Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1) (23 page)

“Not this time,” Eli said, his voice grim. “There are cameras in the vehicles and y’all have us wired for sound. That’s good enough.”

“It’s not up for negotiation,” Maddi said, trying to keep her producer hat on.

“Oh, yeah, it is. I’m sorry,” Zach said, worry and the tinges of panic showing on his face. “Not this time,” he said, echoing Eli. He looked around the room, the trouble coming back to his eyes. “Y’all aren’t safe out there. You aren’t even safe
here
.”

Maddi laughed sarcastically.

“I’m serious,” Zach said, rubbing at his face as if time were racing toward them. “You and Mom and Gran—I need to call Harlan and get his ass to my house.”

“What?”

“My storm room,” he said. “Next to the bedroom. Remember? I told you it’s built into the house.” His gaze drove into hers. “It will withstand anything,” he said. “Everyone needs to go there and wait it out.”

Logic wasn’t working. Where his words should have made sense, should have kicked in a little bit of fear with a dose of common sense and survival, they only fueled anger and resentment. Still, uncertainty at where the lines should be tapped at her brain. Was she thinking like a producer or like a pissed-off woman?

Wheeling around, she whipped out her phone and pressed Nicole’s name. Four rings and nothing.
Damn it
. Brown. Somewhere she had Brown’s number, and she scrolled with shaky fingers until she found it.

“Please pick up,” she whispered on the second ring.

“Hello?” said the always irritated and harried voice of Brown Broussard.

“Brown, this is Maddi—Madison Hayes,” she corrected quickly.

There was a slight hesitation, and then, “Okay?”

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” Maddi said. “But Nicole didn’t answer and I’ve got a situation.”

“What kind of situation?” he said.

“Really bad storm coming in right here, and they don’t want us filming—”

“Too bad,” Brown said, cutting her off. “They signed. That’s the deal.”

“Well, it’s about safety concerns,” she said, finding herself defending Zach and Eli’s position and hating it. “They want us all in a storm room. The vehicles are wired, but that’s not a lot of—”

“You’re in charge, Madison,” Brown said. “Make it happen.”

Maddi blinked. “And the safety of the crew?”

Brown sighed irritably on the other end. “They’ll be fine. Send the bare minimum if you need to, but get it on tape. You want to move up in this business? Take a risk.”

And the line went dead.

Maddi stared at her phone and turned back around.

“Well?” Rudy asked.

She met his eyes. “We go.”

“My room will fit twenty-four people,” Zach yelled over the buzz. “Theoretically. That’s not comfortably, that’s crammed in like sardines, but it’s better than the alternative.”

“Send whoever you want,” Maddi said. “But our van is going. The little cameras in your vehicles aren’t enough—”

“I don’t
care
,” Zach said, his voice stilling the room. “You can hate me all you want, Maddi, but I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you. And I’m not putting you or anyone else at risk out there.”

Maddi’s blood was so hot, she could feel it moving through her body, nearly blinding her with faster harder pumps to her brain. He wanted to be all about the job? Well, she was, too. She had a show to do, and bosses to please, and future ratings to affect. To hell with the man she loved last night in the rain. That was personal. Zach was able to turn that off for the job while still lying naked with her, so she could certainly do that now.

“I appreciate the chivalry, but I am not your obligation or your worry, Zach,” she said. “I work for Infinity, and right now, so do you. That makes us coworkers.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Z
ach couldn’t have flinched any harder if she’d swung a bat at his head.

“Coworkers,” he said, the word just above a whisper, just enough for her to hear.

A small puff of breath pushed from her chest as if her own word hit her there. Good. She needed to feel it, too.

“You can’t push us out of this, Zach,” she said, holding her chin higher. “We have a contract.” She paused as if taking a different tack. “What if I don’t go personally? But three of the crew still follow in the van.”

Oh, that fucking contract was going to be the death of him. Quite possibly literally. The buzz in the room was overwhelming, and he needed to be soaking that in, not arguing with Maddi. This was not how he operated. He needed to be over there with Simon, studying the radar. He needed to be working out the logistics of what they were going to do with Eli. This fucking dog and pony show was—ugh. God, he sounded like Eli in his own head. What she was proposing took care of his worrying about her, but there was still the distraction of knowing that van was in the mix. Damn it, why didn’t he realize that before?

“No,” Eli said, saving him from his own dilemma.

“We
have a contract
,” Maddi said slowly. “This is how it works.”

“I’ll call the network and cancel the whole thing right now,” Zach said, needing to find his sense of normal.

It was Maddi’s turn to flinch. “You can’t do that.”

Zach laughed. “Watch me.”

“Zach, this is what you wanted, remember?” Maddi said. “This was
your
baby. You can’t just bail on it now that it’s not convenient.”

“This has nothing to do with convenience,” he yelled, stilling the room for a second time and widening her eyes in the process. “Maddi, this isn’t a game.”

“No, it’s my job,” she barked back, her eyes going a little shiny.

“Damn it,” Eli growled, moving across the room. “I’m done with this.”

Zach opened his mouth to speak as he stepped closer to her, and then shut his eyes and counted instead.
Ten
. . .
nine
. . .
eight
. . .

“Honey, he’s right,” his mom said from behind him, stopping his sanity countdown. “Maddi, you need to come with me to the room. Everyone that can fit needs—”

“I love you, Miss Lou,” she said, a tight smile on her face. “But I have a job to do.”

“Not anymore you don’t,” Eli said, pulling a pistol from a desk drawer.

“Shit,” Zach muttered. It was going south. The whole run was going south. There was too much drama and distraction.

“Eli!” Hannah said, stopping in the entryway with wide eyes. Her hands on Gran’s wheelchair went white at the knuckles. “What the hell?”

“Boy, what are you doing?” Gran said, as if he were holding a pink boa instead of a Glock.

“Excuse me,” Eli said, moving around them toward the front door.

“Hey, Eli,” Zach heard Quinn say as the door opened. “Oh, my God!”

Simon nearly knocked his laptop off the table as he got up, but then Quinn ran around the corner, past Hannah and Gran.

“Why does Eli have a gun?” she asked.

Bam!

There was a collective gasp, Quinn squealed, Maddi clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, and Zach instantly went into motion.

Bam!

“Shit,” Zach muttered. Heading for the open front door, he met Eli coming back in. His hair and clothes were wet, and his jaw had a grim set to it.

“What the hell did you do?” Zach said, and then he looked past him.

The Infinity van was sinking in the back. Where the rear two tires now had bullet holes. Laughter came from somewhere dark, and he slapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Brilliant,” he said.

Maddi ran past them and whirled around at the first look.

“Seriously?” she shrieked. “You are a psychopath!”

“Can we get down to business now?” Eli said, addressing his family and ignoring her.

“You just damaged Infinity property,” Maddi said, undeterred.

“So fucking sue me,” Eli said, turning on her. “You’ll be alive to do it. Now get the hell out of the way so we can work.”

The look on Maddi’s face dug at Zach’s gut a little. Eli had never talked to her that way. Through anything and everything, he was always the nice one when it came to her. That just proved the grimness of the situation. And as Zach met Maddi’s angry gaze, he turned and walked away from her. He had to shut his eyes tight and swallow down the twenty-pound boulder in his throat to do it, but it was for her own good. He couldn’t be thinking about the woman he loved last night. The woman he saw the ghost of all over his living room all evening. The woman he could still taste this morning when he woke up alone after dreaming of her.

“You all right?” Simon asked quietly when Zach blew out a breath and leaned over his shoulder to study the radar.

“Coworkers,” Zach said. “We’re coworkers.”

Simon glanced at him. “Clearly.”

Zach clenched his teeth together and willed the tunnel vision to take over. He depended on that singular focus to drive him, to give him that almost supernatural clarity when he was out there. He needed that. They all needed him to have that.

“Let’s do this.”

Maddi felt herself disappear as déjà vu happened all around her. The family did what they did best. What they’d always done. Molded together into a seamless machine with one communal brain, tuning the rest of the world out.

Possibly that last bit was bitterness on her part, but it wasn’t all that unwarranted. It came from years of past experience. And something way too fresh from the night before.

And Eli shooting out their damn tires.

Everything she’d worked for to get this far was eroding under her feet. Everything she’d banked on for her future.
And let’s face it
—everything she swore would not break her again. Zach Chase had managed to turn her inside out in under a week. She’d forgotten to add
heart
to that list of things that were supposed to keep her from traveling the temptation path. Protecting her heart should have been before
job
,
Blakely
, or
tornadoes
.

Maddi moved back until the backs of her legs found a chair, and she sank onto it. She felt the crew’s collective eyes on her, and she looked at them one by one, holding up a finger. All she could do was hope they understood. She had to salvage something.

Rudy ambled toward her, looking over his shoulder at the Chases working out their plan.

“What’s up?” he asked under his breath.

“There’s a spare tire, right?” she whispered, staring straight ahead. When he didn’t answer immediately, she looked up. “Right?”

Realization settled in his face. “Two, actually. Working on
The Flip Side
, there’s nails everywhere. I keep an extra in the back.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Z
ach had done all he could. Made sure his mother and Maddi were headed to his house to the storm room. He’d hugged his mom and tried to at least make eye contact with Maddi, but she wouldn’t look at him.

That was okay, he told himself. All that meant was that he hadn’t said his good-byes. Meaning he had to come home. That was the twisted way he had to look at things, now faced with something he hadn’t had in many years. A heart.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“What?” Simon said from the passenger seat, where he was tapping away at coordinates.

“Nothing,” Zach said, raking back his hair with his fingers. Grabbing the radio, he held the button. “Harlan, come back.”

He’d left three messages on the old man’s phone and he wasn’t answering. Harlan didn’t text, so there was no point there. Wasn’t answering the radio either, and Zach knew damn good and well he was listening.

“Hannah, get Jonah on the phone,” he said.

“What?” she said, her head popping up from where she was setting up her camera.

“Call Jonah.”

“Why—I don’t—” she began.

“I don’t care that you have his number, Hannah, just call him for me, please,” Zach said, irritable.

Hannah huffed out a breath, but she jabbed at her phone anyway. “Anything in particular I’m talking to him about, or are we having drinks after?”

“Ask him where his dad is,” Zach said. “Just put it on speaker.”

The phone rang three times before Jonah answered, his tone questioning. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Zach has a question.”

“Where’s Harlan?” Zach said as Hannah held the phone between the front seats.

“Aren’t you a little busy to be asking about my dad?” Jonah answered. “Jesus, Zach, it’s a little crazy right now.”

“I’m aware of that, Boudreau,” Zach said through his teeth. “But this thing is projected to possibly make it to Cody.”

There was a pause. “Okay.”

“I’m sure you’ve already seen and planned for that,” Zach said, shaking his head. “But I have a room I constructed in my house that will withstand probably even an EF5 tornado, I’m hoping. I sent my mom and grandmother and Maddi there and I’ve left messages for Harlan to go there, but he’s not answering.”

Another pause. “He’s a stubborn old shit.”

“Jonah,” Zach said, glancing back at Hannah in the rearview mirror. “Send Derrie and Brax over there, too.”

A longer pause that time. “You really think we’re gonna get hit, don’t you?”

Zach looked at Simon, who looked down at his screen.

“Jonah, this is Simon,” he said. “There may be some history repeating itself today.”

“Shit,” Jonah said through the phone. “Zach, you’re serious about your place?”

“Call and get them there,” Zach said. “It’ll be crowded but safe. Maybe your dad will take your call.”

They hung up, and for a moment the only sound was the rain and the windshield wipers.

“Thank you, Zach,” Hannah said quietly.

“Well,” Zach said. “I thought of just telling him to send Brax, but I didn’t think that would come out as particularly nice.”

Hannah chuckled and went back to her settings. “How do we activate these cameras?” she said, touching one above her head.

“I think there’s a little switch by each one,” Simon said. “Holy shit, are we live for sound already?” He twisted around to feel his body pack. “Do we have to turn it on?”

“No idea,” Zach said, not even wanting to think about anything show-related.

Not about cameras or the microphones or Maddi. His only viewpoint needed to be this storm and Eli and Quinn in the other vehicle. And then there it was. The telltale electricity that set all Zach’s nerves on end and made the little hairs on his arms stand up.

The rush of adrenaline that always accompanied, that burned through his veins like liquid fire, settling his busy brain and narrowing his focus as if he were looking through a sniper’s scope. He took an easy breath for the first time in two hours, falling into his zone.

“Zach, you see this wall cloud?” came Eli’s voice over the radio.

Zach’s head jerked to the left, spotting the heavy blackish-blue cloud formation northwest of them. Shit, it was forming fast.

“Got it,” he said into the receiver. “Start your recordings whenever you can. The air pressure just dropped exponentially, I felt it.”

“New anemometer working?” Eli said.

Simon checked the gauges. “Seems to be,” he said, taking the receiver from Zach. “I’m getting readings.”

“Turn up Gulch Road?” Eli said.

Zach nodded and Simon confirmed. “He’s on it.”

Everything from that point started humming, like it always did. Everyone had their jobs, and they were all damn good at them. The chatter on the radio heated up as Jonah’s crew and a few other small-time hobbyists got in on the action. Zach never saw that as a bad thing in heavy scenarios like this one, because everyone had a different perspective and the more information the better. Especially this close to home.

“Y’all, one o’clock!” Hannah exclaimed into the receiver, pointing for the sake of her own vehicle occupants. “Rope coming down!”

There it was. Snaking down about a half mile away in an open field, white and beautiful and pristine like they always were before they landed and brought the earth to the sky.

“Look at that,” Zach said, almost reverently. “She’s no baby.”

“No, that’s a—holy shit, she’s on the ground,” Simon said, his hands hovering over his keyboard.

And just like that, the pretty white purity became evil personified. Grayish-brown moved its way from the base up to the sky, turning blacker, thicker, the girth of the thing expanding like a snake swallowing a rat.

“Jesus Christ,” Hannah said under her breath.

“Yeah, somehow that never gets old,” Zach said as the hail began to fall. “All right, guys, all systems on?”

“On,” Simon said. “Calling it in.”

Simon instantly notified the local authorities and the National Weather Service with a few keystrokes online, letting them know a funnel was on the ground, the coordinates, and the readings so far.

“Eli, do your thing,” Zach said into the receiver as they passed a dirt road turnoff, knowing that his brother would pull over and take static readings while Quinn filmed both the funnel and the lead vehicle.

Zach slowed, trusting his instincts, watching the beast dance. It was slow and methodical, as most of the big ones were. Little ropes skipped and danced and hopscotched around, but giant beauties like this—they tended to play on a more heavyweight level. His blood was on fire, watching it, watching it grow and darken and thicken with debris. Simon’s voice droned on in the background, reciting coordinates and direction, wind speed and projections, but Zach was watching it look at him.

“At least an EF4,” Eli’s voice came over the radio. “Be careful!”

“I know,” Zach breathed, not even hitting the button. Something that solid, that evil, was hard to think of as just wind. Distantly, he thought of what the coverage would look like, even their puny version without the high-definition cameras, the data they were providing online, and the fact that the Boudreaus were somewhere trying to best them. He heard Simon’s expected curses as he crept closer, watching the funnel’s movement as it slid sideways, but mostly he was aware that he’d entered that place where he and the devil always faced off.

And like any good dance partner, he felt it when she moved out of step.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

“Zach, it’s—” Simon began, pointing at the screen.

“Changed direction,” he finished, slamming on the brakes.

“It’s moving our way,” Simon said.

“What the fuck?” Eli yelled over the radio.

“We know—” Simon began as Zach threw the gear into reverse and started to turn.

He nearly went off the road, however, when another vehicle came up from behind and swerved around him heading forward. Toward the funnel.

“Was that—that was the TV van,” Hannah yelled, the noise from the hail getting hard to talk over.

“Zach, that was Maddi in there,” Eli’s voice said over the radio, five different shades of pissed off tinting his tone.

Zach stared ahead in horror. “No,” he breathed.

“Move, Zach,” Simon said, grabbing the receiver. “Eli, it’s flipped!” he yelled. “Abort and go!”

Hail fell harder, bouncing off the hood, small debris starting to mix in like a good sandblasting.

“Zach!” Simon yelled. “Drive!”

Zach grabbed his phone and hit her name and the speaker button, thanking God he’d had the sense to put it in his phone. He heard his heart in his ears with the first ring.

“What?” she answered.

“Stop right now!” he barked. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Following orders,” Maddi said through the phone, breathing hard. “My ass is on the line here—”

Zach pounded a fist against the steering wheel. “Your fucking
life
is about to be on the line! It’s coming this way, turn your ass around!”

“Go, Zach, get us out of here!” Hannah yelled from the back.

“Oh, my God,” Maddi said, her voice shaking. “What was I—?”

“Fuck!” Zach said, throwing the gear back into drive. “Fuck! Fuck!”

“What are you doing?” Hannah screamed as he lurched forward.

“Shit,” Simon breathed next to him.

Zach didn’t dare look at him. He knew what he’d see. He’d see the look people give when they’re about to die, and it would be because of him. Flooring the pedal, advancing on the van, limbs and shards of metal and pieces of things he couldn’t identify coming from all directions, he passed the van as a tree limb hit their roof and Maddi screamed. Zach swerved in front of them.

“Shit!” Simon yelled, bracing himself as the van screeched to a stop, nearly slamming into his side.

“Oh Jesus, little baby Jesus,” Hannah whimpered, looking out her window.

Zach didn’t know how he heard her through the roar, but he did. The sheer defeat and fear in a voice that never showed either broke through his adrenaline rush and pulled his gaze to the scene at his left. The wall of death didn’t even look like a funnel anymore. It was just a wall. He could feel the vibration shaking the ground.

It was the one from his dreams. The one that might very well have his name on it.

“Oh, my God,” Maddi’s voice cried. “How do you do this?”

“Turn around!” he yelled at the phone, turning to see Maddi’s eyes, huge and terrified as she looked up. “Now!”

“Go!” Maddi breathed, her voice failing her. “Rudy, do what he says.”

“No shit?” Rudy said, yanking the van in reverse and twisting back to turn. “
Now
we can do what he says?”

“Just go!” she yelled, banging on the dashboard.

She had her phone in one shaking hand and Rudy’s in the other, filming as best she could while trying to hang on.

He slammed the van back in drive and gunned it as something heavy hit her door, cracking the window.

“Shit!” she screamed.

“Keep driving!” Zach’s voice yelled through the phone.

“Zach!” she cried, her voice giving out. Maddi turned to see the churning wall right behind them. Right behind Zach. Close enough to see the twisted pieces of fence and trees it was ripping up and throwing like toys.

“I’m right behind you!” he said. “Just go!”

She was so stupid, and now they would all die because she had to prove a point. The beast that had tried to kill her seven years ago had nothing on this one. This one was like that one’s angrier, bulked-up, abusive uncle.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. To him. To Rudy. To the living churning wall of air she’d challenged that was hell-bent on killing them.

Rudy drove like a drunk on speed, pedal to the floor, swerving wildly to miss large chunks of trees and roots and various other things falling in their path. Maddi held on to a handle above the door and couldn’t remember the last full breath she’d taken. The van itself sounded like it was being peppered with gunfire. It was like being in war. A very one-sided war.

“Keep going!” Zach was yelling in the phone over and over, like if he stopped then, they would, too.

“Man, nothing is worth this,” Rudy muttered, swerving around yet another tree limb.