Taking Passion by Storm

Evernight
Publishing ®

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2015 Ravenna Tate

 
ISBN: 978-1-77233-599-6

Cover Artist: Jay
Aheer

Editor:
Karyn
White

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
 
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All
names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For April
Zyon
. Thank you for your extraordinary friendship.

TAKING PASSION BY STORM

The
Weathermen, 6

Ravenna Tate

Copyright © 2015

Prolog
ue

In
the year 2112, weather researchers around the globe made history with a
computer program nicknamed The Madeline Project. The program used a complicated
series of electrical pulses to induce changes in clouds. The intention was to
prevent or lessen catastrophic weather events such as major floods, tornadoes,
and hurricanes. The first real-time test in 2116, proved moderately successful,
and the researchers continued to tweak the program, hoping for complete weather
modification one day.

But
something went terribly wrong in 2117, when a group of hackers gained access to
The Madeline Project and tried unsuccessfully to take it down it with a virus
they called Tommy Twister. The program took on a life of its own, and instead
of lessening the effects of weather events, it increased them to catastrophic
proportions. By 2118, over eighty-five percent of the Earth above ground had
been rendered uninhabitable due to the effects of near-constant and powerful
storms. And to date, no one has been able to stop The Madeline Project, or find
the hackers responsible for this devastation.

Now,
in the year 2125, Earth’s population lives underground in sprawling cities,
built during the nuclear war scare of 2072. Communication between cities and
across continents is only possible via the Internet. And the only people who go
above ground routinely are an international group of weather researchers and
storm chasers dubbed Storm Troopers. Their mission is to collect data during
the barrage of catastrophic weather events, in the hopes this data
will
assist researchers in taking down The Madeline Project.

The
financial backing for these cities, the network of interconnected computers,
and the Storm Troopers is provided by a group of friends who met in college,
and who each built multi-million dollar communications and IT companies before
The Madeline Project went awry. They’re a powerful, wealthy, ruthless group of
men who take what they want, when they want it. They call themselves the
Weathermen…

Chapter
One

Nadine
Jarvis pushed away from her desk, shaking her head at the email she’d just read
from Merrill Tabor, one of the Storm Troopers who lived on the Earth’s surface
collecting data from the unpredictable and violent storms. She’d known him all
her life because he and her father, Dixon Jarvis, had been best friends since
second grade.

“
It can’t be true,” she whispered, her heart racing.
She moved toward the desk again, her fingers now damp, and refreshed the screen
as if doing so would erase or alter the email she’d just read, but nothing
changed. It still said her father had gone missing two days ago during a
tornado in what used to be Seattle, Washington.

The
email said the other Storm Troopers who had been with him were searching, but
Nadine’s father had been doing this for almost seven years now. She knew what
it meant when one of them was missing. It meant they had likely been swept away
and there was little chance they’d be found alive.

Anyone
over ten years old would remember living above the surface, and they knew what
was going on now, including what usually happened to anyone who ventured up
there. The Storm Troopers did what no one else wanted to do, and in the years
since everyone had been forced underground, they had collected some useful
data. But the work was slow because they were constantly seeking shelter from
storms, and often couldn’t place their equipment where it needed to be in time.

Nadine
knew it had always been a possibility her father would go missing or be killed,
but that didn’t stop the panic or the heartbreak from creeping over her now,
dark and sinister. She should call her mother, but Nadine didn’t think she
could handle the inevitable questions, or the annoyance in Wendy’s voice.

Her
mother had left the family when Nadine was fourteen, and had kept in touch
sparingly over the years. She lived in
SouthCentral
and had gone back to her maiden name of Harris years ago. Nadine had no idea of
the last time her mother had spoken to her father. They’d been divorced since
Nadine was fifteen. Would Wendy even care that her ex-husband, and the father
of her only child, was missing?

She
rose from the desk and paced the room in her apartment that served as a home
office, workout room, and her “I have no idea what to do with this so I’ll put
it here for now” room. Moving in front of the window, she looked out over the
fake sunrise on a Saturday morning, listening to the sound of fake birds.

Her
view was mostly fir trees, but in the distance she had a glimpse of one of the
many manmade lakes they’d incorporated into this underground city. Nadine had
been out on a rowboat on that lake only once with her father, two years
earlier, when he’d taken a break from storm chasing on the surface. That was
the last time she’d seen him in person, though he kept in touch via email as
often as possible.

Until
three days ago. That was the last time she’d received an email from him.

When
she’d heard through the grapevine that Damien Rivera of Rivera Construction,
based two cities south in
SouthWest
,
had fought for and obtained the rights from
BrentCait
Enterprises to build new and improved shelters for the Storm Troopers, she’d
been thrilled because she knew it meant her father would be safer on the
surface. He’d mentioned the new shelters in their last email, when he’d told her
the construction would take a long time since working conditions on the surface
weren’t exactly ideal or predictable.

Nadine
returned to her desk and read the email from Merrill one more time, now noting
that he had
CC’d
Ace Easton and Addison Carlyle.
Nadine had never met Ace, but she knew who he was. She’d known Addison all her
life because he and her father were good friends.

Ace,
whose real name was Arturo Charles Easton, owned ACE Communications, lived in
NorthCentral
, and his parents were Brent and
Cait
Easton of
BrentCait
Enterprises. They had designed the underground cities beneath the USA during
the nuclear war scare of 2072. Ace was the principal backer for the Storm
Troopers, although Nadine knew that all twelve men who collectively called themselves
the “Weathermen” contributed toward the teams.

Addison
Carlyle lived here in
NorthWest
, and owned Carlyle
Imports. His company acted as a distributor for the items that procurement
teams, most of which Addison owned, retrieved from the surface. Unlike the
Storm Troopers, who were up there to chase storms and collect data, the
procurement teams went topside to find things for people with enough money or a
great deal of desire.

They
used the same shelters as the Storm Troopers, which was one of the reasons
Damien had fought for new ones. He and some of the other Weathermen felt the
Storm Troopers and procurement teams shouldn’t have to compete for them, and
that any shelter either team was able to get to before being overtaken by a
storm should be better equipped, and a lot larger.

In
addition to her father telling her that building them was slow work because the
workers themselves needed shelter during construction, he also said several
dozen Storm Troopers had been assigned to stay with the construction teams to
make sure they were safe, and knew what to do when a storm approached.

That
was part of what had Nadine so rattled by this email from Merrill. Her father
had been protecting one of those teams, and now he was missing. The email said
the rest of the team had made it to a shelter but Dixon had not. It didn’t say
why he had not made it inside.

Nadine
wiped her tears away and emailed Merrill back, copying Ace and Addison on the
email as well since she assumed Merrill wanted them in the loop. She thanked
him for letting her know, and included her Internet phone number so she could
be reached for updates at any time. He and Addison already had it, but this way
she ensured that Ace would, too, just in case.

The
most frustrating thing of all was that there was absolutely nothing she could
do about this. Not one damn thing. The best people to look for him were already
up there doing so. If anyone could find him, it was the Storm Troopers. This
was out of her hands, and she hated that. She didn’t like feeling so damn
helpless.

Nadine
sat down to try to watch a movie, putting off the phone call she knew she had
to make to her mother, but she couldn’t concentrate. Finally, she turned off
the monitor and video system and called her mom, but it went to voice mail.
Thank God!

“
Hi, it’s me. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Dad has
been missing for two days. I received an email from Merrill this morning. I’m
going to forward it to you.” Why hadn’t she simply done that instead of making
this awkward call? “I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”

Such
news wasn’t the kind one normally left in a voice mail message, but she doubted
her mother would think twice about this information. Nadine expected neither a
phone call nor an email from her mother in reply.

She
had just finished forwarding the email to her mother when the downstairs buzzer
sounded. It made her jump because she hardly ever had visitors, and it was too
early for mail delivery.

This
building had a security camera in the lobby, so she turned it on and was
dismayed to see Addison Carlyle standing there. A horrible thought occurred to
her, and she had to blink back fresh tears as she pushed the buzzer to open the
door. Was her father dead? Why else would he come to see her at home instead of
calling or emailing?

She
took several deep breaths and had managed to hold back her tears by the time he
knocked on the door. Nadine opened it, totally unprepared for the sight of
Addison Carlyle again, up close and personal. She never was prepared for it. At
a time when the only man on her mind should be her father, Addison still took
her breath away.

She
always had the impression the man hadn’t aged in all the time she’d known him.
Well, except for that hint of gray at his temples, which only served to make
him even more gorgeous. Dark, slightly wavy hair, big brown eyes that held her
gaze with a combination of interest and sympathy, plus a face that still
haunted her dreams. He also could use a shave, which only fed her imagination
as she pictured rubbing her own face against that stubble. “Addison … hi there.”

Wow. Could you sound anymore like a
damn lovesick teen if you tried?

“
Did you find my father?”

Addison
shook his head. “No. May I come in?”

“
Of course.” Nadine stepped aside, relief flooding
through her that there was still hope her dad was alive. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit
flustered right now. I just found the email from Merrill.”

“
Totally understandable.”

He
stepped across the threshold, and she closed the door, then faced him,
completely at a loss for words. The man was so damn good-looking she could
never seem to form a coherent thought when she was in his presence. “I emailed
you and Ace back when I replied to Merrill.”

He
was dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, not the suit and tie she was used
to seeing him in. This outfit made him seem human, as opposed to an
otherworldly creature. It also helped prevent her from picturing him as merely
one more insanely wealthy business owner.

Then
again, every picture she’d seen of him on the Internet, usually with his latest
girlfriend, featured him dressed up. Perhaps that was the real reason she found
it so unnerving to see him like this.

He’d
asked her out only once, but she’d barely been out of high school, and her
father had put his foot down. Addison was fourteen years older than she was. At
the time, the age difference had been too vast. Now, it didn’t seem large at
all, but Nadine hadn’t been able to think about dating for four years. She
wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to again, even with Addison.

“
I read the email from Merrill early this morning, and
decided I’d rather talk to you in person about my plans to find Dixon. I hope
you don’t mind that I didn’t call first before coming over.”

She
shook her head. “No, it’s all right. Did you say your plans to find him?”

“
Yes. I’m going up to the surface.”

Nadine
blinked a few times, certain she’d heard him incorrectly. “Excuse me?”

The
corners of his mouth turned up. “I don’t think you completely understand the
effect your father had on me when I met him. I was only fourteen.”

She
nodded. She already knew they’d met when Addison was in middle school, but the
tone of his voice told her he needed to talk, and affection for her dad was the
one thing they shared. “Please come inside and sit down. Do you want something
to eat or drink? There’s fresh coffee.”

He
smiled, and the gesture made his face even more handsome. “No, thank you.
Nothing to eat or drink.”

Addison
followed her into the living room, where Nadine sat on the sofa and he sat
right next to her. She caught a whiff of woodsy shampoo that conjured up
pictures of showering with him.
Stop
that!

“
He came to speak to our science class when I was in
eighth grade and we were studying weather. He’d just made history with his
project on the evolution of tropical storms.”

This
time, the tears Nadine had to blink away were from nostalgia. That project had
been started in graduate school, and it was one of her favorite stories from
her father’s early days with NSSL. “I’ve never asked you if meeting him that
way was the reason you ended up in the business you’re in.”

“
In an indirect way, it is.” Addison leaned back
against the cushions, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. The gesture
was familiar and comfortable, as if he spent lots of time in her apartment. In
all the time she’d known him, he hadn’t been here more than half a dozen times.

“
I’ve been fascinated by storms for as long as I can
remember, and of course growing up in the Pac Northwest we never saw tropical
storms or hurricanes this far north, so they held an air of mystery for me.”

She
nodded, reaching over to lift her coffee cup from the table where she’d left it
before answering the buzzer.

“
Afterward, I asked him if I could talk to him sometime
about the storms, and he actually gave me his cell phone number and email
address.”

She
took a sip of coffee and then smiled. “That sounds like something he’d do.”

“
There I was, a fourteen year old kid, and this man was
only ten years older than me, but in my eyes he was a god. Pure genius, as far
as I was concerned. You of all people know how much we’ve kept in touch all
these years, so when Merrill emailed me that Dixon was missing, I knew I had to
help. There was no question about it.”

“
I didn’t realize you went to the surface that often.”
She always pictured him sitting in his high rise office downtown counting his
money, not joining his procurement teams.