vehicle approaching was followed by another set of lights joining hers. A car door opened and closed.
“Elissa?”
Even at the familiar sound of Pete’s voice, she couldn’t pull her gaze away from the building.
Pete stepped up beside her. “You shouldn’t be out here now. There’s another storm heading this way.”
“Tell me I’m not seeing this.”
He exhaled. “I’m sorry, Lis.” After a few more seconds, Pete wrapped his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward her vehicle. “I really need for you to go home. I can’t have you wandering around out here in the dark, exposed. There’s nothing you can do now anyway.”
His words finally sank in, and she realized he could have just as easily been speaking about himself.
“I’m sorry, Pete. I know this is nothing like losing your home.”
He opened her driver’s-side door and gripped the top edge. “This isn’t nothing.” He gave her a sad little smile, knowing just how much this nursery meant to her. “There’s time enough for both of us to face reality in the morning. But right now you need to get home safely and I’ve got to get back to work.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
A growing sense of numbness took hold of Elissa as she made her way back home. None of what had happened tonight seemed real, more like a scene from a disaster movie. The next thing she knew, Godzilla was going to step out of the darkness to stomp on what was left of Blue Falls. But as soon as she drove down her street and saw again the empty spot where Pete’s house should be, the horrible reality finally sank in.
She got out of the car to find her aunt waiting for her in the doorway into the house.
“Where have you been? I tried calling, but I couldn’t get through.”
“The lines are probably overloaded.” When Elissa entered the kitchen, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it.
“What is it? Is Pete okay?”
“He’s fine.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “But that’s more than I can say for the nursery.”
“You went out there?”
“I had to know.” She met her aunt’s eyes and forced her own not to fill with tears again. “It took a big hit.”
Verona stepped forward and pulled Elissa into her arms. “I’m so sorry, honey. But we’ll get through this. We’re alive. That’s all that matters right now.”
Elissa knew she was right, that she should be thankful. She was, especially when she thought about how easily Pete could have died tonight, that there still might be people out there who had died or been injured. But that still didn’t erase the pain of seeing her nursery in shambles.
Wrung out, Elissa made her way back to bed. But even as tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she listened to the patter of the gentle rain and waited for daylight. Even though she knew the light might show her even more damage, at least she’d be able to tackle it. Sitting around waiting and not doing anything was so not her way. It was torture.
She heard a distant rumble of thunder once, but the worst of the weather seemed to have moved on, like a bully who’d thrown a punch and left his victim on the ground holding his bloody nose.
Sirens echoed every now and then through the night, and she wondered what Pete and the rest of the deputies were finding. Once again, Pete was managing to do his job while his personal life fell apart. It made her feel selfish for focusing so much on the nursery, even though she couldn’t help how she felt. That place was her livelihood, her life, her dream come true.
And now she faced having to clean up the mess and start all over. Sudden exhaustion pressed down on her, and she closed her eyes and begged for the release of sleep.
* * *
PETE FELT LIKE crying when he stepped into the barn at R & J Stables and saw Frankie turn to look at him. But then, it’d been that kind of day. He crossed the distance between them to rub his horse between the ears.
“Hey, boy. Looks like you and I both got lucky, huh?”
Frankie nuzzled against Pete’s hand as if he could tell Pete had been having a less-than-stellar day. Pete took a moment to lean his forehead against Frankie’s head, grateful that at least he still had this one thing to call his own. And if he’d had to choose which to save, Frankie or his home, he would pick Frankie every time. Named after his grandpa Frankie as a joke, Frankie the horse felt as much a part of his family as his grandpa had, ever since his grandpa had gotten him the horse when he started team roping in high school. Now, the horse was the only family he had left.
“Hey, Pete.”
He glanced over as Glory Harris came into the barn, carrying a saddle about half as big as she was. He didn’t insult her by offering to help her, though. Glory had been working at her family’s stables since she’d been in single digits.
“Not every day I have a sheriff’s department cruiser parked outside,” she said as she hefted the saddle onto a battered wooden table.
“Only wheels I got at the moment.”
“Your truck damaged in the storm?”
“Pretty sure since it blew away along with my house.” He tried to make light of it to keep from really dealing with the brutal fact that he was homeless, but a damn lump formed in his throat anyway.
“Oh, hell, I’m sorry.”
“Could have been worse.” He rubbed his hand along the side of Frankie’s neck. “Glad you all were spared.”
“Me, too. I don’t think I could face losing these animals.”
Most of them weren’t hers, rather those of boarders, but Glory had never met a horse she didn’t fall madly in love with on first sight.
“You going to take him out for a ride?” she asked, nodding at Frankie.
Pete shook his head. “No, too much work to do. I just wanted to make sure he was okay since I was in the area.”
She nodded in understanding. “Things settle down, you’re more than welcome to come over for a meal or a dozen.”
“Thanks.” He allowed himself a couple more minutes of the peace he felt with Frankie before he forced himself back to the cruiser and back to dealing with Mother Nature’s path of broken lives and dreams.
A couple hours later, Pete’s eyes burned from lack of sleep as he pulled into his driveway. Greg Bozeman was hooking his wrecker up to the patrol car to flip it back onto its wheels.
“You look dog tired, man,” Greg said as Pete got out of the extra patrol car the department had for when one of the others was in the shop for repairs. Or when one got demolished by a tornado.
“I feel like my eyelids are glued open and I’ve been body-slammed by the Hulk.”
“Yeah,
