Stranded with the Rancher

The return of absolute silence was infinitely more difficult than if they had never received a ray of hope.

Beth was shaking.

He rubbed her back. “Hang on. We’ve made it this far.”

Suddenly, the loud racket returned, a shrill high-pitched noise that might have been a winch. Then a dreadful dragging scrape, and finally a human shout.

Seconds later the cellar doors were flung wide. The brilliant sunlight, after hours of captivity, blinded them.

A figure crouched at the opening. “Ms. Andrews? Are you down there?”

Drew shielded his eyes with his arm. “She is. And me, too. Is that you, Jed?”

The minutes that followed were chaos. Drew boosted Beth up the ladder, passing her up to helping hands, and then followed her. He grabbed his brother in a bear hug. “God, I’m so glad to see you.”

Jed’s face was grim. “You scared the hell out of me. No one had any idea where you were.” Two EMTs muscled in, checking Drew’s and Beth’s blood pressure, firing off questions, taking care of business. Drew gave a terse summation of the events that had stranded them below ground.

It was easy to see why he and Beth had been trapped. Her small car, now a mangled mess of metal, had been snatched up and dumped...right on top of the cellar.

When the immediate furor died, he searched for Beth. She had walked several hundred feet away and stood gazing at what was left of her fall pumpkin crop. Virtually nothing. The tornado had ripped across her land, decimating everything in its path.

The front left portion of her bungalow was sheared off, but two-thirds of the house remained intact.

He stood by her side. “I’ll help you with repairs.”

She turned to face him, her expression lost. “I appreciate the offer. But unless you know how to grow a pumpkin overnight, my revenue stream just vanished until June at the earliest.” She searched his face. “What did he tell you about your place?”

The day was already heating up. Beth slipped off his shirt and handed it to him. He slid his arms into it and fastened a few buttons. “I was very lucky. We lost a lot of fencing...and one outbuilding. But the staff and the horses are all safe.”

“Your house?”

“Minor stuff.”

Jed joined them. “Let’s get you two back to Willowbrook. You can shower and have a decent meal.”

Beth glanced at Drew’s brother, her eyes haunted. “Tell us about Royal. How bad is it?”

Jed hesitated.

Drew squeezed Beth’s hand. “Tell us, Jed. We’ve been imagining the worst.”

Jed’s shoulders slumped. He bent his head and stared at the ground before looking up with a grim-faced stare. “Mass destruction. The storm was an EF4. A quarter-mile wide and on the ground for twenty-two miles. The center of the storm missed Willowbrook, but it turned and traveled straight over Beth’s place and on east.”

“God help us,” Drew said. Nothing so tragic had ever touched the town of Royal. “How many dead?”

“As of this morning, the count stood at thirteen. A family of four...tourists. They took shelter beneath an overpass, but you know how dangerous that is. A young couple in a mobile home.”

Beth put her hand to her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks. “And the other seven?”

Jed’s jaw worked as if couldn’t form the words. “The town hall was destroyed.”

“Jesus.” Drew’s stomach pitched. Beth sobbed openly now.

Jed shook his head, grief on his face. “The deputy mayor is dead. Also, Craig Richardson, who owned the Double R. Plus five others who were in the building at the time.”

“And the mayor? Richard Vance?” Drew knew the man by sight and respected him.

“Life threatening injuries. But stable. I don’t have a clue about the total number injured. The hospital is overloaded but managing.”

Beth put her hand on Jed’s arm briefly, claiming his attention. “A pregnant woman. She stopped by my produce stand just before the storm hit. Do you know anything about her?”

“I’m afraid I do. We found her car late last night when we were searching for the two of you. The tornado flipped her vehicle. She has severe head injuries, so they’ve put her in a medically induced coma.”

Beth had stopped crying and now visibly pulled herself together. “And the baby?”

“Delivered by emergency C-section. Last I heard, they think she will make it.”

Drew remembered the odd feeling that he knew the woman. “Do you know the mother’s name?”

“They’ve listed her for now as a Jane Doe. Her car was destroyed. Cell phone and purse missing, probably in someone’s backyard five miles away.”

Jed motioned toward his car. “We need to go. Drew, after you’ve had a few minutes to rest, I know they could use the two of us in town.”

Beth still stared at her forlorn house. “You guys go on. I’ll stay here. There’s plenty to do.”

Drew realized then that Beth was definitely in shock. He put his arm around her shoulders, steering her toward the car. It disturbed him that her skin was icy cold. “We can bring some tarps over this evening, but you can’t stay here. I know you don’t want to enter the enemy camp, but I’ll promise you good food, a hot shower and a bed for as long as you need it.”

* * *

Beth allowed Drew to take charge because it was in her best interests and because she was too disheartened to deal with anything but basic needs at the moment.

The road between her house and the magnificent entrance to Willowbrook Farms was two miles long. Ninety-nine percent of the time when Beth departed her property, she turned left out of her driveway. So it felt odd to be deliberately closing the gap between her home and Drew’s. She had only been out this way once or twice, more out of curiosity than anything else. Both times she had been struck by the pristine appearance of Drew’s ranch. It was an enormous, well-cared-for equine operation.

As they drove along—slowly because of the debris littering the road—it was far too easy to see the storm’s path. The twister had clipped a section of Drew’s acreage, veered toward the private road and traveled along it until deciding to thunder across Beth’s once thriving farm. She knew in her heart she was lucky her house was still standing. There were almost surely others in far more dire straits.

“I should have gotten clean clothes,” she cried, realizing her omission.

Drew shook his head vehemently. “You can’t go inside your house until an expert checks for structural damage. Not unless you want to chance spending another night beneath a pile of rubble.”

“Low blow, Farrell,” she muttered. “What am I supposed to wear? I have plans to burn this current outfit.”

“I have seven women on my staff. I’m sure between them they can come up with a solution.”

By the time they finally pulled up in front of Drew’s classic two-story farmhouse, she was so tired her eyes had trouble focusing. He helped her out of the car. Jed followed them inside.

Drew took her arm, steering her toward the back of the house. “Food first.”

“And a bathroom.”