Free Hell on Wheels: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Karen Leabo

jungle gym and Victoria rocked gently to and fro on a swing, letting the breeze cool her. As he hung upside down from his knees, his T-shirt rode up, revealing rippling stomach muscles and more smooth, tanned skin than she needed to see.
    When he decided to walk the highest bar like a tightrope, Victoria’s pleasure turned to panic. God, hewas going to break his neck. “Cut it out, Roan. You’re scaring me.”
    He rolled his eyes, but he did climb down and came over to where she was sitting. “Want me to push you?”
    “No,” she answered, wary.
    “Why not?”
    “Because you’ll push me too high, even when I tell you to slow down, and you won’t stop until I scream and threaten to kill you.”
    He flashed a guilty grin. “You sound like you’ve had your share of experience with mean little boys on the playground.”
    “You got it.” She looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Let’s get back to the garage and see if Leon is finished yet.”
    “Okay,” Roan said agreeably. He’d been nothing today if not agreeable. Taking her hand and pulling her up from the swing, he said, “Now, answer truthfully. Breaking down in this little town hasn’t turned out to be so god-awful bad, has it?”
    She smiled. “It could have been worse. And thank you for keeping me … distracted. But I warn you, when I find out just exactly what we missed, my mood will go downhill in a hurry.”
    “Then I’ll have to find some new way to, er, distract you.”
    The man was incorrigible, and he was getting bolder with his sexual innuendoes. But something deep inside her, something she couldn’t name or explain or rationalize, let him get away with it. Perhaps it was because shesuspected he wasn’t serious, that he was only trying to get a reaction out of her.
    Victoria already had her credit card in her hand as Leon totaled up the bill. When he gave her the charge slip, she barely even registered the amount before scrawling her normally neat signature. She was eager to check the data again.
    Moments later she was staring at the computer screen and sighing. Oswego, Oklahoma. That’s where the action would break, and they were three hours away. But if they hurried, they might make it.
    Roan was leaning against a wall, chatting with one of the gas jockeys.
    “Move it or lose it, Cullen. We’ve got a lot of time to make up,” she called to him as she unlocked the passenger door, then walked around to the driver’s side.
    Roan jumped at the sound of her voice and quickly bid the other man good-bye. “Ever consider a career in the military?” he asked as he climbed into the van.
    “What?”
    “You’ve got a bit of the drill sergeant in you.”
    “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. But there’s a chance we’ll still make it.” She reached behind her and retrieved a handful of maps from the seat pocket. “Here,” she said, handing them to Roan. “There’s an Oklahoma map in there somewhere. Find a highway that leads to Oswego.”
    “Ma’am, yes,
ma’am
!”
    She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Cut it out.”
    Roan quickly plotted their shortest route to the small eastern Oklahoma town, and Victoria drove as fastas she dared. Two hours later she was encouraged by the darkening sky. The temperature outside had dropped considerably, and intermittent reports of high winds and pea-sized hail came over the ham radio. She jumped when a “beep beep beep” sounded from the weather station, followed by the announcement that the Weather Service had issued a T-box.
    “All right, now we’re cooking,” Roan said in response to the tornado watch.
    “We’re still seventy-five miles away from it,” Victoria said gloomily. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”
    “Do we have to stop when it gets dark?”
    “Absolutely. I don’t chase what I can’t see.”
    “Hmm.” He didn’t sound particularly pleased with her answer.
    The ham radio spotters kept up a consistent chatter as the van approached Oswego. One