Marrying the Cowboy

She sat the flashlight on the ground so she could shove what had once been his washing machine away from the door. She grunted and cursed when her hands slid off the wet metal. Trying a different tactic, she stooped and gripped the underside of the washer. Gritting her teeth, she managed to roll the useless hunk of metal away from the door.

Needing to see that her friend really was alive, she jerked the door open. Pete climbed the last few steps up out of the shelter. Before she even thought about what she was doing, Elissa wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.

“Hey, what’s this?” Pete patted her back awkwardly.

She let him go and took a step away. And then she swatted him on the arm. “You scared me to death.”

He glanced past her toward what was left of his home. “You’re not the only one.” He glanced toward her house. “Are you and Verona okay?”

“Yeah. Tree through the window, but we’re lucky.” She looked again at the spot where his house had stood for as long as she could remember. “I’m so sorry, Pete.”

“It’s just a house.”

The hitch in his voice told her he wasn’t as okay with the loss of his home as he tried to seem. Her heart ached for him. He was such a nice guy, a good friend, and life kept handing him one horrible blow after another. The loss of his father when they were teens, his mother only months ago and now his home and all his possessions. She resisted the urge to hug him again.

He cursed, and when she glanced at him she could tell he’d spotted his patrol car. His personal truck had been in his garage. Lord only knew where it was.

“I’ve got to get to work, find out how widespread the damage is.”

“I’ll take you, or you can borrow my car.”

“Oh, my God.” Verona approached them with another flashlight in hand. “Pete, honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Verona had no reservations about showing Pete how much she cared about him and gathered him into a tight hug. “I’m so glad you’re safe.” She planted a kiss on Pete’s cheek.

Elissa couldn’t tell in the dark, but she’d bet money Pete was blushing.

Verona finally let him go and turned to look at the destruction. She shook her head. “It’s not fair that we got off so easily while you’ve lost everything.”

“Tornadoes are like that,” he said. Pete took a couple of steps then sighed. “I need to go to work. Nothing I can do here now anyway.”

“Let me get my keys,” Elissa said. She hurried back to the house but paused on the porch to look back toward where Pete stood in the dim glow of Verona’s flashlight. Anger welled up in her. Pete didn’t deserve this. The guy deserved a break, and already her mind was churning with ways to help him. Because that’s what friends did, they helped each other.

* * *

PETE FELT NUMB all over, as if he’d been dumped back into a nightmare he’d spent the past few months crawling out of. He didn’t think he was a bad guy, but it sure seemed as if fate got a kick out of punching him in the face on a regular basis.

He sighed and shook his head. At least he was alive, and Verona and Elissa escaped unharmed. He only hoped the rest of the area’s residents had fared as well. Right now he had to put aside his own problems and focus on work.

“Pete,” Elissa called from in front of her house. “Can you help me get the garage door up?”

With the power out, the garage door opener wasn’t going to do her any good. He closed the distance and stepped inside the dark interior of the garage. Elissa held a flashlight for him as he opened the door manually.

“You all be careful,” Verona said as Elissa and Pete got into Elissa’s SUV.

Elissa started the engine and backed out, steering toward the far edge of her driveway to avoid the back end of his upturned patrol car.

“I’ll send someone over here to get that out of your yard as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” she said. “It’s the least of our concerns.”

He deliberately didn’t look at what little was left of his home as she drove by. When she stopped at the end of the street, Elissa didn’t immediately turn right toward downtown. When he glanced at her, she was staring into the darkness to the left.

“I didn’t even think about the nursery until just now,” she said. “I need to go check if there’s any damage.”

“Wait until in the morning. More than likely the power is out there, too.”

For a moment, he thought she might actually turn that direction. But after a couple of beats, she turned right and drove him to the sheriff’s department. They must have the generator going because lights shone in the windows. Elissa waited until one of the electric co-op’s bucket trucks went by before she turned into the parking lot.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said as he opened the passenger-side door.

“Be careful if you have to go out, okay?”

He nodded, thankful at least that he had good friends if nothing else.

It wasn’t until he walked through the front door that it dawned on him that he was wearing a T-shirt, shorts and the old sneakers he kept in the storm shelter just in case something like tonight happened. His uniforms were probably scattered over half the county. It was doubtful his boots had ended up in the same place, and for all he knew his Stetson was impaled on some bull’s horn.

“Been trying to call you.” Sheriff Simon Teague gave Pete an odd look, probably because of what he was wearing. Or not wearing.

“Pretty sure my phone flew off with the rest of my house.”

“What?” asked Keri, Simon’s wife, who’d just hung up the phone.

“My house took a direct hit.”

“God, Pete, are you okay?” Keri stood, as if she might check him over head to foot for injuries.

“Yeah. I made it to the storm shelter, barely.” He’d almost not been able to pull the door closed, and as soon as he did he’d heard heavy debris hitting the outside as if trying its best to get inside.

“How bad is it?” Simon asked.

“There’s nothing left but the foundation and broken timber.” He ran his hand back through his hair, feeling half-naked without his hat. “And my patrol car is upside down in Elissa and Verona’s front yard.”

“Are they okay?”

Pete nodded. “Elissa gave me a ride over here. They’ve got a tree in their living room window, but that was the only thing I could see in the dark.” He glanced toward the 911 dispatch room. Anne Marie Wallace and Sierra Mitchell were answering calls as fast as they could. “How bad is everything else?”

Simon’s single curse word was enough to let him know they had a long night ahead of them. Which was good because he wasn’t quite ready to think about all he’d lost and where the hell he was going to live now.

Chapter Two

It took three tries, but Elissa’s call to India finally went through.

“Are you all okay?”

“Yeah,” India said. “Ginny is a bit shaken, but she’s curled up with Liam now. He’s reading her a story to try to get her back to sleep.”