CHAPTER STATS

Word Count (excluding A/N): 1614

Date Updated:10-18-14

Current Review Count: 875

Vaughn hurried to the animal shop. The storm had started sometime when he was looking around Chelsea's farmland for her, and now the rain was coming down so hard that he figured she couldn't be outside. If she wasn't on her farm, she was going to be at Mirabelle's.

He pushed open the door and felt several pairs of eyes on him. The conversation suddenly hushed. Vaughn could feel the tension in the room as he pulled off his drenched hat and coat.

"Vaughn," Julia said, running over to him and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. He didn't return it, but he also didn't shrug her off. "Where's Chelsea?"

"Isn't she here?" Vaughn asked, glancing around. He felt a shiver run down his spine.

"She came by a minute ago," Riley said, walking over. "But she saw me and just bolted."

"Outside? In this storm?" Vaughn asked, feeling a million things at once.

"The storm's started?" Mirabelle asked, a maternal panic in her tone.

Julia's eyes went wide. "Vaughn, Chelsea—!"

Without a thought, Vaughn ran back out into the storm, not even bothering to put his hat and coat back on.

Ooo

Chelsea ran until her legs refused to carry her any farther. In her current physical state, that meant she made it just across the bridge into the forest before nearly collapsing against a tree on the riverbank.

She tried to take a deep breath. She tried to compose herself. She really, truly did. After all, this was inevitable. She should have known this whole time that Vaughn was—

She choked on a sob, unable to even think the word.

It was stupid for her to have hoped for anything better. He couldn't have made it through that shipwreck. Not everyone had her stupid luck. She cried loudly, but she was barely able to hear herself over the pounding rain and the increasing wind and the booming thunder and the roaring of the river just beside her.

She began to shake violently. She was going to fold in on herself with this stress. She could barely hold herself up against the wet tree she'd fallen onto, and now her feet were sliding in the mud beneath her.

She thought that she'd hit rock bottom that horrible day over a season ago. Seeing Daisy's lifeless body was something she could never forget. That day broke her heart.

This day shattered it.

Ooo

Vaughn ran right across the bridge, almost slipping several times in the thick mud that covered the ground. The rain was falling in sheets and the thunder was almost constantly crashing. The storm was picking up quickly and he knew Chelsea was going to get herself hurt if he didn't find her soon.

Why would she run off like that? It made no sense to him. Was she that mad at him? Did the thought of seeing him again really make her upset enough to run out into a storm like this?

He took a deep breath as the wind whipped his hair around his face. Chelsea was something else entirely.

He squinted through the rain and the wind and the darkness as he entered the forest. The river was rising quickly with the rainfall. Vaughn almost didn't see the spec of red leaning against a tree right along the bank.

Chelsea.

Any relief that he felt when he found her vanished when he saw her wobbling dangerously close to the rushing river a few feet away from her. Her boots were three inches deep in mud and by the way she was swaying, she looked like she could lose her footing at any moment.

Vaughn moved faster than he'd ever moved before. He moved faster than when he heard her scream in the jungle. He moved faster than when those wild dogs were closing in on her. He moved faster than when that semi-truck was barreling down the road at her. He moved faster than when that damn bastard was attacking her in the alley. He moved faster than when she was falling asleep over the railing of the boat, the first time he saw her.

He reached her just as the mud beneath her gave way and fell into the river. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him, away from the water.

She tensed up against him, her whole body freezing. Vaughn felt her ribs beneath her skin. He saw how gaunt her face was, and how absolutely colorless it was. She looked like she was sick. Really, truly sick. Then she looked up at him and, for just a moment, he saw how empty her eyes were.

His chest ached.

Chelsea couldn't breathe. Lightning flashed, illuminating the world completely for a brief moment, showing her every detail of the face of the man who'd saved her. The strong jaw; the silver hair stuck all over his face, wet with storm water; the intense violet in his eyes staring into her soul—it was all Vaughn.

Chelsea tried to push away. It had to be a ghost. She was delusional.

But his arm tightened around her waist.

She wriggled harder, putting her hands on his chest to get more leverage. She felt his heart beat soar through his soaked button-down.

He brought his other hand to the center of her back, keeping her from getting away. She wanted to scream, to cry, to laugh—she wanted to believe… but she couldn't.

"Chelsea!" He shouted, his voice barely audible above the crashing of the thunder and the roaring of the water all around them. "Chelsea, stop!"

The sound of this voice did it. It was really him. He was there, holding her against him, in the middle of the storm.

And he'd still offered no explanation.

"Vaughn," she rasped out, her throat closed up from stress. Dazed, she looked up at his rain-soaked face, a foot away from hers.

"Chelsea," Vaughn said, looking down at her. "What the hell were you thinkin' runnin' out here? There's a massive storm! You could've been killed! Goddess, Chelsea, it's like you're tryin' to die!"

Chelsea blinked, stunned. Was he serious?

"That's the first thing you say to me?" Chelsea exploded, her hands balling into fists on his chest. "After being gone for three weeks, that's what you have to say to me?"

Vaughn was taken aback at first, then felt his familiar argumentative side take over. "What? You ran out here for no reason and almost threw yourself into the river! Why're you pissed at me?"

"Why am I pissed at you?" Chelsea scowled. "Are you serious? Damn it, Vaughn! You disappear for three weeks without so much as calling and this is all you have to say?"

"I was stuck in Flowerbud because of the storms! The phone lines were down—I had no choice! Damn it, Chelsea!"

"You can't just disappear like that! I was worried sick this whole time—"

"I can tell," Vaughn said, with far more malice than he intended. "You're witherin' away! What are you doing to yourself?"

Chelsea glared up at him, her face turning red with anger. "How dare you just appear like this and start lecturing me like you suddenly care!"

"Like I suddenly care?" Vaughn repeated as the lightening flashed, illuminating for a moment the true fire in their eyes. "What the hell, Chelsea? Have I been actin' like I don't care?"

"I don't see how you can just completely ignore me for three weeks and expect for everything to be alright!"

"Of course I care! Damn it, Chelsea! If I didn't care, why would I put up with all your Goddess damned klutzy shit?"

"Screw you, Vaughn!" Chelsea shouted, the rain mixing with the angry tears on her face. She began to writhe in his grasp.

Vaughn scowled at her, his grip around her waist tightening. "I can't believe this."

"Let me go!" Chelsea shouted, using all of her leftover strength to hit his chest with her fists. "Damn it, Vaughn!"

Vaughn pulled her closer, and suddenly she stopped. Their eyes met, now just inches apart. The rain fell between them and the clothes stuck together. The lightening flashed and a loud boom of thunder rolled.

They both felt it in their stomachs.

In that moment, Chelsea's eyes lit up. It was clear. Vaughn saw it.

He saw the spark.

His lips crashed down on hers.

She responded immediately by gripping his shirt in her fists and pulling him closer, stretching the wet fabric out. Vaughn's arm pulled her closer to him from her waist while his other hand found its way behind her head, deepening the kiss. Chelsea slid both her arms up around his neck, her hands clasping onto the hair at the base of his head. They fell into each other, holding on like their lives depended on it. Their mouths moved together to their own special rhythm—a rhythm that combined perfectly the slow, dark pulse of his life and the cheerful, bright beat of hers. They meshed perfectly together, overlapping, folding, weaving, moving entirely as one entity. They'd never realized until this moment that they had been incomplete at their very cores. The movement of their daily lives had been off, but now, he had found his rhythm, and it was hers; she had found hers, and it was his.

They swayed and kissed and loved to this new, beautiful rhythm as the rain and the wind and the thunder and the lightning spun around them. In that moment, none of it existed. Nothing existed but the cowboy and the farmer and the spark that heated them from the inside out.

When I wrote this a year ago, there was something off about it. A year later, I figured out the problem and fixed it. I'm sorry it was so long of a wait. Maybe now we know how Vaughn and Chelsea feel?

Thank you for your patience-being an adult is hard and takes a lot of time out of the day, you know? Here's to more updates faster. I still have plot left in this baby, all that's missing is the time and inspiration to write it down. This is only the beginning for our lovely couple.