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of french fries, and a chocolate milk shake, his mood improved. He began to take an interest in the clouds as the van closed in on them, and even asked her to explain what the various cloud formations meant.
    At five o’clock the National Weather Service issued a “T-box”—a tornado watch box—over Victoria’s target area. They were still an hour away.
    “Are we going to make it?” Roan asked casually.
    “We’ll try.”
    “Why don’t you let me drive? I’ll get us there in time.”
    “I’d like to get there alive, if you don’t mind.”
    “Now, why would you—oh, I know. Unc must have warned you about my driving. All right, so when I was sixteen I smashed his pickup truck. He’s been holding it against me for fifteen years.”
    “It’s not just Amos. I saw what you did to your rental car.”
    “That’s because I drove it off-road. I’m a good driver, really.”
    “How many speeding tickets have you had lately?”
    “Um, how lately?”
    “In the past six months?”
    He fell silent. Victoria nodded, vindicated. He would touch this steering wheel over her dead body.
    As they neared the town of Rhoden, the flat landscape gave way to small mountains and the clouds had formed into a definite line of storms. She picked the biggest, most well-defined one and, with Roan navigating, made use of the sparse roads to get into position ahead of it. But the storm system was not a very strong one, and disorganized at that. The winds died, the clouds broke up, and the T-box was canceled. As dusk began to fall, there was nothing left to chase.
    “That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Victoria said, trying not to show her disappointment. It was only their first day out, after all. They would probably have plenty of chances. “Are you hungry?”
    “I thought you’d never ask. No wonder you’re so little. Are meals always such a low priority for you?”
    Victoria was ridiculously pleased. At five foot eight, she wasn’t often referred to as “little.” Then again, any woman except an Amazon would be small to Roan. “If I have to choose between a hamburger and a tornado, I’ll take the tornado every time,” she said. “I saw one of those family-style steak houses back in Rhoden. Sound okay?”
    “Yeah, sounds great. Then again, a bale of hay would sound great.”
    “You ate two hamburgers at four o’clock,” she pointed out.
    “Almost four hours ago.”
    She felt a small twinge of guilt. He was her guest, after all, and it wasn’t very nice of her to make him uncomfortable, even if his dietary demands were a bit excessive. Tomorrow she would load up on some snacks to keep in the van.
    Gus’s Family Steakhouse appeared to be the social center of the town of Rhoden, and they had to wait in line. By the time they were seated, even Victoria’s stomach was grumbling.
    She ordered her usual from the perky waitress, a grilled chicken fillet with salad.
    “I’ll have a T-bone steak, medium rare,” Roan said with relish when the teenage waitress batted her eyelashes in his direction. “With a baked—”
    “Wait a minute,” Victoria interrupted. “You can’t order steak.”
    Roan stared at her. “Excuse me? Don’t tell me you’re going to make me eat health food just because you do.”
    “No, no, you can have anything you want except steak. You see, it’s a storm-chasing tradition. We get to eat steak only if we see a tornado.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “You can call Amos and ask him. Really.”
    He considered her through narrowed eyes. Suddenly his face broke into an indulgent smile. “Well, if it’s that important, I guess I’ll have the seafood platter.”
    The perplexed waitress dutifully noted his order and disappeared.
    “It’s silly, I know,” Victoria said. “But if you want to savor the full storm-chasing experience …”
    “Oh, I do. The full experience.”
    She took a long sip of her iced tea and kept her gaze averted. He was going to drive her crazy if he kept flirting with her