“Glass was everywhere, and the hurricane-force winds that were now blowing straight into the bathroom blew the door shut, leaving Lovey badly injured and unconscious on the floor. She came to later with the rain in her face, bleeding and in horrible pain. The roar of the wind was so strong and so loud that during the time she was trapped, she lost hearing in one ear. Her arm was broken, her shoulder injured, and she was cut all over and couldn’t get out.”

“Trapped?” Sully said.

“She couldn’t open the door against the force of the wind.”

“Oh my God,” Sully said. Now he was looking at that house with a different view, imagining Lovey fighting for her life.

“How did she get out? With no power, how did anyone even know that had happened?”

“It’s a crazy story. As it was told to me, Elliot Graham, an elderly man who lives here, had a vision. People say he’s something of a psychic, and so far none of his predictions or warnings have been wrong. Anyway, Elliot had a vision that she was trapped and in danger of dying. Somehow he got word to the right people, and the police chief found out, and then someone else was contacted who owns a dozer service. In prep for after the storm passed, he had his biggest dozer here in town at his house.

“When the chief told him about Lovey, he left the safety of his own house and made his way to the massive dozer, drove it through floodwaters to this house, and then managed to get inside the house without blowing away. He figured out she was inside the bathroom, and when he shouted at her, she shouted back. He couldn’t open the door, so he chopped his way into the bathroom with a hatchet to get her out.

“He’d found her, but the danger was only half over. She could barely walk, so he carried her out into the storm, somehow got them both up inside that huge dozer, and took her to the ER. He saved her life. His name is Johnny Pine, and he’s twenty-two years old. That’s the kind of people who live here, Sully. He’s only one of a half dozen I could name right now, men and women, who have saved lives and made differences in the way people live.”

Sully was speechless. He’d lived a life of rescuing people, and he knew the guts it took for a person to put their own life at risk for someone else. He was in awe, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that this was the place he wanted to live for the rest of his life.

“Thank you for today,” Sully said.

“I loved doing this with you,” Melissa said.

“Are you ready to head back?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

She dozed off on the way back, then woke when Sully pulled into the drive.

“Want to come in for coffee? I have all kinds of food that Ruby and Rachel brought over, remember? And some of Mercy’s pecan pie left, as well,” Melissa said.