Page 41 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

“Colin!” Nancy pointed out the window on her side—with a growing sense of horror, he saw that a tornado had touched down and was speeding its way toward them. “Hurry,” she begged. “Oh, please, hurry.”

He pushed the truck as hard as he could, and they pulled up in a mud spatter to the rainbow house. Colin jumped out of the truck, leaving the driver’s door open, and kicked the door down. “Bex!” he called. “Darlin’, please say that you’re here.”

“Daddy!” Bex was crouched against the far wall, obviously scared out of her mind.

Colin ran to her and scooped her into his arms. Her little body shivered against him, and she buried her face into his neck. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her over the wind and her own heaving sobs. He rushed them back to the truck, where Nancy was waiting with her arms outstretched so that she could take Bex. The girl wailed when she saw Nancy, and they were both crying and clinging to one another as he reversed course and started back to the house. The tornado was far too close now.

“Are we going—” Nancy cut herself off, but she looked at him with wet, wide eyes.

“We’ll make it,” he practically growled through gritted teeth.

They sputtered to a stop in the drive, and Colin had to shove his body against the door to get it open. Nancy pushed Bex at him and came out that side as well—she couldn’t get her own door open. They made a weaving, wobbling run to the storm shelter. Colin handed Bex to Nancy, who held the girl with both arms as Colin pried the heavy door open. He pointed. “Go, go, go!”

Colin watched as Nancy stumbled down the stairs, and he had a split second to worry about her falling before he was barging down after her. He turned to pull the door shut, catching just a glimpse of the tornado smashing its way into the barn. He was barely able to take in the sight of the wood exploding from the force of the wind before he pulled the door shut. Thick, hot, darkness pressed in from all sides, but he groped in the dark, found Nancy and Bex, and pulled them against him. They felt solid and real and good even if they were both trembling. Then again, so was he. That was far too frighteningly close for comfort. “We’re safe,” he murmured again and again, holding the both of them. “We’re safe.”

TWENTY-SIX

Nancy stood in the dark, stagnant air of the shelter; the wind howled and rattled the door, trying to rip it off its hinges. Colin’s grip on her and Bex tightened all the more, and she briefly buried her face into his neck. “Keep hold of Bex for me while I find a light?” His breath tickled at her ear. “I know there’s a lantern in here somewhere.”

“Okay,” Nancy breathed out, but she and Bex both made a soft, wounded noise when Colin let them go. Bex’s small frame shook almost violently against her, and Nancy rubbed at her back, shushing her gently. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” she told her. “My daddy used to tell me, ‘If a cow can fly through the air and come out the other side, there’s no reason to cry over a little thing like this.’”

Bex let out a shuddery breath, but her shaking lessened a bit. “A cow?” she asked.

Nancy smiled in the darkness. It was one of her favorite memories although it happened after a horrible tornado wrenched half the town apart. “When I was a girl, maybe a bit older than you are now, there was a huge tornado. Ripped up everything. Our neighbor’s cow had gotten out and was sucked up into the storm.”

Bex shivered against her. “That’s awful.”

“It should have been,” Nancy said, “but the cow ended up on someone’s roof a few doors down, completely fine. It was the strangest thing anyone on our street had ever seen.” She chuckled. “I’m pretty sure my dad still tells that story. I can almost guarantee that he’s told it at least twice on the cruise they’re on now.”

Bex giggled; it was a small and broken sound, but there was a glimmer of her usual spunky spirit in it. Her fears were beginning to fade. Colin cried out, triumphant, seconds before a lantern switched on and chased the darkness into the corners of the room with its warm, golden light. “Look what I found!” Colin announced and held up a board game box.

Bex lit up. “Candyland!” she crowed, happy.

Colin set up the game on a small card table that had been folded and leaned against one of the walls. It was obviously missing some cards, and some of the game pieces were just buttons or rocks. But Bex was in much better spirits and didn’t seem to notice the wind anymore. “Watch out,” Colin mock-whispered to Nancy. “She cheats.”

Bex rolled her eyes. “I donot,” she insisted, and then Nancy watched her pick up the deck of draw cards and pull from the middle of the stack. Either Nancy or Colin should have corrected her, but they were both so grateful to see her smiling that it didn’t occur to them.

When Nancy got “stuck” in the Molasses Swamp—a surefire way to lose Candyland—Colin picked up the deck and looked through it so that he could pull the color that would get her out. Bex watched him do it with wide eyes. “That’s not fair!” she wailed. Colin hushed her and told her to take her turn. Bex pouted, but her next card draw took her to the Candy Castle, and she won the game. She wanted to play again and quickly began gathering the cards and shuffling them.

Quietly, for Nancy’s ears alone, Colin said, “As far as I’m concerned, you get a free pass at anything you want for the rest of my life.”

“Colin—”

“Yousavedmy whole world today, Nance,” Colin pressed on. “She’s my reason for breathing. I’ll never be able to repay you or thank you enough.”

Nancy wanted to tell him that she didn’t even have to think about it. She would do anything for that little girl. It wasn’t even a question in her mind. But she didn’t want to scare Bex: she didn’t need to know the full extent of the danger she had been in. Instead, she found Colin’s hand and squeezed it before they played another round of Candyland.

By the time Bex was, once again, crowned the winner, the wind had died down. Colin listened for a moment and then checked his phone. “I haven’t gotten the alert about the warning being over,” he said, “but I’m going to have a look-see. Wait here for my word.”

Nancy kept Bex busy picking up the board game and making sure they didn’t lose any more pieces. Colin called for them after a minute, and there was something off in his voice. It sounded choked. “Come here, sweetheart,” she said to Bex and picked her up.

She carried Bex up the stairs, and when she stepped into the light, her heart leapt into her throat. She figured there would be damage, but she couldn’t have imagined that it would be like this. Colin’s truck was just gone. She expected to find it in a mangled heap, but as she looked around, she couldn’t find it anywhere.We were in that truck, she had to shake that thought away so that she wouldn’t have a breakdown.

The house looked largely fine: the roof was missing some shingles, but the structure didn’t look damaged. The same could be said of the guest house. Its little porch was missing some railings, but that was an easy fix. The barn, though, was squashed. She couldn’t identify anything that seemed intact except for a section of the far wall and some of the dance floor. The rest was literally exploded all over the property.Poor Evie, she thought. All of their wedding decorations were destroyed.

Nancy glanced at Colin. His face had gone stoic, but she could see the tension in his jaw. She wanted to reach over and take his hand, but her arms were full of Bex, who was looking around at the mess with a mixture of fear and confusion. Nancy remembered her first big storm: she remembered feeling so small in comparison to the mess, and she imagined that Bex was feeling something of the same.

After a moment of standing there, surveying the mess, Bex began to squirm in her arms. She wanted down. “We need to go check on the animals!” she said.

---