Page 13 of The Cowboy Who Came Home
You could just ask her, he thought. Ask her what she’d like to do around town, and then take her to do that.
Finn needed to get online and do some investigating as to what the town of Three Rivers had coming up on their community schedule, that was for sure. Good thing his specialty was finding the important, meaningful things that other people missed.
Later that night, he woke when he heard footsteps overhead. He hadn’t been sleeping deeply anyway, and now, he got out of bed and went upstairs. He expected to find his father in the kitchen, and he did.
Fully dressed, Daddy had just finished pulling on his cowboy boots, and he stood from the kitchen table in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. He reached for his cowboy hat and said, “I’m heading over to Uncle Pete’s.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s rained six inches in the past hour,” he said.
“Have you even been to bed?”
“Mother Nature don’t care if it’s day or night.” He gave Finn a somber-eyed look.
“What are you going to do over there?”
“Turn on the flood lights and watch for water.” He sighed and shrugged into his heavy jacket, though it couldn’t be that cold outside.
“What can I do to help?”
“Turn the floods on here, then get on over to Brynn’s place and do the same. I told her she didn’t need to come do it when I’m right here.”
“Got it,” Finn said. He knew where the flood light switches were here at the homestead, and with several flips, the whole ranch would be lit up all the way from here to the admin building, in all directions.
Over at Bowman’s Breeds, he had no idea where the switches were, but they couldn’t be that hard to find.
“Then I want you back here with the other kids,” he said. “Can you stay up on your phone? The moment I see water, I’ll call you, and you can sound the siren and I’ll text out to everyone.”
Finn suddenly realized how serious this was. “Do you think it’s going to flood?”
“Yes, son, I do.” Daddy pulled him into a hug. “Bear called from Shiloh Ridge, and he said there’s so much debris in the water, it’ll take out everything in its path.” Dad stepped back and cleared his throat. “It’s okay. We plan for emergencies like this.”
Maybe he did, but Finn didn’t. “The river forks into three in town,” he said. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as it is at Shiloh Ridge.” He’d been south to the ranch up in the foothills to help plenty of times, and they sent their cowboys here too. Plus, a lot of the Glovers came to ride here at Three Rivers Ranch, at Courage Reins. Finn would recognize any of them, even after ten years away.
“He said the river at Shiloh Ridge is twice as wide as usual and already overflowing. It’ll only be worse once it forks, because the arms get smaller.” Finn swallowed as Dad put on a plastic poncho over his clothes. “Stay alert and by your phone. Can you do that?” He looked at Finn with urgency in his eyes, and Finn would not let him down.
“I can do it,” he said, because he’d done missions like this many times over the years. He could stay awake, fight off sleep, as he listened to recordings of active missions and heard things no one else heard. As he heard things that saved lives and preserved secrecy.
“Flood lights. Set up by the siren. I’ll call you when we see the water.”
“Yes, sir.” Finn cleared his throat. “Will we have to evacuate?”
“Might could,” Dad said.
“Where do we even go?” Finn thought of the row of cabins. They all sat eight or ten steps up off the ground. Uncle Pete had two stories to his house, as did the homestead. Would the water rise that high?
“Didn’t you read my emergency text this morning?” Dad grinned at him. “We evacuate to the third floor of Courage Reins.” He nodded out the window, where rain lashed the glass. “Momma and Chelsea are already over there, getting out blankets and moving chairs and couches. My guess is I’ll see you over there in a bit.”
With that, Dad flipped up the hood on his poncho and stepped out into the torrential rainstorm like he was simply going out for another day of work. At three-thirty in the morning.
Finn watched the darkness swallow him, as the deck lights didn’t reach very far. Then he spun toward the corner of the dining room where the flood light switches waited. He strode over to them and flipped them all up, using the butts of both palms.
Light filled the homestead as if it were daytime, and as Finn moved over to the window now, he could see out onto the ranch in every direction. Rain poured down, causing strange, watery shadows among the light.
He hurried downstairs to get properly dressed, and he grabbed his phone from his nightstand and turned the volume all the way up on all notifications. Back upstairs, he grabbed a poncho from the table and pulled it over his clothes.
He left through the garage, which would get him the closest to Bowman Breeds. It wasn’t cold at all, but the ground at his feet had puddled with rain and he couldn’t take a step in any direction without landing in a shallow pool of water.
