Chapter Text
The dandelion seeds blew off Kate’s hand, some to the east and west, some south… the air currents were uncertain and shifting. They didn’t match the clouds. She knew that already from the wind shear and temperature differentials, but watching the seeds dance before her was steadying.
One week back in Oklahoma.
The smell of coffee and gasoline from the truck stop was overpowered by the early wheat smell of the nearby fields. She rubbed two dandelion seeds that had come back to her hand, and they felt like the fur of the softest kitten. The sounds of the truck stop died away and it was only the clouds and the warm wind rustling the grasses along the road, carrying the smell of rain.
This would be good for her. Not that New York was bad for her; Kate did have friends there, despite what her mom thought. But New York had a numbing effect, and as the warm Oklahoma wind tugged at Kate’s shirt and hair, promising a storm, it was as if her senses were waking up.
Something in her soul relaxed as she watched the beautiful storm clouds. If she had more time, she’d take off her shoes and feel the cool grass under her feet like she’d done as a kid. Maybe she could actually visit her mom while she was here. It’d seemed so impossible she didn’t even feel guilty about it for the first few years. Now though… as her next breath went deeper into her lungs than any breath for the last five years… she thought maybe she could go home.
“I used to do that, too,” a man said. “Compare the direction of the wind with cloud movement.”
That deep breath she’d taken stayed in her chest. She felt oddly still and calm at something she’d long dreaded. Her words.
They were on her left hip, and as a child, they had encouraged her love of weather and wind patterns. Then she’d met Jeb, who didn’t have words. They were soulmates regardless. He’d been her best friend, her confidant, her partner. He’d told her not to promise forever, knowing she had words. He’d said now was plenty, but she had promised anyway. She’d meant it.
Forever promises were easy to make when she was naive and optimistic. Death and loss had been so far away as to be nearly imaginary.
She’d wondered over the years if Jeb had no words because he was going to die. Philosophers disagreed on the subject. If so, it was the cruelest thing in the world. She would far rather have had Jeb’s words for the rest of her life than some stranger’s.
She turned slowly to look at the man behind her. It was the YouTuber, Tyler Owens, who’d tipped his cowboy hat at her earlier.
He smiled, gesturing to the vans. “So, you work for Storm Par?”
As easy as falling, Kate exhaled. Bless him for asking a yes or no question. “Yeah.”
His breathing didn’t stutter, but she caught a slight pause and a momentary furrow of his brow, as if kicking himself for asking a stupid question. “Where you coming in from?” he asked.
She wondered how many of her words he had. “Yeah,” was a complete sentence, but you never could tell. “New York.”
He didn’t clutch his chest or whoop or do any of the things you saw people do in viral soulmate meetings caught on video. He just raised his brows. “City girl, huh?”
Kate felt a swoop of relief. “I guess. Excuse me…”
Another man jogged up. “Tyler, have we decided which storm we’re going to chase yet?”
Tyler pointed to her, “Maybe we should ask…”
Kate hesitated. It felt dangerous to give her name to her supposed soulmate—but it would be weirder to refuse. “Kate.”
“I’m Tyler.”
“And I’m Ben.”
She shook Ben’s hand, relieved that Tyler had not offered. Some people claimed there was a tingling warmth, a knowing when you touched your soulmate the first time.
“I’m writing an article about American storm chasing,” Ben said. “Tyler is kindly allowing me to ride along.”
“Yeah, he just had to promise to write nothing but good things about me.”
“Good luck with that.” Kate turned away. Why had the universe tried to match her up withthis guy—?
For real, what the heck. He was too good-looking, to start with, and he knew it. She’d never liked that kind of guy. She’d never sighed over the quarterback of the football team or the wrestling captain. She’d never had heart eyes for the lanky baseball star or even the rodeo winners at her high school in Sapulpa. She definitely didn’t care about a guy who profited by selling his face on T-shirts and encouraging ignorant viewers to be stupid around violent storms.
“Hold on,” he said, and she could hear the smirk in his voice. “You didn’t tell us where we’re going yet.”
She knew he meant the storm chasing, but for a split second it sounded like he meant the two of them. And the answer was nowhere. She had zero regrets in walking away from this guy.
“Way I see it,” he said, “we go west, we double our chances. East, well, it’s high risk, high reward.”
She smiled tightly. “Go for the reward then; don’t want Ben to think you’re boring.”
“Boring isn’t usually a problem for me, Kate.”
His eyes all but challenged her to confess. Did he know after all? Did she read him wrong?
She rattled off some things about the east storm cell—partially true, partially bull— and was surprised to find she’d come a couple steps closer to him. The darn soulmate thing was like a tow rope, and she wasn’t having it. She walked away for good this time, hoping he’d follow the other storm and she’d never see him again.
Javi accepted her advice about following the double storm in the west, and she got in the passenger side of his truck. Her heart still pounded, but on the whole, that’d been less painful than she expected.
She’d thought about her soulmate on a few cold, NYC nights. Was the guy that went with her words a meteorologist? Somebody connected to her work for NOAA? Whoever it was, she had pitied them a little, because she wasn’t the person they needed. She wasn’t the person they were intended for. They were supposed to get a Kate who wasn’t broken, who wasn’t a cynical, numb shell of who she had been.
They deserved somebody who would accept them. Kate couldn’t.
She’d promised Jeb forever, and she’d meant it. If he’d lived, she would’ve stayed with him. If she allowed his death to change that, and she ended up with her soulmate... If she somehow benefitted from Jeb’s death—
The mere idea made her taste bile. She hunched over, swallowing deeply and repeatedly.
Javi looked concerned. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, just.. need some more air.” She adjusted the vents.
She’d never planned to accept her soulmate situation, but she’d wondered how hard it might be. Would she be tempted? Would she feel guilty?
This was far easier than she’d thought. Nothing about Tyler appealed to her—except maybe his stupid smile. Okay, nothing substantive about Tyler appealed to her. And what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Some other girl with ambiguous words would answer, “Yeah” to a question, and they’d be happy enough.
Assuming the YouTube idiot didn’t get himself killed in the meantime, he’d be fine. Maybe she’d look him up in five or ten years and see what happened.
She refocused on the tablet in her lap. The cap was climbing, and the shear numbers and humidity were up. “I think we’re on the right track.”
Javi took his hand off the steering wheel to grip her wrist briefly, reassuring. “With you here, I know we are.”
Tyler had finally met New York, the city girl he’d always wondered about. Of course, he’d known that she might not be from New York, as it might be another question she was answering.
Hey, where are you headed for spring break? he might ask. Or: What’s your least favorite state?
Ha. But in his head, he’d called her New York and assumed she was a city girl. It turned out he was right. Occasionally, he daydreamed about sweeping some city girl—uptight but pretty—off her feet. He was man enough to have seen the kind of Hallmark movies his aunt watched.
But Kate had… completely not reacted to his words. He could almost think it’d been a mistake, if not for her slight flinch when she had to say New York.
Tyler was more bemused than hurt. For one thing, this was far from over. If she was chasing with Storm Par, they’d see each other more this week. Probably even later today. He’d give her a little time.
Tyler jogged to his truck, calling for Boone to get ready.
Just before they’d spoken, she’d probably gotten an earful on him from Javi and those other Par goons, and they wouldn’t have said good things about him. Come to think of it, she probably didn’t know what Javi’s group did for Marshall Riggs, the vulture. Tyler didn’t have any evidence that she didn’t know, but he couldn’t imagine his soulmate was a heartless, tragedy-profiteering type. Nor did she look it. She looked like just about the sweetest thing—
He cut the thought off as he threw himself in his truck. No, she didn’t know. They must’ve told her they were here to help people, and that Tyler was an illiterate, interfering hillbilly in it for the fame. And wouldn’t it be fun to prove them wrong? Even as he’d stood there with her, the sky was more blue, the air more scented, and the clouds more beautiful than they’d been before. He’d taken a breath that filled him with the Oklahoma air all the way to his toes. The whole world was a little more right with your soulmate, or so he’d been told, and he finally understood what it meant.
He frowned a little. She’d been real self-controlled, if she felt like he did. She hadn’t cracked an inch, except for a slight waver when she said New York. He was willing to bet good money she was hoping against hope that he didn’t have those words.
That was almost hurtful. If he was less sure of himself, it might even sting.
But then, he’d been pretty darn self-controlled on his part, too, although he was probably more prepared for it than she was. His own immediate interest, which he’d felt across the whole damn parking lot, had sent him straight toward her on the grassy verge when she’d stepped away from her handlers. Yeah, he’d been hoping to hear his words from the time he tipped his hat at her.
But by the time she said his words, he’d clocked her reluctance, her poker face. Whether it was personal or not, he wasn’t the kind of guy to force her in the moment. He had more game than that, and besides, what kind of story would that be to tell their grandkids?
Maybe she pretended she didn’t have his words because of his reputation, or maybe she was one of those who resented the idea of soulmates, or maybe she just wanted him to try a little harder… Whatever it was, he’d was gonna find out.
Tyler threw the truck into gear, whooping along with Boone as they pulled out of the truck stop. He was ready to follow Kate even if she did go after the wrong storm, like she’d tried to gull him into doing.
But of course, he didn’t have to. She went straight for the best storm cells.
Ben was already buckling into the back seat. “Didn’t she say east? Is she going the wrong way?”
“Nope,” Tyler said. “She knows exactly what she’s doing.”
If Ben only knew he’d just seen the Tornado Wrangler meet his soulmate, he’d have a story all right. Tornado Wrangler gets slapped down hard. Damage yet to be determined.
Kate tried to put Tyler out of her mind, and the tornado helped. It helped maybe too much.
She panicked when she and Javi got out to place the last sensor array.
The funnel was too close. It was coming too fast. There was fear for herself, but even more fear for Javi. If she got him killed, four out of four of her friends… no.
“Get back in the truck! We’ve got to go, this is the wrong place!” Somehow she bullied and railroaded him into listening to her.
But then they ended up too far away. She’d messed up Javi’s plan. He kicked at the gravel on the road, then slapped the car door in frustration. Kate bit her cheek. She wanted him to succeed. But was it worth risking his life?
Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.
She and Javi were still there when Tyler’s red truck slowed next to them. He tipped his hat at her again and rolled down his window.
“Hey, Javi, what’re you doing over here?” he asked. “The tornado is that way.”
Javi spun away.
She watched in disbelief as Tyler drove straight into the tornado. Flashes of light and color swirled up into the cone and her mouth fell open. “Are those fireworks?”
“Yeah,” Javi said. “Come on, Kate. Let’s go.”
She wiped mud off her cheek, then stopped when she realized she was just rubbing it in. “Is he crazy?”
Javi snorted. “Arrogant, more like.”
They watched as Ben, Tyler, and his friend got out of the truck and yelled at the sky in post-adrenaline triumph. She didn’t like Tyler any more than she had before, but she could admit she missed that kind of—euphoria. She could almost remember what that felt like, for the first time in years.
Tyler stopped by them again on his way out. His window was down, and his grin was wide. “Hey, city girl. Let me know if you want a closer look at the next one.” He winked at her before rolling up the window and driving on.
Kate’s stomach clenched. Did he know or was he just a shameless flirt? The thought made her stomach churn almost as much as the tornado that almost spun her and Javi into next week.
Later that night, after Tyler checked into the motel they’d found nearby, and the others jostled around finding bags and food, Lily elbowed him. He was up on the top of his truck, fixing the equipment that’d been torn off in the bang-up little beauty of a tornado that day.
Lily jerked her head toward the adjacent parking lot. Storm Par’s white caravan of trucks and SUVs which looked kinda like a police unit, were pulling in. “City girl just got here. Tyler, you gotta tell me, is she...New York?”
Lily had seen his words once when the elastic in a loose pair of swim trunks had given way, causing them to slide a little lower than even he was comfortable with.
“I reckon she might be,” he said, unscrewing the broken anemometer mount on the top of his truck.
“Might be?” she gave him a look. “She might be? Are you a tornado wrangler or not? Why didn’t you get in there and find out?”
“Keep it down, Lily, would you? She didn’t seem too thrilled, alright. I figure she got an earful of bad about us—about me. And, you know, sometimes you gotta feel a storm out before you drive into it.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Her eyes went past his shoulder. “Here she is now.”
Tyler’s chest tightened as he turned. Kate was walking across the lot, and somehow she made the dingy motel, drooping power lines, and faded country billboards disappear. She was as beautiful as if she was walking across Times Square, as beautiful as a lone cyclone circling a field with nobody to admire it. He couldn’t see anything but her.
Unfortunately, he was close enough to hear Javi catch up to her. “Hey Kate, you want to do something later? After we clean up and shower, I mean, we could come back out here…?”
Tyler was not some possessive caveman, but he felt an angry burn build in his stomach, something like indigestion. He forced himself to look away. He’d settled the new mount in place, and now he stuck a couple screws in his mouth before climbing up to anchor it.
He almost swallowed them in relief when Kate declined. He wasn’t even looking at her, but he could pick her voice out like she was right next to him. “I’m real tired, Javi. Sorry, another time?”
Javi looked disappointed as he walked away. At least Tyler wasn’t competing with him… but maybe there was another guy? Some people got tired of waiting for their soulmate and settled down with someone else. But surely if Javi knew she had a boyfriend, he wouldn’t be asking her out?
“Hey, New York,” Lily called to Kate just before she reached the stairs to the motel. “You doing alright? We heard the first day didn’t go so hot.”
Kate’s face paled at New York, though she painted a confident smile over it. “Hi there. Yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking. My name’s Kate.”
Lily jumped off the truck and stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Kate. I’m Lily, and you’ve met Tyler. How did you end up with Storm Par?”
“Nice to meet you too, Lily.” Kate shook her hand. “Javi is an old friend of mine; I’m just visiting for the week. Consulting, you could say. How did you end up with the Tornado Wranglers?”
Lily shook her hair back. “Oh, easy, Dexter’s my dad. You would’ve seen him earlier—oh, there he comes now, along with Boone and Dani and Ben. My dad met Tyler three or four years ago in Fort Worth when Hurricane Lois spun off a couple tornadoes. We all sorta hit it off. He gets to do science, I get to do drones; it’s a pretty great fit for the summer.”
“Oh, that’s—that’s really neat, that you can travel with him.”
“Dad,” Lily called, “come meet a new chaser.”
Lily introduced Kate to the group, and Tyler wasn’t sure whether he appreciated her “help” or not.
Case in point, Boone slung an arm around Kate’s shoulders after the introductions. “Now, tell me, how’d a new chaser pick the right storm when all the numbers were pointing the other way?”
Lily shoved him away. “Get off her, she’s gonna think we’re weirdos.”
“We are weird!” Dani and Boone both protested.
Kate smiled. “I’m not a new chaser, it’s just been a while.”
“Oh?” Lily said. “Where you’d learn to storm chase?”
“Here and there. I’d better get going—”
Tyler was up above the conversation on his truck, looking down at them. He could see Kate literally backing away from the question.
Ben held up a notepad. “Kate what?”
“Sorry?”
“Your surname, for the article?”
“Oh, just Kate is fine.”
Tyler felt her eyes flicker up to him on the truck. Yeah, she didn’t want to give him her last name. This was starting to sting. She jogged up the stairs with a last friendly wave at his crew.
When she reached the landing, putting her on his level, he couldn’t just let her walk away. “You had anything to eat yet, city girl?”
“Um, I’m fine.”
“That’s not a yes!” Lily called. “Here.” She tossed a bag of chips up to Kate, who caught it, bemused.
“Thanks.”
Dexter shook his head. He had his usual thermos of soup for dinner; he’d always buy soup at whatever diner was around and pour it in his thermos. “That’s no nutrition at all. Worse than none. Y’all need to eat better.”
“Yes, Dad,” Boone and Dani said.
“It’s better than nothing,” Lily said.
Dexter wrinkled his nose.
Kate lifted the chips. “Thanks. I’m gonna head to bed—”
“Before you retire, which way do you plan to chase tomorrow?” Ben asked. His pen was poised.
“Well—”
“No, I don’t think so,” Tyler said. “We already tried that. She’s from New York, we can’t trust a thing she says.”
Kate leaned against the railing, and her mouth tipped up into the sauciest smile he’d seen from her yet. “Well, you can always trust a guy who puts his face on a T-shirt.”
Tyler felt himself flush.
“Ohh, man,” Boone said.
“Harsh,” Dani said, and Dexter laughed. He raised his soup to her like a toast.
“Look at his face,” Lily said. Tyler figured he probably deserved that.
Kate disappeared up the stairs.
Tyler finished attaching the anemometer and climbed back down to the asphalt. Lily nudged his side. “You should go up and talk to her. She went into room 27.”
“That’s creepy, both that you watched and that you’re telling me.”
“She probably does need something to eat,” Dexter agreed. “She probably flew in last night or early this morning, running on coffee. Grab her something and take it up there.”
“Nah, she doesn’t want—”
Boone whistled. “You know you want to.”
“What is the deal with y’all tonight?” Tyler asked.
Dani patted his shoulder. “This is an intervention. Go talk to New York.”
Boone patted his other shoulder. “You gotta man up, don’t be a wuss.”
“How—" he spun and looked at Lily. “You told them?”
Dani rolled her eyes skyward. “T, we all live with you. We’ve seen your words, we just know how to keep our mouths shut.”
He looked around at them. Even Dexter nodded.
Ben’s eyes were wide. “His words?”
“Well, that’s— I don’t want that in any article—” Tyler began.
“Of course not,” Ben said. “But she said them today?”
“Yeah.”
“I would never have known.” He scratched a mosquito bite on his forehead. “And people say the British are stoic…”
“Here,” Boone handed Tyler one of the wrapped sandwiches from the diner. “I am giving you the best one—beef on rye—because I love you, man. Go give her some food.”
“Go, go, go,” Lily chanted. Dani and Dexter and Boone joined in.
“I could replace all y’all.”
They just laughed. They were more like family, and they knew it. Tyler’d picked Boone up while Boone was hitch-hiking across America—putting it all on youtube, of course—and that had been the genesis of the Tornado Wranglers. Dexter and Lily had come together, and Dani was more or less Dexter’s adopted daughter—she’d been friends with Lily in high school, and also—through a strange coincidence, she knew Boone through a mutual friend. Tyler would sooner stop chasing than toss them all over and they knew it. Ingrates.
He took the sandwich and went up the stairs.
He knocked on the door and held his breath. Probably she was in the shower and wouldn’t hear him anyway.
But the door did open, and Kate looked dubiously up at him. She’d taken off her shoes.
“Hey, city girl. We—uh, had another sandwich. We wanted you to have something substantial,” Tyler said.
“I’m really okay.”
“I think my team will send me back up here if I come down with it.”
She took the sandwich. “Okay. Thanks.”
The door shut in his face.
Tyler squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he was wrong not to tell her sooner. “That’s starting to actually hurt, New York.
There was silence, and finally the door opened back up. Her gaze stayed fixed somewhere around his throat, avoiding eye contact. Her mouth slowly twisted downward on one side.
“New York, huh?” she asked.
“Those’re the words.”
“Damn.” She covered her eyes. “I’d hoped you didn’t have that much.”
“I gathered that. Any particular reason why?”
“I guess you have the right to ask.” Kate shifted on her bare feet, and finally glanced up at him. Her eyes were darker than he thought. Her being blonde, he’d assumed she had blue eyes, but her dark brown eyes just about did him in.
“It’s not personal,” she said. “I have a prior commitment. I know that probably sucks to hear—but, you know, that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
He felt like he’d been kicked by a bull. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
She started to close the door again, and Tyler raised a hand. “Just—Does Javi know that? I couldn’t help but hear him earlier—and it didn’t sound like he did.”
“You were listening?”
“You were ten feet from my truck.”
“Javi—knows. It’s a little complicated.”
She fell silent as a storm chaser in an orange rain pancho passed them to another room.
“How’s it complicated?” Tyler asked.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I mean, even if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t make any sense. I mean—you’re a YouTube personality, I’m a meteorologist. You think you’re just having fun, but it’s irresponsible. There was a whole crowd of people out there to watch you drive into a tornado, and they could’ve been seriously hurt.”
A tall Storm Par guy in a blue polo walked by next. He did a double take when he saw that Kate was talking to Tyler.
She grimaced.
Tyler raised a brow. “Maybe you should insult me in private,” he said mildly.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. Well, I did, but—” She stopped as another motel guest came up the stairs. She silently opened the door wider in invitation, and he stepped in so she could swing it shut.
“Okay,” Tyler said. “Go ahead.”
“I’m not trying to pick a fight. You go live your life however you want. Sell T-shirts and whatever. I’m just saying you and I don’t make a lot of sense.”
“So—which is it, we don’t make sense, or you have a prior commitment?”
“Both.”
“Huh.” Something about it didn’t add up. “If we made more sense, would your prior commitment clear up?”
“No. That’s why I told Javi—Not that that’s any of your business.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard conflicting things about me—”
“Not really,” Kate said. “It’s all been pretty clear.” She shifted the sandwich uneasily from hand to hand. Her stomach growled loudly.
Tyler could feel an echoing rumble in his own stomach, even though he’d already eaten. “Would you eat, please? It’d make me feel better.”
She unrolled the white wrapper. “Okay, sure.” She took a big bite and then slowed to chew it. “Wow, that is really good.”
“Boone’s contribution.”
“Please thank him for me. But as far as this,” she gestured between the two of them, “the answer is no. I know that’s callous, and I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m sure you have enough enamored fans to—er—cushion the fall.”
Tyler rocked back on his cowboy boots. “Ouch.”
“Ugh, I didn’t mean to do it this way. The research all agrees—prolonged conversation will only invite argument—” She broke off, and Tyler licked his lips, trying to think clearly.
“You researched how to turn away your soulmate?”
“There’s more articles than you’d think,” she said quietly. “Peer reviewed.”
If she was trying to make a joke, it fell flat.
“It’s not personal,” she repeated.
“Uh, I think it is.” Tyler rubbed his chest. “But I understand what you mean. You have your ‘prior commitment,’ and I’m not enough to make you rethink it.”
Her resolution wavered, and she raised a hand as if to touch him. There was such sadness in her face, a kind of tragic resignation. Maybe he was reading it all wrong, but he just didn’t believe she had some happy, stable relationship anchoring her refusal. There was something else wrong. He waited, wondering if she’d tell him the truth, but her expression locked down again.
“It’s for the best.”
Tyler rubbed his mouth. “Hm. What did the research say about a soulmate who doesn’t give up that easy?”
Kate took a step back.
He raised his hands, non-threateningly. “I’ll scoot when you tell me to get out, but unless you’re willing to forgo this chain of storms, you’re going to be seeing me a lot this week.”
“I can’t leave yet. I promised Javi a week to get his data.”
“Well, there we are. I look forward to getting to know you a little better, city girl.”
“You could leave.”
“Why would I do that? I’ve got a beautiful set of storms and a recalcitrant soulmate right here in Oklahoma.”
Her mouth quirked. “Recalcitrant?”
“Yeah, well, my team doesn’t have a string of Ph.D.s, but we do read.”
Her brows rose. “More than YouTube comments, you mean?”
He laughed. “That was harsh, Kate. Good thing I’ve got a tough skin.”
“I’m sorry. Again. But, Tyler…”
“Kate.”
Her shoulders drooped, and he really wanted to pull her in for a hug. She sighed deeply. “I’m really tired.”
“Okay. Goodnight, Kate.” Tyler left her room and went back down to the parking lot. His crew didn’t push the topic again, and he was thankful. Dexter made sure he got an orange from his fruit stash, and Lily pulled a cold tea out of their cooler. “She’ll come around.”
Tyler popped the can open. “I don’t know. She’s a hard storm to read.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”