Chapter Eight

Cherry-scented bathbomb and soft instrumental music helped Quinn relax after a busy Saturday running errands for her grandparents.

Her phone buzzed, and she peeked over the lip of the tub to check the sender. It was a group text from her girlfriends. A tad disappointed, she'd hoped it might be Dre. They'd exchanged phone numbers the day he stopped by to thank her for driving Jamaal home from school. That had been a couple of weeks ago, and they'd texted most days since. He planned to be in town this weekend because it was the Scorpions' bi-week and mentioned repairs he needed to do at Chasing Time but asked if she'd be available to do something Sunday.

She couldn't believe he'd asked. He could spend time with any woman he chose. A part of her loved that he seemed interested in her, another part of her sounded warnings in her head that he was an athlete, and still, another part said he wouldn't be playing football forever. Torn, she decided to just enjoy whatever time they spent together.

Thunder rumbled and shook the house. The lights blinked, yet stayed on. The chaotic weather didn't surprise her. The weather app on her phone had predicted evening storms.

A loud clap of thunder made her wince. The stained-glass window over the tub rattled. She opened the drain, stood, and dried off with a towel. Swiftly pulling on cotton pants and a sleeveless turtleneck, she ran a comb through her hair and brushed her teeth.

As she exited the bathroom, sirens blasted.

Blaring came from the TV, her phone she'd left in the bathroom, and from outside.

"Tornado," Grandpa shouted. He rolled the chair, the one they should've gotten rid of after Grandma fell out of it, from the kitchen. "Oh, good, you're already here." He navigated the chair to the end of the hallway, and Grandma followed him. He held it steady while she sat, then he hustled past Quinn. "Help me, dear."

Quinn trailed him to the bedroom she used. He threw off the comforter and clutched one end of the full-size mattress. She instantly understood and grabbed the other side. They carried it into the hallway.

More thunder rattled the windows, and the harsh sirens continued.

"Where's Agnes?" Grandma shouted.

"I'll find her." Quinn ran into the living room. "Agnes. Here, kitty." She did a quick scan, not seeing the cat.

Howling winds moaned and branches from the trees outside thrashed against the house as she darted into the kitchen. No Agnes.

Turning to leave, a piercing crack sounded a second before a crash of glass exploded behind her.

Flinching, she covered her head.

Shards sprayed across her backside. Blustery wind whipped around her.

"Quinn," her grandfather called. "Are you all right?"

She glanced back to see the glass from the kitchen window had been destroyed by a huge tree branch that was now stuck in the frame.

"I'm fine!" She searched the floor to avoid any glass shards as she carefully tip-toed out of the room.

When she returned to the hallway, Grandpa came out of the dining room and motioned to their bedroom. "Check under our bed."

She darted into the tiny room. Both the bedrooms were only big enough for a bed, a nightstand, and a chest of drawers. She quickly got to her knees and pulled up the bed skirt. Green eyes met her. "Found her!"

The tempest outside and the siren noise were a constant bombardment.

The cat scooted farther back.

"Come here, sweetie. Here, kitty." Quinn flattened on the carpet and crawled like a worm to get the top of her body underneath the bed. The cat hissed. "I know you're scared, Agnes." Quinn reached out with her hands.

Agnes screeched and attacked, scratching Quinn's hand. Her claws bit into Quinn's skin.

"Ouch." The pain didn't stop her from grabbing the cat. "I'm doing this to save you whether you like it or not." She scooted backward as the cat fought her. Once out from under the bed, she carefully stood holding the cat away as it struggled to get loose.

She hurried out of the bedroom.

"Oh, thank you." Grandma reached for the cat. Quinn handed it over.

A deafening boom roared over the sirens.

"Hurry." Grandpa grabbed one side of the mattress, and Quinn gripped the other. They backed up with it, each ending up on a side of Grandma. They sat and propped the mattress from the floor to the wall over them. Grandma had to bow her head because of the tight fit. It was inches shy of the width of the hallway.

The floor, the earth, trembled.

Quinn butted her back to the wall and bent her knees to her chest, maintaining a grip on the mattress to keep it in place. She held on for dear life.

Suddenly, they were in total darkness. The sirens ceased.

Silence.

The next second, it sounded like a train was running through the hallway.

Glass shattered.

The cat snarled.

Grandma prayerfully chanted; her words drowned out by a barrage of ear-splitting sounds of violent destruction.

~

Tiny's bar was slowthis early on a Saturday night. Dre and his friends—Zack, Kasey, and Kasey's cameraman Ed, had the pool table section to themselves. Mike Marshall, a friend of theirs from high school, owned the place but wasn't working tonight.

Thunder rumbled over the country music.

Kasey pocketed the eight ball with a stop shot.

"When did you play last?" Dre asked.

"Last year."

His friend had an uncanny ability to play any sport well without practicing.

"You're a freak," Dre said. "Instead of performing dangerous stunts, your reality show should follow you while you play different sports around the world. I'd bet money you can compete against any pro in just about every sport."

Kasey smirked. "Even sumo wrestling?"

"I've seen you wrestle your brothers." Zack saluted with his soda bottle. "You'd win. No question."

They laughed.

"Zack, remember when I told you I thought I saw Mac?" Dre blurted out.

Zack nodded.

"It was him. He's back in town."

Kasey whistled. "What the hell does he want?"

"Claims he wants a second chance. If so, he's going about it the wrong way. The first thing he did was flatten two of Knox's tires so Jamaal would be waiting at the school alone. He tried to lure the kid into his Hummer."

"Odd thing to do if he wants to make up for everything he's done." Kasey leaned over to line up another shot.

"My mother wants us to give him a chance."

"I love Mama B," Zack began, "but not sure I agree with her on this."

The bartender turned down the music and increased the volume on the big-screen TVs mounted on the walls throughout the bar. A news reporter stood in front of a map showing various colors and arrows while a warning crawler crept across the bottom of the screen. "If you live or work anywhere near Windsor Heights, take cover now. A tornado is fast approaching."

"Damn." Zack, who'd just become a volunteer firefighter, rested his pool stick against the table and charged toward the door. "I've got to go. On the forty."

"On the forty," Dre and Kasey called back. It was their way of saying goodbye to each other and meant they were always there for one another. They'd started doing that the day Zack threw a ball to Kasey on the forty-yard line and they'd qualified for the state football championship.

Ed motioned to Kasey and followed Zack. "Drive me to Windsor Heights."

"He's a storm chaser." Kasey trotted to catch up to Ed.

Dre checked the map on the TV again. Wait. Windsor Heights was close to where Quinn lived.

He sent off a quick text to her. You all right?

Instead of waiting for a reply, he ran out of the club and to his truck. During the half-hour drive, a steady drizzle fell. The worst of the weather had passed. He bypassed Windsor Heights and entered her subdivision.

The neighborhood was ominously dark. Street lights were out. Electricity had to be off. He inched forward slowly, his headlights the only illumination. He turned onto Quinn's street where multiple rescue vehicles' flashing lights cast a sickening glow on everything.

His throat tightened.

One side of the road looked like a scene from an apocalyptic movie. Trees crisscrossed yards and toppled onto houses. Some homes appeared to be intact with only a bit of damage, while others were flattened. The other side of the street looked untouched except by random tree branches.

Rescue teams were hard at work chain sawing destroyed trees into manageable sections, moving them to the curb, and piling up pieces of crushed roofs and walls.

He wanted to get to Quinn's quickly while fearing what he might find. The fact she hadn't texted him back worried him.

At his first glimpse of the Weldon property, dread clutched his insides.

The roof and two outside walls of the house were gone, leaving a layer of attic insulation on everything like pink snow. A tree had crushed the garage. Quinn's Mini Cooper sat in the driveway with a shattered windshield.

Quinn stood with Ivan and Estelle in the front yard, a firefighter with a captain's helmet between them and the house.

Dre parked, jumped out of his truck, and dodged debris. He passed a firetruck with an open compartment filled with blankets. He snatched three and raced toward Quinn, darting around workers and scattered wreckage.

"Quinn," he called.

She turned. Her stunned expression struck him like a hit in the chest without pads. Wet with her blonde hair a windblown mess, she looked like a bedraggled genie in a sleeveless turtleneck and pajama pants, no shoes on her feet.

He ran up to her and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and over her soaking-wet body.

"Dre," she whispered and blinked, her eyes dazed. "The house."

"Mrs. Weldon," the fire captain said to Estelle, "you can't go back inside. It's not safe."

Dre held out a blanket to the captain, who draped it over the older woman.

She clutched the blanket ends to her chest. "You can't keep me out of my own house!"

They continued to argue, the captain refusing to let Estelle step around him. Ivan stood motionless as a statue as he stared at what was left of the house. Dre draped a blanket around his back and shoulders.

Quinn watched her grandmother with widened eyes.

"Come sit in my truck," Dre urged, hoping to distract her. He took a few steps toward the street, but she didn't follow. Her eyes were glued on Estelle.

He slipped his arm around her and felt her body shaking. Her distress streaked through him like lightning. He remembered she didn't have shoes on. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her. When she rested her head on his shoulder, he caught a whiff of her cherry scent and something inside him calmed, quieted. He couldn't voice what it was. Relief maybe? He opened the passenger door and lifted her onto the front seat.

The storm brought in a cool front, lowering temps by thirty degrees, and since she was drenched, she must be freezing. After closing her door, he sprinted around the vehicle to start the engine and turned on the heat. "I'll be right back."

Estelle's rant continued as firefighters dressed in full gear filed in and out of the house, dodging her and the captain.

He neared and quietly murmured, "Ivan."

Ivan glanced at him. "Dre? What are you doing here?" The poor man hadn't noticed Dre when he placed the blanket on him.

"I wanted to check on you. Quinn and I are in my truck. Would you and your wife like to join us? It's warm."

The old man softly put his arm on Estelle's shoulder.

She spun toward him and yelled, "What?"

Ivan took her hand in his. "Come."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"We aren't leaving," Ivan explained. "Just getting out of the cold."

And out of the way. Dre didn't speak his thought aloud—afraid she'd direct her fury at him.

Once they were settled inside his truck, he cracked his window to hear if anyone called for them.

"It's warm enough." Quinn reached over and turned off the heat, then pointed. "Gill has Agnes. I wasn't sure we'd ever see her again after she jumped out of your arms, Grandma."

Gill's porch had collapsed on top of the vintage motorcycles, while the rest of the house looked untouched. Gill sat on the curb staring at the rubble petting the black cat.

Words eluded Dre. He'd been to places hit and destroyed by hurricanes, floods, and fires. Growing up in southeast Texas, he'd witnessed people go through weather catastrophes. He remembered evacuating more times than he could count and helping hundreds of people in the aftermath of disasters.

But this was different.

Was it the tornado's destruction, or because it happened to Quinn, that struck him to his core?

~

After an hour of beinginside Dre's truck, where no one uttered a word while easy-listening music played, Quinn watched a fireman approach Dre's door. Dre hit the button to roll down the window.

The fireman pointed at the house. "While we were inside, another part of the ceiling fell. It's unsafe. We can't do more here until daybreak. We're going to see how we can help down the road."

A door opened, and the light inside the truck came on. Grandma slid out of her seat and slammed the door. The fireman at Dre's window rushed around to cut her off.

Quinn took a deep breath and opened her door.

"Stay inside, honey. She won't listen to either one of us," Grandpa warned.

She wasn't sure what to do in this no-win situation but closed her door.

"You know what selfish thought keeps running through my mind?" Grandpa asked.

"What?" She turned to face him. He seemed to have aged twenty years in the last hours.

"How happy I am Betsy wasn't in the garage."

A sad smile came to her lips.

"You're not being selfish," Dre assured him. "You're recognizing the bright side, Ivan."

Grandpa nodded and got out.

While she turned toward the front, Dre's gaze caught hers. "He's a glass-half-full kind of man."

"He has to be with Grandma acting the way she is."

"What about you, Quinn?"

"Depends on the situation."

"What about this situation?"

"I'm struggling to be half full. I can't deny I'd like to search for my purse and phone. Some shoes and dry clothes would be nice." Her breath expelled in a rush. "How do we get a hotel room without a credit card or ID? I'm sure the insurance company will cover it."

He reached out and placed his hand over hers. "I texted my mother about your ... situation, and she has rooms for you to stay in the apartments at Chasing Time. It might be more convenient to stay there instead of a hotel. You'll be around other people and won't have to worry about meals."

The warmth of his touch seeped through her pores. She stared at him. His eyes appeared black in the dark truck interior.

It was lovely of Dre's mother to offer them a place to stay. But Quinn remembered how Grandma refused to even look at the pamphlets from Chasing Time and her sour expression when she spoke to Dre about the place.

Her ears roared with the sound of the tornado again. It'd been happening every ten minutes or so. Something clogged her throat.

"I ... I ..." She couldn't get enough air to speak.

He picked her hand up and sandwiched it between his. "Breathe with me, sweetheart." He inhaled.

Watching his chest, she followed his instructions.

"Good, honey. Again."

His gentle ways and comforting presence soothed her. Well, soothed her as much as possible having just survived a natural disaster. "I keep hearing the sound. It's as people say. I could've sworn a train was bursting through the house..."

He squeezed her hand as she told him everything that happened, never having gushed with this kind of adrenaline and emotion before. After a few minutes, she began to run out of steam. Dre listened intently, his eyes never leaving hers.

When she ran out of words, he said, "You're safe. There'll be no more storms tonight."

Though warm, her body still trembled. She wondered if it would ever stop.

Movement outside caught her attention. Her grandparents approached from where Gill still sat gazing at his house with Agnes nestled in his arms. She turned her hand over, linked her fingers through Dre's, and squeezed before releasing him.

The next instant, the back door opened and Grandpa helped Grandma inside. Then he hustled around and got in on the other side. "Gill's going to bring Agnes to his brother's house in Galveston. He's just waiting for him to arrive. The firemen offered to take us to a shelter."

Grandma grunted. "We need a phone to call the insurance company."

Dre held out his phone to her.

She grasped it.

He opened his door. "I'll find out what time the firefighters will be back tomorrow."

"Thank you," Grandpa responded as Dre hopped out.

Grandma glared at the iPhone in her hand, and for the first time, vulnerability replaced her fury. "I don't know how to use a phone like this." They had an old flip. "Or the number for the insurance company. It's in the blasted house."

"I can easily find it on Dre's phone," Quinn offered. "But I doubt we can get much done tonight. Mrs. Biel offered us a place to stay at Chasing Time."

"No." Grandma shook her head. "We don't need to go there."

"Dre pointed out it might be a helpful choice since we wouldn't have to worry about meals," she returned.

"Staying there would be easier than a hotel." Grandpa rubbed his forehead. "Especially since we don't have ID or clothes or—"

"Stop," Grandma yelled. "I know we have nothing."

He leaned over and tenderly uttered, "That's where you're wrong, darling. We have everything. We have each other and none of us are hurt."

The more Quinn witnessed her grandfather's spirit, his unshakable optimism, the more she loved him.

Grandma covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders shook as she silently cried. Grandpa scooted closer and slid his arm around her. "Everything will be fine."

When Dre returned, Grandpa said, "We accept your mother's generous offer of lodging."

"How will we return in the morning?" Grandma sniffed.

"I'll drive you anywhere you wish to go." Dre shifted the truck into drive, and it started rolling.

Quinn refused to look at the house again.

Seeing it tomorrow would be soon enough.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us. ~ Douglas Kennedy