Healing the Boss's Heart

“All the more proof that you wouldn’t have made it to the church in one piece,” he reminded her.

She hated to agree but he was right. Many of the trees that had lined the riverbank had been toppled, with nearly their entire root balls sticking out of the ground. Those that were still standing had limbs broken away or their whole tops twisted off. The remaining leafless branches were draped with black tar paper and other flexible materials that flapped frantically like ugly, misshapen flags.

Sheets of corrugated tin had been ripped from roofs and bent tightly around the windward side of the more substantial portions of some of the trees, as if squeezed in place by a giant, malevolent hand. If no one in or around High Plains had been killed in this storm it would be a wonder.

Raising her gaze to the horizon across the river, she gasped. Her hand flew to her throat. The danger wasn’t over. Her boss had been right about that, too. A wall cloud lay just above the northern hills. And it looked as if it was located directly over her brother Jesse’s Circle L Ranch!

As she watched, the solid line at the bottom of the black horizontal wall fractured. Dark masses began to drop lower into the lighter sky in several places. At first they just looked like more clouds.

Then, one of them became a finger of spinning chaos and snaked downward, moving as if it were a double-jointed talon with a razor-sharp claw at its base, ready to tear at the land below. To rip everything it touched to shreds. To kill anything—anyone—in its path.

Dear Jesus. Maya prayed, pointing, trembling. “Another tornado!”

“I see it.” He slipped his free arm around her shoulders and gave her a supportive squeeze. “Don’t worry. That one’s a long way from here. Judging by the direction everything is moving, it won’t come anywhere near us.”

“I know,” Maya replied, having to fight the lump in her throat in order to speak. “But my oldest brother and his family live out there.”

“Where?”

She shivered, glad he had hold of her as she took a shaky breath and made herself say, “Right at the base of that funnel cloud.”

Greg wished he could control nature, make the storm go away for good. Fortunately, the overall turbulence didn’t seem as if it was going to last much longer.

As they stood and watched, the snaking cord of the latest funnel cloud thinned, broke into sections, then retreated back into the ominous ebony cloud cover until there was no more sign of it.

The worst of the local wind and rain had tapered off, too, leaving stifling humidity. Greg wasn’t sure whether he was still soggy from his trip outside to rescue Tommy or if he was beginning to perspire, now that there was no electricity to run the air-conditioning. Probably both.

He looked Maya up and down, ending his perusal at her feet. “You’ll need some sensible shoes if we’re going to hike to the church from here. Are those all you have?”

“They’ll be fine. I’m used to wearing heels.”

“I know you are. The problem is the mess in the street, not your shoes.”

“I used to keep an old pair of sneakers in the trunk of my car. Unfortunately, I took them out last week.”

“I doubt it matters. Have you checked our parking lot?” He had not done so, either, yet judging by the damage to Main Street, the area at the rear of nearby stores and offices was probably just as big a disaster. If her car happened to be drivable, which was doubtful, there would still be no safe routes in or around High Plains, at least not for a while.

“You know I haven’t.” She made a face at him. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask? Because if you’re done criticizing me, I want to get started.”

“I wasn’t criticizing you, I was being rational. We obviously can’t drive through all this debris, so we’ll have to walk. And the easiest way to get hurt is to not be sure-footed enough. You may have to climb or jump.” He studied her tailored outfit, making note of her slim skirt. “Do you think you can do that?”

“I can do anything that will get me to my daughter,” Maya said emphatically. “I’m going now, whether you come or not.”

Tommy wiggled in Greg’s arms so he lowered him to the floor, keeping hold of his thin wrist so he wouldn’t run away.

“Let go,” the child whined. “I have to go find Charlie. He might be hurt.”

Lots of people might be, Greg thought. He said, “We’ll all look for your dog while we walk over to the church to get Ms. Logan’s little girl. Maybe Charlie went there to guard all the other kids.” He could tell by Maya’s grim expression that she wasn’t buying his theory but as long as Tommy did, that was good enough for Greg.

“O-okay. But if we see Charlie he gets to come, too.”

“Absolutely,” Maya told him, taking his hand and bending to look him in the eyes. “You have to be really good for Mr. Garrison and me, okay? It’s very dangerous out there and if you got hurt, you couldn’t keep looking for Charlie. Do you understand?”

The child nodded soberly, amazing Greg with his sudden acceptance of adult authority. Apparently, if there was a valid reason to obey, Tommy was capable of controlling himself enough to do so. He just wished Maya had interceded in that sane and practical manner before the wild kid had splashed mud all over the sidewalk.

Realizing how trivial his thoughts were in light of the disaster that had just descended upon High Plains, Greg began to chuckle quietly.

Maya arched her eyebrows and gave him a withering look. “What in the world is so funny?”

“I am,” he said, shaking his head and following with more self-deprecating laughter. “I was just thinking about not wanting mud splashed on my office. Right now, I’d willingly settle for a little mud on the outside if that was all that was wrong.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “But if you keep me standing here wasting time for one more minute I’m going to scream. Are you ready to go?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

He left Tommy in her care as he shouldered the damaged front door to force it partway open. Then he motioned and held out his hand.

When she took it to let him assist her and the boy through the narrow opening, he noticed that her slim fingers were clammy and trembling. Considering how scared she must be, especially in regard to her daughter, she was handling her feelings pretty well.

Greg hadn’t been a praying man for a long, long time, but under the circumstances he was tempted to try it, just this once. All he wanted to ask was that Maya’s bravery be honored by a safe reunion with her child. If her God really existed, really cared, she deserved that much at the very least.

Chapter Three

Maya would have run all the way to the church if there had been any way to safely do so. Stepping gingerly and wending her way through the rubble, she was awestruck. So many loose building bricks littered what had once been the sidewalk they had to take to the center of the street in order to pass.

Whole structures had collapsed, and many of those that hadn’t actually fallen had been stripped of portions of their facade, making them barely recognizable.

Broken glass lay everywhere. Cars were smashed, some lying on the sidewalks and lawns where they’d been dropped like discarded toys. Since she couldn’t see any occupants inside the wrecks she could only hope their drivers had sensibly run for cover before the worst of the storm had overtaken them.

Piles of jagged refuse were heaped against the windward sides of anything solid, not to mention the rubbish floating in the High Plains River, near where the lovely, quaint gazebo had stood mere minutes ago.

Greg put out his hand and stopped her. “Wait here with Tommy a second. I think I see movement inside the pie shop. They might be trapped.”

There was no way Maya could bring herself to argue with him when he was bent on doing a good deed. All she said was, “Hurry.”

She knew without a doubt that people could be hurt all over town. Dying. Suffering. That thought cut her to the quick. Many of her friends and neighbors might be in dire straits—perhaps even worse—not to mention her brother Jesse. For the first time since the onset of the tornado, Maya thought of the Garrison family, too.

As soon as he returned and reported that the folks in Elmira’s diner were all right she asked, “Do you think your father is okay?”

“Probably. He’s too mean to die.”

“What an awful thing to say!”

“Just quoting him,” Greg answered, continuing to lead the way east along Main Street. “He’s been saying that for years. Besides, the estate is pretty far out of town. I don’t imagine it was in the storm’s path. At least not this time.”

“I wish I could say the same for the Logan ranch,” she replied. “I suppose there won’t be any way to tell how Jesse and Marie are until communication is restored.”

“Maybe we can hitch a quick ride out that way later and you can see for yourself.”