Hell on Wheels: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Karen Leabo

  “So you want to ignore it?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Does that mean you want to ignore me as well?”

  “I haven’t been ignoring you.”

  “Not ignoring me, exactly. Freezing me out is more like it.” He flicked away the half-smoked cigarette. “You and I, we had a rough start. But I thought we were beginning to get along. I thought we were starting to understand each other. I thought … ah, hell, what am I doing?” He pushed himself away from the van, away from her, looking completely disgusted. He walked over to the smoldering cigarette he’d discarded and stomped on it with far more force than necessary, practically grinding it into dust. “You ready to leave?”

  Guilt nagged at Victoria’s conscience. Her behavior had been intended to protect herself, to put a barrier between them. But she hadn’t intended to hurt Roan’s feelings, which was apparently what she’d done. It had never occurred to her that rough-and-tumble Roan Cullen would have the sensitivity to be stung by her coldness.

  All right, so maybe her perception of him was lacking. Before she’d met him, she’d painted him in her mind as a macho hotshot, and much of what she’d seen during their first meeting had reinforced that impression. But she ought to know by now that there was more to him. She’d seen glimpses of compassion, especially the previous day, when he’d worked so hard to keep her entertained while the van was in the shop.

  He didn’t deserve what she’d given him this morning. “Roan …”

  But he’d already walked away, climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Determined, she opened her door and slid in beside him, but she didn’t start the engine. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I had to put some distance between us. Keeping things on a more formal, less personal level seems like a good idea.”

  “You could just say, ‘Roan, don’t kiss me again.’ That would work.”

  No, it wouldn’t, she argued silently. Because next time she might have been the one to kiss him. The distance had been for her benefit as well as his.

  “Yeah, well, never mind,” he said. “Let’s just get on the road and forget this whole stupid discussion.”

  “No, I can’t forget about it. I’ve obviously hurt your feelings, and I never meant—”

  “You didn’t ‘hurt my feelings,’ for God’s sake,” he interrupted, throwing his hands in the air. She should have guessed he wouldn’t admit to anything as unmanly as emotions. “I just don’t fancy spending the next week and five days with an iceberg.”

  “An iceberg!” she sputtered. But when she stopped and thought about it, that was a pretty apt description of her demeanor. “Well, better an iceberg than a raging forest fire.” She hadn’t realized she spoke her last sentiment out loud until she looked at Roan and saw the hardness in his face soften to gentleness tinged with amusement.

  “You mean with a little effort I could turn you into a raging—”

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” she retorted, leaning her forehead against the steering wheel. But her face, at any rate, was certainly flaming.

  Roan’s long, hearty laugh sounded like it came from somewhere deep within him. Although Victoria should have been incensed that he would be amused at her expense, somehow she couldn’t find any more anger inside herself. That laugh was a terrific ice breaker, and she actually smiled at the absurdity of the whole situation. She leaned back and folded her arms, waiting to see what he would say or do next.

  When his laughter died down, he offered her a new proposition. “Okay, Vic—Victoria,” he said. “I think I understand your position a little better now. And I agree that any, er, physical involvement between us would be dumb. So how about this: If I promise to be a perfect gentleman for the rest of this trip, will you stop treating me like I have leprosy?”

  Victoria made an unladylike snort. Then a giggle escaped, and finally a full-blown burst of laughter. “You, a perfect gentleman? On what planet?”

  “Hey, with the exception of one or two minor lapses, I’ve done okay so far. C’mon, Vic, be a sport. I’m offering to curb my baser instincts, and all you have to do is be nice to me. I’d say you have the easier task. I’m easy to be nice to.” He extended his hand to her. “Deal?”

  “Golly, how could I say no?” She gingerly shook his hand, and he smiled at her, a devilish glint in his gaze. Somehow, she got the feeling that Roan would be hard-pressed to remain a “perfect gentleman” for twelve minutes, let alone twelve days.

  Given the day’s disastrous start, the drive up into Kansas went relatively smoothly, Roan thought. Despite the tongue-in-cheek manner in which he and Victoria had made their “deal,” he was determined to honor his promise to her. He kept his flirtations on a strictly surface level, and even made every attempt to use her full name, although “Vic” slipped out of his mouth more often than not.

  To her credit, she’d stopped snapping at him every time he transgressed. In fact, she seemed warmer and more human than he’d ever seen her. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

  Ah, hell, he liked it too much. She was getting under his skin in a big way. Everything about her turned him on, from the slope of her cheek to her dainty, long-fingered hands, to her long, denim-clad legs. Even her voice, so soft and feminine, tickled his senses like a feather.

  He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but her coldness that morning had cut him to the quick. He’d thought she was acting that way out of some misguided desire to punish him for the perfectly natural urge he’d followed to kiss her. It was only after she’d made that “raging forest fire” comment under her breath that he realized her behavior had been a natural self-protective instinct. Immediately he’d felt different about everything.

  He was glad they’d talked things out. He was not particularly looking forward to spending countless days with her, unable to touch her. But that’s how the chips had fallen.

  It was better that way, he reminded himself again and again. She wasn’t the type of woman for a casual fling, and he wasn’t the type of man to offer anything more. Permanence wasn’t in his vocabulary. Even if he’d wanted it—which he didn’t, he told himself firmly—he didn’t believe he was capable.

  “I’d always heard Kansas was flat,” Roan remarked as they traveled along a rural highway with acres and acres of newly greening wheat fields stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see. “They weren’t kidding. It’s even flatter than Oklahoma.”

  “Great tornado-chasing country,” Victoria said. “How far are we from the target area?”

  “About forty miles, close as I can estimate,” Roan said. There hadn’t been a sign or a mile marker in quite a while.

  “Close enough. We’re early, for once.”

  Roan scanned the horizon. “These clouds don’t look too menacing.”

  “Just wait. Pretty soon those innocent-looking, puffy little clouds will start building higher and higher—if the cap isn’t too strong—and we’ll have ourselves a dandy tornado. Mark my words.”

  He didn’t know what she meant by “the cap.” He decided not to ask. He’d had enough meteorology education for a lifetime. “Quite the little optimist today, aren’t you?”

  “Hey, the signs look good. What’s the town we’re heading for? Oh, yeah, Barricklow. We can stop there, gas up, grab some lunch—”

  “And check the data again.” He knew the routine by heart.

  Barricklow, Kansas, wasn’t quite as small as it looked on the map. It featured a real downtown area, complete with an old movie theater, a radio station, and a chain department store. Victoria drove aimlessly along the quaint streets until she found a likely-looking cafe for lunch.

  “You don’t like fast food,” Roan said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I try to watch my diet when I’m on these trips. We don’t get very much exercise.”

  Immediately Roan thought of a dozen ways he and Victoria could burn off a few calories, all of them X-rated.

  “We can go someplace else if you’d rather,” she offer
ed, misinterpreting his moment of contemplation for hesitation about her choice of restaurant.

  “Oh, no, this is fine.” He opened the door and ushered her in ahead of him, forcing his gaze and his thoughts away from her delectable body. If he was going to survive this trip, he needed to give his mind something to focus on besides Victoria Driscoll.

  Engine parts. Anytime he felt his willpower ebbing, he would mentally take apart the engine of the old Ford LTD he used to own. Didn’t prisoners in solitary confinement do that to keep from going crazy?

  After they’d browsed the stained, dog-eared menus and made their selections, Victoria got downright chatty. She asked him all sorts of questions about his childhood, his education, his work. He actually found the conversation pleasant, since it kept his mind off other, more forbidden subjects. Was it possible he and Victoria were becoming … friends?

  When their sandwiches arrived, he turned the tables on Victoria, asking her about her childhood, her friends, her garden, her job at the Weather Service, how she got hooked up with Amos. And she answered obligingly, much more open about herself now that the parameters of their relationship had been established.

  Only one of his questions produced any hesitation, and that was when he asked her about her father.

  “He died when I was twelve, very suddenly,” she replied in clipped tones. “Fortunately, he left my mother and me very well provided for.” And that was all she offered.

  Sensing the subject was somehow tender for her, he didn’t push—just as she didn’t push when he made a similarly brief mention of his younger sister’s death. They were starting to trust each other, but that trust stretched only so far.

  As she paid their bill at the cash register, Roan noticed an advertisement for a bungee-jumping attraction. “Hey, look at this,” he said, pointing out the flyer in the window to Victoria.

  “Hmm?” she said distractedly, still stuffing her change into her purse.

  “Bungee jumping. Ever tried it?”

  Her eyes widened. “Certainly not. And I suppose you have?”

  “Actually, no. I’ve always thought it sounded like fun, but I never really had the opportunity. Want to go take a look?”

  She appeared horrified. “Absolutely not. Bungee jumping”—and she said it with a delicate curl of her upper lip—“isn’t on our agenda.”

  “But you said yourself that we have hours to spare, and we’re smack in the middle of the target area. If we have time to kill—”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, thanks. Time to kill doesn’t mean time to kill ourselves.”

  “Okay, then, how about if I hitch out there while you do your computer thing, and then you can pick me up on your way out of town.”

  Now she seemed downright agitated. “No, really, Roan, I don’t think you should. You could break your neck.”

  “Aw, come on, you sound like my mother.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but it is dangerous. I saw this piece on that home video TV show where the rope broke and this guy was paralyzed—”

  “The rope won’t break. That’s a one-in-a-million occurrence.”

  She pursed her lips and looked down at her feet.

  The diner’s cashier, a middle-aged woman with a mountain of dyed black hair atop her head and painted-on eyebrows, chose that moment to interrupt. “Say, if you’re thinking about that bungee-jumping thing, I’d highly recommend it,” she said. “I did it yesterday—biggest thrill of my life, I’m telling you. My kid did it twice. And some of the profits are going toward the Lion’s Club summer camp program, so it’s for a good cause.”

  “See there?” Roan said. “What do you think?”

  “I can’t stop you from doing it, if that’s really what you want to do,” Victoria said quietly. “But I don’t see the point in risking your life merely for the sake of a thrill. I just … wish you wouldn’t, that’s all.”

  God, her lower lip was trembling. Did the thought of him breaking his neck really upset her that much? “Okay, I won’t do it,” he said. “But let’s at least go out there and watch. I’d love to get some pictures. And frankly, if this tornado thing doesn’t pan out into some decent video footage, I need to make this two weeks count for something in the bank.”

  Once he’d capitulated, she immediately softened. “Okay, we’ll go watch.”

  They went back to the van so Victoria could go through her by-now-familiar data-pulling process. She didn’t spend as much time as she usually did, declaring after only a cursory inspection of the information that little had changed since the morning. All systems were go. They would drive north of town, find the highest vantage point, and wait to see what the clouds would do.

  “The bungee-jumping platform would be a pretty high vantage point,” he said.

  She sighed. “All right, all right, we’ll go watch a bunch of fools participating in a suicidal activity,” she said. “But I don’t see what’s so amusing about it.”

  They found the bungee-jumping outfit in a huge discount-store parking lot on the edge of town. The platform was so high that the people on it looked no bigger than ants. On the ground below them was a huge expanse of some type of cushioning device.

  As Roan was pulling his camera bag out of the back of the van, a jumper made the plunge. Victoria let out a little squeak of distress, followed by a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness, he’s not hurt.”

  “Victoria, very few people have been injured on these things. They wouldn’t keep doing it if it weren’t relatively safe. Hell, it’s probably safer than driving on the highway.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said, shaking her head.

  They moved in closer. “My gosh, parents have brought their children here,” she said in amazement. “Would you ever let your child do this?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have any children.”

  “Well, I can tell you, no child of mine would get within a hundred feet of this thing.” Before the words were even out of her mouth, a youngster of about twelve approached them, staring in awe at Roan’s display of photographic equipment. “You from the newspaper?”

  “No, just a freelance photographer. Have you done this before?” Roan asked, nodding toward the platform.

  “Oh, sure, twice already. I spent all last summer’s grass-mowing money, and it was worth every penny.”

  Roan smiled. “Tell her what it’s like,” he said, looking at Victoria.

  The boy focused his attention on her. “Oh, lady, you should give it a try. It’s like flying. And it’s not dangerous or anything, because my mom wouldn’t let me do it if it was. Heck, she’s gonna try it tomorrow when she’s off work.”

  At that moment another body took a nosedive from the platform, careening toward earth at a heart-stopping speed, then stopped gently as the huge elastic cable checked the fall. Roan snapped off several shots. The woman on the end of the line, squealing delightedly, had to be at least sixty. Maybe he could sell a feature shot to one of those magazines for senior citizens.

  “Oh, my God, look at that old woman!” Victoria said. “What if she had a heart attack?”

  The boy, still hanging around, clapped his hands and whistled through his teeth. “Way to go, Granny,” he said. Then he turned back to Victoria and Roan. “That’s my grandmother. And she doesn’t have a heart condition. They won’t let anybody jump who’s sick or feeble or anything. They got strict rules, you know?”

  Roan smiled smugly at Victoria, who merely looked bewildered.

  Roan approached the woman who’d just finished her jump and asked her if she would provide some information about herself and sign a model’s release form. Still breathing rapidly from the excitement, she was happy to oblige.

  Victoria came up beside them. “Excuse me, but weren’t you scared to death?”

  “Oh, my, yes, of course I was scared,” the older woman said, laughing. “That’s the whole point, don’t you think? But it was like landing in a mountain of feathers. Not a scratch on me, not even
a strained muscle. Just a sore throat from screaming. You should try it, honey.”

  “But how can you be sure it’s safe?” Victoria persisted.

  “Ain’t nothin’ a hundred percent safe,” the woman said. “But if you’re really worried, there’s an inspection certificate by the ticket booth. The whole setup is looked over by an engineer at least once a day. Why, if you just look at the thing yourself, you can tell it’s sturdy. I bet a hundred people have jumped today alone, and not a one’s had a single complaint.”

  Victoria stuck her thumbs in her pockets, gazing pensively at the scaffolding that supported the platform.

  Roan had promised her he wouldn’t jump, and he couldn’t change his mind now, or she would never trust him again. But if she changed her mind about it first …

  “You know,” she said slowly, thoughtfully, “maybe this thing’s not so crazy after all.”

  Yes! he said silently.

  “If a twelve-year-old kid and a grandmother can do it with hardly a blink, it couldn’t be all that bad. And it’s inspected by an engineer.…”

  “Then you don’t mind if I give it a whirl?” he ventured to ask. “It’s up to you. If you really don’t want me to, I won’t.”

  “Well, actually … I was thinking maybe I would try it.”

  “What?”

  “Well, why not? Aside from chasing tornadoes, which really isn’t all that dangerous, I’ve never done anything very exciting. I’ll bet Amos would get a kick out of hearing about—”

  Roan couldn’t describe the horror he felt at the realization that he’d convinced Victoria Driscoll to do something so crazy. She was an intelligent, cautious woman, and after spending a couple of days with him she was talking about plunging hundreds of feet with nothing to protect her but a rubber band. Was he that rotten an influence?

  Abruptly he looked at his watch. “I don’t think we have time,” he said, suddenly all business. “That waiting line at the bottom of the platform is pretty long, and we don’t want to miss those tornadoes. I have enough shots of this.” He started packing up his cameras and lenses.