The Parting Glass by Emilie Richards Page B

would fit, but no one could know what awaited a child outside. For the moment it was better to keep everyone together. “Greta, have you been here the whole time? Since the tornado hit?”
    “I ran out into the saloon right afterwards. We all did. To see what happened.”
    “You didn’t see Rooney come in here, did you?”
    “I wasn’t paying attention.” Greta sounded contrite, as if she should somehow have had her wits completely about her during the crisis.
    Megan was fighting panic. “I smell gas,” she said. “Very faint, but noticeable.”
    “The stove is off,” Greta said. “And I blew out the pilot light. That was the first thing I checked when I came back in here.”
    “We’ll check the furnace when we go downstairs, but it’s fairly new, isn’t it?” Niccolo asked.
    “Last winter,” Megan said.
    “Then it should have a safety shutoff. That’s probably not the problem.”
    “Let’s find Rooney. One thing at a time.” She put a hand on Greta’s shoulder. “Hold the fort, okay?”
    “We’ve got clean towels, and we still have water. We’ll help people clean up as best we can.”
    Megan headed for the pantry. The cellar was so rarely used that boxes of supplies partially blocked the doorway, taking advantage of every inch of room. The saloon had always needed more storage area. Now it would need so much more than that.
    “I guess he could have gotten through without moving anything. If he stepped over these, opened the door a crack and squeezed through,” she said, pointing to the boxes.
    “The electricity’s off, so there’s no light down there.”
    “We’ve always kept a couple of flashlights on a rack in the stairwell. I never go down without one. I’m afraid I’ll end up in the dark if there’s a power failure.”
    “We’ll take a quick look.”
    “I was going to increase our property insurance,” she said as he helped her shove boxes aside so the door would open wider. “I just never seemed to find the time for a consultation with our agent.”
    “Don’t think about that now.”
    “When you vowed for better or worse, I bet you weren’t thinking the big guy upstairs might take you up on that last part so soon.”
    “Megan, this is the better part. It’s a miracle no one was killed. If the twister hit us directly, it would have taken the whole building and everyone in it. We probably caught the tip of the tail.”
    That wasn’t lost on Megan. Miracle was not too strong a word, particularly if help arrived quickly and cleared an exit.
    She edged in front of him. “Better let me go first. I know the layout. I can feel around for a flashlight.”
    “I see light down below.” He stepped aside.
    Megan felt a rush of gratitude. Light meant Rooney was downstairs. Now she was only afraid they might find him in a state of terror.
    She felt along the wall to the rack where the flashlights were kept and found only one, snapping it on to illuminate the path. “Rooney,” she called. “Don’t be afraid. Nick and I are coming to get you.”
    She started down, shining her light just in front of her so that Niccolo could find his way, as well. Halfway there she saw her father below them, banging ineffectually on a paneled wall with his palms. He was a slight man and—she noted—paler than usual. She wondered if he really believed that his meager weight was any match for the saloon foundation.
    “He must have panicked,” she said so that only Niccolo would hear. She moved faster and hoped that her new husband could still see well enough to keep up. At the bottom she started toward Rooney.
    “Hey, Rooney, it’s okay. The fire department will get here soon. And they’ll get us out. But you need to come upstairs with Nick and me. You shouldn’t be alone down here.”
    Rooney turned to examine her. He did not look panicked. He looked, in fact, disturbed by the interruption. “Here somewhere.”
    She was often puzzled by her father’s attempts to communicate. There had