When she finally reached her apartment, she stopped and stared in disbelief. The tall maple tree in her front yard was lying uprooted as if pushed over by a giant hand. Its gnarled roots fanned into the air like a grotesque skirt. Part of its branches rested on her half of the duplex’s roof.
She glanced at her neighbor’s dark front window. She knew Lori Martin, a nurse at a hospital in nearby Manhattan, had gone to work the previous morning. Given the number of injuries that had been transported to the bigger medical center and the state of the roads, Nicki wondered if Lori had made it home.
Nicki decided against knocking to check. If her neighbor had gotten back into town, there was no sense waking her up at this hour to point out a fallen tree that Lori would have seen for herself.
Bracing herself to discover the worst inside her own place, Nicki walked around the gaping hole in the lawn and up her steps. Inside the house, it was so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Was that a blessing?
After locating spare batteries in a drawer in the kitchen, she managed to replace the ones in her flashlight. Holding her breath, she clicked the button.
The burst of light showed a room that looked exactly as she’d left it the previous morning when she hurried out the door to her preschool class. The sight was so welcome that tears stung her eyes.
Making her way through her small apartment, she found the living room and bathroom were also intact. Opening the door to her bedroom, she discovered she hadn’t completely escaped the storm’s wrath. A tree limb jutted through her window.
The branch had knocked everything off the top of her dresser. Cherished mementos, photos and odds and ends were broken and scattered about. The carpet was wet from the rain that had blown in. Wearily she gathered up her smashed treasures and placed them on her bedside stand. Those that couldn’t be salvaged she threw into the trash can along with the broken shards of window glass.
Straightening, her flashlight caught the reflection of something bright behind the leaves on the dresser top. She stepped closer and saw it was a silver heart-shaped frame—the one photo she should have tossed out years ago.
Picking it up, she turned it over surprised to find the glass intact and the picture undamaged. It was her senior-prom photo. Nicki sat on her bed and stared at the couple in the snapshot. Had she really been that young, that carefree?
The strapless blue dress and upswept hairdo were meant to make a giggling teenager look mature. In retrospect she looked silly, but Clay Logan, Maya’s brother, in his cowboy hat and Western suit looked incredibly handsome. His deep blue eyes surveyed the world as if he owned it all, including her heart.
Before now, all that remained of that magical high school night was this photo and the old gazebo in the park—the place where they’d shared their first kiss and experienced the giddy rush of teenage hormones. Even though she was the one who’d called a halt to their passion before it went too far, she believed that Clay understood and respected her. She knew in her heart that their kiss was the beginning of something special between them.
Her girlish, romantic illusions came to an abrupt end the following day, when she learned Clay had left town without a word to her.
To say she had been crushed was an understatement. More than anything, she had considered Clay her friend.
“Friends don’t run out on friends without saying goodbye,” she muttered.
But he had gone. Now, the old gazebo was gone, too. Blown to bits by the vicious wind.
Snapping off the light, Nicki pressed the cold metal picture frame to her chest. She was too weary to face an old heartbreak.
Yet maybe this was the time to face it. To let go of the last bit of hope that wouldn’t die. She was a practical, twenty-five-year-old woman not a naive eighteen-year-old kid. Clay wasn’t coming back.
Turning the frame over again, she removed the backing. A postcard fell into her lap. She didn’t need the flashlight to read it, she knew it by heart. The postmark said Amarillo, there was only one line written in Clay’s bold hand: You’re better off without me.
He was so right. She was better off without a man who broke her heart to go wandering the country.
Nicki turned her flashlight back on and stared at the picture in her hand. Enough wallowing in the past. It was time to look to the future. There was a whole lot of rebuilding to be done.
Tossing the framed photo and postcard into the trash on top of the shattered window glass, Nicki lay down on her bed to grab a few hours of sleep.
She dreamed about the howling wind and Clay Logan’s bright blue eyes.
For the next two days, Nicki was simply too busy helping with the cleanup of her town to think about the photo she’d thrown away. Her few broken treasures seemed trivial compared to the losses she saw around her. Dozens of her neighbors had lost everything. Sadly, Maya Logan’s sister-in-law, Marie, had lost her life. Working side by side with volunteers who’d come from all over to help, Nicki gained a new appreciation for the kindness that strangers could bestow on those in need and for the resilient spirit of the people of High Plains.
The ring of her cell phone offered her a break from the hot, exhausting job of carrying tree limbs and broken boards to a waiting dump truck. Pulling off her gloves, she extracted the phone from her pocket. The phone company had gotten one of their towers back online the day after the storm, allowing for cellular service, but the city was still without land lines or electricity. She flipped open her cell and said, “Hello?”
“Nicki, I’m glad to hear your voice. Are you all right? This is just so terrible.” It was Emma Barnet, a social worker Nicki knew well and had worked with on several occasions.
“I’m fine. I had one broken window. How about you?”
“It missed our house by a mile. I’m happy you’re okay, because this is an official call. A toddler was brought into the hospital the night of the tornado. A little girl about fifteen months old. We haven’t been able to locate her parents or any family. No one knows who she is. She was found by the old cottages near the river.”
“No one has claimed a child? That’s unbelievable!”
“The authorities are working on identifying her, but it may take a while since she isn’t old enough to give us a name. I know this is an imposition at a time like this, but the hospital is over capacity. I’m swamped with people who need placement and every kind of help.”
“Tell me what I can do.”
Sighing, Emma said, “Bless you, Nicki. I don’t want to send this little girl out of the area if I don’t have to. Is there any way you can foster her until we find her family?”
Nicki didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“Great. Since you’ve fostered babies before, the paperwork will be minimal. We’re calling her Kasey for now because she had the initials K.C. inside her shirt. She’s got a nasty bump on her head plus scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious. We should be able to release her from the hospital in a day or two.”
“Then I should start coming by to visit so she can get used to me before I take her home. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
“That sounds perfect. If anything changes, I’ll call.”
Snapping the phone shut, Nicki looked at the unbelievable devastation around her. Out of all this sorrow there had to come something good. Perhaps this unknown little girl would be it.
Chapter One
October 27
Clay Logan had barely stepped down from his horse before Mrs. Dewey threw her arms around him again.
“Thank you, Clay. Thank you so very, very much.”
His neck