Storm Born Read online

  He’d been saving the best for last. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  That question elicited a puzzled glance. “No…why?”

  “Come on — I’ll show you.”

  Still looking mystified, she gamely followed him to the next street over and to the platform where the Route 66 Zipline was located. As they approached and she appeared to realize it was their destination, she glanced up at him again. “A zipline?”

  “It’s not your standard zipline,” he said. “You sit in tandem seats, and it sends you riding through the air above the street. It’s a lot of fun.”

  “Sounds okay,” she said, even though her tone was still dubious. Then she added, her expression brightening, “Actually, it sounds like a lot of fun. Who knew Williams was hiding something like this?”

  Well, he did, because he’d done the zipline with Sarah about five years earlier. However, Jake figured it was probably better not to mention that particular fact. He didn’t want Addie to think he was trying to duplicate experiences with her that he’d shared with Sarah. It was more that he knew the zipline existed and so wanted Addie to see how much fun it was. No more, no less.

  They bought their tickets and had to wait about ten minutes for their turn. Then they fastened their seatbelts, hung on, and were sent soaring out over historic Route 66.

  Addie let out a delighted sound that was half laugh, half squeak of excitement, her hand finding his and holding on to it tightly. The air rushed past, cool at this altitude, but the sun shone warmly as it made its way westward, and so conditions were just about perfect. Down below, Jake watched cars and tourists and shops and restaurants rush past, all a happy blur. He looked over at Addie, saw her lovely face shining with sheer delight as the wind lifted her hair and tumbled it into ribbons of dark silk.

  It almost hurt to see how beautiful she was — and in that moment, how free of worry and sorrow and doubt. No room for that as they soared over the town at nearly thirty miles an hour, free of all the cares they’d left behind them in Flagstaff.

  In that moment, Jake vowed to do whatever he could to make sure she always looked like that — happy and free, the creature of pure spirit she was meant to be.

  Eventually, the ride ended, and they had to get out of their chairs and return to solid ground. However, he couldn’t miss the delighted flush in Addie’s cheeks, or the way she continued to smile as she held his hand and talked excitedly about the experience they’d just shared.

  “You’re going to spoil me, Jake,” she said on their way back to the parking lot. “You’re going to make me think that life as a Wilcox is continuous dinners out and wine tasting and underground clubs and ziplines. We have to come back to earth sometime, don’t we?”

  He couldn’t help smiling. “Well, okay — most of us aren’t quite this free to roam around. It’s just that I’m working on the project right now, and since you’re part of that project, it’s important to keep an eye on you and show you a good time.”

  That comment made her pause, hands on her hips. “So, that’s all this is? Keeping an eye on me?”

  To hell with his plan to avoid public displays of affection. Jake bent and kissed her full on the lips, then said, “You know it’s a lot more than that.”

  Obviously, she’d been teasing him, because her mouth curved in a smile. “All right. Yes, I suppose I do.”

  He kissed her again, this time on the cheek, and then they continued to the car. Once they were on I-40 headed east, however, some of the amusement faded from her face.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, and Jake shifted in the passenger seat, trying to get a better read on her expression. When a person prefaced a comment with that phrase, it rarely meant anything good.

  “About?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

  “About me staying at your house,” she replied. “I mean, I think it was important last night, to help me sort of get acclimated, for lack of a better word. But now….”

  Although he had a suspicion as to where this was going, he did his best to seem neutral as he asked, “Now?”

  Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel. “I don’t really know what we’re doing. Are we dating?”

  “I’m not sure we have to be that formal about it.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it feels weird for me to be staying at your place. I think it might be better if I went back to the cottage.”

  A stab of disappointment went through him, even though he actually understood why she would feel that way. It was one thing to have her sleeping across the hall when there was nothing going on between the two of them. But now that a relationship had clearly begun to develop between them, it maybe wasn’t the best idea to have a setup that looked as though they were cohabiting or something.

  And, he did his best to tell himself, it wasn’t as though she’d just proposed moving clear to the other side of Flagstaff, or down south to Kachina Village or something. The cottage was right on his same street, only two houses down. No biggie.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “You’re mad.”

  “No, I’m not.” He reached over and touched her knee, just a quick gesture of reassurance. “Really. In a way, I think that’s smart. You can have your space, but we’ll still be close enough to have coffee in the morning or whatever you want to do.”

  Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and she gave him the briefest glance, not much more than a quick flicker of her eyes in his direction before she returned her attention to the road. “Thanks, Jake. This isn’t — this isn’t me rejecting you or anything. And I suppose there really isn’t anything ‘normal’ about my situation, but I suppose it’s me trying to make it feel normal.”

  Which he completely understood. Her life had been upheaved in ways he could hardly imagine, and he knew he needed to support her in her quest to try to restore some sort of balance. If that meant staying in the cottage until she could get more permanent housing set up, then fine.

  Even if he found himself hoping that she’d want to come back to his place after a few weeks or a month in the cottage.

  “Then let’s be normal,” he said. “We’ll get back, and I’ll help you move your stuff over to the cottage, and then maybe we can go have dinner somewhere and see a movie.”

  “That sounds totally normal,” she responded, looking even more relieved that he seemed willing to go along with her plan. “What’s playing?”

  “I have no idea,” he confessed, and for some reason, they both started to laugh.

  It was fine. It was all going to be fine.

  Agent Lenz sat in his car, which he’d parked across the street and partway down the block from Jake Wilcox’s big Victorian house. How a kid who wasn’t even twenty-seven could afford such a place, Lenz had no idea, but that wasn’t his present concern. If he’d really cared, he could have asked Dawson to dig up Wilcox’s bank records and tax returns. However, at the moment, he didn’t much care. Jake Wilcox’s finances were no concern of his.

  The house was empty. Lenz knew that because he’d been sitting in the same spot for more than an hour, watching the place, and there hadn’t been a single sign of life. Just his luck that his quarry was off somewhere else.

  But Jake would have to come home sometime.

  Sure enough, about ten minutes later, a small green Fiat station wagon/SUV crossover slowed as it approached the house, then pulled into the driveway. Watching it, Lenz frowned. Definitely not the Jeep Gladiator he’d been expecting. Had he gotten the address wrong somehow?

  His fears were allayed as the Fiat’s doors opened, and Adara Grant and Jake Wilcox emerged. She’d been driving, and he guessed the car was the new acquisition that had caught Agent Dawson’s attention. It had paper dealer plates, so that theory seemed to check out.

  Jake came around to the driver’s side and took Adara by the hand, and led her up the porch steps. They seemed to have some sort of laughing exchange at the front door, and then Jake bent down to kiss her. No peck on the cheek, either, bu
t a full-mouthed kiss that lasted for quite some time.

  Interesting.

  Eventually, though, they went into the house. Lenz waited in his car, wondering if he should approach now or wait until evening fell. Sometimes it was better to have the cover of darkness.

  The couple weren’t inside for much longer than ten minutes before they emerged again, this time carrying a haphazard collection of shopping bags. They walked down the porch steps and followed the sidewalk to another, much smaller house, two doors away. Once there, they headed indoors and disappeared for some time.

  Even more interesting.

  He noted the address of the cottage and texted it to Agent Dawson, telling her to send him any information she could locate on the property. As he waited for her reply, he kept watching the small house with its cheerful dark red shutters and trim, but he couldn’t see any further signs of activity, although eventually one of the lights in the front room was turned on.

  Agent Dawson’s text came back. Property is owned by something called the Wheeler Park Trust. I’ll have to do more digging to see who’s behind the trust.

  Keep on it, he responded, even though he wasn’t sure if the actual ownership of the property was really that important. Possibly, it was an Airbnb or some other type of short-term rental.

  About ten minutes later, Jake Wilcox emerged from the cottage and walked back to his house. He had his hands in his pockets and sauntered along in a casual way, smiling to himself. Whatever had occurred during those ten minutes, it didn’t appear to have been an argument.

  But again, the reason why he’d left and gone back to his house by himself wasn’t the issue here. No, far more vital was the simple fact that his departure meant Adara Grant was now alone. This chance might not come again.

  Time to move.

  19

  I told Jake to give me a few minutes to get myself put together for that night’s date. After our outing in Williams, I knew I was windblown and a little disheveled, and I didn’t see the point in making him sit there and cool his heels while I fussed with my hair and put on another coat of makeup. Also, I wanted to change my top, and although I knew it would be fine for him to sit on the couch in the living room and wait while I changed behind a closed bedroom door, the thought still made me a little uncomfortable.

  And while I didn’t want to confess such a thing to him, I also knew I needed a little time to myself to gather my thoughts and mentally adjust to this sudden change in our relationship. Deep down, I realized we’d probably been on a collision course toward one another from the very moment we met, but everything had come to a head that afternoon, and I needed to process what all these events actually meant. I’d never felt like this before; to be honest, I’d never really thought I could feel like this. In that context, a short space of time to center myself seemed vital before we went any further.

  So, I shooed him away and told him I’d be over in about ten or fifteen minutes, and quickly put on one of my new acquisitions, a white peasant-style blouse with aqua embroidery that I knew would go perfectly with the earrings he’d given me. I was just reaching for my mascara when someone knocked at the door.

  Feeling halfway amused — what, Jake couldn’t even stay away from me for a whole fifteen minutes? — I left the bathroom and went to the front door. It didn’t have a peephole, but that didn’t bother me too much. After all, no one except Jake and a few members of the Wilcox clan even knew where I was staying, and I sort of doubted any solicitors would be canvassing the neighborhood at seven o’clock on a Monday evening.

  I opened the door, and saw Randall Lenz’s icy blue eyes staring down into mine. “Hello, Ms. Grant.”

  Without thinking, I grasped the door and tried to slam it shut, but he was too fast for me, interposing himself between it and the doorframe.

  “You’re quite a hard woman to find,” he went on as he advanced into the living room, casually closing the door behind him with one hand. “You might have been even more successful if you hadn’t bought that car or opened that bank account. Those sorts of transactions leave traces, you know.”

  My mouth was dry, my heart pounding so hard that I wondered if it was going to bruise itself as it rattled against my ribcage. Somehow, though, I heard myself blurt out, “I changed my last name.”

  “You did,” he agreed. “But you have such an unusual first name, Ms. Grant, that you really weren’t too difficult to find.”

  Damn it. Here I’d thought we were being all careful and cagey, and all we’d actually been doing was telegraphing my presence to Randall Grant and his cohorts.

  Still, circumstances had changed since the last time he’d tracked me down. There in Kanab, I’d been alone and scared, and had absolutely no idea who I really was or how to control the strange power that lived within me. Only a few days had passed since then, and yet I now felt like a completely different Adara.

  “Well, I’ll be more careful next time,” I replied, and his lips lifted in a thin smile.

  “Oh, I don’t think there’ll be a next time,” he said. “No, you’ll come with me quietly. After all, I would hate for anything to happen to your new friend.”

  Of course, he meant Jake. Anger flared in me, even as I thought that Agent Lenz really didn’t know what he was dealing with here. I had no idea how he’d managed to get the drop on me when supposedly the Wilcox clan had been told to keep an eye out for him, but all the same, he was now in a place where there were plenty of people with very special powers who’d be more than happy to take care of such an interloper.

  And it wasn’t as though I was entirely defenseless, either.

  “And I’d hate for anything to happen to you, Agent Lenz,” I shot back. “I assume you’re just doing your job, aren’t you? At least, that’s probably the party line for situations like this. Anyway, I know why you’ve been tracking me, but it seems you’ve forgotten why the people you work for think I’m so valuable.”

  Something in his eyes went still and cold then, although he still wore that half-smile. “No, I haven’t forgotten anything, Ms. Grant. However, your power is something of a blunt instrument, isn’t it? I’m sure you don’t want any harm to come to your neighbors…or to Jake Wilcox.”

  A little trickle of worry worked its way down my spine, but I tried damn hard to appear unconcerned by Randall Lenz’s veiled threat. Again, a few days earlier, I would have been far too afraid to try wielding my power like a weapon, since the collateral damage could be significant. However, now I knew far more about how to control it, thanks to the gentle insights Joanna had provided. It was all about flow, rather than resistance.

  “No, I don’t,” I said calmly. “I don’t even want any harm to come to you, despite what you did to my mother.”

  His jaw tightened. “That was an accident.”

  His words confirmed what I’d already guessed. Not that it made my mother’s loss any easier to bear, but at least I now knew for certain that he hadn’t intended to kill her. “Even so, it’s the sort of thing that might make a person bear a grudge. I’m not that kind of person, though. I just want you to leave me alone.”

  Not even a blink. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  All right, so he wasn’t going to give me any choice. I’d feared as much, but I knew I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t given him that one last chance to walk away.

  He was just about to find out what a huge mistake he’d made.

  Lightning was a crazy thing. It could strike from a cloudless sky — or at least, a sky without visible clouds, traveling more than twenty miles to hit its target. There were no clouds directly over the neighborhood where we stood, but a few lingered around Mt. Humphreys, the highest of the San Francisco Peaks…and that was all I needed.

  The Adara Grant from three days earlier couldn’t have done what I was about to attempt. However, I now knew how to reach up to those clouds, to sense the potential energy trapped within them. To cause them to flare, and charge, and send out a single targ
eted bolt.

  It came through the window, shattering the glass and setting the curtains ablaze. For one timeless second, the lightning arced in place, illuminating the room with a white-hot flash, as if a nuclear bomb had been detonated nearby. Randall Lenz’s eyes widened, and I saw fear come alive in them as he realized what I had just done.

  No time for him to do anything about it, though, as the bolt connected with him and for a moment, his entire body pulsed with that white-hot glare. Soundlessly, he slumped to the floor, his dark suit smoking from the contact, his eyes staring at me without seeing.

  Shit. Oh, shit. I’d had to do it, but….

  I’d spotted a mini fire extinguisher in the kitchen pantry earlier, and I ran in there and grabbed it, then hurried back to the living room so I could put out the curtains before they caught the whole house on fire. Only once I knew the structure was safe did I set down the fire extinguisher and go to Agent Lenz’s prone body. With a shaking hand, I reached down to touch his throat, to see if I was just as much a murderer as he was.

  A pulse. Faint and thready, skipping here and there, but alive. How, I didn’t know, although I’d read once that more people survived being struck by lightning than not. Still, I doubted there was much time to waste.

  I didn’t call 911, though. Instead, I ran for my purse and called Connor, since his was the only actual number I had programmed into my new phone.

  To my infinite relief, he picked up after the second ring. Maybe, as the head of the Wilcox clan, he was used to getting phone calls at all hours. “Hello?”

  “Connor,” I gasped. “It’s Addie. That agent — Agent Lenz — he showed up at the cottage. I blasted him with lightning, but now he’s half dead and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said. “The government agent you told me about is here in Flagstaff?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He said he found me because of the bank account I opened and the car I bought. That’s not important, though. What should I do?”