Break the Sky

by Nina Lane

He did. It worked.

  “It was nice to have met you, Mrs. March.” Archer kissed my mother on the cheek as we stood in front of her house later that afternoon. “Thanks for everything. Spasibo.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad Kseniya brought you to see me. Take care of her, da?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She gave him several foil-wrapped packages of blinchki and tea cookies. Archer went to put them in the cooler stowed in the back of the van.

  I hugged my mother. “Thank you. I’ll come back soon.”

  “And you take care of yourself, dochenka.” She eased back to pat my cheek, and I saw the worry in her eyes. “Don’t work so hard. Even with tenure, they should give you a break.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Be careful driving.” She glanced past me to where Archer was organizing stuff in the back of the van. “I feel better knowing he’s with you. Bring him back with you next time, too.”

  “He’s… he’s leaving soon, Mama. He won’t be in Mirror Lake much longer.”

  My mother returned her gaze to me. “Where is he going?”

  “Back to Nevada, I guess. It was… he’s just visiting for a few weeks.”

  She frowned. “You knew this all along?”

  I nodded. A hint of shame rose in me.

  “He’s not the right kind of man for me anyway,” I said defensively. “I didn’t think you’d even like him.”

  My mother looked at me with growing insight. My shame intensified. Her gaze pinned me to the spot. I should have known I could never hide from her.

  “Kseniya,” she said, her voice stern. “Did you want me not to like him?”

  “No.” I looked at the ground and shuffled my feet. “I mean, not like that. I just expected you to remind me that he’s all wrong for me.”

  “Why would I remind you of that?”

  “Because you’re always going on about how you want me to find a nice, respectable man,” I said, spreading my hands out in frustration. “He’s not like the kind of man you’ve always wanted for me.”

  She crossed her arms, her frown deepening, her stare way too perceptive.

  “He may not be what I’ve imagined for you, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong for you,” she said.

  “Oh, don’t start this, Mama. He’s leaving. It’ll be over soon. Besides, you know there’s no future for us. Not with a man like him.”

  “What kind of man is that?” she asked. “One who is kind and polite?”

  “I meant—”

  “I know what you meant, Kseniya.” She took my face in her hands and forced me to look at her. “And even if you thought I wouldn’t like him, dochenka, I do. I like him a great deal. He is a good man. A survivor. Just like your father.”

  I shook my head, trying to deflect her words. My vision blurred.

  “You think I want for you a certain kind of man,” she continued, her gaze unwavering. “But I know you better than that. What I want for you is a man who challenges you, who loves you fiercely, who accepts everything about you, even your worst flaws. You are not an easy woman, Kseniya, and you should not have an easy man. I want you to have a man whom you want. A man who makes you laugh and makes you angry. A man who chases you because he is not afraid of the storm inside you. Because he loves that part of you.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. My heart felt like it was about to crack wide open.

  “I can’t do this, Mama,” I whispered.

  “You can do anything, Kseniya.” She pressed her forehead to mine. “Anything. You are so strong. So smart. But you have such a wall around you. You are so afraid to be happy.”

  Was I? Or was it that I didn’t think I deserved to be happy?

  In either case, it didn’t matter where Archer was concerned. I tried to ignore the fresh stab of regret at the reminder that this was temporary. That he was my storm, fierce and exhilarating, but soon to end.

  “I love you.” I eased away from my mother and pressed my lips to her soft cheek. “I’ll call you along the way.”

  We exchanged a hug before I reluctantly detached myself from her and walked to where Archer was waiting.

  “Travel safely,” my mother called as we got into the van. “And be happy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  KELSEY

  WE STARTED SOUTHWEST THROUGH ILLINOIS TOWARD Iowa. Archer was a good travel companion. He asked about the details of the Spiral Project, how I’d forecast the potential storm, what my grad students were working on. I asked about his travels, his work on the Butterfly House, the other jobs he’d had. We fell into comfortable silences and commented on passing scenery or towns.

  He was easy to be with. Even with our intense, crackling heat and my own tension about the physical part of our relationship, I liked just being with him.

  A couple of hours in, I reached into the cooler on the floor of the backseat and dug around for a plastic bottle. I twisted the lid off and handed it to Archer.

  “Chocolate milk, you fourth grader,” I said.

  “You remembered.” He flashed me a smile. “I’m touched.”

  “Yeah, well…” I reached back and grabbed another bottle. I opened it and took a swig. The chocolate milk slid rich and creamy down my throat. “You might be on to something here.”

  As the night fell, fewer cars populated the roads. We took a break around midnight, stopping at an all-night diner. We mapped out the remaining route as we ate. I gave Archer a rudimentary course on storm chasing and etiquette in the likely event that we ran into other chasers along the way.

  After paying the bill, we stepped outside with take-out cups of coffee. Along with an increasing, cold wind, rain had started to fall, even though we were nowhere near our destination yet.

  “Hold on.” Archer shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over my shoulders as we hurried to the van.

  Once inside, I slipped my arms into the jacket sleeves, giving in to the urge to nestle into the enveloping warmth of leather and Archer. The lining was soft and worn, his clean male scent clinging to the fabric.

  I checked the radar on my phone and told Archer the rain would pass in about fifteen minutes.

  “Come on.” I gestured for him to follow me into the back of the van, where the seats were stored into the floor.

  “Really?” Archer shrugged. “Okay. I usually like to take my time, but I can get the job done in fifteen minutes, if that’s what you want.”

  I threw him a look. “I meant that you should take a short nap before we get going again. It’s past midnight and we have at least another six or seven hours to go. Not safe for you to drive if you’re too tired. Unless you want me to drive.”

  “Silence, woman.”

  I reached out to bonk him on the head. He grabbed my wrist and planted a warm kiss on my palm. We clambered into the back of the van and settled down on a couple of sleeping bags. Rain splashed across the windows.

  “So why did you agree to storm chase?” Archer asked.

  “I never could resist a triple-dog dare.” I nudged his hip with mine. “And I wanted to do it with you.”

  He watched me, curious. “And why are you with me?”

  The question sounded like he was referring to more than just storm chasing. I looked at the sky, the clusters of clouds, the spilling rain.

  “That’s a multicell storm,” I said, gesturing to the windows. “It’s formed by bunch of different cells that contain an updraft and downdraft. It’s the most common type of thunderstorm.”

  I took a swallow of coffee. “The rarest is called the supercell thunderstorm. It creates the most destructive tornados, winds, and hail. It’s usually isolated from other thunderstorms, but it’s the most powerful type of storm. The most beautiful and incredible, too.”

  I leaned forward, aware of Archer’s gaze. The rain came harder, pattering onto the roof like little pebbles. His leather jacket wrapped around me like an embrace.

  “I used to chase supercell storms,” I said. “Used to
wait for them, watch for them. When I was in college, I hooked up with a group of storm chasers and we’d take off at a moment’s notice when we saw something forming. Always hoped we’d catch a tornado or get caught in the middle of severe weather. Sometimes we did. I loved the risk, the excitement, the unknown. There was something so adventurous about chasing something completely unpredictable. Something you couldn’t control.”

  “Why did you give it up?”

  I shrugged. “I grew up. I’d been a risk-taker as a kid, but after my father died I learned some tough lessons about being an adult.”

  “What happened?”

  “He died of a heart attack when I was in my junior year,” I said, my chest constricting. “After he died, I hit the self-destruct button hard. I drank too much, slept around, partied a lot. Quit school. Ended up in a couple of bad relationships.”

  I felt his tension and held up my hand to stop him from saying anything. I stared past him out the window.

  “Dean knew I was crashing hard, but I wouldn’t listen to him when he tried to help me. So finally he called my mother and told her I was in bad shape. She came to bring me back home so I could get myself together. When we returned to Chicago, I found out my father had left her in debt. The house they’d worked so hard to buy had been foreclosed, and she’d been forced to move. She hadn’t told me so I wouldn’t be upset.

  “Despite everything, my mother was undeterred. She was working three jobs. She’d rented an apartment. She was saving up money to go into business with Maria. She was dealing with her fucked-up daughter. Not once did she give up. Hell, not once did she even complain. She just buckled down and got to work. That woman has a will of iron. And I didn’t even know it until then.”

  “That’s why you straightened up,” Archer said.

  “Damn right. I went back to school. Finished undergrad work with honors and got into several grad programs. I’ve been a success story ever since.”

  “And this?” Archer reached out to tug at the blue streak cutting through my hair. “A souvenir of your wild past?”

  My throat constricted. He had souvenirs, too. Reminders. Scars.

  “Something like that,” I admitted.

  Once again, I was breaking my own rules. No personal stuff, I’d told him. And yet I’d taken him to meet my mother and was telling him all my secrets.

  “Okay, well.” Unnerved suddenly, I shifted around, pretending to arrange the sleeping bag. “That was weird. Subject change, please.”

  He didn’t respond. When I turned to look at him, he closed the distance between us and pressed his lips to mine in a warm, lovely kiss. My breath caught in my chest. Our lips sealed together, moving with ease and growing heat.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Archer lifted his head. He put his hand against my cheek. “Why are you with me?”

  I stared at him, into his midnight eyes with their starlike points of light.

  “You’re the first real risk I’ve taken in a very long time,” I whispered.

  A smile tugged at his mouth. He shifted closer, but instead of kissing me again, he pulled me down so we were both lying on our backs. He tugged me against his side.

  I wanted to stay there forever. Enveloped in his leather jacket with his body heat warming me, and the rain falling, I was suddenly and intensely glad that I’d given over to him, even for a short time. It was a thunderstorm with him, brief but intense. One I knew I would never forget.

  We got back on the road after we’d slept a couple of hours and the rain had stopped. As we headed southwest through Illinois and Missouri, we played road-trip games, drank chocolate milk, and ate tea cookies.

  I offered to drive again, but Archer had his hands glued to the wheel and acted like my offer was a personal insult. By navigating through country roads, we missed the interstate traffic as we approached the Kansas border.

  “There’s a line of storms forming to the southwest,” I told Archer, after checking the radar. “Take County Road 7. If we need to divert north, we can take the back roads.”

  I scrambled into the back to get the camera equipment ready. Storm chasers always traveled in packs or at least pairs so that one person could drive while the other tracked the storm. I slipped my Nikon around my neck and returned to the front seat with my laptop.

  “Your grad students do this a lot?” Archer asked, leaning forward to look at the darkening clouds.

  “As often as they can, though tornado season is in the spring and summer.”

  “And what do you do if you see a tornado?”

  “Most of the time the objective is to get the best video possible,” I said. “Video can be a huge help in confirming model results. Of course, if we had a Doppler on Wheels or other high-tech equipment, we could do much more.”

  I checked the radar on my laptop again. “It’s shifting north. You can take 56 toward Topeka, but don’t get on the interstate. We need to avoid the traffic.”

  An ocean of fields stretched out on either side of the road as we drove. My stomach knotted up with both anxiety and excitement.

  I got out the camcorder and filmed the towering cloud that stretched toward the stratosphere. The rain started coming down harder, pushed by the increasing wind. We passed a few cars and vans parked on the side of the road.

  I looked at the sky. My instinct told me the wind shear and moisture would move farther north, and that we could catch the storm if we were patient.

  I didn’t usually like being patient, but it had been so long since I’d even tried to chase a storm that I decided to play it safe. Archer navigated the van north. We stopped once for gas.

  As Archer filled the tank, I grabbed the video camera and went into the convenience store. I bought a few granola bars and some beef jerky to restock our supplies and chatted briefly with the clerk about the storm chasers who had come through already.

  On my way back to the van, I stopped at the edge of a field that stretched alongside the station. The clouds were tilting downshear at an angle that seemed favorable for supercell formation.

  I pulled out my camera and filmed the sky. My heart swelled in response to the sheer beauty of the sky and clouds, the mysteries they contained, and the certain fact that no matter how hard I tried, part of them would always remain unpredictable.

  “Ready, storm girl?” Archer called.

  I paused the camera and returned to the van, pushing my windblown hair out of my face. Archer reached out to take the camera from me. I pulled a rod of beef jerky out of my pocket and unwrapped it.

  “I’m going to map out a different route to keep us away from the interstate,” I said.

  “What were you filming?” he asked.

  I gestured to the clouds and took a bite of jerky. “Those are likely to become supercells. The ratio of instability to shear is perfect.”

  “Tell me more.”

  I glanced up, realizing Archer had the camera trained on me. I frowned.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Filming you. Tell me about the supercell.”

  Though I wasn’t all that nuts about being on camera, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to lay out the basics since I’d have to review the video later anyway.

  “We’re looking at a storm formed from a specific set of weather conditions,” I said into the camera. “If the wind changes too rapidly with height, then the storm will be ripped apart. If the instability is too strong, then the storm will destroy itself with its own downdraft. But when the two are just right, the intensifying rotation creates a self-sustaining storm that lasts much longer than your garden-variety thunderstorm.”

  I gestured to the sky behind me. “Behold the supercell.”

  Archer lowered the camera, his gaze on me. “You’re great on film.”

  I shook my head. “Flattery will get you… well, it will almost certainly get you laid later on, but right now we have a storm to follow.”

  He grinned and climbed into the driver’s seat. I adjusted the GPS as we started out
of the gas station.

  “We’re going to divert south a short way,” I said. “I don’t think the low level jet is going to be optimal, but we need to stay on the tip of the moisture tongue.”

  “Sounds promising. I’d like you on the tip of my moisture tongue.”

  I poked him in the arm. “The moisture tongue is a region of dewpoints and instability. It’s where storms often form, but the strongest are at the tip of it. Take E550 south.”

  He followed orders. I liked that he was willing to cede power to me out here. He clearly recognized that I knew what I was doing, and even with all his dominance and control, he could let me take the lead in my own sphere.

  We drove for another hour. I watched the sky. Lightning split through the clouds, followed by the rumble of thunder. I looked at the radar again and called Colton, who gave me details from the Rapid Refresh model.

  “One more hour,” I told Archer. “It’s heading in this direction. Let’s stop and get something to eat. If it’s not here by nightfall, we’ll be done for the day.”

  He pulled into a diner, where several trucks and vans were parked in the lot. We went inside, the noise of male voices filling the interior.

  I scanned the crowd, picking out at least four tables of storm chasers. If I hadn’t caught snippets of conversation about wind shear and instability, I’d have known them from their attire of jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps, and the laptops and tablets sitting between their plates of steak and eggs.

  “Kelsey?” A male voice, sounding surprised, made me turn. A beefy, bearded guy approached, looking me up and down. “I’ll be damned.”

  I smiled. “You were damned a long time ago, Henry.”

  “True enough.” A grin split through his beard as we exchanged a hug. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were stuck in a classroom somewhere.”

  “I usually am,” I admitted. “But I thought I’d come out for a while. Henry, this is my friend Archer. Archer, Henry and I were in grad school together.”

  They exchanged greetings, and Henry invited us to join his group for dinner. As we followed him to a crowded table, the guys shuffled around to make room for two more chairs. Henry introduced us to the meteorologists, grad students, lab workers, drivers, and photographers who’d all gone out together in a fleet.