Picnic in Someday Valley (Honey Creek #2)(22)

“Come along, Killer,” he said. “I’ve got some barn mice who want to meet you.”

Marcie watched until his truck lights disappeared, then locked both her dead bolts. For the first time in years she slept without waking up at every sound she heard in the trailer park.





Sunday





Chapter 15


Jesse


The rain woke Jesse deep in the night. He tossed for a while, then got up and checked on the kids. The storm didn’t seem to be bothering them. They all looked so peaceful in their beds.

Sometimes, on nights like this, he would wake and for a moment think that Beth was still in the house. He could almost hear her bare feet walking the hallway. She’d be watching over the kids or tiptoeing into the kitchen to start breakfast before she woke him. He loved waking up to the smell of coffee and rolls baking. He’d smile, then act like he was asleep so Beth could wake him up with a kiss.

But now those memories were like dreams, half-forgotten in the plans of today.

Reality pulled him full awake and he knew she would never walk the hallway again. It was like she’d slipped away when he wasn’t paying attention for just one second. From the center of his world to a memory, in a blink.

When her absence slammed into his heart, it hurt just as hard as it had the first night when he’d come home from the hospital with a baby but no wife. No best friend. No partner in life. No Beth.

He grabbed a quilt and went out on the porch. He’d heard thunder earlier, but now the night was silent, as if waiting for the rain. The air had an eerie glow about it. Beautiful and a bit frightening at the same time. The night seemed to be silently weeping a moment before the storm came in, riding a north wind.

Jesse was a part of this land. He understood the weather better than most guys predicting it on TV. Right now his land was taking a beating. There was nothing to do except watch. The hammering of the rain on the tin roof and the swishing sound of water running off and making plopping sounds in puddles was almost like music.

He closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

In his dream he was dancing with a tall woman to the beat of the storm. He could feel her soft body against him as they moved, almost making love as they glided across the dance floor. His hands were at her waist and her fingers rested over his heart. The touch of her seemed to be healing what was broken inside him.

She had long curly hair the color of the Red River in spring, and green eyes.

In his dreams he looked down at her ample breasts. In the V of her dress he could see the two mounds pushing together. As he watched, thinking he’d like to touch her skin, a snake twisted up out of her dress. A deadly coral. Red, black, and yellow.

Jesse jumped awake so violently he almost fell off the porch. He tossed the quilt and stuck his head out into the rain. The dream left him shaking. The rain left him freezing. But nothing could wash the dream away.

Was it a warning or simply a nightmare?

When the phone rang, he couldn’t wrap his thoughts around what the sound was. The dream had been so real.

He was still shaking when he stepped inside and answered the phone. Hell, he thought, am I awake or still in the dream? No one called this late. “Hello.”

“Sorry to wake you, Jesse, but this is Sheriff LeRoy Hayes. We’ve got a problem on our hands.”

Jesse shook his head like a dog, sending water flying in every direction. “How can I help?” Even half-asleep, Jesse knew the sheriff wouldn’t be calling unless it was an emergency.

Last year there’d been a wreck a mile from his place, and the sheriff needed his tractor to pull one of the cars out of a ditch. Another time he’d had to house a carload of teenagers who’d run out of gas a quarter mile from his place. Since it wasn’t an emergency, and the roads were freezing over, the sheriff thought they could sleep in his barn. He’d said, “I would have them sleep in the car, but there’s no telling what would happen with six high school kids in one dark car. We’d probably have ourselves a mini-Woodstock on our hands. One of the mothers said if her daughter got any wilder, they’d have to lock her up in a zoo.”

Jesse had smiled while he walked down to the car that night. Then he laughed all the way back. The kids were all blaming each other for the gas problem and by the time he settled them on the hay in the barn, none of them were speaking.

LeRoy broke into his memories. “We got hard rain, and more coming, over here in Honey Creek.”

Jesse already knew that.

“The creeks are bursting their banks and the Brazos might overflow. The three hotels in town are full.” LeRoy paused. “We can’t use the lodge. It’s too close to the river. If the creek floods, the Brazos might be next and that’ll flood all the way to the edge of town. The river side of Honey Creek could be under water.”

Jesse waited as he tried to think how he could help. Both grandmothers were on high ground.

LeRoy kept yelling into the phone as if Jesse suddenly went deaf. “I’ll fill all the homes that can take people who are stranded out on the low side of the county road. The church said they could offer fifty beds. Only problem is some of these folks want to bring their animals. You know how it is around here, every person who has three acres thinks they need a horse. We can handle dogs and cats, but we’re not prepared for horses. How many can you take at your place? No one will blink at a charge of thirty dollars a night. Your land is so high up, I’ll start building an ark if it floods.”