LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’m sorry.” He stepped aside and took Tommy from her so she could lean far enough to see the area where the old church stood as he said, “The preschool annex looks untouched, too.”

      “Praise God! I have to get Layla.”

      “You can’t go out there yet.” He made ready to grab and restrain her again if it became necessary. “Look. There are power lines down and the wind is still blowing stuff all over. If you don’t get electrocuted, you’re liable to get your head knocked off.”

      “It’s my head. Get out of my way. I’m going.”

      “No!” He reached for her arm but she dodged his grip so he resorted to more reasoning. “You’re the only parent your daughter has. Are you really willing to risk making her an orphan?”

      “Of course not.”

      “Then wait. Think of her.”

      “I am thinking of her. She needs me. You can’t force me to stay here.”

      “I’m not forcing you to do anything. Be sensible. We can see that the church is okay and that’s where she was. Right?” Greg had placed himself between her and the door in the hopes his presence would be enough added deterrent.

      Maya ignored his logical argument and tried to edge around him.

      He sidestepped to continue to block her exit.

      “Move,” she demanded.

      “Okay. Just take a deep breath and listen to me for a second. We’re safe here and Layla is safe there. She needs her mother alive and well, not lying in the street unconscious.”

      “I’m calling the preschool.”

      “Now, you’re being smart.”

      He watched her struggle to pull herself together emotionally and tiptoe cautiously to where her desk had landed, pushed up against the far wall. She found the telephone beside it on the floor and lifted the receiver. It didn’t surprise him when she reported, “No dial tone.”

      “Try my cell if you can find it,” Greg said. “It was in my top, center drawer.”

      Maya circled his heavier mahogany desk, yanked open the drawer with difficulty, found the cell phone and did as he’d suggested.

      Dejected, she grimaced, sighed and shook her head. “No service on that, either.”

      “I suppose the relay towers are down.”

      “That settles it. I’m going over to the church and nobody’s going to stop me.”

      “Then we’ll all go,” he countered.

      “That’s ridiculous. You can’t take Tommy out in this awful wind. He’ll get hurt.”

      “Point taken. Now, you were saying…?”

      “All right, all right.” Maya pressed her lips into a thin line. “You win. For now. But the minute the storm dies down enough that we can safely chance it, I’m going after my little girl. With or without your support.”

      Even if Greg had been able to come up with a more valid argument, he wouldn’t have used it. Maya was like a mother tiger protecting her cub, and he was not about to get between her and her daughter.

      Still, he knew without a doubt that his instincts were on target. She must be prevented from risking her well-being. He didn’t know why he felt so protective of her all of a sudden but he did. And he was stubborn enough to insist on getting his way. This time.

      In the next war of wills they faced, maybe he’d let her win, or at least think she had. In this case, however, he was not about to back down. Lives hung in the balance.

      As Maya stood beside her boss and stared at the havoc the storm had wrought, she was speechless. Breathless.

      The town gazebo had become a scattered mass of wood that looked like a carelessly tossed handful of splintered matchsticks.

      The usually pristine, well-manicured green grass of the park that paralleled Main Street and bordered the High Plains River on the opposite side was strewn with all kinds of materials, including puffy, pink shreds of fiberglass insulation that had apparently been torn from houses nearby. To release that kind of interior construction, Maya knew that roofs and sidewalls of homes had to have been ripped apart.

      And the formerly beautiful trees. She was astounded. “What a shame. Look at the poor cottonwoods.”

      “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

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