At the moment, the only thing keeping Darryl Andrews from kicking the crap out of something was the fact that his foot was just about the only part of his body that didnât already hurt.
So instead he hung back close to the road, where there was nothing to kick except a few dried-up weeds, or a stray soda can, hoping maybe a little distance would make the scene easier to absorb. To accept. Slung low in a sky his oldest girl, Heather, called âforeverâ blue, the morning sun barely warmed his right temple through the thick wad of gauze, although the badass November wind drilled right on inside the old baseball jacket Faithâd dug out of the churchâs thrift shop donation box. So he wouldnât have to cut up the sleeve on one of his own coats, sheâd said in that matter-of-fact way of hers, as if attending to that one little detail was the key to solving all the rest of it.
He kicked at one of the soda cans anyway, hurling it out onto the paved road to clatter mournfully for several feet before getting hooked up again in a small pile of trash across the way.
Darryl wouldâve sucked in a breath, but his bruised ribs had other ideas. With his good hand, he scrubbed his eyes, only half kidding himself they were stinging because of all the wood smoke in the air. Oh, sure, heâd gotten choked up at his kidsâ births. And thereâd been Griff Maloneâs ten-seconds-left-on-the-clock, state-title clinching touchdown his senior year, but, hell, everybodyâd been blubbering at that one. Nothing wrong with a little display of emotion now and again, long as it was the right emotion, let loose at the appropriate time.
This wasnât it.
He swallowed, blinking until he could clearly see his father and the claims agent pick through the tangle of shingles, twisted metal siding and two-by-fours where not twenty-four hours before his auto shop and filling station had stood. Where he had as well, come to think of it.
Yep. The general consensus was that he was damn lucky to be alive.
Heâd never even heard the tornado siren go off, not between his radio blaring and the earplugs he wore to muffle the sound of the air compressor. But then, who the hell expected a twister the day before Thanksgiving? Let alone five, if you counted the two that touched down between here and Claremore. Most of âem had been puny little things, but even a puny tornado had few qualms about chewing up whatever got in its way. At least the one thatâd visited this part of Haven had seen fit to bypass the gas tanks. If those lines had ruptured, especially so close to the downed power linesâ¦
No doubt about it, coming that close to biting the big one definitely makes a man reassess his priorities. Still and all, Darrylâs means of supporting his wife and five kids had been reduced to a pile of toothpicks. Maybe that business hadnât made him, or his daddy before him, rich, but Darrylâd been doing okay. Sure, they could have used a bigger house, even if Faith did insist there was a certain comfort in knowing she could go to the bathroom and still hear what every single kid was doing. But then, it wasnât in Faithâs nature to complain, not about the house, or the ten-year-old Suburban Darryl kept jump-starting back to life, or even that she was still wearing the same dresses to church she had when they first got married. Those she could still get into, at any rate.
He looked over at her now, standing where the second bay used to be, eleven-month-old Nicky balanced on her round hip. Faithâs blond curls, longer than theyâd been in a while, danced around her face in the breeze; she was already dressed to go to her parents for Thanksgiving dinner laterâno sense upsetting the kids any more than necessary, theyâd both agreedâin her âgoodâ jeans and a soft-looking sweater. And that puffy orange jacket sheâd bought the first winter after they were married, the one that made her look like a pumpkin, although Darryl had the good sense to keep that particular opinion to himself.
It wasnât always easy to figure out what was going on inside Faithâs headâalthough most every male he knew swore it was better that wayâbut the creases between her sandy brows, the flat set to her mouth, didnât leave much room for interpretation. Yeah, the insurance would cover rebuilding, but that would take months. Months in which he wouldnât be able to work, or even help with the reconstruction, not with an arm broken in three places.