K. Weiland - Storming

“No!” She drew back one leg. The toe of her boot landed a resounding kick on his shin, square on top of the bruises she’d inflicted the other day.

Pain jagged up his leg. “ Ow !” He dropped her.

She scrambled to her feet and turned to advance on him, fists clenched, eyes sparking. “ Skotina !” That temper of hers was far enough gone for her to actually take a smack at him.

He caught first one hand, then the other when she tried again. “Why do you always have to be beating on me, huh?” She tried to bite his thumb, and he pulled her hands away from her face. “This is not how employees treat their employers, you realize that?”

She glared, huffing.

And then he realized how close they were. Only a few inches separated their faces.

She seemed to realize it too and froze. Her eyes got big. For one instant, her eyes dropped to his mouth, then flicked back. She clenched her teeth even harder.

She was mad at him, sure thing. And if he gave himself time to think about the new throb in his shin, he’d be mad at her too.

So he did the only sensible thing. He kissed her.

Maybe it was just because, at this moment, throbbing shin or no, she was about the cutest thing he’d ever seen. Or maybe it was because Griff was right: he looked in her eyes and he saw his own restless, wandering spirit.

He leaned back.

She gulped hard and stared at him, like she’d never been kissed before.

Maybe she hadn’t.

Well, that’s what he got for acting without thinking. A bit of heat crawled up his own neck.

He let her go—slowly, in case she had any more kicks in mind—and stepped back.

Blushing furiously, she bent her head to swipe the dust and grass from her clothes. After half a minute, she finally exhaled and raised her chin to look him in the eye.

Then she slapped him so hard his teeth rattled, and marched off.

He came up holding his stinging cheek. Yeah, okay, so he’d pretty much deserved that for manhandling her, even if it had been in fun. It hadn’t been like he’d asked for a kiss. It wasn’t even that he’d offered a kiss and she’d accepted it. Nice girls—or even nice hellcats, come to that—had a right to slap a fellow for thieving a kiss.

The grin faded a bit.

The kiss hadn’t exactly been on purpose. So she’d gotten embarrassed when he’d overheard Griff’s question. So she’d been too much fun not to tease. But Griff was right: he’d never had any intention of taking advantage of her.

Falling in love was something he did every now and then. But he had wings to fly away whenever it got too serious. Getting married, settling down, starting a family—that was a fork in the road he’d passed a long time ago. It was a road on the ground . And anyway Jael would soon be flying away to her own home. Unless he actually succeeded in convincing her to join the troupe long-term. Which, come to think of it, might end up being way more complicated than he’d first envisioned.

At the other end of the field, she rounded the corner of his Jenny and disappeared.

His stomach got that same hollowed-out feeling as before, when he’d watched Walter run laps around the plane.

All right, he admitted it: he’d miss her if he had to leave her behind. He chomped his lower lip.

But that was as far as this one could go. He hadn’t come home to fall for some wacky girl who slapped, kicked, and tried to stab him. He shifted her—and her kiss—to the back of his mind and bent to pick up Earl’s fallen tools.

Footsteps crunched through the grass, too heavy to be Jael’s.

He looked up.

“There you are.” Earl hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward camp. “What’s a matter with her?”

“She’s just riled. She’ll get over it.”

Earl raised both eyebrows to the brim of his cap. “Riled, is it? The feeling I’m getting is that she doesn’t know whether she’s mad on purpose, mad on principle, or mad just for the show of it.”

Sounded familiar. He dumped Earl’s rawhide mallet onto the pile and started rolling up the canvas. His cheek tingled. “Take your pick. They all feel the same.”

Earl held the silence for a second. “You get the idea she ain’t seen much of the world?”

“Yeah, I reckon.”

“Well, don’t scare her off.”

Hitch squinted up. “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t scare women.”

“No, but you get careless sometimes. All I’m saying is we need her right now—for the show. So don’t do something dumb that’s going to send her running.”

Hitch tucked the bundle of tools under his elbow and stood. He sighed. “I know. I’ll be careful.” ’Cause Lord knew he didn’t want to do something that was going to end up scaring himself either.

Earl held out his open hand. “How about this?” Jael’s pendant, on its chain, lay in his callused palm.

“She gave you that?”

“More like slapped it into my hand. Isn’t this what caused all the fuss the other day when she about tore off Livingstone’s head?”

“That’s it.” He took it from Earl and turned it over.

It was about twice as heavy as it ought to be, even with all the little cogs and gears behind the glass cover. It clicked and whirred faintly, barely vibrating in his palm.

He looked at Earl. “What do you think?”

Earl shrugged. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Would it be possible for something like this to, I don’t know, call down lightning?” He explained about the storm the other day. “It’s just a thought, and it’s probably crazy. But if the pendant could pull in the lightning, and if that thing up there is causing the lightning, maybe we could use the pendant to pull in the whole kit and caboodle.”

Earl took back the pendant. “I dunno. Maybe. Sounds like hooey, but then so has about everything else that’s happened this week. Give me some time to look it over.”

On the road, a dark green sedan slowed near the entrance to the field. It took the turn through the open gateway and bounced over the ruts, then stopped. The front door opened, and Campbell stepped out. He leaned back against the car and lit up a cigarette. Judging from the angle of his head, he was staring right at Hitch.

Hitch’s stomach sank. “Oh, brother.”

Earl turned to look. “What?”

“I gotta go.” He handed over the tools. “I told the sheriff I’d do him a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“The kind you get in trouble for these days, unless it’s the sheriff who asks you.”

Earl narrowed his gaze. “Please tell me it ain’t bootleg liquor.”

“It’ll be all right.”

“The more you say that, the worse your odds get.”

“Just so long as the odds don’t run out this weekend.” He started toward Campbell, then stopped and looked back. “See if you can figure out anything about that pendant. If Jael will come with me on the job tonight, we can give it a try.”

“No way I’m going to figure it out before tonight.”

“Just try. And make sure Jael stays put until then.”

TURNED OUT JAEL had her own ideas about staying put. By the time Hitch got back from talking with Campbell and loading the goods into the Jenny, Earl reported she’d skedaddled. She was still gone an hour past suppertime.

Hands on his hips, Hitch stared across the crowded field, watching the road. In another couple hours, he’d have to take off with Campbell’s present for the governor of Wyoming. Even if Jael was still mad at him, he could hardly leave her wandering around by herself. According to her, Zlo could come back at any time—which would be definitely bad for her and possibly good for Hitch—and either way she didn’t need to be out there meeting him on her own.