and strode back toward the office, his muscles tense. A palpable sense of impending doom overwhelmed him.
“Where are you going?” Kendall called behind him.
“To take cover,” Marcus yelled over his shoulder. “Because you boys are about to unleash another natural disaster on this town.”
1
Porter Armstrong stepped off the metal ladder onto the platform of the newly restored, white water tower soaring over the resurrected town of Sweetness, Georgia. “Town” was a generous description of the expanse of stark land beneath him—fields of bare red clay stretched as far as the eye could see, hemmed by stands of stunted hardwood trees that still bore the ravages of the tornado that had obliterated the small mountain town a decade ago.
Porter had happily united with his older brothers, Marcus and Kendall, in their efforts to rebuild Sweetness. With an army of strong men, they’d made great strides in clearing debris and establishing the basis for the recycling industry they hoped would provide an economic foundation for the fledgling town. One too-tall, too-perfect pine tree in the distance was actually a camouflaged cell tower erected by a communications company turned partner, eager to get in on the ground floor of the green experiment.
The project of which the brothers were most proud—the newly paved road containing recycled asphalt—was a neat black ribbon leading from the horizon into what had been established as the town center. Granted, downtown Sweetness was more of a vision than a reality since it currently consisted of a dining hall and the boardinghouse that had been built in preparation for impending visitors. But the brothers were optimistic.
Or, according to some, crazy.
Colonel Molly MacIntyre at the diner was one such person. She ruled the men and their dining hall with an iron fist, and did not cotton to the idea of, in her words, “a bunch of flibbertigibbet females” taking over the town.
Porter shrugged out of his work shirt and folded it over the railing to enjoy a rare cool June breeze. The summer heat had been brutal already, with the temperature and humidity sure to get worse before getting better. He pulled a bandanna from his jeans pocket and wiped the sweat dripping down his neck as he scanned the horizon, hoping for a glimpse of movement—anything that might indicate a response from the ad Kendall had placed in the newspaper. The ad had run in a northern town hit particularly hard by the economic downturn, and had stated their need for “one hundred women looking for a fresh start.” Kendall had reasoned women were more likely to come and stay if accompanied by friends and if they relocated from a good distance. Women in nearby Atlanta, his brother had insisted, would be too likely to hightail it back home when the going got rough.
Whatever. It wasn’t as if Northern women were any different from Southern ones.
The ad had hit the newspaper in Broadway, Michigan, a week ago, and Porter had climbed the water tower several times a day in the hopes of spotting a car or moving van headed their way.
Their eldest brother, Marcus, who had grudgingly agreed to the plan to import women, belly laughed every time Porter returned to their office and gave a thumbs-down. Porter dreaded going back to face his gloating big brother again. Marcus was convinced no eligible woman in her right mind would come to their remote mountain town despite the lure of lots of strapping, single Southern men.
For his part, women who weren’t in their right mind were just the kind of women Porter was hoping would answer their ad. Reckless, ripe and ready for the picking. He hadn’t bedded a woman in…
He cursed under his breath as he unclipped a pair of binoculars from his belt. If he couldn’t remember when he’d last had a woman’s legs wrapped around him, it had been way too long.
Porter adjusted the lenses to bring the distant landscape into focus, zeroing in on the brand-spanking-new road. Due to cost and labor, the brothers had decided to wait to add yellow striping until enough cars arrived to warrant two-way traffic control. For now, the most frequent travelers of the road—rabbits, skunks, opossums and armadillos—didn’t seem to mind the omission.
Porter skimmed the view for any signs of human life. In the old days, the water tower had been a lookout for lightning fires and other natural disasters. The metal box on the side of the tank held tornado sirens. By a bizarre twist of fate, the tower from which the mammoth tornado had been spotted to allow an alarm to be sounded had been the only structure spared in the ensuing destruction. Tornadoes at this altitude were rare, and this one had been monstrous. Every resident had survived, but every man-made thing in the storm’s path had been leveled. To the tiny town already dying a slow economic death, it had been the fatal blow.
His brothers hadn’t been in town when it happened, but Porter had been home on leave from the Army and vividly remembered climbing out of a root cellar after the twister had passed. Ground-level pictures and television footage couldn’t quite capture the utter obliteration of homes, schools, businesses, churches. Only aerial photographs of the flattened debris showed the enormity of the loss. Those gut-wrenching pictures were branded on Porter’s brain—their own homestead and all its contents had simply vanished from its concrete footer. Hauntingly, the black metal mailbox left standing at the end of the driveway was the only proof the Armstrongs had ever lived on that spot.
His mother had cried for weeks over her missing wedding ring. Even after their father had passed away, she’d worn the gold filigree band every day, but had taken it off moments before the storm hit to do chores. Porter had scoured their property with a metal detector for days before relenting that the ring, like all their other worldly possessions and those of their neighbors, had been lost to the four winds.
When the Armstrong brothers had returned to Sweetness a few months ago, the decaying main road had been overtaken by weeds and fallen trees. Animals had taken up residence in the piles of splintered wood and crumbled brick where houses and businesses had once stood. Porter had taken one look at the remnants of the town, choked with thick kudzu vines, and had been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task before them. If either of his two brothers had balked at that moment, he would’ve gone with them. Kendall had taken in the wasteland before them in heavy silence; but characteristically, Marcus had simply jammed his hands on his hips and said, “Let’s get to work, boys.”
What lay ahead had been countless hours of back-breaking work for them and the men they’d recruited, most of whom had served with Marcus in the Marines, with Kendall in the Air Force, and with him in the Army. In the beginning, they had all been too tired by the end of the day to think about the fact that their beds were empty. But now…
Porter spotted movement in the distance and jerked the binoculars back to focus. At the sight of heat rising from the dark asphalt in an undulating haze, his heart jumped to his throat—a vehicle was approaching…a large vehicle. Porter squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. When realization struck, he almost dropped the binoculars.
It wasn’t a large vehicle…it was several vehicles approaching. No—
Dozens.
A bumper-to-bumper caravan was headed straight for Sweetness! And from the looks of the arms and heads and long hair lolling out of convertibles and rolled-down windows, the cars were jam-packed with women. Hot, eager, willing women!
Porter slapped his thigh and whooped with joy. He waved his arms, knowing the chances of anyone noticing him at this distance were slim at best. But the ad had worked—he couldn’t wait to tell Marcus! He rushed toward the ladder, returning the binoculars to his belt while fumbling for his cell phone. With one hand he began to scramble down the tall, narrow ladder, using the other hand
