“That one, then they had a cupcake at the party. And then they had two tonight. So my child had three and half cupcakes today, all because of you.”
“Are you in the shower yet?” She reached for the bag he’d brought from the diner and started pulling the containers out. “If you’re not nice to me, we might not have any food left for you when you come back down.”
“Why is it always about me being nice to you? When is this relationship gonna reciprocate, and you’re gonna start being nice to me?” he asked as he walked out of the kitchen.
“I can’t be nice to you,” she called as he started up the stairs. “Every time I start being nice to you, you start trying to set me up with one of your buddies. I don’t want anyone from your male gossip group. I want a man who has better things to do with his time than hang out with his buds and talk about the weather.”
“We do more than talk about the weather,” he called when he reached the top of the stairs. He peered into Chandler’s old room, just to make sure that everything was in order for Kylie this evening. He wasn’t the greatest housekeeper in the world, and sometimes he forgot to make the bed and wash the sheets. But he had done that after she left the last time, and everything looked good. “We talk about the single girls in town too,” he hollered over the banister as he continued on down to his own room.
“I did not need to know that,” she called up, her voice fading. He grinned, hating to give her the last word but figuring she could have it. This time.
He wished he’d been a bit more careful when he picked out his wife. He and Marlowe had been buds forever, so when he and Dana had met, and Dana was the opposite of everything Marlowe was, he thought he’d found a gem.
She wasn’t hard to fall in love with. She was beautiful and everything else that Marlowe wasn’t.
Agreeable, for one. Not bossy. Never bossy. She agreed with everything he said. Then she went on ahead and did her own thing. He’d call her sneaky, but she wasn’t even that. She didn’t try to hide what she was going to do; she just did it. She didn’t try to tell him what to do. It was almost like she expected them to get married and then live separate lives.
He didn’t have room in his life for regrets, and he tried to stop thinking about her. He wasn’t still in love with her, though he supposed he had been at one time. Infatuated anyway. He supposed if he’d truly been in love with her, real love, it would have lasted, even after she left him. But he wasn’t sure.
He’d kinda been joking about the guys talking about all the single women in town. They really didn’t. Marlowe would be bored stiff, because they actually talked about tractors and planting, and they really did talk about the weather, sometimes they talked about their pickups, and at certain times of the year they definitely talked about hunting and fishing as well. He supposed there was a little bit of gossip that went around, but not much. Most of them really were single dads, and even though it really was a boys’ night out, they’d talk about parenting sometimes as well.
He never thought he’d be a single dad. He certainly wouldn’t have gotten married if he’d known that was what was going to happen, no matter how infatuated he was. Huck deserved to have a mom.
Grabbing some clean clothes, he threw his phone on the bed and walked over to the bathroom, determined to look ahead, not behind.
Chapter 3
By nine o’clock, Marlowe had given the children baths and supper, helped them clean up the mess that they’d made in the cellar, and snuggled down to read stories with them on the couch.
The wind picked up, and she’d heard it howling across the fields outside. There was the one big oak tree between their houses, but other than that, everything was pretty much open.
Around seven o’clock, Clark had texted and said he was keeping an eye on things and she didn’t need to worry.
They were close enough to town to hear Cowboy Crossing’s tornado siren, and Clark wouldn’t be out if there was any danger of it going off.
She tucked both children in bed. They were sleepier than usual, probably because of their upended schedule. It wasn’t completely unusual for them to be staying at one another’s house, but they didn’t typically do it on a school night.
She was pretty sure the guys had decided to get together tonight because it was supposed to rain, and most of them had jobs that were dependent on the weather. It’s just the way it was in rural Missouri.
She turned all the lights off in the house, except the bathroom light upstairs and the kitchen light downstairs.
It was odd that she got so upset about watching the weather forecast on TV but the actual weather itself didn’t upset her any more than anyone else.
Although tonight, the wind just had a different sound to it.
Any normal person would have that curl of fear in their stomach, as she did. She tried to look out the kitchen window, but it was too dark to see anything. Unable to sit still, she walked to the living room and looked out that window.
Clark’s house was brick, and it had a basement. It felt, and was, much more solid than her house.
Her home was well-made but had obviously, at some point in the past history on the farm, been made for a son or daughter, or maybe even a hired hand. It didn’t have the grandeur of this house.
It wasn’t brick either.
She took a deep breath, blowing out, trying to think of something that would take her mind off what was going on outside.
She didn’t need to worry. The tornado siren would let them know if something was going to happen.
Hopefully.
Tempted to go to the cellar and walk around, checking things out down there, she worried that she might not hear the siren.
From experience, she knew the siren was loud enough to wake the dead, and it was an unnecessary worry, but she didn’t go down. Maybe she just couldn’t put two stories between herself and her children. Not that Huck was hers. He just felt like it. He wasn’t even a year old when Clark’s wife had walked.
She couldn’t imagine what would possess a woman to leave Clark. Sure, he was a little unorganized, and he enjoyed teasing, but he was about as perfect as a guy could get.
Dana had been blessed, and she’d thrown it away. That, and she’d walked away from her little boy. Unbelievable.
At the time, Don at the diner had said, “At least she didn’t drown them in the bathtub like that other woman did.”
Marlowe figured it was probably a blessing, because if Dana had drowned Huck in the bathtub, Clark would’ve drowned Dana along with him. The man had been in love with his child since the day he was born.
She admired that and was proud to be his friend.
There was a lot about Clark to admire, and she’d always been proud to be able to walk beside him and have people know that they were best friends. She liked hearing people talk about them together.
She shifted a little with that, because she remembered back when she was in ninth grade at a slumber party, she and five of her girlfriends had voted Clark as the boy in their class with the most kissable lips.
Funny, since that night, she had a little secret fantasy about Clark and kissing him. Not that she had any seriously romantic feelings about him. She’d never been the slightest bit upset when he got married. She’d supported him and Dana, even if she hadn’t exactly been around for it much. Since they got married when she was a sophomore in college, the year before her mother and sister died.
She hadn’t been jealous to see them together. She’d come back when her sister had died, and she had a newborn to take care of. Not long after that, Clark had a baby of his own to take care of too, with his wife spending more and more time away until she finally left for good and filed for divorce.
Marlowe passed the front door and peered out. Even the road was deserted, not that it was that busy at this time of night anyway. They were a small town, not much happening.
Especially on a night like tonight.
So yeah, she might harbor some little thoughts ab
out Clark and his lips, and she definitely loved him better than she loved anyone else in the world, but it wasn’t a romantic love.
She stood at the living room window peering out into the backyard when she thought she heard a truck motor. Hurrying to the door, she was just in time to see Clark, leaning against the wind, walking up the walk.
She opened the door and he blew in, almost losing the screen door as the wind caught it and ripped it unexpectedly.
“Boy, am I glad to see you.” She hadn’t thought she was that worried, but she could hear the note of fear in her voice sounding loud and clear.
Clark smiled and ruffled her hair as he finished walking in, and she closed the door behind him. But she wasn’t fooled by his smile; there were worry lines tightening his eyes.
“What?” She touched his sleeve. “Is it going to get that bad?”
He turned, the half-smile on his face still, but his eyes drew together. “How can you read my face so easily? I thought I was doing a really good job of just looking happy.”
“I can see the worry lines clear as day. What’s going on?”
He jerked his chin, and she knew he wasn’t going to hide anything from her. Which was nice. She was an adult, even if she did have more of a tendency to worry than he did. He knew she could handle it, and she appreciated him letting her.
“There’s a pretty severe line of storms coming. They were about half an hour away when I left the mill, heading this way pretty fast. I’m sure the siren will go off if we need it, but I’m checking my phone too. It’s a little behind the actual weather, so I don’t want to wait until it says they’re here.” He smiled, probably trying to ease the worry on her face. “We can see the storms are weakening. They usually do after dark.”
She knew that. Typically, once the sun went down and things started cooling off, any thunderstorms would putter out overnight. But that wasn’t always the case. And it had been unusually hot today. She didn’t watch the weather, obviously, so she wasn’t sure on the specifics, but today felt like a day that was conducive to night storms. It was probably more of an intuitive thing having lived in the Midwest all her life.
She crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to pace.
“I’m here now. If you’d like to lie down or go read a book, I’ll make sure we get to the cellar if we need to. In fact, for this one storm, I might feel better if we just head on down when they get a little closer.”
Marlowe gasped, and she felt her eyes fly wide open. It must be pretty bad, if Clark was suggesting they do that. “Have you talked to your family? Are your brothers okay?”
Clark nodded.
Marlowe’s hands twisted together in front of her; she barely realized she was doing it. Her immediate family was gone, and she didn’t know where Dad was. Her grandparents were also dead. She had cousins and such a few towns over, but no one to check on.
Clark’s family was her family.
“Are you sure they’re okay? Did you talk to your parents?”
Clark shoved his phone in his pocket and turned toward her fully, taking his hands and setting them on her shoulders. Even though they’d been friends forever, they didn’t really have a touchy-feely relationship. The contact was unexpected. But welcome. She loved the weight of his hands and the warmth. Even before he opened his mouth, she felt more grounded and settled.
“Hey.” His voice was warm and deep, with even a little bit of humor. If anyone could downplay a tornado, it would be Clark. But still, the fact that his voice sounded so normal calmed her even more. “This is one of those times that we put boots on our faith, roll up the sleeves, and put it to work.”
Oh boy. He was right. And his words hit her straight on her forehead.
“You’re right. I’ve been sitting here worrying and praying.”
“One of those things is worthless, and one is priceless. Let’s do the priceless one.”
She nodded. She never even told Clark about her little rift with the Lord. They were still on speaking terms, and she still prayed. But He’d really messed up her life when her mother and sister died. Not only having to go through losing them—that was bad enough. But she’d given up everything she’d ever wanted to come back and raise Kylie.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her niece who’d become a daughter officially, since she’d adopted her, because she did. She loved her. But it was more that she was still a little upset with the Lord for asking her to give up everything else.
And yeah, she knew she could have gone back to school and had someone watch the baby for her, but it just felt like cheating to not do it herself. Or maybe it just felt like she hadn’t been putting her all into it, which was what she felt she owed her sister and her mom.
She closed her eyes as Clark, with his hands still on her shoulders, murmured a prayer. She prayed along. She knew God was good. She just didn’t always see it.
And yeah, maybe she still had a little resentment in her heart because her life didn’t go the way she wanted it to.
She kept her head bowed as Clark prayed for safety, and calm, and peace for them in their town and their families.
By the time he was done, she felt strengthened and encouraged, but she probably could blame that on Clark as much as God.
“I think we need to get the kids to the cellar,” Clark said as soon as he’d said “amen.”
“Now?” she asked, even though he hadn’t stuttered and she heard him quite clearly. It just wasn’t the thirty minutes that he had said earlier.
“Yeah. I just have a feeling about it.”
She didn’t want to waste time arguing, Clark didn’t usually live by his feelings. Neither did she. They certainly both knew people who did. But it wasn’t something that most of their community did. Reality was much more dependable than feelings.
“I’ll get Kylie first.”
She could kiss his feet. She knew he loved Kylie like his own daughter. And he was going by the ladies-first rule, as he always did.
“There are some blankets in the chest right over there. You grab those and carry them downstairs. You know where we always go.”
She didn’t say anything but ran to the chest he’d pointed to and grabbed the blankets. When she turned around, he was gone. She hurried down the steep steps to the cellar, hitting the light switch, which didn’t illuminate much aside from the steps, with her elbow on the way down, careful not to fall. The last thing she needed was to be huddled in the basement with a broken leg and scared children.
The floor was dirt, but the walls around her were block; she was pretty sure the entire thing was under the ground. It’s where they used to keep their vegetables in the winter to keep them from spoiling.
She’d spread a blanket on the ground and had one ready to wrap around Kylie when Clark came through the doorway with her in his arms.
This was not the first time she’d been woken up in the middle of the night and carried to safety. Every time before, nothing had happened. So when Marlowe sat down and Clark settled Kylie in Marlowe’s arms, Kylie just snuggled deeper and was snoring before Clark’s footsteps echoed up the cellar steps.
It was barely another minute before Clark came back with Huck. Even though Huck was usually borderline hyper, he was peaceful and still in Clark’s arms as Clark came through the door and closed it behind him.
“Holy smokes, it’s dark in here,” Clark mumbled as the door latched.
“No windows,” Marlowe whispered. “The darkness is a good thing. As in it protects us.” She said that more to convince herself, since Clark already knew it, and because when the door shut and the light had gone out, her heart had jumped and twisted, taking her stomach with it. They still hadn’t settled back in their rightful places.
“I’m over here. You can follow my voice.”
“Keep talking.”
“It sounds like you’re in the middle of the room, so you need to turn a little bit maybe. I’m over here, right here.” She kept talking until she felt his boot aga
inst her leg. “That’s my leg. I think you can sit down right here beside me.”
He put a hand out, touching her head.
There must’ve been a big gust of wind just then, because the noise seemed to grow between them, filling the room and the darkness with unspeakable fear.
Clark settled beside her, his warmth and presence comforting but still not containing her terror.
“That sounds terrifying. I wish we could drown it out.” Another blast seemed to shake the house around them, and Kylie stirred in her arms. It’d be awful if the kids woke up. She was having enough trouble containing her own terror.
She’d barely said it when Clark began singing. Not loud, but close enough to her ear that his voice overpowered the other sounds she heard.
A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord.
A wonderful savior is He.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
Where rivers of pleasure I see.
His voice had grown louder as he went through the verse, not loud enough to wake the children but strong and comforting.
She’d never been able to sing like him, but she joined him in harmony on the chorus.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.
Chapter 4
Clark hadn’t really meant to start singing. It had been a natural response to Marlowe’s fear and his own. But he was glad he had.
There was just something about music. It worked for Paul and Silas in the jail and was working for Marlowe and him in the cellar. Not to mention, he could feel Huck’s little body relaxing against him, maybe from the vibrations in his chest, although more probably from the familiar music. It also drowned out the awful noise of the wind outside.
Thankfully, having been in church all his life, he knew most of the words to the verses, and what he stumbled over, Marlowe remembered.
Best Friends in the Show Me State Page 3