“Yes, your purpose is to save the environment by vandalizing the sidewalks and roads in town. Speaking of, how did you get into town? I never reinstated your car privileges.”
Amanda crossed her arms over her chest. “I drove the four-wheeler over the back roads. Add it to my list of crimes.”
“Collin,” Gran said, her voice calm. “She was coming from a good place.”
“Of course she was. Just like she was trying to shrink the carbon emissions by rerouting traffic. It doesn’t matter why she does this stuff, she’s a nuisance.”
Savannah watched as Amanda’s face went from angry and sullen to shocked and hurt in an instant. She put her arm around the girl’s shoulders, but Amanda shook her off.
“That’s right. I’m a nuisance to the town because I’m trying to protect the environment. I’m a nuisance to our parents—that’s why they keep leaving. And I’m a nuisance to you because I’m one more thing you have to look after.” Her voice broke. “It doesn’t matter why I did it. It matters that it isn’t what he would have done.” Amanda’s voice was filled with anger and hurt, but before Savannah or Gran could take her inside she turned and ran, disappearing behind the barn.
“Amanda, honey,” Gran called after her, but she was too far gone.
Savannah’s heart twisted painfully. She knew those tears—she’d cried plenty when she was Amanda’s age, had let the sadness turn into anger and let the anger feed the distance between her and her family.
Amanda didn’t deserve that.
“Collin, she had the right idea,” Savannah began.
“Collin.” Gran shook her head. “She didn’t deserve that.” The older woman limped inside.
Savannah wasn’t sure whether she should go or stay, but the mutinous look in Collin’s eyes convinced her to stay. To fight. Because wherever Amanda had run off to, she’d eventually be back, and Savannah didn’t want the teenager to face the wrath still evident on Collin from the set of his stiff shoulders to the staccato taps of his feet against the porch.
“Having a purpose in life is a good thing. An empowering thing,” Savannah said after a moment. “I wasn’t even sure she was listening that day.”
“When was it that you turned my sweet little sister into a vandal?” Collin put the beer down on the little table beside the swing. “Just how much of this mess do I have to clean up?”
And that was just about enough. Savannah hadn’t done anything wrong. Yes, Amanda was wrong to paint her save-the-world messages on the sidewalks and streets without permission, but at least she hadn’t done permanent damage.
“I don’t know, Collin, do you want to pin the painting on me or are we going back in time to the duct taping? Or was it the fire starting? Technically that happened before I met her, but I was in town so she might have sensed a rebellious ripple in the atmosphere.”
Collin gritted his teeth. “You knew she was impressionable, and you knew she was struggling.”
“Every teenager is impressionable and struggling on some level. Pretending they aren’t—that you never did—isn’t helpful.”
“Says the woman who ran away from home not only as a teenager but as an adult.”
“Now you’re reaching.” Savannah wanted to march up the porch steps and slap that angry look off Collin’s face. “And you’re starting to tick me off. I didn’t tell your sister to paint murals on the sidewalks. I listened to a young girl talk about feeling powerless and invisible, and I know how that feels.”
“You like being invisible.”
“To the general public, to people I don’t know, yeah. Invisibility is great. But invisibility to people I know? To people who come to my house? That isn’t so great. My God, you don’t even realize it, do you? You, Levi, Aidan, James, Adam. When we were growing up, you were the stars of this town. You’re still the stars of this town. And I was the invisible girl hanging out on the fringes. That isn’t your fault. The five of you were football gods, and you were teenagers, and you expected people to fall at your feet. My being invisible back then was my fault because I didn’t think I was worth the attention.
“But Amanda...she’s not me. She shouldn’t be faulted because she has a passion, and she shouldn’t be treated as invisible because she doesn’t have a football résumé like her older brother.”
“I should have seen it, but I didn’t because I’ve been...” He trailed off.
“Busy with me,” Savannah realized. Suddenly she understood where this was coming from. Collin wasn’t angry with her because of Amanda’s actions, he was angry with himself for not putting his sister before his own needs. “Well, here’s one more thing you didn’t see. I love you.” His gaze struck hers. “And I’m leaving.”
“Savannah,” he said, coming down the porch steps.
She held her hand out to stop him. “I’m not the one you need to fix things with right now. I’m just annoyed enough that any fixing you might try will only make things worse. I’ll take the four-wheeler,” she said and marched to the barn.
* * *
STORM CLOUDS ROLLED in quickly from the west, and Collin cursed. He’d searched the barn, but hadn’t found Amanda. Savannah had been gone about fifteen minutes—there was time enough to catch her and make her talk to him. She couldn’t just drop an “I love you” on him and storm off. Thunder cracked in the distance, shaking the ground. It was going to be a bad one. Savannah would have to wait; he needed to find his sister to apologize.
A flash of red caught his eye and Collin turned to see Amanda, ponytail bouncing, run into the house. Well, one mystery solved. Thunder cracked again and rain began to pour from the sky. Collin sprinted for shelter of the screened porch. He shook off the rainwater as he continued into the house.
Amanda sat at the kitchen table but when he came in the door, she got up.
“Don’t. Don’t run to your room and slam the door. Why did you do it?” he asked.
“I thought I was pretty clear,” Amanda said as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“You were clear on the environmental cause. You weren’t clear on why you thought vandalism was an answer to that.”
Amanda pushed her brows together and bit her lower lip. Gran got up from the table.
“I’m going to go lie down. Citizen’s arresting takes it out of an old lady like me,” she said. She patted Amanda’s arm as she left the kitchen. “Talk to him, jellybean,” she said, and then Collin was alone with his baby sister, feeling completely unprepared for whatever was about to happen.
“Well?” he asked when it became apparent that Amanda wasn’t going to answer his question.
“Because no one would listen to me,” she said finally. “After that assembly, I asked about starting a recycling drive, and when I had permission, we set up the bins. But the kids at school are incapable of reading those signs and just kept throwing trash wherever. So I thought maybe a city-wide drive would get more attention. I had a whole presentation ready for the city council a few weeks ago, but they said presenters have to be eighteen and wouldn’t let me talk.”
“So you duct taped the streets.”
“At least then they could see how much better traffic would be without the stupid one-ways. I figured if they saw one better way of doing things, they might be open to hearing about another.”
“And when that didn’t work you came up with another idea.”
“Getting the lake cleaned up is important, and I thought with the Bass Nationals people still considering us, a cleanup drive would get their attention. A lot of people don’t realize what goes into the waterways from the storm sewers.”
Another roll of thunder cracked, shaking the house. Amanda flinched.
“Just a storm, no weather radios or alerts,” Collin reassured her.
“I didn’t mean to be a nuisance.” Her voice was barely a whispe
r, but Collin heard her clearly.
“Kiddo, you aren’t a nuisance. I didn’t mean that. I was just angry.”
“Because of me, you had to go down to the police station twice. Had to make excuses for me to James.”
“James is like family, no excuses needed. And he likes a good prank.” Collin tried to make light of the situation.
“If I wasn’t here, you could focus on the orchard more.”
“If you weren’t here, we wouldn’t have the new garden planted and it wouldn’t be flourishing.”
“I didn’t mean to make things harder for you.”
“And I didn’t mean to make things harder for you.” He waited a moment and then put his hand on Amanda’s arm. She turned her face into his sleeve, holding on to him as if he were a life ring. “I didn’t realize how much you needed me to be more than your brother.” Her shoulders shook against him.
“Mom and Dad...they don’t think of you as a nuisance.” He considered his next words carefully, trying to find the words that would soothe his sister, not make her feel worse. But there were very few kind words that could be used in association with their parents. “The truth is that they don’t think of any of us at all. That is their weakness, their problem. It isn’t a reflection of you or me or Mara. It just is.”
“They just suck,” Amanda said after a long moment.
“Yeah, they kind of do.” Collin patted her shoulders as her sobs eased. “The thing is, though, because they suck, we get Gran and we had Granddad. You’ve always got me, and Mara, even though she stays busy with her work.”
“And you’ve got me,” Amanda said between sobs. She released her grip on Collin’s shirt and stepped back. “I’ll apologize to—”
Collin shook his head. “This one is just between us. As long as you promise no more street art.”
Slowly, she nodded her head.
When Amanda went upstairs, Collin sat by the window and watched the storm rage. Wind blew through the treetops violently, whipping limbs in different directions so fast it was like watching a tennis match. The storm had come up more quickly than he’d expected, but Savannah should have had ample time to get home by now. He picked up the phone, just to make sure.
Levi answered.
“I just wanted to make sure Savannah got home okay,” he said without preamble. Then paused. “We, uh, had an argument, and she left just before the thunderstorm hit.”
Outside, the rain had stopped but the dark gray clouds remained ominous. Wind shifted and began to gust.
“Van isn’t here. I haven’t seen her since the four of you left the market.”
Collin swallowed. “She left here about a half hour ago.”
“Plenty of time to get here. I’m calling her on my cell, see if she got bogged down.” Levi was quiet for a moment. “Went to voice mail.”
“I’ll take out a four-wheeler, just to make sure she’s okay,” Collin said.
He hung up the phone just as the first tornado warning siren rent the heavy air.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
COLLIN HELD HIS foot firmly on the four-wheeler’s accelerator, forcing the vehicle through the shearing wind. The rain held back, but the skies remained gray and angry-looking. The tornado siren stopped, and he breathed easier.
He’d followed the muddy track from the house to the lake, but there was no sign of Savannah. He paused near the dock beside the churning water and checked the weather app on his phone. Another thick line of storms was building to the west. If she had gotten this far, it was only another three miles to the ranch. She could be anywhere between, but he didn’t see tracks in the mud. Even with the hard rain, he thought he would see some kind of sign that Savannah had been this direction.
He looked behind him. She might have stopped at the cabin for shelter. It would only take a couple of minutes to check, and if she wasn’t there, he would continue toward the ranch.
Collin returned up the muddy track to the ridge, the four-wheeler’s wheels slipping a bit in the mud. The cabin was dark, but since it had only rudimentary power, that wasn’t surprising. Power was always the first thing to go up there.
He stopped the four-wheeler and went to the porch. The door opened before he could reach for the knob. Savannah, soaking wet and wrapped in the old quilt, stood shivering in the doorway.
“I r-ran out of g-gas,” she said and pointed to the side of the cabin. He saw the rear of the four-wheeler peeking around the corner. “City girl sen...sensibility strikes again,” she said and smiled.
Collin wrapped his arms around her, not caring that her soaking-wet body was getting him wet, too.
“You can’t go running off into a storm like that.”
“I didn’t know a storm was coming. I was just mad.”
“Yeah, well, me, too.”
The siren sounded again and Collin pushed Savannah inside. A weather alert scrolled across his phone, warning of a possible tornado. His signal blinked out before Collin could look at impact areas or damage predictions.
“We need to take cover.”
“I was hiding under the bed earlier,” she said, and Collin couldn’t tell if she was joking. He stared at her, heart pounding.
“Seriously, it seemed like the best option with the windows rattling and the walls creaking.”
Collin pressed his mouth to hers. “Never, ever, hide under a bed when weather sirens are going off,” he said when he released her. Dragging the big table to the wall, he motioned her under it. “Rafters can go right through a mattress. A hard-topped table is sturdier, offers more protection.”
“Thanks for the lesson,” she said, ducking under the table. “Would you get your butt under here with me now?”
But Collin couldn’t stop rambling about tornado protocol. “Of course, storm cellar or a basement is the best option, but we don’t have either of those up here.”
Savannah grabbed his hand under the table. Collin tried his phone again, but the cell signal was gone. That meant the storm had taken down a tower. And that meant it wasn’t just a storm and those sirens weren’t just warnings. He pulled Savannah’s body more firmly against his.
“Is it a tornado?”
He considered lying. “Yeah, those sirens aren’t just warnings, and it’s knocked out a tower somewhere,” he said, jiggling his phone. Hail began to pound the cabin roof.
Savannah shifted closer to him. “I’m glad you found me.”
“Yeah,” he said, running a hand over her head. “Me, too. It isn’t every day a beautiful, ticked-off woman tells me she loves me and then rides off into a tornado.”
Savannah elbowed him. “In my defense, you were being a jerk, and could you lie and tell me this is only a severe storm? Please?”
“No, I won’t lie to you,” he said, and he realized he meant more than just lying about a storm. He didn’t want to lie to Savannah about anything. He didn’t want to leave out anything, and he didn’t want to tell any more half-truths. He wanted to share his life with her.
He loved her.
The weather siren faded into nothing. Collin waited a moment and then left the relative safety of the table to look outside.
Large chunks of hail and a few roof shingles littered the yard around the cabin, but there was no major damage that he could see, at least to the clearing around the cabin.
Savannah joined him on the porch.
“Did you push the four-wheeler back here?” She nodded. “I’d have just run for shelter.”
“I was trying to be responsible.”
“Well, next time ditch the four-wheeler and run for cover, would you? You’ll stay drier.” And be safer, he thought but didn’t say the words.
Savannah looked up at the sky. The thick, gray clouds from earlier had thinned, letting a little blue through. Savannah poin
ted, the quilt dropping to puddle at her feet.
“That doesn’t look good,” she said.
Collin looked in the direction she indicated, and it was as if a shutter had been drawn over the sky. The thick clouds were still there, but there was also a green tint. The clouds began to rotate and the wind picked up. No warning sirens sounded, but Collin had no doubt what this was.
“Get inside,” he said, pushing Savannah back through the door. She crawled under the table and Collin followed her, putting his arms around her waist as he cradled her body against his.
Wind rushed by the windows, rattling the panes of glass. He couldn’t hear anything but the wind, couldn’t feel anything but Savannah’s ragged breathing.
Savannah held tightly to his hand and yelled, “Is it on us?”
“No,” he yelled back. “Close, but it’s not here.”
“What do we do?”
“We wait,” he said as the wind continued to howl around the cabin.
* * *
SAVANNAH THOUGHT THE howling wind and shaking windows would never stop. She sat under the kitchen table, praying the thick oak would hold the roof of the house off them if the tornado came, holding Collin’s hand.
She didn’t want to die, not when she’d made an idiot of herself by getting mad and admitting she was in love with him. She should have told him in a more romantic setting—maybe after they’d made love—not in the middle of an argument involving his sister and street art.
He squeezed her hand as a particularly strong gust of wind hit the house. It sounded angry to her, almost like the roaring of an airplane engine on take-off.
And then everything went quiet. The wind dissipated, rain stopped lashing at the windows and the eerie gray-green light outside seemed to lift.
She looked at Collin but he didn’t move for a long moment. Finally he hit a button to activate his phone. He tapped a few buttons but nothing worked and he put it back in his pocket.
Famous in a Small Town Page 22