Bootscootin' Blahniks (35 page)

The wind, once whirling in a horrific roar while it beat the earth, had left an eerie silence in its wake. Goose bumps rushed over Roxy’s arms. The tops of the trees were stilled. Not a single branch stirred.
Shit
. This didn’t look good.

Trying to shake off the fear consuming her, she rubbed her arms. Grinding the heel of her boot into the dust, she thanked the angry heavens she wasn’t wearing stilettos.

She walked to the edge of the field closest to the first barn, looking out into the vast, deeply shadowed earth. She searched for Zayne’s tractor lights. Not seeing any, she ran past the next barn then stopped at the edge of a second field. She strained her eyes, willing his tractor to appear.

Repeating her actions two additional times and with only three fields left, she hustled past a fourth barn.

Without warning and without changing altitude, Roxy’s ears popped. She tugged on her earlobes then moved her jaw back and forth, trying to alleviate the uncomfortable sensation.

Finally spotting Zayne’s tractor coming towards the barn, she took-off through the tomato vines, sprinting toward the John Deere, wishing with everything she had she’d get to Zayne in time.

Damn
. Zayne didn’t like the feel of the air closing in on the fields. His ears had popped, adjusting for a drastic drop in pressure. They were in for one hell of a storm.

He’d decided to head for the barn to grab his NOAA weather alert radio. He’d meant to put it in his pocket after he’d swallowed the dinner his mom left him in the main barn’s office. But he’d been in such a rush to get back in the fields, he’d forgotten.

His tractor rolled over the well-worn dirt rows separating the mounds of tomato vines, then crested a hill before heading down into another low spot. He swore he saw the headlamps pick up a moving shadow. But who’d be dumb enough to wander out here when it was obvious they were about to get hammered by a big storm?

Zayne focused on where he’d last seen the moving object, waiting until the tractor conquered the next hill to zero-in on the exact location.

What the hell
? When he saw Roxy running toward him, his heart nearly stopped. He felt completely helpless. The tractor was moving at full speed, and it still felt like he was barely making headway to close the gap between them.

Nature’s eerie calm gave way to a cold wind that whistled and howled with increasing intensity the closer he got to Roxy. It wasn’t long before huge drops of rain pummeled his shoulders and back. The drops quickly became streams which almost instantaneously turned into torrential sheets, pricking his skin as if they were needles.

He hollered Roxy’s name but knew she’d never hear him above the ferocious storm.

His gut twisted into a fierce protective knot. He didn’t have time to wait on this ancient tractor. Slamming the gearshift into neutral, he turned off the motor and jumped to the ground.

He thought he heard her screaming out his name, but figured it was the storm messing with his mind. Hail the size of golf balls fell from the sky, leaving bruises on his flesh with each hit.

Frustrated with her for risking her safety for God knew what, he sprinted for Roxy beneath the thunderous roars echoing across the fields, dodging the deadly forks of lightning spearing the earth.

The rain, once plummeting to the ground, began to move backwards, up towards the sky, the effect of a major, vacuum-like force. Not until that moment did Zayne realize just how much trouble they were in.
Fuck
. A twister had to be coming right at them.

Reaching Roxy at last, he pulled her close to him, not sure if he wanted to kiss her or throttle her. What the hell was she doing out here? Whatever the reason, he didn’t have time to find out.

Zayne grabbed her by the hand, screaming over the wind for her to follow him. Telling her whatever she did, not to let go of his hand. She nodded her head she understood, her eyes telling him everything he needed to know.

If they were lucky enough to survive this twister, their life would never be the same.

Stashed in the barn minutes later, hay bales piled around them as additional safety nets, Roxy shivered, burying her head into Zayne’s drenched shirt. What had possessed her to run into the field was still a mystery. But now that she’d found her man, risks weren’t worth worrying about. Zayne was.

After holding her tight against him, Zayne pushed Roxy away from his chest, a mixture of fear and anger sparking from his eyes.

“What the hell were you thinking? You could have been picked-up by that twister. Hell, we’re still not out of the woods.”

“Well I wasn’t blown away and neither were you so that’s all that matters,” she answered, learning quickly that her unnecessary bravado hadn’t gone over well.

“Don’t move while I go get the weather radio. Do you think you can do that?”

“Perhaps,” she said, a bit hurt by his abrasiveness.

Rain dripped from his hair, sliding over his overly taught jaw line. If she wasn’t scared half to death, and he wasn’t pissed, being holed up together in the barn could prove to be fun.

The longer she sat, nestled on the barn’s cement floor between the tall stacks of hay, the more Roxy recognized how foolish she’d been. She could have gotten herself killed. Then where would she be? That thought sent heat back into her bones, hopefully not a premonition of Hell being the warm spot that would eventually heat her stone cold determination to go after what she wanted.

That thought wasn’t even funny except, at this point, she’d rather laugh at the ludicrous instead of cry with reality.

Soon Zayne was back, settling-in next to her with two radios squawking.

Thanks to the volume blasting from the speakers to override the static-filled airwaves, the dull points of an encroaching headache took over Roxy’s temples. The adrenaline rushes of the evening were still wreaking havoc in her body, screwing her system royally. Every bone she had was starting to ache, as if she were going on eighty instead of thirty-five.

Zayne, apparently feeling her pain or taking pity on her pouting lips, or both, took her back into his arms.

“I’m sorry for being harsh. You just scared me beyond human limits. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you so damn much. And that, Princess, scares me more.”

Hearing him say the words she once thought she didn’t want to hear and now couldn’t possibly ever tire of hearing re-energized Roxy’s body, mind and soul. “I love you too, Zayne. And you know that’s not easy for me either.”

“Nothing with you is ever easy,” Zayne responded, planting soft, incessant kisses down the length of her neck. “You’re a pistol, all right.”

Zayne rolled her onto her side then whispered into her ears perhaps the naughtiest suggestion she’d ever heard.

But she liked what he had in mind. She liked it a lot.

With the storm still raging outside the barn, they were about to stir one up in the hay to match if not exceed Mother Nature’s intensity. Like most of the best of Roxy’s dreams, reality with Zayne in the picture was consistently better.

She pulled-off her soaked t-shirt and covered the nearest bale of hay. As Zayne had propositioned, she then positioned herself on her knees, bending against and slightly over the bale.

He slid in behind her, running his hands over every muscle she had from the base of her neck to the small of her back, tracing each outline of her contoured body mass with his fingertips.

Chills caused by a mixture of his touch and the air rushing over her damp skin descended Roxy’s body from her head to the tips of her boots. As his strong, wet hands settled along each of her hip bones, Zayne lowered his pants and slid into position behind her.

“I believe we left the farm with some unfinished business the night of our river boat cruise,” he stated in a husky and hungry drawl.

His gravel-edged voice pierced the relative silence in the barn. Except for the howling winds and the snowy static of the radios still not able to catch a station, it was just him and his perfect body, her in nothing but her boots, and a bale of hay Roxy hoped could stand the heat of their unleashed desires.

Zayne entered her from behind then began pumping her soft and steady, moving in and out of her with a sensual cadence. His smooth rhythm building to what became erotic thrusts keeping time to a much edgier beat.

Roxy rode with him, bucking him hard but never throwing him off his mount. She couldn’t get enough of him.

As her body heated, moisture from more than the torrential rain covered her skin. She took pleasure again and again from feeling him penetrate deeper and deeper inside her. Reaching for the opposite side of the bale, she held on tight ’til all control left her wanton and reckless.

Both of them too spent to continue on their knees, they moved to the barn’s floor, collapsing into each other’s arms.

With their bodies both still trembling, tiny aftershocks and jolts of joy flooded Roxy’s circuits. She stayed huddled together with him, tucked into the strong curves of his body, swaddled in the warmth of his love.

With one ear, Roxy listened to the rain beating down on the barn’s roof, while her other ear picked up the strong rhythm of Zayne’s heart.

He’d taught her to move to life’s music in an entirely different way. For the first time, she was free to dance to her own soul. And she wasn’t afraid of stumbling. Zayne was always there to get her back onto her feet.

So wrapped-up in her discoveries, she almost missed the radio announcer when his voice finally broke through the static. Zayne handed her one of the radios.

“Take this one, Princess, and listen in. I’ll catch the NOAA alert.”

Roxy did as Zayne asked. But to keep her headache from reappearing, she turned down the volume on her unit.

As the radio station’s news reporter rambled on and on about the storm, telling the listening audience he’d soon be live on the scene of the city’s hardest hit areas, Roxy leaned her wet head against one of the bales, blowing away the loose hay falling onto her lips.

“Looks like it blew over the farm, but I don’t think the west side of Nashville was as lucky.” Zayne turned to her, taking the radio away from her ear and cranking up the volume.

Thank God The Moms, her friends, and the saloon were safe, she thought, feeling her body relax with the report. They were on the east side of the city. But as soon as she’d breathed in a bit of relief at their safe location, her body stiffened and cramped into tiny knots of agony.

“Oh my God.” She threw her hands to her mouth, stifling the urge to scream. “Raeve.”

F
our hours later, Roxy stood with Zayne, his arm around her shoulder, holding her close. They’d finally been allowed into the area the twister left in its wake.

Roxy had been silent for several minutes. And even though she knew Zayne was waiting for her to say something, she couldn’t find the words. How could she express the feeling of losing everything she’d worked years to create?

In the rubble that once formed The Tractor Supply Store and her beloved Raeve, an emergency worker’s searchlight landed on a sparkling piece of silver.

Breaking away from Zayne and ignoring the sheriff’s deputy’s request for her to stay clear of the debris until he thought it was safe to walk on, Roxy slowly made her way through what was left of her boutique.

Reaching the illuminated object, she leaned over and plucked it from the surrounding devastation. As if the storm had also destroyed a dam inside her soul, tears flooded her cheeks. Her heart poured out her pain.

Holding up a belt buckle, the first one she’d designed in the Buckles Me Baby Collection, Roxy used her fingers then her soaked shirt to wipe-off the filthy muck covering the precious stones and silver. Turning back to Zayne, seeing FEMA’s spotlights reflecting off his tears, she lost what little strength she had left.

Collapsing into the heap of debris, she pounded her fists against the remains of a display unit once belonging to Raeve.

All her hard work had been blown to bits. Her inventory, gone. Her supplies, gone. Her drawings, gone.

Zayne came to her side, kneeled down and bundled her into his jacket.

She couldn’t feel his or the material’s warmth. She was numb, slowly closing-out the world around her. Looking through the fog swirling in her head, Roxy fought to stay clear of the vacuum desperately trying to trap her inside a never-ending tunnel of despair.

Peep
.
Peep-peep
.
Peep
. A small, high-pitched peep suddenly reached deep into her subconscious. Refusing to let go. Determined not to let her give-up.

Peep
.
Peep
.

Roxy forced her eyes to focus in the direction of the desperate cry.

A baby chick, shaking its wet fuzz, called for help while trying to take refuge against Roxy’s jeans.

She picked up the trembling critter. Trying to conserve its body heat, she closed her hands around its tiny form.

Although Roxy didn’t see its incubation tub in the rubble nor any of the other dozens of chicks calling the supply store their temporary home, this lucky devil had survived.

“I’m going to call you Lucky,” she whispered into the chick’s soft, fuzzy head. “Do you have room for this little one at the farm, Old McDonald?”

“I think we can take her in,” Zayne said, running his hand over the chick’s head.

He then put both his arms around Roxy and pulled her towards him, resting her head against his chest.

She gazed up into his eyes, basking in the love she saw, knowing that was enough to get her through the storm.

Before she pulled herself together enough to speak, she was surrounded by Kat, Lily, Jules and Audrey. Just the sight of them brought back her tears.

“We came as soon as we heard,” Kat said, brushing strands of matted hair out of Roxy’s eyes.

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.” Roxy’s mother knelt in front of her, cupping her chin in her hands. “Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll find a new location. Have you re-opened in no time.”