Page 11 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

“Thanks for making it.” Janie watched Misty as she went by, and Misty did her best not to run down the hall to her bedroom. She had the back bedroom, with a large window that overlooked the big grassy area behind the apartment building. Janie’s window overlooked the balcony and parking lot, and Misty thanked the Lord that she had a better view as she moved to the glass and looked out.

Darkness had already covered Texas, and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what Link was doing right now. “He’s in bed,” she murmured to herself. Link was a cowboy, which he’d used as a reason for being in bed by nine p.m., but eventually, Misty had gotten him to admit that he simply liked getting up early. It was part of his personality, whether he wore a cowboy hat or not.

She and Janie had stayed at the wedding until the end, and then Misty had been too keyed up to simply change out of her party dress and into her pjs. So she’d cooked up a feast of red beans and rice, and now her stomach clenched around the rich Creole food.

She had no idea how she’d ever fall asleep, though her mind simply wanted to be shut off. She went through the motions of brushing her teeth and returned to her bedroom and snapped off the lamp.

The window called to her again, and Misty moved over to it. “Lord,” she said to the glass, to the darkness beyond. She didn’t regularly pray, though she had gone to church many times in the year she’d been living and working in Three Rivers.

She didn’t know how to pray, though she’d listened to others do it loads of times. She almost felt like God had forgotten about her, or that He expected her to be perfect in her speech, in her gratitude, in what she wanted or needed.

And she didn’t even know what to say.

“I know I only come to You when I’m sad or upset or hurt,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’m not better about that. I just…don’t know what to do about Lincoln Glover.” Pure pain flowed through her, and she hung her head as those tears came again.

“I hurt him, Lord, and I feel so guilty about it. I don’t know how to fix it. Please, help me fix it.” She felt completely out of words, and she turned away from the window without even saying amen.

She crawled into bed and hid under the covers the way she had as a child, a teenager, and a younger adult than she was now. Outside of the bedding, she wasn’t safe. The world raged. But under the blanket, she could concoct a sense of safety, however false, that lasted long enough for her to fall asleep.

Misty jolted awake at the sound of a heinous buzzer. Then an alarm. Flashing lights strobed through her room as Misty sat up and threw her safety blanket off.

Then she smelled smoke.

“Janie!” she yelled as she took the quick steps to the door. But she hesitated, her brain screaming at her to wait! Think! The words sounded in her head as loudly as the fire alarm, as intensely as her heart hammered in her eardrums.

She turned and grabbed her phone from her nightstand and shoved her feet into a pair of sandals with furry stuff inside.

“Misty!” Janie called from the other side of the door, and then it got pushed open. Janie’s dark eyes flashed with pure fear. “Our apartment is on fire.”

“Fire?” Misty couldn’t comprehend much over the buzzing alarm, but she stumbled into the hallway with Janie. There wasn’t much smoke out here, but it still warned Misty strongly as she smelled it.

The kitchen definitely held more smoke than anywhere else, but not a stitch of light existed. “Our power’s out,” Misty said.

Someone banged on their front door as Janie turned them toward it, and both of them cried out. “You guys okay in there?” a man called, and Misty towed Janie toward the door now.

“No,” she said as she hurried to unlock the door. It opened in too, and Misty half-expected a huge flame to roar inside with the introduction of more oxygen. “Something happened in our kitchen.”

She pulled Janie outside and into the arms of their next-door neighbor, Seth. Misty panted as he hugged them both, and then he faced the apartment again.

That was when a horrible buzz filled the air, and Misty looked up to the porch light above her apartment. It wasn’t on, and in that moment, it brightened and burst.

She screamed and threw her hands up to cover her face from the falling glass, and Seth swore as he pulled her and Janie down. “We’ve got to go,” he said, and they all stumbled and crawled for a few feet.

Misty found her balance, and she followed Seth and Janie toward the stairwell as lights along the entire fourth floor disappeared. Just went out.

Another alarm started to wail, and Misty gripped her phone like her life depended on it. She thought of all the things she’d left inside her apartment. Her purse, with her wallet. All of her clothes. Her painting supplies. Her phone charger. Everything but the pale purple pajamas on her body and her phone.

“I’m calling nine-one-one,” she said when they reached the third floor. She looked to her right, to the building beside the one where she lived, where Ralf had an apartment. Lights went out as if someone had dropped a curtain, as if a giant eyelid had closed over the whole building.

“The power is out in a lot of places,” she murmured. Seth and Janie continued downstairs while Misty tapped to call Emergency Services. The moment someone answered, she said, “The fire alarm in my apartment went off, and the place was filled with smoke. We made it outside, but all the power is out. The electricity surged, and yeah. We need help.”

“I see you’re over in the Ivy Ridge subdivision,” he said. “The apartment buildings there?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“This is our fifth or sixth call. We’ve got fire, police, and medical on the way.”

Relief filled Misty. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” Even as she spoke, she heard the sirens. She didn’t want to be without Janie for too long, so she hurried down the flights of stairs, glad Janie hadn’t wandered too far from the door.

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