Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY
T HE STREETS OF MANHATTAN had been brutal with hundreds of bodies pressed together moving like salmon up a stream. It was as if after an endless stretch of ice and snow, every New Yorker decided to leave their winter-weary burrows and venture out along all the numbered streets they could find. And there were a lot of numbered streets in New York City. For three days, she pressed against strangers while balancing a cup of chai tea, trying to keep her game face on.
Playing the corporate game had exhausted her.
When the plane hit the tarmac at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, she literally felt the stress melt from her shoulders. Back in Texas. Back to slow talking, open land, and sweet iced tea.
And now, as she climbed into her Volvo in the long-term parking lot of DFW, she took a moment to relish the sun-warmed leather seats, the faint scent of fresh cotton from the fragrance clip, and the possibility of miles and miles of open road.
She took a deep breath.
She'd come back to Oak Stand. Sort of.
After paying the exorbitant fee for parking, she headed southeast toward the small town where her son waited. Where Brent waited. Nerves settled like lumps in her stomach, but she ignored them. What she'd done had been for the best. Everything would be okay. It had to be. The decision had been made.
As she looped around 1-635, she noticed dark clouds hanging over East Texas. Dark and ominous, they swelled larger and larger over the silent prairie, causing unease to grow each mile her car traveled. About an hour into her drive, the sky grew darkly pregnant and the wind picked up.
She drove thirty minutes more into the darkening sky before reaching for her phone and giving the voice command that would dial her aunt's cell phone. Screw the warning against using a cell phone while driving. Something told her she needed to check on things in Oak Stand.
The phone rang endlessly before she heard her aunt's voice. The connection wasn't good, but she managed to ask about the weather conditions.
"Honey, I'm leaving Longview with Mrs. Upchurch. Her endodontic appointment ran late and the weather's bad here." Her aunt's voice faded in and out.
"I'm worried about Henry. The bus will pick him up at the school soon, and it looks like a big storm is coming."
"I should be home when he gets off the bus. I think. Isn't Meg there? She said-" Rayne couldn't hear the rest of her aunt's statement after the first drop of rain hit the windshield. Several more large ones plopped against the glass before a deluge opened above her.
"Aunt Fran," Rayne yelled into the phone even though she knew her aunt couldn't hear her. ''Aunt Frances!"
The connection had failed. No sense phoning her back. Not when the rain had gotten so heavy Rayne could barely see the highway in front of her. To try and dial in those conditions would be stupid.
Meg wasn't in Oak Stand. She'd left hours ago for Austin to head up the staff meeting Rayne had postponed four days ago. Rayne had approved the summer menu, but some staffing changes had to be made before the weekend and a distributor contract had to be renegotiated. She and Meg had talked extensively about what needed to be done during Rayne's time in New York. She agreed Meg needed to step in for her and sent her to the restaurant never imagining Aunt Frances would get held up in Longview. Nor had she foreseen an unsettled weather forecast.
She set her iPhone on the console and sent up a quick prayer. Please let Henry be okay. Help him not to be afraid.
Maybe Brent would think about Henry and check on him.
But why would he? After the way they'd left things, what reason did he have to do her any favors? She'd basically taken his offer of a future together and shelved it. The man who'd haunted her dreams since she'd reached puberty had offered her his heart and she'd punted it back to him.
Well, not really, but she certainly hadn't done what he expected. To a degree, it baffled her she hadn’t tossed everything aside for a chance with Brent. Hadn't she secretly dreamed about having Brent to love, even when she wasn't supposed to be dreaming of him? Even when it seemed impossible? On the other hand, it made perfect sense to think hard about what taking a chance with him would mean.
Nothing was a sure thing. She certainly had learned that the hard way. Risk was part of life, and even in her career, she’d hedged bets and rolled the dice. Besides, Brent had understood what she needed. He hadn’t pleaded or tried to talk her into anything she didn’t want. Her decision wasn't capricious, and his willingness to see things from her point of view had only endeared him more to her.
The force of the rain made it hard to hear the words Trisha Yearwood was crooning on the country oldies station.
Fear leaped in her belly.
God, please let Brent think about Henry. Please let someone remember I'm not in town. Let my baby be okay.
She glanced at the clock on the dash-2:35 p.m.
Only twenty-five minutes until the elementary school bell rang and the buses fired up. She'd never make it in time to pick up Henry before the buses departed. And the storm would scare him. But maybe the storm wasn't even near Oak Stand. Maybe it had passed the small town. Just because the weather was horrible along I-20 meant it had rained in her former hometown.
But her gut told her differently. Something felt wrong.
She punched the button that would give her the AM band on the radio and scanned until she found a local station, Eighties rock filled the car, ironically"Rock You Like a Hurricane" played. She sighed and fought to keep the car in her lane. The wind had increased and the gusts swooping over the open pastures on either side of the highway had her gripping the steering wheel for dear life.
A long harsh alarm sounded on the radio, interrupting the iconic song. A flat voice informed her that the National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for Howard County. Several funnels had been spotted over North Havens Road moving southeast toward the town of Oak Stand. All persons in the area were to seek cover and stay tuned to the radio station for further details.
"No," Rayne said to the emptiness of the car."No. Please. No."
The storm was ahead of her. And it was deadly.
Her heart thumped against her chest. Her baby was in the path of a tornado. Dear God.
She looked at the phone sitting in the console. She needed to call somebody, but she hadn't programmed in Brent's number. And she couldn't very well search the internet for the school number while she drove in hazardous conditions. No time to pull over. She had to get to Oak Stand.
Just as her hand hovered over the phone, the ringtone jangled, vibrating the phone against the leather holder.
She snatched the phone, pressing the answer button, even though the number was unfamiliar.
"Hello?”
"Rayne?" Brent called over the thready connection.
"Brent! There's a tornado. Henry's at school. Can you get to him?" she yelled over the pounding rain against her windshield. A gust caught her off guard and blew her car toward the shoulder. The sound of the rumble strips on the shoulder had her jerking the wheel, nearly overcorrecting.She steadied the car, clutching the phone, unwilling to toss it down even if it meant her own safety was at stake. Keeping Henry safe was more important.
She heard Brent saying something, but couldn't make it out.
"What?" she called into the receiver. "Please say it again."
His voice faded in and out. She thought she heard the name ..Henry" but couldn't be sure.
"Please get to him, Brent!" she cried into the receiver.
The connection died and she threw the phone onto the passenger seat next to her purse. Fear pierced her, but she vowed she wouldn't dissolve into tears. She had to keep it together. Keep her cool. Get to Oak Stand.
God, how could this be happening? It was like a bad movie.
She couldn’t drive any faster than she was because visibility was down to almost nothing. A few cars had pulled to the side of the road while others crept like tortoises on the normally speedy interstate. Five miles after she'd lost her connection with Brent, the rain eased slightly. Rayne gunned the car, increasing her speed to eighty miles per hour. She knew it was dangerous, but no longer cared. She had to get to Henry. He wasn't like most kids. With her out of town, he'd be petrified. The Tyler exit appeared in front of her swishing windshield wipers. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Almost there.
Rain still fell and the wind gave periodic gusts, but overall the fury of the storm had fled east toward Louisiana. The music on the radio rattled her nerves but she didn't switch it off in case there were reports from the radio station about the weather. Finally, after Blondie crooned an angsty love song, the local news came on. ''There have been reports of two tornadoes touching down in OakStand. We've been in touch with the police chief Adam Bent, who told us one ripped through the center of town doing damage to several businesses in the area. The other touched down outside of the town and the amount of damage there is undetermined."
"No," Rayne said, hitting the steering wheel so hard her horn sounded, making her jump. "Please let him be okay, God. Please."
She swiped at the dampness in her eyes. She wouldn't cry. Henry was okay. He had to be. And Brent, too. There wasn't an alternative.
And suddenly as the gray landscape rushed past her, all the things she thought so important weren't. Her career, her fears, her hesitation in life. Did she need a hit cooking show on television? For that matter, did she need a successful restaurant? None of those things were more important than her family. None were more important than Henry. Or Brent. How had she ever thought fame and fortune the only path for her? Somehow she’d lost sight of the true meaning of life and let the passion she felt for cooking become the determinant for who she was.
Did she love her work? Of course.
Did she love it more than a sleepy hug from her eight-year-old? More than a sexy kiss from Brent?
No.
"I'm an idiot,” she said to the interior of the car.
She had to get to Oak Stand so she could make everything right again.
About five miles from the city limits of the town, she saw the first signs of the twister. A swath of trees lay broken in half as if an angry child had snapped them out of spite. A piece of tin roof lay in the middle of the lane and she swerved around it, uttering yet another prayer to a God she'd spent so little time conversing with she wondered if He could remember her name.
She hoped He hadn't forgotten her because the damage scared her silly.
A mile from town she saw more debris, limbs strewn like broken toys, a patio umbrella, and outdoor furniture cushions. A tree had fallen across one portion of the road and it was passable only if she took her small SUV on the side of oncoming traffic. She plowed ahead, chanting a mantra of “please, please," under her breath.
She drove past the city limits sign without seeing much damage, giving her momentary relief. But when she passed the Westside Baptist Church and hooked a left, the direction the storm had taken was plainly evident. Broken boards, clothing, and shattered glass littered the town square. The roof to the Curlique had torn clear off. Windows were blown out. It looked like …a tornado had hit.
Holy cow.
She rounded the square, proceeding cautiously around the brick streets, swerving around fallen branches and people standing in the road staring slack-jawed at the smashed window fronts of the businesses. Several signs hung drunkenly, many more lay tossed aside, broken.
The rain and wind had stopped and the small town was absolutely still.
And very much devastated.
Rayne felt her heart contract with apprehension. She didn't know when she'd ever been so scared. Not even when Phillip had died and she'd awakened the next morning to a sobbing five-year-old and the reality of life without her husband. That had been horrible; this was sheer terror. What if something had happened at the school? She remembered a school in Alabama that had its roof blown off, killing several students. Surely, something of that nature hadn't happened in this small Texas town.
"Oh, no," she moaned as she spotted a car crushed by the auto body shop's sign. The steeple was missing from the Oak Stand United Methodist Church. It lay upside down on the newly planted Hope Garden funded by the Ladies' Auxiliary.
She wanted to close her eyes. Pretend the devastation in front of her was a bad dream. How could she have gone from sitting in first class drinking tomato juice three hours ago, to now staring at the raw potency of an angry Mother Nature? Rayne clutched the steering wheel tighter as she turned on Crabtree Street and saw an electrical line lying over the sidewalk. She was only one street from her aunt's. She hesitated for a moment before passing the entrance and veering toward Oak Stand Elementary. As she traveled through the neighborhood that harbored the recently constructed school, she noted thankfully that the damage sustained in this area looked moderate. She drove the puddle-strewn streets dotted with leaves and the occasional limb.
She pulled in front of the school and put the car into Park. The outside of the school was hopping. Parents, clutching the hands of children, hurried away toward idling cars. A few children sat in rows against the brick walls of the school, minded by vigilant teachers milling around looking purposeful. The principal stood outside with a handheld radio. She simultaneously waved through cars blocking the bus loop and gave directions to the security officer who also had a handheld radio.
"Mrs. Trimble," Rayne called, knowing she interrupted the principal's conversation with a harried-looking bus driver. At this point, she didn't care. She needed to see Henry. Needed to be assured he was completely whole and unharmed. "Henry? Is he okay? Did he get on the bus? Or did Aunt Fran-"
The principal held up one hand, halting Rayne's rambling questions. She pointed the driver toward her bus and spun around. "Deep breath, Mrs. Albright. All of the children are fine. A little shook up, but fine."
Rayne nearly hugged the spare woman. "Henry?"
"Your aunt picked him up about twenty-five minutes ago. He's fine."
Rayne didn't wait. She turned and sprinted toward her car. She did manage to call a "thanks" over her shoulder. She'd apologize for her rudeness by baking the woman a cake or two. Better yet, she'd make brownies for the whole staff. But right now, she needed to feel her son in her arms.
She fumbled with the keys, nearly dropping them into a puddle, before unlocking the car and turning the ignition. She made a U-turn in the middle of the street, bypassing a news van from Shreveport. Word traveled fast.
She backtracked her route and swung onto the street where her aunt's home had sat for thirty-three years. She pulled into the drive and released the pent-up breath she'd held all the way down the street. The house had not sustained damage. Small limbs were scattered across the yard and dogwood petals dotted the grass like confetti tossed haphazardly, but the structure was sound. She shut off the car and opened the car door. The world that met her was damp and raw.
Aunt Frances bolted out the door. "Rayne! Oh, thanks be!”
Rayne slammed the car door and headed toward the house but didn't even make it up the steps before her aunt enveloped her in a hug. She rocked her back and forth as if she'd been in mortal danger. Come to think of it, she had been in mortal danger. She'd never thought about how perilous it had been for her to drive in such a storm. Her thoughts had been only for her loved ones.
''Oh, sweet girl. I was worried sick. I knew you were on the way home, but with this wild weather, I had this horrible notion you were in a ditch somewhere. Or in a tree."
Rayne managed a laugh. "I'm fine."
With one last squeeze her aunt let go. ''Thank God."
Rayne moved past her aunt. "Henry? Where is he?"
"He's fine.Better than I would have expected."
Rayne didn't look back. Just moved toward the open door.
"He's not inside. He's over at Brent's helping him clean up a tree that fell."
Rayne spun back to her aunt. "With Brent?"
Her aunt nodded. "That man. I got to the school just as the bell rang and he was already there."
“Brent was already there?" Rayne asked, retracing her steps.
“Yep. I walked up to mass confusion. Parents running hither, thither and yon. Kids crying. Teachers about to pull their hair out, and right in the middle of that bedlam Brent and Henry sat. Just both huddled right up against the hallway wall reading a Sports Illustrated magazine and arguing over which team would make a run for the World Series this year.”
Rayne grabbed her heart."Reading a magazine? In the middle of that chaos?”
“I know.” Her aunt stared out at the front lawn with a frown. A fat branch sat on the newly planted butterfly bush next to the mailbox. “Brent said he couldn't check Henry out because he wasn't on the list of people who could, but he didn't want to leave him. So he got a magazine out of his truck and waited until I got there."
Rayne pressed her lips together and fought the emotion unfurling inside her. Brent had distracted her son from the fear that no double tore through him. He’d given him calm in a storm, literally. “He did that? I don’t know what-”
"Yeah," her aunt interrupted, crossing her arms and contemplating the canopy of the oak above them. "It was almost parental. And that from a man whore. Go figure.”
Rayne stiffened. "He's not that."
"Only repeating what I heard," her aunt said, moving her contemplation from the leaves overhead to her niece. "I don't know too many men who'd do that, unless they were daddies or family relation. He's neither of those. Just someone who cares a great deal about you and that boy."
Rayne looked away. As if she didn't know. As if his declaration of love hadn't been on her mind night and day for the past three days. As if she could get the images of Brent beneath that willow laying his heart bare out of her mind. Even New York City couldn't distract her with its bright lights and strong drinks. When she lay in that hotel in Manhattan visions of Brent had danced in her head. A dream come true. But one she'd been unsure about.
She looked back at the woman who watched her. "I know he does.”
Her aunt nodded. “Glad to see it. Never figured you for much a fool.”
Then her aunt turned on a worn sneaker and walked up the steps of the house. Before entering the front door, she spun and stabbed a finger toward the property next door. "What you're looking for, sugar, is over there. Guess it always has been.”
Rayne almost smiled as her aunt disappeared into the house.
She turned and bolted toward their neighbor, needing to see her son so she could rustled his hair and drop a few kisses on his sweet face. She also needed to see the man who'd come to her son's rescue.
Her prince charming hadn’t been her white knight. No, he’d been her son’s, and somehow that meant more to her than him scooping her onto his steed.
Pretty nice heroics from the man whore of Oak Stand, Texas.