Storm Born Read online

So much for acting casual.

  “Did you want to go out to breakfast?” he asked. “I thought you might want some fortification before we go and look at cars.”

  “No, I’m good, as long as you still have some of those bagels.”

  Since there was still half a bag left, bagels weren’t a problem. Not sure whether he should be relieved that she’d declined the breakfast invitation, or worried that she didn’t seem too interested in food, Jake made himself go to the freezer and get out the bag, then put two bagels on a plate so he could defrost them in the microwave. While he was busy with that task, Addie spoke again.

  “I had fun last night. Thanks for that.”

  Surprised, he turned back toward her. She wasn’t looking at him, seemed to be staring out the window at the backyard, and he got the feeling she was doing that on purpose so their eyes wouldn’t meet.

  “My pleasure,” he said. “I was hoping you’d have fun…that it might take your mind off things for a little while.”

  “It did.” A shift in position, and now she was facing him, hands stuck in the pockets of her jeans as though she wasn’t quite sure what else to do with them. “Maybe too well.”

  He raised an eyebrow, not sure what she meant by that comment.

  Without saying anything, she went over and picked up one of the mugs of coffee, then spent a little more time adding milk and sugar. When she was done, she leaned up against the counter opposite him, her hands cradling the big hand-painted mug, something he’d bought a while back at one of the art fairs held at Wheeler Park.

  “I know this probably sounds awful,” she said then. “But for a few hours there, I almost forgot. I almost forgot what happened in Kanab…what happened to my mother.” Her voice trembled slightly on that last word, but Jake saw how her chest rose and fell as she forced herself to take a strengthening breath. “I shouldn’t be forgetting. It’s not right.”

  God, he wished he could go to her and take her in his arms. But Jake somehow knew she needed this space between them for now so she could assess her emotions and try to get a hold of herself. “No one’s asking you to forget,” he said quietly. “Maybe more like…heal.”

  “I’m trying to,” she said. “I really am. And I think I will. If for no other reason than because that’s what she would have wanted.” Addie looked up from her untouched mug of coffee, her gaze meeting his directly for the first time that morning. “It’s just…I’ll be going along, thinking that it’s going to be okay, and then I get broadsided by it all over again.”

  “Do you want to talk to someone?” Jake asked. “I mean, a professional. We don’t have any Wilcox therapists here in Flagstaff, but I think there might be someone down in the Phoenix area — ”

  At once, she shook her head. “No, I don’t want to talk to a shrink. I like this better.” Those big eyes of hers were fixed on him, steady, with no sign of tears. “I like talking to you, Jake. You listen. So many people don’t.”

  Warmth filled him at her comment, even as he experienced a small twinge of…guilt? Sarah had said almost the same thing to him, once upon a time, and yet he hadn’t listened when she’d let him know she was going on that camping and kayaking trip with their cousins. He’d told her that he didn’t think any of them were experienced enough to be attempting that sort of expedition on their own, and they’d quarreled over it. Of course, he hadn’t tried to stop her from going, and yet afterward, he kept wondering if he’d just sat down and talked over the plan rather than condemning it from the start, things might have gone differently.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have lost her.

  “I try to,” he said, then went and got his own neglected mug of coffee. “I always want you to feel like you can talk to me.”

  A nod, and Addie lifted her mug and took a sip. She was quiet for a moment and he waited, getting the impression that she had more she wanted to say.

  When she spoke, her words startled him.

  “Why didn’t you kiss me last night?”

  Jesus. He could tell she wasn’t the sort of person to keep secrets — except the biggest secret of all, the secret of her weather-working gift, which she’d had to hide from the world — but he hadn’t really expected her to be quite that direct about the situation.

  But if she was going to be forthright, then he damn well better respond in kind. Anything less than utter honesty wouldn’t score him any points.

  “I wanted to,” he said bluntly. “But I thought you’d had a little too much to drink, and I didn’t want to do anything in the heat of the moment that you might regret later.”

  Not a blink as she absorbed that response. Then she gave a very small nod, as though his words had confirmed something for her. “I thought maybe that was it. For the record, I wanted you to. It wasn’t something I would have regretted…even if I’d had too much wine to be thinking clearly.”

  Damn. Jake forced himself to swallow some coffee, then said, “Well, maybe we can revisit that idea when we’re both sober.”

  “We’re sober now,” she said, but a glint had entered her eyes, and he got the impression she was teasing him a little. “But we’re drinking coffee, and I know I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, so maybe it’s better to wait.”

  “Maybe,” he responded, knowing he sounded a little strangled. Coffee breath or no, he definitely wanted to kiss her now, take her in his arms and taste her sweet mouth and breathe in the fresh-washed dampness of her hair.

  However, he sensed this was the wrong time. They wouldn’t wait much longer — he could tell that much — and so he told himself to be patient.

  Whenever they kissed, he knew it would be worth the wait.

  17

  Had I really said those things to Jake? I mentally replayed the scene in the kitchen and confirmed that yep, I’d come out and told him I’d wanted him to kiss me.

  Very smooth, Addie.

  But he hadn’t been put off by that revelation — at least, I didn’t think he had. In fact, his gaze had lingered on my mouth for a few seconds, as if he’d wanted to kiss me then and there, and only held off because he could tell I wanted something a little more moonlight and roses for our first kiss.

  All right, maybe not anything that overtly romantic, but a kitchen in bright daylight with his dog watching us to see if we dropped a crumb probably wasn’t the ideal location for that sort of intimate exchange.

  We’d both put the moment aside, and eaten our bagels and finished our coffee as though something hadn’t just fundamentally changed in our relationship. No, we hadn’t kissed, but we’d both acknowledged it was something that was probably going to happen in the very near future.

  Which was why it was sort of a relief to leave the house and go out in public, where those sorts of displays were much less likely. Although the main focus of the morning would be car shopping, we first stopped at a Chase branch near downtown where a Wilcox cousin named Amber worked — that way, she could sort of overlook my current lack of a permanent address or any of the usual roadblocks to establishing a bank account, and managed to get a savings and a checking account set up for me in less than twenty minutes.

  “You’ll still have the usual wait for your debit card, though,” Amber said, looking apologetic. She was probably around my age, a little fairer than the Wilcoxes I’d met so far, with honey-brown hair rather than the usual near-black and big hazel eyes. “I can’t really control that part, since those come from corporate. But you can come into any branch with your account number and access your funds that way.”

  Since I honestly hadn’t even been sure whether I’d be able to get any kind of a bank account with nothing but a bogus Arizona driver’s license to prove my identity, I was more than grateful for the help she’d provided. When we left the bank, Jake suggested that I text my account info to Connor so he could go ahead and start transferring funds.

  “Not that we’re going to wait on getting you a car or anything else you need,” he added. “But you might as well get the ball rolling.”
/>   The concept of having that much money still didn’t feel quite real to me, but I dutifully texted the information to the number Jake gave me. Only a minute or so later, Connor replied.

  Thanks — I’ll get this started today. We’ve decided to head up to Flagstaff early & plan to make an announcement to everyone tomorrow or the day after. I’ll keep you posted.

  I supposed I should have been glad that Connor was being so proactive. At the same time, though, I experienced another of those nervous little flutters of worry. Yes, everyone I’d met so far had been nothing but friendly, had welcomed me to the clan with pretty much open arms. Even so, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole Wilcox family knowing my father was their former primus. Maybe my parentage wouldn’t actually end up giving me any kind of special status…but I worried that it just might.

  Still, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop my brother from making the announcement; it wasn’t as if I could request to have my identity kept secret. That wasn’t fair to my mother, and it really wasn’t fair to Jackson Wilcox, either. He’d never had a chance to meet me, so it seemed selfish to ask that Connor not tell anyone who I really was.

  Thanks, I replied. Looking forward to it.

  That response ended our convo, and I slipped the phone back into my purse. By that time, we were passing the mall, and then drove past another shopping center with a Tuesday Morning and a Petco and a Home Depot. On our left were Subaru, Nissan, and Toyota dealerships, while off to the right was a Mercedes-Benz outlet.

  “Pick your poison,” Jake said cheerfully. “Do you want a Mercedes? Your father always drove one.”

  Right — I remembered how my mother had specifically said Jackson Wilcox drove a Mercedes, as if she was proud of herself for hooking up with a man who had expensive taste and a bank account to support those tastes. However, I couldn’t see myself behind the wheel of a car that fancy, even if I could afford one. I’d be scared to drive the damn thing, petrified to leave it anywhere as prosaic as a grocery store parking lot.

  “No,” I replied, my tone serious. “I’m okay with something a little simpler.”

  “Subaru?”

  At once, I shook my head. “No, thanks. My mom and I owned a fifteen-year-old Forester, and I’m okay if I never drive another Subaru.”

  “Got it.” A lift of his shoulders, and he added, “Well, I’ll take you down to the Jeep dealership. They sell trucks and cars, too. And I’m kind of partial to Jeeps anyway.”

  “Hadn’t noticed,” I remarked with a curl of my lip, and Jake’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a way I’d already come to appreciate, since I knew it meant he was amused by something I’d said or done.

  However, he didn’t reply, only pointed the Gladiator straight ahead, where the street we were driving on sort of dead-ended at another street that fronted the dealership in question. We parked in one of the visitor spaces and started to roam the lot. I’d sort of expected a salesperson to descend as soon as we appeared, but we seemed to have been left alone…at least for the time being.

  Jake apparently caught the way I glanced toward the glass-fronted office building, wondering where all the sales staff were hiding, because he said, “I might have called ahead to let Jordan know we wanted to browse in peace. Even when I know I want to buy something, I hate all the high-powered sales stuff.”

  I supposed I could see his point. While I knew you had to deal with salespeople as a necessary evil in these sorts of transactions, I didn’t have any personal experience at that sort of thing. My mother had always bought her cars used, either off Craigslist or via friend-of-an-acquaintance types of arrangements.

  “Thanks,” I replied, then added, “Who’s Jordan? Another cousin?”

  “Of course.”

  Of course. There did seem to be an awful lot of Wilcox cousins scattered all over Flagstaff, but I probably shouldn’t be surprised by that, considering there were so many people in the clan.

  Jake paused by a big Dodge truck and glanced over at me. “What do you think?”

  The thing was huge…and intimidating. “I think I’d need a step stool to get up into it.”

  Once again, his eyes crinkled in amusement, but he didn’t argue. Not that I was overly short — I stood just a hair under five foot seven — but the truck in question definitely had some sort of lifted off-road package and would have been uncomfortable for me to drive.

  “Then just wander,” he suggested. “Stop and look at anything that seems interesting, and when we have your top two or three, we’ll go find Jordan.”

  Jake’s suggestion sounded like a good idea. I went up and down the rows, looking at all the cars and trucks and SUVs on display. Once or twice over the years, I’d thought I might want a Jeep Wrangler, but truthfully, I’d never been off-roading in my life and wasn’t sure whether I needed anything quite that sturdy. Besides, those things were expensive — I looked at the stickers on a couple of them and wanted to go into shock. All right, I knew that pretty much any new car these days was going to cost upwards of twenty-five grand by the time you walked out the door, but those fully loaded Wranglers were nearly $50K. No, thanks. The Renegades were cute and more affordable, and yet I still wasn’t sure whether I could see myself driving one, although I’d liked what I saw of Laurel’s car when she’d driven me around to go shopping.

  Then I stopped next to a vehicle I couldn’t quite classify. I supposed it was a small SUV, but much cuter than your normal soccer-mom car, with curved lines and cool dark-alloy wheels and, best of all, a gorgeous deep metallic-green finish.

  “I like this one,” I said.

  “A Fiat?” Jake responded, sounding skeptical. “That might not be the best thing for the snowy winters we get up here.”

  “It has all-wheel drive,” I pointed out as I perused the window sticker. “That’s what we had in our Subaru, and it did just fine in Utah winters.”

  “Flagstaff is a lot colder than Kanab.”

  I had a feeling he would bring that up. Luckily, I was already armed with a rebuttal. “Colder than Durango? Or Cheyenne?”

  His hand ran over the scruff on his chin, letting me know that I’d just scored a point. “Oh, right. I forgot you lived in those places, too.”

  “I’ve lived in a lot of places. And a lot of them were cold and snowy. I like this one.” I paused before adding, “Maybe this sounds silly, but it feels like…well, it feels like me.”

  “It’s not silly,” he said. Now he was smiling a little, although I didn’t think that was because I amused him. No, I had a feeling he was just glad I’d found something that made me happy. “Should we go rustle up Jordan?”

  For a second, I hesitated. After all, buying a car was a big decision, and if I was trying to be practical, I should have found something else to test-drive as well, just to make sure the little green Fiat was really the vehicle for me. However, I knew in my gut that it was the car I wanted.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go find him.”

  We went into the sales center, and almost at once, a guy around my age walked over to us. Like Jake, he was tall and dark-haired, although since he was working, he wore a white dress shirt and a tie.

  “Addie?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “I’m Jordan Garnett. Your cousin…but I suppose you already knew that.”

  I grinned. “I’m starting to think I’m related to half of Flagstaff.”

  He flashed me a smile in response. Not as good-looking as Jake, but still, probably the sort of guy I would have craned my head to take a look at if I’d seen him in passing on campus or something. This extended family of mine definitely seemed full of handsome people. “Did you find something?”

  “The green Fiat….” My words trailed off then as I realized I hadn’t even looked at the actual model name of the car — I supposed I’d been too distracted by that pretty metallic green paint. “Sorry, I can’t remember exactly what it was.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured me. “We only have one green Fiat on the
lot right now. The 550X. Let me just go get the key.”

  I thanked him, and he disappeared into one of the offices, presumably in search of the key in question. As I waited, I did my best not to look as nervous as I felt. Maybe I was letting myself get distracted by something I thought was cute rather than a vehicle that would be truly practical. But then, wasn’t an economical little car with some extra cargo space and all-wheel drive practical? It wasn’t as though I was across the street at the Mercedes dealership buying a seventy-thousand-dollar luxury sedan.

  Jordan reemerged, and we headed over to the Fiat. After he handed me the key fob, I got behind the wheel, adjusted everything — well, once he showed me how it all worked, since the old Subaru I’d been driving had manual controls — and then waited as he scrunched himself into the back seat and Jake took the passenger seat next to me. I had to acknowledge that the back seat wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t like I planned to haul around a basketball team or something.

  The test drive, which involved taking a back road from the dealership down to a freeway on-ramp about a mile away, then driving on I-40 to get back to where we started, went well. Even though I knew the engine couldn’t be all that big, it felt peppy and loads more powerful than anything I’d experienced before. And it felt like I’d need an advanced degree in computer science — or maybe Jeremy’s help — to get the stereo and navigation systems figured out, but even that wasn’t too big a deal.

  “Well?” Jordan asked as I maneuvered the car back onto the lot.

  I supposed I should have played it cool, but I’d never been very good at acting blasé. “I love it,” I said simply.

  “Should I get the paperwork started, then?”

  Hesitating, I looked over at Jake. “You love it,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything more we need to discuss, is there?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, then.”

  We all got out of the car and went inside. While I knew that buying a vehicle involved a lot of paperwork, I thought the transaction should be simpler in this case just because there wouldn’t be any financing involved. However, there was still a lot of back and forth, signing this and signing that, a break for a hurried call to a Wilcox cousin who was an insurance agent and who got me set up on the spot, so more than two hours elapsed from the time I’d agreed to buy the car to the time when Jordan put the key fob in my hand and said simply, “It’s yours. I’ll bring it around front for you.”