39. Chapter 39
What am I doing? Jason asked himself as he ran out into the storm.
From behind her, he saw her shoulders rise and fall with the wind being shoved down her throat.
What the fuck am I doing?
The funnel consumed everything. It ate the air before he caught a breath, it chewed through the pavement, the grass, the dirt beneath the grass, a red jalopy in its path, Jason’s sanity.
What the fucking hell am I doing?
“Theresa!” he yelled, or he thought he did. Words, and everything else, were being whisked away by the force of the wind.
A stronger gust pushed her backward into Jason’s arms, and Jason against the diner doors. The wind couldn’t decide if it wanted to wrap the clothes tight to his body or rip them off, his skin with them.
And Theresa was smiling.
Enraptured, a word he’d never used, came to mind at the sheer joy—sheer fucking delirium—on her face.
Jason secured one arm around her waist and used the other to pry the diner door open against the pressure and hauled her through it. The stillness inside was as sudden as the storm was violent on the other side of the door.
And the kiss she planted on his lips.
Fuck, she tasted as sweet as she smelled and wasn’t shy with her tongue—
“Come on, guys! Get your asses back here!” Maisie called from the kitchen.
Since they were dead anyway if the tornado hit them straight on, it was as good a time as any to keep kissing the girl.
“Theresa!” Maisie screeched.
She broke away and yanked him toward the counter.
What the fucking fuck am I doing?
Jason finally remembered the money. The ten-million-dollar check he left on the table to chase a woman into a storm. He sprinted to the booth.
“What are you doing?” Theresa asked.
“Planning for the future, honey,” he said, coming back with the envelope. He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
Maisie, the cook, and the two scruffy truck drivers were stuffed in the employee bathroom, each quietly praying their lives didn’t end huddled on a pee-splattered floor.
And tucked into Jason’s side, cheeks bright with color and still trying to catch her breath, was the enraptured Theresa.
He bet she’d run back into the storm if he let her.
It would be a bitch of a thing to die the same day he kissed the girl and struck it rich.