Chapter 6 Ollie #2
“You can carry me to the porch, but not into the house. No carrying me over the threshold until we’re married!”
Her words almost make me stumble. It’s the Tylenol talking, Ollie, she doesn’t really mean it.
I get us safely to the porch and set her on her feet in front of me.
I wrap an arm around her waist and prop her against me to keep her upright while I unlock the door.
Pushing the door open, I hear my brother’s cat, Marsha, let out a questioning meow.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she can tell time and knows Phoebe’s work schedule well enough to know she’s home early.
“Hey, Marsha,” I say. “Be careful. Our Phoebe hurt herself and isn’t steady on her feet. Don’t trip her.”
I don’t think cats can roll their eyes, but if they can, that’s what Marsha just did. Great. My brother’s cat thinks I’m a loser too.
After helping Phoebe get out of her coat, hanging it on the hook by the door, and taking off our shoes, I lead her over to the sectional sofa.
It converts to a king-size bed, so I’ll sleep out here tonight.
It’s where I usually sleep when I visit because their guest bed is not Bigfoot shifter size.
She sits there quietly, staring blankly out the back windows at the rainy afternoon.
Whatever vegetation is out there is blowing as the wind intensifies. I hope it stops soon.
“Okay, Phoebe, have you eaten today? What can I make for you? Grilled cheese? Soup?” I look through the cabinets and pantry. I’m not a trained professional like she is, but I can handle the basics well enough to survive. “Phoebs?”
I can see her trying to focus. Her head is bopping side to side, but her forehead is scrunched, furrowing her dark brows like she’s deep in concentration.
The slow blink of her thick, dark lashes over confused eyes is the kicker—she’s lost the plot.
Then her eyes widen. “I made chicken noodle soup yesterday. It’s in the fridge.
We can heat that up. That’s all I want for now.
But make yourself a sandwich or three. Replace calories burned during practice. ”
I grab the container of soup from the fridge and ladle some into a pot to heat. I’ll start with soup because even though Phoebe is working on focusing, I don’t know if she’ll be coordinated enough to eat soup left-handed. I wonder if she prefers airplane or choo-choo train noises?
Turns out she likes me screeching like a pterodactyl and being mama bird to her baby bird. Well, feeding with the spoon. No feeding her from my mouth to her mouth. If we’re ever mouth-to-mouth, it’ll be because we’re kissing, not because I’m feeding her. I shudder.
“Are you cold?” Phoebe asks.
I shake my head. “Are you?”
“No, you shivered.”
Chuckling, I stand and take our empty soup bowls into the kitchen.
“That was a shudder, not a shiver. I was thinking about feeding baby birds and the parent chewing it up first and spitting it into their offspring’s mouth.
” I turn back to face her, shudder again, then grimace with disgust. It makes her giggle, which is everything to me.
A strong gust of wind pelts rain against the window.
We turn to look. It’s dark already. I don’t like not being able to see what’s happening.
This house is on pillars because it’s on a fricking flood plain.
How high does the water rise here? How do they know it won’t get blown over? Maybe we should stay at Phoebe’s place.
No sooner has that thought entered my mind when I hear two giant thuds outside, and it feels like the ground shakes.
Marsha yowls and jumps on the back of the couch, back arched and calico fur fluffing out.
Phoebe goes to cover her mouth but thankfully realizes at the last second her arm is in a sling and stops before punching herself in the face.
“What was that?” she gasps, her brown eyes wide. They’re clear, not glassy like when she was dealing with the pain meds. Whatever it was, it sobered her up.
“I…I don’t know,” I stammer. I mean, I do know. I recognize it from growing up in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, but it seems unlikely here. “Stay there, I’m going to take a peek outside.”
Phoebe jumps to her feet, swaying slightly. “You can’t go outside! That’s a raging storm, it’s not safe.”
Sitting on the bench by the door to put my boots on, I give her my best reassuring smile.
“I’m only going on the porch. I’ll be fine. Do you know where Finn keeps flashlights?”
She pulls open a kitchen drawer and pulls out a black flashlight.
I’m sure he has a stronger one around, maybe with his work gear, but what she found is good enough for my purposes.
Phoebe is at my side as I shrug on my jacket.
Marsha’s still on the back of the sofa, staring at me with unblinking green eyes.
If the cat had telepathic powers, she’d be telling me to wait until morning, nothing is so urgent that I need to see it tonight.
She’d be right. But I could have mistaken the noise, or it’s not as bad as I thought. It’s best to check.
Phoebe is at my back as I approach the front door.
“Phoebe, you’re going to catch a chill, go back with Marsha.”
“No,” she says, lifting her pointed chin.
She’s always reminded me a bit of a faerie or some kind of mischievous sprite, with her chin and sprinkling of freckles over porcelain cheeks and the faintest pink flush.
When we first met, she had her hair cut short like a pixie.
It’s since grown out and goes a bit past her shoulders.
It’s in a ponytail today, and I miss how it was loose the other night.
I can’t resist reaching out and pushing an escaped strand behind her ear so I can feel the silk.
Her breath catches, but it must be from the latest gust of wind.
It couldn’t have been my touch. She hands me the flashlight, and I turn it on to make sure the batteries are working.
Of course they are. Finn would be prepared and know what to do.
Unsure of what I’ll see outside, I take a deep breath, open the door, and slip outside.
Oh, shit. Slipping is right. It’s not rain that’s being blown against the windows, it’s sleet and tiny little hailstones.
We’re in the middle of an ice storm. Swinging the flashlight in an arc, I see exactly what I expected—downed trees across the road.
The house across the street is unoccupied, as are all the others on this stretch of road.
Tall, thin pines that used to flank the house across the street have fallen, blocking the road to get out.
This is a dead-end street ending in, you guessed it, a marsh.
The damn marshes are on either side of the road, and there aren’t shoulders to drive on.
I can’t take the risk of driving us into a marsh trying to get around the downed trees.
We’re stuck here until the storm stops and I can go out and try to cut up the trees.
If Finn has an axe or a chainsaw. Damn it.
It’s starting to feel like one of those horror movies I’m too scared to watch about the lone house on the dead-end street and the recently escaped-from-jail serial killer stalking the young couple that lives there.
Now that I’ve creeped myself out, I rush back into the cottage, slamming the door and engaging all the locks.
“How is it?” Phoebe asks. She’s tilting her head side to side like she’s trying to relieve pressure in her neck.
May as well be honest. “Messy. It’s not rain anymore.
It’s sleet and maybe tiny hail. A couple of trees fell across the road, so they’ll need to be cleared before we can drive out.
I’ll take care of it tomorrow. We’ll be fine.
We have what we need here, and I’m sure this house has been through tons of storms like this. ”
She looks skeptical. “The house is about five years old, and I think the past few winters have been relatively mild. This seems like a nor’easter. They dump a ton of rain, and if it gets cold enough, snow.”
Oh, crap. I remember Finn saying something about nor’easters and how he hated them.
He’d take Marsha to his office on the local wildlife refuge to ride out the storm in the comfort of the reinforced cement headquarters.
Well, that’s not a possibility, so we’ll have to ride it out here. It’ll be okay. It has to be.
I go into Boy Scout mode and start gathering candles, plugging in our phones to charge along with the batteries Finn has for power tools like saws and drills, but I don’t see the tools themselves.
I’ll look in the morning. He has a power inverter, so we can use that to plug in a lamp or something.
I make sure I know where the snow shovel is.
He doesn’t have rock salt because of its effect on the environment, but he has bags of sand that I’ll spread for traction if necessary.
Good enough. I’m just finishing filling every pot, pan, and pitcher I can with water when Phoebe walks by with an armful of blankets and drops them on the sofa.
“Hey, don’t be carrying stuff, that’s my job.
Sit down. We can watch a movie or show or something.
” I find the Tylenol in a drawer, hold up the bottle, and shake it.
Marsha looks with interest until she realizes it’s not Kitty Crunchies and gives me a disgusted look.
“Do you want to take something for your arm?”
“Yeah,” Phoebe says with a sigh. “Only one.”
I shake one out to her left palm and hold a glass of water for her. She takes it and swallows the pill.
“Is it going to make you loopy?” I ask. I don’t mind loopy Phoebe at all, but I want to know what to expect.
She gives the cutest half smile. “Nah, it was two super duper strength Tylenol on an empty stomach that did me in. Now that I’ve eaten, I’ll be fine. A half dose usually does the trick. I’m not in serious pain, but it’s getting achy. I’m going to change into comfier clothes.”
“That’s fine. Whatever you need.” I shake out some treats for Marsha, and she delicately eats them from the palm of my hand, deigning to let me pet between her silky ears. I’m a dog person, but Marsha is a nice cat.
I hear Phoebe moving around the guest room and try to not imagine what she’s doing.
“Um…Ollie? Can you help me?”