Chapter 6
2418 Words
Chapter Six
Axel whistled as he walked down the path from the stables toward Steele Creek and the cluster of tree houses that stood along the Sinclaire side of the river. He hadn’t felt this alive in years, and it was all Coop. She might be all business at the moment, but just being around her was… exhilarating.
Maybe informing her that he intended to flirt with her had been a stupid move on his part, but the second they’d kissed, all bets were off. He wanted more of that. Lots more. Even if it meant he’d get burned down the road. At the moment, he didn’t care. And he was fairly certain his feeling wasn’t one-sided. The way she blushed when he caught her staring was confirmation of that. And the look she’d given him pulled tight in his gut. He’d brushed her hair out of her eyes once, and the jolt of awareness set him buzzing.
Being close to her every day and not being able to pull her into his arms and steal a kiss or nuzzle that sensitive spot under her ear, like he’d always done, was an exquisite form of t*****e. But at least she laughed at his jokes. Satisfaction filled him as the sound of her laughter filled his mind. He could still make her laugh. That meant something too, didn’t it? The attraction still sizzled between them. The feel of her mouth on his still sent ripples of desire through him a week later.
He approached the creek and paused, looking for a crossing. He needed to talk to Ben about building a crossing. With his interns staying in the tree houses, they needed to have better access than a bunch of slippery rocks, which were currently covered by winter runoff. At least he’d worn his s**t kickers. Anything nicer would get ruined. He stepped tentatively into the stream and then onto the tip of the first rock that stood up.
“C’mon. What are you waiting for?” His sister hollered from the opposite side.
“Are you trying to drown me?”
“How come you didn’t ride over, you moron? I only cross by foot when the water’s lower.”
Shit.
Why hadn’t he?
The answer was obvious.
He’d been completely wrapped up imagining all the ways he could get Coop alone. Well, f**k him. He backed out, removed his boots, and rolled up his jeans.
“Better?” he called across.
Hope answered with a laugh. “You’re gonna freeze your nads off, but sure.”
Axel stepped in again. s**t. She wasn’t foolin’. The cold zinged right up his leg. Nothing to do but make the most of it. He crossed, slipping and sliding, wet up to his thighs by the time he reached the far bank.
“Jesus, Hope. Why didn’t you warn me?”
Her laugh sparkled like sunlight on water. God, it was good to hear her laugh so freely after all she’d been through. Even if it was at his expense. “Hmm… I don’t know… Payback?” She grinned wickedly.
He’d lost count over the years of the pranks she’d endured. He was due for some payback. “So we’re even then?”
“Not by a long shot, brother dear. Not by a long shot. You better be looking over your shoulder because I’m gonna be waiting for you in the tall grass. Just you wait.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “That’ll be the day. You’ve never gotten me.”
She smirked, her eyes flashing with mischief. “Never underestimate a woman on the warpath, Axe. Your time will come.”
“We’ll see about that,” he tossed back. “Now where do you have my interns stashed? I want to talk to them about diversifying ranch income today. Thought I’d have Ben talk to them about making the shift from cattle to bison and then walk them through our paint g*n course.”
She nodded her assent. “Good idea. You should have Ben talk to them about eco-tourism too. Our tree houses are already booked up for the fall bird migration.”
Axel had always prided himself on his out-of-the-box thinking when it came to diversifying ranch income, but Ben had him beat. They’d gone through the same agribusiness program at K-State, but Ben could think up and implement new income streams like nobody’s business. It made him glad Hope had married him. No matter what happened, Hope would always land on her feet with Ben at her side.
By lunchtime, the group stood gathered at the Sinclaire paddock discussing the pros and cons of using vehicles or horses on the open range.
“Axe,”
He turned immediately at the sound of Coop’s voice. His breath might have caught somewhere behind his throat, but he wasn’t sure, because his mind went blank. Afternoon sun glinted off the rim of her sunglasses. She was in uniform again, khaki shorts and a polo shirt bearing the CPARC logo. A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
“I need to set instruments this afternoon. Can you help?”
Hell, yes.
He turned back to his students. “Remember our conversation earlier about income streams?” He nodded over to Coop. “A small side benefit from living in tornado alley.”
“What are you doing?” Ashleigh, one of his more outgoing students asked Coop.
She grinned at the young undergrad. “I’m studying the atmosphere before and during severe weather to enhance our prediction of tornadoes.”
“So you chase tornadoes?” Brad, another student, asked excitedly.
Coop’s eyes narrowed. “No. We intercept them for scientific purposes.”
Exclamations of admiration rippled through the group. But Coop shook her head. “Not that exciting, really. Mostly, it’s hurry up and wait.” She leveled a severe look at each of the interns. “And don’t even think about getting in a car and trying to find a tornado. You can injure yourself and others. We’re trained in evasive and emergency tactics. Y’all want to live to see twenty-five.”
Brad looked crestfallen.
Wow.
Hearing Coop speak so strongly against chasing surprised Axel. How many times had he and Coop chased storms when they were these kids’ age? He’d learned from Coop only this week she’d nearly gotten expelled when one of her professors discovered her chasing activities. Recreational chasing was frowned upon in the meteorological community.
Axel, nodded his head in agreement. “What Coop said. I don’t want to learn that any of you have gone off half-c****d and chased a storm.” He made sure he made eye contact with each student, pausing extra long when he met Brad’s eyes. “I don’t want to have to call any parents or professors because you got yourself killed on my watch. Clear?”
They all nodded. Brad, reluctantly. He’d have to keep an eye on that one. Last thing he needed was one of the students to turn up injured, or worse.
“All right, class dismissed. Your assignment for the rest of the day is to shadow one of the operations. Either on the Sinclaire ranch or ours. And remember to ask lots of questions.”
His students departed, leaving him alone with Coop.
She c****d her head, studying him. “You’re good with them, you know.”
“Who? Them?” Axel waved back to where the students had been standing a moment earlier.
She nodded. “Yeah. You look… excited when you talk to them.”
Axel shrugged, working to keep a silly grin off his face. Her words set a little fire burning in his belly. “I want them to learn everything I wish someone had told me when I was their age.”
She laughed quietly. “Funny, isn’t it, that we’re old enough to have a little perspective now?”
Axel stopped and turned to her. “Do you wish you’d done anything differently? What would you tell your twenty-one year old self?”
Immediately, her face shuttered.
Damn.
He’d pushed too hard again. Gotten too personal. Things were fine between them so long as he kept things light. But he didn’t want to keep things light. He wanted to get inside her head. Ask her all the questions he should have asked years ago, but didn’t.
“Well?” He wasn’t going to let this go.
She opened her mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut, mouth firming into a hard line.
“I know one thing I’d’ve done different,” he offered, voice softening. “I’d’ve turned every building upside down between here and Norman when you bolted. And I wouldn’t have stopped until I found you and reminded you how good we were together.”
Her face twisted and she shook her head. “Axel, don’t… please.”
“I mean it.” He reached for her hand, curling his palm around her tiny, slender fingers. “I’ve regretted it every day that I didn’t go right after you. I…” he took a deep breath. “I thought maybe you just needed to blow off steam and you’d be back.”
“I have a job to do, Axe,” she whispered, staring at their hands.
Disappointment flooded him. Surely there must be a c***k in her defenses? Someplace? He gave her hand a squeeze before dropping it. “Okay, boss. Tell me what we need to do.” He just needed more time with her. Free from distractions.
“I’ve got five locations where I need to set up instruments for readings. The weather’s changing tomorrow and we’re expecting storms to spring up. I don’t know if we’ll get a supercell, but I want to be ready, and we need to take readings regardless.”
He trudged up the hill behind her, enjoying the way her a*s swayed as she hiked, and then getting lost in a lovely vision of her slipping off those khakis and baring herself to him.
“Axe?” Coop’s voice held a note of exasperation. “Did you hear anything I just said?”
Oops.
He flashed her his most charming smile.
She let out a laugh somewhere between amusement and frustration. “You were checking out my a*s, weren’t you?”
He held out his hands in supplication. “Sorry not sorry.”
“Oh for pity’s sake.” She turned in a huff and stomped to the vehicle, bending in and giving him another unobstructed view of her gorgeous backside. She whirled and scowled at him, thrusting out a map.
“You’re as beautiful as ever, Coop. Can’t help myself.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re on the job, in case you didn’t remember.”
Oh he remembered, all right. And so did his frustrated c**k. “What’s with the map?” he asked, taking it from her and opening it.
“So I need to go here, here, and here,” she pointed to three red dots west, north, and northeast of Prairie. Judging from the scale of the map, the points were twenty, maybe thirty miles apart.
A breeze ruffled her hair, sending a whiff of her perfume his direction. He inhaled slowly, letting her essence fill his head and straightening as her scent registered with a tightening of his balls. He bit back a groan. “Okay, but they’re all along roads outside of town.”
“Exactly. I can take care of those in a few hours this afternoon. But it’s these,” she pointed to two other points that seemed to be smack dab in the middle of the Hansen and Sinclaire properties. “That I need help with. There aren’t any roads. And the terrain is too much for the T-REX. Can we take your truck?”
“You want to take my truck?” A brilliant idea formed in his mind. It could be done, but in reality, horses would be better. For all sorts of reasons.
She nodded once. “Possible?”
He stepped back and folded his arms. “Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope?”
“I mean, nope.”
“Oh, come on, Axe. Y’all take trucks out all the time.”
“Not to the middle of the property.” Not if they could avoid it, at least. And it was so much nicer on horseback… and slower. “We’ll have to take the horses.”
She pinned him with a look full of suspicion and pursed her lips. “Axe… I recognize that look.”
Axel’s belly flopped. It killed him how the smallest move she made sent heat skittering across his skin. “What look?”
She crossed her arms. “No funny business. I need to get these probes set before noon tomorrow.”
“No problem. Why don’t you drop me off at the ranch, and I’ll get the horses ready while you take your stuff down the road.”
She nodded and motioned for him to take the passenger side. “Don’t touch any equipment.”
He sat down and buckled in, amazed again at how much equipment was crammed in the vehicle. He pointed to one of the screens as she wheeled the vehicle around and headed down Sinclaire’s road. “What’s this do?”
Coop glanced over. “That’s my Doppler screen. The small satellite on top of the car takes the readings, and I can see it on that screen. I can see a tornado forming practically in real time.”
“What’s this, then?” He pointed to another screen.
“That shows wind shear measurements.” She glanced back at him, a puzzled expression on her face. “Why so curious all of a sudden?”
A stab of regret knifed through him. In the years they’d been together he’d barely asked a dozen questions about what she was studying. They’d mostly seen each other on weekends, and like most college kids, they’d filled it up with dancing, beer, and sexy times when they’d managed to sneak off alone. Sure, he knew she studied weather, and sometimes, if they were lying in the grass, he remembered her naming off the kinds of clouds for him, but their conversations had never been… deep.
He shifted in his seat to take her in more fully. She held herself with confidence and an easy grace. She was utterly at home in this vehicle packed with instruments and screens. Regret shifted to admiration. “I don’t think you ever told me why you ended up in this line of work.”
She looked at him sharply. Suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because maybe I want to get to know you better, Coop.” He blew out an exasperated breath. Her defenses were as high as ever. Maybe today he could make some headway. Make her see that he could be as serious about her work as she was.
“Oh.” A pink spot bloomed across her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be…” She shook her head and shrugged.
He reached over and caressed her arm with the back of his finger, bracing himself when the shot of awareness zinged through him. “It’s okay.” He took a deep breath. “Look, we can do this, right? Be friendly?”
God, he wanted so much more than friendly, but friendly was a start. Friendly might get them past the chasm of unspoken words and feelings that seemed to gulf between them.
Pulling the car to a stop, she bit her lip and slid her eyes over him, heating his skin. God, she could bring him to his knees with a look. His heart thudded a little too hard in his chest as he waited for her to speak.
Coop nodded, a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah. We can.”
- Writer
