Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1)

by Sharla Lovelace

  Zach smiled.

  It was coming. The biggest, darkest, thickest, loudest tornado Zach had ever seen. Daring him the way he always dared its cousins. Zach knew he was asleep. It was as real as standing outside himself and telling himself to get the hell up, but as usual he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even pull in a deep breath; it was like the monster was sucking all the pressure from the air and shoving it into his chest.

  Debris flew all around him, sticks and limbs and shingles and pieces of buildings bounced off him without apparent consequence, but the air—the air was almost too much to bear. His heart raced, struggling for oxygen, struggling to force his limbs to move—to get him out of harm’s way. But all he could do was stand there, paralyzed, watching it swallow up the world in front of him until—Maddi screamed his name.

  Zach sat up with a jolt, sucking in air like it was a golden commodity. Covered in sweat, chest heaving, he kicked angrily at the footrest of the recliner and sank back down.

  “Shit,” he muttered, wiping at his face and raking his fingers through soaked hair.

  The radio squawked with chatter to his right, and he grabbed his now room-temperature water bottle, sucking down what was left.

  “Never gets old,” he said in a whisper, closing his eyes against the pounding headache and the memory of the dream. “Never gets fucking old.” He’d had that same dream for so many years, he should be able to fast-forward and rewind at this point.

  Zach never quite understood it, although his mother always had her crazy theories. She had crazy theories about a lot of things, but dreams were kind of her forte. She’d say it was all the fear he never felt when out in the field, manifested into a dream. Maybe so, but adding in Maddi was too much. Her face had been twisted in fear, her dress ripped, arms and legs bleeding—her scream piercing his heart. Very much like it would have been seven years earlier, had he been there when the tornado hit their apartment. But he wasn’t. He’d gotten cut off and couldn’t get back, and Maddi had been buried in the rubble, safe under two massive bookshelves that he had built for her. They had miraculously fallen to form a protective A-frame over her, even as the floor caved in.

  Zach’s gaze went automatically to the big walnut bookshelves across the room, the ones with the scratches and gouges along the top that he refused to sand out and repair. One had a corner completely broken off. They were reminders. He reached for the nail he wore around his neck, under his clothes, every day. That was, too.

  The doorbell ringing jarred his not-quite-recovered brain, and his crawl out of the recliner nearly landed him on the floor.

  “Jesus,” he grumbled as he opened the door without looking. He didn’t need to. Only a handful of people came out to his house, and if for once it was a band of serial killers, they’d end his headache for him.

  “No, just Simon,” his brother said, walking past him into the room. “But I appreciate the upgrade.”

  Zach squinted against the light and shut the door, turning to check the clock above the sofa he rarely used.

  “It’s six in the morning,” he said.

  “Six fourteen to be exact,” Simon said. His sleeves were rolled up, his tie was loose, and he wasn’t quite pulling off the dapper image he had going the night before, but even with all that, he was still perky.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Zach asked.

  Simon turned around. “With me? You look like shit, little brother.”

  “Thanks,” Zach mumbled, pushing against his skull with one hand as he made his way to the kitchen to make himself some eggs. Eggs cured everything. But once again, a simple bag of powdered donuts would probably cure it just as well without the effort.

  “Too much of a good thing last night?”

  Zach shook his head minutely. “Can’t even give you a good story,” he said. “Just didn’t sleep—until I did. And then it sucked.”

  “Looks like you took a shower with your clothes on,” Simon said, giving him a once-over.

  Zach glanced down at his soaked clothes. “Was there a reason for all this joy, or you just had nothing better to do?”

  Simon shrugged. “Just got off work. Thought I’d come have coffee with my brother—”

  “Wrong brother,” Zach said. “You know I don’t do coffee.”

  “Okay,” Simon conceded, landing on a barstool. “Besides that being the reason you’re so messed up—let’s talk about this show you want to do.”

  Zach leaned against the kitchen counter and locked eyes with his older brother. Simon was different than Eli. Where Elijah was commanding, direct, and instant everything, Simon was more introspective. He’d brew on something for a while, do the research, weigh the pros and cons before making a decision. Evidently he’d been brewing all night.

  “Shoot,” Zach said.

  “They have their own vehicle, or would they be in the car with us?”

  “Both,” Zach said. “They’d have to have some in-car footage, and outside, so they’d likely have one person in the lead car.”

  “That’ll jack us up, you know that,” Simon said, narrowing his eyes. “We’re a machine when we get in the zone, Zach, we can’t afford to have someone babbling in the background.”

  Zach nodded. “Noted. No babbling. We’ll tell them to shut up and be still or they get the duct tape.”

  Simon smirked. “And if they say they’re running things?”

  “Then it’s over,” Zach said, pushing off the counter. “Simon, I’m not selling us out to do this. I’m trying to do something for us. I’m serious when I say I won’t sacrifice quality or safety to do some show if it’s not working out.”

  Simon nodded slowly, as if mulling that over. “And this ride-along? What does that entail?”

  “A producer named Nicole and one cameraman.”

  Humor passed through Simon’s eyes. “Nicole, huh?”

  Zach rubbed at his face. “If I said she was butt-ugly and covered in hairy moles, would you still ask that?”

  “Is she?”

  Zach shook his head and reached for a skillet. “I have no idea, I haven’t seen her yet, but everyone else in that office is hot, so what the hell.”

  Maddi’s face swam before his eyes. God, he needed to get her out of his head.

  Simon laughed. “What are you doing today?”

  Zach shrugged. “Staining Mom’s bench. Might do some fishing later.”

  “Must be rough to be you, man.”

  “Yeah, it’s all candy,” Zach said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He held up the carton of eggs. “Want some?”

  “Fried?”

  Zach gave him a look. “No, Little Lord Fauntleroy, it’s a scrambled kind of day.”

  Simon shrugged. “Nah, too healthy for me. I’ll grab a donut and coffee on the way home.”

  “You kill me,” Zach muttered. “Eat like a linebacker, wouldn’t know how to do a sit-up, and yet—”

  “And yet I couldn’t bulk up like you and Eli and Levi if I spent the rest of my life trying,” Simon finished, rising from his stool. He ran a hand through hair that hadn’t really moved since the evening before. “What can I say? You get to look like you, I get to eat like me.”

  “Touché,” Zach said, saluting him with a spatula.

  “By the way,” Simon said, heading for the door. “There’s some nasty-looking crap out there with potential. Projected to blow up around Montague County day after tomorrow. See if your TV people want to hang with that.”

  Zach turned in mid–egg crack. “So you’re on board?”

  “So far,” he said with a crooked grin. “Or maybe I just want to see this Nicole person.”

  “What about that whole conflict thing with your station?”

  Simon shrugged. “Manager told me that as long as I’m not mentioned as working for Channel Four, it’s okay. Let’s just play t
his first one by ear.”

  Zach raised an eyebrow. “What have you been taking?”

  Simon did nothing by ear. He planned his grocery shopping by the weekly sales flyer and had chore days on a whiteboard. He grinned again. “Living on the wild side, little brother.” He paused. “By the way, don’t let Eli get under your skin.”

  Zach looked Simon’s way and then back at the bowl he was opening eggs into. “About what?”

  “About any of it,” Simon said, leaning on the door. “The show, the money, what you do—sometimes I think he looks for things to climb on you about because you’re the closest target.”

  Zach frowned as he scrambled. “Closest to what?”

  “To Dad.”

  Maddi held her head up as she got off the elevator, trying to feel better about her appearance than she actually looked. Yesterday, she’d dragged out that white dress she only wore on special occasions. Telling herself it wasn’t just in case she crossed paths with Zach. And then loathed herself for stooping to something so pathetically wily and insecure.

  Today she was back in her standard black skirt and silk blouse that she had multiple colors of, courtesy of the discount store by her house. With dark circles under her eyes and a headache from hell, courtesy of the long night on her porch.

  It was okay until she looked straight into the smiling face of Blakely. The girl had her hair up today in some elaborate twist Maddi would never be able to pull off, with strategic curls falling down in the right places. A royal-blue dress that looked like she was sewn into it carved out her cleavage perfectly.

  “Good morning, Miss Hayes,” Blakely sang out.

  Maddi smiled in response, muttering expletives under her breath. She shook her head. “God, let it go, Maddi.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Maddi turned to her left as Nicole came out of her office.

  “Nothing,” Maddi said. “Just going through my to-do list.”

  “You’re a better woman than me,” Nicole said, falling into stride next to her. “I can’t think about anything until the second cup of coffee.”

  Maddi chuckled and stopped at her office, tossing her bag into a chair. “It’s delirium,” she said. “And I’ve already had three cups.”

  “Damn, I should be pulling you off the ceiling,” Nicole said, one hand propped on her hip, her red hair pulled up in a chic knot.

  Maddi shook her head. “I didn’t sleep at all last night, so it’s actually just keeping me conscious.”

  Nicole’s right eyebrow lifted. “Problems?”

  Yes. And yesterday he was sitting two feet from her. “No,” Maddi said. “Just—one of those nights.”

  Nicole was all right. She could be kind of a girlfriend when she wanted to be, but she was also Maddi’s boss. And moody. And tended to pull that rank-and-snarl when pushed into a corner, so Maddi was always careful just how much to share with her. She kept it light, fed Nicole just enough personal information to keep things real, and most certainly didn’t tell her about Zach.

  When Nicole first came to her office, excited about a news clip she’d seen and wound up over a brewing idea, Maddi had been excited, too. They had been brainstorming for a year over something new to bring to the Infinity table. Something theirs. Working on the already-established shows was fine, but that was like pushing a cart that’s already being pulled. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing they couldn’t do with their eyes closed.

  Storm chasers! Nicole had said, nearly bouncing with adrenaline. And Maddi had felt her spine meld into the chair.

  It’s been done, Maddi had countered.

  Not with a family of them, Nicole had gushed, and then showed her the footage.

  Watching Zach speak to the camera had lit her up from the inside out and took her breath right out of her chest. It was surreal. And terrifying. And a subject she never thought she’d deal with again. When Nicole asked her what she thought, her gut reaction was to bail. To trash it. To douse that fire before it started. It would have made things clean and out of her life again if she could have been convincing enough.

  But damn it, it was a good idea. The family angle, the emotional side, the history they had—her professional side knew it was shiny and full of potential, and was already ticking off the boxes of what to do and how to do it. How to make this project golden. To hell with who it was. With the paralyzing fear the subject matter struck in her bones. It could be the break they had been waiting for.

  “I’ll be good after one more cup,” Maddi said with a grin.

  “Well, get it down, then,” Nicole said, laughing. “We have work to do. Hey, Mr. Woodbriar told me himself that you did well in the proposal meeting yesterday.”

  Maddi’s eyes widened and she chuckled. “Okay.”

  “What?” Nicole said, coming inside farther.

  “I don’t know what they can say I did,” Maddi said, digging her coffee cup out from under two file folders. “It was more Woodbriar and Brown than anything, and—”

  Maddi stopped, unsure of the propriety of continuing.

  “And what?” Nicole prompted.

  Maddi shook her head. “Nothing. It was my first time in on a meeting with a new client, I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

  “Why?” Nicole said. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, it was just so—attacking.”

  Nicole flinched. “Attacking?”

  “Yeah, like—I thought we were proposing the project to the client—”

  “We didn’t?” she asked.

  “We did, but not till the end,” Maddi said. “The whole first half was basically Woodbriar shooting at him with all the research he’d done on the family, and pointing out all their weaknesses.”

  Nicole’s mouth opened, then closed. “Well—he does do all that behind the scenes. I mean his people do, I don’t know that he does anything.” She sat on Maddi’s desk. “With fiction, it’s different. The actors are playing a part—if they have skeletons, it’s not so much a part of what’s on-screen. But reality shows are a different animal. They do run extensive background checks to see what’s going to be broadcast out to millions of people.”

  Maddi nodded. “But?”

  Nicole licked her lips. “But—it’s not normally brought up in the client meeting. That’s usually all rainbows and promises.”

  Maddi snatched her cup and walked out with Nicole. “Definitely no rainbows,” she said. “They totally put him on the defensive. Then wooed him back.”

  “What the hell?” Nicole said under her breath. “Did you get a sense of any of it?”

  Maddi paused. Giving that tidbit would be showing her hand. But how long before that was shown anyway?

  “I have the feeling it was about Za—Mr. Chase’s grandmother,” Maddi said. “Evidently she has connections.”

  Nicole looked at her. “Annabelle Chase. Yes, I’ve heard of her, and she funds their business, but why is that an issue?”

  “I don’t know,” Maddi said. “I’m just saying, Woodbriar swung it like a bat.”

  “Ladies,” came a voice to their left as they entered the break room. A voice attached to what Maddi had come to associate with a weasel in an expensive suit.

  “Brown,” Nicole said, her voice going cool.

  “Good morning,” Maddi said, going straight for the coffeepot.

  “Good job yesterday, Madison,” Brown said as Maddi turned. “Although it wasn’t your place to be there.”

  Nicole sighed. “Brown, I told you, I had an emergency come up with Crash. Maddi was fully on board with The Chase. She’s working on this project with me.”

  “Madison is an assistant,” he said. “It’s me that should be fully up to speed and briefed for client meetings if you can’t find the time. I had to wing it in there in front of Woodbriar.”

  “Yes, I heard a
bout that,” Nicole said. “What was with the firing squad?”

  Damn it, Nicole, Maddi thought. She just threw her under the bus.

  Brown rubbed at his face and grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the stack, darting a glance at Maddi that wasn’t entirely pleasant.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I wasn’t up to speed on that angle, either.” Filling his cup with hot-and-black, he turned back. “And for God sakes, if you want her taken seriously in your absence, call her Madison. Maddi sounds like some hayseed hick,” he tossed over his shoulder on his way out.

  Maddi’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t even look at Nicole, who in all fairness was frozen in place and not looking at her either.

  “I’m standing right here,” Maddi whispered to the void he’d left behind.

  Chapter Five

  The pungent aromas of wood, wet earth, and old filled Zach’s nose as he entered the little workshop behind his house. He loved it in there. It once belonged—for lack of a better word—to his dad and Harlan Boudreau, although in reality it hadn’t actually belonged to either one of them. It was an abandoned shack they’d found out in the middle of the woods built over the creek like a bridge. They adopted it and fixed it up. Tinkered and made things in there when they weren’t off chasing psycho raindrops.

  Harlan grew up and bought the land on one side of it, Josiah bought the other side, and Gran bought the adjacent plot that Josiah actually built a home on. She didn’t think being that far into the woods was suitable for him and his family, and clearly made enough of a stink about it that he went along. Harlan eventually added on to his little patch of earth as well, buying up what most people thought was useless soil and splitting it up between his sons. Jonah put goats and chickens on his and made a decent living for himself. Zach was never a big fan of Jonah, especially where his sister was concerned, but he had to concede that Jonah was a hard worker. Jack, on the other hand, just used up oxygen. He did the bare necessities to get by and usually lived off whatever woman he was seeing at the time. Harlan didn’t talk about him much, and Zach couldn’t blame him.