The Charming Storm Chaser - Page 1

Chapter 1

Kane

18 years ago

“Will you take me for a ride?” Miranda Mills asks, stroking the torn leather seat of my motorcycle.

Despite my best efforts to play it cool, I can’t help grinning like an idiot. I’ve invested years of blood, sweat, and tears into the bike, taking every odd job I could find, sinking every last penny into buying spare parts from the local junkyard, and checking out every library book on motorcycle repair that I could find. It was all worth it. The bike is perfect.

Okay, perfect may be too strong a word. It looks a bit like Frankenstein’s Monster, pieced together with mismatched parts and inexpert welding, and it’s noisy and leaks oil. But I won’t speak a bad word about it, because it’s given me the two things I wanted most in the world: mobility… and women.

Miranda is the prettiest girl in school—and she wants a ride with me.

I try to rein in my grin and fold my arms across my chest in my best impression of James Dean. “You’re not scared?”

A flirty smile dances on her lips. “Of the bike… or you?”

I shrug. “Take your pick.”

She tucks a strand of her long, blonde hair behind an ear. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“No?” I straddle the bike and look up at her. “Then let’s go.”

She licks her lips. “I don’t know…”

“You asked for a ride,” I point out. “I’m offering one.”

She rubs her palms on the thighs of her tight jeans. “It’s just that my mother will kill me if she finds out.”

I raise an eyebrow. “If she finds out you were on a motorcycle? Or that you were with me?”

“Both,” Miranda admits.

I appreciate her honesty, and it’s nothing I didn’t know already, but I still feel a pang in the middle of my chest. Miranda’s family lives in the wealthiest part of town, as far from my home in Shady Groves Trailer Park—which has zero shade and nary a tree—as a person can get.

“Your mother doesn’t need to know,” I say.

Miranda glances around nervously. “Someone might see…”

“Wear this.” I hand her my helmet, cursing myself for only having one. My mother will kill me if she finds out I didn’t wear it, but I’m willing to take the risk for a chance to spend time with Miranda. “No one will know it’s you.”

A flurry of expressions flit across her face, and I can practically read her thoughts. She wants to rebel against her mother and slum it with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks—but she’s never been the sort of girl who breaks the rules.

I expect her to turn tail and run back to her ivory tower, but she surprises me, taking the helmet and sliding it onto her head. Then she swings her leg over the seat, climbs on behind me, and wraps her arms tightly around my waist.

It’s the best moment of my entire life.

“Where do you want to go?” I holler over my shoulder.

“Somewhere no one will see us,” she yells back.

So, I take her to the one place where I’m sure we’ll be alone. I hesitate before pulling into the entrance of the mobile home park. I half expect her to panic when she sees where I’ve brought her. With her expensive clothes and shiny hair, she sticks out like a rose in a bouquet of wilted dandelions. But she looks excited as she takes my hand, and I realize that this is an adventure for her. She’s thrilled to be on the wrong side of the tracks with me.

Gripping her hand, I lead her past row after row of dilapidated trailers. When we reach my family’s trailer, with its peeling siding and boarded-up windows, I don’t even glance at it. There’s no way in hell I’m taking her there. It’s too embarrassing. Plus, there’s a chance my younger sister, Lilith, will be home. She and Miranda will both be juniors when school starts again, one grade below me, even though Lil is three years my junior. She just happens to be a genius who skipped right past junior high.

I love my sister, but she hates Miranda and her friends. She calls them the Rich Bitches and says they think she’s so far beneath them that they don’t even see her. I suspect it’s just because Lil is younger—not to mention smarter—than they are. So, they don’t have much in common with her. Besides, Miranda can’t help that she was born to a wealthy family any more than Lil and I can help that we weren’t.

“Are we going to your house?” Miranda asks.