My car won't start and it feels like God is playing some sick joke on me.

I've already spat out the damp toothpick and so now all there is to do is to pound the palm of my hands into the steering wheel as if it'll help one bit. It doesn't.

"Dal, it's fine. I'll call the towing company." Hunter tries to reassure me, reaching into the pocket of his jeans for his phone.

I can't help the angry grunt that slips past my lips (or multiple, in fact).

This day couldn't get any worse. Hell, this trip couldn't get any worse.

Or, maybe it could because just as the thought crossed her mind, there was a knock on her window.

I'd assumed it would be Javi begging me to get out of the car and continue the research with him and his stupid team, but instead, it's much, much worse.

It's Tyler smiling at me with that stupid cowboy hat on. He's motioning for me to roll down my window but all I want to do is break it.

With a sigh of defeat, I clench my jaw and use the lever to roll the glass down.

"Having car troubles, Texas?"

Texas. He's acting as if no time has passed at all. I hate it.

Hunter stays silent from the passenger seat, no longer dialing the number to the towing company.

"She's a beaut," he's referencing to my truck. "I can check her out for 'ya."

He places his hand in the now open frame of my car door and I almost want to roll the window back up and watch his fingers detach from his hand.

"She's a '84." I reply because I know he was wondering. "I don't need your help."

He doesn't drop his smile. "So why are you running?"

He isn't talking about my car. I know exactly what he means.

"I don't chase no more." My response is brief, but still more than what he deserves.

He analyzes me, smile finally fading and his blue eyes darken with concentration as he looks over my face — trying to find a fault.

But he can't find one because I'm not playing a game. Or bluffing. So instead, he nods. "Right."

But once he draws his eyes from mine they land on Hunter. "Where are my manners?" He puts that stupid grin on again and it feels like the most backhanded compliment. "Hunter, how 'ya been?"

Hunter gives me a look like he's asking for approval, but I'm too busy staring at my whitening knuckles wrapped around the leather of my steering wheel — eagerly anticipating the time when Tyler's cologne isn't suffocating me.

"Fine, man." Hunter says without a smile at all.

Tyler nods once again. "Good to hear."

But like all the times before, after what feels like an hour of silence, he takes his hat off and instead places it on top of my head.

"Cheer up, cowgirl." He says, pinching the top of my shoulder but all he gets his return is my body flinching to his touch. "Whatever happened to riding the storms like they're waves, huh?"

I'm fed up. I don't know what he's getting at but I know it's to get on my nerves and it's rubbing me the wrong fucking way.

I open the car door without warning, not giving him enough time to move out of the way — earning a harsh hit to the chest.

I jump down from the high platform of the bed of my blue truck and feel as my boots sink into the muddy ground. The first thing I do, is throw his dumb fucking hat onto the ground.

"You done?"

I'm looking at him like I want to kill him but it's really not intimidating at all, because at the end of the day, I'm 5'4 with a pair of boots on and he's practically a foot taller than me.

He smiles. "Nope."

"Dallas!" Lilly's voice pulls me from my standoff with Tyler and within seconds, her arms are wrapped around me. "Where the hell have you been? I miss having another badass around!" 

It'd been coming up on two years since I'd last seen her and the man standing beside me is completely at fault for that. 

I'm somehow able to manage a smile without ill intent behind it. "Ask the Tornado Wrangler here." 

Lilly rolls her eyes for the same reason I would -- and did five minutes ago. 

"Tyler," a balding man with a camera draped around his neck like a chain comes into view, out of breath from just running a yard. "Do you know which storm we're going after yet?" 

"I'll leave you to it, boss." Lilly salutes me a final time. "Keep him in line." 

I nod. But my attention quickly drifts to the British man standing before me, looking at Tyler for orders. It's amusing. 

Tyler looks at the smirk on my face and he's now the one to turn almost embarrassed before putting his hands on his hips, resting in that classic cowboy stance. "Why don't we ask Cowgirl, here?" 

He's saying my nickname like a challenge and I don't like it at all. But something in the way he's looking at me makes my blood boil so for whatever reason, with just one look at the direction of the clouds, I speak. "West." 

"Look at us, Cowgirl and Cowboy going for the wild, wild west." He's smirking from ear-to-ear. 

I roll my eyes before I can help it, crossing my arms over my chest. "I'm not going with you." 

"Your truck won't start up." He reminds me, cocky as ever. 

I work my jaw back and forth, contemplating whether I really want to do this or not. 

Yet for whatever reason, I say fine and the next thing I know is I'm sitting passenger in his ridiculously loud truck with Hunter, Boone, and a British man who's name I don't remember all crammed in the backseat.