“Maybe. Maybe not?” With full arms, I give an impatient nod toward the back yard. The root cellar has been there since before my family lived here, and with all this wide-open land around us, it was always the safest place to hide from storms.
Hail pounds against the windows so hard, I find myself waiting for the shatter of glass. Rain pellets the sidewalk, washing out the flower beds and creating dozens upon dozens of puddles across the drive.
“Let’s go,” I say.
Shoving his plate away, he rises, making no bones about the fact that he really doesn’t want to join me. Slipping his phone in his pocket, he peers out the window over the sink and squints.
“What?” I ask. “What are you looking at?”
“Just a funnel cloud.”
“What?!”
“It’s still a good ways away,” he says. “And it’s not anywhere close to the ground. But it’s a funnel all right.”
“Get the door, River.” I force a sternness into my voice. I don’t have time to play his little games anymore. “We need to seek cover immediately.”
He takes his sweet time, probably to spite me, before finally cocking the door open. The front porch shelters us for all of two seconds and then we sprint across the sopping, hail-covered yard to the wooden door in the ground.
Unlatching the lock, he flings it open. The stone stairs leading down look steeper than I remember them, and the dark space looks a lot smaller than it did when I was little. I go first, naturally, and drop the water and blankets and flashlights on the dirt floor at the bottom. A few moments later, River joins me after latching the door tight.
The wind howls above us, rattling the old wooden door, and I flick on the flashlight and take a look around. The space is maybe three feet by four at most, and it had to have been some sort of miracle that our family of five once fit down here.
River’s body heat warms my skin, and his sweet hay and natural musk scent fills my lungs. Standing so close to him, I realize my head fits perfectly under his chin. He may not be touching me and he may not want to be down here with me, but somehow I feel safe with him … like he wouldn’t let anything happen to either one of us.
Shining the light around the space, I inspect the old wooden shelves against the tiny walls and the jars upon jars of ancient canned tomatoes and green beans.
“I’m pretty sure these are left over from when we lived here,” I say. “This looks like my mother’s handwriting.”
It’s hard to remember a time when my mom was a vegetable-canning domestic goddess instead of the bottle-loving, barely functioning alcoholic she morphed into after Dad died, but these jars serve as a bittersweet reminder that once upon a time, we had something pretty great.
“Probably,” River says. “I don’t go down here much. Never had a reason.”
“Where do you go when there’s a storm? You don’t take cover?”
“Nope.” His arms fold across his chest, and he glances up at the rattling door and exhales.
“You act like this is torture.”
“It is.”
“You don’t like being confined, or you don’t like being confined with me?” I ask, though I’m half-kidding.
“Does it matter?”
Our eyes meet in the dark, the flashlight reflecting against his dark irises, and he looks away.
“It’s not that bad,” I say. “Storm should pass soon. It’s almost seven.”
He checks his phone, the screen illuminating his face. Standing so close to him, I can see he’s pulling up some weather radar.
“Where is it now?” I ask.
“Just passed us,” he says. “We’ve survived the eye of it.”
Pressing past me, his body grazes mine as he moves toward the stone steps.
“Where are you going? It’s still raining,” I say over the sound of water droplets pelting the door.
“We should be fine to head back.” He works the latch and flings the door open. Turning back to me, he says, “You can come with me or you can stay. Your choice.”
Rain soaks through his clothes and saturates his coffee-colored hair. Our eyes lock and I hesitate before deciding to join him. Gathering the waters and blankets and flashlight, I climb the stairs and run for the house as he secures the door.
The second I reach the wraparound porch and survey the property, I’m not prepared to see the old oak tree uprooted, the bunkhouse lying in ruins, or the barn my father built leaning at a forty-five degree angle.
“Holy shit,” I say, watching River as he studies the damage.
“Just a little wind damage,” he says. “Seventy miles-per-hour will do that.”
Heading inside, he says nothing. I follow.
“Don’t you think we should drive around? Check out the rest of the damage?” I ask.
River slides his boots off his feet before striding to the bottom of the staircase. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“You don’t seem the least bit bothered by any of this.”
Our gazes intersect, and I don’t see a hint of emotion—good or bad—in his.
“I’ve lived through far worse than this,” he says. “Far worse.”
Chapter Twenty-One
River
“I used to hate cattle drives,” Leighton says, reins gathered in her left hand as she rides Domino. “They were always work. My father loved them, and I never knew why. Now I do. They were relaxing.”
Our horses stride behind a herd at a cow’s pace, and Leighton squints into the sun beneath one of my old Stetson hats. It’s a sight to see, her in a pair of designer jeans, oversized boots, and one of my old hats, but the early morning sunrise paints her in warm colors and she wears them well.
Birds chirp from the trees that line the old dirt roads and the cows’ heads bob with each step, moving along like they know exactly where to go.
“This takes me back,” Leighton says, sporting a wistful smile. “It’s my last day here, you know. At least my last full day. Going home tomorrow.”
I’d almost forgotten.
The last week I’ve spent so much time loathing the fact that I had to keep an eye on her all the while finding random shit to keep her busy that I lost track of how long she’d been here. In a lot of ways, it felt like she’d been here forever … like I’d known her forever. And I’m not quite sure if that’s a good thing or not.
“You going to miss me after I’m gone, River?” she asks, fighting a chuckle.
“What’s it to you?”
She shrugs. “I’m just curious. Long after I’m gone, are you going to remember this? Are you going to remember me?”
“Would be pretty hard to forget some random woman knocking at your door with a suitcase in hand saying she rented your house for the summer,” I say.
“It really means so much that you let me stay here.” She looks my way. “I wish there was a way I could make it up to you.”
“No one’s keeping score.”
Leighton steers her horse to the left, going after a wayward cow who seemed to get distracted by a patch of alfalfa growing in the ditch.
I try to wrap my mind around what it’s going to be like after she’s gone.