Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1)

by Sharla Lovelace

  What was worse were the one-on-one moments. Trying to keep things neutral when nothing felt neutral. When looks didn’t feel businessy. When she touched him—

  Fuck.

  The second day had been better, as she started with him and recruited another person to help her knock it all out faster. She’d barely looked at him as she and the other guy went through the motions. But that first wire-up—she’d been shaking like crazy and her scent had wrapped around him like she did—and God all he could think about was crushing her to him and—doing things he had no business thinking about doing.

  Everything had sounded like a fantastic idea when it was on the phone and full of promise. None of it seemed like a good idea now.

  Hannah was laughing in the kitchen with Miss Lou; Maddi could hear them as she entered. And the fact that Hannah stopped and averted her eyes when she walked in just lit her up.

  “Hey, Maddi,” Miss Lou said, chuckling. “We were just talking about Eli’s expression when they turned that light on and told him to ad-lib a little.” She snorted again, and Hannah’s mouth twitched a little. “He looked like someone threw up in his face.”

  Maddi laughed in spite of Hannah’s cold reception. Jesus, really? She has to be such a jerk?

  “Yeah, Eli was a little out of his element,” Maddi said. “It’s okay, he’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Simon’s a natural,” Miss Lou said. “But that’s to be expected. You, my sweet girl,” she said, pointing at Hannah, “were a smart-ass.”

  “Yeah, that’s to be expected, too,” Hannah said with a grin. Darting a glance in Maddi’s direction, she pushed off the countertop she was leaning against. “I have a phone call to make, so—” She let the thought ride as she sauntered past Maddi.

  Maddi felt the chill, and yet it did nothing to cool her blood.

  “Excuse me,” she said softly to Miss Lou, turning to follow Hannah, catching up with her at the back patio door.

  Hannah turned, surprised, then something else washed over her. Annoyance, probably.

  “What?”

  “That call can wait,” Maddi said. “If there really is one.”

  Hannah drew her eyebrows together. “What’s your problem?”

  “What’s yours?” Maddi retorted.

  She was dimly aware of the hush that had come over the room. The droning of chatter that seemed always to continue had gone mute, and she felt the weight of multiple eyes on her skin. One pair felt particularly heavy.

  Hannah’s gaze drifted past her to the others, and then landed back on her with a renewed strength.

  “We’ve already had this conversation,” she said, turning to reach for the doorknob.

  “No, I don’t think we have,” Maddi said, anger and the seething of the last couple of days overtaking the nerves she felt dancing under the surface. “You did. You didn’t want to hear what I had to say.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “There wasn’t anything to say.”

  “Isn’t there?” Maddi said. Something clicked inside her. Something weird and weary and ready to be hung before the masses. She wasn’t one for the spotlight, but she was tired of dancing around it. She turned in a circle, holding out her hands, hoping as she saw all their questioning looks that she wasn’t sinking herself down the crazy hole. “Let’s address the giant mammoth in the room and get it done once and for all.”

  “Maddi,” Zach said.

  She turned at his voice, to where he sat on the back of the couch, risking his mother’s wrath. Looking at her with something that appeared to say You don’t have to go there.

  Yes, I do.

  Maddi swallowed hard and looked away. She couldn’t look at Zach and say any of it. She’d never make it through.

  “I left this place once,” Maddi said, her voice sounding odd and different to her ears. “I left it all behind me, because I couldn’t deal with what you do anymore.” Deep breath. Release. “I was swallowed up by my own safe haven, and thought I was going to die. Alone. And—” Shit. “And that changed me.”

  Maddi was talking to a random spot on the floor. A spot in the wood that was slightly darker than that around it, soothing her somehow, giving her strength. But it was time to face some faces. And the first one she saw as she raised her eyes was Miss Lou. Her eyes filled with tears as the older woman gave her a warm smile.

  “And I’m sorry about that,” Maddi continued in a wobbly tone, letting Miss Lou be her new focal point. “I’m sorry I changed. I’m sorry I ran. I panicked and let my fear get to me and I just bolted. I had a—a family here—and even though I know I had to leave, I should have done it differently. I should have said good-bye,” she said, the words fading to whispers as her tears choked her. She turned to Hannah, who still stood with one hand on the doorknob but her eyes were wet.

  “You were my friend, and I—”

  “You broke up with Zach,” Hannah said, turning the subject so hard that Maddi felt the yank. “On your wedding day. What we do wasn’t eating you up before then. You were marrying him with full knowledge of it.”

  Maddi blinked and inhaled slowly. “I know.”

  “So something horrible happened, yes,” Hannah said. “We were all mortified. We were so thankful you were okay. We understood how scared you were and how freaked out you were, and yeah, that the wedding would obviously be rescheduled, but then—”

  “Hannah, don’t,” Zach said, his voice tight.

  Maddi shut her eyes against the pain in his tone. She’d started something she should have never stirred up.

  “No, Zach, it needs to be said,” Hannah said. “How much did she really love you if something like that canceled everything? She had her wedding dress on, Zach. One second, she’s getting married, and the next she’s not?”

  “You have no idea how much I loved him,” Maddi spat, flinging open her eyes with all the rage in her body. Taking a step closer, she let everything go. “You run around the outskirts of the devil taking pictures of it and think that means you’ve seen it. I can promise you, you haven’t even come close. Let it try to kill you,” Maddi said, letting her words hit home, “and see what kind of clearheaded choices you make.”

  Hannah’s eyes sparked, and that only fueled Maddi more.

  “And how dare you presume to know how I felt. I have never loved anyone like that before or since, and probably never will again. Zach was my everything.” Maddi leaned into Hannah’s face, feeling all her blood rush to the surface of her skin. “And my groom left me on our wedding day to go play Russian roulette with a fucking tornado. Hell, so did you. My maid of honor. My best friend,” she said, acid dripping from her tone and tears streaking her cheeks. “Because that would always come first with every one of you, but especially Zach. How much could he love me, to do that?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The stars had always soothed Zach. Like an antidote to the buzz of a storm, a clear night sky full of stars could calm him like a sedative. Which is why he only made it to the edge of the porch after a dinner he couldn’t eat, instead of walking home. Suddenly it was just too exhausting, and the sky seemed to be telling him to take a load off and shut down his brain.

  I have never loved anyone like that before or since, and probably never will again. Zach was my everything.

  Hearing those words from Maddi, seeing her cry, knowing she felt he didn’t love her enough to—

  It had knocked the air clean out of him. He’d wanted to jump right in the mix between her and Hannah and put his own two cents in. Not love her enough. Dear God.

  He had the nightmares that proved otherwise. Sometimes he wondered if the funnel he saw at night was the one he had yet to meet or the one she saw. Regardless, this was becoming a cluster fuck.

  Hannah could keep making her beef about him, but it wasn’t. It was about the best friend who left her high and dry. Hannah had never made fr
iends easily; she just wasn’t wired that way. In college, she met Quinn, but in her younger years, when other girls were hanging in packs and shopping and talking about clothes and makeup, Hannah was always behind a camera and talking about lighting or storms or the perfect still shot. Not hot topics with her peers.

  Maddi was kind of quiet herself, at least until she got to know someone, and although a year older, she and Hannah had bonded like sisters. When Zach proposed to Maddi out on that bench in the rain, possibly the one person as happy as they were was Hannah. She was over the moon that her best friend would be in the family forever. And when Maddi left—well, Maddi talked about how the tornado changed her. Maddi’s leaving changed Hannah.

  It changed everyone. It twisted Hannah around and made her more distrustful of people. His mom went into a quiet mourning. Eli’s friendship with Monroe was dicey for a while. Everyone’s footing was thrown off kilter.

  Especially his.

  “Honey, you okay?” His mom’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

  Zach glanced behind him. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “I thought you went home a half hour ago,” she said, her bare footsteps creaking on the wood porch as she got closer.

  “I did,” Zach said, looking skyward. “Then I didn’t.”

  His mom’s hands on his shoulders squeezed, and then she moved to lower herself onto the spot next to him as he held her hand and helped her sit.

  His mom leaned sideways, nudging him with her shoulder. “What’s bugging you?”

  He did a mini-shrug. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she asked. “And that little show today?”

  The show that had ended with Hannah storming out, Maddi going to “her room,” and the crew deciding it was best to go out to eat? That show had kicked him in the nuts.

  “Was just Maddi and Hannah—”

  “Honey, if you think that was about Maddi and Hannah, my boy, you are no smarter than that moron dog we used to have that chased lights on the ground till he turned his nose into raw meat.”

  “Wow, thanks, Mom,” Zach said. “Great pep talk.”

  “You know exactly what I’m saying,” she said, punching him in the arm. “Don’t pretend you don’t. She was trying to tell you something in there. In her own way.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Zach said. “That I didn’t love her because I left before the wedding to go on a run.”

  “That she was alone, Zach,” she said.

  Zach turned to her, frowning. “Pretty clear on that, too.”

  “No, you’re not,” his mom said, rubbing her forehead. “Men—I swear. They think so literally.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “She felt alone, Zach. Think about it.” His mom leaned forward on her knees. “A whole family of people who live and breathe for bad weather. It’s all y’all talk about. All you care about. That had to be niggling at her, but y’all were so young and believed in everything. She probably kept pushing that doubt aside because she loved you, knowing in her heart that you’d always be there when it counted.”

  Zach felt the burn in his gut. The one he felt the day she left.

  “The one day that should have been all about you and Maddi—the one day she asked for—”

  “I had to cram a chase into,” Zach finished.

  His mom took his hand in hers. “I love you, baby. I love you all in spite of the crazy people you are, but I’m your mom. I have to.”

  Zach chuckled and gritted his teeth against the guilt buried just under the surface. It had been a long time since he’d felt it.

  “I know.”

  “She loved you too, but she had her limits. We all do,” she said. “She saw me lose my husband to this, Zach. I’ve never heard her say the words within my hearing, but—no woman can watch that happen and not think pretty damn hard on it. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to end up like me.”

  Silence ticked between them, and Zach recalled the days, weeks, and months after his dad died. He could remember the absolute wretched terror he felt when he thought Maddi might be dead, and couldn’t comprehend actually having to live through that.

  “She still loves you, you know,” she said then, pulling him from his thoughts.

  “What?”

  His mom nodded. “She does.” Holding up a hand, she continued. “No, she hasn’t told me those words, but my God, the two of you are so painfully transparent I don’t even need my glasses to see it.”

  Zach shook his head. “Mom, it’s not like that. I mean, yeah, there’s chemistry, but that’s just history. She’s here to do a job.”

  “And I’m a six-foot-tall supermodel,” she said, pushing on his knee to get up. “Get with reality, baby. She didn’t leave you because she fell out of love with you, Zach. She left because she couldn’t play second fiddle to the rain. You’ll chase a funnel cloud to the moon and back, baby, but you didn’t even chase her to Dallas.”

  Zach felt sick as those words landed in the pit of his stomach.

  Headlights pulled into the long driveway and circled around. Hannah’s car.

  “What’s she back for?” he asked, swallowing hard to lose the taste.

  “I hope it’s not round two,” his mom said. “I haven’t seen Maddi since she took her dinner to her room and locked the door.”

  Hannah crunched up the gravel, decked out to go out somewhere, wearing all black with little black boots and silver jewelry. Very rarely did he see his sister dress up to go out. Or maybe she did, just not within their little circle of knowledge.

  “Hot date?” Zach asked.

  “Would I be coming here?” she asked.

  Zach held up his hands. “I’m all out.”

  “Maddi and I are going out for a beer,” she said. Zach laughed, but she just turned to stare him down. “I’m serious.”

  “Does she know that?” their mom said.

  “Not yet,” Hannah said, heading up the porch. “I’m about to tell her.”

  “Oh, hell,” Zach muttered. “She won’t leave it alone.”

  “Let ’em be,” his mom said. “They’ll work it out, or Hannah will leave in a huff. Either way, it’s not your worry.”

  Not his worry. That was getting harder and harder to buy into.

  The knock on the guest room door and Cracker’s bark in response jolted Maddi out of the book she’d chosen to dive into. Any degree of escape from the horror of earlier was welcomed. Even in a horrible mystery novel she’d already read. Maddi had already endured reciting a detailed play-by-play of the day for Nicole—minus the big showdown. Nicole was melodramatic enough without feeding that fire. Besides, Maddi figured, it wasn’t relevant to the show. Directly.

  God, if she were someone else watching, she’d be saying it was totally relevant and that viewers would eat that shit up. She’d be about putting it on-screen. Thank God she wasn’t someone else.

  Cracker had warmed up to her the day before and had come scratching on her door for love. He probably didn’t remember her, but she’d melted to see the sweet old dog she’d last seen as a young and vibrant little hell-raiser. Now he just wanted to curl up in bed with Maddi and lick her fingers when she petted him. And today she was taking love wherever she could find it. The dog. Miss Lou. She even called her mom and her brother just to hear the voices of family.

  Monroe had been her saving grace, promising to drive down when he got off work. He claimed it was time to hold Eli to that beer, but she knew he was checking on her. Checking on Zach. Playing the big-brother card. And that was perfectly fine.

  She ignored the knock, thinking it might be Zach, and hating that part of her was wishing it. If only she could be home, curled up on her own couch, watching TV and eating Twinkies in mind-numbing oblivion. If only.

  She smoothed Cracker’s soft fur. “We’ll pretend we aren’t home,” she whispered
.

  A second knock turned into more of a bang, making Cracker go up on his hind legs and howl.

  She had a fleeting thought that Monroe might have gotten off early, and then—

  “Maddi, open the door.”

  Hannah. Hannah? What the hell?

  Sighing in weariness, Maddi kissed Cracker’s head, pulled herself off the bed, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

  “What?”

  Hannah stood there dressed to kill in all black, actual makeup lining her dark eyes, and her curly hair pulled up in a very sexy, messy half updo.

  “Well, at least you opened the door,” she said.

  Maddi shrugged. “It’s your door.”

  “You and I need to go get a drink,” Hannah said.

  Maddi felt her eyebrows raise, and a chuckle left her chest. “We need to do what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I heard a joke,” she said. “Wasn’t funny. Good-night.” She made to close the door, but Hannah held it open.

  “I’m serious, let’s go.”

  Maddi looked at her sideways. “For one second, let’s put aside the fact that you hate me, okay?” she said, noting the impatient flutter of Hannah’s eyes. “And look at more obvious matters.”

  “Like?”

  “Like that I’m in pajamas and no makeup and not ready to go anywhere.”

  “Women get ready all the time,” Hannah said. “Not rocket science. Get ready.”

  “No,” Maddi said.

  “Because?”

  “Because of the first reason,” Maddi said. “Seriously, Hannah, what do you want to do this for? Planning to drive me out in the woods and dump me in a ditch?”

  Hannah laughed at that. “I love that you find me capable of that, that’s kinda cool.”

  “Well, enjoy that thought, I’m going back to my book,” Maddi said.

  “We need to talk,” Hannah said. “Fix this.” She thumbed between them. Her cocky look was gone, replaced with something harsher.

  “Fix it?” Maddi scoffed. “I tried that today.”