Page 41 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
Grace: Ooooo! Goggly eyes emoji. It’s Charles now, is it?
Me: We shared a storm shelter. Of course he is. Besides, we got to be Charles and Kate over nightly Scrabble games.
Grace: Uh-huh. Scrabble. Angel halo emoji
Me: Scrabble. Not what you’re thinking.
Grace: Hehe! Tell James I said hi.
Me: Ok.
I look at the phone while Charles keeps on taking calls and making them.
When the phone calls slow down, James asks, “Have you thought about what you’re going to do with all these people?”
Charles replies, “I’ve thought, but I’m clueless. Do you have any ideas?”
“A few,” James says. “I’ve called Walmart and Bass Pro. I’ve got a batch order of tents, all sizes, camp cooking gear and similar such stuff headed our way. But it’s likely to be morning before it gets to us. We might have to house a few more people to justify cleaning out their stores.”
“How many?” Charles asks.
“No way of knowing tonight,” James replies. “The churches and schools are turning their intact buildings into shelters. But some of them were leveled, too. It was a bad one.”
I shudder. I’d never had to take shelter off the farm, but we’d ridden out more than one tornado in the spider-infested root cellar. Dad upgraded it a few years ago, making it deeper and more storm proof, but it still had spiders.
“What happens if we get another one?” I ask.
“Thought about that, too,” James says. “Can’t do much tonight, but I can bring over the backhoe in the morning and start digging. According to the weather, we aren’t likely to get any more whirlies in the next forty-eight hours. This storm has moved east, and pretty much blew itself out just before it got to St. Louis.”
“Good to know,” I say, trying not to think of the corridor of devastation that probably followed the gale force winds and whirling cones of destruction.
With this small bit of good news, the cab becomes quiet. After a time, Larry slumps into the corner of the bench seat, and Charles leans his seat back. The cab of the truck reverberates with male snoring.
When it seems likely that both men are deep in dreamland, James asks, “How are you, Kate? Were you safe through the storm?”
“Yes,” I say. Since he probably already knew about Agri-Oil’s storm precautions, I don’t think I need to say more. As for my budding relationship with Charles, I have no desire to share with my brother.
“I worried about you,” he says. “But I couldn’t think of anyone else we could trust with Cece. There have been several kidnapping attempts in the last year. One of them was the hired nanny.”
“Oh, no!” I breathe. Now, Charles’ off-hand remark about children being able to play without fear of kidnapping makes a lot more sense. And so did James’ efforts to push me into taking the job. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I can’t see James in the dark of the cab, but I can imagine his shrug. “It was hushed up. No need to give people a hint or incentive to try again.”
“But Bit o’ Heaven wasn’t a high security facility,” I protest. “Anyone could have waltzed in there and taken her at any time.”
“Higher than you think,” my brother says. “Charles had private security watching it all the time Cece was there. On top of that, it’s a licensed facility with security locks and routine identity checks. With all the hype about school shootings and parent kidnappings, Charles only needed to make a couple of small donations to get the facility up to speed.”
“Oh.” I let a wealth of response settle into the syllable, remembering that there had been renovations and security upgrades. But I thought it had just been because we had children belonging to local government members.
“Yeah, oh,” James loads up the sarcasm on his return comment. “Which is why I tried to get Charles to park thisrig at our place, but he insists that he needs to be with his people. I get it, but it worries me.”
“I’ll be extra careful,” I say. “It’s good that she has a dog devoted to her. Gidget won’t be much in the way of defense, but she has a piercing bark.”
“Now you’re thinking,” James says. “I’ve got some other plans, as well. For tonight, I’ve got our farm workers setting up emergency lighting and facilities, as well as some of Charles’ private security cordoning off space for the three of you. It’s going to help that we’ll be the last to pull in, so they’ll have had plenty of time to set up.”
“That’s good,” I say. Then I have a thought. “James, have you heard from the Webers? I’ve texted back and forth a few times with Grace, but I’ve not tried to reach her today.”
“Yeah, I have, actually. Grace visited the U-Pick farm just yesterday to get some strawberries. She’s going crazy at home with her sisters there. On top of that, they’ve got some cousins visiting. Got evicted or something. Their social distancing is kind of a mess right now.”
