Page 78 of Chasing the Other Woman

My foot eases off the gas before my brain catches up. She notices, and so do I. The old rhythm slides into the cab like it's been waiting just outside the door.

“Velocity couplet’s tightening,” she says. “Not warned yet, but it’s trying.”

“Road options?”

“North-south blacktop in three miles. Gravel east before that, but I don’t like the low-water crossing.”

“Rain last night.”

“Exactly.”

I nod. “We take the blacktop, stair-step northeast.”

“That keeps us too close if it turns.”

“It hasn’t turned.”

“It wants to.”

We argue for ten seconds, quick and clipped, the way we used to when the storm was eating up miles faster than we could account for.

Then I look at the inflow bands pulling into the base. “Blacktop, then hard east if the motion shifts.”

Sam says it at the same exact time.

“Copy that, Lead,” Hershel mutters over the radio. “Good to hear you two in sync again.”

Sam lets out a low exhale, and my chest aches with it. I've missed this so badly I don’t have a place to put it. Her beside me. Her eyes on the sky. The way she reads radar, road, and wind all at once. Not behind a desk. Not filtered through a headset. Right here, where she wants to be, where she belongs because she chose it.

The wind hits the truck broadside, and I correct without thinking.

“Crosswind’s picking up,” Sam says. “Out of the southeast.”

“Feeding hard.”

“Wall cloud’s getting better organized.”

“I see the rotation.”

“No,” she says, leaning forward. “Look under the rain curtain.”

I look. There. A darker notch wrapped in the gray, tucked lower than I first thought. Every protective instinct in me tries to take over. Slow down. Pull back. Get her out. Put distance between Sam and anything that could take her from me.

Her hand moves to the radio, steady and capable. “Unit Two, Unit Three, stay with us for now, but tighten up. If Brooks calls a turn, you take it immediately.”

Hershel comes back at once. “Copy.”

Sam looks at me. “We need to adjust east sooner.”

I don’t ask if she’s sure. I just turn the wheel.

The truck swings onto the next county road, gravel spitting beneath the tires. Behind us, the team follows as dust kicks up and gets shredded by the wind. The sky ahead lowers another notch.

Sam’s eyes flick to me, quick and searching. “What?”

“You didn’t hesitate.”

“No.”