Page 4 of Twister

The blond male watched her hands for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I agree. For once.”

She rolled her eyes and smacked him on the shoulder.

How curious. The woman signed like she was deaf, but he spoke his response without signing, and she still reacted. So… she was mute…?

He grinned, then refocused on me, his smile dropping just slightly. “So, kid,” he began before pointing to himself, then the blonde sitting next to him. “Me and Scarlett were wondering why you’d be stupid enough to find yourself outside with a twister warning in place for the area today.”

“Gabe,” the older man in front of me warned, his arms dropping to his knees and his eyes closing briefly before he turned to glare at the guy opposite us.

“What?” Gabe asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his ragged-jean-clad knees.

“It’s a fair question, Daniel , seeing as how I broke protocol by opening the doors when it was this close to us.

” He raised an eyebrow. “You heard the noise just as clearly as Scarlett—” Definitely mute, then.

“—and I did when you opened the door. You knew how risky it was, yet you forced the issue anyway.” He pointed at Daniel.

“I’ll get to you in a minute. But first I’d like to know why this kid made us all risk our lives. ”

Silence descended as all three adults turned to focus on me, the distant rumbling of the storm muffled by the heavy door and how far underground we were.

Blinking, I swept my fingers through my hair again nervously and gulped. “Well….”

Scarlett frowned at me before her fingers went flying again. Gabe hummed in what sounded like agreement.

Daniel settled one of his large hands on my knee, which I hadn’t known was shaking violently until I felt the pressure of his hand. “It’s okay. I know how frightening twisters are when you’re not used to them. Just take a deep breath. You’re safe now.”

I did as he suggested, sucking a shaky breath in while I stared at him for guidance, then releasing it slowly with him.

“Good. One more,” he instructed.

I felt myself flush but followed along with him again while I took the opportunity to study the man in front of me.

He had a round, weathered face, with laugh lines crinkling the corners of his pale blue eyes.

His hair was dark brown and much neater on top than his bushy beard.

A huge tuft of gray cradled his chin right up to his bottom lip, with a slight hint of gray appearing on his temples.

Small black gauges were embedded in each ear, which surprised me but oddly didn’t at the same time.

It felt strange seeing someone a little older wearing gauges, but it fit him so well that I couldn’t imagine what he’d look like without them.

A dark gray hoodie was settled on his barrel chest, and he wore dirty dark blue jeans that had obviously seen better days.

His leather work boots were well-worn and scuffed within an inch of their lives.

He was exactly the type of guy I was the most attracted to. Older than me, stockier than me, and with a warmth to him that utterly screamed of his caretaker leanings.

Even with all the excitement we’d just been through, was it any wonder that I was already drooling?

I startled when he coughed softly, then chuckled. A sparkle in his eyes made me think he knew exactly where my thoughts had taken me, which made me flush even harder. Oh God.

“You okay now?” he asked with a sassy grin.

Blinking furiously, I bit my bottom lip, then nodded. “Mm-hmm. Yeah.”

“Why don’t we start with your name,” he suggested, eyeing my lips before returning his focus to my eyes.

“Um,” I said slowly and quietly, blinking before I shook my head clear. Had he been flirting? Surely not. Right? “Marshall.”

“Hi, Marshall,” he said kindly. “I’m Daniel. That’s Rose and Bucky.” He pointed to the young girl hugging her dog, then at the pair sitting behind him, still staring at me with narrowed eyes. “And that’s Scarlett and Gabe. Can you tell us about how you ended up here today?”

A huff from behind him made Daniel turn around and glare at Gabe, who simply shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t already asked him the exact same question , right?” He sat back and rolled his eyes before looking at Scarlett. “Right?”

She rolled her own eyes, then signed something that made Gabe gasp.

“I’m not an ass! How very dare you!” He clasped his imaginary pearls, which looked utterly ridiculous considering he was wearing torn blue jeans and an ancient dark green polo shirt.

His straight, shoulder-length blond hair was all over the place, and the variety and volume of leather bracelets that ran up one arm made him look like he was the poster child of surfer boys who also happened to work in gas stations, which was supremely odd, considering we were landlocked by a few hundred miles in all directions.

He leaned into Scarlett’s shoulder with a smirk.

“Unless I misheard you and you were talking about how perfect my ass is. Then I accept your admiration.”

She laughed silently, her whole body shaking with mirth, which only made Gabe pout.

“Aw, come on.”

Scarlett simply laughed harder.

Daniel shook his head at their antics and turned back to me. He took my small hands in his and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me.

My breath hitched slightly at the warmth I felt spreading through my fingers. “Um, well… I was traveling from the Sturgis Bike Rally. It finished earlier today.”

Daniel nodded, then turned his head to the quiet young girl in the darkened corner. “That would explain all those bikes we saw earlier, wouldn’t it, Rose?”

“Sure would,” she said, lifting her face from the white fur of the dog she still gripped around the neck.

Her long brown hair was tangled like she’d been playing hard all day and hadn’t brushed it since the morning.

Her long pale limbs were gangly, like she’d had a growth spurt recently and her body hadn’t quite caught up to that fact.

She wore a light gray round-necked T-shirt that had dirt smudges everywhere, with a pair of light blue cutoff jean shorts and a pair of scuffed white sneakers.

She looked at me curiously, before letting her eyes drop down for just a split second to where my hands were held in Daniel’s.

A thoughtful expression flickered across her face, but then she let her eyes shift again to watch Scarlett and Gabe, who were nudging at each other playfully like they were teenage siblings.

Who knew? They probably were. Siblings, not teenagers. They both looked like they were in their early to mid-twenties, even though they definitely acted like they were much, much younger.

“So, you’re not from around here?” Daniel asked, his attention returning to me.

I shook my head. “I graduated in Cali a couple of months back, and I’m headed back home to Chicago. Decided to stop in at the bike rally on the way.” I grimaced. “There was some talk about a tornado warning earlier today, but with everyone packing up, no one was taking it too seriously.”

“And that worked out well for you, didn’t it?” Gabe said sarcastically.

“Stop being an ass, Gabe,” young Rose said, shooting a dark look at Gabe.

“Sorry, Cozy Rosey,” Gabe muttered, surprisingly letting his head droop forward in embarrassed submission to the much-younger girl.

What a strange dynamic this little group of four had.

Rose looked back at me and nodded encouragingly.

“I got caught on the freeway,” I told her, my eyes wide as I remembered what had happened.

“Everyone had stopped on the side of the road, but the tornado was coming right along that path. I knew we’d be sitting ducks there, so I kept going to the next exit.

Found this place just as the rain really picked up. ”

Feeling Daniel squeeze my hands, I turned my attention to him. “I didn’t know where else to go. I don’t know the area at all. I don’t even know where I am right now.”

He gripped my hands again and offered me a small smile. “You’re in Rockdale.”

His pale blue eyes mesmerized me, and I felt myself falling into their depths. There had to be magic in them because I found I couldn’t look away from him, not until he blinked and swiveled to face Gabe and Scarlett.

“We need to call emergency services. If there were a bunch of people stuck on the freeway when it hit, we could be looking at mass—” He stalled as he glanced nervously at Rose. “Uh, at a massive issue.” He pulled one hand away from me and dug in his back pocket for his phone.

“On it,” Gabe said immediately, jumping up from his seat and pulling his phone from his pocket. He dialed and waited.

And waited some more.

He paced the small room, and my concern started to grow as we all kept waiting for someone to pick up. He frowned and stared at his phone. “No one’s answering. The call is going through, but no one’s picking up.”

“That’s disconcerting,” Daniel muttered. He woke his phone up and navigated to his contacts, scrolling single-handedly until he found what he was looking for. His other hand continued to hold mine, almost like I was giving him just as much comfort as he was giving me. “Let me try the mayor.”

As Daniel waited for the mayor of Rockdale to answer his call—and wasn’t that a mindfuck? This really must be a small town if he personally knew the mayor—Gabe tried again. Both calls rang out, and they looked at each other worriedly.

When I heard tapping, I looked over at Scarlett, who was typing away on her phone. A moment after she finished, Gabe’s phone buzzed, and he checked his messages. “Oh, good thinking,” he said. “I never thought about messaging our group chat. Maybe Drew knows what’s going on.”

I frowned at Daniel, who simply shook his head at me, still largely focused on his own phone. “Drew’s their boss.”

“Ah,” I said, like that answered everything, when, in fact, it answered pretty much nothing. At least they knew who they needed to call, I guess?