Twist of Fate Read online

  “You know what I mean.” Sarah said sternly. “Don’t think you’re going to act all cute and it’s going to get you anywhere this time.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not going to get me anywhere?” Remy asked innocently, but her eyes sparkled mischievously. She leaned in closer and whispered in Sarah’s ear. “You mean back in your bed?”

  Sarah’s face turned five shades of red. “Yes. Whatever that was between us was a one—time thing. No amount of tricks is going to make me repeat that mistake.”

  “Tricks?” Remy asked. “If I remember correctly, there were no tricks, and you seemed to enjoy yourself as much as I did.”

  “Ooh!” Sarah groaned. “You never change.”

  “Nope.” Remy was beaming. She grabbed a menu and opened it. “So, what’s good here besides the beer?”

  Parker picked that moment to pull her attention away from Carmen, where it had been since they sat down. “Try the calzone. You won’t regret it.”

  Remy waived a waitress down and ordered two more pitchers and a calzone for herself and a salad for Carmen. She handed the menus back. “Thanks.”

  Parker laughed and covered Carmen’s hand with hers. “You always let her order?”

  Carmen laughed. “Have too. I’m trying to diet and if I order myself, I’d be eating a large pizza. Helps to have someone take charge…outside of the bedroom I mean.” She winked at Parker.

  “I can think of better ways to burn extra calories.” Parker quipped. “And, besides, I like your curves.”

  “Seriously, Parker?” Sarah shot her a look. “They just got here.”

  Parker shrugged and ran a hand through her short hair. Her blue eyes twinkled. “Hey, you can’t blame a girl for trying to get some in this God forsaken hick town out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “So, Sarah, what’s up with Bonneville? Interesting nickname.” Carmen teased. “Is that something we all get to use, or it that reserved for someone special?”

  “Actually, it’s my middle name. I made the mistake of telling someone that and she hasn’t forgotten.” Sarah took a swig of her beer and shot Remy a threatening look. “And, I prefer that she not call me that.”

  “But, did you tell her why that was your middle name?” Parker asked. “Something like that could only happen to my cousin.”

  Carmen poured herself a beer and leaned forward. “So, what’s the story?”

  “Nothing super exciting.” Sarah sighed. “My mom was in labor with me and by the time she and my dad figured out she was in labor and left for the hospital, it was too late. They didn’t make it on time and she ended up having me in the front seat of their 1971 Pontiac Bonneville. I’ve been living with that crazy name ever since.”

  “Guess you oughta be glad they didn’t drive an Edsel.” Carmen laughed and Sarah couldn’t help but laugh with her. Her personality was infectious and the Spanish lilt in her words made her incredibly sexy and appealing to anyone around her.

  “So, where’s Evan?” Remy asked nonchalantly. She didn’t mind the scenery change, but Parker had her wondering where Sarah’s old partner was.

  A cloud passed over Sarah’s face. “Gone.” She didn’t elaborate, and Remy could tell from her tone that whatever had happened between the two of them had not been pretty.

  She paused while the waitress set plates in front of them and took a hearty bite of her calzone. “Ow, shit. That’s hot.” She glared at Carmen, who was laughing out loud.

  “Serves you right, Chica.” She teased. “It’s your punishment for getting to eat the fattening foods while I’m stuck munching on roughage.”

  “I bet I could take your mind off your diet.” Parker teased. A big flirt anyway, she was smitten with Carmen, and it made her a hundred times worse.

  “Really?” Sarah groaned. “I’m trying to eat here.”

  What?” Parker feigned innocence. “I’m merely ascertaining the status of our guest’s mental health and trying to accommodate her discomfort.”

  “Okay, now I think I might throw up.” Remy confessed. She turned to Carmen. “Can you try to be a bit less charming…at least while we eat.”

  “Si, Chica, no worries. I’m sorry, Parker. I’ll try to be disagreeable.”

  “I don’t think you can.” Parker winked. “Besides, we’re all adults here, and if I want to occupy myself with a little extracurricular activity in my free time, you’ll just have to deal with it. I can’t help it you took a vow of celibacy.”

  Sarah groaned. “God, it’s going to be a long night.”

  “So, Remy, you never said how you knew my cousin.” Parker’s eyes twinkled. She could tell from Sarah’s response to Remy’s sudden appearance that they had history of some sort. She knew Sarah’s recent swearing off of sex was directly related to Evan, although much to her chagrin, she didn’t know the details. Her cousin had never been forthcoming with her love life, or lack thereof, and she was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t a skeleton in Sarah’s closet that resembled Remy. “Is there a nasty little scandal in your past?”

  Sarah felt her cheeks starting to heat up and hoped it wasn’t visible in the dim lights of the bar. She started to answer, but Remy saved her.

  “Nothing exciting like that. We’ve run into each other on the circuit for a few seasons now.” She wasn’t sure that explanation sounded believable. She figured Parker would push, but she didn’t. She at least pretended to buy the little white lie…thankfully. “Honestly, she’s been my biggest competition yet. Never met anyone that could pick a spot with nothing happening and somehow make a storm out of it.”

  Parker scoffed. “You wouldn’t have thought so today.”

  “How’s that?” Remy asked. “You aren’t losing your touch are you? You finally gonna let me get some CNN—worthy footage.”

  “No!” Sarah waggled her finger at Remy. “Just had an off day.” Regret flashed in her eyes.

  Remy leaned her body into Sarah’s, her brow furrowed. She glanced at Carmen and Parker, satisfied they were wrapped up in each other she whispered. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.” Sarah shook her head. “Nothing to talk about really. Just one of those days.”

  “Hmm.” Remy searched her face. “Look, I know you are still ticked at me for that night, but can’t we try to get past that? You look like you could use a friend. And, I know Parker isn’t your therapist, because you don’t ever talk to anyone.”

  “I’m not mad at you.” Sarah confessed. “I’m frustrated with myself because that night was just another in a string of bad judgment calls. The latest was with Ev…” She stopped before she said Evan’s name, but she could tell from the look on Remy’s face she knew exactly what she was talking about. “I’m great at reading the weather, just not so great at reading people.”

  “You know I’m not a bad guy.” Remy smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry that one night messed up a potentially good friendship. I like hanging out with you. I gotta get a break from Vega sometimes.”

  Carmen heard her name and pulled her gaze away from Parker’s lips. “What?”

  Remy shook her head. “Nothing, just saying what a treat it is to have you on the road with me.”

  Carmen smiled widely. “You lying sack of shit. I know when you’re badmouthing me.”

  “Nah, just messing with you.” Remy teased. “Go back to your date.”

  Carmen winked and turned back to Parker, who was so far lost in her eyes that she didn’t respond at all to the conversation or she would have surely come to Carmen’s defense.

  Sarah smiled at Remy. “I enjoy your company too, and as much as I love Parker, it is nice to see a different face once in a while. Friendship is fine, just don’t think because we are all buddy, buddy that I’m going to start spilling my life to you.” She lowered her voice. “You know me more intimately than most people and that makes it really hard to open up to you, okay?”

  “Fair enough, Bonneville.” Remy poured another beer for herself and held the pitcher up to Sarah, wi
th a questioning look in her eyes.

  “Half a glass.” Sarah said. “It’s going to be an early morning tomorrow. I think we are headed towards Oklahoma City. I’ve got a feeling something’s brewing there.”

  Remy smiled. “Good luck, Bonneville. We’re heading the opposite direction. See you in a couple of weeks…in one piece, I hope.”

  Chapter 3

  “Come on!” Sarah threw her hands up in exasperation. The storms that were predicted to impact parts of Eastern Oklahoma had yet to produce more than rain and some small hail. “There’s gotta be something brewing.”

  She and Parker had made the trek from Kansas to Oklahoma City and were stalking the storm from the shelter of a Seven—Eleven. Parker slurped her frozen Mt. Dew loudly and shot Sarah a look. “We should have just stayed another day in Kansas.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Carmen wasn’t staying, you know. They were headed up to Iowa and South Dakota. Something about a line of storms that would put ours to shame.”

  “Well, looks like they may have hit on something.” She showed Sarah the bright reds and yellows populating much of Eastern South Dakota and Northwestern Iowa. “Lot more going on there than in good old Oklahoma, where the winds go sweeping ‘cross the plains.” Parker’s voice peaked in a painful crescendo.

  “Really? You’re a lesbian. We don’t do musicals.” Sarah groaned. “Not only amazingly off—key, but amazingly embarrassing.” She pushed Parker through the door to the parking lot. “We are leaving now.”

  Parker’s laughter echoed out the door. “Yes, finally. Let’s go chase something. Stop sitting around here sulking ‘cause we aren’t hanging with our girls.”

  “Sulking?” Sarah slammed the car door and waited for Parker to get in. “The only one sulking here is you, and you’re just mad because you couldn’t hook up last night.”

  Parker started the car. “Maybe. But, you gotta admit, she is so sexy. Even you would want her…that is if you weren’t hung up on Remy.”

  “What!” Sarah shouted. “I am most certainly not hung up on Remy. I’m not…I’m not even attracted to her.” She stammered the words out, not even sure why she was justifying the comment with an answer. It didn’t matter whether she was attracted to her or not. Which obviously she wasn’t, right? She hadn’t succumbed to her charms…at least not a second time. No, she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Although, she thought, at the time, it didn’t feel like a mistake. It actually topped her short list of great sex, maybe even fantastic. Stop it! It wasn’t that great. Sarah rubbed her eyes. Oh, who are you kidding? It was amazing.

  “Uh—huh.” Parker snickered. She watched the emotions play on her cousin’s face and she thought for a second time, with more certainty now, that there was something between her and Remy. If not now, then at least sometime in the past. Curiosity was getting the better of her, but she sensed that now would not be the time that Sarah would decide to let her start playing Dr. Phil. “Glad we got that all straightened out. So, now can we go chase something?”

  Sarah opened her mouth to say something, to keep protesting the subtle innuendoes that Parker was dropping here and there, but thought better of it. Somewhere in her mind, she heard Shakespeare. Me thinks thou dost protest too much. She shook her head. “Yeah, fine, let’s go wrangle us a tornado.”

  “Wahoo.” Parker yelled. “Saddle up, cowboy.”

  Sarah’s eyes scanned the horizon. “It is getting darker. What do you think? Head south?”

  Parker leaned into the radar, squinting at the changing color patterns. “I’ll say. I’m picking up some rotation just southwest of Caddo. Moving northeast at thirty—five miles an hour. So, you better hurry.”

  Sarah hit the gas and the car surged forward with quick nimbleness. “God, I miss Bessie.” Her mind flashed briefly to Evan. When they had split up, the truck had gone with Evan, since she had been the one that bought it. Now they were stuck driving around in her 2005 Chevy Caprice. Heavy yes, gaudy even more so, but a safe choice to chase tornadoes in? Not hardly, but up till now, the little bit of income they made selling videos to local stations, and the rare bigger storm that made them a little extra, there wasn’t much left over for luxuries like girding a diesel truck with a steel skeleton. No, that was reserved for trust fund babies like Evan. Maybe, just maybe, with a successful season, her new employer, Rogue Weather, would outfit her with something better.

  “God, I don’t know why you named her that? Ten tons of steel and that’s the best you could come up with.” Parker pulled her ball cap off and ran her fingers through her spiked hair. “You know Chevy Chase is the perfect chasing car. Bet you’re glad you let me name her.”

  “We are not the Griswolds, and we are totally not driving across the plains with your dead grandmother in the car.” Sarah groaned.

  “Real nice, Clark, real nice.” Parker teased. “Duly noted. No dead grandmothers in the Chevy Chasemobile.”

  Sarah saw a sign welcoming them to Tushka, Oklahoma. Population 347. “Let’s park it here for a moment. Something’s about to happen.” She reached around behind her and grabbed the video camera and tripod. Her right ear was itching. Her tell that the storm was about to get crazy. She opened the door and set the tripod up facing the southwest. “Get the camera.”

  Parker joined her on the hood of the car. The wind had started to whip up around them, sending bits of dirt swirling around them. “Hell of a shelf cloud. I’m seeing some rotation there.”

  Sarah followed her finger and smiled. She could smell the storm, and the scent went right through her body. She had not originally set out to be a storm chaser, but as a new meteorologist fresh out of school, she took the crap assignments. Going out to the field, interviewing the witnesses. It was on such an assignment eight years ago that she had first met Remy. She was young and reckless and so charming and thought she was hot shit. It was her enthusiasm for chasing the perfect storm that had bitten Sarah in the first place.

  It was the summer of 2003 and a line of storms had produced tornadoes from Minnesota down to Oklahoma. Remy had gotten video footage of the worst one, an EF4. Sarah knew from the minute she met Remy that she was self—assured bordering on cocky, and sexy as hell. Having come from a small town, there weren’t many other lesbians she got to interact with, and she had been so serious in college that she had only had one serious girlfriend and only slept with two women total.

  Remy on the other hand, had traveled all over and given her dangerous career, likely had a girl in every town. She was wildly attractive with her somber, wide—set hazel eyes and full sensuous lips framed in a square face. Her blond hair was always unkempt and grazed her collar, no matter if she had just had a haircut or not. She was tall, her muscled lankiness giving her the appearance of a swimmer. In truth, she just had a high metabolism and honestly, if asked, couldn’t tell you the last time she had eaten, too busy chasing the next storm.

  It had been a night much like last night. Remy, fresh off a chase, laid back and comfortable and oozing too much sex appeal for a small town girl like Sarah to resist. They had fallen into bed together, and it was only as she lay awake, long after Remy had dozed off, that the first tendrils of regret had started to seep into her subconscious. Now, it was brief moments of regret, mingled with the awareness of learning from her mistakes, that occupied her mind in unguarded moments when she forgot to keep the memory in her past.

  A shout brought her out of her reverie. “Look!” Parker shouted. “Funnel cloud, and it’s growing fast.”

  Sarah watched with fascination on her face. No matter how many times she had seen this, it still amazed her. Even more so, she was amazed that with as much technology and time spent chasing and studying tornadoes, they really didn’t know much more about them now than they had a hundred years ago. They were as unpredictable and sometimes as dangerous as people themselves and yet somehow, even with the danger they presented, she felt safer with storms than she did with most people.

  “It’s down, it’s down.”
Parker danced excitedly. “There’s a second funnel. Just left of the first, smaller but it’s down, it’s down too.”

  Before they could even realize what happened, the two twisters had merged into one larger tornado.

  “Think we’re safe here?” Parker asked loudly, yelling over the deafening roar.

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re fine.” Sarah watched the tornado track across the flat land. “I think it’s staying west of us.”

  They watched it grow till it was at least a quarter of a mile wide. “Oh shit.” Sarah swore softly. “We’re losing it. It’s rain wrapped, it’s rain wrapped. We gotta move!”

  They jumped into the car and peeled out, headed north on Highway 69 towards Tushka. Sarah watched the storm out the window, straining to see the tornado through the rain. When they finally hit a clearing, she gasped out loud. “It’s heading straight for the town.”

  Parker strained to hear tornado sirens, but if they were going off, the sound was lost in the wind. “Oh God.”

  Sarah slammed the breaks on the car and watched stone—faced as the tornado cut straight through Tushka. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God.”

  They watched as it cut a swath through the center of town, hitting several buildings and sending debris flying through the air. The storm was massive. She guessed the winds to be somewhere near 150 mph, making it an EF3. She saw huge pieces of brick flying through the air, tossed like grains of sand.

  “Oh man, I hope no one was in there.” Parker said somberly. She flinched when she heard a sound like a shotgun resonate through the car. “What the fuck?”

  “Hail.” Sarah sounded scared. “And, from the sound of it, it’s big.” She glanced out the window. “Start praying Chevy Chase holds up.”

  Parker saw the chunks of hail now scattered around her. They were easily the size of golf balls and if one hit directly on the glass around them, they were screwed. An onslaught of gunshot peels rang out on the metal surrounding them as the hail picked up. “Okay, seriously, this needs to stop now. I’m freaking out a little.”