Storm Warning (14 page)

Oh, you son of a bitch.
Tory saw red.

“Great, then it’s settled,
” Gabe chimed. “Have a good time, you crazy kids.” He winked at Tory and walked away.

“Doesn’t seem
possessive
to me. What time should we meet?”
he
asked as he slid an arm around Tory.

Still not quite believing what had just happened,
Tory turned and saw Gabe’s back was to them. His shoulders were shaking. He was
laughing
at her.
She
pasted a
brittle
smile on
her face
and turned to Blondie.

“No,” s
he stated.

“No?”

“No
!
We are
not
going out. Get in your car and go.
Now!
” At the explosive ending to her statement, Blondie scrambled to his car and revved up the engine.
Af
ter
the ear-piercing sound of screeching tires, he was gone. L
eft behind
was the
faint smell of burnt rubber.

Tory stared after him and waited until he fishtailed around the next corner and raced out of
sight
.

One problem down, one to go.
She squared her shoulders and kept a firm grip on the nozzle to her water hos
e. Payback was a bitch and so—at the moment—w
as she.

She wandered over to where Gabe was now standing, talking to Adam. By the look on Ada
m’s face, she had a good idea
what they were talking about. She stopped two feet away from Gabe and cleared her throat.

He turned around with a lazy smile on hi
s face. “Plans for tonight
?”

Adam didn’
t miss the gleam in
her
eyes. Nor did he miss her tightening grip on the water hose.

“No, Tory,
” Adam said
sternly, attempting
to p
ut himself in the way of Gabe. He
held his hands up, palms out. “Tory, now wait!”

“Step aside Adam. I won’t be held responsible for innocent bystanders.” Tory raised a brow in challenge when Adam remained
standing in front of the traitor
.

He
exhaled and
stepped out of the way
.

“Now you, Wills. Hands up and beg for mercy.” She held the hose in her hand like a gun and placed her palm on the trigger of the sprayer.

“I don’t beg.”

“All right. Have it your way.”

She tightened her grip and let out a stream of
water
. Gabe jumped out of the
water's
path and lunged forwar
d. Anticipating
the attack,
she
jumped to the side and doused Gabe with the cold water.

“Apologize!” She ordered still running backwards from him. He looked murderous and drenched. “Apologize and I’ll stop.”

“Give me the hose!”

“Okay.” She lowered the hose and continued to saturate him. “You got it!”

Finally, he grabbed her arms and yanked her forward. Tory brought the h
ose up in an attempt to defend herself,
but
she
threw him off balance and sent him flying backwards onto a soft mound of grass.

“Give!” She
struggled to maintain control of the water hose
and her laughter
. She clamped her legs around him and grabbed a fist full of his soaked grey t-shirt.

“Not a chance.” He fl
ipped her over with an oath,
grabbed the water hose from her vice-like grip
,
and sprayed her with it. “You give!”

“No!” She swiped at him
,
but
fighting
physical
ly
was useless. With all the seriousness she could muster, she clamped her hands over her face and sobbed.

“What the—” Gabe jerked back as if she’d turned to fire. H
e
’d
dropped the hose
in the process of panicking. “D
id I hurt you?”

“No,” she
sniffled
.

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth.” She
uncovered her face and stuck
her tongue
out at him
.

His f
ace hardened, his eyes darkened
visibly. “You little—”

Whatever name Gabe would have called her was interrupted when Tory caught him off guard
and thrust her body against his, sending
him
crashing
back down to the ground beneath her.

“I win,” s
he said. “Fair and square.”

“How the hell was that fair?”

“You’
re stronger than me physically. I h
ad to make up for it somehow.
” She shrugged. “
Oh, come on. Be a go
od sport
.”

She gave his cheek a little pat.

“I’m not good at b
eing a good sport.” Reaching up, he
wrapped hi
s hands around
the nape of
her neck and pulled
her down to him
.
“
Rematch
.”

Talk about fighting fair,
Tory
thought as his lips caressed hers. She
cruised on the sensation and let his taste consume her.
She drove her fingers into his wet hair and gripped,
Oblivious to the widened eyes and ast
onished gazes around them, she lost herself in the kiss.

Through the roaring in her ears, she heard someone clear their throat.

“Ah, Tory. This was kind of your idea and all. Are you going to wash cars or play horny teenage girl with the photographer?”

“Cram it, Adam.”
But she
rolled off Gabe.

She grabbed two towels and tossed one of them to Gabe
,
then focused on drying herself off. When she
’d
done
all she could
, she lifted her chin, picked up the hose and a scr
ub brush, and went back to work
.
Sometime later, a shadow loomed over her.

“Hey, Tory.”
She heard Billy’s voice over the noise of drums and
air guitar
s
screaming over the radio.

She
looked up from the tire she was scrubbing and lifted a brow.

“There’s a storm in Oklahoma forming. If we leave by eight tonight, we can get there by about three in the morning. Grab a hotel, couple hours of sleep, and set up first thing in the morning. It looks big.”

Her stomach dropped
.
Oklahoma.

“Where at?” s
he asked quietly.

Bill
y
looked down at the ground and s
huffled his feet. “We don’t have to go.
”

“Just tell me, Bill
y
.”

“
We’d want to bunk down in
Ada
to stay close to the action
.”

Pain slammed into her like
a bruising whirlwind.
Billy kept talking, but the sound was like a buzz in her ears.
She’
d been prepared to hear it and
had
braced herself
for
the impact. But Ada brought more than pain.
A
da
.

“We’ll go.” She interrupted her own poignant thoughts.

“Are you sure?”

“I said we’ll go.”
Tory dropped the scrub brush in a bucket and grabbed her t-shirt off a chair. “I’m taking a break.
Does anyone need anything?
”

“No,” Billy said.

“Be back in ten, then.”

Not quite running, she crossed the parking lot and took the sidewalk.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she would have to go home sometime. She stayed in town during off-season in the tiny apartment she rented. She could never bring herself
to live in her parent’s house without them. Now they were going back and from the moment she’d heard Billy say Ada, she knew they would stay at her house.

She should call the cleaners she’d hired to maintain the house and property and ask them to stock the house. Her mind was on those things—food, toilet paper, fresh towels—as she walked quickly down the hallway to her room.

She dug
her key
out and unlocked the door. Shock held her still as she took stock of her room. Her files were no longer in neat stacks on the table, but slung out on the floor along with the contents of her suitcase. She hadn’t been in her room since the morning before since Gabe had insisted that she stay with him, so she didn’t know when it could have happened.

Not wanting to clutter his space, she’d only taken a small bag to Gabe’s room, leaving the majority of her things
behind
.
What wasn’t damaged was scattered around on the f
loor. The room looked as though
it’d been slammed by a tornado.

“Tory
, what the hell’s wrong with—”
Gabe came up from behind her and
without turning, she knew he
was staring
at the wreckage as well
.

“Who did this?” h
e finally asked.

Tory shook her head
mutely
and
advanced further
into the room. “They didn’t miss much, did they?”

“Tory, who did this?” He
walked into the room behind her and immediately began checking the bathroom and
closets
. She shivered,
not having thought someone could still be
in the room.

“It should be obvious.
The Vikings
.” Tory all but spat the name as she gathered
her belongings. Her arm full of clothes, she cursed Charlie Johnson and wished she’d taken a punch herself the other day. She tossed the clothes
on the bed before going for another
armful
.

“Why?”

“Probably to pis
s me off. They’re good at it.” She bent to retrieve all her data and notes, giving a silent prayer that they hadn’t damaged any of
the
articles
she’d yet to type up
.
“Want some coffee
or something
?
I was just coming to take a break.
”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.
Why don’t you go tell everyone to pack it
up?
I know we have a few hours yet
,
but I have to get m
y things back in order and we can leave early for—
for the next
location
.”

“What are you going to do about this?” He gestured
vaguely
to the room.

“Ignore it.”

He cursed and stalked to her. She shot her chin up and matched his glare. So he was mad, she thought, watching his grey eyes go black. Fine, she was livid. His hands shot out and she braced herself for anger. She couldn’t have been more shocked when he curled his fingers around her shoulders and rubbed them.

“
You okay?”
he asked.

The change from
violence
to gentleness rocked her system. Because her throat was constricted by an unbelievable pressure, she looked at him and nodded.

“All right.” He kissed her brow and drew her against him. “I’ll go tell the guys to pack up and we
’ll have dinner tonight before w
e head out. Do you want to talk about Oklahoma now or later?”

He saw everything
, she thought, fighting against the tears.
“Later.”

“I’ll be back after we clean up.”

Alone, Tory walked over to the bed and
sank
down.

She
knew she
was in love with him
and she accepted it. But h
ow could she have been so stupid? She knew what would happen if she fell for Gabe. Hadn’t she warned herself a dozen
times now that he would be leaving
—at the latest—
in August?