Book 26 Hurricane After Dark #9
“Tell him…” Josh sounds like he’s crying. “Tell him I love him.”
“We will. The others are all here. We’ll take care of him.”
“Thanks, O, for always holding us together.”
An anxious hour passes before David Lawrence comes to talk to them, bringing Katie with him. Owen, Mac, Maddie and the other Lawry siblings swarm him.
“How are they?” Mac asks.
“Kelsey has a badly broken arm that’ll require surgery.
Jeff’s pelvis was broken, and we’re concerned about internal bleeding, lumbar involvement that can lead to further complications and blood clots, among other things.
We’ve got him stabilized for the moment, but we need to get him to a level-one trauma center as soon as the helicopters can fly again. ”
“When will that be?” Julia asks, her eyes wide with fear.
“It could be tomorrow.”
Owen moans at hearing that news. “David…”
“We’ll do everything we can to keep him stable, but I won’t lie to you. We’re in no way equipped for injuries of this magnitude.”
Julia lets out a cry of distress.
Cindy hugs her as they weep.
The weight of despair sits on Owen’s chest like a cement block. They could lose Jeff because they can’t get him off the island for the care he needs.
Mac hasn’t felt this helpless since Maddie went into labor during a tropical storm with the clinic’s only doctor off-island. If anyone can figure out a way to keep Jeff alive under these circumstances, it’s David.
“You guys,” Mac says to the Lawrys, who are huddled together in the waiting room.
“Listen… David is the absolute best guy for this job. If anyone can save Jeff, it’s him.
Remember what he did for Maddie and Janey…
I know it’s a terrible situation, but David knows what he’s doing. He’ll do everything he can for Jeff.”
“Thank you, Mac,” Owen says. “We needed to hear that.”
The eye of the storm passes over the island on Friday around noon, giving the residents a brief respite from the wind and rain.
Blaine looks up at the sky as he and Jack Downing survey the damage on the island’s west side, which seems to have taken the brunt of the storm.
Trees are down, several of the summer cottages are destroyed, and the road is covered with sand, shells, dead crabs and things from the sea.
“How long do you think the power will be out?”
“Took a few days to get it back during the blackout. Who knows how long it’ll be after this? It’s not over yet. The eye is the halfway point.”
“I saw on the news that the second half of the storm is less potent. Let’s hope that’s true.”
They check each of the collapsed cottages to make sure no one is trapped. Blaine makes a note of the address of each damaged cottage so he can notify the owners.
A call from dispatch comes over the radio. “Chief, we got a call from Morgan Weyland that his brother Billy rode out the storm on his boat in the Salt Pond. The boat is sunk, and there’s no sign of his brother anywhere.”
“Damn it,” Blaine mutters. “That’s Billy from the gym. Let’s call Linc and the Coast Guard in to search the pond. We’ll take the land. Let’s also get our divers out there to check to make sure he’s not inside the boat.”
“Ten-four.”
“What the hell was he thinking, riding out a hurricane on a boat?” Jack asks.
“Deacon talked to him days ago about moving to shore, but he refused to leave the boat. Said she was his home, and he wasn’t going anywhere.”
“And now his boat is sunk, and he’s probably dead.”
Blaine’s deep sigh answers for him. “All we can do is give people the warning. We can’t make them heed it.”
“True.”
While they’re working, Jack tells Blaine he spent the night with a new friend. He explained how he lost his wife a few years ago, and Piper is his first venture into the dating world.
“As great as it is to have met someone, it’s also sad because I never thought I’d go down this road again.”
“I get that. It’s bittersweet.”
“Exactly that.” Jack takes a sip of the coffee Piper made for him at the hotel. “Life goes marching on, regardless of us. Our choice is to either live or not, and once you choose to survive, you’ve got no choice but to get on with it.”
“Thanks for telling me about what you’ve been through.”
“I’ve wanted to for a while now, but it’s not something you can just pop into a random conversation.”
“I guess not. I’m glad you told me, but so, so sorry it happened.”
“Me, too. I’ve been doing better since I’ve been out here. There’s something about this place…”
“I know, and what’s funny about that is when I was growing up here, I thought it was the seventh circle of hell. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. It was so confining. And now…”
“It’s paradise,” Jack says.
“That it is, and it will be again once this goddamned storm goes away and leaves us alone.”
McKenzie joins Tiffany in the kitchen. Tiffany sets Jax up in Addie’s high chair while McKenzie prepares his food. They enjoy their coffee, and McKenzie shares her story of coming to the island. Tiffany offers to watch Jax while McKenzie calls her mother to check in.
Later that morning, Duke comes by with bags of clothes and toys from the cabin that he rescued for them and told them how he went to the police station to report them missing.
Blaine told him she was at his house. The man she once thought of as menacing seems deeply rattled by the entire thing, which is so sweet.
She’s so amazed by his kindness that she almost doesn’t hear the part about the house being a total loss.
“It’s so kind of you to bring us our things. ”
“I got what I could find. The clothes are all wet. You’ll need to wash them when the power comes back.”
He tells her how much he misses her grandmother, Rosemary. McKenzie smiles. “I miss her banana bread almost as much as I miss her.”
“I tried to talk her into some ink, but she wasn’t having it. Read me the riot act when I did my neck. ‘Duke,’ she said, ‘some day you might need to get a real job, and who’s gonna hire you with that crap on your skin?’”
McKenzie sputters with laughter. “I can hear her saying that! She hated tattoos and piercings. I thought she’d have a stroke when I had my nose pierced as a teen.”
“Believe me, I know. She told me to quit using myself as a canvas and get a hobby. All the guys in the shop loved her.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me. It’s nice to hear that she was so well loved here.”
“She was for sure. I looked forward to her arrival every summer. She came right over to hug me and see what a mess I’d made of myself while she was gone.”
He says to let him know when she’s ready to clean up at the cabin. He will help out.
After he leaves, Tiffany says, “That was so nice of him.”
“Very. He’s not what I expected.”
“How do you mean?”
“When I saw him next door, I was a little afraid of him, to be honest.”
“I can see why. He comes off as gruff and intimidating, but he’s just the nicest guy.”
When Jax starts squirming, McKenzie puts him down to crawl over to Addie. “I see that now. I feel bad for judging him based on the ink and the ponytail. My grandmother used to talk about having the best neighbors out here. I wasn’t sure if he was one of them.”
“Now you know they were buddies.”
“Which is so funny to me. I can’t picture her in a tattoo studio.”
“Anything is possible on Gansett Island,” Tiffany says.
“I’m beginning to see that.”
Piper floats on air, even as chaos reigns all around her. Her heart aches for Owen, Laura and all the Lawrys as they wait anxiously for word about Jeff’s condition. The island is without power, the damage is extensive, the storm isn’t over yet, and still… she floats.
Her night with Jack had been right out of a dream.
She ought to be sore and tired, but she’s elated and a little freaked out to think she could’ve married the wrong man.
As much as she’d loved Ben, and she’d truly loved him, he’d never rocked her world the way Jack did.
Everything with Jack is on a whole other level from what she’s experienced in the past.
On the gas stove that’s thankfully still working despite the power outage, she cooks omelets for their guests and makes coffee by boiling water that she pours over grounds. She carries breakfast into the dining room, where the two couples in residence are enjoying fruit and juice.
“You’re an angel, Piper,” Slim says. “I was just asking Erin how she was going to manage me without coffee.”
“It wouldn’t have been pretty,” Erin says.
“No problem.” She goes into the salon to let Laura know that breakfast is ready. “I made some pancakes for the kiddos.”
“What would I do without my Piper?” Laura asks the others as she butters the toast and supervises the twins eating their pancakes.
“She’s amazing,” Dara says. “We so appreciate your hospitality during the storm.”
“We’re glad to have you,” Laura says. “And all the hospitality is compliments of Piper.”
“And Owen,” Piper says. “He cooked dinner last night.”
“Is there any word on how his brother is doing?” Oliver asks.
Laura shakes her head. “Nothing new. Just that he’s stable for now, and we’re hoping to be able to evacuate him as soon as the choppers can fly again.”
Meanwhile in Italy…
“Something is wrong,” Sarah tells Charlie as she moves around their suite, tossing clothes into suitcases and gathering phone chargers and other items they’d taken out of their bags. “We need to go home.”
“If something was wrong,” Charlie says, “they would’ve told you.”
“No, they wouldn’t have, because they know I’m too far away to do anything, but I could tell with one sentence from Owen that something isn’t right.”
“What did he say?”
“It was what he didn’t say. I can’t explain how I know. I just do.”
“If you’re leaving, I’m leaving,” Charlie says.
“Us, too,” Adele says. “If something is wrong, I want to be with the family.”
“I’ll call the airline and see what we can do,” Charlie says.
“Thank you,” Sarah says tearfully. “Thank you.”
Charlie hugs her. “I’ll get you home as fast as I can.”
“Jeff’s blood pressure is dangerously low,” Victoria says to David when he returns from a quick break to eat.