Storm Warning - By Kadi Dillon Page 0,3
hair back in its stubby tail he kept in habitually. Unable to resist, Tory tugged the wet strands.
“No, it’s still up in there. I just wanted to let you know I’m going to go window shopping. I might try the club on Fourth Street tonight.”
“Vance taking you?”
She felt a twinge of longing deep within her. She couldn’t quite call it loneliness yet. “He’s staying home. He’s sick.”
“Sick,” Adam scoffed.
“So that guy’s here?” Tory asked, making herself comfortable on Adam’s double bed.
“If you mean Gabe, then yes. He’s here, he’s nice. You should go talk to him.” Adam finished drying his hair with a towel, then tied it back. “He asked about you.”
“Not interested. He can ride with Billy all season.” She jumped up off the bed. “Don’t wait up for me, okay?” She turned to leave and almost smacked right into Billy’s chest.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Wherever I want.” She poked him in the arm. “Going to ground me?”
Chapter Two
Figuring Tory out was going to be one hell of a ride, Gabe decided as he strolled into a smoke-filled bar on the strip. It would at least take his mind off his troubles. The club annoyed him. The noise annoyed him. The people in the noisy club annoyed him even more.
Adam would be showing up later to do “damage control.” Everyone else had taken the night off. Jack and Joel—the unstoppable twins—still had numbers to run and equipment to clean. Kary was staying in her room waiting for her husband’s phone call. And Frankie—Gabe laughed to himself, picturing the balding man with a full beard—was nowhere to be seen.
He spotted Tory instantly. Billy had shown him a wallet-size photograph of her standing in a field with a tornado behind her in the distance. Well, Gabe mused as he made his way to the bar, it hadn’t been distant enough.
He could almost feel the wind from the twister as he’d gazed at her picture. And the tornado wasn’t the only thing that’d had his pulse jumping. Tory was beautiful. Her hair was up in a ponytail in the photo, but now at the club she wore it down in beautiful tawny waves flowing everywhere. It looked as though she had just run her hands through it. Messy and beautiful chestnut, rich and thick—the kind of hair that made a man want to run his own hands through it.
He sat down next to her at the bar and smiled lazily. She didn’t even seem to notice him. She sat nursing a beer and staring blindly at the dance floor.
He ordered her another beer and one for himself. “Hi, there.”
Her eyes snapped to his and he felt his heart rate increase. They were even more vivid in person, he mused. Velvet brown. Her full sculpted mouth was unpainted and curved into a sorry attempt for a smile.
“Hi.”
Her voice was more lyrical with one syllable than most women’s in a full conversation. He mentally fumbled as he searched for something to say.
“Haven’t seen you around here,” he said, attempting to block out the audacious images her bedroom voice provoked. He could photograph her, he thought, studying her features. She would look perfect at any angle.
A nude. Classy, with her long dark hair spread out over crisp white sheets. Rose petals. He shifted on the bar stool when the image became a little too clear.
“That’s because I’m not from here.” She picked up the beer he had bought her and tipped it toward him. “Thanks.”
“You here with someone?”
She hesitated, then sighed. “No, I’m here alone.”
“Why?”
She shrugged and tapped on the bar. The bartender set a shot in front of her. She chugged it without a second thought, then went back to her beer. “Boyfriend’s sick.”
“That’s rough.” Gabe thought that any man who’d give up a night with her was a sorry individual.
He looked down at her hands, pale and pretty against the roughly scraped surface of the bar. They were small with short, unpainted nails gently rounded at the tips. Her fingers were long and thin, making them seem delicate. From the information he’d already gathered about her, she was anything but. Right now, her fingers tapped restlessly on the wood, making Gabe want to still them with his own.
She rapped the bar for another shot. He brought his gaze back up to her face.
“How many of those have you had?” he asked, noticing the rosy shade of her cheeks against the pallor of her skin.
She shrugged. “Not enough.”
“Six. But who’s counting?” the bartender