That was one of the really nice things about Marlowe. She filled in the gaps of his weaknesses, and she did it without making a big fuss about it. Together, they made a great team.
They’d sung about three hymns when a crash that even their music couldn’t cover echoed down through the cellar.
Marlowe jerked and quit singing. He quit as well, cocking his head and listening. It was close, but he was thinking it wasn’t their house. At least the wind scuttling across the floor hadn’t changed, and he hadn’t felt any moving of the structure. Surely if something had happened to the house, they would feel it in this room, even if they wouldn’t be hurt.
“What do you think that was?” Marlowe whispered next to him.
“I don’t think it matters. We’re alive, and our kids are safe. Let’s keep singing.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond but started singing “Nearer My God to Thee,” which as soon as he started it, he thought was a bad choice, since it was what the musicians on the Titanic had been playing as the Titanic sank.
Still, there was no denying the comfort in the words, and Marlowe created beautiful harmony with him.
After a few lines of song, she snuggled closer, and he took his arm off his son and put it around Marlowe’s shoulders, pulling her close to him without breaking off his song.
Somehow, it seemed imperative, maybe for his own sanity, but for the children also, to hear the music. Or maybe it was for Marlowe. Normally she was cool and collected, although she might fuss about things he didn’t think were important.
They’d somehow seemed to accept each other’s differences. Accept, and maybe even respect.
He didn’t like to see her upset.
His fear wasn’t gone, necessarily. But he had to admit it felt good and right to have Marlowe beside him, their children on their laps cuddled up under a blanket as they sang to the Lord.
Minus the tornado, this would make a good family night. He chuckled a little.
“What?” Marlowe didn’t exactly lean away from him, but she did lift her head up from his shoulder where it had been lying. “Are you...laughing?”
The hymn he was singing stumbled to a stop.
“Maybe.” His hand rubbed lightly up and down her upper arm. Man, he hadn’t realized how thin she was. She seemed like such a sturdy, capable person.
“We are in a dangerous, life-threatening situation, and you were laughing? Now I’ve heard everything.” She shook her head. In the darkness, he could feel her hair brush against his neck.
“Okay. I can understand you being upset at my perceived lack of maturity and seriousness. But isn’t it better that I’m laughing rather than crying?”
She snorted.
Yeah, that’s what he thought.
“You’ve got me there. Laugh away, my friend.”
“I’d like it better if you were laughing with me.”
“I was singing with you. I’m sure if you start laughing, you’ll end up dragging me along with that too.”
“You were enjoying the singing.”
“You’re right. It’s been a long time since we sang together. We used to do it all the time in, what, junior high?”
“Yeah. That was back when you were thinking you were going to Hollywood like my brother Chandler. You dragged me along as your supporting man. Today, you were the one singing harmony.”
She laughed, softly, but maybe it was a testament to the stress of the evening, because she didn’t give him a smart comment back. “I always loved to hear you sing.” She paused, then continued. “Your voice sounds a little different now than it did in junior high.”
He could hear the smile in her voice. And he realized that the danger had probably passed, although neither one of them was thinking about it anymore. Funny how music and a conversation with a friend could pass the time so pleasantly, even in such circumstances.
Friend.
He needed to remember that, because it had become very easy for him to sit here in the dark and look at Marlowe like she was...more.
Like a wife.
Like they were family.
Maybe they could be a family, in their patched-up, convoluted way, but Marlowe was most definitely not his wife.
Clark realized his hand had been rubbing up and down her upper arm for quite some time, and he had been enjoying it. Enjoying that, and the closeness of her body, and the scent that was all hers, deep and pure and no-nonsense just like she was, with just a touch of sweetness and sparkle. He couldn’t even put a name on it. But when he smelled it, he knew exactly who it was. It was unique to her.
He supposed his lapse was understandable, because a storm like this wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but he needed to be more careful. His friendship with Marlowe was lifelong and very strong. But she was a very straightforward kind of person. If he made a pass at her, their friendship would be ruined.
He’d realized it already in some ways, but tonight had made it clear that she was beautiful and desirable and womanly. However, it couldn’t negate the fact that she was also his best friend and totally off-limits for him in that area.
No matter how perfect it might be for them to join their families together.
He shifted, drawing his hand away from around her and dropping it on his son, rubbing over Huck’s head and down his shoulder. In the dark, Marlowe couldn’t see, but hopefully she would assume he pulled his arm away to check his kid and not because he was uncomfortable and feeling like he was crossing a line.
“I think it might be over,” he said softly.
When he pulled his arm away, she straightened, their thighs still touching but their upper bodies separated. He missed the warmth and the softness. He appreciated the trust that she placed in him by curling up beside him and putting her life and the life of her child in his hands. He maybe didn’t deserve the trust, but he loved it.
“I think you might be right.” Her head seemed to shift in the darkness, and he missed the soft touch of her hair against his neck when it did so. “I almost want to stay here. Not sure what it’s going to look like out there, and that’s scary.”
“Let me see if I can get out from underneath Huck. I’ll go out and check. Just before I came down, I tried to send a text, but it wouldn’t go through. I’m not sure if maybe a cell phone tower was down or something....”
“You can say, ‘I didn’t want to scare you and make an already bad situation worse.’” She grunted a little laugh, and he was grateful for her attempt at levity. That was exactly what he’d thought. Of course, she knew it. “We’ll deal,” she added.
“It might have just been a temporary interruption. Maybe the system was overloaded or something.”
He shifted, and her hand came out, brushing his.
Over the years, he’d touched Marlowe a million times. Goofing off, ruffling her hair, smacking her arm, grasping her hand to pull her up a tree, or having her shove him off the side of the pool into the deep end of the water. Lots of times, all the time.
So he froze for a moment when her hand brushed his and his skin tingled, sending little shockwaves up his arm and into his heart.
He’d already decided he could not allow himself to ruin what they had. With his odd feelings of family, and his enjoyment of her heat and scent and that softness, and now this tingle thing.
He must have been more scared than he thought he was. Although he knew he had been plenty scared. It was all the aftereffects of the fierce storm.
He managed to only hesitate for a fraction of a second before he continued to slide out from under Huck. Marlowe helped, and by the time Clark stood up, Huck’s head and shoulders were lying on Marlowe, squeezed in between her stomach and Kylie.
Just as he had gone up to get Kylie first, he knew Marlowe would defend his son with her life. Although he was pretty sure the danger was over.
Pulling a cell phone out, he switched the flashlight app on, pointing it down toward the floor.
“Are you okay if I go look around?” he asked, low, careful not to wake the ki
ds.
“Yes.” There was a slight hesitation before she spoke, and her voice sounded odd in the darkness, not quite as confident. “Please don’t go far.”
His eyes shot to hers. Again, he wasn’t used to Marlowe not being totally in control or at least trying to be in control. He didn’t mind, and he even liked having her depend on him. It definitely made him want to be more. He didn’t want her to be disappointed.
Which was definitely a new feeling, because he never worried about that before either. She was his best friend; of course she wasn’t going to be disappointed in him.
“I won’t. If I’m going to be out of shouting distance, I’ll come back to let you know. I just want to make sure we can get out of our house. That the house is even still there.”
Obviously, the house was still partially there, because the roof was still on the room that they were in. But there had definitely been a lot of crashing going on, and he was afraid of what he might find when he walked out.
“Clark?” Marlowe’s voice was even softer with even more hesitation and insecurity in it.
He almost didn’t want to answer her. Pretend he hadn’t heard. He was afraid of what she was going to ask. And he didn’t even know why.
He couldn’t do that to her. “Yeah?”
“Please...please, be careful.”
Up until that point, he assumed that the heat and the softness and the tingles were all him. Products of the storm and fear, of course, but all him. With that slight hesitation and insecure note in her voice, that pleading almost, he wondered if maybe she felt a little of that, too.
That the storm had affected them both that way.
And suddenly he worried that their relationship might have shifted. That whatever was outside destroyed by the tornado was only an outward manifestation of the inward shift and possible destruction that had happened between them this evening, tonight, in the dark in the cellar.
Or Marlowe had gone from being his best friend and slipped away from him just a little, because neither one of them could go down that path. That path of attraction. Because that’s what it felt like.
“I will.” He meant it, too. Because if anything happened to him, his family of course would take care of Marlowe, but she would be completely alone in the world. He didn’t want that for her. She’d already been through enough.
He grabbed the latch on the door—it didn’t have a knob like a regular door—and lifted it, pulling.
He shone his phone around, not sure what he expected, but everything looked normal.
“Looks good out here. I’m going to the steps and walking up.”
“You promised.”
She did not need to remind him of his promise; he knew exactly what he’d said. He’d be careful.
He walked slowly, because he wasn’t sure about the structure of the house. He assumed everything was okay. Everything looked the same as it had an hour ago. Was it even an hour? The storm probably hadn’t lasted that long. They talked and sang, and time flew by without them even realizing it.
He reached the cellar steps and carefully went up. There seemed to be some kind of heavy anticipation in the air. Maybe anticipation was the wrong word. Heavy foreboding. Like in a horror movie before the murderer showed up.
He shook that feeling, finished climbing the stairs, and pushed the door open.
Again, it felt anticlimactic as he shone his cell phone flashlight around the kitchen. Nothing had changed. Everything was exactly the way it had been when he had shut the door behind him and run down the stairs with Huck.
He turned around and called down the cellar steps, “Everything looks fine up here. I’m going to step outside and look around a bit. Are you okay?”
He had to strain to hear her answered “Yes.”
He considered staying. There was no need for him to go out. There was no one close by. The town was a mile away, and there were plenty of people there, although if there had been a tornado and it had hit the town, they could use help digging out, and time would be of the essence, but he’d never heard the siren, so they probably hadn’t been struck by a tornado.
But still, he needed to figure out what that crashing had been, first. Before he left to go help anyone else. And he wouldn’t leave if Marlowe wasn’t okay.
He reached the door and opened it, stepping out onto the porch which was still there. The ice-cream bucket that had skittered across earlier in the evening was gone, he noted, as he shone the flashlight back and forth on the wooden floor. But everything else looked just fine.
Even the sky had started to clear, and he could see stars as he stepped off the porch and down the steps. Still, something didn’t feel right.
It just didn’t quite feel the way it normally did. It took a minute for him to process, shifting and searching, before he realized the big oak tree that stood beside his house all of his life was no longer standing.
It was lying, not quite horizontal to the ground, but almost. Marlowe’s house was holding it up.
The clouds shifted, and the moon came out.
Yeah. The tree had broken through the roof and looked like it had gone down through the second story, and possibly the cross members between the first and second story had caught it. The leaves weren’t huge, but they were obscuring enough of his sight that he couldn’t tell for sure.
One thing he definitely knew: Marlowe no longer had a house to live in. Not for a while anyway.
He could assess the damage better in the daylight, and he didn’t stand and stare. He checked to see if their vehicles were there, and they were, both unscathed. He didn’t see any other damage—just the tree on Marlowe’s house.
His phone buzzed in his hand, and he looked down.
A message from his mother.
We’re safe. Are you okay?
He answered quickly.
Yes, we’re fine.
He asked about his brothers.
A few short texts later and his mother had reassured him that everyone in his family was fine and that the town of Cowboy Crossing had escaped unscathed.
His mother also said she heard from a friend that the next town over five miles away, Trumbull, had been hit by a tornado directly. But she wasn’t entirely sure.
After telling her to let him know if they needed volunteers for anything, Clark turned and went back in the house. Somehow, he was going to need to tell Marlowe about her home.
She was strong, she’d weathered a lot of storms before, but it just seemed kind of unfair. To not have had a dad, then to have lost her mom and sister and now her home. He wasn’t sure exactly how extensive the damage was, or whether they’d be able to get in to get anything out, but there was definitely going to be some major repairs necessary, and she wouldn’t be in her home, probably for the summer, he would guess, especially since Trumbull had scored a direct hit and most cleanup efforts would be concentrated there, first.
Chapter 5
Marlowe had remained in the basement, clutching the kids to her and wishing that Clark hadn’t had to go. She knew they needed to find out what damage had been done and whether or not they could even go back upstairs and go to bed for the night, but she hadn’t wanted him to leave.
It wasn’t even that she was scared, necessarily. She just hadn’t wanted to lose...his presence, maybe? It had just felt like she was losing a part of herself when he walked away.
She tried to shake the feeling, because it was weird, and she was mostly successful.
It felt like she sat there forever after he said he was going outside to look around, but it was probably only a few minutes.
Funny how when Clark was with her, the time flew, and then while she was alone, it crawled.
Her throat was dry, and her stomach was tied in knots that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to undo, but she was also extremely exhausted. Probably from the stress taking its toll. She just wanted to crash, but she didn’t feel safe.
Then suddenly, light popped on outside the door, filling the cracks
in the opening where the door hung on its hinges.
Relief made her laugh out loud, knowing that Clark had decided it was safe to check the light switches.
“Marlowe?” His form appeared in the doorway, looking black, as he was outlined by the harsh cellar light and her eyes were not used to anything but the solid blackness of the root cellar.
She wanted to struggle to her feet, but the two kids on her lap prevented that. She stroked their heads, smiling, because at that age, once they fell asleep, they could pretty much sleep through anything.
“Yes?”
He stepped further in. “I can carry the kids back up to their beds.”
It was hard to define the exact signs that she picked up. Maybe because they’d known each other so long, but there was just something in the restless movements of Clark’s feet or maybe the set of his shoulders or maybe even a tone in his voice that made her think that there was a problem. Although why she would think that, she had no idea, since he’d simply said he’d carry the kids up and put them to bed. He wouldn’t be doing that if there was any danger.
“What is it?”
He snorted, an odd sound that contained no humor. “The house is fine. My house. Is fine.”
Her eyes got big; if she had a free hand, she would have shoved it in her mouth to keep from saying anything, from squealing or crying as she wanted to. She had to swallow the sound, but she couldn’t swallow her words. “What? Is my house gone? Was it a tornado? Is there anything left at all?”
“The oak tree. It’s gone. Well, it’s not gone exactly, it’s just...lying comfortably on your house.”
She sat in stunned silence, trying to process the implications.
“It’s lying on the front part of your house. I can’t tell exactly how bad the damage is, and of course, I’m not a builder or architect or anything close. I couldn’t say for sure whether it was just a patch job, or whether it needs to be fixed entirely. I really don’t know. My guess, if I were guessing, would be that it could be fixed. In the morning, we’ll look at it, and I’ll see if I can get in and get anything for you.”
“No!” she said immediately. “There is absolutely no way I am allowing you to put yourself in any kind of danger.”
Best Friends in the Show Me State Page 4