Run Wild With Me

by Sandra Chastain

  He would probably be back. Even if he didn’t return, there were others. They were always out there now, sometimes four or five cars, sometimes more. Waiting for news to happen. Waiting for Jamie to show or Carly to come outside in a bikini and pose for belly shots.

  Ellen turned back to Caleb.

  He grinned, quick and bright, and she found herself almost smiling back when he raised his hand in the universal invitation for a high five. The slap of his dry palm against her clammy one snapped her to attention.

  What had just happened? It wasn’t like her to get so angry or to let herself be overwhelmed. All these amped-up emotions belonged to some other woman.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Not a problem.” He slid his hands into his pockets. Something devilish in his expression made her wonder if he’d seen her marching across the lawn with nothing but a glass of iced tea for a weapon.

  She had her shortcomings, but vanity wasn’t one of them. If she’d been able to witness herself taking on the photographer, she’d probably be amused, too. As it was, she felt a little loopy.

  Could adrenaline explain why he was leaping into focus this way? Or shock? Everywhere her eyes went to avoid meeting his, they got caught on some manly detail. The hollow of his throat above the open top button of his shirt, say, or the breadth of his shoulders under all that pristine cotton.

  She sucked in a deep breath and got woozy with the clean, woodsy-warm smell of him. His soap, she guessed, and beneath all those pine needles or whatever, a tang of sweat that was all man.

  Get a hold of yourself.

  Caleb Clark wasn’t hard on the eyes, but he was hardly Apollo. He had close-cropped dark brown hair, olive skin that suggested less-than-completely-white-bread ancestry, and a nice straight nose with a bump in the bridge. Whoa factor aside, he was just a guy who’d helped her out on his way to visit Carly.

  Just an ordinary guy with a dimple in one cheek and crinkle-cornered, happy brown eyes that transformed him into a very attractive specimen when he smiled.

  A disarmingly attractive specimen. Who had disarmed her.

  He seemed well aware of it.

  “It’s my job,” he said.

  So dazzled was she by the smile, it took her a few seconds to hear him, and then a few more to figure out what he had to mean.

  It’s my job to drive men like Weasel Face off the lawn.

  Oh, crap. She should have known. The black SUV with tinted windows, his body, his self-assurance—Caleb was a bodyguard. Of course he was. “Who do you work for?”

  “I work for myself. Camelot Security. But Breckenridge brought me in.”

  Breckenridge was the company Jamie used. Which meant that Caleb wasn’t a friend of Carly’s at all. Her brother had hired him. And Ellen knew Jamie well enough to guess he wouldn’t have brought in security just for Carly. Not when he knew exactly how many times Ellen had called the police in the past week.

  Caleb was here for her.

  “I don’t need you.”

  This earned her a smile she found considerably less charming than its predecessors. “Seemed like you did a minute ago.”

  “I did, and I already said thanks for that. But I don’t want a bodyguard.”

  “I’m not a bodyguard.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “I’m a security specialist.”

  “I don’t need one of those, either.”

  Caleb raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly toward the cul-de-sac.

  Damn it, he didn’t even need to speak to make her see it. He was right—Ellen had no way of keeping the invaders at bay. Dumping her tea on the photographer had been stupid. If Weasel Face had wanted to, he could have done a lot worse to her than just step on her plants.

  “Okay, fine,” she admitted. “You have a point.”

  Caleb glanced past her to the house, his eyes jumping from one feature to another, panning across the front lawn. Surveying her domain. His lips kept twitching at the corners, as if it took some effort to keep his satisfied expression from crossing over to smug. “When was this place built?” he asked. “Sixties?”

  “Mid-seventies.”

  “It’s a nice house. If you’ve got the plans, I’m going to need them—architectural drawings, schematics. That’ll make it easier for the alarm installer. We’ll have to find the survey stakes at the property lines, too, or else get a new surveyor out here.”

  “Why?”

  “How attached are you to this tree?” He started walking toward the front yard, and Ellen hurried to catch up. “It’s not supposed to be that close to the road. The county wants a ten-foot easement along the street side of the property to keep the electric and phone wires clear. Didn’t the guys tell you that when they planted it?”

  “No.” She’d dug the hole herself after she bought the tulip tree for Henry’s first birthday. It had never occurred to her that she wasn’t allowed to put it wherever she wanted.

  She felt as though she ought to say something about that, but she was having trouble keeping up with him. He walked fast, and her thoughts kept whirling around, a tornado that flung little bits of verbal flotsam toward her mouth, words like no and what? and stop and fuck and help.

  “Sorry, I’m not sure … what does the tree have to do with anything?”

  “It’s going to mess up your fence line. I can have it moved back, though. No worries. First things first, I’m going to do a circuit around the house. I’d like to see—”

  “Stop.” He was getting away from her, his long legs eating up the ground, and an air raid siren had started going off inside her head. “Stop walking. Stop looking at things. And for the love of God, stop talking.”

  He actually had the audacity to grin at her again, as if they were still allies, and this was all an enjoyable game rather than the second wave of a hostile incursion.

  “There’s not going to be a fence,” Ellen said firmly.

  “Your brother is crazy-famous, and you have a kid. You need a fence. I can get it painted any color you want. Or stained. Cedar would look nice with your siding.” Caleb looked at his watch. “Are you free in about an hour? I’m supposed to be meeting with Carly, but after that I’d like to come back by here. In the meantime, it would help me a lot if you could pull together your itinerary for the next few weeks. I need names and contact information for all your friends, too—family, boyfriends, anybody who comes over to play with your son—so I can let my team know who it’s okay to let on the property. Oh, and does your cell phone have a radio function, by any chance?”

  Ellen’s fingers had begun to ache deep in the joints, so she opened her hand to stretch them, and the iced tea glass fell onto the lawn. She gawped at it, unable to collect her thoughts over the ringing in her ears.

  Trouble. This man was trouble. Far bigger trouble than a few photographers.

  Caleb leaned over and scooped up the glass. Then it was in front of her face again with his hand wrapped around it, and her eyes traveled the length of his forearm and over the rolled sleeve at his elbow, up to the rounded cap of his shoulder, his collar and neck, his jawline and that bump in his nose and those twinkling, confident, conspiratorial eyes. Heaven help her, he looked good. Why did misery always come in such attractive packages?

  She took the glass from him, and his fingers bumped hers, and it was terrible the way she felt it. Just terrible.

  “What?” she croaked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll get you a new phone with a radio. Comes in handy as a backup. You’ll have to let my team know every time you leave the house, and they’ll decide whether you need an escort. I’ll get that set up by tomorrow morning. In the meantime—”

  “Stop,” Ellen whispered.

  Not loud enough. You had to be loud—she’d figured that out with Richard. You had to be louder than they were, stronger than they thought you could be, and so mean and cold and unforgiving, they called you names.

  She knew how to do this. She’d
done it before.

  “Stop,” she said, and this time the word came out at a satisfying volume. “You’re not putting a fence up on my property. I’m not giving you schematics. I don’t want your help.”

  “Didn’t we already cover this a minute ago?”

  They had. But she’d been a fool, and she knew when to change tactics. If she gave this man one more inch, he would take over. She’d seen it with Jamie. One day, she and Jamie had been ordinary teenagers, and the next thing she knew her brother had his own armed escort. He was ostensibly an adult now, but he reported his comings and goings to a team of people who monitored his food, screened his friends, and installed an alarm system in his house that had a habit of going off a three a.m. in irritating bursts of shrieking that no one knew how to stop.

  Security guards oversaw Jamie’s whole life. They told him where he could go and when, controlled him, choked him. Ellen couldn’t handle that. Not after Richard.

  So she folded her arms over her chest and stood up straighter. Caleb’s gaze locked with hers. Let him try, she told herself. Just let him try.

  But he only smiled, his eyes too kind and a bit bewildered. “I’m here to help you. The way I see it, Breckenridge put me under contract, but I work for you.”

  “Excellent,” she said. Because it didn’t matter whether he was kind. It only mattered that he would wreak havoc with her life if she let him. “In that case, you’re fired.”

  Read on for an excerpt from Karen Leabo’s

  Hell on Wheels

  ONE

  “This will fix you right up,” Victoria Driscoll said as she set a bowl of her homemade chicken soup in front of Amos.

  Amos snorted, pulling the afghan tighter around his burly shoulders. “Can it bring a body back from the dead?”

  “Now, Professor, you’re not that bad off.”

  “How would you know, missy? It’s not your nasal passages that are involved.”

  As they both sat down at Amos’s old metal kitchen table to eat the soup, Victoria had to admit the professor looked and sounded pretty bad. Gone was the youthful vigor that usually made him seem much younger than his sixty-eight years. His nose resembled a big Italian tomato stuck onto his face. His already gravelly voice sounded more and more like the grinding of a cement mixer with each passing hour. And he must be feeling as bad as he looked, if his temperament was any indication. Always a little gruff, today he was downright snappish.

  “How’s the soup?” she asked brightly. “I know, I’ll make you some orange juice—” She started to get up, but Amos slapped his hand down on the tabletop.

  “Victoria!”

  “Yes?” she squeaked.

  “Stop fussing. You’re making me feel like some senile, feeble old fool. I’d like to believe this angel-of-mercy routine of yours comes from your sincere concern for my welfare—”

  “I am concerned.” She meant it. It scared her to see the ageless Professor Cullen looking suddenly like her grandfather.

  “But you might not be quite so concerned if our chase trip weren’t starting tomorrow.”

  Victoria settled back into her chair and propped her chin on her hand. “All right, yes, I do have an ulterior motive in seeing that you get well. I’m so antsy to get started on our trip, I can’t stand it. We already missed that F-3 storm up in Guyman.”

  “And you’ll likely miss a few more before you retire your video camera.” Amos pushed his soup bowl aside. “Missy, I love a tornado as much as you, but if I leave this house anytime in the next week, it’ll be in a pine box. I’m an old man, and I’m sick. I can’t go chasing with you this time.” He shook his head sadly. “Not this time.”

  Victoria sighed. “I’m sorry, Amos. Of course you can’t jump up from a sickbed and spend sixteen hours a day in a car for two weeks straight.” She was silent for a few moments as she thought about her options. “Maybe I could still switch my vacation.…”

  “Now, missy, you don’t think I’d leave you high and dry, do you? I’ve taken the liberty of finding you a substitute chase partner.”

  “What? Who?” she asked, automatically suspicious. She’d never considered chasing with anyone but Amos, a world-renowned tornado expert. His experience combined with his uncanny weather forecasting abilities, not to mention his impressive array of electronic gear, had always made her feel safe, even on those occasions when they came face-to-face with a killer storm. The idea of speeding around the countryside with anyone else gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  “Now, hear me out. He’s not a meteorologist, but he’s had some experience with storms. He covered Hurricane Andrew for a South Carolina TV station, and, um, oh, yes, he was at that earthquake in Guatemala—”

  “Oh, no! You aren’t by any chance referring to that crazy nephew of yours, are you? What’s his name—Ro … Ro-Something?”

  “It’s Roan, and he’s not crazy, just … adventurous.”

  “He’s a loose cannon!” Victoria insisted. “I watched that video he sent, remember? Good grief, the man stood on a beach during an F-6 hurricane. He almost got blown to kingdom come. And those other stories you’ve told me! He nearly cooked himself alive when he broke through two police barricades to get closer to that volcano in Japan. And didn’t you tell me he almost got speared to death in Kenya when he photographed some elephant poachers?”

  Amos actually chuckled. “ ‘Almost’ is the key word.”

  “I’m not spending two weeks with him,” she huffed.

  “Now, missy, I’ve already invited him. He’s driving in from Mississippi today. He was participating in some rafting race, I believe.”

  “Is there anything he hasn’t participated in?”

  “Yes. He’s never seen a tornado.” Amos touched Victoria’s hand. “Victoria, let’s be serious for a minute. I understand why you might be leery about chasing with someone like Roan. You’re right, he isn’t the most cautious person in the world. But I had more than one reason for inviting him.”

  “Other than to torture me, you mean?”

  “Please, just listen for a minute,” Amos continued, undaunted by Victoria’s acid tongue. “My brother, Roan’s father, was in the army and dragged his family all over the globe. Some kids have problems with that kind of upbringing, but Roan seemed to thrive on being constantly on the move. He saw every new environment as a challenge, a new world to be conquered. Nothing scared him. He was always the first to try a strange food or an unfamiliar game or sport. I rarely saw that kid when he wasn’t smiling, excited about whatever he happened to be doing with his life at the time.”

  “Sounds like he was too good to be true.”

  “Your pessimism wounds me, Victoria. Roan was a pleasure to be around, even if he did keep his parents breathless with worry most of the time.”

  “I guess I can’t blame them,” Victoria said. “It’s a miracle he’s stayed in one piece all these years.”

  “Not really. He was always bold, but not foolhardy. He took calculated risks.”

  “You’re talking in the past tense,” Victoria pointed out.

  Amos scratched his chin thoughtfully. “The last couple of years Roan has been taking more unreasonable chances. Before, he was simply unafraid. Now … I’m afraid he really does have a death wish.”

  Sensing Amos’s pain, Victoria backed off from uttering the sarcastic remarks on the tip of her tongue. Amos was no stranger to death. His wife had died young, and he’d never remarried. He had no children of his own. A few years before, he’d lost a young niece to drowning—Roan’s sister, she remembered now.

  “Is there any reason Roan would have such flagrant disregard for his own life?” she asked.

  “Well … he took Kim’s death pretty hard, as we all did, but he’s never seemed exactly depressed about it.”

  Victoria shook her head. When she’d lost her father, it had given her a keener appreciation of life. She couldn’t see how the demise of a loved one would give anyone a death wish.

  “Anyway,” Amos c
ontinued, “we’re all concerned about the boy, and I think you might be able to help.”

  “How?” she asked, once again suspicious.

  Amos patted her arm affectionately. “You’re no shrinking violet. You experience life fully, yet you have a strong survival instinct. Most people never see even one tornado. You’ve witnessed dozens, yet you never put yourself in any real danger. I thought that if Roan could spend some time with you, if you could show him a tornado or two, he would see that it’s possible to feel all the excitement life has to offer without continually risking his neck.”

  Victoria fiddled with the end of her long, auburn braid. Amos was putting her in an awkward position. If she refused to go storm chasing with Roan Cullen, she would be insensitive to Amos’s worries about his nephew. But if she agreed, she might be endangering herself. She had her own reasons for avoiding people who didn’t hold a healthy respect for the power of a storm.

  In the face of her indecision, Amos added the final, irresistible incentive: “I’ll let you take the van.”

  Victoria’s mouth dropped open. “You mean you’d actually let me drive the Chasemobile? Take it out of your sight?” In the year since he’d bought the minivan and loaded it up with a mind-boggling array of weather-sensing and communications equipment, he’d hardly let anyone else ride in it, much less drive it. Victoria couldn’t blame him. He had well over thirty thousand dollars invested in the vehicle.

  “I have complete faith in you, my girl. You’re a good driver, and you keep your head during tense situations.”

  Victoria sipped another spoonful of soup. “I could call you from the road, I suppose, and get your forecasts—”

  “Dang it, missy, what’s the point of hauling around that computer if you’re going to hang on my apron strings? You can do your own forecasts.”

  Victoria went silent again. She had a master’s degree in meteorology and a job as a forecaster for the National Weather Service. She was good at her job. But not as good as Amos. Just about anyone could analyze the data and come up with a general area where a storm might brew. But Amos could scan the horizon, sniff the breeze, and then drive with unveering certainty to the exact point at which the tornado would form. He knew the moods of a storm, where it would go, and how fast. That’s why she’d always felt so safe with him.