No Place Like Home

She glared at him and his hands tightened on her arms. Then they gentled. Cold then hot, he was as changing as the weather. Mariah shivered; she felt the heat. But she couldn’t help wondering if the scare she’d given him had turned his thoughts to Ann.

The breeze buffeted their bodies against each other and abruptly, he released her.

“Just…stay by me, okay? I need to get some more pictures.”

He didn’t like that he wanted her. And she liked it too much. But he clearly felt responsible for her well-being, if only because he was stuck with her.

Surprisingly, as he resumed shooting, he offered a grudging explanation from behind the camera. “That dark cloud close to the ground, beneath the center of the updraft base, is a wall cloud.”

Updraft base? Wall cloud? Intrigued, she followed him, edging along the roadside in the direction of the storm. “The wide one with the rather jagged looking edges?”

“That’s right.”

“The one kind of…hovering there?”

“Yeah…”

“The one kind of…churning?”

“Rotating…Damn.” Rafe lowered the camera. “It’s started to rotate.”

“That’s what I said. And just feel that cool fresh air.” Standing beside him, Mariah breathed deeply of the rich country scent, the invigorating breeze combining with Rafe’s more cooperative mood to perk up her spirit. She’d never thought of a storm as beautiful, but she’d like to have a picture of this one. Rafe seemed almost a part of it, the wind combing through his crisp hair, his loose shirt whipping from his lean body. His eyes seemed to reflect the electric atmosphere of the storm.

“Here.” He lifted the strap from around his neck and pushed the camera into her hand. Mariah fumbled to catch hold of it, wondering if he’d read her mind. He gave her a nudge toward the truck. “Go on back. I’ll be right there.”

He moved swiftly toward the video camera, apparently ready to leave. She stared after him, exasperated. He did everything in such a hurry. But at least he was talking to her. On that positive note, she started down the slope, inspecting the camera, her head bent to the wind.

It looked a lot like her own 35mm at home. Mariah glanced up the knoll as Rafe hoisted the tripod to his shoulder. She caught her lip, then faced the storm, raising the camera and focusing through the viewfinder until she’d framed in the impressive wall cloud. Amazing. The storm appeared perilously closer through the eye of the camera….

“I should have made you sign a waiver,” Rafe muttered from close behind, in the same moment she clicked the shutter.

“I only took one picture. I didn’t break anything.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of liability.”

“What do you mean?” Surely they weren’t in any danger. The storm was miles away, moving east.

“Never mind. Come on.”

He caught her hand and pulled her the last few feet down the slope. The ground was rough along the gravelly edge of the road, and Mariah stumbled, grasping his arm for balance. The muscle beneath her hand was like iron. Tense. She glanced up at him. His jaw was set, his mouth pressed grimly, his mind clearly on the business of packing up.

Mariah moved back as he opened the hatch to store the tripod. She stepped slowly from behind the truck, breeze flowing over her, along with a sense of unreality as she surveyed the storm. The beauty of the massive white clouds seemed suddenly eclipsed by the sinister air of the wall cloud, the blackish-blue mass churning faster, holding her mesmerized. The branches of a nearby cottonwood bowed and cold air rushed over her skin. She should have been frightened. But when the snaky gray funnel dropped from the cloud, she instinctively raised the camera.

“Mariah!”

Rafe’s voice came faintly from behind her, the wind whipping her name away. He wouldn’t like it if she used up his film…. She stared through the viewfinder, entranced as the funnel touched down.

“The Wizard of Oz tornado…” she murmured.

Click. The base darkened—with dust and debris, she realized. And it was coming closer….

She lowered the camera, eyes wide.

“Mariah!” Rafe gripped her arm, hauling her toward the truck door despite the fact that her legs didn’t seem to work. “You’re crazier than Jeremy! Get in!”

He hustled her inside. The wind beat at him as he rounded the truck, dust swirling, making him shield his eyes with his hand. He yanked open the door and shot onto the seat. Firing the engine, he swung the truck in a U-turn, skidding out of it to tear down the road, spraying gravel.

Mariah drew a choked breath at the sight of the churning funnel through the rear window, and her sense of unreality effectively vanished. But Rafe had only to keep heading south and they would drive out of the storm.

“We’ve got a right mover, Jeremy,” Rafe shouted into the CB mike. “I’m on a gravel road, west of 281. Are you in the path of the storm?”

Jeremy’s voice crackled over the airwaves, barely distinguishable as he transmitted. “…road ends…get the hell out—”

For Mariah, the last was clear enough.

“Hang on!”

She gripped the dash as Rafe turned the wheel sharply, heading east on a strip of gravel—straight on a course of interception with the storm.

And he’d called her crazy.

Had he actually made her feel safe from the storm? Had she actually wanted to kiss this madman?

This morning, thirty had felt old. Now it seemed much too young to die.

Mariah flinched, a cottonwood branch skidding across the truck’s hood. Her imagination, never lacking, conjured vivid images of what else the tornado had sucked up and sent spinning—plant life, homes, the people in them.

Ann Taylor.

How could Rafe take these risks after the death of his wife? His daughter depended on him. He was nothing like the responsible family men her father, brother and brother-in-law were. Not at all the kind of man she should want to kiss.

The next gust shrouded the road before them with thick dust, dragging against the truck until it seemed to crawl. A dark wall of rain closed in, slashed with lightning and rimmed with streaks of bright white. Relief left her weak. “The tornado is gone! Vanished! There’s only rain now!”

“It isn’t gone,” Rafe said tersely. “We just can’t see it. And that isn’t just rain. It’s a hailstorm.”

A tornado they couldn’t see. Like some invisible stalker. And hail. Somehow she suspected it wouldn’t be the tiny stones she used to collect from the sidewalk after a summer rain.

The first drops fell, a light rain that grew louder as hailstones littered the road and ricocheted off the hood. They came harder and faster, like her heartbeat.

Rafe dragged a blanket up between the seats. “Cover up, in case the windshield takes a hit.”

How would Rafe protect himself? She’d raised the thick quilt to her shoulders when a large stone struck the glass with a resounding crack. Dropping the blanket, she snatched tape from the dash, ripping off strips and slapping them across the new star in the window, stemming the flow of rain-washed air. Wind rammed the truck, a jarring reminder of the lurking tornado. They could die—and in that moment, all she could think was how she’d never had a child.

“Hang on!”

Rafe swung the truck in a southbound turn onto 281 and floored the gas pedal. Within moments, the hail stopped. The rain let up. A mile later, they’d driven from beneath the dark canopy of clouds, the skies lightening, the wind lessening to a breeze. Mariah searched for the tornado, but there was only the dark storm rotating across the prairie, leaving a broken trail behind.

Rafe stopped the truck, killing the engine. Her heart pounded in the silence. Gold-tipped fields of winter wheat waved gently on the roadsides in soft sunlight.