Chapter Seven
Seven
Hannah
I could feel my dormant reporter skills crackle to life as if they were Frankenstein being zapped by the lightning that flashed intermittently as the storm moved closer.
I had never wanted to stop being a journalist, but the industry had changed drastically from my first day fourteen years ago at the Cronkite School at Arizona State University to now.
I had done a five-year tour of duty as a beat reporter at a major newspaper in Washington, DC, but when times got tough and reporters were laid off en masse—as a new hire, I was one of the first to go.
With no job prospects, my marriage dusted and done, and no home to keep me in DC, I decided to buy Buttercup and take a year to travel around the country visiting national parks.
I started posting my adventures and suddenly I was a #vanlife influencer.
What was supposed to be one year became five.
While it was a surprisingly remunerative career, I still missed chasing down a story as a journalist.
Being here in the cottage with the scent of a story filling my nostrils like wildfire smoke, I felt as if I owed it to myself and Pops to learn everything I could about why this cottage on the Outer Banks was so special to him.
I mean, I knew it was the one he and Nana had rented when I was a child, but we’d rented a few others over the years, too.
Why was this the one he’d chosen to buy?
Was it intentional? Or had it just gone up for sale when he was looking? And why had he never mentioned it?
“How do you plan to start?” Simon asked.
I put the picture back on the table and glanced at him.
His hair was a tousled mess of thick waves with curly ends, and his square jaw was set, not in stubbornness but rather with what seemed to be well-practiced patience.
I wasn’t sure if I was being patronized but since we’d just met and his good looks were frankly distracting, I decided to assume he wasn’t being condescending until proven otherwise.
“First, I’m going to scour every inch of the cottage looking for any clues about Pops’s life here.
” I paused and picked up a wood carving of a bluebird on the table.
It was crudely done but the little bird had a distinctive personality.
It looked puffed up and irritated. It made me smile.
I turned it over to see who the artist was.
Carved into the base was the name O’Malley.
I held it out to Simon. “I believe your grandfather did this.”
He frowned, his eyebrows lowering over his deep brown eyes. “Gramps wasn’t a woodworker.”
“Well, unless you know another O’Malley who came here, I think it has to be him.” I turned the carving and pointed to the name.
Simon reached across the space between us and took the bluebird from my hand. Our fingers brushed and I noticed how warm his skin was compared to mine. I pulled my hand away and patted Dude as another roll of thunder sounded. He let out a small whimper and pressed harder against my legs.
Simon studied the name and then the bird and then the name again. “I don’t understand. How could I not know this about him?”
I gestured to the cottage interior. “It seems to me there is a lot we don’t know about both of our grandfathers. Aren’t you curious to learn about the life your Gramps enjoyed here?”
He glanced up at me and I could see by his expression that he was conflicted. I knew he wanted to sell the place, but I thought that he, like me, had to be wondering about the life his grandfather had led here. How could Simon not want to know more?
“Of course I’m curious, Spencer.” He glanced around the room, taking it all in. “But it’s simply not practical. I have…time constraints.”
“Job?”
“Career.” He corrected me but his expression was subdued as if this career of his wasn’t something he enjoyed.
While it had never been my dream to be an online persona, I genuinely enjoyed traveling to new places and meeting interesting people.
The thought of spending my life doing something I didn’t enjoy was unimaginable to me.
I wondered if that was why Simon seemed overly serious.
Maybe that was just his personality? That didn’t seem very promising for our co-ownership of the house.
I studied Simon, trying to guess what he did for a living.
He was rocking a pretty generic bruh outfit of baggy shorts and T-shirt attire. I decided to commence a gentle interrogation.
“Wife and kids, O’Malley?” I asked just to confirm what I already knew. He wore no wedding ring and if he had a wife and kids they’d be here with him. Who would miss a trip to the Outer Banks as a family?
“No.” He shook his head.
“Dating anyone?”
“Not at the moment.” There was a slight pause before he answered and I wondered if it meant he’d just broken up with someone or he was reluctant to tell me he was single in case I decided to make a play for him.
He should be so lucky. Or was he always this thoughtful when questioned because he was checking for conversational land mines? Interesting.
“Are you an attorney?” I narrowed my eyes, squinting to see if I could picture him in a suit in a courtroom. It was a stretch.
“Oh, gross, no. How could you think such a thing, Spencer?” He grimaced.
My eyebrows flew up. That seemed like a harsh response. Before I could fire another question at him, he asked, “Are you married?”
“No.” What I didn’t say was not anymore.
“Dating?”
Did I have to admit it had been years? My life on the road had not been conducive to anything more than the occasional weeklong fling, which suited me just fine. I decided to repeat his answer back to him. “Not at the moment.”
He nodded. A small closed-lip smile tipped one corner of his mouth as if my answer pleased him.
Maybe he thought I’d be easier to convince to sell the cottage if I didn’t have anyone in my life with a vested interest in having me keep the place.
He clearly had no idea how hungry I was for the first real roof I’d had over my head in ages. I was not about to give it up easily.
Whatever Simon had been about to say was cut off by the sound of a horrendous crash from upstairs. We both jumped and Dude let out a mournful howl that I was certain was the doggy equivalent of “We’re all going to die!”
“Wait here!” Simon bolted across the room and up the stairs to check it out.
Without Simon to talk to, the wind seemed to take on more menace than it had before and the gloom that had been dimming the natural light seemed to get even darker.
Hopefully, we were in the apex of the storm and it would start to mellow.
I sincerely hoped so because Dude was shaking so hard my entire chair was vibrating.
The rain pelted the roof and sides of the house, flashes of lightning lit up the room so frequently it was as if we were having an impromptu dance party with a strobe light, while thunder rolled overhead with a mixture of rumbles and booms that were practically deafening.
The noise of the storm was so loud I couldn’t hear anything from upstairs.
What if the roof had collapsed and Simon was trapped under it?
Maybe a part of the building had fallen off and the storm had washed him out?
Maybe there was a power line down and he’d been electrocuted.
My heart was pounding in my chest as my unsubstantiated fears ratcheted up into a solid case of panic.
I had to get up there and see what was happening.
“Dude, I’m going to need you to be brave.” He quaked as if he knew what was coming next. “I have to run upstairs.”
I stood and pulled the cushions off the couch and began to pile them on top of him until he was cocooned in his very own cushion fort.
I added the wool throw that had been on the back of the couch for extra protection.
I couldn’t see my big baby boy, but this dog could hear the cheese drawer in the van’s fridge from a quarter of a mile away, so he could most assuredly hear me now.
“I have to see if everything is okay,” I said. “Stay. Don’t move.”
A melancholy yowl was his only response. I stepped away from the couch and ran up the stairs. Other than my time hunting the bat, I hadn’t been upstairs, as I’d spent my day gathering material about the Outer Banks for my online content.
When I stepped onto the landing, I noticed all the doors were open, which made sense given that Simon had said he’d checked for any more bats. Judging by the feel of the wind blowing into the hallway from the bedroom on the right, I knew that was the location of the situation.
“O’Malley? Are you all right?” I shouted over the wind as I hurried into the gloomy room.
Simon was standing beside the bed trying to yank the quilt off. He was soaked through and his T-shirt clung to his muscled chest. Not the worst look. “I’m doing better than you, at any rate. This was going to be your room.”
“Ha! Very funny,” I retorted as I joined him.
A tiny smile, barely discernable in the dimly lit room, tipped up one corner of his mouth.
I was about to call him out when the bedroom curtain billowed on a gust of wind and I gasped.
As the sheer drapery lifted, I could see that a tree had punched through one window and then shot out through the one diagonally across from it, leaving the trunk stuck inside the house!
Rain was pouring in both smashed windows while Simon struggled with the blanket.
Glass crunched under my boots as I took in the damage.
“Where’s Dude?” He raised his voice to be heard over the storm.
“Safe in a pillow fort.” I moved around the bed to help him tug the blanket off.
He nodded as if that made any sense and then said, “I’m going to tie the corners of the blanket to the curtain rod to try and block out as much of the wind and rain as I can.”