LITMIR.BIZ

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Casey opted to breathe through her mouth to avoid inhaling the musty odor of the cellar. After some time down there, she hoped she wouldn’t even notice it.

      At the bottom of the rickety steps, Casey found a spot on the ground where she could unfold a blanket and hunker down until the coast was clear. The wind was so strong that it felt as if the house was swaying and groaning overhead.

      “Come on out, little one.” Casey opened the carrier and coaxed the rust-colored micro-poodle out onto the blanket.

      She was glad that Hercules was content to curl up in her lap, because she needed his company. He made her feel calmer. With a frustrated, self-pitying sigh, Casey turned on the weather radio and knew that the only thing she could do now was wait and pray.

      * * *

      “I’m so sorry, Brock.” Kay Lynn opened the door to the trailer. “I had to call. I haven’t seen her like this in a while. She was hitting herself and biting her hand again. She’s been in a nosedive for the last hour or so.”

      “Is she in her normal spot?”

      Kay Lynn nodded toward the hallway of the single-wide trailer. Brock walked quickly, but calmly, down the narrow hallway to the spare bedroom. Squeezed between a full-size bed and the wall, his twelve-year-old daughter was curled into a tight ball, rocking back and forth. In front of her, lying on top of Hannah’s feet, was a golden Lab.

      “Good girl, Ladybug.” Brock knelt down, put his hand on the dog’s head for a moment, before he reached out for his daughter’s hand.

      “Hannah,” he said softly. “It’s time to go home.”

      Hannah had been officially diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when she was eight. Her IQ was very high, but there were quirks to her personality that set her apart from other children her age. And, when a storm was coming, Brock always anticipated that she was going to have an off day. If he’d had any idea that she was going to spiral like this, he would have stayed home with her.

      “Come on, baby girl.” He directed the protective dog to move out of the way so he could help Hannah make the transition from the trailer to his truck. “We’re going home.”

      Hannah lifted her head up. Her face, so much like his, was still damp from shed tears. His heart tightened every time his daughter cried. Brock wiped her tears from her cheeks before he lifted her up into his arms and hugged her tightly. The squeezing always calmed her.

      “Why didn’t you come sooner?” Hannah asked when he put her down.

      “I got here as fast as I could.” Brock took her hand in his. “Now, I need you to use your ‘stay calm’ plan on the way home. Okay?”

      Hannah nodded. “Come on, Lady.”

      Now that he had his daughter with him, Brock felt complete. He could handle anything, as long as he had his daughter by his side. He could even handle a messy divorce from Shannon, Hannah’s mother. They were in a custody battle for Hannah and had been for nearly a year. Shannon wanted to move Hannah out to California with her, and it was going to happen over his dead carcass. Hannah was going to stay in Montana, with him, in the only home she’d ever known. Period.

      “You’d better hunker down, Kay Lynn. You’re a sitting duck out here. You could come with us, but you’ve got to come now.”

      Kay Lynn’s silver-streaked hair blew around the sunken cheeks of her face. She waved her hand as if she could bat away the tornado with her rough-skinned fingers. “That tornado don’t want none of me, Brock. You go on and get Hannah home. I’ll be right as rain.”

      There was no sense wasting time trying to convince Kay Lynn to leave her home—she was as much a part of the prairie surrounding the old trailer as was the willowy Junegrass. He’d offered, but knew she wouldn’t take him up on it.

      With a quick wave to Hannah’s sometimes babysitter, Brock bundled Hannah into the truck and headed back to his little Montana spread. They didn’t see much more than a few drops of rain on their short drive back. Brock pulled into the gravelly driveway that led to their farmhouse knowing that they were in a lull. The clouds above were still churning and angry, and it was only a matter of time before the wind would start howling again. They were in the most dangerous time of a tornado, the time when many folks get fooled into thinking that the threat was over, when in actuality it was just about to begin.

       Chapter Two

      “It’s time for our storm plan, Hannah. Tell me what we need to do.” Brock pulled the screen door open to their house. The rain was still misty, but he knew from experience that that could change on a dime.

      Hannah was faithfully rattling off the steps of their storm plan when they reached the foyer safely. They had created the storm plan years ago, not only to keep safe, but to keep Hannah feeling calm and in charge during an emergency.

      “Good job, baby girl.” Brock shut the door firmly behind them. Now that they were inside the house, he could take his anxiety level down a notch.

      Hannah was on the ground yanking off her wet boots and he was knocking the excess water off his cowboy hat when he heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Brock hung his hat on a hook by the door before he walked around the corner toward the sound of the noise.

      “Oh!” Casey exclaimed, balancing a full glass of water in one hand and Hercules in the other. “Hey! You’re back!”

      “Why aren’t you in the cellar?”

      “The rain and the wind stopped, so I figured we were in the clear,” she explained to him offhandedly on her way to greet his daughter. “You must be Hannah. I’m Casey. I’ve heard so much about you from my sister, Taylor.” Casey smiled at the preteen who was nearly as tall as she was. “And this is the awesome Hercules.”

      Casey knew from her sister that Hannah was on the spectrum, so she understood when Brock’s daughter didn’t look her in the eye. She also knew that Hannah loved animals and it showed by the way Hannah reached over to gently pet Hercules.

      “You can get acquainted in the cellar.” Brock moved behind his daughter and put his hands on her shoulders. “It may look like it now, but we’re not in the clear.”

      “No?” Casey asked him.

      “No,” he reiterated. “We all need to get down in the cellar. Now.”

      * * *

      For two hours, the three of them hunkered down in the cellar while the worst of the storm stalled in their region of the state. The wooden house creaked and groaned as the storm reenergized. She couldn’t see it, but she had been able to hear that the force of the wind was blowing debris against the sides of the house. Casey was grateful that fate had landed her in Brock’s cellar instead of being stranded out on a desolate road in a rented moving van. But her gratitude was beginning to give way to discomfort and claustrophobia. It was cool and damp down in the cellar—her skin felt clammy and she still felt chilled even after Brock gave her a blanket to wrap around her shoulders. Worse yet, the air was stuffy, and even though she had hoped she would be able to eventually ignore it, she hadn’t grown accustomed to the smell at all. It was reminiscent of her middle school locker room—body odor and dirty socks.

      “Do you think it’s safe to go up yet?” Casey asked her host expectantly.

      It had been at least fifteen minutes since the wind had knocked anything into the exterior of the house. The pounding sound that the driving rain had made as it pummeled Brock’s antiquated farmhouse had died down.

      “Give it a few more minutes. The last funnel touched down mighty close to here.”

      With a heavy sigh, Casey shifted her body to take pressure off her aching tailbone. Sitting on the floor had stopped being a fun option when she reached her thirties. She preferred a comfy couch or squishy chair. Sitting on the floor was for the birds.

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