The Weather Girl (19 page)

* * *

“I’
VE
 
NOTICED
 
YOU
’
VE
lost some weight these last few weeks. If TV adds ten pounds, I figured you’d show up lookin’ like a toothpick, so I made some stuff that’ll stick to your ribs,” Mimi said as Travis helped her set the large dining-room table.

“I appreciate that, ma’am.”

The old woman gave him the crook eye. “What’d I tell you about calling me ma’am?”

Travis set down the silverware as he’d been shown the last time he had lunch there. “I look forward to eating everything you’re cookin’, Mimi.”

“That’s better. Now, what’s going on with that job in Alabama.”

Telling Mimi meant it would get back to Summer for sure. Travis wondered how Summer would take the news. “I ended up turning down the job, actually. I may not know what I want to do, but at least I know what I don’t want.”

“You don’t know what you want to do?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmm.” Mimi seemed unconvinced.

“I’m a young man. I have plenty of time to figure it out.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “And thankfully, I can figure it out while eating your apple pie.”

Mimi shook her head at his attempt to keep things light. Once they finished setting the table, she went back to work in the kitchen and told Travis to go relax. Big D shared the Sunday paper with him while they waited for lunch. Summer’s grandparents seemed to be holding up pretty well, considering their granddaughter was on another continent. Although Mimi did seem very happy to have someone else to cook for besides her husband.

“I was flipping through some old albums yesterday. Found one of Summer and her parents when they visited the Mojave Desert. Summer was only six, I think,” Big D said from behind his paper.

Travis lowered his own paper. “Oh yeah? What were they doing in the desert?”

Big D pointed a finger toward the bookcase. “It’s red. Bottom shelf. They were lookin’ at volcanic craters and lava tubes.”

“Wow, I didn’t know there was stuff like that out there.” He got up and grabbed the album, flipping pages before he even sat back down. “She was so cute,” Travis said, holding up a picture of a young Summer posing for the camera. Big D dropped his paper and squinted to get a good look.

“Still is.”

Travis sighed. “Yeah, she is.” He looked at the photos and asked Big D questions, only getting some of the answers he was looking for—the old man only knew what he’d been told about the trip. Travis could only imagine what kind of stories Summer would soon be able to tell. Someday the albums would be full of grown-up Summer in all the amazing places she’d visited around the world.

“Lunch is ready!” Mimi called.

The three of them gathered around the table and dug into Mimi’s chili and corn bread. Meals like this made Travis want to come back every Sunday, chest pain be damned.

“Summer called from Finland a couple days ago,” Mimi said. “She said she took some pictures of the Northern Lights, but they didn’t turn out too well. She thinks she needs a better camera.”

Travis finished his bite of corn bread. “She’s got that pocket-size point-and-shoot. She needs to upgrade to a DSLR. They make some reasonably priced entry-level ones, which are pretty easy to use. She doesn’t need to get one with too many advanced features like mine.”

“Yours has advanced features?” Mimi asked.

“I went all out when I bought it. I had a basic APS-C-format camera when I was in college, but when I was drafted to Miami, I treated myself to a full-frame digital SLR. Those are best in low light and at higher sensitivities. I did a lot of my sightseeing after games, so...” Mimi and Big D were both staring at him. “What?”

The two of them exchanged a look, and Big D said, “Maybe you could suggest one since you’re so knowledgeable.”

“So knowledgeable,” Mimi added.

Travis dug his spoon into his bowl. “Sure. I can do that.”

“That would be good of you,” Mimi said. “It’d be nice if she could chronicle her adventures like her mama and daddy did.”

“We were looking at pictures of Gavin and Grace’s trip to the Mojave Desert,” Big D said to Mimi.

“That was one of Gavin’s favorite places. He sure did love the heat. It’s not as exciting as seeing a tornado, of course,” Mimi said, looking at Travis again.

“Nothing beats seeing a tornado,” he said without a doubt. “The sheer power of it—it’s just amazing.”

“You should see what a hurricane can do,” Mimi said. “Or a tsunami.”

“I’m sure it’s incredible.”

“The world is full of incredible things,” Big D added.

Travis nodded, taking another bite of corn bread. The food was so good he hoped Mimi would pack him up some leftovers. Mimi’s intense gaze was becoming too much, though. It was as if she was waiting for him to say something. But he had no clue what that could be. “You all right, Mimi?” he asked as she rubbed her forehead with her hand.

“I know they say you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, but, boy, you are killing me. Come on, drink!”

Travis picked up his water glass and took a sip. Mimi’s head fell into her hands while Big D chuckled. “What? What am I missing here?” Travis asked, more than confused.

Mimi sat up and took a deep breath. “I’ve been trying to bite my tongue. I know your daddy made all the decisions for you when you were little, and even when you were grown enough to make them yourself. I knew it would take some time to figure it out, but my goodness! You let other people tell you what to do for so long you don’t even see your choices anymore!”

“What choices?” Now Travis just felt foolish. He was trying to know himself better, but he didn’t trust his own instincts.

“Why didn’t you take that job in Alabama?” Mimi asked.

That was easy. “I don’t want to be a football coach. I enjoy a good game, but I don’t want to eat, drink and breathe it. To be a good coach, football has to be your life.”

“Good answer.” Mimi smiled. “You were right when you said it’s good to know what you don’t want. That’s important. But what you
do
want is key here.”

Travis knew that. Didn’t she know he’d been working on it? No one wanted to figure out what would make Travis happy more than Travis. “I don’t know,” he admitted, staring down at his bowl of chili instead of looking Summer’s grandparents in the eye.

“You do, son,” Big D said.

Mimi agreed. “You sure do.”

Travis let out a big sigh and looked up. “What? What do I want?”

Mimi shook her head. “We aren’t going to tell you!” She pursed her lips and thought long and hard. Then she snapped her fingers. “I got it. Pretend the world is ending tomorrow. What would you do if you only had one day left live?”

Without thinking, Travis gave his most honest answer. “I’d fly to New York and tell Summer I love her.”

“I knew you knew,” Mimi said proudly.

His frustration all spilled over. He threw his hands up. “I knew long before she left that I love your granddaughter. Whole lotta good that’s done me.”

“Let me tell you what I see,” Mimi said. “I see a man who not only loves my granddaughter, but loves her weather stories almost as much as she does. You come over here and could look at photo albums for hours. You listen to every random fact that girl has ever uttered in your presence. The experience you shared with her, finding that tornado, is one you will never forget. Right?”

Travis nodded. Chasing that tornado was life-changing.

Mimi continued. “I see a man who knows things like what kind of camera would take photos in low light or whatever it was you were trying to explain earlier. And I see someone who misses Summer more than I do, and I miss that girl something fierce.”

“I miss her more than anything.”

“So what are you doing here?” Mimi asked. “Not that we wouldn’t mind feeding you every Sunday, but you should be with her. You should be the one taking the pictures with her. You should be a part of her adventures. You two are so much like Grace and Gavin, I don’t know how you can’t see it.”

Travis laughed. “You think I should be a storm chaser?”

“Don’t you?” Big D asked.

Travis sat back and scratched his head while he thought about it. It did make some sense. It made a lot of sense. It made more sense than sportscasting or football. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “I would kill to be a storm chaser.”

Mimi leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “Finally!”

“But I can’t just show up on Summer’s doorstep and ask for a job.”

“Why not?” Mimi’s eyebrows pushed together.

“What if she wants nothing to do with me?” All his doubts resurfaced. “What if I’m not good at it? What if my photos aren’t as good as you think they are? What if—”

“Travis.” Mimi interrupted his laundry list of fears. “What did I tell you the first time I met you?”

“Be worth it and everything will work out in the end.” Those words had haunted him ever since. “That’s the problem. What if I’m not worth it?”

Mimi shook her head. “You were worth the risk. You proved that by letting her go. A lesser man would have been selfish, would have fed her fear and told her to stay. Trust me when I say she’ll be worth it, too. Take the risk, Travis. Take it.”

An overwhelming feeling of possibility swelled inside Travis. It was as if all the stars had aligned and pointed him right to Summer. She was worth all the risks in the world, and he would take them all. His smile was so big it felt as if it were going to split his face in two. The answer had been so simple. Mimi’s frustration made so much more sense.

He dived back into his chili. No man started his new life on an empty stomach. Summer’s grandparents watched with their eyes wide as he shoveled the food into his mouth. Wiping his lips with his napkin, he kept on smiling. “Can I finish my lunch first?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

G
ETTING
 
AROUND
N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY
when it rained was a nightmare. It didn’t help that the temperatures this time of year started dipping into the forties and rarely got over sixty, while the wind was anything but light and breezy. Summer held the collar of her jacket closed and hid under her new blue umbrella. The old red one was still trapped at Travis’s house, and after everything that had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to retrieve it from him before she left. New city, new job, new umbrella.

She never thought she’d miss sunny and ninety so much. The good thing was, she wasn’t supposed to spend a lot of time here. Ryan and his production team were already busy planning the next excursion. They had returned from Finland fewer than forty-eight hours ago. Summer hoped for a warmer locale for the next adventure.

Not that Summer’s Finnish experience hadn’t been memorable. She viewed the Northern Lights from a heated glass igloo and convinced the crew to go snowshoeing, dog sledding and snowmobiling with her. The trip was even more exhilarating than she’d imagined it would be all those months ago, when Ryan used it as his first lure.

Holding tightly to the handle of her new umbrella, she waited at a crowded street corner for the light to change. The rain gathered in shallow puddles on the pavement. Summer couldn’t wait to get back to her apartment and into her warmest pajamas. It was early in the afternoon, but the jet lag was having its way with her internal clock. All she wanted to do was snuggle under her quilt and eat something other than seafood. She’d had enough of that in Finland. The rain brought with it the smell of the ocean and it made her stomach turn.

The walk sign lit up and the crowd of people around her moved as if they were one entity. People in New York moved much faster than people in Texas. No one took a leisurely stroll. Not even on the nice days. They didn’t like anyone who couldn’t keep up, either. Summer crossed the street, keeping her head down and her eyes on the concrete so she wouldn’t step in anything that would make her feet any wetter than they already were.

The old graystone apartment building she called home wasn’t fancy like Ryan’s place in Manhattan. There was no doorman or swanky lobby, but it was in a decent Brooklyn neighborhood and had everything she needed close by, including the barbecue restaurant that made a pulled pork sandwich that smelled like home. That sandwich was the only reason she ventured outside on a day like this. She held the bag of food against her chest.

The neighborhood had
almost
everything. Some things she needed were over seventeen hundred miles away in Abilene. One in particular she wished she could stop needing so much. Travis broke her heart, and yet she still had these...feelings. Feelings that overwhelmed her and made her cry late at night. As much as she loved this new job, it wasn’t the same kind of love she felt for that stupid man. But he didn’t love her. Nor did he need or want her. He wanted to coach football at the University of Alabama.

It was humiliating, really. She’d handed him her heart and he’d immediately given it back, apologizing for not being able to accept it. She still couldn’t believe she’d read the signs so wrong, but she couldn’t be mad at him for not telling her about the Alabama job earlier. Hadn’t she done the same thing? The only difference between the two of them was that she would have picked him over the job.

Summer pushed all thoughts of Travis from her mind as she entered her building’s breezeway. Closing up her umbrella, she rested it against the wall under the row of mailboxes and began digging through her purse for her keys. Those darn things managed to find the deepest, darkest corner of her purse every time. It took real talent to move things around in there to find them. Just as she won the hide-and-seek game those keys loved to play, a prickly feeling on her neck made her feel she had eyes on her.

Summer peeked over her shoulder through the glass door, but she didn’t see anyone on the street paying her any attention. The passersby were all hidden under their umbrellas. Black umbrellas, umbrellas with polka dots, even one rainbow umbrella. Directly across the street a single red umbrella shielded someone from view. No one was looking back at her, but it wasn’t the first time today she’d felt as if someone was watching.

Hoping to not have to come down here again, she unlocked her mailbox, got her mail—nothing more than junk, from the look of it—and unlocked the security door with her hands full. Thankfully, an older gentleman was there to hold the door for her. She smiled and thanked him.

“No problem, young lady,” he said as he ducked out into the rain. He reminded her of Big D and her heart ached a little more.

Before she pressed the button for the elevator, the chime rang and the silver doors slid open. Summer smiled at her neighbors as they stepped off, but no one smiled back. New York City wasn’t like Abilene in that respect, either. There were some friendly folk in the big city, like the man who held the door for her, but most people tended to keep to themselves.

Safe and sound in the empty elevator, she took a deep breath, feeling the full weight of her tiredness. She needed to eat and sleep. Her phone rang inside her purse. Juggling her things once more, she pulled it out and answered before it went to voice mail.

Ryan didn’t even give her a chance to say hello. “I think I forgot to tell you we need you to come in and help with a couple interviews. Can you be here in an hour?”

Summer leaned against the back wall of the elevator. Her exhaustion seemed to triple at the thought of going back outside and trekking to Discovery’s Manhattan offices. “An interview for what exactly?”

“I’m hiring you an assistant.”

“Seriously?” There had been some talk of an assistant when they were in Finland—someone who could help her with details she didn’t always have time to focus on. But she figured a new hire had to be approved by someone before it would really happen. Although an assistant would be fabulous right now, Summer lacked the motivation to go to work.

Ryan ignored her frustration. “We need your input, obviously.”

“Can’t we do it later in the week?”

“Today, Summer. Come on. Do you want me to send a car to get you?”

The elevator opened on Summer’s floor, and she managed to drag herself into the hall. Where Ryan’s energy came from, she’d never know. Regardless, this interview was happening with or without her. If this person was going to be working as her assistant, she had to go. “Can you give me an hour and a half? I haven’t showered or eaten today.”

“Someone will be there to get you in ninety minutes.” She didn’t argue.

Entering her empty apartment, Summer was struck by how much she missed being greeted by Storm when she came home. Big D and Mimi were taking good care of him. There was no doubt he was living the good life, eating table scraps and running free in their backyard. For all the worrying she did about everyone else, she’d never considered how alone she was going to feel. The tiny apartment cost as much as her house back in Texas but wasn’t nearly half the size. The sparsely furnished space didn’t exactly scream
home,
but Summer viewed the road as her home now anyway.

Instead of changing into pajamas, she quickly ate her lunch, showered and attempted to dress respectably. These interviewees better be worth the effort. And no one better be named Rachel because that would not bode well for the prospective assistant’s employment. The buzzer rang, alerting her to her car’s arrival. She grabbed her purse and dashed out the door.

Outside, a man stood by a black town car, holding a red umbrella. For a second, Summer’s heart stopped. She couldn’t see his face, but he was built like a certain former sportscaster she knew and frustratingly still loved. She froze until he lifted the umbrella. His dark hair and square jaw clearly did not belong to Travis. She shook her head at her misguided hope. Travis wasn’t in New York. He was back in Abilene, most likely planning his move to Alabama. She’d done what she’d set out to do, encouraging him to follow a new dream. He had—it just didn’t include her.

* * *

T
HE
D
ISCOVERY
 
OFFICES
were on the Lower East Side. Summer made her way to the production office, where she was meeting Ryan. She got into an empty elevator and texted him that she’d be there in a minute. The doors began to close, only to be stopped by a loosely wrapped red umbrella. Summer’s eyes shot up, that tingle on the back of her neck returning with a vengeance. The doors opened and a harried-looking woman entered, scowling at her.

“Didn’t you hear me ask you to hold the elevator?” she snapped.

Summer dropped her phone into her purse, embarrassed to be one of those people, the ones too busy on their smartphones to notice the world around them. “I am so sorry. I didn’t.”

The woman harrumphed and pressed the button to her floor. Good thing she wasn’t going to the same place as Summer. The last thing she needed was another hostile working environment.

Ryan had a conference room set up for the interviews and was seated at the head of the table with a huge cup of coffee in front of him. Maybe that was his secret—massive amounts of caffeine. Summer was willing to try anything. She set her bag down and sat next to her mentor and boss.

“Is there coffee somewhere around here?”

“There’s a vending machine down the hall and to your right,” Ryan replied, not looking up from the papers in front of him. A strange smile played on his lips.

“Are those the résumés?” she asked. Leaning forward, she tried to get a look at what was so entertaining.

He quickly pulled the papers into a stack and slid them over to her. “Are you getting some coffee or should we get started?”

Summer slumped slightly in her seat. Coffee sounded good. Getting up and walking down the hall to get some did not. “Let’s start. I have no energy to go get coffee.”

Ryan laughed and got up. “Just think. Once you have an assistant, you won’t have to get up and get your own coffee ever again.”

“Hallelujah.” She pulled out a small notepad with some questions she’d jotted down on the ride over while Ryan fetched the first candidate. She looked over the first résumé. The applicant was lucky her name was Gretchen. She had some experience working retail and as a receptionist. Nothing in television.

Gretchen followed Ryan into the room, wearing a white suit that made her look more like a nurse than a personal assistant. She was slim, with bleach-blond hair. A flashy neon scarf was tied around her neck, matching the shocking blue mascara that painted her eyelashes. Summer couldn’t help staring. Gretchen wanted to work for Summer because she thought it was a good stepping stone to becoming an assistant to movie stars, her ultimate goal. Summer had to give her points for being honest, but there was no way Gretchen was going to work for her.

Next, there was Avery. Avery was a twenty-two-year-old bundle of energy with a laugh reminiscent of Woody Woodpecker. She was sweet as could be, but was also not getting the job.

Kyle was an avid fan of reality television and could name every winner of
Survivor—
in order. He’d considered going to school to study television production but decided he’d just jump in and get his feet wet this way. Of course, if this didn’t pan out, he planned to reapply to be a contestant on every reality TV show, as he had done each year since he turned eighteen. Kyle seemed destined to be in front of the camera rather than working behind the scenes.

Sylvia was not a fan of rain, something she repeatedly stated throughout the interview. When Ryan asked her if she knew their show focused on extreme weather, she got up and left of her own accord. At least she saved them from having to call her later to tell her she didn’t get the job.

There was Nigel, the retired schoolteacher who was looking to start a new chapter in his life, and Veronica, former assistant to seventeen different people in the past five years. No one fit. Summer was beyond tired and began to feel more like a zombie. After Veronica, she decided the only way she would survive the remaining interviews was to get that coffee.

She was pushing her quarters into the machine when something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up again. She felt someone come up behind her, but before she could turn around, his voice took her by surprise.

“Did you know that the Empire State Building gets hit by lightning about a hundred times a year?”

She closed her eyes. It couldn’t be. She spun around and opened them. Travis’s cheeks and the tip of his nose were pink from the cold, but his eyes were the bluest she’d ever seen. Summer blinked and blinked again, afraid he was nothing more than a figment of her exhausted imagination. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled. There was something different about it. There was something different about
him,
but Summer couldn’t put her finger on it. His hair was longer, almost as long and shaggy as it had been the first time she laid eyes on him. His dimples were the same. She didn’t have time to think any further. His nose was cold but his lips were warm. He pressed them to hers and she didn’t want the moment to end.

“I missed you, Weather Girl,” he said when he pulled back.

No one had called her that in so long it almost hurt to hear the nickname. At the same time, it made her want to kiss him again. He was here. Not just in New York but in the Discovery Network’s building. “No, really. What are you doing here?”

“Would it freak you out more if I said I was here to return your umbrella, or that I came because I love you?” Sure enough, in his hand was her red umbrella. But it was the second option that left her spinning.

“You love me?” The thrill shifted to unexpected anger. “You
love
me?” How dare he say that now, after he’d broken her heart and sent her away? How dare he say it, when he was moving to Alabama and she was here? There was no future for them, so why tell her now?