glance dropped to the lush fullness of her mouth. Soft and ripe, that sensuality was as unexpected as the innocence.
So was the jolt of heat low in his gut.
Her lips had parted with an indrawn breath when their eyes met the first time. When they met again, her glance faltered and she grabbed another flat.
“What about your husband?” he asked, forcing his focus to her hands. She appeared older than he’d first thought. Her left hand was hidden, but she could easily be married. “Can he help me?”
She was trying to balance a third tray between the two she held when he saw her hesitate. Harried, distracted, she darted a furtive glance from his dark hair to the logo on his polo shirt and murmured, “No. He can’t.”
An instant later, seeing she couldn’t carry more than two trays without smashing what she was trying to save, she hoisted a flat to each hip and took off again.
“Then, how about a telephone?”
Grabbing the plants she hadn’t been able to carry and another flat for good measure, he hurried to catch up with her.
“There is no telephone here,” she said, still moving. “The nearest one is at the Clancy farm. It’s up the road by the bend. I’d imagine Mr. Clancy is bringing in his cows. For a telephone, you’ll have to go to Hancock.”
“Isn’t there any place closer? A gas station?”
“Only in Hancock.”
“How about another neighbor?” He could jog to the little town if he had to. He ran four times a week as it was. But a ten-mile run in the rain wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d decided to play hooky. “I’d really like to avoid getting drenched,” he admitted, tossing her a rueful smile. “That sky looks like it could open up any minute.
“I drove out from Chicago to do a little fishing,” he explained, wanting her to know he wasn’t some lunatic out stalking farmers’ wives. “I’m taking the day off, you know?” he asked, wondering what the rush was with getting the plants inside. He’d have thought rain would be good for them. “I noticed the weather changing and decided to head back, but my car battery’s dead.”
She didn’t reply. Nor did she slow by so much as a step as they reached the plant-filled building. Not sure if he should follow her in—or if she was even listening—he stopped by the doorway while she shoved her load onto the nearest table and spun back toward the door.
Spotting the flats he’d carried, she pulled them from his hands, slid them next to the others and hurried back out.
He arrowed a frown at her back, practically biting his tongue to keep that scowl from his voice when he fell into step beside her. “Look, I can seen you’re busy here, but all I need is a jump. If there’s a vehicle—”
“What is this ‘jump?”’
“Jump-start,” he explained, never guessing that a farm girl would be as mechanically challenged as most of the women he knew. “You know. Hook up a car with a good battery to a car with a dead one to get the dead one going again?”
Puzzlement merged with the lines of concern deepening in her brow. But all she said was, “There is no car here.”
“Then how about a tractor?” he called to the back of her retreating head.
There was no tractor, either. She told him that as the first fat drops of rain soaked into his shirt and ticked against the tin roof of the utility shed. Another bolt of lightning ripped across the black horizon. In the three seconds before the thunder rolled in to crack overhead, the rain turned to pea-size hail and the woman had tucked herself over the plants she picked up to keep them from being shredded by the little pellets of ice.
“This Clancy place,” he said, hauling another load himself. “How far is it?”
“A mile by the road.” Looking torn between encouraging and declining his unexpected help, she headed into a gust of wind. “It’s shorter if you cut through the soy field.”
“Which one’s that?
“Hey,” he muttered when she shot him a puzzled glance. “I recognize the corn over there, but I’m from the city. Is soy tall or short?”
“Everything is short at one time,” she replied ever so reasonably. “I’ll show you the route, but you’ll want to stay until this passes. You’ll need shelter.”
She was right. The sky grew darker by the minute and the air had taken on a faint glow of pink. The clouds overhead looked as if they’d been flipped upside down, their boiling bellies suddenly a little too close, a little too ominous. Between the shades of slate, misty tails of pearl gray undulated and teased, dangling downward, pulling up.
They were nearly to the greenhouse when everything went dead still. The hail stopped. Not a single leaf on the trees moved. The air itself turned too heavy to breathe, the pressure of it feeling as if it were crushing him in an invisible vise. The woman felt it, too. He could tell by the fear that washed her expression an instant before the wind hit like backwash from a jet and the trays they carried were ripped from their hands.
Everything was leaning. Trees. Cornstalks. Them. A sheet from the clothesline sailed past. The blades of the windmill clattered wildly, fighting for a direction to go. Another sound rumbled beneath the tinny cacophony. Not thunder. The deep-throated hum sounded more like a million swarming bees.
The house sat a hundred yards behind them. It looked more like a mile as he grabbed for the woman’s wrist to stop her from running for the greenhouse.
“It’s not safe there! Get in your house!”
The wind snatched his words, muffling them in the growing roar. He could barely hear the “No!” she screamed back at him. But he saw the word form, and the sheer terror in her eyes as she tried to struggle free of his grip.
Panic had robbed her of reason. He was sure of it. She had to know there was no way the unfinished building would offer any protection. It was nothing but two-by-fours and tearing plastic that, in another minute, could well be nothing but matchsticks.
He swore. In the distance, a funnel of ghostly gray twisted against the black wall. At its base, a swirling cloud of dust began to form. “That thing could be on us any minute,” he growled, finally comprehending why she’d been in such a rush. “I don’t know what your problem is, lady, but I have no intention of playing Dorothy and Toto. Come on!”
He couldn’t hear what she said. He was more concerned with the way she gripped his wrist to pull his hand from hers while he practically dragged her toward the house. Thinking he’d do better carrying her, he swung around to get a better grip when his shift in momentum allowed her the leverage she needed.
She broke free with a sharp twist of her hand. An instant later, a Volkswagen-size chunk of tree ripped past, the tips of its branches barely missing his face as it flew through the space she’d occupied seconds ago. He thought for sure that the heavy branches had grazed her, but frantic as she was, nothing slowed her down. Through the cloud of straw and dust now billowing around them, he saw her bolt through the greenhouse door.
Swearing violently, he raced after her.
The
