Page 30 of Through the Dark Night
Suddenly she heard glass crashing from the downstairs room that they were finishing for the pictures. It was the one that was the most done, and even though Shannon could barely see by the light of her phone, she went running to it. Thankfully, she didn’t trip on anything, and she was able to get there in time to see that she needed to do something fast or the rain was going to ruin the drywall they had just installed. Of course, somebody was going to have to do something about the broken glass, but it looked like the frame of the window was good, the little she could see with her phone. Frantically, she started to dig around for the tarp or the plastic that she knew had been stored somewhere since they were painting in different areas of the inn.
She had no idea how she was going to hold it up herself, and again she thought about waking Marina, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. The poor woman worked ceaselessly from the time she got up in the morning until the time she went to bed at night, and Shannon couldn’t ask her to do more.
Then, she saw lights—headlights bouncing over the rough blacktop of the parking lot below.
Who could be here this time at night?
The inn was practically deserted, and now they had no electricity. Why hadn’t she thought about this before?
But then, she saw a light pop on and could see from the glow that it was Lance.
From the flash of another strike of lightning, it looked like his strong nose, and she thought she recognized his hat as well. He jumped out of the truck and went running for the front door. She hurried out of the room and was there to open it when he got there so he didn’t have to stand in the rain. The front porch wasn’t finished, and the tarp was blowing wildly, threatening to blow off.
“Maybe you can come out and give me a hand with this tarp,” Lance said in lieu of a greeting.
“Maybe you can help me in this room first. The drywall is in danger of getting soaked.”
“Oh no,” he said, stepping further in and closing the door behind him. She turned and hurried to the door to the room.
With two of them, they got the window sealed off in hardly any time.
“I don’t even know where that branch could have come from,” Lance said. “Do you mind coming out in the rain? You’re probably going to get soaked. But I’m not sure I can get this tarp held down by myself.”
“Yeah. I can come. I would have thought the storm would have blown itself out by now.”
“Same. But when our lights went off at the house, I immediately thought of you guys and wanted to come out and check on everything.”
“I appreciate it. I admit I had a few moments of total fear as I thought about how remote we are, and the idea of no electricity… I know it’s silly, but it’s scary.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can stay. I gave Sierra a call, and she was going to send her oldest daughter out to stay at the house with Katie.”
“Oh. Wow, okay.” Shannon didn’t know what to say. He actually had already made plans to spend the night and make sure that they were okay. It was really sweet of him.
“You ready?” he asked before he opened the door. She nodded. And they rushed out into the windy night together. Using their phones as flashlights, they were able to get the tarp securedand had just started back toward the house when a tree branch from the large tree at the front of the inn crashed down, breaking the dining room window.
“Come on. It’s too dangerous to stay here. Let’s go sit in my pickup until the storm’s blown out. The dining room hasn’t been touched anyway,” Lance yelled above the storm, and Shannon caught pretty much every other word. Enough to know that they were running for his truck. That, and the fact that he grabbed her hand and started in that direction, gave her all the information she needed.
He went directly to the driver side and opened the door, helping her in. She slid across the seat, not bothering to try to move her legs around the shifter and things in the middle. He got in and slammed the door behind him, and they sat there for a moment, soaking wet and panting.
“I’m sorry that you got all wet because of me and my inn.”
“I think everybody in town has a stake in this inn. I’m certainly not the only one that wants to see you succeed.” He looked down at her, and the tender look in his eyes belied his casual words. “Plus, I’m not gonna leave you out here by yourself.”
She looked around and then realized that maybe she should slide over some. They were cramped together, like teenagers on a date night.
“I’m trying to get myself untangled so I can get my feet on the other side of this thing.” She pointed to the shifter on the floor of the truck. It must have been a 1980s model or something like that, and she vaguely remembered Lance fixing up vehicles in his spare time. He said he wasn’t any good at it, but he must have been not terrible if he had something this old still running.
“You’re fine where you are,” Lance said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a little chilly.”
“I am too. Maybe you should start the pickup so we can get a little heat from the heater.” She wasn’t going to just sit there, and she worked on trying to get her feet around the shifter without knocking anything important.
They got themselves adjusted, and he got the truck started. Eventually, warm air started to come out.
“This brings back memories,” she said finally.
“Itdoes,” he said.
They sat there in silence for a while as the air from the heater blew and they began to dry out while the storm continued unabated.
