In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy

There was crisp
white snow piled high to either side of Gabe and Annie James’ driveway. A white arc of powder flew from the curving sidewalk as the snowblower munched its way to the front door. Nine inches of fresh snow had fallen during the night, adding to the four already on the ground, and the front yard of the James’ two-story home looked like a winter wonderland. Drifts along the northern side of the house were up almost to the bay window in the dining room, and had swept back a good five feet to the left of the garage. The air was crisp with a biting northwesterly wind blowing, even though the sun was shining down beneath a sky almost totally devoid of clouds.

Gabe was out in the arctic twenty-degree weather of Kellogg, Iowa’s second snowfall of the season, having fun with his brand new ‘snower-thrower,’ as he called it. Watching him from their cozy bedroom, Annie felt a twinge of guilt as she sat on their bed, their little dog curled up asleep in herlap. After all, Gabe had been born and bred in the Deep South, somewhere near a place called, ironically enough, Frostproof, and had spent his college years in Gainesville at the University of Florida. Upon graduation, he’d taken a job in the Panhandle of that state, although he had never really explained to her what that job had been. He was used to a warmer clime, a less frigid winter. And he bitterly detested snow.

She’d met him through a friend at the college in Grinnell, Iowa, at the start of the September classes where she had been taking some courses toward her Masters in education. His big brown eyes, dark complexion, and shock of thick, curly brown hair had made female eyes stray his way often as they sat in Hardee’s that morning. His six-foot, two-inch frame and thickly-muscled physique had even turned the heads of a few strapping farm boys who happened into the fast food restaurant. No doubt they’d thought him one of their own. One or two had nodded his way, sizing him up as men do other men, obviously approving of what they saw, sensing no threat from him, no intrusion on their territory, for they’d ignored him from then on.

She’d studied his face: full and round, his nose a bit too broad, but bold and hinting at a sensuality she could actually feel emanating from him. His thick brows peaked at the center and met over the bridge of his nose. His lower lip was thin with a wavering boyhood scar running parallel to it. His teeth were white and perfectly straight and even; a movie star’s teeth, she had thought.

“What do you do here, Gabe?” she had asked, pleased with the dimples in his cheeks, the cleft in his chin, and the way a lock of his dark hair couldn’t seem to keep from falling over his right eye.

“I work for Iowa Southern.” He’d smiled, looking down at his biscuit and gravy. His eyes had lifted to hers as he raised his coffee cup and grinned as he began to sing off-key, “I am a lineman for the county...”

She’d been fascinated with his soft, Southern accent, his polite, gentlemanly ways. He’d looked absolutely mouth-watering in his gray stone-washed jeans which had hugged his lean flanks like a second skin; pale brown shirt rolled up to the elbows to expose the thick furring of hair on his forearms and hands; and his very white, and very large, tennis shoes.

Unlike most of the men she’d known all her life, he’d been very solicitous of her, asking if she’d like more coffee, sugar, cream. His manners were impeccable and his face was not only handsome, but honest and open, and just a touch boyish. He had the tendency to blush often, lower his eyes as he spoke. She found his mannerisms refreshing compared to the too-direct, bulldozing mystique that is the Iowa male.

“Have you been in Grinnell long?” she’d asked, holding her breath for his answer, not even aware his answer was very, very important to her.

“Since May.” He’d ducked his head, looked up with a sheepish grin on his face. “I’m not sure I can drive in the snow up here.” He had, true to form, blushed.

“Piece of cake,” she’d assured him, instinctively reaching out to touch his hand where it lay on the table between them. She’d looked into those remarkable brown eyes and felt lost.

Six months later, they were married. A month after that, they’d moved to Kellogg. She’d taken a teaching position at the high school in neighboring Newton and he had gotten a job as a cable installer with the local cable company out of Gilman.

“Jack of all trades,” he’d told her when she questioned his choice of jobs. Laying cable, running service calls, didn’t seem like much of a job for a man with a college degree.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he’d assured her. “I can still support us on an installer’s pay.”

It hadn’t been that that had worried her, but at the time, Annie couldn’t put her finger on what it was that nagged at her about Gabe’s reluctance to get a job commensurate with his education.

“Gabe’s still a little boy,” her friend Helen had commented. “He likes ‘playing’ at working.”

Now, two years later, he had changed jobs again. For the third time. Now, he was working at the local super store, managing the automotive department.

“I just got tired of being out in the cold,” he’d explained to her when she wondered about the change of job from electrician to retail sales.

He wasn’t accustomed to snow and sleet and freezing rains—the legacy every Iowan had learned from cradle to grave. Even though he’d been north two winters, his blood still had not thickened and he complained about the cold every winter.

“Do you have trouble feeling your toes in the winter, Annie?” he’d grumbled.

“Would you rather we moved south? Maybe go down to Florida?” she’d asked one blustery morning when she had found him cursing over the light snow covering the driveway.

“No,” he’d hissed, turning to face her with eyes suddenly very wide, and to her mind, very frightened.

His face had gone from the slight pink of annoyance over the offending snow to stark white paleness, to an infused angry red, and she had reached out a hand to him, surprised when he batted it away and spun around.

“I’ll be late,” he’d snapped at her as he banged the door shut behind him, heading for, at that time, his job as an electrician with a small Kellogg company.

Annie shivered, remembering that look on his face. It had been one she had not seen since. Most of the time, her husband was quiet, rather shy, and totally devoted to her, but there were times when his silence worried her.

She saw him glance up, no doubt feeling her eyes on him, and he threw up a thickly gloved hand. She waved at him, smiling. Letting the curtain drop, she moved away from the window and sat on the still-unmade bed. She gazed at the rumpled sheets around her. He’d had another bad nightmare the night before. It was the second one that week.

Putting her hand on his pillow, she smoothed the pillowcase and sighed. Gabe was a private person, something she had learned early on in their marriage. He had secrets he wasn’t willing to share with her, so she’d simply grown accustomed to allowing him his moodiness and silences, his moments of staring blindly out of windows whenever it rained, his reluctance to take even an aspirin when he wasn’t feeling well. But lately, since one of his best friends, Kyle Vittetoe, had been injured in a robbery attempt at a Casey’s convenience store, Gabe had become withdrawn, restive, even sulking, at times.

“What’s bothering you, baby?” she’d asked before they had gone to bed the night before.

“Nothing,” he’d mumbled, pulling up the covers up, turning to his right side, away from her, and dragging the coverlet up to his chin. “I’m just tired.” He’d turned back over, pecked her on the cheek, and had quickly retreated to the far side of the king-size bed.

An hour later, he’d awakened her with a cut-off yelp as he sat bolt upright. Annie had turned on the lamp at her night stand and saw her husband’s white face glistening with sweat, his arms wrapped painfully tight around his drawn-up knees, his body stiff and trembling. She’d gathered him into her arms, crooning to him, smoothing the wildly rumpled brown hair against her breast.