Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3) (8 page)

“Fuck!” Nina was the first to break into a run. Her head fell as she gave every inch of energy she had to the act of moving her legs, which still trembled from the fall.  She hadn’t realized how fast that train had actually been moving until she found herself chasing after it; arm outstretched, and fingers clawed.  “Wait!” she cried, voice hoarse from exertion.  It wasn’t until she saw Jack’s long legs jetting passed her, flexed arms pumping, that she realized the hoarse gasps were actually coming from him.  It hadn’t taken long for him to outrun her.

“Stop!” he begged, waving a frantic hand in the air, his own fingers outstretched as he moved.

Nina was the first to give up, sure if she ran for another second her lungs would crawl up out of her throat and kill her instantly.  She bent over, clutching her knees before exploding into a fit of coughs, positive that, if her lungs didn’t leave her body, another of her vital organs seemed well on their way.  “Holy balls,” she wheezed, the wind blowing her curls into her eyes when she looked up.  In the distance, Jack had thrown in the towel too, one hand in his hair and the other braced at the small of his back, watching as the moving train disappeared over a hill.

Nina shook her head.  How could something that appeared to be moving so slowly, be going so damn fast?

Her eyes ran down the back of Jack’s body.  It heaved with his own fervent effort to catch his breath. Nina couldn’t help it as her gaze lingered on the tight globes of his ass, sitting high in those unforgiving gray slacks, taunting her.  If she wasn’t so stunned at what had just happened, she was sure she could sit there and watch that beautiful ass of his in action all day.  She imagined the hard work that tight ass must put in when he was pumping a woman, working out his perpetual frustration in the most beautiful way.  The strength he surely put into every thrust, every stroke, had to be one of a kind.  Her parched lips fell open at the thought.

Unfortunately, he turned to face her before she could truly appreciate where her mind was taking her, and there was nothing beautiful about the look in his eyes.

Nina pushed herself to a standing position when he pointed a finger at her, and she stumbled back when he began to stomp forward, eyes manic and teeth bared.

“You,” he breathed through those clenched teeth, jamming his finger at her.  His voice rose.  “
You!”

“Me?”  Nina pointed a finger at her chest, looking around the wide expanse of grass and trees.  “You’re blaming this on me?  Oh no, Aries.  This is
not
my fault.”  She finally stopped stumbling back when she realized the audacity of this bastard to blame her for what had just happened, and when he came within a few feet of her, breathing heavily through his nostrils and nearly bumping his chest to hers, she raised her chin and matched his body language.

“Of course this is your fault,” he breathed.  “This entire nightmare has been your fault, from the moment that goddamn gate agent cleared your standby-ass and printed you a first class ticket!”

“Oh, I see.  So I produced the lightning storm that flashed across the entire East Coast?  I sent the biggest hurricane New York’s ever seen spiraling right into the heart of the city? I forgot the turn off the ovens in the back of that plane?  I sent the plane careening to the ground?  That was all me, Jack?”

“Jesus Christ, you’re crazy.”  He turned his back to her and began away.  Two seconds of taking in the massive grassland, which seemed to stretch on for miles, he seemed to realize he had nowhere to go because he turned back and zeroed in on her again.  “I swear to God, you make me wish I had gone down with that plane.”

She smirked at his melodrama.  “You
did
go down with that plane, Jack, and so did the other hundred people who were on it with you, or have you already forgotten that you aren’t the only person
alive
in this world?  Fucked up shit happens all the time.  Of course, a Greenwich pretty boy is the only one constantly freaking out over the smallest things.”

“We just fell off the edge of a moving train.”

“It’s the Amtrak’s smallest train.  Not even ten feet tall.  I’ve taken longer falls off a jungle gym.”

“A moving train, Nina.”

She crossed her arms tight.  “You caught me off guard,” she said, her voice going lower.

Jack’s face relaxed at her words; his shoulders did too.  He stood taller and looked off into the distance, away from her, before licking his lips.

“In fact, call me crazy… but I’m pretty sure this is
your
fault.”  She took a step closer to him, jamming her finger into his chest.

He kept his head turned but cut his eyes at her, watching her from the corners before licking his shining lips.

She smiled, noticing the way that cold gaze of his fell right to her lips, taking in the sight.  “You tried to kiss me.”

Jack turned his back to her and began walking away.  This time, he didn’t look back.

She followed, laughing.  “You tried to kiss me and, naturally, I scooted away, because the sight of an Aries lawyer who is so morose he’s practically postmortem leaning in to show even the tiniest sliver of
affection
freaked me the fuck out.”

Jack froze and turned back to her in the next instant.  He waited for her to approach him again until he could feel her breath, still strangled, on his lips, until he could see his own breath catching her curls, helping them dance against the wind.  He clenched his fists.  “I did not try to kiss you.”

“You tried to
kiss me
.”

He turned away again, moving slower.

“Why are you stomping away like you have any idea where the hell you’re going?”

“Because I need to get the hell away from you.”

“Looks like you’re on your way straight into a densely wooded area.”

“Terrific.  Maybe a grizzly will do me a solid and give me a paw straight to the face.  If I’m lucky enough, it’ll kill me instantly, and I’ll never have to see you again.”

“Come on.”

He gasped when she took his arm from behind, turning to her halfway and catching her smiling face.

“You are so dramatic.  God.”  Her smile grew.  “You don’t want a grizzly to claw your eyes out, and we both know it.  Stop it.”

“It’s become astoundingly clear that if I spend another second in your presence, you’re going to get me killed regardless.  Might as well cut out the middleman and let the grizzly finish me off now.”

She tugged at his arm.  “Come on.  I used to be a Girl Scout, and you’re going the wrong way.”

It was Jack’s turn to smile, an ironic smile, and he held an arm out, motioning to the area around them.  “Okay, Chuck Norris, which way is the right way, huh?  Which way is the right way in this never-ending expanse of grass and trees that all look the same, not a hint of human life in sight?”

She released his arm and pointed in the opposite direction.  “If you hadn’t been so busy trying to kiss me on that train, you would’ve seen the tiny town we passed a couple of miles that way.”

Jack tore his eyes away from her and took one, two three seconds, before he looked back, his lips tight.  “I did not try to kiss you.”

She began moving away, holding his eyes for as long as she could before she turned away from him completely, making her way toward the tattered train tracks.

It wasn’t until she set her foot on the first wooden slat of the tracks that she looked down.

Her smile bloomed when she saw a large shadow growing next to hers, telling her that, albeit with great hesitance, he was right behind her.

***

The girl scout in Nina had done them proud, and right on time.  As she cleared the knee-breaking grassy hill and found herself greeted by a sprawling, lonely truck stop diner in the distance, she and Jack were on their last legs.

She framed the diner with her hands.  “I never thought I’d be this happy to see a shitty diner that they should’ve left in the eighties.”  She turned with a grin.  “See. I was right, wasn’t I?”

Jack lifted an eyebrow high on his face, his chest heaving from their long walk and the hill they’d just been forced to climb.  He came up next to her and stopped, crouching down.

She watched him catch his breath, nodding her head toward the stop.  “Let’s hit that restaurant.”

“I’m hitting the road.  There must be a train station nearby.”

“How in the world do you think you’re going to get yourself a seat on another train, a spot on another aircraft, or a bed in another hotel room?  All your vouchers have dried up—”

“Only because I’ve had the great misfortune of traveling next to you, a hurricane in the flesh.”

“If being with me is so terrible, then why are you still here, Aries?”

“I’ve told you a hundred times that I want to be left alone, but you won’t allow me to be.  I just want to be
alone,
Nina
.
”

“You say ‘leave me alone,’ but yet here you are.  Still right next to me, when you’ve had every opportunity not to be.  If I’ve learned anything in my short time on this Earth, it’s that people are never, ever who they
tell
you they are.  The words you say out loud will never mean half as much as the ones you don’t.”

“And what words aren’t I saying?  What am I not saying, Nina? Since you know so goddamned much?” Jack made a face at her and then turned away, hiding his eyes.

She smiled at the back of his head.   “Face it, Aries.  You need me.  Go ahead and let yourself need me.  I promise it won’t hurt as badly as you think it will.”

He pressed his hands to his hips, glaring at the diner.  “I’ll hitch a ride with one of these truckers.”

“And from the cozy hotel room I’ll be in tonight, I’ll see the news report talking about the dead body they found in a ditch because some jackoff was stupid enough to hitchhike.  No.  You’re coming with me.”  She took his arm and began toward the diner.

“Just…” He reclaimed his arm, wobbling, eyes jamming shut as he stumbled from one foot to the next.  “Just get out of my
life
, Nina.”

She held her arms out.  “How long has it been since you ate
something?  You can hardly stand on your own two feet.  And, I gotta be honest, you’re a far cry from the fox I sat next to on that plane yesterday afternoon.  You’re beginning to look… dare I say it… normal.”

“Should I be worried that I look
normal?”

“I think so.  ‘Cos, Aries?”  She shook her head with a smile.  “There ain’t nothing normal about you.”  She took his sleeve again, and this time, he didn’t fight.  “Let’s get some food and water in that belly before you drop dead right here.  Come on… the real measure of a man is knowing when to give in and let the woman take over.”

Jack covered his forehead with his hand.  “Fine… fine… just… please stop talking.”  He allowed her to pull him.  “Stop talking now.”

The middle aged waitress with a salt and pepper ballerina bun on the top of her head and a lime green apron tied too tightly around her healthy waist dropped another plate of pancakes and sausage onto Jack and Nina’s overflowing table.  It joined a mountain of waffles, an assortment of omelets, a pile of bacon, and two steaming cups of coffee.

“Thank you so much.”  Nina smiled up at her.

“I don’t know where you’re going to put it all, sugar.”  The waitress beamed, her baby blue eye shining.

In mid-bite, Nina motioned across the wobbly diner table, where Jack had forgotten there was still a world spinning around him as he gave all his attention to the food he was shoveling in his mouth.

“Never underestimate a man who hasn’t eaten in 72 hours.”  Nina laughed.

“72 hours?”  The waitress cast a horrified look at Jack.  “I was wondering when he was going to come up for air.  Now I understand why he can’t.”  She chuckled, setting a hand on Jack’s shoulder, one he didn’t acknowledge.  “Let me get you some more orange juice, sweetness.”

Again, Jack didn’t respond, moving between plates and bowls like he was following a playbook in his head, every once in a while pausing just long enough to take a few hearty chugs of orange juice before he was diving in again.

Nina bit her lip across the table from him, still full from her breakfast at the hotel that morning.  Arms crossed, she tilted her head and took him in, her lip coming in deeper and harder under her teeth as she watched him.

It wasn’t until several moments later, and tons more attention from his adoring waitress, that Jack looked up and caught Nina’s eyes.

“What?” he asked around the food in the corner of his mouth.

Nina noticed that even as he binged like a savage, the manner in which he held his knife and fork betrayed his Greenwich ways.

“You’re just…”  She shrugged, eyes narrowing as she smiled.  “You’re cute.”

“I’m cute.”

“You’re really, really cute.”  She covered her mouth with her hand.

“I don’t think anyone has ever called me cute before.”

“Well, you work pretty hard at making that an impossible thing for people to do.  I hadn’t even realized it myself until I saw you destroying all this food like a toddler who just tasted his first ho-ho or something.”

“You said it yourself; I haven’t eaten in two days.”

“Our waitress definitely, definitely thinks you’re cute too.” She cut a look across the busy diner where the waitress was tending to her other breakfast guests, all of whom were greasy, bill-capped, beer-bellied truckers who looked just as tired and famished as Jack.   “In fact, if you gave her even a sliver of the attention she’s been working so hard to get out of you, we might be able to get this meal on the house.”

“So, not only are you the bane of my existence, but now you’re my pimp, as well?”

“You’re
welcome
for the food, you fucking lawyer.”

“I have earned every last damned bite of this food.  If you’re waiting for a thank you, you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life.  You nearly got me killed,
twice. 
Hell, you should be over there fantasizing about how the hell you’re going to make this up to me.”

She hollered.

“You pulled me over the edge of a train,” he said.  “We could’ve died back there, you know.”

“If you hadn’t tried to assault me with your lips we never would have fallen.”

Jack gritted his teeth and broke their eye contact, again.  He shoved food into his mouth for several moments before his eyebrows rose.  “I did not try to kiss you.”

Nina rolled her eyes and looked out of the window next to their booth.

“And even if I
had…”

Her eyes flew back to his.

He paused, a glass of orange juice hovering inches next to his face.  “It was simply a byproduct of the inevitable delirium that hits a man who hasn’t eaten in 72 hours.”  He chugged his orange juice.

“Do you always play this hard to get, or am I just a special case?”

“Oh, you’re a case, alright.  But I can’t play hard to get when there is nothing to be got.”

Her mouth fell open, and she scoffed, her eyes going back to the window again.

“Are you pouting now?” he asked.

Her eyes flew back to his and widened.  She lifted an eyebrow.  “Admit you tried to kiss me.”

“I’m good.”

They frowned at each other over the table just as the waitress came back around.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Everything’s great, this Aries lawyer over here is getting more Aries-y and lawyer-y by the second, now that he’s getting his strength back.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”  The waitress put her hand on Jack for the millionth time.  A hand that had already seen every part of his body that wouldn’t get her fired—his strong back, the wisps of hair at the base of his neck, his lower thigh, and now, his bicep, which she squeezed.  “A lawyer, huh?  What in the world brings you two around these parts?”

It was Jack’s turn to nod across the table.

Nina looked at the waitress.  “We were in a plane crash yesterday.  Trying like hell to get back to New York City, but the Gods seem to be working against us.”

Jack nodded at her again.  “This one tried to kill me before the plane did.”

“Well,
this one
threw me over the edge of a moving train.”

Jack sputtered, gazing up at the waitress.  “Alright, I did not throw her.  She fell.”  His eyes went back to Nina.  “Because she is a curly headed natural disaster.  My life has been in complete shambles since the moment I met this woman.”

The waitress, who was watching their exchange like a tennis match, could hardly keep up.  “Good lord, wait a minute.  Y’all were in that crash in Chicago?  The one that’s all over the news?”

“That would be the one.  Yep,” Nina nodded.

The waitress gasped, louder this time, shaking Jack.  “Hot damn, sugar, I knew you looked familiar!  You’re the Runaway Groom!”

Jack paused in mid-bite, tossing her a look with one eyebrow raised high.

“The
what
?” Nina sat taller with a huge smile.

The waitress turned toward the bar and pointed at the flat screen TV hoisted in the corner.  “Frankie!” she cried.  “Turn to the news station.”

Jack and Nina’s eyes both searched the restaurant for “Frankie.”  They couldn’t seem to locate a soul behind the bar, but
someone
in that place was turning the channels.

“Keep going,” the waitress demanded, hand still planted on Jack’s shoulder, wagging her finger through the air as the channels went from one news station to the other.  “Nope, not that one. Try FOX!”

“Frankie” did try FOX.

And there it was.

Nina’s mouth dropped at the sight that awaited her on CNN, and her eyes flew to Jack just as he buried his head in his hands.

“Oh, I cannot
believe
this.”  He groaned.

The waitress jabbed her finger toward the TV.  “The Runaway Groom.  Do you see?”

Nina’s eyes went aglow.  “It’s like Christmas.”

A young blond man with worried green eyes came onto the screen.  “We just want to know that Jack’s okay. He left the church and got on the plane. What’s it gonna take for the airline to release the passenger manifest?  If he’s hurt, we’d like to know about it.”

“He just said your name.”  Nina nudged Jack and pointed to the TV, waiting for him to look over his shoulder at the young man.  “Do you know him?”

“Jesus Christ.”  Jack breathed.

“I don’t give a damn if he’s dead or alive.”  A pretty blonde woman came into frame, spitting into the microphone that had been shoved in her face, scowling in a wedding dress that had seen better days. Ice blue eyes riveted straight to the camera; her mascara stained cheeks tightened as she spoke through clenched teeth.  “I hope Satan is welcoming him into the gates of hell right now.  I hope he’s rotting right as we speak.  Rot, Jack!  Rot!”

“Wait,” Nina pointed to the screen.  “Are they really talking about you? You’re The Runaway Groom?  This is legit?”

The moment she asked the question, a camera phone photo of Jack barreling down a long flight of stairs—with a blurry church in the distance—filled the screen.  In the photo, he was in the midst of ripping his bow tie from around his neck.  As always, he looked like a model.  The afternoon light had caught him at just the right angle as he squinted into the distance, the plethora of emotions that must’ve been raging inside of him splashed clear across his eyes.

“Holy God, Aries, that’s you.” Nina covered her mouth with her hands in an attempt to stifle her laughter.

Jack’s forehead hit the table.

The newscaster’s voiceover chimed in. 
“This photo, taken yesterday, captures The Runaway Groom just moments after he fled the church and purchased himself a ticket on the, now ill-fated, Delta Air Lines Flight 167.  His friends and family have not heard from him since.”

“I’d just like to know if my grandson is alive.”  An elderly woman came onto the screen.   “He ran out of here so gosh darn quickly.  One moment he was here, and the next… ah…” She held her hands out with a bewildered look on her aging face before looking into the camera and taking tight hold of the microphone with both hands. “Jack?  Baby?  We’re not mad, baby.  And we don’t want you to rot in hell.  We just want to know if you’re okay.  Please pick up your phone.”

They cut back to the photo of Jack on the church’s steps with a newscaster speaking over. 
“While Delta Airlines has yet to release an official list of survivors, we can only hope that the Runaway Groom is alive and well, back to you, Steve.”

“Why would they do this?” Jack moaned into his hands.  “Why, why, why?”

“Sensationalism.  They want to know if you’re okay, and the airline won’t give them an answer.  And you refuse to pick up your phone.  Your family knew the fastest way to get the news to say your name was to give them your story.  It’s actually pretty brilliant that they thought of it.”  Nina slammed her palm on the table as FOX cut to a different story.  “So,
that’s
why you were so dressed up and smashing bourbon left and right.”  She whooped.  “I could say it would’ve been nice to hear that story from you and not Fox News, but I’d be lying, because that was hilarious.”  She pointed to the TV.  “Be prepared to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life, because that blonde bride of yours has clearly come
unglued
, and she will not sleep until you’re six feet under.  Why was she still wearing her wedding dress a day later?  She gives me all kinds of Glenn Close,
Fatal Attraction
vibes.”

Jack lifted his heated eyes to hers.

“This is…” Nina met eyes with the waitress, who seemed just as excited as she was but—taking her cues from Jack—was making an attempt to hide it.  “Miss, you have no idea how hard I’ve been working to get anything, and I mean
anything
, out of this man that was even remotely personal.  If I’d known all I had to do was switch on Fox News, I could’ve saved myself a lot of wasted energy.”

“Well, you know what?”  The waitress squeezed Jack’s arm, whose forehead had reclaimed its spot on the table.  “I think ya’ll have been through quite enough, and we rarely get celebrities in here…”

“Celebrities!” Nina roared with laughter.

The waitress winked.  “So this one’s on me, y’all.”

Nina and Jack met eyes across the table.

“Matter of fact.”  The waitress pulled a pad from her apron, looking back and forth between them.  “I’m off in about an hour.  The closest airport is three hours out, but I’d be happy to give y’all a lift to the train.  ‘Bout a half hour from here.”

Nina’s eyes brightened.  “That would be incredibl—”

“No thank you.”

Nina gaped at Jack in shock.

“Well, Runaway.”  The waitress squeezed his arm, again.  “If you change your mind…”

“Thank you.”  Nina watched her go; her eyes solemn, and then kicked her leg out at Jack under the table.  “Are you crazy, Runaway?”

“Don’t call me Runaway.”

“She just offered us a free ride, and I didn’t even have to offer her your Runaway Groom body.  What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’m not going anywhere with that woman.”

“What is it with your aversion to kindness?  Pretty soon, not even I’m going to be able to save you from yourself, Runaway.”

Jack looked up at her from under his eyes.  “Fine.”

Nina’s face lit up, thrilled that he’d caved so easily, and she straightened in her seat before waving the waitress over with a bright smile.

“Now,” she said, eyes widening.  “You
know
that we’re going to have to talk about what the hell I just saw on that television.”

Jack sighed.

Nina blinked rapidly.  “You know this, right?”