Storming

Twenty

WHEN HITCH AND Walter finally found Jael at the far end of the field, she wasn’t alone. She stood near the road in the shade of Livingstone’s rough-hewn bleachers. Across from her, Griff had one hand hooked over the bleacher above his head. With his fedora in hand, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, and his deputy’s badge glinting against his shoulder, he looked mighty clean-cut.

He had that expression on his face—wrinkled forehead, unblinking eyes—that said he was dead serious about something.

“—not trying to butt in where it’s none of my business, ma’am.”

Instinctively, Hitch drew up and held out a hand to stop Walter.

The boy looked up at him, curious.

“I don’t want to see you get into any kind of trouble,” Griff said. “Not after having to bring you into the hospital after that lightning strike. My brother—he never was the kind who takes advantage. But this isn’t a good business for a lady.”

Jael murmured something.

“I don’t know how close you are to my brother. If you’re maybe… together?”

That got Jael to look up. She blushed up to the top of her ears and shook her head hard.

Hitch stepped forward. “Griff. Didn’t expect to see you out here.”

Griff looked back, first at Hitch, then at Walter. A strange expression—guilt almost—passed across his face. Then his mouth firmed, back to the same old resolute, righteous anger.

He put his hat back on and pulled the front brim down. “You mind what I said, miss. You decide you need help going home—or maybe just finding a decent job around here—you let me know.”

She nodded, but kept her gaze resolutely forward and refused to look Hitch in the eye.

Griff passed her and walked over to Hitch and Walter.

Hitch’s tongue itched with a demand to know what exactly Griff thought he was up to—riding in here on his white horse and acting like Jael needed saving. But he swallowed it back.

“Come for a ride?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what? Trying to lure away my wing walker?”

Griff was breathing a little harder than he needed to be. Every muscle in his body was tight. “You think she’s like you, but she’s not. She doesn’t belong out here, and you know it.”

That depended on what Griff meant by “out here.” She had seemed a lot more comfortable at Nan’s farm, with all the kids around, then she did here at camp, hawking rides. But Griff hadn’t seen her in the air. Hitch had.

“She can make her own decisions, I reckon,” he said.

A muscle in Griff’s jaw hopped. He held Hitch’s gaze for so long it started to feel like one of the staring contests they’d had as boys to decide who got the apple with fewer worms.

All right, so Griff was still mad. More than that, he was determined to be mad, as if that was going to finally teach Hitch some important lesson. He looked about ready to pop, like if he didn’t say what he really had to say—if he didn’t just take an honest swing at Hitch and get it over with—he might explode right here and now.

But he didn’t say and he didn’t swing.

What he did do was finally look at Walter. “Does Nan know you’re out here?” His voice softened a bit.

Walter froze. He darted a glance between Hitch and Griff, then gave his head a tiny shake.

“Didn’t think so. Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”

The boy’s joy filtered out of him and puddled at his feet.

It was partially Hitch’s fault. He probably should have sent the kid home right from the start, before he could get found out. But what was wrong with letting him have one perfect day?

Griff laid a hand on Walter’s shoulders and started to guide him away.

Walter stopped short and turned back to Hitch. He stuck out his hand in what could only be a heartfelt thank-you.

Hitch dropped to one knee and gave the hand a firm shake. “Tell you what. Why don’t you take Taos along with you, play with him for the rest of the day. Jael can bring him back out tomorrow for the show. Or maybe you can talk your whole family into coming.”

Some of the joy sprang back. Walter nodded and patted both thighs to call Taos. The dog leapt after him without even a glance at Hitch.

That guilty look burned a little deeper in Griff’s face, and he clenched his jaw harder. But he didn’t look any more prepared to tell the boy no than Hitch had been earlier.

Griff pointed Walter toward his motorcar, then turned back to Hitch. “Nan doesn’t want him out here.”

Hitch shrugged as he stood up. “All right.”

Griff held his gaze for another second or two, then nodded and started after Walter.

And that was that. No mention of their chat the other day. No grin and slap on the shoulder. No indication anything had changed in the slightest. Hitch watched until they reached the car.

Doggone his stiff-necked, stubborn brother anyway. Yeah, Hitch had messed up—and he was sorry for it. But they couldn’t go on like this forever. If Griff couldn’t find it in himself to forgive him within the next couple of days, then, depending on how things went with Campbell, it could be another nine years before they saw each other again.

Hitch huffed and turned to find Jael.

She had hightailed it over to one of Livingstone’s red-white-and-blue planes and was crouched beneath the engine, picking up tools—Earl’s tools from the looks of them. She must have borrowed them. The pilot wasn’t in sight. She kept her head down and refused to look at Hitch as he ambled over.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Her head remained resolutely bent. Tawny strands of loose hair slipped past her ears and covered a little of the heat still on her cheeks. “The matter with me is nothing.”

“Sure, it is.” Had she been as embarrassed as all that by Griff’s questions about what she was doing out here with Hitch? He pocketed his hands and leaned back against the fuselage. “Griff get to you, did he?”

“No.”

Or maybe that clean-cut appeal of his was working on her. “C’mon. I know he’s charming.” He put on a grin. “It runs in the family.”

She glared. “He likes to be bossing of people. That is also running in your family.” She rolled the tools into a strip of canvas and stood up, nose in the air.

He couldn’t help a laugh. “Wait. Wait, I’m sorry.” He took her elbow and pulled her back. “Listen, there’s something I want to ask you.”

She shrugged him off but stayed put.

“Your pendant. Walter said something, and I got to thinking about it. There’s more to it than what you did with the lightning, isn’t there? You said that was just something you and Nestor were experimenting with. So what’s it really do? Am I just imagining things, or is there some sort of connection between it and Schturming?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“Maybe there’s some way you can use it to find Schturming_—or even guide _Schturming back to you. Is there?”

She cocked her head, thinking. Then slowly, her eyes narrowed and her face got even redder. “You are thinking again that I am stupid.”

“What? No, I’m not.”

“Then you have all seriousness in asking me to pull more lightning onto my head?”

“Yes, more lightning.” He kept a straight face. “We Groundsmen believe women as ornery as you must be hit by lightning at least once a week.”

She gave him a deadpan stare, then turned and walked off.

He laughed again. “Oh, c’mon, you know I didn’t mean it. I’m trying to help you get home.”

“And to help yourself to impress Bonney Livingstone.”

He followed. “Ye-es, that sure wouldn’t hurt anything. How about we ask Earl about it? Maybe he’ll know a way to jimmy the magnetic waves or whatever it runs on.”

She kept right on going.

Was this about him, about Griff, or about the pendant? None of it seemed quite worth all this cold-shouldering and hoity-toitying, however amusing.

When a woman was upset for no good reason, the only thing you could do was either get mad right back—or laugh and let her be mad on her own until she got over it. And, anyway, she was so downright cute stomping around like this, it was hard not to laugh. Poking a badger with a stick was never a good idea, but it was irresistible sometimes.

He jogged to get in front of her, then turned around and walked backwards. “Is this because I made you hold that sign—or because of what Griff said about you and me?”

“It is both maybe. Now go away.”

“Not until you come talk to Earl.”

“No.”

“Tsk. You leave me no alternative, kiddo.” He caught her waist with one arm and swiped her right off her feet.

She uttered a squeal and squirmed. “Put me down, you grubiy chelovek! You are rudest man I have knowledge for!”

He lugged her, bent over in the crook of his arm like a naughty kid. “Considering you know that Zlo guy, that seems like pretty bad company.”

“You are bad! Now, put me down! Put me down!”

He shook his head. “First, you have to take back this grubby chel-vek stuff.”

“No!” She drew back one leg. The toe of her boot landed a resounding kick on his shin, square on top of the bruises she’d inflicted the other day.

Pain jagged up his leg. “Ow!” He dropped her.

She scrambled to her feet and turned to advance on him, fists clenched, eyes sparking. “Skotina!” That temper of hers was far enough gone for her to actually take a smack at him.

He caught first one hand, then the other when she tried again. “Why do you always have to be beating on me, huh?” She tried to bite his thumb, and he pulled her hands away from her face. “This is not how employees treat their employers, you realize that?”

She glared, huffing.

And then he realized how close they were. Only a few inches separated their faces.

She seemed to realize it too and froze. Her eyes got big. For one instant, her eyes dropped to his mouth, then flicked back. She clenched her teeth even harder.

She was mad at him, sure thing. And if he gave himself time to think about the new throb in his shin, he’d be mad at her too.

So he did the only sensible thing. He kissed her.

Maybe it was just because, at this moment, throbbing shin or no, she was about the cutest thing he’d ever seen. Or maybe it was because Griff was right: he looked in her eyes and he saw his own restless, wandering spirit.

He leaned back.

She gulped hard and stared at him, like she’d never been kissed before.

Maybe she hadn’t.

Well, that’s what he got for acting without thinking. A bit of heat crawled up his own neck.

He let her go—slowly, in case she had any more kicks in mind—and stepped back.

Blushing furiously, she bent her head to swipe the dust and grass from her clothes. After half a minute, she finally exhaled and raised her chin to look him in the eye.

Then she slapped him so hard his teeth rattled, and marched off.

He came up holding his stinging cheek. Yeah, okay, so he’d pretty much deserved that for manhandling her, even if it had been in fun. It hadn’t been like he’d asked for a kiss. It wasn’t even that he’d offered a kiss and she’d accepted it. Nice girls—or even nice hellcats, come to that—had a right to slap a fellow for thieving a kiss.

The grin faded a bit.

The kiss hadn’t exactly been on purpose. So she’d gotten embarrassed when he’d overheard Griff’s question. So she’d been too much fun not to tease. But Griff was right: he’d never had any intention of taking advantage of her.

Falling in love was something he did every now and then. But he had wings to fly away whenever it got too serious. Getting married, settling down, starting a family—that was a fork in the road he’d passed a long time ago. It was a road on the ground. And anyway Jael would soon be flying away to her own home. Unless he actually succeeded in convincing her to join the troupe long-term. Which, come to think of it, might end up being way more complicated than he’d first envisioned.

At the other end of the field, she rounded the corner of his Jenny and disappeared.

His stomach got that same hollowed-out feeling as before, when he’d watched Walter run laps around the plane.

All right, he admitted it: he’d miss her if he had to leave her behind. He chomped his lower lip.

But that was as far as this one could go. He hadn’t come home to fall for some wacky girl who slapped, kicked, and tried to stab him. He shifted her—and her kiss—to the back of his mind and bent to pick up Earl’s fallen tools.

Footsteps crunched through the grass, too heavy to be Jael’s.

He looked up.

“There you are.” Earl hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward camp. “What’s a matter with her?”

“She’s just riled. She’ll get over it.”

Earl raised both eyebrows to the brim of his cap. “Riled, is it? The feeling I’m getting is that she doesn’t know whether she’s mad on purpose, mad on principle, or mad just for the show of it.”

Sounded familiar. He dumped Earl’s rawhide mallet onto the pile and started rolling up the canvas. His cheek tingled. “Take your pick. They all feel the same.”

Earl held the silence for a second. “You get the idea she ain’t seen much of the world?”

“Yeah, I reckon.”

“Well, don’t scare her off.”

Hitch squinted up. “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t scare women.”

“No, but you get careless sometimes. All I’m saying is we need her right now—for the show. So don’t do something dumb that’s going to send her running.”

Hitch tucked the bundle of tools under his elbow and stood. He sighed. “I know. I’ll be careful.” ’Cause Lord knew he didn’t want to do something that was going to end up scaring himself either.

Earl held out his open hand. “How about this?” Jael’s pendant, on its chain, lay in his callused palm.

“She gave you that?”

“More like slapped it into my hand. Isn’t this what caused all the fuss the other day when she about tore off Livingstone’s head?”

“That’s it.” He took it from Earl and turned it over.

It was about twice as heavy as it ought to be, even with all the little cogs and gears behind the glass cover. It clicked and whirred faintly, barely vibrating in his palm.

He looked at Earl. “What do you think?”

Earl shrugged. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Would it be possible for something like this to, I don’t know, call down lightning?” He explained about the storm the other day. “It’s just a thought, and it’s probably crazy. But if the pendant could pull in the lightning, and if that thing up there is causing the lightning, maybe we could use the pendant to pull in the whole kit and caboodle.”

Earl took back the pendant. “I dunno. Maybe. Sounds like hooey, but then so has about everything else that’s happened this week. Give me some time to look it over.”

On the road, a dark green sedan slowed near the entrance to the field. It took the turn through the open gateway and bounced over the ruts, then stopped. The front door opened, and Campbell stepped out. He leaned back against the car and lit up a cigarette. Judging from the angle of his head, he was staring right at Hitch.

Hitch’s stomach sank. “Oh, brother.”

Earl turned to look. “What?”

“I gotta go.” He handed over the tools. “I told the sheriff I’d do him a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“The kind you get in trouble for these days, unless it’s the sheriff who asks you.”

Earl narrowed his gaze. “Please tell me it ain’t bootleg liquor.”

“It’ll be all right.”

“The more you say that, the worse your odds get.”

“Just so long as the odds don’t run out this weekend.” He started toward Campbell, then stopped and looked back. “See if you can figure out anything about that pendant. If Jael will come with me on the job tonight, we can give it a try.”

“No way I’m going to figure it out before tonight.”

“Just try. And make sure Jael stays put until then.”