smile, he said, “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, unsettled by someone else taking charge for a change. Then, “I could have faced it by myself, you know.”
“I do know,” he said, his smile making his harsh features turn handsome. “It’s no bother.” Looking toward the sky, he added, “Looks like more’s coming.”
Dana nodded, casting him a quick look. “Yep, these storms like to play tag with us sometimes.”
“My first tornado,” he admitted, his blue-black eyes scanning the horizon. “But at least I got to spend it with a beautiful woman.”
Dana looked down at her muddy boots, embarrassed by the flirtatious compliment. “Thanks for what you did.”
He gave her another direct, black stare. “You’re quite welcome.”
The small talk was almost surreal, set against the ghastly scene before them, but the meaningless chatter kept Dana on an even keel. She couldn’t take the silence.
When she did grow quiet, the man spoke softly to her. “Your brother…I wager he’s going to be just fine.”
As they approached the house, she said a little half prayer, half plea. “Oh, Lord, make it so.”
Bren, still holding her hand, helped her around to the back of the house, guiding her through the rubble that minutes before had been her home. A few feet from the white, wooden-framed house, a framed picture of her parents lay shattered and torn in the mud. Dana reached down to pick it up, a small sob catching in her throat.
The man named Bren gently took the damaged picture from her hand. “Careful, you’ll cut yourself on the glass.”
Dana wanted to laugh. If only he knew. Her cuts went much deeper than any made by a shard of glass. Nodding, she stepped over the pile of kindling that had been their breakfast table, then made her way to the closed cellar door.
“Stephen?” she shouted, afraid of what she’d hear in answer. Afraid of the silence. “Stephen Joshua Barlow, are you in there?”
Pulling away torn shingles and little bits of splintered wood, she banged on the weathered trapdoor. “Stephen Joshua Barlow, are you in there?
“Stephen, you answer me,” she called again, her voice cracking in spite of the tight rein she was trying to hold on her fear, on her pain, on her rage. Finally, falling down on her knees, she whispered, “Stephen, please, please.”
In the next instance, the door banged back on its hinges and Stephen pushed his bushy golden head up into the wind. Grinning, he didn’t even look at her as he said, “Hey, sis, where’s my Ruby Runners?”
The man standing there let out a slight gasp of surprise. Probably as glad as Dana to find Stephen alive and in one piece.
Dana grabbed Stephen in a suffocating hug, not caring that his condition sometimes made him shy away from being touched. “Oh, you’re all right! You’re okay. Is Mrs. Bailey down there with you?”
“Sure she is. I brought her here,” Stephen said, obviously surprised that she doubted him. “Stephen knows the rules. Tornado comes, get to the cellar. Tornado comes, get to the cellar.” Looking with a matter-of-fact shake of the head over to the stranger’s feet, he said, “She was so scared. She was so scared. I got kinda of scared, but I remembered everything you told me, yeah, I remembered everything.” His green eyes shone with a light of hope. “I remembered that you said Mom and Dad were always watching over us, from Heaven. Remember, you said even through a storm, they could see us. I should always look past the storm, for them.” He bobbed his head, still looking down. “Look for Mama and Daddy.”
Dana cried against his tousled hair. “I remember, Stevie.”
While Dana held Stephen, tiny Mrs. Bailey emerged up the steps, her watery eyes wide with fear, her stiff gray hair standing on end around her round face. “Land sakes, that near scared me to an early grave.”
Dana opened her arms to encircle the shaken woman. “Thank you, Mrs. Bailey. Thank you so much.”
Bren stood aside, watching the emotional reunion. Dana watched him over Stephen’s head. He looked as if he felt uncomfortable. She supposed this was unexpected for him, being here so far from his home, wherever his home was, being in on this family scene, in the middle of so much destruction.
But then Dana watched as his gaze shifted to the west, to the silvery white spire of the Universal Unity Church, which stood gleaming and intact against the backdrop of a purplish-gray sky.
Dana looked up at him, about to thank him again for helping her, but she was startled by the look in his eyes. It was a heavy blend of hatred mixed with pain. And something else. A determination that bordered on vengeance. Following his gaze, she saw the church complex off in the distance. Had Bren whoever-he-was come to visit the Unity Church?
Dana stared at him, trying to read his strange, still features. Then she looked back at the complex. And up on the top turret of the church, near the tall steeple, she thought she saw a platinum-haired woman standing there with the wings of her white robe flapping in the wind.
Chapter Two
“Looks like the Universal Unity Church survived,” Dana said, squinting toward the beautiful, untouched mansion. Before she could get a better look, the lone figure standing on the tower whirled and vanished into the dark recesses of the upstairs turret room.
Clutching Stephen close to stop his fidgeting, she looked back at the stranger, remembering he had the same accent as Caryn Roark—the woman who called herself the law. “Are you a member of that church?”
“No,” he said, the one word speaking more than a lengthy explanation ever could. He stared across the field, the granite-hard expression on his face making him resemble a piece of carved flintrock. Then he turned back to Dana. “I’m not quite sure where I belong.”
A shiver dripped down Dana’s spine, a slow, trickling warning that set her nerves and her intuition on edge. Giving him a long look, she wondered again who this man was. “Look, mister—”
“Bren,” he said, repeating his name to her, his eyes lifting away from the church to pin Dana to the spot. “Call me Bren.”
Dana nodded. “Okay, Bren. Call me Dana. Look, thanks for your help. We’re okay, so you don’t have to stay with us.”
Stephen pushed away from Dana’s smothering embrace. “We ain’t okay, either, Dana. We don’t have a house no more.” He stomped his feet and flapped his hands. “House gone. House gone. Room a mess. Room a mess.”
Dana knew Stephen would keep repeating these phrases to himself while he tried to absorb this sudden shift in his orderly, structured world. “It’ll be okay, Stevie. I promise.”
Stephen kept stomping his feet. “Room a mess, Dana.”
“I’d better go see about my own house,” Mrs. Bailey said, her little legs moving across the damp earth. She took Stephen by both arms, her words loud and precise. “Stephen, listen to your sister.” Then she turned to Dana. “I’ll call you if I need you, and you do the same.”
