Chapter 13
The storm that Ben had predicted arrived in full force by evening, turning the inn into an island surrounded by horizontal rain and howling wind. Kate stood in the kitchen at two in the morning, unable to sleep, watching the trees bend nearly double in the parking lot lights.
The power had flickered twice already, and she'd gotten up to check the generator, to make sure the sump pump was working, to do all the things she'd always done during storms.
Except now there were other people here to worry about it. Tom had already checked the generator. James had backup battery systems for the Wi-Fi. Dani had even thought to fill bathtubs with water in case they lost pressure. Kate wasn't needed for any of it.
Thunder cracked directly overhead, and she heard footsteps on the stairs. Pop appeared in the doorway, fully dressed despite the hour, looking confused.
“Storm's bad,” he said, his voice uncertain. “Need to check the boats.”
“You don't have a boat anymore, Pop.”
He looked at her with such incomprehension that her heart broke a little. In his mind, he was probably forty years younger, still lobstering, still needing to protect his livelihood from the weather.
“My boat,” he insisted. “Down at the harbor. The Sarah Elizabeth.”
Kate's throat tightened. The Sarah Elizabeth, named for her mother, had been sold fifteen years ago to pay for medical bills. But in Pop's storm-addled mind, time had folded back on itself.
“Tom already checked it,” she lied gently. “Everything's secure.”
Amy appeared then, wrapped in a practical robe, her face serene despite being woken at two a.m. This was what they paid her for, the middle of the night confusion, the endless patience, the professional kindness.
“Daniel, let's get you back to bed,” Amy said, her voice soothing. “The boats are all fine.”
But Pop pushed past both of them, heading for the door with surprising determination. Kate caught his arm, and he turned on her with eyes that didn't recognize her at all.
“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”
The words hit like a physical blow. Kate had known this was coming, Amy had warned them all, but knowing and experiencing were different things entirely.
“I'm Kate. Your daughter.”
“I don't have a daughter named Kate.” He pulled his arm free, his strength surprising. “Where's Elizabeth? She'll tell you. This is our house.”
The lights flickered again, and in the moment of darkness, Pop's confusion seemed to deepen. When they came back on, he was looking around the kitchen like he'd never seen it before, despite having lived here for so many years.
“This isn't right,” he muttered. “Nothing's right.”
James appeared in the doorway, hair sticking up at odd angles, wearing pajama pants and an old Kennebunk High T-shirt. He took in the scene quickly, Pop's agitation, Kate's stricken face, Amy's professional calm.
“Hey, Pop,” James said easily. “Storm woke you up too? Remember that big one in '78? You told us about it, how the waves came right up to the porch?”
Pop turned to James, and something in his face shifted, not quite recognition but less hostility. “The '78 storm. Started as rain and turned into the biggest snowstorm we ever had. I lost three lobster traps.”
“That's right. You and Mom watched it from the sunroom.” James moved closer, casual and unthreatening. “Why don't we go look from there now? See how this one compares?”
It was brilliant, actually. James led Pop to the sunroom, talking about storms and boats and things Pop's fractured memory could grab on to. Amy followed, but Kate remained in the kitchen, shaking.
She pulled on her rain jacket and went outside, needing the storm's violence to match her internal chaos. The wind immediately tried to knock her down, rain driving sideways into her face. She made it to the covered porch, gripping the railing as the inn creaked and groaned around her.
This was her world, watching storms, protecting the inn, being forgotten by the father she'd given everything to protect. The harbor was invisible in the darkness and rain, but she could hear it, the crash of waves, the clang of halyards against masts, the protest of boats against their moorings.
A truck pulled into the driveway, headlights cutting through the storm. Kate recognized it immediately, Ben's vehicle, which had no business being here at two-thirty in the morning in a near-hurricane.
He ran from the truck to the porch, immediately soaked despite the short distance. Water streamed from his jacket, his hair plastered to his head.
“What are you doing here?” Kate had to shout over the wind.
“Checking on you. On the inn.” He pushed wet hair back from his face. “That big oak by the east side is leaning. Thought it might come down.”
“You drove here in this to tell me about a tree?”
“I drove here because I couldn't sleep thinking about you alone dealing with whatever the storm brought.”
“I'm not alone. The inn's full of people.”
“But you're still the one standing out here in the storm, aren't you?”
She wanted to argue, but another crack of thunder shook the building, and the lights went out completely this time. The darkness was absolute for a moment before emergency lighting kicked in, casting everything in an eerie green glow.
“Generator should start,” Kate said, but it didn't.
Ben was already moving. “Where's the mechanical room?”
They went together, Kate holding a flashlight while Ben examined the generator.
His hands moved with practiced efficiency, checking connections, testing switches.
The intimacy of the small space, the darkness broken only by her flashlight beam, made Kate acutely aware of his presence, the heat of him despite his wet clothes, the way he muttered to himself as he worked, the competence that made her want to lean into him and let someone else be capable for once.
“There,” he said as the generator rumbled to life. Light flooded back into the inn. “Loose connection. The storm vibration probably shook it free.”
They stood facing each other in the mechanical room, both soaked, the crisis handled. Kate could see water droplets on his eyelashes, the concern in his eyes that had nothing to do with generators or storms.
“Pop didn't recognize me tonight,” she said, the words falling out easily, tears filling her eyes. “He called me a stranger.”
Ben's face softened. “I'm sorry.”
“Amy says it'll get worse. That eventually he won't know any of us.”
“Tomorrow he might know you again.”
“Or he might not.”
“No,” Ben agreed. “He might not.”
The honesty of it, the lack of false comfort, made her throat tight. They climbed back to the main floor, finding Tom in the kitchen making coffee on the gas stove.
“Power's back,” Tom said, then noticed Ben. “What are you doing here?”
“The oak tree,” Ben said simply. “Eastern side. It's going to come down.”
Tom's lawyer face shifted to concern. “On the inn?”
“Possibly. Depends on the wind.”
They all moved to the window, watching the tree in question whip back and forth. It was massive, probably a hundred years old, and it was definitely leaning toward the building.
“We should evacuate that side,” Tom said.
“That's Rooms 3, 4, and 5,” Kate said. “Mrs. Bryers is in 3.”
“Then we move Mrs. Bryers.”
The next hour was controlled chaos. Tom and James helped relocate their one guest to the other side of the inn, Dani made coffee and sandwiches despite the hour, Amy kept Pop calm in the sunroom where he'd fallen back to sleep in his chair.
And Ben worked outside, trying to secure what he could, to minimize damage if the tree fell.
Kate watched him through the window, barely visible in the rain and darkness except when lightning illuminated everything in stark relief. He was tying ropes, creating barriers, doing things that probably wouldn't matter if a hundred-foot oak decided to fall but trying anyway.
The tree went at four-fifteen. They all heard it, a crack like the world breaking, then a long, grinding crash that shook the entire building.
Kate ran toward the sound, finding the massive trunk had missed the inn by maybe three feet, its branches scraping the eastern wall but not penetrating. The damage was minimal, some siding, a few broken windows, nothing structural.
Ben stood in the rain surveying it, looking satisfied.
“How?” Kate asked.
“The ropes. Changed the fall angle just enough.” He was shouting to be heard over the storm, rain streaming down his face. “Old lumberjack trick my grandfather taught me.”
She wanted to hug him then, this man who showed up in storms to save buildings and change the angles of falling trees. Instead, she stood there in the rain, staring at him while the wind tried to knock them both over.
“Come inside,” she shouted. “You're soaked.”
In the kitchen, Dani handed Ben a towel and coffee while Tom and James examined the damage from inside. The atmosphere was strangely festive—crisis managed, everyone safe, the kind of middle-of-the-night adventure that would become family legend.
“Remember the storm of '98?” James was saying. “Kate made us all sleep in the sunroom because she was convinced the roof would come off.”
“It almost did,” Kate protested.
“You were always protecting us,” Tom said quietly. “Even when you were a kid yourself.”
Ben was watching her, his expression unreadable.
He'd wrapped the towel around his shoulders but was still dripping steadily onto the kitchen floor.
In the harsh overhead light, she could see exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, could see he'd probably been up all night worrying about various properties, various people, but had come here first.
“You should go home,” she said. “Get some sleep.”
“Can't. Roads are probably flooded by now. I'll wait it out.”
So he joined their strange storm party. Pop woke periodically, confused but calm.
Amy dozed in a chair with the practiced ability of someone used to broken sleep.
Dani curled up on the couch, Tom worked on his laptop even at four in the morning, and James told stories about what it was like to grow up in the seaside coastal town of Kennebunkport, Maine.
Kate found herself sitting next to Ben on the floor by the fireplace, their backs against the couch, sharing a blanket Dani had thrust at them. The fire crackled, the storm raged, and the inn held steady around them.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For coming. For the tree.”
“You don't have to thank me for that.”
“Yes, I do. You didn't have to come.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, “I did.”
The weight of what he meant sat between them. Kate could feel the warmth of his shoulder against hers. It would be so easy to lean into him, to rest her head on his shoulder, to let herself be held through the storm.
Instead, she sat rigidly upright, maintaining that last inch of distance.
Dawn came slowly, gray and watery, the storm finally beginning to exhaust itself. Through the windows, they could see the devastation, trees down everywhere, debris scattered like toys, the harbor churned brown with runoff. But the inn stood, damaged but not broken, still sheltering them all.
Ben stood to leave as soon as the winds died down enough to be safe. At the door, he turned back to Kate.
“The oak would have fallen anyway,” he said. “But it didn't have to fall on the inn. Sometimes you can't prevent the falling, but you can change where things land.”
After he left, Kate stood in the doorway watching his truck navigate the debris-strewn road. Dani appeared beside her, wrapped in a blanket, looking younger without her usual polish.
“He came here in a storm for you,” Dani said.
“He came to check the property.”
“Katie. He came for you.”
The morning light was gaining strength, revealing the full extent of the storm's damage. There would be insurance calls to make, repairs to arrange, a massive tree to remove.
But for now, Kate stood in the doorway of the inn that had survived another storm, watching Ben's taillights disappear, feeling the warmth on her shoulder where he'd sat beside her, and wondering if maybe some things were worth letting fall.
Pop's voice drifted from the sunroom, talking to Amy about boats and storms and Elizabeth coming home soon.
The generator hummed. Her siblings moved through the inn doing helpful things.
And Kate remained in the doorway, caught between the warm, chaotic interior and the storm-cleaned world outside, still maintaining that crucial inch of distance from everything that might hurt her.
But the distance was getting harder to hold.