PROLOGUE : A LEGACY IN THE MAKING

JO HARDING SPENDS MONTHS TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF WHERE SHE BELONGS IN LITTLE WILLOW THORNTON'S LIFE.

It is a daunting thing, to have your six-year-old niece on your doorstep during an off-season, hand in hand with a social worker explaining that you are the last stop before foster care. It ain't like she shouldn't have seen something coming. Not with the calls coming in asking the last time she had seen her wayward sister, the poster child for parental-loss induced drug addiction, but the lab is distracting being funded and functioning now, and her sister disappearing is not anything to write home about.

Sometimes, it is too easy to pretend that an image of her older sister, still only a few inches taller with her front two teeth still missing, got swept off in that storm too with her daddy too.

There maybe had been one absent minded call that she at least agreed to meet or pick up someone or something of hers but it does not hit her until its a Friday morning and there is a little blonde girl the image of her sister staring right back at her.

Willow Mae Thornton, her niece on an unknown branch of the family tree. Jo had no clue she even existed, let alone seen a damn picture.

The social worker explains that a motel clerk found her remaining behind after the couple in the room checked out, leaving behind trash and food and her. "It was as if a tornado blew threw the room," she quotes the motel clerk in true Oklahoma fashion and a little to on the nose for the family. Jo tries to ignore the ache of her heart and wishes she could live in her false narrative a little longer.

Jo is only slightly worried it will scare Bill off when he finally makes his way out onto the porch. It has been like a honeymoon phase all over again since that outbreak, but she reminds herself it was only a year back they had been on the brink of an official divorce and this could be the tipping point again. The previous years of their marriage consisted of chasing and working in the lab; more focused on their careers than ever entertaining the idea of a family.

Then the moment finally comes, that entertaining part where there is no time to really think with her kin sitting next to Mose on the front porch, doing her best to pretend she ain't listening to a word said between adults. Jo is hesitant, unsure, overwhelmed that it all falls to her to either give a girl a home or send her to foster care. Then, it is Bill that develops a bleeding, impulsive heart that decides they can take on a six-year-old in their storm chasing prime.

He figures out the logistics of it all; the off-season is no issue, especially with her being the age that she heads right into school during the day and steps off the bus just in time for one of them to head home from the lab. Aunt Meg is more than happy to take on the little bugger when the chasing starts in the summer, reasons that Mose will be happy for more energetic company. She even decides on a permanent residency in on the old Thornton, now Harding ranch house rather than rebuilding her Wakita home

And then little Willow, is theirs, hers. 

Jo cannot help but feel inadequate at first, watching as Willow takes to Bill as if he has been in her life since she took her first breath. It is not hard to see that Bill feels the same way; if anyone asked, that little girl hung the moon and the stars in the sky and it makes her wonder if he had wanted girls or boys with her eyes and his nose or vice versa. Aunt Meg, of course, is a shoe from the moment she gifts Willow with her first yellow raincoat and a pair of blue ducky patterned boots that the DOROTHY crew teaches her to stomp in the puddles with. Bill starts banning them from any form of babysitting when tracks of muddy footprints start appearing all through the house, with muddy paws right behind them.

But Jo struggles, so attuned to her career and research driven lifestyle that she is more often than not late to her turns picking up from school and always forgets to cut the crusts off her sandwiches in her rushes to make her lunches. She spends more time at the dinner table rambling on about their storm chasing antics than teaching the kid appropriate life lessons like any sensible parent would do. Instead of signing her up for gymnastics and swim meets after school, Willow sets up shop in the lab, working on spelling words and multiplication tables at her own little designated desk. Homework time usually only lasts for about an hour until she is roped in herself with the happenings of science, usually pointing a flashlight into some machine.

Jo is not sure if she is cut out for the parenting thing when it feels all she is doing is failing and little Willow deserves the entire damn world in the palm of her hands. Even if they she never knew what horribly dealt cards brought her to their doorstep, anyone can see how bright and inherently good she is. Jo wants to do right by her even in her initial uncertainty about taking her in.

But sometimes, Willow looks up at her with these big and expecting eyes and she cannot help but feel like she will never be enough for her. Meg tries to assure her that she is doing better than she thinks, that parenting is not something you can perfect, but then she sees Bill perfect at it, a hero to his little girl and she, the fuck-up.

It is four months into their stint as pseudo-parents when a storm is settling in on in the early hours of the night. The start of chasing season is just on the horizon with the way the wind whips against the siding, but she knows the cap will not break to give her a twister to race after. Their study is finally written, all drafted and ready to be submitted to the university editor, and Jo is up making sure it is perfect. At the first crack of lightning, they can already hear the patter of little feet against the hardwood when they should still be in bed.

Jo waits for Bill to push himself up from his armchair to do his diligent duty as the perfect guardian, but he does not. She looks over at him, her brows furrowed.

"It's your turn," he tells her with a shrug and it sends her bounding up the stairs to check on her.

Jo can see a head of wild hair, sticking up in all the wrong directions from tossing and turning, sitting up at the window rather than asleep in her bed. Willow sits up on her window seat, chin resting against the window seal. Jo places her hands on her hips and raises a brow.

"Now, what are you doing out of bed?" Jo pulls a mock voice at the girl and it does not even draw her attention. She sighs when Willow does not respond and steps into her room. Jo saddles up right next to her on the window seat. "Was it the storm?" Willow does not speak- too focused on what rages outside her window to vocalize her answer. The girl just nods. "If you're afraid, I can stay with you." It is the right thing to say- a line from a family sit-com.

Willow finally looks away and up at her aunt, her little brows furrowed in the same way she does hers, her nose scrunched up at her. "I ain't 'fraid of it," she corrects Jo in that little voice of hers. Lightening reflects against the glass and the girl darts her eyes right back to it. She counts under her breath, a few beats before the thunder comes rumbling around them.

It takes Jo a moment to realize Willow tells the truth; there is no fear in her eyes as she watches the storm rage on through the window. Her eyes are big and expecting, waiting for another streak of light across the night sky to come and when it does, it is pure awe that she sees in them, watching nature's mysteries as if they are the greatest wonders of the world.

Jo finds herself smiling, astonished at this little girl who she knew nothing of and that suddenly became hers. She brushes back her wild hair and sighs. "It is fascinating, isn't it?"

"I like the tornadoes the most," the girl admits, much to Jo's own surprise, "like 'abbit showed me in the lab."

"Yeah, me too," she agrees and rests a little more against Willow. The girl takes it as an invitation, snuggling up next to her, resting her head on her aunt's shoulder.

"Imma be a chaser too."

It is no secret to Willow what her guardians do for work, especially with her spending her evenings in the lab, listening to them rant and rave about weather patterns and meteorologist jargon, but even then, the words still bring a shocked chuckle out of Jo.

"Really?" She asks, "Like your uncle?"

Willow shakes her head in response and has those big, expectant eyes again towards her that maybe she has been misunderstanding all along. "No, just like you."

And in all her faults and disorderly life, Jo Harding realizes she just might be doing something right.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU REQUEL GENRE!!! Added 08/25 because I felt like I need to add some more back story to who Willow exactly is to the Hardings. 

please also sorry about the name change- rewatched Twister and discovered Jo does have an actually stated last name.

as always, happy reading!

lots of love,

karina