Riding the Storm (16 page)

Okay? She was agreeing with him? Promising?

He withdrew his fingers from the silken snare of her braid. She unhooked her grasp on him and hugged her arms around her belly.

“Okay.” He confirmed her answer, not quite believing it.

With one last warning look, he turned away and pulled on his gloves. He’d better work fast to get Rocky’s new home repaired and the bull secured inside. As soon as that task was completed, Nate intended to hustle his butt back to the house to help Jolene before she broke her neck or hurt the baby.

As he strode across the yard with an awkward gait, he glanced over his shoulder. He could feel the admiring heat focused on his fanny. Hell. She
was
looking.

Don’t pretend that there’s something broken or inferior about you. You’re not disabled.

If it was possible for a man with a crooked leg and a lot on his conscience to do it, Nate pulled back his shoulders and walked a little taller.

Crazy what that woman could make him feel.

Crazy.

“D
O
NOT
FALL IN LOVE
with him,” Jolene reminded herself, pounding the last nail into the plywood she’d used to cover the shattered front window. “You’ll regret it. Don’t do it.”

She dropped the hammer into Joaquin’s old toolbox and wished the clank and rattle of steel on steel would startle the useless notion right out of her head.

It was just a kiss! Her mouth tingled at the memory. Pressing her lips together, she tried to erase the flood of warmth and anticipation she couldn’t quite seem to shake. Okay, so there’d been more than one kiss. And he didn’t seem to think she’d been a total klutz about the whole man-woman intimacy thing, either.

Jolene brushed her hand against her neck, remembering the gentle touch of his callused fingertips there. Her own fingers drifted down into the vee of her blouse, following the trail he’d taken last night on the couch. The weight of her palm against her breast triggered an instantaneous reaction deep inside her. Jolene snatched her hand away when the sound of her own breathy moan reached her ears.

Okay, so there’d been a whole lot more than kissing going on.

“Boy, am I in trouble.”

She hurriedly squatted down to clean up the rest of her mess.

It was that stray puppy syndrome, she rationalized, opening a black garbage bag and dumping the trash inside. Nate was wounded, inside and out. She’d been drawn to the need she perceived in him. He needed her tears, her stern words, her comfort. She could help him see himself through new eyes. She could make him
grin, get him to talk. He’d even been touched when she’d wrapped up a sandwich and some fresh fruit and taken him lunch out in the barn when he’d been too busy to come inside to eat.

That’s what attracted her to him. He needed her.

People who needed her wouldn’t leave.

Her heavy sigh stirred the dust she’d swept into the bag. “Oh, boy.”

It had come back to this, had it?

She hadn’t been what her mother needed. She hadn’t been able to give Joaquin what he needed. Not in time.

Jolene cradled the baby, feeling each loss as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.

“Don’t let Mama do this, sweetie.”

Closing the trash bag, she pushed herself to her feet. She hadn’t been able to sweep aside any of the confounding, wonderful feelings churning inside her now.

She needed Nate, too. That was the kicker.

She needed to work beside him. To butt heads with him. To talk with him late into the night. To be held by him. To lust after him and have him lust after her.

“Oh, damn. Damn, damn.” The realization echoed throughout her empty house.

“Shh. You didn’t hear that,” she whispered to the baby.

She’d already fallen in love with Nate Kellison.

And her feelings didn’t have a darn thing to do with stray puppies.

J
OLENE GATHERED THE REST
of Joaquin’s tools and hurried out to the garage, trying to leave the newly discovered emotions behind. She grabbed the kerosene and the grill lighter from a shelf and went out back to start a
bonfire out of all the unusable debris she’d piled from the house and yard.

The acrid smell of sulphur and chemicals stung her nose and made her eyes water. After a couple of tries, the fire ignited. For a long time, the soaked wood merely smoked, creating a gray, billowing cloud that rose into the air, blocking the sun and reminding her of the approach of yesterday’s storm.

But eventually, the tattered gingham that had once been her living room curtains flamed up. By the time the dollhouse that had blown into the yard had mutated into a charred black skeleton, some of the broken barn planks were burning. The big limb that had crashed through her window would catch next.

Jolene stood at a safe distance and watched the bonfire, mesmerized by the dancing blaze, entranced by the hiss and pop of drying wood and bubbling sap and inevitable ignition. She was lulled into a groggy, hypnotic state by the growing heat that toasted her face and body but couldn’t purge her heart of its foolish longings.

Off in the distance a coyote howled.

Suddenly alert, Jolene opened her eyes.

Not so distant.

Her pulse and attention leaped back into real time and she spun around, trying to pinpoint the direction of the howl.

Nate had returned from his morning ride with Rocky in tow and the news that beyond about a mile radius in any direction, they were surrounded by flood water. The one exception was the eastern drop-off into Livesay Canyon, named for the wagon train master responsible for bringing Turning Point’s earliest residents together.
And Nate had reported hearing water running off into the creek at the bottom of the canyon. Mother Nature had imprisoned them for the time being.

Sliding one hand down to protect her belly, Jolene backed toward the house, keeping her eyes peeled for any signs of movement. “We’re not the only ones trapped by the flood.”

The fire had probably caught the coyote’s attention and made him nervous. But it should also help keep him at bay, until the waters receded and he could find his way out to open territory.

She just hoped the dogs didn’t get a hankering to chase the wild animal. Speaking of Broody and Shasta…” I’d better go chain them up.”

After putting away the lighter and fuel, she rinsed her hands in a bucket of water and headed across the yard. As she walked, she gazed from side to side, vaguely wondering what other unfriendly critters had gotten trapped in their little Texas Eden by the storm and floods.

“I know you qualify.” Jolene pointed an accusatory finger at Rocky in his makeshift pen. Her teasing was beneath him, judging by the way he continued scratching his mud-caked hide against one of the rails Nate had rigged between the metal posts that were still firmly anchored in the ground.

Jolene wasn’t worried that the coyote would be a threat to Rocky. The bull would make quick work of any creature that size who foolishly wandered into his pen. The barn cats were another matter, however. And Shasta, feisty and tough as he tried to be, would make a tasty-size morsel for a coyote hungry enough to venture up to the house and barn. Broody, the lab, wasn’t a
fighter, but he’d be big enough to give any intruder a run for the money.

But whether they wound up predator or prey, Jolene didn’t want any of her little darlings to get hurt. Pursing her lips together, she gave a whistle. “Broody! Here, boy. Shasta!”

Their answering barks told her they were in the barn. The fact that they didn’t come running to her call told her that Nate was there, too. The dogs had been following him around all day, instantly switching loyalties to their new guest after a few commands in Nate’s no-nonsense voice and some rough and tumble games of fetch and wrestle.

Jolene sighed at the stab of loneliness that caught her by surprise.

Even the dogs had left her.

“Good grief, girl, get a grip.” She chastised herself at the fanciful notion, wishing her heart would take heed of her brain’s warning. She had to find a way to turn off those emotions and simply survive her and Nate’s remaining time together.

He was probably still up on the barn roof, patching the holes with sheets of plywood and temporarily waterproofing them with a tarp. Thankfully, her insurance and savings were intact. It was going to cost a small fortune to make the more permanent repairs that the house and ranch needed after Hurricane Damon had had his way. In the meantime, Nate had worked his very nice butt off making things livable again.

No, no, no,
she cautioned herself. She couldn’t start thinking about Nate and the Double J and the future and staying.

“Find the dogs, Jolene.” She reminded herself she
was looking for four-legged males, not the two-legged kind. “You’re here to find the dogs.”

Sliding through the opening between the barn doors, Jolene stepped inside and paused a moment to let her eyes adjust to the cool, shady interior. The pungent smells of hay and horses teased her nose and soothed her senses. She breathed in deeply, finding strength and serenity in the familiar scents.

Okay, she could do this. Jolene smiled, feeling a little less morose, a little more in control.

She whistled again. “Broody. Shasta.”

The two dogs came running from opposite corners of the barn. Shasta, the scrappy little fuzz mop with intelligent eyes and a stiff-legged gait, reached Jolene first. Broody, a big, tan pony of a dog loped behind him, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

“There you are.” Jolene squatted down and petted each one thoroughly, earning adoring snuggles and happy woofs as she traded tummy rubs and ear scratches for renewed loyalty and affection. “Have you boys been busy? Come with Mama.”

Broody and Shasta trotted faithfully behind her as she hooked them up to the long leads that would secure them to the barn and give them access to food, water and a place to nap. They both agreed to a dog biscuit as a fair trade-off for limiting their running space.

Once the dogs were happily distracted, Jolene went in search of Nate. The footsteps and hammering on the roof two stories above her let her know exactly where she’d find him.

Dust and chips of wood and hay filtered down through the cracks in the roof and the loft overhead. She looked
up to see fingers of sunlight shining in through a chink of roof. “Hmm. Mother Nature made me a skylight.”

Not that a hole in the roof over the section of the loft where she stored bales of hay was a practical thing. But there was something oddly romantic about a sun-warmed bed of hay in the secluded corner of the barn. It was like a small gift from Mother Nature after wreaking so much havoc in every other corner of the Double J.

A flash of shadow disrupted the celestial beauty of the light. That was Nate moving overhead. He’d been working all day without a proper break. Shouldering more responsibility than any one man should have to.

Jolene picked up the thermos of water and untouched apple left over from Nate’s lunch and crossed to the wooden ladder leading up to the loft. On impulse, she pulled a blanket from a tack hook and carried it with her.

At the base of the ladder, she debated logistics for all of about five seconds, then stuffed the apple down the front of her blouse and buttoned it in. She looped the blanket around her neck, clenched the thermos firmly in her left hand and climbed.

Ten rungs later, Jolene stepped off onto the loft platform. “Nate?” She set the thermos on a nearby bale and spread the blanket out over the bed of loose hay covering the floor of the loft. Dozens of dust motes shimmered in the rays of sunlight above the spot, creating an ethereal atmosphere around her. “Nate?” she repeated, squinting up into the square of sunlight above her. “You should come see this. It’s beautiful. Nate?”

Was that a curse?

“Jolene?” Quick, uneven footsteps pounded overhead, sending a considerably less magical cloud of dust down
over her head. She had to blink and turn away. She jumped back a step, midsneeze, as a red metal toolbox dropped through the opening and crashed to the loft floor, stirring up more dust and shaking the planks beneath her feet. “Jolene Kannon-Angel, I swear to God…”

A pair of brown work boots, attached to long, muscular legs, dropped through the hole next. Then, a naked back. A few black and blue spots marred the smooth ripple of muscles, but the sheen of healthy perspiration actually enhanced the impression of masculine strength. Broad shoulders, sturdy triceps and a royal blue cap followed as Nate lowered himself through the roof.

Jolene’s lips parted involuntarily. Her father’s old jeans cupped Nate’s backside, yet left an oddly erotic strip of trim, white cotton brief showing at the waistband. She clenched her thighs together, caught off guard by a sudden gush of dampness and heat.

“I just wanted…” She began, but a grunt of pain drew her attention to the stark white bandage at the top of his tanned shoulder. “Does it hurt?” Duh. “Sorry.” She swallowed the apology on a nervous laugh.

But he wasn’t smiling when he turned around.

His glance at the ladder told her exactly where this discussion was headed. “I swear, woman. You promised—”

“I promised I wouldn’t climb up the ladder to the roof of the house.”

“You—” He sputtered, snapping his mouth shut to re-think his argument. “You—” He peeled off his cap, smoothed his palm across his dark hair, then jerked the cap back into place. Jolene curled her toes inside her boots and held her ground when he advanced a step, his gaze centered squarely on the swell of her belly. “What about the baby?”

“He climbed up with me just fine.” She found her own nerves calming in the face of his protective anger. “We appreciate your concern, but we are both fine. You’re the one who needs to take a break. It’s okay if you abdicate responsibility for a few minutes and relax.” She pointed to the opening above his head. “The sunlight streaming in makes this a beautiful place to rest.”

Instead of glancing up, Nate dropped his gaze to the red plaid blanket beneath his feet. He took note of the steel thermos and the bales of hay surrounding the two of them. His chest heaved in a weary sigh that emphasized the flat bronze nipples peeking out through a T-shaped mat of curly dark hair. Before she could close her eyes, Jolene had followed the narrowing trail of hair until it disappeared into the waistband behind the snap of his jeans.