Summer with a Second Chance: The Love Beach Collection

1. Kate

My lucky bamboo is dead. I’ve been trying to save it for weeks, but the thick stalks are squishy and lifeless. The brittle yellow leaves crumble between my fingers and scatter across the drab gray carpet in my cubicle. Considering it’s the fourth species of indoor plant I’ve tried and failed to keep alive in the last six months, it’s past time to admit defeat.

Testing the water’s pH and adjusting the acidity levels didn’t help. It must be these harsh fluorescent lights. Too bad I’m the new kid on the block with a desk smack in the middle of an open office wasteland, miles from the closest window and years, if not decades, away from a window office.

I dump the contents of the vase in the trash bin in the break room and stare at the empty glass container. Maybe, I should toss it, too, but I don’t. I hold on to it, gripping tight, because throwing it in the can would mean acknowledging I won’t try again. And giving up goes against every fiber of my being.

“Kate,” my boss says, shuffling in and heading straight to the coffeepot with his I take weather cirrus mug. “Just the girl I’m looking for.”

“Good morning,” I reply, snapping to attention and summoning every last ounce of willpower to resist pointing out to the man old enough to be my grandfather that I’m a twenty-six-year-old college-educated scientist and would prefer not to be referred to as a girl.

Because I’ve been there and tried that. Even went to human resources, which was a dead end in this government agency with enough red tape to stretch to the moon and back.

“What can I do for you?” I add, straightening my pencil skirt with a tight smile because working here, at the National Storm Tracking Institute, is a dream come true.

“I’m sending you to the field.”

I nearly drop the vase as adrenaline shoots through my veins. “The field, sir?”

“That’s what you want, right? To be out there in the trenches?” He waves a hand, dismissing the reason I worked my ass off for four years in college and another two in grad school. “Gathering this data is your chance.”

“It is what I want,” I’m quick to assure him, lifting my chin and refusing to let this man rain on my parade.

“Good, because a tropical depression was reclassified to a tropical storm overnight and, thanks to a low-pressure system moving in from the north, the models are predicting hurricane-force winds. I need someone on the ground.”

“To deploy remote sensing instruments, detail surface observations, and release radiosondes?” I’m nearly bouncing on my toes right here on the linoleum floor of the break room but try to temper the enthusiasm in my voice as I pull from my textbook knowledge of the activities I’ve never been trusted to assist with, let alone perform solo.

He cocks an eyebrow as he returns the pot to its stained burner. “It’s three hundred miles offshore and forecast to make landfall in seventy-two hours. And, of course, the Charleston office—who should be taking care of this, by the way—are short staffed and unavailable. Maybe, they’ll actually fill those two open positions with some competent folks one of these days.”

There are open positions at the Charleston office? For field work? My curiosity is piqued, but I file away that information in favor of the more pressing concern.

“What about Susan?” My competent senior colleague would be my first go to if I were my boss looking to send someone.

He rolls his eyes. “Her husband just had surgery.”

“And Bill?”

“His son is getting married this weekend. Don’t these people know hurricane season starts June first?”

These people?

“Maybe, Bill’s son and his fiancée got a good deal because of the season,” I offer, familiar with the many bargain-seeking brides who used to book the Love Beach Country Club in June and pray weather wouldn’t impact their special day.

“Yes, well,” he grumbles, the steaming coffee fogging his glasses. “You’ll need to load the equipment into the van and hit the road this morning to make it there before any shelter-in-place or evacuation orders are established. It’s a ten-hour drive to where we’re anticipating impact.”

Ten hours? Based on the average speed of a vehicle from my current coordinates, that would put me close to Love Beach.

Close to Aiden Landry.

Too close for comfort to the boy who broke my heart.

I swallow hard, but surely, it can’t be. “Where did you say this storm is anticipated to hit?”

But my boss is rattling on, oblivious to the emotions whirling like a tornado in my chest.

“Hitting the road today isn’t a problem, though, right?” he mutters, heading out the door and fully expecting me to follow. “It’s not like you have any family or pets to worry about.”

It’s a statement of fact and shouldn’t cut like a razor—especially coming from this three-time divorcee—but my gaze drops to the empty vase I’m clutching tighter than a stress ball because somehow, the assumption does.

I take a deep breath, barely refraining from throwing the empty vessel at his back, and rush to follow him. “No, sir. Not a problem.”

“Good.”

“But where did you say this storm is expected?” I ask again, raising my voice. “Where on the coast?”

“Somewhere in South Carolina,” he mumbles over his shoulder.

My steps falter as an impending sense of dread fills me like a beakerful of an unstable solution. He turns into the central hub of NSTI. It’s an enormous room with two dozen work stations set up along three rows, all facing a wall full of monitors. Live radar, current satellite images, and models with various projections based on a hundred or more factors flash across the immense wall.

“And don’t put yourself in danger up there. Be safe,” he cautions, but the warning barely registers.

I’m staring wide-eyed at the largest screen smack dab in the center of the wall. Over and over, the colorful model replays the projected trajectory of the storm for the next seventy-two hours. The sight is a one-two punch directly to my gut. A hit that steals my breath and makes me dizzy.

Because the dot on the map identifying the town where landfall is predicted?

Love Beach.

And the named Tropical Storm?

Aiden.

Before I can stop it, the vase slips from my fingers and shatters across the floor into a million pieces.