by Silver James
“Stay.”
Britt sounded insistent.
“Not a good idea—” Coop began, but she cut him off.
“With me.”
“Britt...”
“I don’t want to sleep alone... Dang it! I’ve reported the death toll and that number’s going to rise before this storm goes away. People have lost everything. People have died. There’s so much bad out there tonight. Is it wrong that I want something good? To feel strong arms around me? To be kissed?” Her voice trailed off. “I’m...scared, okay?”
“I’m scared too, Britt.”
“I just want to feel something...real. Something life affirming. Something with you.”
* * *
Twice the Temptation by Silver James is part
of the Red Dirt Royalty series.
Dear Reader,
Oklahoma has been Tornado Alley since before I was born and, since I’m older than red dirt, that’s a very long time. Our local TV stations are on the leading edge of weather technology due to the number and severity of storms. The National Weather Service even got in on the act when they located their Severe Storms Lab down in Norman, Oklahoma, next to the University of Oklahoma’s School of Meteorology.
I’ve lived through some of the big storms, including the two F5 tornadoes that hit central Oklahoma on May 3, 1999, and May 20, 2013. The University of Oklahoma storm chase team’s mobile Doppler radar recorded wind speeds of over 300 miles per hour during the 1999 storm, setting a record. At 2.6 miles, the El Reno tornado on May 31, 2013, is the widest tornado on record. Four storm chasers lost their lives in that one.
As a member of a search-and-rescue team, I reported with my teammates to the scene of the 1999 storm. Sooner or later, I knew I’d have to write about a storm chaser. Watching coverage of a hurricane slamming into southern Texas gave me an idea, and Britt Owens, our heroine, was born. Then I had to find the perfect hero. Cooper Tate raised his hand to volunteer. Thus, this book came to life.
I hope you enjoy Britt and Coop’s story. We’re coming into storm season again, so stay safe and weather aware!
Happy reading,
Silver James
Silver James
Twice the Temptation
Silver James likes walks on the wild side and coffee. Okay. She loves coffee. Warning: her muse, Iffy, runs with scissors. A cowgirl at heart, she’s also been an army officer’s wife, a mom and a grandmother, and has worked in the legal field, fire service and law enforcement. Now retired from the real world, she lives in Oklahoma and spends her days writing with the assistance of her two Newfoundland rescue dogs, the cat who rules them all and the myriad characters living in her imagination. She loves interacting with readers on her blog and Facebook. Find her at silverjames.com.
Books by Silver James
Harlequin Desire
Red Dirt Royalty
Cowgirls Don’t Cry
The Cowgirl’s Little Secret
The Boss and His Cowgirl
Convenient Cowgirl Bride
Redeemed by the Cowgirl
Claiming the Cowgirl’s Baby
The Cowboy’s Christmas Proposition
Twice the Temptation
Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or silverjames.com, for more titles.
You can also find Silver James on Facebook, along with other Harlequin Desire authors, at Facebook.com/harlequindesireauthors!
Dedicated to the weathermen I watched on TV growing up—Jim and Gary—and to “Tornado” Payne and his weather crew at “Oklahoma’s Own,” and to all the storm chasers in central Oklahoma. Your efforts and expertise keep us safe, so here’s a big shout-out and thank-you!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Excerpt from Back in the Texan’s Bed by Naima Simone
One
Cooper Tate was a man comfortable in his own skin. He might be the chief operating officer of a billion-dollar oil and gas company, but he was far more likely to be found in jeans and a T-shirt working alongside his crews in the oil patch than in the boardroom. He left the fancy duds to his cousin, Cord Barron, the CEO of Barron Explorations. To Coop’s mind, the key word in his COO title was Operations. If he couldn’t do all that stuff out in the field, he shouldn’t be the one in charge.
Now, as the winds of a Category 4 hurricane roared around him, he might have to rethink that stance. Living in Oklahoma, he was used to the wind sweeping down the plains, but this? He’d take a tornado over a hurricane any time.
The huge crew-cab he drove shuddered under the wind’s onslaught. The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour. Two more miles. He only had two more miles before reaching the Beaumont field office of BarEx. He’d be safe from the storm there. He hoped.
After what seemed like a century, but in reality was only about twenty minutes, Coop pulled into the parking lot. The building was the only one with lights, which meant the emergency generator had kicked on when the area lost power. After a series of strong hurricanes, Cord had rebuilt the field offices all along the Gulf Coast. All of them were supposed to stand up to a Category 5 hurricane. All of them had emergency generators that ran on natural gas straight from the company’s own pipelines. He’d tried to convince the skeleton crew that stuck around to help him shut down the rigs to stay at the office but they’d all gone to their own homes, wanting to protect their families and property.
He caught a break in the rainbands and used it to lock up his truck and dash around the building. All the hurricane shutters were secure. The roof looked intact, and all the outbuildings appeared to be holding their own. He was as secure as he could be until Lolita decided she’d had enough of south Texas and moved on. Locking and bolting the main door, he settled in for a long, lonely wait. Yeah, he was a wuss. Storms weren’t his thing. Never had been, not since he was caught out in a severe thunderstorm that turned tornadic when he was a kid.
Pushing that memory to the back of his mind, Coop checked the interior. Supplies lined the walls of the workshop, all up on stacked pallets just in case floodwaters breached the outer doors. The refrigerator hummed along nicely, and all the lights worked, along with the microwave, industrial-size coffeemaker, and the small gas range in the kitchenette adjacent to the break room. He started a pot of coffee and snagged a cold bottle of water from the fridge. Dropping onto a couch, he clicked on the big-screen TV mounted to the wall.
All the local and cable news channels were running wall-to-wall storm coverage. He considered shoving a DVD into the player or checking one of the cable movie channels but stopped when one of the reports focused on Beaumont.
“Water continues to rise—” Wind whipped the reporter’s words away as he leaned into the gale. “Expecting hundreds of rescues—” The picture froze, then pixelated before the telecast returned to the in-studio hosts. “We’ve lost our feed...”
Hundr
eds of rescues? That would depend on a lot of factors. Would levees hold? Had people evacuated? He doubted many of them had. Lolita’s path had wobbled and then made a hard right, heading straight for Beaumont, instead of farther down the coast around Houston. Houston had been ready, mandatory evacuations in force for days. Beaumont? Not so much. Most people were probably sheltering in place. Some might have made it to one of the approved shelters. He hoped there weren’t many who’d been caught in the inevitable traffic jams headed out of town. With only one interstate, and that one running basically east and west, there weren’t many ways out. Plus, a lot of the evacuees from Houston had come to Beaumont.
The wind screamed around the building, raising goose bumps on his skin. “Not a tornado,” he reminded himself. Uneasy, despite his attempts to reassure himself, he paced the room, continuously clicking through channels. The electronic alert from the weather radio on a nearby table made his heart race. The computerized voice advised everyone to shelter in place, reminded them that when the eye hit, to stay put, and that the storm swell would send Lake Sabine and connecting bayous to 500-year-flood levels. Beaumont was about twenty miles from the Gulf Coast, but lakes and bayous peppered the area.
Rain beat on the roof like rolling thunder and the wind continued to howl. He grabbed a cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would steady his nerves. Weather was so not his thing. “Not afraid,” he muttered. “Just cautious. There’s a difference.” Except his brothers still teased him. Well, that was their problem, right? They hadn’t been out on horseback that day. They hadn’t had to hunker down in the caved-in root cellar of an abandoned cabin. And they hadn’t lost their favorite horse during the tornado.
Morose now, he clicked through the movie channels until he found one with car chases and explosions. Cooper turned up the volume in a vain attempt to drown out the storm.
* * *
“This is Britt Owens, reporting live from Beaumont, Texas, for KOCX, Oklahoma’s Original.” Britt signed off from the live telecast then reached to turn off the camera. Her cameraman and chase assistant, Leo, was in the hospital, having been beaned by a flying trash can earlier that day. That the former football lineman could be leveled so easily was a shock. She’d wanted to call off the live updates but the station back in Oklahoma City had overruled her.
She broke down the camera and tripod, stuffing them into her storm chaser’s truck. She hadn’t planned on growing up to be an adrenaline junkie but after surviving an Oklahoma tornado as a kid, she’d set her sights on becoming a meteorologist. Her original goal had been to work in the lab with computers. Her bank account and student loans had other ideas. Which was why she was currently in this predicament.
Britt hadn’t volunteered for hurricane duty. Yes, they were amazing weather phenomena, but tornadoes were what got her pulse racing. And even though hurricanes spawned tornadoes on the leading edge, she was stuck covering the eye of the storm since the station paid the bills. Secretly, she wanted to be the one naming storms, not that she held a grudge and would use the names of people she didn’t get along with for inspiration.
The wind blasted around the corner, sending her slamming into the side of her truck. Ouch. That would leave a bruise.
The intensifying storm had jumped from a Category 3 to Category 4 in an hour and the rainbands now swept in faster and faster. Time to take shelter. As soon as she edged her truck out into the main force of the wind, the big vehicle shuddered. She glanced at the weather instruments panel. As winds currently topped out at 137 miles per hour, shelter had become a necessity. Between rain and darkness, she could barely see the road. Debris passed on both sides. The truck, set up for storm chasing, had all sorts of computronics and instruments. It was big, with shatterproof glass and run-flat tires—all important for getting her through this in one piece.
She should have stayed at the hospital after dropping off Leo. Too bad her curiosity and the urging of the senior meteorologist back home overrode her logical brain, feeding into her inner adrenaline junkie. The wheel jerked in her hands and the truck hydroplaned. She fought for control, and managed to keep the vehicle on the road, pointed in the right direction. No way would she make it to the hotel. Or the emergency operations center in the basement of city hall.
A light gleamed through the sheets of water pounding her windshield. Someone had power? Maybe it was a fire station. She headed for the light, suppressing the spasm threatening to lock her muscles. A huge black blob appeared in her peripheral vision. She slammed on the brakes; the truck fishtailed and finally stopped. Once the world quit spinning, she discovered she could still breathe, once she remembered how.
Britt was not going to die. Not tonight.
* * *
A steady thump thump thump, sounding like his heartbeat echoing in Cooper’s ears, was a bass drum to the wailing wind. The sound came again. He hoped none of the shutters had come loose. Then he froze. Was that a voice? He held his breath, listening hard after clicking mute on the TV.
Thump thump thump. “Is anybody here? Let me in!”
He set the coffee cup down so hard it sloshed and then he was sprinting for the front door. He didn’t hesitate to unlock and yank off the brace bar to wrestle the door open. A woman stumbled into him, and he automatically wrapped his arms around her to steady her. He had to lean into her, fighting the wind to get the door closed and secured again. Once that was done, he discovered he’d pressed her back against the door.
He held his breath, aware that his body liked her—rain-soaked clothes and all—pressing against him. Yeah, parts of him seemed a little too happy about their position. He loosened his arms, but she didn’t move. Her arms remained wrapped around his waist. He cleared his throat. She still didn’t move.
“Ah, miss?”
She raised her head, clocking him on the chin.
“Ow!”
“Oh! Sorry!” She let go but couldn’t back up due to the door behind her.
Cooper stepped away, rubbing his chin. “No problem but, darlin’, I gotta ask, what the devil are you doin’ out in this?”
The woman scrubbed at her face. “My job.” Oddly, her statement sounded more like a question.
“Bad night for it.”
“Definitely.” She glanced at a reception area. “I’m...confused. You aren’t trying to stay open or something, are you?”
“Nope. Temporary shelter. This place can withstand a Category 5 and has a generator. I’m hunkered down here for the duration.”
She inhaled, waiting a long moment before exhaling. “Well, I’m glad you are. I wouldn’t have lasted out there much longer.” She stuck out her hand. “Britt Owens.”
“Cooper Tate.” He wrapped his hand around hers, very aware how his rough callouses scraped against the soft skin of her palm. Then he realized she was shivering. “Let me get you some dry clothes. And food. Coffee. Or hot tea. Got both.”
He ushered her to the break room where he dug out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt from his duffel bag. Pointing toward the bathroom, he said, “You can change in there.”
When Britt came out, Cooper pretended he didn’t appreciate the way she looked in his clothes, nor did he acknowledge the buzz of possessiveness that filled him. Nope. Not at all. Something crashed outside and they both jumped, which jerked him back to reality in a heartbeat.
They ate sandwiches mostly in silence, though she explained she was in Beaumont to cover the storm for a TV station. When she yawned, Coop suggested they try to sleep. “There’s an air mattress in the office down the hall. You can sleep there. I’ll bunk on the couch.”
Britt eyed the couch, gave him a once-over and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like you’ll fit.”
“Not gonna argue, darlin’. My momma raised me to be a gentleman.”
Elbow planted on the table, she leaned into her palm. Her eyes were brown, he realized as he got a good look at her. And they were flecked with a
shade of gold close to the color of her hair. Her face, an almost perfect oval, was pale and drawn, dark circles marring her skin. Her full lips, even as they drooped with exhaustion, ignited an urge to kiss them. He resisted because she looked worn out. He brushed a tendril of hair off her face and whispered, “C’mon, weather girl. Let’s get you to bed.”
She followed him to the office he used when in town. A thick air mattress, almost the height of an actual bed, sprawled in the open space between door and desk. It even had sheets and pillows. He grabbed a pillow and turned to leave. Britt blocked the door. Coop arched a brow, confused.
“Stay.” She sounded insistent.
“Not a good idea—” he began before she cut him off with a breathy, “With me.”
Oh, yeah. He wanted to do that. Which made it a really bad idea. “Look, Britt...”
She fumbled with the hem of the T-shirt she wore, twisting it in her fingers before she huffed out a breath, as if she’d made up her mind. She met his gaze. “I don’t want to sleep alone. Okay?”
She was adamant, despite the nervous movement of her fingers, and she sounded almost angry. Honestly? Coop didn’t want to sleep alone either. Which made him feel like a big ol’ wuss but those were the breaks. Curious about her reasons, he asked. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to sleep with me?”
She blinked at him several times before a speculative look slid across her features. “Why not? You’re a good-lookin’ guy. I’m not exactly coyote ugly—”
That startled a burst of laughter from him. She was definitely not ugly. Her face suffused with color as her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned out. “Go ahead and laugh but...dang it!” She threw her hands up, beginning to pace the narrow confines of the office. “I watched my cameraman get slammed by flying debris today. He’s in the hospital. He could have died. I’ve reported the death toll and that number is only going to rise before this witch of a storm goes away. People have lost everything. Eve...ry...thing.”
