***
“Miss Glynis, you shouldn’t be here so late.” The elderly cleaning woman motioned for the vortex to enter the waste can then turned it off. Debris fell obediently into the bucket. “A young thing like you should be convincing some good looking wrangler to take her out for a whirl.”
“Hi, Miss Lottie. I’m on my way home now.”
“And what about that wrangler?”
“No wrangler.” The one she wanted didn’t want her.
“Probably a good thing. They’re either married, a relative of yours, or that rogue Roland. Got himself another one he did. And her married to one of the members of the Anvil. What’s the world coming to?” She tossed tomorrow’s paper on Glynis’s desk.
A picture of Roland and Madeline Tane graced the cover. The very Tane who’d cast her vote for Roland that morning. The Cloud Nine Hotel loomed in the background. She hadn’t been the only person used. Of course, it would have taken more than a kiss to sway Madeline’s vote. “Some people never learn do they, Miss Lottie?”
“Some lessons aren’t worth learning, Miss Glynis. Mind the floor, now, and be careful.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll see she gets home alright, Aunt Lottie,” Roland leaned against the elevator. The sky glass tucked under his arm.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to finish.” He flashed her his dimple. “You worked through the skiers but we have time to catch the Aussie surfers.”
Glynis stopped. Why was he here? What more could he possibly want from her? “You resolved your important business?”
“Yes.”
“Look, we had fun.” She couldn’t give anymore. Not again. “I say we just leave it at that and...”
“No.” Roland cupped her elbow.
“No?”
“No. I’ve waited too damn long to get you to go out with me to leave it at that. You’re coming.” He created a vortex around them and carried them out the window. The wind swirled around her, his arms kept her pinned to his side. A moment later, the spinning stopped. They touched down at the edge of Supercell.
“That’s illegal.” Glynis fingercombed her hair. Roland wanted to have this out. She would oblige, but this was the last thing she would do for him.
“That was necessary,” he countered
“I suppose they’ll overlook it because you’re a member of the Anvil.”
“What?”
“We voted. You’re the newest member of the Anvil.” Glynis dried her cheeks. She had given him more than the deciding vote but she had her pride.
“We?” He stopped pacing. “You voted in the Anvil.”
“I was the unbiased vote.” Glynis laughed out the pain. “ Me and Madeline Tane. You planned it well, although I think Madeline would have preferred to have you last night not this morning.”
“Is that where you think I was, with Madeline?” A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Weren’t you? I heard a woman’s voice calling you. What’s the matter? Was she impatient because she had to share you with another woman?”
“I wasn’t with Madeline.” He smiled. “I was at the Silver Lining Academy for an interview. I had held them up so I could talk to you.”
Confusion drowned her certainty. The background was consistent with the Academy’s décor. And the woman… Glynis sighed. How could he have been with Madeline when she was meeting with the Anvil too? But she had been two hours late. “I want to believe you.”
“Then do.”
“Some lessons aren’t worth learning.” But some men are worth keeping. If she was more than her past, now was the time to prove it. “I was hurt a long time ago and it taught me not to trust any Wrangler. Roland, I want to try again.”
“How much do you believe me when I told you I wasn’t with Madeline?”
“About ninety percent.”
“What will it take to get the rest of the ten?”
“Me making peace with my past so I can trust you completely.”
“I can accept that. Ninety percent our first date. Nine percent our second and nine-tenths by the third. We’ll be at a hundred percent before you can say white water.”
“So why were you at the Academy? Coaching the Waterspouts?” She searched for the reason behind her question. It wasn’t lack of trust, just interest in him and his day.
“Job interview. I’m to be the vortex’s coach next year, plus I get to teach a course or three on elemental balance. You have a problem being seen with a teacher?”
“You don’t want to be on the Anvil?”
“No. I’ve turned them down four times. You’d think they’d have learned by now that I’m not interested. I like teaching. Of course, I’d have been a lot more open to persuasion if I’d known about the fringe benefits. “
Glynis smiled. She had been used; not by Roland but by her own family. They had lost but she had won. “Like what?”
“Like they’d send the one woman in all of Supercell I’d give anything to get to know better and ...”
“Go on.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I may let you know by our hundredth date.”
“When do we begin?”
“I heard there’s a Rave just south of the Indian Ocean. Wanna go?”
“That’s just a tropical storm.”
“Not if we go.” He hopped onto a scuttling cloud and held out his hand to her.
She placed her hand in his. “A little whirl should keep us off the Doppler Radar.”
And away from the prying eyes on Cloud Nine. He smiled and pulled her closer against him as their cloud raced toward the Indian Ocean.
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Linda Andrews lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, three children and a menagerie of domesticated animals. While she started writing a decade ago, she always used her stories to escape the redundancy of her day job as a scientist and never thought to actually combine her love of fiction and science. DOH! After that Homer Simpson moment, she allowed the two halves of her brain to talk to each other. The journeys she’s embarked on since then are dark, twisted and occasionally violent, but never predictable. If you’ve loved one of her most demented creations so far, she’d love to hear from you at lindaandrews at lindaandrews dot net
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