Page 36 of Day of the Storm

This was the storm system of the century. He had known it was happening, eventually.

Hoby, a decent enough guy, who reasonably knew his stuff—Houston’s main requirement of a station engineer—waved when he walked by. Houston just kept going.

He finally found Brooke in the back break room, standing next to the window. The storm raged behind her. Lightning flashed, tangling for one millisecond in the woman’s red hair.

She jumped a little, her big green eyes widening. In fear.

For some reason, that fear shot straight through him. Brooke Jacobs, only child of Wade Jacobs, radio millionaire, wasn’t afraid of anything. And she’d stick that little chin in the air as she told him that, too.

But tonight, she was afraid.

“Get away from the windows, if you are afraid, then.” She didn’t need to be by the windows, anyway. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her away from the window. “Where the hell is everyone?”

“I called them. Told them to stay home. We don’t need people out driving in this.” Her words were tense. Challenging. “Not when we are already here for the night.”

That was exactly what he had been wanting to find out. “You should have asked me first.”

“You were on the air. I made the decision myself. I ran off the road when I drove in. I couldn’t see where I was going.” She shuddered in his grip.

“Are you hurt?” He studied her quickly. He was the child of an emergency department physician and a radiologist. He knew the basics of first aid.

She looked in one piece.

She looked better than good, actually. She was very curvy. At least in the way Houston loved, anyway. He did like looking at her when she wasn’t aware of it. He was a healthy man, and she lookedgood,after all.

It was her attitude that he found so irritating.

Brooke Jacobs thought she could make whatever she wanted justhappen.She hadn’t yet realized that life just didn’t work that way.

“I’m good. But…if you want to leave…You should probably go now.”

“I’m not going. Someone needs to be on air here.”

“Shouldn’t you be in there, then?”

“I’m playing an update.” He checked his watch. “I have two minutes to go.”

He started moving toward the booth, almost pulling her along with him. For once, she wasn’t yanking away, glaring at him.

The woman glared at him a lot. Part of that was his fault, and he knew it.

The station on the edge of the Finley Creek University campus was small. He didn’t have far to go. He got set up and just watched Brooke through the window.

She got an odd look on her gorgeous face—no denying she was a hot woman from her head to her toes, that woman—when Hoby said something to her.

Almost as if…she was afraid.

Which was crazy.

Brooke wasn’t afraid of anything.

Brooke kepther eyes on Houston as he gave another weather update and read the relevant news reports. She was glad he was there. He knew how to run the station in a major event. This was her first big event. She’d just graduated college six months ago, at twenty-four. She’d been delayed a few years, after a rough time as a teenager for a few years in high school.

Of all the men she worked with at the station, she was glad it was Houston here now. Houston made her feel safer.

Especially with Dwight Hoby right there.

That man…terrified her. And he knew it. He liked it. Reveled in it. Dwight Hoby was out to…terrify her.