Suspicions of the Heart (30 page)

"Well, I mean, Sam asked her to come,"
Joe corrected.

"Sam asked her, huh?" Aggie shook her
head again. "Well, no wonder she was busy."

"She's not returning my calls," Joe
snapped, unwilling to take all the blame.

"Well, hell," Aggie snorted roughly.
"She just lives over the bluff. Why did you bother with a
phone?"

"Let's drop it," Joe insisted. "We'll
have a nice dinner, just the three of us."

Aggie shrugged. "If you want to be
miserable, it's your choice."

Roscoe didn't say a word; he knew
better than to open his mouth, but Joe just kept sticking his foot
in it.

"We stopped by on our way over," Roscoe
finally offered, giving Joe a concerned look, and obviously sensing
Joe's need to know something.

"H…how was she?" Joe had to ask. Pride
didn't cut it. He had to know.

"She's lost weight, and she doesn't
look like she's been sleeping much," Roscoe answered.

Joe felt his gut wrench. He didn't want
to hear these things. She was plenty thin enough without losing one
inch. He loved every inch of her, too. God, he'd been a fool to let
her go that day without telling her how he really felt. Pride sure
could get in a man's way. Could she possibly be as forlorn as he?
Could she have been hurting all this time without him? And only a
few miles separating them. He'd been a fool not to straighten this
out.

"You guys mind eating by yourselves?
I've got something I need to take care of," Joe announced, his mind
finally made up. He only prayed it wasn't too late.

Aggie chuckled. "Lord no, honey, go get
her."

"That's my intention," he mumbled as he
put his hat on and nodded to them both. "Wish me luck."

Roscoe nodded with a smile.

He saddled his horse and rode over,
trying to figure out what he was going to say when he got there. He
rehearsed it in his head. Had it down pretty pat. Yeah, things
would work out. They had to. But she wasn't there when he arrived.
The trailer wasn't locked, but she was nowhere in sight. Lancer was
gone, too. Dumplin wasn't in his cage, and there was no sign of
Jo-Jo.

Maybe he could pick up her trail. He
nudged his horse and sighed heavily, his little speech
forgotten.

But there was trouble brewing, the kind
he didn't want to contemplate. The sky had darkened too quickly,
and the clouds moving overhead were dark and ominous. Joe watched
the sky off and on as he tried to track her. All he needed was
having to worry about the weather, too.

The wind picked up, scattering her
trail. He tried to second-guess her. She probably just went for a
little ride, not paying much attention to the weather. But the
longer he tracked, the worse things got. It began to rain, and he
took out his slicker and slipped it on. He was determined to find
her. It didn't matter how long it took.

He rode for what seemed like hours, and
still there was no sign of her. He began to worry. Maybe she had
backtracked and went home. He'd go back to the trailer and check
the place out, see if she left any kind of note or sign.

It took him a while; the rain came
harder, the storm raged, and then suddenly the lights seemed to go
out of the sky altogether, and pitch-black absorbed heaven and
earth. The wind died a silent death and then it came. Joe
recognized the roaring and couldn't quite believe what was
happening. He headed for cover, but there was little of it out
here.

His mind began to reel. Where was
Candy? Was she safe? It crossed his mind about what Sam had said,
"And then she died on me". God, he couldn't lose Candy.

Determined more than ever to find her,
he reined Cherokee in and, finally, after waiting as long as he
could, he knew it was coming. He fell to the earth, dragging his
horse with him. Cherokee looked at him with nothing short of fear,
and Joe tried to comfort him. "Hang on there, boy, we'll make it.
We've been through worse than this together."

He laid there holding on to the animal
as the tornado seemed to absorb him. He felt his fingers digging
into the flesh of the animal and then…nothing. What had happened?
Had he blacked out? He couldn't see, everything blew up in the air.
The funnel cloud must have been three city blocks wide the way it
tore the earth apart. Everything scattered, then circled, then
everything on earth seemed to come loose. It felt like the worst
bronc ride of his life, and Joe heard his own voice crack in the
wind. Joe felt the earth's rumble and knew that his life was now in
jeopardy. He tied his horse and himself to a small scrub bush and
prayed it would work. The twister picked up the scrub bush and
tossed it like a weed. Cherokee made a whinny sound and thrashed
his legs to get up, but Joe held him down.

But his mind wasn't on himself. His
mind was on Candy and where she might be. Not knowing was the worst
of it.

Unprepared, would she have the presence
of mind to tie herself down to something? Would it do any good even
if she did? Or would it catch her unaware? He couldn't think in
that direction. He had to believe she was alive. He had to, even as
he felt the flesh from Cherokee tearing beneath his fingertips. He
tried to grope him but lost all control as something overhead hit
him…

The wind took his hat, half the skin
off his horse, and left him for dead as it tossed him about twenty
feet from his original place. Joe was scratched and bruised from
the flying debris but he wasn't seriously hurt.

Cherokee hadn't fared as well. The
horse had been tossed like a pretzel, and Joe found him struggling
to get up once again, only this time in nothing short of agony. His
neck was twisted in an odd angle. Broken, Joe cringed. His eyes
went to the heavens, but the rain and wind beat against him like a
weapon. Tears flooded Joe's throat. God, Cherokee was nearly dead.
Maybe Candy, too.

He fell to his knees and tears rolled
down his cheek. "God, please, please let her be alive." He paused,
wiping madly at the tears that flowed. "Please."

Then he stood up and wiped the tears
from his eyes. He looked about, at the destruction that had come
and gone like the devil himself. Without a word he went to his
saddlebag, pulled out a small revolver, and shot Cherokee in the
head. A tear slid down his face as he watched the animal die. Candy
had watched Fargate die...too! Candy, he had to find her. He had to
find her before it was too late!

It was a long walk back to the trailer,
and when he arrived, he saw the trailer was no longer there. But
the remnants of it lingered. Bits and pieces of personal stuff
littered the yard. He walked about, picking up small pieces of
Candy's life and tucking them into his pockets. Nothing of value,
yet somehow it was. It belonged to her.

If she survived the twister, she could
be laying out there suffering, like Cherokee had suffered. He had
to find her, but on foot it was almost an impossible
task.

He'd have to go home and get his truck,
and start searching the wide-open plains. He hung his head with
dejection, fearing he might have lost everything. Not the material
things he'd accumulated, but the important things, like friends and
family--like Candy. When and if he found her, he vowed he'd never
let her go.

He started walking toward the ranch. He
couldn't see much; the land looked suddenly more barren. Some of
the familiar markers like big rock sand shrubs were gone, flattened
by the twister. Debris scattered about but made no
sense.

The air smelled of ruin and death, and
he tried to ignore just how bad it might be. He only hoped Roscoe
and Aggie and all his men were okay. He walked for what seemed like
miles, and still there was nothing. He couldn't tell if he was
walking in circles or not. There was no sky to judge direction
from. Only black, murky dankness that swelled like a knife within
his heart.

Panic took hold of him as he struggled
with reality. Tears stained his cheeks and he looked up, "Don't let
her die, please, God. Don't let her die."

What was a twister doing in this part
of the country? They rarely touched down on the wide open spaces of
the prairies. If they did, they rarely took much with them. But
this was like the strong hand of God sweeping up the
land.

Dear God, don't let her be dead! His
mind wandered like the crazy twister.

He covered his eyes and felt himself
crumbling. Never had he felt so helpless and frightened. To have
come so far, all on his own, and then this ruin. To lose Candy, his
friends his family, he couldn't bear that. He wasn't sure he even
wanted to go home at this point.

But then he heard something. It was a
muted sound that had him whipping about in every direction. "Is
someone out there?"

"Over here," came a cry he
recognized.

It was like a rock being lifted from
his heart. He wiped the tears away and ran in the direction of the
voice. It was Candy's voice, almost hysterical, but
hers.

"Keep calling," he yelled. "Where are
you?" Tears were falling down his cheek again. He couldn't remember
when he'd cried last. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except
getting to Candy.

"Over here," she replied.

The darkness hid her and he was frantic
to find her. Had he lost his mind and his imagination was playing
tricks on him? But when she called out his name, he knew she was
out there somewhere.

"Keep calling me, sweetheart, I can't
see a thing," he cried, wiping the sweat and tears from his face as
he blindly searched her out.

Then he stumbled, and it was obvious,
she had fallen down into a playa. He found her and scrambled to
pull her into his arms. He cried and laughed at the same time as
two furry balls tumbled into his lap along with Candy. Dumplin'
made a funny little sound and scrunched closer, while Jo-Jo licked
his face.

Warm, reassuring kisses made him
realize he wasn't dreaming, and he offered a short prayer of thanks
as he sat down on the wet earth and gathered her into his arms,
gently protecting her and the small animals.

"God, I thought I'd lost you," he
murmured against Candy's hair, until he found her lips.

"Oh, Joe," she cried. "I was so afraid.
It was too late when I realized what was happening. Lancer
panicked. He's…dead," she cried.

Joe clutched her tightly. "It's okay,
sweetheart. I'm just glad it wasn't you."

Candy cried, but his kisses seemed to
revive her a little. Their tears blended and fell against the hard
earth. Jo-Jo tired of their clutches and escaped to run about
happily, barking. Dumplin' was content to nestle between
them.

"Can you walk? We need to get
home."

"I can but it will be a slow go.
Lancer," she cried, "when he died... he fell on my leg. It hurts. I
probably hurt it more trying to get out from under him. It was
almost as though he were shielding me from the storm."

"Don't think about it now. Let me
look," he said, slowly running a hand down her jeans. When she
howled, he stopped. "It's hurt a lot. Looks like your foot's
broken."

She held on to him and cried. "I
shouldn't have left the trailer. I should have paid attention to
the weather. That was careless of me. I knew it looked strange
out."

"Hush now, it's all over. We've
survived it. That's all that matters. We'll get you home and you'll
be as good as new."

"Why don't we go to my trailer? It's
closer," she wailed as he picked her up in his arms.

"Candy, the trailer's gone,
too."

He couldn't see her face, but knew it
came as a heavy shock to her. She didn't say anything, she just
laid her head on his shoulder and wept. He carried her a long ways,
then stopped. Dumplin' rolled into a ball against them, Jo-Jo was
happy to follow along.

"We'll rest a while, and then go
on."

"Is it over? I mean, it won't come
back, will it?" she asked, obviously not trusting the skies to
clear up and leave them alone.

"Yes, sweetheart, it's over." He kissed
her gently, tasting the salt of her tears.

Suddenly she hit him on the shoulder.
"Why are you out here in all this?"

He chuckled aloud. "I was looking for
you."

"Looking for me?" she
gasped.

He held her close. "We'll talk about it
later."

"No, I want to talk about it now. Why
were you looking for me?"

In the darkness he wrapped her in his
arms. "To tell you how much I love you!" It hadn't been hard at all
to say the words, he mused. Not when she might not be alive. She
was all that mattered. She began to cry now; he could feel her body
jerking with her sobs. "Why are you crying?"

"You risked your life to come tell me
that?" She hit him again.

He howled. "I'd do it all over
again."

"Oh, Joe." She pulled him toward her
and found his mouth. Her kisses spoke volumes, but this was no
place to make love, even if he was beyond thinking
straight.

But his real reward came when he heard
her sigh against his ear, "You are my knight in shining
armor."