Safe In The Rancher's Arms. Catherine Mann
wrong?”
“The cell towers must be out. No service at all. We’ll give it a few minutes and then see what things are like up top. If we hear the sirens again, we can always come back down here.”
“What time is it?”
It was oddly surreal to be asked that question. He honestly had no idea how long they had been in the cellar. It felt like hours. When he checked the illuminated dial of his watch, he shook his head. “It’s only four thirty.”
“That can’t be right.”
“Drink some water. Let’s catch our breath.” Honest to God, he was in no real hurry to survey the damage. He’d seen enough news footage in the past to know what a monster tornado could do. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Moore, Oklahoma, small towns in Tennessee. Hopefully, Royal’s storm hadn’t been that bad.
He wasn’t counting on it, though. The winds they had heard and felt carried the force of destruction. Which meant lots of structural damage, but hopefully, no loss of life.
Beth set her bottle on the floor. She had barely drained an inch. “I can’t stay down here anymore. I want to know what happened.”
“You realize this isn’t going to be a walk in the park.” They stood facing each other. He took her hands in his. “We’ll deal with whatever it is. We’re neighbors. Neighbors help each other.”
“Thank you, Drew.” She squeezed his fingers and released them. “I can handle it. But not knowing is worse.”
“Fair enough. Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Surviving a ferocious tornado was the most terrifying experience of Beth’s life. Right up until the moment she realized they were trapped in an eight by eight storm cellar. Her skin crawled at the thought of being buried alive.
Drew had managed to remove the piece of wood that served as a locking mechanism for the cellar doors, but they wouldn’t budge. Something heavy lay against them. Shining a beam of light on her cell mate, she saw the muscles in his arms and torso flex and strain as he tried to dislodge whatever was blocking their escape route.
She turned off the flashlight despite the false sense of security it afforded. Drew was balanced on a step, the awkward position making his job even harder. “Can I help push?” she asked, proud of the calm she projected. The fact that it was entirely false seemed immaterial.
“I don’t know if we can both fit on the step, but sure. It can’t hurt.”
He extended his arm and helped her balance beside him. Bracing themselves, they shoved in tandem against the unforgiving wood. Beth’s foot slipped, and she nearly tumbled backward. “Sorry,” she muttered.
Drew beat his fist against the doors. “Damn it, this is pointless. It won’t budge. Whatever is up there has us pinned down for good. I’m sorry, Beth.”
She could do one of two things—indulge in a full-blown panic attack...or convince Drew that she was a calm, rational, capable woman. “No apologies necessary. I’m sure someone will find us. Eventually.” When the roads are cleared and when at least one person remembers that Drew came to Green Acres this afternoon. She cleared her throat. “Did you happen to mention to anyone at the ranch that you were coming over here to read me the riot act?” Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.
“No.” He helped her down to the floor and began to pace. It wasn’t much of an exercise since his long legs ate up the space in two strides. “Will your family check up on you?”
“We’re not close,” she said, choosing not to go into detail. No need for him to see the seedy underbelly of her upbringing. Despite Drew’s cell phone experience, she pulled hers out of the pocket of her shorts and tried to make a call. No bars...not even one.
Drew saw what she was doing. “Try a text,” he said. “Sometimes those will go through even with no signal.”
She stared at the screen glumly, holding up the phone so he could see. “It says not delivered.”
“Well, hell.”
Her sentiments exactly. “I wish I had eaten lunch.”
“Concentrate on something else,” he urged. “We don’t want to dig into the food supply unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
What he wasn’t saying was that they could be trapped for days.
Beth refused to contemplate the implications. The storm cellar was equipped with a small, portable hospital commode tucked in the far corner. Things would have to get pretty bad before she could imagine using the john in front of Drew Farrell. Oh, Lordy.
Now all she could think about was waterfalls and babbling brooks and the state of her bladder.
Drew sat down beside her. They had both extinguished their flashlights to save the batteries. She gazed at her phone, feeling its solid weight in her hand as a lifeline. “I suppose we should turn these off.”
“Yeah. We need to preserve as much charge as we can. We’ll check one or the other on the hour in case service is restored.”
“But you don’t think it’s likely.”
“No.”
In the semidarkness, soon to get even more inky black when the sun went down, she couldn’t see much of him at all. But their chairs were close. She was certain she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “I feel so helpless,” she said, unable to mask the quiver in her voice.
“So do I.” The tone in his voice was weary, but resigned. It must be unusual for a man who was the undisputed boss of his domain to be bested by an act of nature.
“At least we know someone at the ranch will realize you’re missing,” she said. “You’re an important man.”
“I don’t know about that, but my brother, Jed, is visiting from Dallas. He’ll be looking for me.”
She wanted to touch him, to feel that tangible reassurance that she was not alone. But she and Drew did not have that kind of relationship. Even without the filter of social convention, they were simply two people trapped in an untenable situation.
His voice rumbled in her ear. “Why don’t we call a truce? Until we get rescued. I’ve lost the urge to yell at you for the moment.”
“Please don’t be nice to me now,” she begged, her anxiety level rising.
“Why not?”
“Because it means you think we’re going to die entombed in the ground.”
He shifted on his chair, making the metal creak. “Of course we’re not going to die. At the very worst we might have to spend a week or more in here. In which case we’d run out of food and water. We’d be miserable, but we wouldn’t die.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it, Farrell.” His analytical summation of their predicament was in no way reassuring.
The dark began to close in on her. Even with Drew at her side, her stomach jumped and pitched with nerves. “I need a distraction,” she blurted out. “Tell me an embarrassing story about your past that no one knows.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Not at all. What happens in the storm cellar stays in the storm cellar. You can trust me.”
His muffled snort of laughter comforted her in some odd way. She enjoyed this softer side of him. When he stood to pace again, she missed his closeness. His scent clung to the shirt he had given her, so she pulled it more tightly around her in the absence of its owner and waited for him to speak.
* * *
Drew was worried. Really worried. Not about his and Beth’s situation. He’d leveled with her on that score. But what had his stomach