, possibly settle down.

Easier said than done, of course. She was perfectly aware that people found her too direct, but that came from honing herself to a sharp point for her job. Few ever saw past it.

Once upon a time, Wyatt had. They’d been best friends, and more. At least as
more
as she’d been able to offer him, but even then she’d still been reeling from her parents’ devastating divorce. It had irrevocably changed her, made her more reserved and careful with her heart.

As Wyatt had learned all too well.

The lake was clear, choppy from the winds, and so many miles across she couldn’t see the far shore. Jimmy was on the dock, along with six students, all waiting for her with a palpable excitement. Their professor had gotten sick, so his TA was there instead, a grad student named Stu who’d been trained in driving and handling the houseboat.

The houseboat itself was two levels, with open decking around each. It was more than fifty feet long by the
looks of it, and just scruffy enough that she’d guess it’d been in service for a good long time before being donated to the school by a retired, wealthy alumnus. Both the upper and lower decks had once upon a time been painted white with red trim but that had faded to a gray-and-rust color. The fly deck was wide and spacious, though, and the sun awning protecting it looked new.

In any case, it was the interior that meant anything to the students, which had been set up as a roaming photographer’s wet dream, complete with darkroom, full galley and bunk room for overnight excursions.

It took them a few moments to get the cranky old engine started, but they finally got it moving and set off a good hour and a half before dusk so they could catch the sunset. They all stood on the upper deck just behind the flying bridge, in front of the boat’s controls, the winds whipping at their hair and clothes. Leah had checked the weather channel and gotten a good report, but now she had to hold her skirt down in the gusts. Probably pants would have been better, but her new boss was old-fashioned enough to request his women reporters wear skirts. She wasn’t in New York any longer, that was certain.

It would take them an entire hour to get out to the middle of the lake, and Leah was thinking they probably could swim there faster but the water was beautiful and the students so excited she didn’t mind. While the
boat crawled along to their destination, she talked to the students, getting an angle for her story on their photo studies and how it would appeal to her viewers.

“Tell me why you love photography,” she asked Stu at one point, having to talk loudly over the unexpected wind.

Stu smiled as he staggered about like a thin, lanky sailor without sea legs. “I love the expression of it. Showing people how I see things.”

She asked Debbie, a sophomore, the same thing.

Debbie grinned as happily as Stu had. “I love photography because the teacher gives us freedom to do what pleases us.” She leaned in, her hair whipping them in the face. “And because the guys are hot.”

Leah asked Ronnie why he loved photography. The senior laughed as easily as the others had. “Because I can take pictures of whatever I want. Look at us, out of school and on the lake. What other class could be this cool?”

Expression. Freedom. Hot guys. She showed her notes to Jimmy, who sighed. “Ah, to be young and free and stupid again,” he said.

Young and free…Most adults, locked into their daily routine, fondly remembered their youth. These guys were living it. Maybe she had her angle. She scribbled notes for the rest of the hour it took to get out to the middle of the lake.

And then suddenly the clear skies weren’t so clear. Clouds were rolling in from the northwest at an alarm
ing speed. The students set up their equipment anyway, but ten minutes later the rain had begun, a slashing downpour that seemed to come from nowhere. Thunder cracked, lightning lit up the sky with a shocking violence, and though she’d grown up with this weather, Leah started to get nervous.

Twenty minutes later, the storm had stirred the lake into frenzied whitecaps. In the north, the sky had darkened considerably. Thunderous gray clouds churned, making their way southeast. Leah’s nerves went straight to her throat. It’d been ten long years since she’d dealt with a twister, and she didn’t want to be out in the middle of the lake for her first one since then. “This isn’t good.”

“Are you kidding?” This from Trent, one of the seniors, who began clicking away at the sight of the sun, still blazing yellow and red and orange in the far west, being chased and beaten back by the storm overhead. “This is amazing.”

Leah pushed her now-wet hair out of her face and turned to Jimmy. With the lake so choppy, the boat had been rocking and swaying, and the poor guy looked green. “I don’t like it,” he said. “My stomach doesn’t like it, either. Make it quick.”

Leah lifted her microphone to begin her report, but a flash of lightning kicked her heart into high gear. The accompanying booming crack of thunder nearly startled her right out of her skin. Waaaay too close. “No. We’ve got to go back.”

Though the students looked disappointed, Stu agreed with her, but even as they stood there, Mother Nature let loose. More thunder and lightning strikes, so close the hair rose on Leah’s skin. The rain came in sheets now, drenching everything. Looking shaken at the speed with which the storm had gone from bad to worse, Stu leaped into action, jumping back into the flying bridge to start the houseboat.

The engine wouldn’t turn over. “Uh-oh.”

“No.” Leah squinted through the rain and shook her head. “No ‘uh-oh.’”

Stu tried again, but the engine didn’t catch. Jimmy moved next to him to give it a go, to no avail. “Where’s the engine compartment?”

Stu bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

A general panic began among the students. “It’s all right,” Leah shouted over the wind, needing both hands now to keep her skirt down while the hard-hitting rain beat them up. “We’re going to be all right. Get below deck.”

“And get life vests on, all of you!” Jimmy demanded, gripping the rail to hold steady.

Leah staggered over to him. “Radio this in. Get another boat out here now. We need to get these students off the water.”

Jimmy got on his radio, but a moment later turned to Leah with an expression that had her stomach clenching.

“What?”

“I’ve got bad news, and badder news,” he said. “Which do you want first?”

“Jimmy.” She gripped the railing to keep from falling over when the boat pitched. “Now’s not a good time to mess around.”

“I’m not messing around, trust me.”

She looked into his green face and her skin prickled with fear. “How soon until someone gets here?”

Jimmy held on, too, as the boat bumped in the waves as if they were on the ocean. “That’s the problem.”

The students were all huddled together like a litter of kittens as they moved carefully below deck. Leah kept one eye on them, worried about someone getting tossed overboard. “Tell me.”

“There are no boats that can come out for us.”

“What?”

“The two coast guard boats are employed in rescues, one twenty miles from here, the other twenty-five miles.”

Oh, God. They were at least five miles from shore, unable to go anywhere, and no rescue in sight. She swallowed hard. “And the other bad news?”

Sirens went off from shore, carrying across the water with ease, signaling a twister warning.

Jimmy smiled grimly. “They’ve just issued tornado and waterspout alerts.”