Page 76 of Chasing the Other Woman

“System’s organizing faster than expected,” he says. “If we’re moving, we need to move soon.”

The bar shifts in an instant.

Chairs scrape. Someone swears. Laptops turn. The old current runs through the room, bright and dangerous.

Brooks looks down at me.

I look toward the radar, then back at him.

“I guess you’re going to chase that,” I say.

Brooks doesn’t look away.

“Only if you’re with me.”

Eighteen

BROOKS

The first mile with Sam back in the passenger seat feels like driving with a live wire coiled beside me.

She's quiet, one boot braced against the floorboard, tablet balanced on her thigh, hair pulled back in a knot that's already losing the fight against the wind coming through the cracked window. Behind us, the rest of the team follows in a loose line down the two-lane road, headlights catching in the haze.

Sam reaches for the radio without looking down. “Unit Two, give us a little more space,” she says. “If this thing turns right, I don’t want you on our bumper.”

Hershel’s voice crackles back. “Copy that. Backing off now.”

Sam’s jaw tightens, and my hands grip the wheel.

For two years, I've kept her out of this seat. I told myself a dozen lies about why. Safety. Timing. Operational necessity. Common sense. Every one of them sounded better than the truth. I was scared, and I'm scared now.

The storm builds ahead of us, ugly and green-gray along the western horizon, the base lowering with the kind of slow confidence that makes every nerve in my body sit up straight. The light has that bruised tint to it, flattening the fields and turning the fence posts black. Wind pushes dust across the road in thin, restless sheets.

Sam glances from the tablet to the windshield. “Surface winds are backing harder than they should be.”

“I see it.”

“Do you?”

The question lands soft enough that anyone else might miss the edge.

I don’t look at her. “Yeah, Sammy Girl. I see it.”

The old name leaves my mouth before I can stop it, and for a second, the truck goes dead quiet.

Then her gaze drops to my wrist. I know the moment she sees it. Her eyes lock on the brown leather band, on the worn place near the clasp where my thumb has worried it all afternoon. I should keep both hands on the wheel, but the skin under the bracelet feels too tight.

“You didn’t have to put that back on for me,” she says.

My throat goes rough. “I didn’t.”

“If this is supposed to prove you’re willing to take a chance on us again...”

“It’s not.”

The road hums under the tires. A hawk lifts from a fence post, fighting the wind for height.

Sam looks back out the windshield, her voice dropping lower. “Then why?”