Chapter 5

A Vanishing Breed; the Family Farm, an IBN Report with Pete Cooper:

"No single symbol has been more central to the self-image of America than its farms, no occupation more romanticized, no life-style more eulogized. And yet, as America moves into the twenty-first century, this symbol, this life-style, might go the way of buffalo and boom towns...."

"Hey, Toto," Pete muttered in the vicinity of Brooke's ear. "If I lift my head, do you think the world will be in Technicolor?"

Brooke squirmed enough to get her face out of the drainage water that was already dripping into her eyes, and managed to sink her nose into Pete's chest hair. "It will if you don't get your elbow out of my back, Dorothy," she snarled.

She was shaking, rapidly coming apart at the seams, her teeth chattering and her knees the consistency of Silly Putty. The tornado had sucked out her breath, pummeled the ground beneath her like an artillery attack and peppered her and Pete with debris, and then headed on its merry way. Left behind, Brooke felt battered, a little deaf and incredibly giddy.

Pete was already repositioning himself. "Uh-oh," he was saying as he got his head up.

"The car?" Brooke asked, trying to follow.

"Is right where we left it. Your luggage, however," he informed her, plucking a pair of panty hose from the top of his head and handing them over, "is not."

Brooke managed to get to a sitting position, still hip deep in water and soaked right through her lightweight dress. With still shaking hands she pushed her hair back out of her eyes and made her own evaluation. And offered her own groan.

"After all the trouble I went to, to pack that stuff," she mourned, taking in the bright bits of cloth that littered nearby fence, shrub and tree. It didn't seem worth hanging on to the panty hose since she had nothing much left to wear them with. Unconsciously she stuffed them into her belt.

Pete considered the scene with a calm eye. "Looks just like your hotel room," he admitted.

Brooke gave him a jab that should have knocked the breath out of him. "What am I going to do?"

He didn't bother to turn around. "Auction off the privilege of climbing the trees for your panties."

She elbowed him again. "You could do it for me."

That produced quite a laugh. "And find out that the next helicopter that passes has a Daily World photographer in it? I'd really love to see the story of my scavenger hunt all over the front pages."

"Well, I can't get it."

He considered the situation for a minute, still calmly seated in the same muddy, rather aromatic water as Brooke. "Did you sew your name inside the waist or anything?"

Brooke shot him an arch look of disbelief. "I wasn't headed for camp. The only name in that underwear is Diane Von Furstenberg."

He nodded and shot her a crooked grin. "Then whoever retrieves it will think it's hers. Leave it where it is. It can be on the next episode of Unsolved Mysteries."

Brooke couldn't believe it. She wanted to laugh. She'd just ridden out a tornado in swamp water, seen her personal belongings tossed around the countryside like bunting at a political rally, lost her wardrobe for the rest of the trip, and she wanted to laugh. It was all Coop's fault. He did it to her every time.

"Thanks, Coop," she acknowledged dryly. "That would have been my second idea."

He laughed even before she could, which was when she realized that he was shaking, too. His eyes glittered like polished jade, and he looked thoroughly disreputable, wet and disheveled. It was a look Brooke missed on him since he'd become the nation's most respected anchor. She'd liked him in his bomber jacket, too.

"Damn, Stump," he crowed, taking her by the arms and pulling her along to her feet. "We won. We beat the big guy again."

Brooke couldn't take her eyes from Pete's. Couldn't pull herself away from the sudden spark in his grip. He was thrumming with life, with sensuality, potent and devastating. Water slid down his temples and beaded in the hollow of his throat. His shirt was torn and his slacks sodden. It would take a good shower before anybody recognized him as a good credit risk, much less Pete Cooper, but caught in his grip, Brooke suddenly couldn't get her breath, and it wasn't from terror.

"Again?" she demanded instead, grinning back, the force of him swelling in her chest along with the relief, the exultation. "I think once is more than enough for me, thanks."

But Pete wouldn't have any of it. "Aw, come on. We weren't in any trouble. And we got a ringside seat to one of the greatest phenomena in nature. Don't you even think it rates a toast?"

"I think it rates the whole damn loaf," she countered, infected by him, drawn to him, standing there shivering with the sudden wind that knifed through her, the dawning realization that they had just very narrowly cheated a very big time death... with something even more primal. "Is this what it feels like when the Afghani rocket misses you?"

He nodded, still holding on tight, still hot and taut, his hands the only things warming her. "It's a terrible feeling," he assured her. "One I'm sure I won't go looking for again. Certainly nothing that would ever tempt me away from my news desk to cover a war close up."

Brooke did laugh then, because even before this she'd known better. "Coop, your eyes should be brown."

"I think they are," he retorted, inspecting the damage the dip in the creek had done. "Along with my shirt, my socks and my undershorts. And," he added, swinging his gaze her way, "your dress. Do you realize that right now you're breaking obscenity laws in about fifteen states?"

Brooke took a quick look down and gasped. "Oh, my God."

He was right. She was so soaked that her dress was all but transparent, clinging to her like a second skin. Even her once-white lacy bra was as good as invisible. If Pete had ever had any misconceptions about just how well or otherwise endowed Brooke was, or how sensitive nipples tended to react to both cold and shock, he had them no more.

She lifted her gaze back to him, ready to throw off a quick line about the proper attire in which to be caught in a tornado, when she bumped right up against the sudden, surprising heat in his eyes.

Recognizable heat, fantasized heat. A sweet, sleek languor that made old daydreams pale in comparison. His eyes had darkened, deepened, widened. His mouth was parted in surprise. He let his gaze return from his perusal of all her worldly charms, and Brooke slid right into their depths.

She froze, burned, crumbled.

"You look like a drowned rat," he accused, his voice suddenly raspy as he lifted a hand to push back a straggling strand of her hair. His jaw had tightened, and his fingers trembled against her skin. It unnerved Brooke even more than storms.

"Avery large—" she managed, terrified and mesmerized at once "—rat."

Pete's hand strayed down past her ear to curl around her neck, back where her skin was so sensitive. Just the feel of his fingers there sent fresh shivers through her, showers of sparks like a misfired rocket from Fourth-of-July fireworks.

Still she couldn't move. She couldn't pull away or ease closer. Old reservations battled with older dreams and stilled her right there within the grasp of only his fingers.

And then, she was caught solidly by the delicious warmth of his lips.

A kiss, she thought distractedly even as he began to deepen it, to demand more, the exhilaration of survival shimmering from him, the thunder of arousal stunning her. It's just a kiss, a toast to life, a challenge to its precarious hold.

A kiss.

If it had just been a kiss, she wouldn't have moaned. Wouldn't have folded herself into his embrace or threaded her own hands through his hair. She wouldn't have opened her mouth to his greedy tongue or allowed him to cup her breast in his hand. She wouldn't have felt the fear melt into anticipation, nor forgotten that she was standing out in the open with her clothing scattered about her.

"Hey, you two okay?"

Brooke bolted upright as if a sheriff had just shone his flashlight in the front seat of the car. Still shivering, still woefully short of breath, she dipped her head, not able to pull away from the support of Pete's arms, suddenly not comfortable in them anymore, either.

Pete, his heart still thudding against his ribs, pulled her close enough to his chest that she was at least partially protected from general view.

"We're fine!" he shouted over her shoulder. "How 'bout yourself?"

Brooke couldn't even open her eyes to put a face to the gravelly voice asking after her welfare. She couldn't still her heart enough to feign nonchalance.

Then the voice returned, closer this time and definitely awed. "Well, sit me on a tree stump and slap me silly."

Above her, Pete suppressed a chuckle. "I think we have our first bidder for the auction."

Brooke moaned again, this time out of mortification. She could just imagine what the man thought stomping across his fields to find all her finery in his trees.

"Real nice lingerie, ma'am," he offered, his voice a bit subdued.

Brooke couldn't even lift her head from where it was wedged against Pete's chest. "Thank you."

"You two look just a mite bedraggled there. Why don't you come on back to the house and get cleaned up and changed... that is, if you have anything left."

"Sure do," Pete acknowledged. "I left my underwear in the car."

Brooke gave him another quick jab. Behind her, their mysterious benefactor chuckled. "You're not hurt or anything, we can walk on over."

"I can't," Brooke muttered.

Pete looked down at her. "You can't walk?"

"Not until I get covered."

The assessment he made of the situation was much too protracted and produced a return of those sparks she'd been fighting.

"Keep your eyes to yourself, you jerk," she snapped, "and get me a shirt or something."

Pete just chuckled. "I never knew tornadoes could be so much fun. Don't move."

She lifted her head then to glare at him. "Hustle, bud. I'm freezing."

His smile was purely salacious, sending even more chills through her. "I'll bet."

By the time she finally turned in Pete's raincoat to introduce herself to the gentleman who owned the soybeans, Brooke saw that he was blushing, his own head dipped uncertainly. It made her wonder what kind of picture she'd presented from the back. Oh well, she thought. It can only get worse.

"Thanks for the hospitality," she acknowledged. The farmer was a good-looking man, about forty with sandy hair that was graying at the temples and a chin that looked hewn from granite. She thought he had blue eyes, but they were still firmly cast down, so she couldn't quite be sure. "I hope your home wasn't damaged?"

"Nope. Just a lot of noise and a few shingles goosin' the cats. Lost an old apple tree that made some of the best pies in the parish, but it wasn't gonna last much longer anyway." His eyes finally came up, the shy eyes of a quiet man. Brooke liked him on sight.

"My name's Brooke," she introduced herself. "Brooke Ferguson."

His head dipped again in salutation. "Martin Bishop."

His hands full with the clothing he could manage to pluck from low-hanging branches, Pete joined them by the back of the car.

"Pete Cooper," he offered, instinctively reaching out a hand.

Martin probably would have taken it, except that it had one of Brooke's filmier undergarments dangling from it. Martin shied away from it as if it could burn him. Scowling at Pete's cavalier treatment of her personal belongings, Brooke stalked up and snatched the lot from him and stuffed it into the trunk. The suitcase her clothing had been packed in was missing in action.

"How 'bout if we just drive over?" she asked pointedly.

Neither man could come up with an objection other than the fact that they just enjoyed standing there watching the lace and silk fluttering in the wind like pastel pennants, so they all piled in and headed for Martin's house.

* * *

Martin's wife knew who Pete was. She knew even before her still-stammering husband made the introductions. Brooke had just climbed out of the car when the woman opened up the screen door to see Pete walking her way.

To say she was stunned would have been an understatement. She turned to stone. A once-pretty blond woman in jeans and work shirt, she opened her mouth to exclaim but never made it any further.

"Emma?" Martin said a bit uncertainly.

Brooke was tempted to just stay where she was and watch. Even though she'd heard about this phenomenon, she'd never actually seen it happen. Two natural wonders in one day. It could be some kind of record.

"It's all right," she assured the man. "It'll wear off in a few minutes."

His wife didn't even blink. Just stood on her own front porch step, a hand still on the open door, another caught on the way up to check her hair at the sight of a strange car in her driveway, her mouth gaping a little wider than her eyes.

Brooke turned to see Pete acknowledge the reaction with only the most minute of facial expressions. He waited for his host to make the first move.

"Woman," Martin was saying as he loped up to his house, his voice more astonished than when he'd first seen Brooke's secrets, "you look like the president just asked you for coffee."

That seemed to snap her out of it. "Do you know who that is?" she demanded as if Pete weren't really standing there.

Her husband turned to consider the man he'd just ridden next to. "Name's Pete Cooper. He and his lady friend were caught in the twister, and I told 'em they could wash up here before they headed on. You got a problem with that?"

"A problem?" she retorted, her voice raising. "A problem? I swear, Martin Bishop, you wouldn't know what was goin' on in the world unless it fell on your head."

And without another word for her husband, she turned a beautiful smile on Pete that completely transformed those tired features. "It's a pleasure to have you, Mr. Cooper. I watch you every night. Meant a lot to me, that piece you did on the plight of family farms."

They were all beginning to coalesce toward the door. At his wife's words, Martin shot Pete a look and squinted. "That you?" he demanded.

Pete nodded.

Martin nodded back, answer and judgment. "Pleasure havin' you in my house."

Brooke watched as Martin headed on in, obviously feeling that everything that needed to had been said. On his heels, Pete stepped up to Mrs. Bishop and took her hand in his.

"It's awfully generous of you and your husband to take a couple of strangers in like this," Pete said, and Brooke knew just what kind of look he was giving that poor woman. Back in high school the girls had dubbed it, "The Killer," because any girl on the receiving end might as well have dropped dead for all the breathing she could manage for the next five minutes.

Mrs. Bishop didn't seem any more immune. Brooke fought a groan as she stepped up in her turn and prepared to be ignored.

But Mrs. Bishop came to life again just as Brooke reached the porch.

"And you are?" she asked with real sincerity.

"His babysitter," Brooke said with a grimace.

She knew Mrs. Bishop was going to make it when she laughed and rolled her eyes. "He needs a police escort, you ask me."

Proper introductions were finally made, coffee put on the stove and both bathrooms put into service. Pete and Brooke weren't simply afforded courtesies, they were made guests. The Bishops insisted they take advantage of the two working showers in the house and then bundled up their dirty clothes in a laundry bag for them to carry on with them.

By the time Brooke walked back into the kitchen in a pair of rolled-up wheat slacks and T-shirt she'd stolen from Pete, Emma was serving lunch. She tolerated no arguments and served her guests along with herself and her husband. The four ended up sharing a quiet, comfortable meal and cementing a surprising friendship.

Emma had never been out of Louisiana. Martin had been born in the house, which had been built before the turn of the century, and planned to hand it to his children if farming survived that long. They were straightforward, unpretentious people who embodied the last of what had made hospitality a byword of the South. Brooke found herself grateful that a tornado had blown Pete and her off their intended path.

It was when she was enjoying a delicious apple pie and coffee that she realized that the visit to the Bishops was more than just pleasant serendipity. It was a sign from God.

"Coop," she breathed, nudging him where he sat at the trestle table that took up much of the kitchen. "Look."

Seriously involved in his own dessert, Pete took a minute to look up. What Brooke had noticed was the coat rack by the back door. Seed caps and a Stetson, jean jackets, children's slickers, a jumble of boots beneath. One special garment stood out.

Pete saw it, too.

"Martin," he said, motioning with his fork. "You ride?"

Seated across from them, Martin had to turn to find out what Pete was referring to. "Used to," he admitted. "That's a memento of my misspent youth, as Emma calls it. Sowing my wild oats and all."

Brooke raised an eyebrow. "With the Hell's Angels?"

Martin's shrug was self-effacing. "Sometimes you just need to get the road out of your system before you settle down to the land."

Brooke turned to Pete. "It's perfect. It fulfills another requirement."

Pete scowled. "I'm not so sure," he demurred. "I mean, she wanted a whole gang of them."

"And where are we going to find a gang of Hell's Angels on forty-eight-hour notice? Don't you see? Martin's symbolic."

"Symbolic?" Martin echoed uncertainty.

Brooke flashed him a rueful grin. "Sorry. It's the reason Pete and I are on the road."

"You're looking for motorcycle gangs? What for, another story?"

"No," Pete admitted. "A will."

By the time they finished explaining, Martin and Emma had officially joined the wake. Martin not only donned his jacket but all his riding leathers, and pulled his old hog, still pristine and shining, out of the barn for a trial spin.

The apple tree lay out in the yard like a drying skeleton, and shingles and debris littered the yard. Martin had a farm to run and Emma three children to collect at the bus before starting her rounds of Scouts and piano lessons. Even so, they spent a good hour taking turns on the passenger seat roaring up and down that country road where Brooke's unmentionables still fluttered bravely in the wind.

The sky cleared again, the weather service marveled at the low damage estimates from the fast-moving storm, and the young soybeans glistened with the rain. It was another beautiful day to hold a funeral. Martin and Emma even knew the correct version of "Joy to the World," and when the children came home, they all gathered to sing it.

"We're not going to get to New Orleans tonight," Brooke observed as she and Pete stood out on the back porch, watching the sun gild the remaining clouds off to the east.

Pete took another sip of coffee. "It'll still be there tomorrow."

"Do you think we should call home just to make sure everything's okay?"

He shook his head. "I think we should take the Bishops out to dinner."

They did, to a restaurant that made up for every intestinal cramp the Bayou Cafe had provoked. And then Pete slept on the couch and Brooke slept in Sally Bishop's bottom bunk bed. When they left in the morning, she was already missing a family she hadn't even known twenty-four hours earlier.

Emma Bishop clutched Brooke's hands like a mother. "Take care of him," she commanded, a wistful glint still in her eyes.

For a minute Brooke wanted to point over to Pete and say, "That man? Take care of that man who has survived ambush, political campaigns and network television without me?"

She didn't, though. She knew just what Emma meant. And she smiled.

In return, Emma squeezed again. "And let him take care of you."

Brooke didn't have any answer for that at all.