Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1) (14 page)

He glanced up at the clock, relieved to find that it was at least one. He’d gotten next to nothing done in a most unproductive day, but now he could go take a shower and do something else so he could stop looking at the things he wasn’t doing.

It was temporary, Zach told himself. She was only there for the start-up, and then she would be going home. Once the initial few weeks passed and the real filming started, she wouldn’t be around that much. A director would be doing the heavy lifting at that point. It was temporary. Nothing to get invested in, or used to. Maddi had another life now, in Dallas.

“Keep your head in the game, boy,” Zach muttered.

Why did everything in this house have a damn memory attached to it?

Maddi swore under her breath so much, the crew was starting to give her a wide berth. She’d agreed with Nicole early on that the family room was the focal point of the in-house shots. The table was perfect for discussions, and sitting around on the couches and by the big fireplace would be homey and lend to the family atmosphere. The big kitchen as well, with Lou in there cooking things and fussing over her grown children, all of them standing around the island eating in a staged haphazard way as they talked both personal and chasing—it was perfect.

And that meant hiding microphone packs all over those rooms. In bowls on the coffee table. In plants on either side of the big windows where she used to love to sit. In displays on either end of the big table where she used to eat with the family. Up on the bookshelves that she used to love to peruse. Behind every appliance in the kitchen, where she used to make lemon bars with Lou.

Everything had a personal reference.

And it hadn’t even gotten really personal yet.

Hannah arrived first, thankfully not alone. Quinn warmed the cold reception Hannah gave her, and Maddi gritted her teeth. Either she needed to get past the crap with Hannah, or she needed to learn to ignore it better, because the poison darts were getting old. Simon came soon after, and Eli after that, brooding as usual.

“Hannah, I’m going to start with you,” Maddi said, tucking falling locks behind her ears.

“Joy,” Hannah said, making Maddi give her a second look. “So if we aren’t filming anything today, why are we doing this?”

“For sound checks,” Maddi said. “We need to make sure everything is set as it should be, and test the sound quality on everyone’s personal equipment as well as the static packs around the rooms. That way, tomorrow when we do a test set with the cameras and audio, it’s a quicker set-up.”

“And we have to do this every day?” Eli asked.

Maddi smiled at him. “Every day that we’re filming. And it’s especially important that we get a quick and easy body set-up on all of you figured out. So if we have to do it on the go, we can.”

“You gonna wire us up on the way to a chase?” Hannah asked, amusement mixed with something not nice lacing her tone.

Maddi looked her in the eyes. “I’ve straddled people in a car before, going eighty down the highway.” She pivoted as Simon’s mouth opened. “Don’t even go there, pretty boy.”

Quinn laughed and slapped his arm. “She got you.”

“Hey,” Simon said with a tilt of his head and a quick wink at Maddi. “At least she called me pretty.”

Maddi shook her head and smiled, trying to relax. God, why couldn’t she just be smooth and as at ease as Nicole was for these things? She felt like a jittery rabbit.

“Here’s my number,” Maddi said, pulling cards from her pocket and handing them out. “Put it in your phone. If something goes down while I’m not here, or you’re out somewhere, or whatever—if a run needs to happen that we have to deal with on the fly, call me immediately.”

“So do I have to get naked for this wire thing?” Hannah asked.

“No,” Maddi said, laughing. “But you and Quinn will have to lift your shirts and I’ll wire your bra. We can go in the other room.”

“Please do,” Simon said. “I don’t need to see my sister’s goods.”

Hannah gave him a snarky look and lifted her shirt just enough to show her flat belly and pat it. “You just don’t want to see abs better than yours, big brother,” she said with a wink.

Maddi led the way into the kitchen, wired microphone and pack in one hand, tape in the other. Hannah followed and stopped when Maddi turned, meeting her gaze dead-on with so much force Maddi had to blink and look down.

“I’m—” She took a deep breath and let it go. “I’m going to attach this to your bra and then tape the wire down,” she said. “The pack usually gets attached to your pants at the small of your back and taped down.”

“And if I’m wearing a dress?” Hannah asked.

Maddi met her eyes. “You wear a dress on runs?”

“No, I’m just wondering, hypothetically.”

Maddi blinked and returned her deadpan stare. “Then it’s more complicated.”

“Okay.”

Maddi licked her lips as she pushed away the cold wall of ice coming off her former friend. Once upon a time, she and Hannah were like sisters. She had cried with her when her dad died, talked her through boyfriends and Jonah Boudreau, the first boy to crush Hannah’s heart. And the second. Maddi had even asked her to be her maid of honor at her wedding that wasn’t.

Now, Hannah did little more than acknowledge that Maddi was in the room.

“Go ahead and lift your shirt up,” Maddi said.

Hannah pulled her T-shirt completely off and tossed it on the counter, standing there in her capri jeans and lacy blue bra.

“Okiedokie,” Maddi said. “That works, too.”

She got to work, giving up on the idea of conversation. She was there for a job, after all, not to catch up on old times. With trained hands, Maddi set up the microphone and taped down the wire in minutes, reaching around Hannah’s waist to wind the wire around before turning her to tape the pack down at the small of her back.

“Turn back around,” she said. “Lift your arms, let’s see how it moves,” she said, when Hannah was facing her.

“So, why did you just leave?” Hannah asked as she lifted her arms over her head. Maddi’s hands froze in place as she met the other woman’s eyes. “You didn’t even say good-bye.”

Chapter Twelve

A
burn Maddi hadn’t seen coming, hit her square in the chest. Hannah.

“I know,” Maddi said, her voice little more than a whisper.

That day had been the worst in her life. A day that was supposed to be the best, most wonderful day had turned into a nightmare of monumental proportions, and all she had done was run from it. Fighting with Zach, shutting down the pain, the torture of seeing the despair in his face—all of it was too much on top of the shock still resonating through her body. The image of the monster that tore her world apart and right out from under her would stay with her forever, but it was followed closely by the memory of the absolute destruction on her fiancé’s face.

She had grabbed her suitcase and driven away as fast as she could, needing to get as far away from that life as possible. Never stopping to think until much later of the other people she left behind. People who had claimed her as family long before she was engaged to one of them. Adopted brothers she loved dearly, and a sister she’d never had.

Simon and Eli evidently forgave her, but Hannah had always held things closer to the heart. Maddi had hurt her brother. And then left her behind as well.

“I was wrong for that,” Maddi said, her voice going husky. “All I knew at that moment was that I needed to be far away from here. But—”

“But you could have called later,” Hannah said. “When you calmed down. Called, wrote, e-mailed—checked on Zach? Something.”

Maddi closed her eyes and sank onto a stool, suddenly feeling like the air in the room wasn’t enough. Hannah was right. She’d been an ass.

“Shit, Hannah, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I thought you and I were friends,” Hannah said. “Not just through my brother, but for real.”

“We were,” Maddi said, opening her eyes.

Hannah shook her head, her own eyes misting over, which Maddi knew had to be pissing her off. Hannah wasn’t the emotional type.

“Apparently not,” she said. “Friends don’t vanish without a trace.”

Maddi pulled in a shaky breath and dabbed under her eyes. “No, they don’t. And I sucked as a friend in monumental ways.” She looked down at the floor as Hannah leaned against the counter.

“Can I put my shirt back on?” she asked.

Maddi nodded and gestured at the shirt. “Of course.”

“Am I done?” Hannah asked, pulling her shirt on and discreetly swiping at her eyes.

“Hannah, I’m trying to—”

“Seriously, am I done?” she said, her voice flat, her face morphing back into the emotionless mask that she shared with Eli.

Maddi met her hard gaze with one of her own. Damn it, she said she was sorry, and maybe that wasn’t enough, but she didn’t deserve outright rudeness, either. “No,” she said just as flatly. “Bend over and touch your toes.”

Hannah paused for just a second and then did it, coming up with a challenge in her eyes. “Shall I do the hokey pokey next?”

“Do whatever you want,” Maddi said, walking past her with the roll of tape. Rounding the door frame, she called out, “Quinn, your t—” The rest of the word faded as Zach stood there next to Eli, looking positively edible in a button-down denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “—turn,” she finished. It wasn’t just the clothes. It was the way he was looking at her.

Shit.

“Coming,” Quinn said, passing Hannah, who left the kitchen without another word.

“New normal,” Maddi muttered under her breath. “Should have never done that bacon thing.”

“Say what?” Quinn asked, turning.

Maddi shook her head and waved a hand. “Nothing. I’m delusional. Shirt up, please.”

She said those words two more times with Eli and Simon—who got entirely too much enjoyment out of it, by the way—before she had to face what her increasingly trembling fingers were anticipating.

Maddi had brought it all back out into the family room so that at least it wouldn’t just be one on one, and she told herself repeatedly that she was a professional. An artist doing her job.

“Okay, Zach,” she said, refusing to look up. Busying herself straightening wires that didn’t require straightening.

“Ready for me?” he said, unbuttoning his shirt.

Fuck.
Her throat closed up and she damn near dropped the wire.

I’m a professional.
Maddi forced herself to look up and meet his gaze, and saw the play. He was paying her back for the bacon. And good God almighty, was he. His dark eyes smoldered as he finished undoing his shirt and fanning it open.
I’m a prof—professional. I’m not Blakely.
But deep down, Maddi knew it wasn’t just his body she was responding to. It was just Zach.

His chest was bare except for a—nail—tied as a necklace with a thin leather string. An odd thing to wear, and yet inherently manly.

“I’m attaching the microphone here,” she said, pointing instead of touching. She hated how her voice shook. “And then routing it around to your back, where the pack will be.”

Zach nodded, not breaking eye contact. “So I’ve seen.”

“Okay,” she said, busying her hands and glancing around the room. Thankfully, everyone else was hanging out at the table and chatting. It was a full room, but Maddi felt like the heat of the sun was spotlighted right on the two of them.

Tearing off a few pieces of tape, she lined them up on her arm. A strategy she came up with while doing everyone else. She’d wired up plenty of men’s bodies before; she just had to zone out and make him one of the masses. And yet as soon as her fingers landed on his warm skin, her brain cells went haywire. Suddenly, she couldn’t care less about the damn microphone, as her hands fought wanting to splay across his chest. Memories came flooding in, and what she could normally do in her sleep became awkward and fumbling.

“You okay?” he whispered.

Shit, don’t whisper
. “I’m good.”

“You’re trembling.”

Finally getting the mike taped to his breastbone, she slowly followed the wire down, stopping just above his navel to secure with another piece.

Maddi chuckled nervously. “You’re breathing shallower.”

If she shut her eyes, she knew she’d be in another time. He’d wrap his arms around her and she’d be enveloped in his strength, in his smell. She took a deep breath and made damn sure her eyes stayed open.

“Touché,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

Maddi glanced up, and the proximity was too close. His eyes burned into hers; the small smile at his lips was delicious. Jesus, she was a hormonal twit. She instantly averted her gaze back to her work.

She shook her head. “It’s my job,” she said. “I have to reach around you now,” she said, the last words barely making it out as her arms went around him to route the wire in the back. The move was always awkward, putting her in people’s personal space, but with him, it was two centimeters from an embrace, with her face in his chest. Her eyes fluttered closed in spite of her resolve, and as her fingers brushed against his back under the denim of his shirt and the aroma of him—the familiarity—pulled at her, she sucked in a breath. He expelled one at the same time, like all the air was shoved from his lungs. His hands came up automatically, as if to pull her in, but he stopped himself just short of it. Thank God. If he hadn’t—

Shaking and finally finding the wire with her other hand, she pulled back and swallowed hard, meeting his eyes. They were foggy and heavy-lidded, tinged with troubled.

“Sometimes the job takes me out of my comfort zone,” she continued, her voice catching a little.

After a pause and clearing his throat, he nodded. “Ditto,” he said. “I can relate to that.”

Maddi gave him a snarky expression.
Lighten it up.
“Please. Don’t act like you’re ever out of your comfort zone, doing what you do.” She made a twirling gesture. “Turn around.”

“You don’t think?” he said, turning his back to her.

Maddi took her first deep breath since she’d started on him, and let it go. “Don’t play, Zach. You love it.”

“Not when you’re in the car,” he said. Her hands froze momentarily, forgetting what to plug into where. “Nothing has ever been more uncomfortable than knowing you were in danger again.”

The memory of his hand reaching back to hold hers as she screamed into the back of the seat brought hot tears to her eyes.

“L-lift up your shirt a little more,” she managed.

Zach picked it up, exposing his back. The little scar across the small of his back that he’d received from a flying tree limb many years ago. Maddi remembered kissing it—

She shut her eyes tight and gripped the pack so tightly it probably left finger indentations.
Get it together. Get a fucking grip on yourself.
With a shaky hand, she reached for the tape roll and ripped off three more pieces. She took a deep breath and smoothed the tape over his skin, hooking the base to the waistband of his jeans.

“How is that?” she asked, her voice cutting out on her. She cleared her throat as he turned slowly around and her eyes panned upward to meet his. “Are you comfortable?”

A breathy chuckle escaped his throat, but his eyes looked serious.

“Are you?”

The next two days were like getting repeatedly punched in the neck. Zach never wished so much for a freak storm to whip up as he did now. Anything to pull him out of that house, where Maddi worked around the rooms in complete familiarity of everything.

As he looked around at the camera set-ups, the rough notes scattered on the table after their test film shot, the myriad of people in and out of every room at all times, he started to feel a little like Eli. Like this was all invading his sense of place.

He had brought this on. All of this. The call from Infinity had turned his head. Gotten him excited about getting his family on the proverbial map. But—shit, who was he kidding? The only part of it that had really gotten under his skin was her. Maddi and her laugh and nervousness she tried to hide around him. The awkward way she handed him a card with her number on it, justifying it a thousand different ways.

Zach had put up with Eli’s bitching and overall growling—that was nothing new. With all the crew members grabbing, touching, and fondling things in his childhood home to the point that nothing felt personal anymore. But Maddi being there was doing a job on him. Hearing her voice all day long, talking to the crew, to his family, laughing with them after the crew would leave. She and Hannah had some sort of brew going on between them, and he hadn’t asked, but it was clear that they were icing each other out. But his mother—she was glowing with Maddi around. She was loving the company, and the two women laughed and chatted together like seven years had never been lost.

What was worse were the one-on-one moments. Trying to keep things neutral when nothing felt neutral. When looks didn’t feel businessy. When she touched him—

Fuck.

The second day had been better, as she started with him and recruited another person to help her knock it all out faster. She’d barely looked at him as she and the other guy went through the motions. But that first wire-up—she’d been shaking like crazy and her scent had wrapped around him like she did—and God all he could think about was crushing her to him and—doing things he had no business thinking about doing.