The Hope Chest, page 29
“I usually get that kind of notice on my phone, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” Nessa cut the last piece of cloth and put it into a ziplock baggie. “And I haven’t had the television or radio on all day. How did your day go?”
“Great!” April crossed the living room and dining area and went straight to the kitchen. “What do I smell?” She removed the lid from the slow cooker and sniffed.
“Kidney bean soup,” Nessa said. “Yeast rolls are on the stove to go with it.”
“I’m not waiting on Flynn.” April filled a bowl with the thick soup and put two rolls on a plate. “I’m starving. Nanny Lucy never made this. Where did you get the recipe?” She set the food down on the end of the table and took a bite. “Sometimes I had to do some basic cooking when Nanny Lucy had bad days. I wonder now how on earth she cared for me during those times.”
“One of the church ladies used to bring it to soup-and-sandwich nights at my dad’s church. When I asked her for the recipe, she gave it to me,” Nessa said.
April buttered a hot roll and took another bite of the soup. “Is it hard to make? I could eat this stuff every week.”
“Might be the easiest soup in the world to make,” Nessa answered. “You crumble up a pound of hamburger in a pot with a small diced onion, cover it with water, and boil until the meat is done and the onions are tender. Pour in two cans of kidney beans and a can of tomato sauce. Then add about a cup of ketchup and a fourth cup of Worcestershire sauce and simmer. I make it and pour it into a slow cooker and let it simmer on low for a few hours. Daddy liked to add a little more Worcestershire sauce to it. Mama always served it with hot rolls and an assortment of sliced cheese.”
“Well, it’s really good,” April said.
“Glad you like it.” Nessa put away the sewing machine and cleared the table of quilting scraps. “I’ve kind of felt something in the air all day, so I’m not surprised there’s a tornado watch.”
“Maudie says every time a little breeze kicks up around these parts, the weather folks issue a tornado watch. She says we shouldn’t start to worry until they call it a warning. Then we shouldn’t get our underbritches in a twist until we feel it in the air,” April said between bites.
“She must be a hoot to work for.” Nessa thought of her previous principal, who had never seemed to smile. Then she thought of the electricity she’d felt in the air all day. Could it have been the approaching storm and not her anxiety over talking to Jackson?
“Yes, she’s more like a friend than a boss, and honey, the electricity in the air around here isn’t a tornado.” April giggled. “It’s just sparks jumping back and forth from our house to Jackson’s. I could almost see them when we played Pictionary last night. You ever think that you might have been wrong about the woman with him in Walmart? Maybe she was just a good friend. When are you going to have it out with him?”
“I’m going over there right now,” Nessa answered. “I’ll either feel like a fool because I was jealous, or like an idiot because I didn’t give him a chance to tell me what was going on. At least it will be out in the open.”
Flynn came in the door, kicked off his shoes, stopped to pet Waylon, and headed to the kitchen. “I’m starving, and I smell yeast rolls.”
“Supper is on the stove and in the slow cooker,” Nessa told him. “Help yourself. There’s a lemon chess pie in the refrigerator.”
“I’m sure glad that I’m working every day. If I was just sittin’ on the porch watching the clouds roll in, I’d gain fifty pounds before Christmas,” Flynn said as he dipped up a bowl of soup. “Aren’t you going to eat with us, Nessa?”
“I’ve been too antsy to eat. I’ll see y’all later,” she said.
April gave her a brief nod and went back for a second bowl of soup.
Nessa kept her eyes on the ground to avoid stepping in a hole or stumbling over a rock. She went through a dozen scenarios about how to even ask Jackson about the woman, and none of them worked. When the wind picked up and blew her hair back away from her face, she looked up at the sky and saw the dark clouds in the southwest.
“I guess that’s what caused the warning,” she muttered as she rounded the corner of Jackson’s house.
He was standing on the porch, his hands on the railing, with Tex right beside him. His eyes were on the clouds, and he didn’t even notice her until Tex barked. He whipped around and yelled, “What are you doing out in this weather? We’ve been issued . . .” His voice was blown away in a sudden burst of wind, and his finger shot up to point at a funnel swirling down from the dark clouds that looked like it couldn’t be more than half a mile away. He jumped from the porch to the ground in one leap and grabbed her hand.
“That thing is coming right at us. Run, Nessa!” he screamed.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the whirling vortex devour a tree, roots and all, and almost froze in her tracks, but he yanked on her hand and she started running. The noise above them sounded like a freight train as Jackson guided her into the storm cellar right behind Tex. He pulled the heavy door shut and barred it with a long length of wood. Then the sound got louder and louder.
Nessa dug her cell phone out of her pocket and used it for a flashlight. “Do you have electricity down here?” Her heart was beating so fast that her words came out between breaths.
Jackson struck a match and lit the wick of an oil lamp. “No electricity. Wouldn’t do us much good—every time the wind blows, we lose power for an hour or two. I’ve got a generator for the shop, but this is as good as it gets down here. Have a seat. We might be here . . .”
His voice was cut off again when it sounded like a full-grown elephant landed on the cellar door. Nessa’s hands went to cover her ears. Tex whimpered and crawled under the twin bed against the wall. Nessa took her hands down at the same time that something else landed on top of the cellar.
Jackson motioned toward the bed, then took her by the hand. “We’re safe. That was a close call, but we’re alive. You’re shivering. Are you cold?”
“No, just the aftereffects of the bejesus getting scared out of me.”
He draped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the bed, then pulled her down beside him. She was reminded of the song on her playlist about storms never lasting. “Is it over? Can we go outside?” she asked.
“I think it’s just rain and hail right now, but if that was the big pecan tree in the backyard that fell on the cellar door, we’ll be here until someone comes to see about us,” he answered.
“Or maybe the tornado threw that other tree it grabbed up down the road back down on us.” Nessa’s heart pounded in her chest even harder, and her hands felt clammy. Her eyes darted around the small space. Shelves stocked with canned goods at the end of the oblong room and a small table where the oil lamp sat were all that was down there, except for the twin bed. She wasn’t sure what was storm fear at that point and what was fear of finally being in a place where she and Jackson could talk.
Face your fears. Her father had preached that so many times. Don’t be afraid to put your trust in God. Give Him your life and your heart.
But Jackson isn’t God. He’s just a man, she argued.
“I’ll try to open the door, but I can tell you right now that we’re here until someone rescues us.” Jackson got to his feet and put his shoulder and both hands against the door, but it didn’t budge. “I just hope the house and shop are still standing when we get out of here. That still sounds pretty fierce out there. Uncle D. J. and I had to come down here a few times, but we never saw anything like that funnel.”
The idea of the tornado and wind blowing Nanny Lucy’s house away hit Nessa harder than the idea of being stuck in a cellar until someone came to rescue them. A lump formed in her throat when she thought of Flynn and April being covered up with the debris from the house with no way to get out of the cellar under the garage floor. She pulled her phone from her hip pocket and groaned when a message popped up saying she had a low battery. She sent a quick text asking Flynn if they were all right, and got one back saying they were safe and about to survey the damage at Nanny Lucy’s.
We’re stuck in Jackson’s cellar. Send hell..p
She started to correct the spelling but hit send instead.
“Did you bring your phone?” she asked Jackson.
“It’s in the house, if it’s still standing,” he groaned. “Did you get a message out?”
She nodded. “But it’s misspelled. I hope they know I meant for them to send help and not hell.”
Jackson’s chuckle relieved some of Nessa’s tension. “I’d take a little hell if it could remove whatever is laying on the door. I sure hope it’s a tree and not my table saw. But the important thing is that we’re safe.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “Another minute and you would have been caught right in the middle of the thing.”
Nessa shivered from her neck to her toes.
“Cold?” Jackson asked again as he pulled her closer to his side.
She shook her head. “I saw that funnel tear a tree out of the ground like it was a toothpick and swallow it whole just before we got into the cellar. I thought we would both be sucked up into that thing and never get to have our talk.”
“We’re a couple of lucky people,” Jackson said, “but what were you doing out in this weather, anyway? Not that I’m complaining. It would be lonely down here with just Tex to talk to. I’d thought maybe I’d call you and ask if we could meet at the waterfall.”
Nessa drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know how to approach this without sounding like a jealous fishwife. The day after our third date, when we . . .” She paused.
“When we made love,” he finished the sentence for her.
“Yes.” She was going to say “had sex,” but she liked his phrase better. “That next day you were with a tall brunette woman at Walmart, and she kissed you on the cheek. Then you drove off with her in your truck.”
Jackson drew his dark brows down and cocked his head to the side. After a minute, his face relaxed and he smiled. “Oh, that was Brenda. She’s the wife of a lawyer friend of mine in Paris. She was practicing for a new play over at the Paris Community Theatre. She got a flat tire between the theater and Walmart, so I gave her a ride to the store. Her husband was at work, and her dad and brother were going to be a little while getting a tire and taking care of her car, so I took her home.”
“Did you ever do theater work?” Nessa asked.
“No, musicals aren’t my thing.” He grinned. “So, jealous fishwife, huh?”
“Are you just a knight in shining armor, coming to a stranded damsel’s rescue like that?” She avoided the question.
Jackson’s grin got bigger. “Yep, I guess I am, but I know the family. Her husband tried to recruit me into his firm when I first came here. His name is Grady. He and Brenda bought a hope chest from me for their daughter’s sixteenth birthday, and every now and then, Grady still calls to see if I’m ready to go back to the law business.”
“That woman has a sixteen-year-old daughter?” Nessa gasped.
“Yes, and four kids younger than that one. The sixteen-year-old helps out in her dance studio over in Paris, but they live on a ranch out north of Sun Valley,” he answered. “Is that why you were so distant the past few days?”
Nessa nodded. “I judged you by another man’s half bushel.”
“Uncle D. J. used that expression pretty often. I’d never heard it before I moved to Blossom. He told me it meant judging one person’s actions by someone else that you know. So who did you judge me by?” Jackson asked.
“Uncle Matthew and my father all rolled into one. My uncle because he’s a womanizer, and my dad because he preaches love and Jesus, but he’s got a lot of anger in him,” she answered honestly.
“I’m not either of those guys,” Jackson said. “If I’m in a relationship, then I’m faithful. And honey, after I have sex with a woman, I don’t dump her and never call. I’m thirty-two years old, and my mama would still come after me with a switch if I ever showed that kind of disrespect to a lady. So tell me, are we in a relationship or not?”
Nessa nodded. “I’d like that, but we’ve only known each other a month.”
Jackson tipped her chin up with his rough knuckles and leaned in to kiss her. When the kiss ended, he whispered, “I fell in love with you the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“It was dark then,” she said with half a giggle. “You couldn’t even see me clearly.”
“I could see enough,” he said.
“When we get out of here, and if it’s still the light of day, are you still going to be able to say that?” She laid her head on his shoulder.
“Of course.” He toyed with a strand of her hair. “I’ll even shout it from the rooftop if you want me to. That is, if I’ve got a roof left.”
“Hey, if the tornado took your shop and house, you can have the quilting shed to work in, and I’ll suspend my quilt rack from the living room ceiling. You can stay with us. All I’ve got is a twin bed with a trundle underneath it, but I’ll make Flynn trade rooms with me,” she said.
“Well, whether your quilting shed is gone or not, my house has three bedrooms. You can have the bigger one to set up your sewing machine and do your quilting. You’ll have air-conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter,” he said.
“That almost makes me hope the shed is gone,” she laughed, but then she grew serious. “No, erase that. I wouldn’t want Nanny Lucy’s shed and all the memories, good or bad, to be gone.”
“Whether it’s there or not, that offer still stands.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I’d ask you to move in with me tomorrow, but that might be moving too fast.”
“Probably so,” she yawned.
“Looks like it’s going to be a while before we get out of this place.” His eyes were twinkling.
“Not in front of Tex,” she whispered.
At the sound of his name, the dog came crawling out from under the bed and jumped up on the foot of it.
“I don’t think he’ll mind if we just cuddle and talk,” Jackson said as he stretched out on the side of the bed nearest the wall.
Nessa kicked off her shoes and snuggled up next to him, her cheek on his chest. His arms around her made her feel safe and warm, no matter what was going on outside because of a tornado.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Flynn was frantic to get over to Jackson’s place after the storm to see if Nessa, Jackson, and Tex were all right. That text he’d gotten from Nessa had him wondering if she’d lost service or had been swept up by the tornado.
“Do you think they’re all right?” April’s voice was totally breathless.
“I hope so,” Flynn said as he and April emerged from the cellar at their house. Hard rain had continued to fall for more than an hour, and hail the size of marbles had turned the yard white. Then, as suddenly as it had blown up, the rain had stopped, and now the stars danced around a lover’s moon.
April gasped and pointed. “The quilting shed is gone. All I can see that’s left are the file cabinets. We’ve got to get to Jackson’s and see about Nessa.”
Flynn started for his truck. “God, I hope they’re all right.”
April beat him to his truck and was fastening her seat belt when he slid in behind the wheel. “Her message did say they were stuck in his cellar, right?”
“Yep, and then she asked for help before something kept her from finishing the text.” Flynn gripped the steering wheel so hard that his hands started to hurt.
They made it to the fork in the road, only to find an uprooted tree blocking their way. Flynn stopped the vehicle and got out, with April right behind him. “Guess we’ll be walking from here.”
She nodded and started jogging toward Jackson’s place.
Flynn was in good shape, but his stride wasn’t any longer than hers, so they ran side by side until Jackson’s house came into view. He stopped and put his hands on his knees. “The shop and house are still there. We might have to replace the shingles, but they’re still standing, thank God. Now we just have to find them and hope to hell they’re all right.”
“Amen.” April huffed right beside him. “Now let’s go see what’s going on that they need either hell or help.” She circled around the house and gasped. “Flynn, there’s no way we can get that tree off the cellar door. The roots are taller than I am.”
“I’m going to the shop for the chain saw,” Flynn said. “We don’t have to get the whole thing off. We just need to saw a section off big enough to . . . No, wait a minute.”
“What?” April asked impatiently.
Flynn pushed aside some tree branches and took a better look. “Forget taking part of the tree away. There’s enough room below the tree trunk for them to crawl out if I can saw through the boards that make the door. Jackson and I can make a new door later.”
April followed him to the shop. “What can I do to help?”
“When I cut the branches off the tree, you can pull them out of the way.” Flynn searched until he found a chain saw, revved it up to be sure it would work, and then carried it to the cellar door. He had used chain saws before, but that night he was helping free Jackson and Nessa, and that made him feel like he was making giant steps toward his goal. He could almost feel the virtual shackles that had been holding him to a negative standard just floating away.
“Hello!” Jackson called out when they returned.
“Sit tight and stay away from the door,” Flynn yelled.
“Are y’all okay?” April hollered.
“We’re fine, and so is Tex,” Nessa yelled back.
“Hold him back away from the door, too.” Flynn started up the saw and cut away the branches.
April dragged them off to the side as he worked, and in a few minutes, they could see the door. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now I cut away the door and hope I don’t hit concrete and ruin Jackson’s saw.” Flynn put the nose of the saw down to make the first cut and carefully made a hole big enough that he thought Jackson and Nessa could crawl through. He dropped to his knees and poked his head inside. “Turn Tex loose and then y’all come on out. It’s muddy out here, so watch your step.”
