Page 25 of Wind Called

In fact, she got up from her seat and walked out into the rain, arms spread wide to embrace the storm and the miracle of the moisture falling all around her. Maybe some people would have thought that foolhardy at best, considering the way thunder continued to rumble overhead, but he guessed that she could sense the movements of the weather better than he and wouldn’t have gone out into it if she hadn’t known it was safe.

And he remembered how he used to play in the rain when he was a little kid, entranced by the rare storms that moved across his desert hometown.

It was definitely something to be celebrated…as was Bellamy McAllister herself.

Without really thinking, he got up from his chair and stepped out into the rain as well. The heavy drops were colder than he’d anticipated, and he could already tell how the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees or even more, falling from the mid-eighties where it had been when they sat down to dinner to somewhere closer to the upper sixties.

“You’re crazy,” Bellamy said with a grin. Her coppery hair was already plastered to her head, but she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“So are you,” he replied, returning her smile.

For just a moment, they both stood there in silence, gazing at each other.

And then he took a step forward…and so did she.

Another step, and they were standing so close that he could almost sense the heat of her body under the rain-soaked clothes, hear the thudding of her heart.

Were they going to do this?

He thought they probably were.

Her face lifted to his, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to bend down and press his mouth against hers, to taste the tang of pineapple and the darker fruit of chianti on her sweet lips, to pull her toward him so they were pressed body to body as the rain continued to fall.

Thunder crashed, and he could practically feel the zing of electricity and taste the sharpness of ozone on the air as the lightning bolt hit the earth, at most a few hundred yards from where they stood.

Bellamy pulled away slightly and said, “We should probably go inside.”

Yes, as much as he’d loved kissing her as the rain poured down around them, getting hit by lightning didn’t seem like a very good way to end their evening.

Not when he knew he wanted to stick around a good long time so he could continue to be entranced by her.

“Good idea.”

They hurried under the cover of the patio roof, pausing to gather up the remains of their dinner so they could take it inside. Once they were back in the house, the chill of the refrigerated air hit his rain-soaked clothing, and he had to hold back a shiver.

“Would it be absolutely crazy if I turned on the fireplace?” Bellamy asked, and he shook his head.

“Not any crazier than standing out in the middle of a thunderstorm.”

She shot him another grin, and then she went over to the fireplace and flicked the switch to turn on the gas. Immediately afterward, she headed to the thermostat, presumably to shut off the A/C until they’d gotten warmed up.

“Want a towel?”

Marc looked down at his rain-spattered clothing. He wasn’t quite as soaked through as Bellamy, but a good toweling-off seemed to be just what he needed.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Back in a sec.”

She went down the hallway and then came back a moment later holding a pair of cheerful towels in southwest shades of turquoise and rust and cream. “Here you go.”

He sent her a grateful smile and then did what he could to blot his wet hair and his damp T-shirt. There wasn’t too much he could do about his jeans, but they hadn’t gotten as wet as his shirt, so he hoped they would dry quickly enough.

“We should stand in front of the fire,” Bellamy suggested. “That’ll help speed things up.”

Another very good idea. He headed over to the fireplace, and she followed a pace or two behind. Once there, she worked at getting the worst of the wet out of her hair and her clothes, although really, he thought the only sensible solution for her was to change into something dry.

A conclusion she seemed to have arrived at as well, because after a moment, she shook her head and looked up at him, her expression now rueful.

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