by Lily George
Ada’s heart pounded. She squinted as she looked around. Surely her stepdaughter had stayed at the schoolhouse. Miss Carlyle seemed too sensible a creature to allow her students to leave shelter when such a dreadful storm was looming. On the other hand, the storm had come up so quickly. Was it possible Laura had left before things looked bad?
Through the lashing rain, Ada peered at the ditch ahead of them and caught a glimpse of black and gray. “Laura!” she cried, tears of relief mingling with the raindrops coursing down her cheeks. “Jack, stop! I see Laura up ahead.”
She dropped the canvas and leaped down from the carriage without bothering to wait for Jack to halt the horses. She slipped and slid, twisting her ankle violently and tearing her skirt on a corner of the buggy. She cupped both hands over her mouth. “Laura,” she yelled with all her might. Then she moved forward as fast as the storm would allow her with an injured ankle.
Laura was huddled against a fence post, her eyes squeezed shut. She looked as though she were sleeping—or worse. “Laura,” Ada screamed again. “We came for you, darling.”
She fell to her knees beside her stepdaughter, catching her in her arms. Laura opened her eyes. “Ada? I didn’t think you would come. I thought the storm was too strong. Where’s Father?”
“I’m here.” Jack slowly lowered himself beside them. “We are safe.” He took them both in a strong embrace, and they huddled together. He pulled the oilcloth over them as a makeshift shelter.
As suddenly as it had begun, the rain and hail stopped. The wind ceased to howl, and all became quite still and calm across the prairie. The storm had ended. They would be able to go home now and change into dry clothes, and find some way to get out of the mess Ada had gotten them all into when she failed in her part of the bargain.
Jack pulled away from them slightly, tugging the oilcloth from over his head as he stared intently up into the sky. The wind began to howl anew, making eerie, moaning sounds. Ada shivered.
“Tornado,” Jack muttered. He pointed at a patch of dark, greenish-looking clouds. “We’re going to have to hunker down.”
As Ada watched, a tongue of clouds swirled low and touched the earth. It was the most bizarre, surreal thing she had ever beheld. The howling intensified, sounding for all the world like the train whistle as the train pulled in to Winchester Falls station.
She had never seen a tornado before. She never knew such a thing existed. Jack, however, looked more alarmed than he had on this entire journey. His green eyes were narrowed against the wind, and his complexion was drained of color. Behind them, the horses broke free of their reins. They took off across the prairie, dangling one long strap of leather. The buggy bounced crazily behind them, teetering on two wheels.
“Get down in the ditch,” Jack commanded as he jerked Laura up from her huddled position. He grabbed Ada’s hand and tugged her down to the watery ditch below. He threw both of them facedown and then covered them, lying between them and draping the oilcloth over them.
“Why can’t we run?” Ada demanded. This was all so strange. Surely, even without the buggy, they could outrun that strange mass of clouds.
“There’s no time. We are safer in the ditch.”
She didn’t see how, but Jack knew the prairie better than she did. So she hunched down under the oilcloth and took Laura’s hand in hers. Her daughter said nothing, but she shivered violently.
After a few moments, Ada moved forward gingerly to peek out from under the canvas. The tornado had gone back up into the clouds, and she breathed deeply with relief. “We’re safe,” she cried. “It’s gone.”
“I don’t trust it.” Jack didn’t budge. “Tornadoes are mighty unpredictable. Stay down, Ada.”
Ada followed his directions. She would not argue with Jack, certainly not now when they were facing definite disaster. It was her fault that they were in this mess. Had she gone to pick Laura up in the buggy, they could have sheltered in place at the schoolhouse until the storm passed.
Ada glanced up. The tongue of clouds came back down from the sky, closer than before. The train-whistle sound caused the hair on Ada’s neck to stand up. She pulled Jack and Laura into her embrace, holding them as tightly as she could.
Please, God, save us all. She began praying silently, but then spoke it aloud, over and over as a litany. Laura joined in her prayer, her teeth chattering so loudly that her words made little sense. At length, Jack joined in. Ada’s heart surged as she heard his strong voice take up her prayer.
Here, in a water-filled ditch, as a tornado barreled across the prairie, they had become a family.
If only, through His grace, they could make it through this together.
She dared not look up. She could only pray. She could only hold on to her small family for dear life. She held Laura tightly and cradled her head against Jack’s chest, taking care not to put any pressure on his injured ribs.
The screaming wind died away, and cold dread filled Ada. Before, that silence meant that the tornado was gathering strength. It must be about to touch down again.
Jack rose carefully, fixing his eyes on the sky. “It’s over.”
Ada brought herself to a kneeling position. “Are you certain?” It was true, this calm didn’t feel quite as eerie as the first, but she would never trust her own instincts again. Not after this day.
“Yep. This is the calm after the storm.” He helped Laura to sit up.
They remained silent for a few moments, disheveled and rain soaked. Ada glanced down at her hands. They were streaked with mud and bleeding from scratches.
She was here with her family. Of course, she had other family elsewhere. Violet and Delia were tucked away safely in private school. Aunt Pearl had sheltered somewhere, no doubt. This was, though, the first time that she had really considered Jack and Laura to be her kin. It was a strangely warm and yet terrifying emotion.
What if neither of them reciprocated the feeling?
When her nerves had calmed to the point that she could speak without bursting into tears, Ada turned to Laura. “Why did your teacher allow you to leave? Wouldn’t it have been safer to stay at school?”
Laura shook her head. “The storm hadn’t started when we left. It just looked like it might rain.” She stared down at her sodden dress. “I hope my friends were able to get home safely.”
Her friends. A sob choked in Ada’s throat. Laura was making friends despite her stepmother’s anxiety about the prospect.
“It’s a good thing we found you before the tornado hit,” Jack replied tersely. He pointedly looked away from Ada as he rolled up the wet oilcloth. “This is exactly the reason why I don’t want you walking to and from school by yourself.”
Ada’s heart sank. Now that the crisis was over, they had to deal with the very real problem of losing Laura to boarding school. “Your father is right,” she admitted, her voice quavering. “I should not have allowed it. I thought this land was as safe as one of the parks back in New York. I was terribly wrong. I put you in unnecessary danger, Laura. I put your father in peril as we chased across the land trying to find you. I’m so sorry. I can’t apologize enough—to both of you.”
She could not bring herself to look at either one of them. Instead, she attempted to rub the mud off her hands onto her soaking-wet skirt.
“It’s not your fault, Ada.” Laura patted her arm.
The gentle gesture made tears spring to Ada’s eyes. She would not cry. Weeping like a baby would not cure any of these problems.
Jack didn’t say a word in reply to her apology. Instead, he hefted the oilcloth under his arm.
“We better start walking,” he announced, his voice tight. “We’ve got to see if the ranch is still standing.”
She had not considered that. All her energy had been bound up with finding Laura and making sure that they survived the storm as best as they could. What if something happened to their home?
She nodded and held out her hand to Laura. Together, they trudged down the muddy road, sl
ipping and sliding. The horses and buggy were nowhere to be seen. They would have to hike all the way back to the ranch, which was now over a mile away.
Suddenly, marching in a women’s suffragist parade didn’t seem that brave. The slow steps she had taken that day, proudly holding a banner aloft as she sang “Daughters of Freedom” as loudly as she could, seemed easy compared to plodding along in the mire. Back then, she had been pelted by rotten tomatoes thrown by jeering bystanders. She would relive the humiliation of that fear a hundred times over if it meant never feeling this helpless and frightened again.
What if something terrible had happened to the ranch?
She thought she had weathered the worst of the storm. Living through it, however, was not the worst part. No, what scared her most was the anticipation of what had happened while they were huddled together in the ditch, trying to survive.
What if, while finding each other, they had lost everything else entirely?
*
Numbness settled over Jack, wrapping him in several layers of cotton, dulling his senses. Sounds and sensations were muffled. Nothing was sharp or clear, not even the sight of a piece of straw driven through a fence post. Twisters inflicted strange types of disaster. Anyone who had lived through a Texas spring knew that.
Laura was safe. Despite trying to walk home in the jaws of a terrible storm, she had survived. Ada had pulled through, too. The two women of his household had managed themselves very well. Emily would have fainted. Then, in the midst of the calm after the storm, she would have thrown a fit. At least Laura and Ada were taking the event in their strides.
They crested the field that looked over the ranch, and Jack paused. He scanned the entire view for signs of devastation. The Stillmans’ tree break had been damaged. Instead of being knocked down all of a piece, some trees had been uprooted and tossed aside like playthings while the ones beside them remained untouched. Fences were down everywhere.
The ranch still stood, though not unscathed. The cedar-shake roof had been peeled back in a couple of places, but the house looked all right beneath the damage.
Ada stood beside him, looking over the view. She gasped, her hand covering her mouth.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded, looking again. The ranch was all right. Why was she so upset?
She shook her head, pointing at the hilltop beside the house. The chapel, a promising skeleton earlier in the day, lay in pieces. From their vantage point, it was as if a bomb had been dropped in the midst of construction. Everything, even the foundation, would have to be rebuilt.
“It will be all right.” He couldn’t have her bursting into tears now. Yes, they knew that the ranch was all right, but they had no idea if all the people at home were safe. “We’ll just start over.”
“We promised that we would be done in time for the preacher’s arrival.” Ada’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t see how we can start over and make that time frame.”
“Don’t cry,” he ordered fiercely. He could stand anything but her tears at the moment. There was too much still left to see and determine. “Everything will be fine.”
Laura clung to Ada’s side, burying her face in Ada’s rain-soaked skirts. Both of them likely thought he was being as temperamental as Asesino. This was how a man should face disaster, though. He couldn’t just go to pieces because the shell of a building had been destroyed. There were much bigger matters at stake.
He motioned for them to follow and made his way slowly down the hill. The numbness was ebbing, replaced by a stabbing pain that jolted with every step he took. He must have reinjured at least one rib during the storm. That meant more time being laid up, stuck in a plaster cast, while St. Clair and that attorney of his tried to take Laura away. He could have shouted in frustration, but that wouldn’t help. He would just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until they reached the house and, after that, day by day until this whole mess reached its conclusion.
Following a small eternity punctuated only by the sounds of Laura and Ada sniffling, they made it back to the ranch. Macklin was standing in the front yard, giving orders to a group of hired hands that were gathered around him. As soon as he spotted Jack, a look of sheer relief crossed his rugged face.
“Well, I’ll be side-gaited,” he hollered. “We wondered what became of y’all. Did you make it to the schoolhouse?”
“Nope.” Jack held out the oilcloth. “We stayed under this in a ditch until the storm passed. The horses and buggy are gone. We’ll have to send out a search posse to find them.”
Macklin nodded. “We’ll put a team of men on it. Say, Boss, perhaps you should rest awhile. You look peaked.”
Jack waved his hand tiredly. “No. I’m the man of this house.” He couldn’t resist cutting his eyes at Ada as he said it. Yes, it was petty, but he had been through a lot that day. “Ada and Laura, you two go inside and change out of your wet clothes. Have Maggie start brewing some strong coffee.”
Ada nodded, and if she was offended by his jabs at her expense, she held her tongue. She put her arm around Laura and led her inside. After the front door closed behind them, Jack turned back to Macklin.
“Some of Laura’s school friends walked home, too. I’m worried those kids ended up riding out the storm by themselves. Maybe the best thing to do is have a bunch of men ride out to see all the damage and look for anyone who was stranded. The storm came up so suddenly, I reckon a lot of people were caught unawares.”
Macklin nodded and motioned to the hands. “Grab your horses. We’ll meet back here in a few minutes.”
Jack watched as the men strode off. “Everything okay here?”
“Lost some part of the roof,” Macklin replied, pointing up at the damage. “But everything else seems all right. We haven’t checked on the cattle yet, though. We had just gathered up when you all came home. We were going to send a search party after you.”
“Thanks,” Jack replied. He could always rely on Macklin to stay calm in an emergency. That was why he’d made the man his lead hand when he bought the ranch. “Gotta say, I think I hurt myself. I’m not sure I can ride for the pain. If you have a chance and you see Doc, would you send him up to the house?”
“’Course.” Macklin paused for a moment, his brow furrowed with confusion. “Now, didn’t you have Pearl Colgan with you?”
Jack shook his head. “Why?”
“Some of the hands saw her go streaking across the pasture on that horse of hers,” Macklin replied. “It was after you left, before the storm got real bad. I thought maybe she had gone to find you or to fetch Miss Laura. Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe good sense got the better of her.”
“Maybe so.” But he doubted it. Like his wife, Pearl would go after someone in distress even if it put her in harm’s way. His stomach dropped like a stone. “Y’all haven’t seen her since?”
“Naw,” admitted Macklin, shrugging his shoulders. “But if you didn’t see her on the way home, then I reckon she turned around. You go on up to the house, Boss. I’ll send the doctor your way if I see him.”
“Thank you.” Jack turned to go inside. Then he paused. “You know, I don’t hurt so bad. I’ll join you.”
If Pearl Colgan was missing, then he would help find her. Ada didn’t need to know about any possibilities like that. She had been through enough that day.
“If you’re sure,” Macklin said.
“Sure enough,” Jack replied.
Chapter Thirteen
Ada and Laura entered the house only to be engulfed in hugs by Cathy and Maggie. Ada was astounded. Never had she been embraced by servants before. Even the long succession of nannies and governesses through her childhood had been quite strict and standoffish with the Westmore girls. She patted both women’s shoulders, marveling at the free-and-easy manner of Texans.
“We were so worried about you,” Cathy cried. Her eyes were a telltale shade of red. “I thought for sure you’d be hurt.”
Ada’s ankle gave a painful throb
, a reminder that she wasn’t completely unscathed. “It looks like everything weathered the storm, except parts of the roof,” she said, wrapping her arm around Laura’s shoulder. “Is everyone here all right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Maggie spoke up. “We made it to the root cellar in time. The men were going out to check the animals, and they already told us that the chapel had been hit.”
“It was.” Ada struggled to keep her voice soft and even. She had already given in to tears once, and she would not let her anguish show again. There was too much to do. First, they would change into dry clothes. Then she would meet Jack and start making a list of repairs to be done. She would work on organizing the tasks for the hands, the servants and the family.
“Cathy, would you draw some warm baths for Laura and myself? We were soaked to the bone. Maggie, start brewing a large pot of coffee. When I’m bathed and dressed, I shall take a bracingly hot cup of tea. I do not share the Texan love for coffee in the middle of the afternoon.”
Both women nodded and scurried off to do her bidding. She turned to Laura.
“Come, darling, let’s go upstairs. You can change out of your wet things and wrap yourself in a blanket until your bath is ready.”
Laura gave a tired nod. Streaked with mud as she was, and with those large purple rings under her eyes, she looked like a little street urchin. Ada helped her up the stairs and to her own bedroom.
“Ada, do you mind staying with me? I don’t want to be alone.” Laura paused on her threshold, looking up at Ada with a pleading expression on her face.
“Of course.” Ada followed her stepdaughter inside, settling down on a rocking chair in the corner.
Laura changed out of her wet things and wrapped herself in a quilt. She lay on her bed as Ada rocked. The quietness of the room was such a marked contrast to what they had endured that day. It was difficult to believe that the attorney’s visit, the storm and the tornado had all happened on the same day—and that the day had not yet ended.
