Travis stared up at the bunching clouds. The sky had turned dark gray green. The wind whipped away the heat. A branch snapped and splashed into the creek. He didn’t like the dropping temperature. He pulled the fishing line back to the shore and collected the bucket of caught fish. He’d clean them back at the cabin. He wanted to get there, just in case the weather took a turn for the worse.
He did. He wanted to be with Heaven. One kiss and she’d filled the giant hole left in him from Mary’s devious behavior. Thank You, God. Caleb was right, heaven did wait for him here in Friendship. Now he needed to convince Heaven that being married was the best thing to do. He had a feeling she was going to fight him on this. She kept asking him questions about how to do things so she could do them when he moved on, even though he told her repeatedly he wasn’t budging from this land.
The air felt heavy and thick on his face.
Lightning filled the sky, followed by a volley of thunder close enough to make a hardened soldier jump. The wind rushed around him, pushing him forward, urging him to take bigger strides. The clouds ripped open and sent driving rain so solid it felt like nails piercing his face. He dropped the fish and the pole. Thunder sounded overhead, his ears popped once, then twice, and the sky turned pea green. A loud rushing of wind buffeted his face, making it sting. It grew darker, and it seemed time had skipped ahead to midnight. Then he heard it. Wind that strong had to mean—a tornado!
He ran but gave up and dove for a gulley when the dark gray cloud spiraled just north of him. His breath caught. He wasn’t in danger, but Heaven and Angel were. He struggled against the wind. He had to get to them. The wind knocked him to the ground, and in desperation he crawled toward the cabin and prayed as he’d never prayed before.
The sky had grown darker. Rain again. Heaven was sick of it. She collected her knitting and went inside. “Angel, another storm is coming. Do you think you can get the rocker back inside? It’s heavy, and I don’t think I can help because of my ankle.”
Angel set the doll she’d been playing with on the settee. “I can try.”
Heaven followed her to the porch.
Angel tried pulling, but the rocker barely moved. “It’s too heavy.”
“That all right. Maybe Travis will come back before it rains. I’m sure he’ll notice the clouds piling up. Then he can bring it inside.”
“It won’t hurt it to get a little wet, since it’s just wood.” Angel pushed past her and went back inside and curled up on the couch with her doll.
Heaven shrugged. “I guess it would eventually dry out.” She dropped her knitting basket onto the kitchen table. She touched the coffeepot on the stove to see if it was still warm. It wasn’t hot but warm enough. She flipped over a china cup she left out to dry and filled it halfway. She didn’t want to risk spilling a full cup while she hobbled back to sit by Angel.
She sat next to her sister and set the cup on the small table next to the settee. “Would you like me to read to you while you play?”
“Can you read the story about David killing the giant?” Angel kissed her doll’s cheek. “I like that one.”
“Me, too.” Heaven picked up the heavy Bible from the side table and flipped it open to1 Samuel and turned the pages until she reached chapter seventeen. “Here it is.” She began reading the story and had just reached the part where David asked what the reward would be for killing Goliath when Angel grabbed her arm. “What?”
“My ears are popping. Something’s wrong.” Angel cocked her head.
“What do you mean?”
“I hear something different. Like the wind is going faster than I’ve ever heard it go before. It’s noisy.” Angel paced the floor, fiddling with her ears.
“It’s just the storm.” Heaven placed the ribbon bookmark inside the Bible and closed it. “I’m sure it is.” But Angel might be right. She’d never seen the sky turn so dark in the middle of the day.
“No Heaven. Listen. It’s not just raining. The wind—it doesn’t sound right. We have to get in the cellar.” Angel grabbed Heaven’s hand and pulled. “Please believe me. We have to go now!”
Heaven sprung to her feet and followed her sister. She pulled open the trap door to expose the wooden ladder. “Angel, you go first.” Heaven feared it would take her too long and Angel wouldn’t have time to get down the ladder. At least Angel would be safe in the cellar.
Heaven left the trap door open. She couldn’t close it, because she would have to put more weight on her sore ankle. Just as she made it to the bottom rung, something blew through the window, and shards of glass sailed down the steps.
Heaven screamed. She grabbed Angel around the waist, and the two of them squatted against the back row of shelves holding the canned green beans. Thunder shook the shelves.
A roar rushed over the house. A high pitched screeching made them cover their ears. Then it grew quiet.
“The animals!” Angel grabbed Heaven’s arm and pulled her toward the stairs. “Mr. Jackson was outside!”
“So is Travis, but we can’t go yet. It might not be over.” Heaven yanked Angel back from the bottom stair. They toppled to the dirt floor.
A rush of wind once again roared over their head. And then there was only the patter of rain.
“How did you know we should come down here, Angel?”
“On a walk last spring, Pa and I saw a tree pulled up by its roots. Pa said sometimes wind out here blows hard enough to do that, and if it happened, I should get in the cellar.”
“I’m glad Pa told you, because I didn’t know that.” Heaven couldn’t wait any longer. “I have to see if Travis made it back.”
“I’m coming with you.” Angel hopped off the floor and followed her sister upstairs.
In the kitchen, Heaven grasped Angel’s arm before she went past her. “The glass windows are all broken, and … and nothing is in the right place.”
“But we just made it a home.” Angel’s voice wavered.
Heaven wanted to cry, too. “The front door is gone, and the table is upside down.” A chair leg impaled the glass book case and hung like an oddly shaped coatrack. Then she noticed the cold wind coming from the side where the bedroom was. Only it wasn’t there anymore. The doorway led to the outside.
“Angel, this is bad. Ma and Pa’s room is gone. Just gone. Hold on to my hand, and I’ll tell you what’s happened. I want to go outside and see if any of our things are there.”
“Is Pa and Ma’s picture gone?”
“Probably.” And a lot more. She had left the Bible with their family records on the settee, and it was on its side. The rug under it hadn’t moved, and … She stopped, and Angel bumped into her. “Angel, that is the oddest thing.”
“What?”
“The cup of coffee I was drinking is still sitting undisturbed on the little table. If you only looked at the table and cup, you wouldn’t know anything happened in here.”
She stepped through the doorless opening onto the porch. “The rocker is gone, too.” She’d never be able to get another rocker that brought so much comfort through memories. The sun was now shining as if there had never been a storm. Heaven gazed upon the pieces of the bedroom walls scattered across the yard. There was no sign of the bed or the quilt that had covered it. Something glimmered, and her heart raced. Could it be the photo of her ma and pa? “Wait here, Angel. I think I see something.”
She hobbled down the stairs, ignoring the twinge of pain, stopping where she’d seen the sparkle of glass. She bent down. Her spirit crashed.
“What did you find?” Angel hollered.
“Nothing, just a piece of glass.”
Rain hammered the store windows. Thunder crashed overhead, startling Annabelle with its intensity.
Mrs. Miles grabbed Annabelle’s arm. “Hurry!”
Annabelle slid the pretty dish back on the shelf, giving it an extra push so it wouldn’t sit on the edge. She looked in the direction of where she’d last seen Jake. He wasn’t there. Had he left without them? She turned back as Mrs. Miles again tugged at her arm. “Where’s Jake? Shouldn’t we wait for him?”
Mrs. Miles shook her head and pushed Annabelle toward the front of the store. “He was at the counter conversing with the clerk.”
Jake appeared at her side. “Mother, Annabelle, come on.”
Mrs. Miles pulled at Annabelle’s arm, dragging her forward. “We have to go.”
Annabelle’s mind connected with the warning in Mrs. Miles’s voice. As she rushed for the stairs to the cellar, her coat slipped off her arm. She stopped and turned to go back.
“Leave it!” Jake grabbed her arm and yanked her along with him.
She stumbled forward, looking back at her future disappearing under feet.
After first herding the women into a corner of the store’s cellar, Jake moved closer to the entrance and away from them. Annabelle huddled in the corner next to Mrs. Miles, who clung to her like a wet cloth while her son ignored them both. She couldn’t understand his need to be alone. Except down in this hole in the earth, he couldn’t really distance himself from them. Still, he had managed to remove himself as far as he could.
She must get upstairs as soon as it was safe and get her coat. She hoped everyone thought her breathlessness came from the fear of the storm and nothing else. If they knew or suspected it was more than a coat, it would disappear. The store above them creaked and groaned as the wind pushed and shoved against its wooden sides. Something fell on the floor upstairs. Annabelle jumped.
The coat had to be there. It couldn’t have been caught up in the twisting winds. If it had, she would be forced to go home. Shards of fear hammered against her nerves. Why had she sewn all of her money in the hem? Her desire to get away from her ex-fiancé’s new wife and lead an independent life had led her to act with foolishness.
The tight quarters and smell of fear rode Jake’s bones. He hung his head and studied the dirt floor. He should help calm Annabelle and his mother, but he couldn’t. His only desire was to get out of this town and move on to where no one might find out what had happened on that battlefield. He tapped his foot, eager to get above ground and complete the task he’d come this far to do. With all the prattling from his mother and Annabelle about Heaven on this trip, he’d begun to think he was making a mistake by not marrying her.
He remembered how soft and small her hands were in his and the way she laughed at his silly pranks rather than crying like the other girls. Heaven always looked at him as if he were responsible for all the good in her life. A man could get caught up in feeling like a woman’s hero in moments like that. Those memories had been circulating in his mind for most of the trip.
Then the storm came. He was glad. It reminded him that his reasoning was correct. Heaven shouldn’t be tied to a man like him. He couldn’t even comfort his own mother in a storm. He wasn’t worthy of any woman, much less Heaven. On the inside, he still wore the colors of a coward.