Chapter 4

WMJM RADIO, 1420 AM, The CountryVoice:

And now, for the weather for southern and central Arkansas. Continued fair and warm today, with the temperatures heating up again tomorrow. Expect a cold front to be rolling through here tomorrow afternoon, producing possibly severe thunderstorms....

"I thought you weren't drinking in there," Brooke accused, her head down, her voice shaky. She'd already shoved her hands into her slacks pockets so she couldn't get herself into more trouble, and had turned a little away toward the car just in case Pete didn't get the message from everything else she did.

"I didn't," he answered, sounding just as uncertain. "I guess antihistamines make me a little..."

"Strange," she provided for him. "Are you too... strange to drive? I sure can't."

"No, I can drive. Where do you want to go?"

Home. Her heart was still skittering around inside her ribs like a ricocheting bullet, her lungs struggling to maintain oxygen levels.

It had been just the way she'd always dreamed.Warm, sweet, nourishing. As thick as honey and dark as a dream. Brooke could still remember the long nights spent curled up in her dormer window, eyes out to the trees that hid Pete Cooper's house, when all she'd wanted was for him to look at her like a young woman instead of a pesky little sister. When she'd have given anything for a kiss like this.

But she'd been twelve years old then. She'd needed a knight in shining armor, a buccaneer to sweep away the tedium of small-town normalcy. She didn't need a knight now, she needed a friend.

She flipped him the keys. "I was hoping to make the Louisiana border tonight. I don't think we're going to do it."

"Well, let's at least give it a shot."

Brooke nodded and headed over to the car. The top was still down, so when Pete started the engine and pulled back out onto the road, the wind caught Brooke's hair and tumbled it behind her. She wanted to lay her head back on the seat, much the way Pete had done, her stomach still in more of a turmoil than the beer should have left it.

"Which way?" Pete asked.

She just pointed and busied herself with the radio.

"Y'know," Pete was saying, "that was the first time in a while I haven't had to sign autographs and give informed opinions on world affairs when I was in a group of people. Do you know any other places like that?"

"Why, do you want me to avoid them?" she teased, trying very hard to distance herself from the sudden delight he'd unleashed.

He chuckled. "It's nice to know I can always get support from my friends, Stump."

They were deep into farmland now, the night air smelling like plowed earth, wet grass and manure. Rock and roll floated on the breeze and the cares of the world were hidden beyond the horizon. And Brooke's head still fizzed with celebration.

"Which reminds me," she countered. "You never told me. Who did you end up taking to that awards banquet a couple of weeks ago?"

He looked over briefly, the light shuddering across his face so that his eyes were hidden. "You mean the Peabodies? I thought I told you."

"The last I heard from you, you were torn between the corporate lawyer and the teen queen model."

Brooke was relieved to see the good old Coop scowl. "She is not a teen queen," he protested. "She's at least twenty-one."

"Well, your bail bondsman can breathe a sigh of relief," she retorted gleefully. "Just what would you two talk about on a date anyway? New Kids on the Block?"

"Do I detect a small note of jealousy?"

Brooke snorted. "Of what? Big Bambi eyes and a vocabulary that only includes the adjectives 'awesome' and 'fabulous'? I just guessed you'd wait until at least your fortieth birthday before you succumbed to Mid-Life Crisis."

"She's a nice kid," he retorted.

Brooke gave way to a triumphant grin. "Exactly."

That at least got her a laugh. "Like I said, it's always nice to have the support of my friends."

"And what would you have said if I'd taken a nineteen-year-old college jock to the company Christmas party?"

"That's younger."

"So am I."

"Oh, well, in that case, I'd say that you were a frustrated old maid."

"There. I knew you'd be just as enlightened as I was. So, I imagine she looked wonderful in a teeny tiny spangly dress."

"She did not. The corporate lawyer did."

"Well, hallelujah, there's hope after all."

There was a pause punctuated by the rush of wind and the chirrup of insect armies massing in the trees. "Who did you take to your Christmas party?" he asked.

Brooke's smile was sly. "A nineteen-year-old college jock."

* * *

By the time they found a motel with a vacancy sign they'd made it over the border after all. It was late by then, cool enough that they'd had to stop to put the top up and so long past dinner hour that the grumble of empty stomachs punctuated the heat lightning that flickered along the horizon. Whenn they finally climbed from the car to stretch out the kinks from driving, they could hear the plaintive hootings of barges on the river and a train somewhere in the distance. They were right down by the river, in a town of seafood shops and tug-repair services. Country-western music spilled from the open door to the Bayou Cafe, and the smell of frying grease battled the cloying perfume of magnolias in the night breeze. Next door a pink neon sign proclaimed that the Riverside Motor Court had a vacancy. Actually it said the Ri*er- si** Moto* C**rt, but Brooke was good at filling in the blanks.

"I don't know about this," Pete demurred warily, his eye darting between the peeling, disheveled one-story building beneath that sign and the dusty pickup trucks in the neighboring parking lot.

"Oh, the Riverside's okay," Brooke said as she reached over to yank her purse out of the car. "I stayed here once when my car went bad on me."

Pete shot her a frown. "Don't you ever go to places that have carpeting and room service?"

Brooke swung her purse onto her shoulder and turned for the front door. "Coop, you're turning into a snob, you know that?"

Shaking his head mournfully, he followed. "Self-preservation has become an instinct after all these years on battlefronts."

"Well then, you'll be glad to know I'm carrying a gun."

That stopped him dead in his tracks. "What?"

Brooke grinned. "All licensed and legal. The company arranged it. I'm a pistol-packin' momma, baby, so don't get fresh."

For a minute it looked as if Pete was going to manage an answer. Finally he simply gave his head another dismal shake and headed on past Brooke.

Inside, the front office consisted of a closet-size vestibule leading to a Formica-paneled wall that held both sliding window and closed door. Brooke suspected that the glass was bulletproof. She waited while Pete punched the bell.

"Yeah?" The glass slid back to reveal a woman in housecoat and curlers, a sandwich in hand and the TV on behind her.

Pete fought hard to keep a straight face. "We need a place to stay tonight."

She glared at them both as she finished dispatching whatever was in her mouth. "Well, I already figured that. You don't look like no Girl Scouts wantin' to sell cookies."

That obviously delighted her, because she broke into a wheezing, purple-faced laugh that didn't look or sound very healthy.

"Got a nice double room right by the road," she said.

"No," Pete countered easily, his eyebrows still up but his face admirably passive. "We'd prefer two singles if you have them."

It took another bite of sandwich to figure that one out, but they finally got a nod. "Jimmy'll show you down. Got luggage?"

Brooke nodded.

The woman handed over keys, got signatures and chewed on contentedly. Brooke was wondering just what was in store for them when the door alongside the window opened up and the aforementioned Jimmy stepped out.

Brooke promptly stopped breathing. He was probably eighteen or nineteen, dark, sleek and powerful, with eyes the color of a moonlit night and hair like raven's wings. And he had a smile that lit for her like an invitation to sin.

She smiled right back. "Why, I think we were just talking about you," she offered with a delighted glance at Pete, whose face was folding right into astonishment. "Are you going to help me with my luggage?"

Jimmy nodded and stepped close. He wasn't wearing anything special, just a white T-shirt and jeans. But on Jimmy they looked the way God had meant them to look, just shy of illegal. "Yes, ma'am," he said in a voice like smoke. "You haven't been around here lately, have you?"

Brooke slid her arm into his and headed right back for the door. "Oh, no," she answered. "I would have remembered."

An hour or so later Brooke managed to knock on Pete's door to see about dinner. He gave her a look like David used to when he'd have to pick her up from some of her more questionable outings.

"What's the matter?" he demanded. "Is it past his bedtime?"

Brooke enjoyed a good chuckle. It would have been a lot less fun to betray the fact that Jimmy had stayed in her room just long enough to deposit her luggage, and that the past hour had been spent repairing some of the ravages of a day out in the humid wind.

"Meow, Coop," she accused. "I thought you'd be a gentleman about this. I mean, maybe you and Bambi could double-date with us."

"Her name is not Bambi," he snapped.

Brooke answered with widened eyes. "What is her name?"

He actually flinched, a tiny movement most other people would have missed. "Buffy."

Brooke let go a hoot that could have been heard on the river. "Come on, old man. I still have enough energy to eat dinner with you."

Pete grabbed his jacket from a chair by the door and followed her out into the night. "Are you sure you want to be seen with someone who has more than a third-grade education?"

Sliding her arm through Pete's, Brooke sashayed back toward the street. There was a pole light to illuminate the way, but great, thick old trees kept most of the parking lot midnight dark. Those magnolias grew right alongside her unit, their waxy leaves shining faintly and the white flowers smelling seductive. It was pleasant in the late evening.

"Actually," Brooke admitted with delight as she plucked one of the flowers and settled it into the curls behind her ear, "Jimmy's home from Tulane. Pre-med."

"You're lyin'."

She shrugged. "Ask him. He has the most wonderful way with Latin."

Pete just shook his head. "No wonder I spent so much of my life pulling you out of scrapes."

* * *

Pete shouldn't have been the one to wake up with a hangover. He'd seen the way Brooke had put away beer the afternoon before. She'd topped it off with some of the hottest chili he'd ever tasted at the Bayou Café and then managed to keep him up until almost two in the morning talking about the Peabody Awards.

And yet, he was the one who felt as if he'd fallen off a very high wagon.

Maybe it was because he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the antihistamines, or the fact that the Riverside air-conditioning was a matter of wishful thinking. Whatever it was, it left him tired and frustrated and irritable, wrapped up in itchy sheets, sweating and subjected to dreams that made no sense to him. Dreams that obviously reflected his recent bout of celibacy, but which seemed to betray a troubling dislocation. The very willing partner in his dreams hadn't been the nubile Buffy or the sparkling, sharp Eloise, but Brooke.

Brooke. He couldn't figure it. That was like dreaming about your little sister. Like finding yourself kissing your math teacher. Those kinds of things just didn't happen. Stump was his buddy; she was his alter ego, his conscience. She kept him in his place, just as he did for her.

That simply wasn't the kind of person a man should be having erotic dreams about.

But he was. Vivid dreams, troubling dreams. Dreams that had left him in the shower before dawn and sitting out on the front porch in a rickety folding chair, watching the morning mist burn off from over by the river as the streets came to life.

It was the change in her, he decided. The realization that she wasn't a child anymore. No matter how close they'd been over the years, never more than a phone call away, he hadn't seen her. Not since her mother's funeral, and he had to admit that that wasn't the kind of time you judged a person's attraction. She'd been drawn and pale and silent then, a dim wraith in that big old house where he'd spent so many Friday nights.

But now, he couldn't ignore the fact that good old Stump wasn't a stork stuffed in a burlap sack anymore. The more appropriate analogy would have been the ugly duckling. Well, the duck had matured into a swan, and the rest of the world was still quacking in comparison.

If only he could have just been proud of her, it would have been all right. But damn, she'd also learned to kiss.

"What are you doing up? You're not a morning person."

Pete turned to see Brooke stepping outside her door. She was in a dress today, loose white cotton that swirled lazily around her legs and left her throat bare. Her hair gleamed in the sunlight like a fresh fire, its curls tied into order with a scarf. Pete wondered if he could really smell the soap from her shower on her, or whether it was just residue from his dream. The kind of residue that had him thinking of what those long legs of hers would feel like in his hands.

"Sneaking off to help Junior eat his oatmeal?" he asked with a wary eye, unaccountably surly.

Her grin was mischievous as hell. "I thought we'd concentrate on those all-important clothing fastener techniques. Today's lesson is the zipper."

Pete pushed himself to his feet. "I'd better get you out of town before his mama hurts you real bad."

Brooke tilted her head. "We're not having breakfast at the Bayou?"

"Are you kidding? They probably put Tabasco on their eggs. I'm more in the mood for grits and gravy."

Brooke took a moment to consider the sky beyond the meager overhang. "It's going to be really hot today, isn't it?"

Pete scowled at her. "It's already hot today, Brooke. Let's get going."

She chuckled. "Now do you know why I told you not to accept any of those morning-show offers? You would have committed murder in a week." Reaching over, she straightened the collar of his shirt. "I guess you're not going to let me meander down to the river and watch the barges."

"Not till I've had my coffee."

She nodded, those emerald sharp eyes much too knowing and amused. "Okay. Let me get packed. Why don't you just sit here and snarl in peace for a few minutes?"

Stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets, he turned to follow her. "It'll go faster if I help."

"Pack your own stuff."

"It's already in the car."

She laughed. "Of course it is."

Pete had just reached her open door when he came to a sudden halt. "Don't move," he commanded, grabbing hold of her. "I've seen terrorist attacks before."

"What do you mean?" she demanded, shuddering to a stop alongside him.

Pete considered the scene beyond the half-opened door. "Your room. The question is how they got the bomb in through a closed window."

Brooke pulled out of his grip and stalked over to begin picking up the articles of clothing that lay scattered around the room like flowers after a tornado. "Oh," she countered, "and I suppose you're the Neatness Poster Child?"

Pete picked up a bra from where it had landed on the top of the mirror and handed it to her. "You can run a lot faster if you always know where your passport it."

"I know exactly where my passport is," she retorted, snatching the article of underwear from his hand and stuffing it into a brimming suitcase. "It's still in the unopened envelope it came in."

Pete rooted around for shoes and came up with cosmetics. "I invited you to visit when I was in Paris."

Brooke straightened from where she'd just located her nightgown wedged behind the television. "You were married then."

"Alicia wouldn't have minded."

"Alicia would have scratched my eyes out."

Pete aimed a curling iron at her. "You never did get along with her."

Brooke's smile was purely feminine. "I'm still not convinced she has a reflection in a mirror."

The laughter bubbled in Pete's chest, just where it always did when he was challenging Brooke. "Meow right back, Brooke. A bowl of milk, perhaps?"

Brooke offered him a sickly version of the same smile as she relieved him of his latest burden. "Well, you obviously got along with her."

Pete nodded and went after a nest of panty hose on the headboard. "I sure did. Especially when I was in Moscow and she was in Paraguay."

He must have let some of that old bitterness escape into his voice, because Brooke slowed her manic hunt to face him. "I was really sorry it didn't work for you," she said sincerely.

Pete couldn't do anything but smile in response. "I know, Stump." He collected the jumble of cosmetics she held in her hands and began to stuff them into her bag. "And what about London?" he demanded. "I remember calling."

"Right in the middle of finals."

"And Beirut?"

"Oh, thanks."

"Are you still on these?" He held out the round container of pills that he'd found on the sink.

Brooke snatched them from his hands. "I'd take arsenic and itching powder if it'd take care of my cramps."

He frowned at her. "Still?"

Her answering smile was not pleasant. "I enjoy being a girl, Coop. What can I say?" She turned back to her suitcase to stuff in her cosmetic bag. "Doc Levin says that things'll straighten out once I have babies, but I just figure it's not worth the savings at the pharmacy right now."

"But they do have other hormone treatments for that now. Our medical reporter did a story on it last week. You shouldn't need to blow up like a summer sausage."

That brought Brooke to a halt. She faced her friend and grinned with a sad shake of her head. "You know, it occurs to me that you know more about me than a man should tastefully know about a woman."

Pete grinned right back. "Meaning that there's no mystery?"

"Meaning that I can never sell the real dirt on you to the Daily World. You have much too much stuff you can blackmail me with, too. Especially if I decide to get involved again."

* * *

"Why haven't you?" Pete asked as they climbed into the car.

Brooke turned on him, thinking how very cool and handsome he looked in his pleated slacks and blue chambray shirt. The world-famous journalist, the self-effacing media star. The small-town boy who had spent too long away from home. She wanted to run her fingers over his face and curl up against his chest like she used to when he'd try to reassure her that she wasn't the only unhappy teen to make bad judgment calls about dates.

"Why haven't I what?" she asked.

Settling into the driver's seat, Pete slid his sunglasses on and fingered her keys. "Gotten involved again?"

Brooke concentrated on buckling the seat belt Mamie had gone to such trouble to get installed in the car. "Good taste," was all she said.

Pete turned over the engine and eased the car back out of the lot. "Well, that's a new twist for you."

"Thanks, bud," she scowled, positioning her own sunglasses. The top was staying up today out of deference to the heat and humidity that gathered outside like congealing gravy. "I always know I can come to you for unbiased support."

She'd dreamed about him last night, just like she had as a girl. Well, not exactly. When she was a girl, the dreams had been a girl's dreams, chaste and vague, the mysteries of passion still beyond her. She remembered that the high point had always been the kiss. The moment he'd wrapped her in his arms and bent her within his torrid embrace—torrid embraces seemed quite dangerous enough to an eleven-year-old girl.

She knew too much now to settle for that single, chaste kiss, the thrill of promise in his gray green eyes. After that exhibition on the parking lot, all stops had been pulled out in her subconscious.

That she should have less than pure thoughts about one of the ten most eligible men in the States couldn't have come as a surprise. She'd known how attractive Pete was a lot longer than the television viewing public. If Pete had ever given her the slightest encouragement as they'd grown up side by side, she probably would have risked her morals on him.

But Pete was a buddy, a best friend who had seen her at her worst and not held it against her. He'd salved her hurts and shared his own, night after night out on the front porch where the crickets had kept them company. He'd set the rules early and never seen the need to change them, and Brooke had been comfortable with it. Until last night.

Last night, for the first time in a very long while, she'd lost her firm hold on pragmatism, and ended up tossing and turning without getting any sleep. All those silly old dreams had bubbled to the surface in her sleep and danced with the imagination of a grown woman, leaving her short-tempered and frustrated. And, suddenly, more physically uncomfortable near him than she'd ever been.

"Well, the dating pool is a bit limited in Rupert Springs," Pete admitted. "During the time I was there, the only eligible males I think I saw under Social Security age were the Tanner twins, and they're still paperboys... of course, give them six months or so and they should be just the age you want."

Brooke allowed a wry grin. "At least I've never been seen in public with someone who wasn't even alive when I hit puberty."

"And given the chance, you'd still turn down the opportunity."

She chuckled. "Well, that's another story entirely."

"Then why jump on my back with hobnail boots?"

Brooke sighed, teetering between sincerity and levity, wondering which would serve better. "You've become hotter than the flag since that little jaunt in the Gulf. I don't want to see it go to your pretty head."

Pete looked over then as he idled the car at a stoplight in the center of town, and Brooke could see the real surprise behind those glasses. "Hey, Stump, no kidding. You really see some kind of problem?"

Brooke did her best to hold his gaze, even lost behind two sets of colored glass. "Mamie didn't just leave me this car, bucko. She left me you. She wanted to make sure there was somebody around to remind you who you are when all those tabloids are seating you next to aliens and Princess Grace on that big celestial bus ride of fame."

The light changed, and the car behind them honked. Pete turned back to business, but Brooke saw the new creases between his eyebrows, right where he carried his concern. She'd seen them when she'd hurt herself as a kid, and most lately when she'd seen him report on the homeless.

"Mamie never said anything to me," he said, his voice tentative, as if reassessing his actions since hitting the celebrity jackpot.

They headed down a country road that paralleled the river. For a minute Pete did little more than concentrate on his driving as they passed patches of rice, their sweet green bright even through the fug of humidity.

"Luckily," Brooke offered, "a severe reprimand had never been in order. But I thought a nice trip down South might help prevent problems."

Pete shot her a rueful scowl. "You're as sneaky as Mamie was."

"Oh, worse," Brooke assured him with a real smile. "Much worse."

He looked over her way, the creases easing, laughter folding the edges of his features. "I can count on you at the studio door the very second I overstep the boundaries of good taste."

She grinned back and felt the weight lift from her shoulders. "While you're still fantasizing about it," she assured him.

He grimaced. "Then where were you when I married Alicia?"

Brooke just shook her head and pulled out the map they'd follow. "I said I'd be there. I didn't say you'd listen."

The scenery stretched out flat and listless before them, the humidity sapping color, the sky vague and uninspiring. Brooke found a station that played zydeco and flipped up the volume, singing along through her nose just to see Pete wince. They stopped for breakfast when they saw the water tower with a black bat painted on it. They ate grits and gravy, and bought several souvenirs in the form of rubber bats—the kind that fly—and skull earrings courtesy of the imaginatively named town of Transylvania, Louisiana. Later, they headed on south, back out toward the rich farmland of Madison County and its pecan groves and pastureland.

Brooke smiled with the sense of escape, the easy familiarity of having Pete next to her on the drive, the delight of having him back in her life.

It had been too long since she'd seen those now-famous chiseled features, since she'd ruffled the perfectly groomed mahogany hair. Phones were nice and telegrams sometimes even better, but best friends were meant to be in the same town, the same street. They were for calling on impulse and dropping in on. It was hard to drop in on a guy two states away.

If only she could forget that kissing business...

They were singing along with Randy Travis at the top of their lungs, humoring Pete's secret passion. The man who looked as if he'd invented the tux, who graced every classical music function in Atlanta and New York, really yearned to just sit in with his guitar on a Nashville session and wail. Something else Evan Parischell would have a seizure over.

"So, where are we staying when we get to New Orleans?" Pete asked.

"I don't know," Brooke answered, resettling in her seat, an eye drawn suddenly to the horizon. "I think it's your turn to scout out a location, don't you?" She leaned further over and pulled her glasses down her nose, to get a better look.

Pete actually nodded. "I was hoping you'd say that. I'm not in the mood for another Riverside."

"And what was wrong with it? Seems to me I heard worse notices about some of the places you stayed in Central America."

"That's called ambience, Stump," he advised her. "Riverside was called cheap."

She shrugged, distracted. "The only difference was a couple of whirring overhead fans and a banana tree in the corner. Do you think we'll get down there tonight?"

"I don't see why not."

"What about that weather coming in?"

Pete squinted over at the black line of clouds quickly piling into the southwestern sky. "A little rain isn't going to stop us."

But Brooke was shaking her head. "You've been in Atlanta too long. That looks unpleasant. Especially as hot as it's been."

The trees along the roadside were already bending before the first whispers of wind, and the morning shuddered with approaching lightning.

"Oh, come on," he chided. "Since when have you been bothered by a storm?"

"Since one took off the roof of Allie's house last spring. We were crouched in the basement at the time."

"It's too early in the day for a real storm," he said. "Didn't the weather reports say the front was going to move through this afternoon?"

"I think it decided not to wait."

And they were driving right into it. Within the space of fifteen minutes the sunlight disappeared and the first fat raindrops were splattering against the little windshield. Pete flipped on both wipers and lights.

"Well," he philosophized as the first real bolt of lightning sizzled across the sky, "at least we don't have to worry about traffic."

They were the only inhabitants on the narrow country road. Brooke could see neat rows of pecan trees on one side and crinkled fields of soybeans on the other. The trees at the edge of the field and along the small bayous had begun to dance and writhe. The car bucked in the sudden wind and slid a little as it sailed through the driving rain.

Brooke just closed her eyes and hung on to the door handle. "I don't like weather like this," she moaned. "And don't give me that stuff about it being a sight safer than dodging the enemy fire in Afghanistan. At least they were aiming."

"Yeah," he countered. "At me."

"Didn't you tell them to just turn off the TV like everybody else if they didn't like you?"

"I never got the chance."

Thunder cracked and bellowed. Lightning seared the edges of the sky and snaked down to seek out the trees. Brooke could only see the scenery in the shudder of failing light, and it pushed a lump further up in her throat. Those trees were bending almost in half.

"This is happening all too fast," she protested, leaning forward for a better look. "Pull over."

"Oh, we don't have to—"

"It's my car, Coop, and I'd really rather not lose it this soon. I promise I'll never tell another newsman in the world that you didn't drive right into a hurricane with the top down."

He made rude noises, but he pulled the car over to the side of the road to wait out the storm. "See?" he demanded, motioning to the solid stream of water pounding the windshield even at a stop. "It's not so bad. Open your eyes and watch the show."

She did. Just in time to see the show stop.

Completely.

"Oh, Coop," she breathed, looking out into the suddenly still landscape.

Pete leaned forward, eyes widening. "I may have just changed my estimates."

Brooke pointed, not even aware that her hand was shaking. "Is that what I think it is?"

He squinted to get a better look. "If it is, we'd better get out."

Brooke forgot the swirling green sky, the sudden, eerie stillness in the storm-ravaged morning. "And leave the car here?"

"This isn't a house," he snapped. "If we go up, we're not just going to fall back down on a wicked witch."

They looked around just in time to hear the first howl from the southwest.

Car doors were thrown open and feet hit the asphalt. Pete headed for the ditch at the side of the road. Brooke ran the other way. Skidding to a stop by the trunk, she unlatched it and threw it open.

Expecting to find Brooke on his tail, Pete looked over his shoulder at the same moment he pulled to his own three-point halt. "What are you doing?" he demanded at full yell over the howl that was now a roar as he retraced his steps.

Brooke was tugging at one of her suitcases. "I'm getting the hell out of here!"

Pete yanked her away from the car, leaving the suitcase to thump to the asphalt. The sound effects were now deafening and the morning a dark, livid green. Both Brooke and Pete leaned over to reevaluate the situation. Then they turned to each other.

"Run away!" they both yelled and dived headfirst into the nearest ditch.

The tornado swept over them not more than thirty seconds later.