No Place Like Home

“You okay?” Rafe gripped her shoulders, his gaze delving into her eyes. A life-affirming awareness pulsed between them. Then he released her, pulling the blanket from her grip, tossing it to the rear. “I’d better survey the damage.”

The closing of the truck door jolted her. A delayed trembling shook her, the nearness of their brush with disaster striking her anew. They’d almost been killed.

And it was all his fault.

Mariah pushed out of the truck, tromping around front in her scarred shoes and tattered stockings. The flow of clean, damp air over dusty ground and dry pavement only heightened her awareness of nature’s unpredictable power. Ignoring the curls that frizzed across her face, she vented her emotions in a shaky voice. “This is all your fault.”

Rafe straightened from the smashed headlight he examined. “We’re safe now. And if I remember right, it was your idea to come along.”

His calm after the storm infuriated her. “You almost got us killed!”

Frowning, he twisted off the remains of a broken antenna. “Another way you might look at it is that I saved both our a—”

Mariah knocked the antenna from his hand. “I think you drove us into that storm just to scare me.”

His angry gaze bore into hers. “I drove us out of that storm the only way I could. We had a close call, but believe me, it could have been worse.”

“All in a day’s work?”

“That’s right.”

The sun burned over them, warming already heated tempers, fueling underlying sparks before Rafe turned away, continuing a post-storm inspection she suspected he made on a regular basis. He was probably already planning his next chase.

And she wanted no part of it. Her near brush with death had come with a revelation. She knew why she wasn’t sleeping at night, why her work was lackluster, why she noticed children everywhere. She wanted a child, and a dependable man to love her.

She strode to the back of the truck. Her gaze blazed over Rafe, who was nothing like her dear old dad or her brother. “Take me back to my car. And don’t worry—I want nothing to do with writing your story.”

She gave him no chance to reply, stomping back to grasp the handle on the passenger door.

Her breath caught in her throat. Rafe stood at the edge of the highway, the incessant breeze tugging his hair, his clothes. He stared after the departing storm, clearly craving to give chase again.

He was crazy.

And she was crazy for wanting him.

Chapter Three

All he could think about was Mariah.

Ordinarily, after a day of chasing, he’d be tired and wired, obsessing over the shots he’d taken. Instead, he was obsessing over Mariah. Over kissing Mariah…

Rafe glanced at her warily. Once again, she slept in the truck’s passenger seat as he drove, deceivingly angelic with the soft evening light shining over her through the windshield. Her wind-tangled hair brought to mind the picture she’d made, framed by the backdrop of stormy sky, her dark curls blowing across her cheeks, her eyes vivid blue through the camera’s viewfinder. He hadn’t even noticed a tornado forming, too caught up in the sight of this woman.

He should have left her at Trixie’s. But while he hadn’t wanted her writing about him, he hadn’t wanted to be the reason she lost her job, either. Although she’d decided not to do the feature, the truth was, he didn’t trust her not to change her mind again once she discovered he was taking her home to Tassel.

How had her job come to be at risk, anyway? Despite her obvious reluctance, she’d tackled her assignment with a curiosity as dogged as that of his eight-year-old daughter. Mariah had a way of making him remember when chasing storms had been new to him, too, of making him forget, for a while, what the chase meant to him now.

As a result, he hadn’t captured a tornado on film for his daughter.

The CB crackled with static. Mariah frowned in her sleep. Rafe snatched up the microphone, not about to let it disturb her. She was less trouble when she was asleep. She’d passed out this second time just after he’d radioed Jeremy to tell him they’d made it out of the storm.

An image of Mariah, her hands curled around the wire fence, bolts shooting from the heavy sky, flashed disturbingly to mind. He shook the chilling vision away as a voice came over the airwaves.

“This is Sunshine. Are you out there, Stormy?”

“That you, sweetheart?” As if he didn’t know.

Storms had swept close to Tassel, too, and his daughter would want him home tonight. So he was going home.

Rafe sensed he was being observed. Sure enough, Mariah leveled her disapproving, judgmental gaze upon him—the same look she’d given him at Trixie’s when he’d talked to Sunny….

Sweetheart. She thought he was talking to a woman. Considering the way he couldn’t take his eyes off her at the cafе, and the kiss he’d stolen, he could see where she might get the wrong idea about him. Kind of like she was getting the wrong idea now.

“Of course it’s me. Are you coming home, Daddy?” Sunny’s aggrieved, now distinctive “kid’s” voice had Mariah straightening in her seat, the judgmental look in her eyes changing to one of surprise. Rafe grimaced. Once she knew he was taking her home, she would either see the advantage of the situation and barrage him—and his family—with questions, or demand again that he drive her back to her car. He should have just wakened her and dropped her off at a roadside motel.