Free Traci On The Spot by Marie Ferrarella Page A

that, not this shaky vulnerability he’d managed to uncover.
    “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” As soon as my double vision goes away, she thought, giving her head one more shake.
    She glanced at Morgan over her shoulder as she opened the door. It had to have been a fluke. Maybe she was coming down with something. That had to be it. Otherwise, she’d have to think that she and Morgan…
    No, she didn’t have to think that. Not ever. Besides, it was too late for something like that. Shehad her commitment before her and it was to Daniel.
    “I’ll see you around,” she told him, raising her voice above the wind. Traci gave the leash a slight tug. “Let’s go, Jeremiah.”
    The dog resisted crossing the threshold. He barked twice at the brooding, darkened sky.
    Morgan wondered what sort of perverse psychology he could use on Traci to make her stay. Nothing came to mind and he knew that asking her to wait out the storm would never work.
    He nodded toward her pet. “He has more sense than you do.”
    Morgan was standing way too close again, she thought. Driving in the storm would be a comfort by comparison. At least that didn’t involve scrambling pulses and confused thoughts.
    “Lovely parting shot, Morgan,” she quipped. “You should put them all in a book and give them out as gifts for Christmas. Well, see you.” Her voice was way too high, but nerves were causing that.
    Thousands of little nerves, scattered throughout her body like ants whose hill had just been demolished by an overeager anteater.
    Traci almost fled to her car.
    She should have parked closer, she thought, annoyed with herself. She should have also left earlier—for a lot of reasons. But that was a moot point now.
    The wind lashed at her hair, whipping it around her head and reducing it to a soggy, springy massof curls within seconds. Muttering under her breath, Traci opened the car door and herded Jeremiah in, then rounded the hood and got in on the driver’s side. She jammed the key into the ignition, pushing wet bangs out of her eyes.
    She held her breath as she drove. The downpour was pretty intense, but it was too late to turn back. She refused to return with her tail between her legs because of the storm. Not when she would bet her soul that Morgan was standing in the doorway, waiting for her to come back. Waiting to smugly say, “I told you so.”
    Or worse yet, to kiss her again and watch the reaction on her face.
    What had happened back there, anyway? Why the sudden combustion? It was as if something had just been lying in wait all these years, lying in wait for the right moment.
    This wasn’t getting her anywhere.
    A bolt of lightning creased the sky like a crooked javelin hurled by an angry Norse god. It temporarily threw the world into daylight and then back into numbing darkness again.
    Jeremiah was not happy about it.
    “Hush,” she chided. “We’ll be home in time to watch reruns of ‘Lassie.’ They have to be playing on some channel.” The thought of curling up on her sofa, basking in the warm glow cast from the television set, comforted her.
    It was a hell of a lot more comforting than attempting to drive through the English Channel, which was what this was beginning to feel like,she thought. She pressed her lips together, concentrating.
    Visibility went from poor to almost nonexistent in an alarming few minutes, even though the windshield wipers were doing double time. They no sooner pushed the rain aside than another deluge fell to take up the space, completely blotting out her view of the road. And no matter what she did with the heater and the defrost switches, her windows insisted on fogging up. The situation was almost impossible.
    Desperate, Traci rolled down the window on the driver’s side, cracking the other for balance. Rain came into the car, lashing at her face. But at least she could see. What there was to see.
    Craning her neck, Traci peered through the open window. She squinted, trying to make out the