Echoes of Danger

Caryn’s cackle echoed over the distant sound of thunder. “Oh, yes, I will. You’ll see. Soon, you and that retarded brother of yours will be out on the side of the road.”

Dana could take anything anyone dished out, but nobody picked on her brother. Stepping back into the polished foyer, she glared across the marble floor at Caryn. “You stay away from Stephen. He’s just a boy. He’s never done anything to you or any of your people.”

Caryn’s smile was triumphant. Dana guessed she’d been looking for a weak spot. The woman’s next words proved it.

“If you care about your special little brother, you’ll be careful. I don’t take to false accusations.”

Dana pointed a finger at the stone-faced woman. “And I don’t take to people destroying what’s mine. If I see any of your people on my property, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.” And forgive me, Lord, for even suggesting that.

With that, she turned and slammed the glass door, rattling the thick panes against their heavy brass hinges.

A storm was brewing. Dana knew enough about Kansas weather to realize it was going to be an ugly one. She could hear the echo of distant thunder miles away, carrying through the lifting wind. She was a mile from town, though, and if she hurried, she could get those Ruby Runners she’d promised Stephen, and maybe have a quick word with the sheriff.

Actually, storm or not, she wasn’t ready to head back to the farm yet. Finding Otto dead, and then the confrontation with that horrible woman, had left her too keyed up to face the mounting problems her little bit of land was causing her. If she didn’t do something quick, they’d lose everything and then Caryn would come in and take Dana’s property. Dana couldn’t let that happen. She’d fought too hard since her parents’ deaths to give up now. And she didn’t like being bullied.

At first she’d thought about selling and moving to Kansas City. She’d majored in business administration at Kansas State, so she had the credentials to find a decent job in the big city, and her sweetheart from high school, Tony Martin, was already there and earning a good living as a computer analyst. They’d been engaged and had big plans to marry and move to Kansas City, until Dana’s parents had died. Tony hadn’t wanted the burden of raising a hyper preteen with learning problems and the mannerisms of a kindergartner.

Now Stephen depended on her, and he loved the farm. She hadn’t wanted to uproot him, so based on some advice from the local bank president, and after consulting with Stephen’s doctors, she’d made a decision to keep the farm. And had instantly gone into debt by borrowing money to raise enough cattle to get a small herd going. She had fifty head of prime Brangus heifers, steers, calves and two bulls—make that one bull now.

Still in shock, she couldn’t believe Otto was gone. She didn’t need this right now, not when things were just starting to turn around. Pulling the old rickety Chevy into the parking place by the general store, Dana glanced at the erratic sky, then rushed inside out of the wind. She’d get the shoes, then go talk to the sheriff.

Not that that would do much good. Sheriff Radford was getting old and he just didn’t care much about random crimes against animals. People didn’t fare much better, but then nothing much more exciting than a rowdy cowboy at the pool hall around the corner ever stirred the mundane daily life of this prairie town. But still, a dead prize-breeding bull wasn’t exactly something to turn the other cheek about.

“Honey, you look like you got the weight of the world on your pretty shoulders,” Emma Prager said from behind the counter and her ample bosom. “What’s eating my little Dana?”

“Just about everything,” Dana said, afraid if she laid her burdens at kind Emma’s matronly feet, she’d burst into tears. “I lost Otto today, Emma. Somebody shot him.”

“Goodness-a-mercy!” Emma exclaimed, bringing up the head of the one other paying customer in the cluttered store, and catching the attention of the regulars at the dominoes table in the small café at the back. “What an awful thing to happen, and you trying to hang on to that place with every ounce of gumption you got.” Heaving a heavy breath, she came around the counter. “I do declare, what’s the world coming to! Did you tell old Radford yet?”

“I’m headed over there now,” Dana said, spotting the blazing red Ruby Runner emblem on a nearby shoebox. Emma had promised to hold the athletic shoes for her. “I came by to get our Ruby Runners—I thought maybe it’d cheer Stephen up, since I promised him I’d get them today.”

“Got ’em right here,” Emma said, turning her bulk to get the pair of shoes she’d saved for Dana. “One size fourteen youth. That child is steady growing, I tell you!”

Emma’s straight, scrawny husband, Frederick, came plowing through the curtained door leading to their living quarters in the back of the cluttered store, the German still in his accent coming out strongly. “Get you home, little girl. Tornado’s a-coming. Spotted it due west about ten miles from here.”

“She don’t have time,” Emma said, dropping the package she was about to hand Dana. “We gotta get in the cellar!”

Everyone started running toward the back of the old store. Confused, Dana searched for her package on the counter at about the same time the other shopper, a young man in grubby jeans and a blue T-shirt, grabbed a similar package and fled out into the storm before Emma could herd him around. The two old-timers who’d been heavy into their dominoes game sprinted for Frederick’s storm cellar.

Dana looked around, then grabbed the only package left on the counter. But Dana didn’t follow Emma and Frederick. “Stephen!” she said, her voice rising. “He’s at home with Mrs. Bailey. I have to get back!”

“He knows what to do,” Frederick shouted over the roar of the approaching storm. “You come in the cellar with us.”

“I can’t,” Dana replied, hoping, praying that Stephen and the frail neighbor woman would be able to get in the cellar and lie down under the blankets they kept down there for just such emergencies.

There was no time for anything else but prayer. The twister was sending its calling card, sucking the old general store into a vortex of rumbling fury. Dana ran to her truck, willing the ancient contraption to crank. The sound of glass shattering and trees snapping left little doubt that this storm was doing some serious damage, but she didn’t heed the storm’s wrath. She planned to outrun it.

And she almost did. But it seemed as if the storm wanted her and her alone. She watched in her rearview mirror as the twister followed her out of town, hurling and hissing like a giant snake as it chased her down the county road.

“Dear God, help me,” she prayed out loud, her heart beating so hard she knew she’d surely die of a heart attack if the storm didn’t kill her first. She knew she should stop the truck and dive for the nearest ditch, but she had to get back to Stephen. Mrs. Bailey was great in helping to homeschool the boy, but the aging senior citizen was a nervous wreck in any little storm. She’d go into a tizzy and be useless, especially with a storm as powerful as this twister headed right toward the farm.

Dana rounded the dirt drive to the farmhouse, her foot pushing the gas pedal beyond its endurance, the truck’s sturdy tires squealing their displeasure at being forced to turn so quickly.

She didn’t make the turn. The truck careened out of control and did a fishhook, spewing mud and rocks toward the tornado like a runt fighting off a bully. Dana screamed and tried to hold on to the swirling steering wheel, but without power-steering the truck got the best of her. The last thing she remembered was the door flying open, then her whole world went black.

She was dreaming, of course. That had to be it. She felt strong arms pulling her down, down into the wet bluestems; she heard a soothing male voice close to her ear, telling her to hold on, hold on. Then a powerful body covered hers, warming her, comforting her, protecting her as the storm swirled around her. Dana kept her eyes tightly shut, afraid to open them and find out if this was really happening.

The storm hit. She could feel the wind sucking at her skin, could feel the debris cutting against her hair and her exposed hands and arms, could taste the dust and rain and power, but somehow she knew she was safe. That strange, lilting voice, that warm, clinging body—who was he and why was he holding her so close she could hear the echo of his heartbeat over the dangerous rush of the storm?

It was all over in a matter of minutes. Nothing seemed real. It was as if Dana was dreaming a bad dream where she’d woken abruptly only to find that she hadn’t been dreaming at all.

She was alive and this was very real. That much Dana knew as she groggily tried to open her eyes. Her head hurt with all the roaring of a tractor-pull. But over the roaring of pain, she heard another more ominous noise. Silence.

Seconds passed, as she listened to the quiet that was even more deadly than the storm’s rumbling rage. Dana didn’t like silence.

“Stephen?” she called, trying to pry herself out of the stranger’s iron grip. “Stephen, where are you?”

She looked up at the brooding, foaming dark sky. This storm wasn’t finished yet. “Stephen?” she called again, trying to raise herself up. A bump on the side of her head throbbed in protest, but she tried again until she realized that the grip on her arms was caused by a set of strong hands holding her down. A man’s hands.

She was flat on the ground, with a big man holding her there. Then Dana remembered how the man had thrown himself on top of her to shield her from the tornado.

“Stephen?” she asked again, hoping the man would tell her something about her brother.

The man lifted his head and looked straight into her eyes. The first thing Dana noticed was that his eyes were as blue-black and cloudy as the storm’s lingering coattails. The second thing she noticed was that he wore all black, from his button-down shirt to his Levi’s and boots. His long dark hair was pulled away from his face in a ponytail, but the wind coming through the open field where they lay was doing its best to unleash his thick mane.

“Who…who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Where’s my brother? Where’s Stephen?”

The big man looked down at Dana. “It’s all right, lass. You’re safe.”

He had a lilting accent that immediately flowed like a fine melody over Dana’s shot nerve endings. Scottish? Irish, maybe? What in the world was he doing holding her down in the middle of a field in Prairie Heart, Kansas?

“Who are you?” she asked again, thinking of looters and dangerous criminals and the fully loaded .38 she had in the glove compartment of her truck.

He shifted closer, giving her a black stare that left her both breathless and wondering. With one hand he touched the tender, bruised spot just over her right temple. “You’ve bumped your head. How does it feel?”

Dana swallowed back the knot of fear forming in her throat. “It’s aching, but I can handle it.” The knot came back, causing her next words to sound raw and husky. “My brother—he’s only twelve and, well, he’s a very special boy.” She inclined her head toward the farmhouse. “He’s all alone with my neighbor. She’s eighty and afraid of storms. I have to get to him.”

The stranger’s inky eyes softened as a look of concern tightened his face. “We’ll go find him.” At the apparent worry on her face, he added, “You have nothing to fear from me. I was pulled over on the road, watching the storm. I saw you wreck your truck. You were thrown out, and by the time I got to you the storm hit.”

So he’d thrown himself over her to protect her. She hadn’t been dreaming, after all. And he was still holding her, his big, powerful body still warming hers, from her hurting head down to her shaking toes. Needing to distance herself from the memory of her strange dream, she tried to wiggle away. “I’ve got to find my brother.”

The man rolled to sit up, then helped her to her feet, holding her against the remnants of the wind. “I’ll go with you.”

Shocked, Dana stepped back. “No, you don’t have to do that. I’m fine, really. I just need to find my brother.”

The man looked around at the flat countryside, then back to Dana. “We’re wasting time. I’ll not let you go up to the house alone. You might not like what you find.”

Never in her life had anyone said that to Dana. He didn’t want her to go there alone. He wanted to be there with her if she found the worst. Well, she’d been through the worst. And in spite of the whole town’s support and warm, loving concern, she’d always had to face the nightmares when she was alone at night in her bed…wishing…wishing.