14. Against the Gale
Chapter fourteen
Against the Gale
Sutton
The coastal sky bruised into a dark, mottled purple, blocking out the late afternoon sun. I stood on the edge of the farmhouse porch, bracing my rubber boots against the peeling floorboards as a freezing gust of wind whipped my hair across my face.
My fingers clamped hard around the edges of a wooden clipboard. In my other hand, a portable weather radio hummed with static, emitting a sharp crackle before the automated emergency broadcast looped again.
The temperature was plummeting. The damp chill cut straight through my faded overalls, settling directly into my joints.
The mudroom door groaned open behind me. Ruby marched out onto the planks, zipping up her insulated Carhartt jacket.
“It went from autumn to winter in ten minutes,” she said, squinting up at the rolling tree line. “The bottom is falling out of the barometer.”
“It’s dropping ten degrees an hour, Ruby, and the Coast Guard just issued a severe gale warning,” I said, holding the radio up so she could catch the end of the transmission. “If the wind gets under the plastic, we’ll lose the entire spring harvest.”
We had thousands of dollars in commercial inventory sitting in drafty structures.
Ruby stepped past me, watching the chaotic sway of the pines.
“Sutton, you take Gallagher and lock down the floral shed and the glasshouse,” Ruby ordered, pointing toward the sprawling outbuildings. “I’m going to secure Clementine and get the farmhouse generators running before the power lines snap.”
Across the yard, Hayes was turning a thick pile of damp compost with a pitchfork. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, his raw, weeping palms gripping the wooden handle.
“Gallagher!” Ruby yelled, her voice cutting through the rising howl of the wind. “Drop the pitchfork and start hauling sandbags for Sutton!”
I braced myself, fully expecting him to pause, ask a question, or demand an explanation for the sudden shift in duties. In Los Angeles, every minor disruption to his schedule required a huddle with Eleanor and a frantic scramble by a PR handler.
Hayes didn’t argue. He didn’t even look toward the safety of the farmhouse.
He drove the pitchfork straight down into the muck, leaving it standing upright, and turned his back on it. He sprinted toward the supply pallets stacked near the loading dock, his boots kicking up a spray of gravel.
“I’ll get them lined up right now!” Hayes shouted back over the wind, grabbing the corners of a massive burlap sack. “Sutton, just tell me where you need most of these!”
I squeezed the edge of my clipboard, staring at the man hauling seventy pounds of dead weight through the freezing mud simply because he was told to.
He wasn’t trying to throw money at the problem, and he wasn’t looking for a camera to capture his effort. He was just doing exactly what I needed to keep the farm safe.
My grip tightened painfully as I watched him work.
It reminded me too much of the man he used to be before the cameras ever found him.
The wind howled across the open yard, catching the loose plastic sheeting of the Main Greenhouse. It snapped against the wooden framing, a harsh, cracking sound that echoed over the roaring gusts.
I shoved the radio into my pocket, abandoned the clipboard on a crate, and marched toward the structure. The sudden drop in temperature turned the driving rain into freezing sleet that bit right to the bone.
Walking along the muddy base of the greenhouse, I grabbed the canvas ventilation flap and yanked downward.
The wind caught the canvas, nearly ripping it from my numb fingers. I grunted, leaning my weight backward to fight the gale, dragging the canvas flat against the mud.
My swollen belly got in the way as I bent over, ruining my leverage.
“Keep the edges tight against the baseboard!” I shouted over my shoulder, fighting the thrashing plastic.
Hayes was right behind me. He lugged a sandbag through the wet gravel, clutching the burlap sack to his chest as it tore at his bare forearms.
He hoisted the burlap and dropped it over the loose edge of the canvas flap I was holding down.
The sack hit the earth, pinning the plastic to the mud.
“It’s secured,” Hayes yelled, swiping a mixture of freezing rain and sweat from his eyes. “Move to the next section.”
A grinding roar cut through the sound of the storm. Declan’s battered pickup truck skidded down the gravel driveway, kicking up a wave of muddy water.
The truck jerked to a halt mere feet from the greenhouse. The door flew open.
Declan bailed out of the cab, his work boots sinking into the flooded yard. He sprinted directly toward the loose edge of the greenhouse.
Without waiting for permission, he intercepted my path and wrestled the next thrashing flap to the mud.
“I secured my hives next door!” Declan shouted over the wind, pinning the canvas down. “Leave the flaps to me, Sutton, and get inside before you freeze!”
I stepped back, crossing my arms. My fingers were numb, the skin practically raw from the freezing rain, but I planted my boots in the mud.
I was responsible for this inventory. I refused to let Ruby down while she was handling the livestock.
“I’m not going inside until this crop is locked down!” I yelled back, ignoring Declan’s order and pointing toward the exposed corner of the structure. “Hayes, make sure those sandbags overlap so the wind doesn’t catch the gaps!”
Declan held the canvas flat against the earth.
Hayes immediately stepped up beside him, hauling the next bag through the muck. He dropped the burlap directly beside Declan’s gripping hands, locking the plastic tight against the wind.
“They’re overlapping perfectly!” Hayes yelled, grabbing another bag from the pallet without breaking his rhythm. “Just step back from the plastic, Sutton, so you don’t get hit if one of these grommets tears out!”
I paused mid-step, ignoring the rain hitting my face. I stood frozen in the mud, staring at the two men.
They were kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder in the muck, their hands covered in grit, working in a silent rhythm to seal the gap.
Hayes wasn’t trying to compete with the local farmer; he was just doing exactly what I needed to keep the greenhouse from tearing apart.
They worked the entire perimeter together, hauling sandbags and pinning every loose flap until the plastic sheeting was fully battened down against the gale.
His hands empty, Declan gave a curt nod and climbed into his truck, slamming the cab door against the wind.
The engine roared, tires spitting wet gravel as he navigated the flooded driveway toward his own property.
With the exterior secured, I turned away from the blinding sleet and retreated into the Packing Shed. Hayes followed a second later, ducking out of the gale. The wind howled against the corrugated tin roof, creating a deafening drumbeat that vibrated straight through the foundation.
“Get that door shut,” I ordered, my teeth chattering as a freezing gust swept across the room. “The draft is going to freeze the hydrangeas.”
Hayes threw his shoulder into the sliding door. The metal screeched in protest, fighting the gale force outside before finally slamming shut.
The door blocked the wind, sealing the rich, earthy scent of damp potting soil and cut greenery in the humid room. I wasted no time. I marched directly to the stainless-steel prep tables, grabbing the lip of a plastic floral bucket.
I hauled it backward, dragging the base away from the drafty door seams to protect the fragile stems.
“Put your weight against the bottom panel,” I said, shoving another tub out of the draft. “We need to seal the gap.”
Hayes dropped to his knees on the concrete, shoving a row of loose bricks against the baseboard to block the water pooling beneath the metal track. He stood up, his boots slipping slightly on the wet floor as he scanned the baseboards for any other leaks.
“We got everything tied down outside,” Hayes said, raising his voice over the rattling roof. “Point me toward whatever you need moved in here so you don’t have to lift anything.”
I turned, scanning the chaotic inventory. My eyes locked on a rolling metal rack near the loading bay, overloaded with commercial fertilizer bags and loose glass vases.
“I need that rolling rack of floral buckets and glass vases shoved into the walk-in cooler,” I said, pointing toward the insulated vault. “If the wind blows the side door open, the glass is going to shatter everywhere.”
“I’m on it,” he said. “Just stay clear of the wheels while I pivot this thing around the corner.”
He marched toward the rack. He grabbed the rusted upright bars, planting his wet boots on the concrete, and shoved.
The caster wheels shrieked against the floor, catching on the uneven grit. Hayes grunted, his boots slipping as he forced his body weight forward to get the wheels moving.
My numb fingers slipped on the rim of the bucket I was holding. I abandoned the task, gripping the damp denim at my thighs to force my shaking hands still.
Back in Los Angeles, I ran our lives like a ghost. I managed the catering, the dry cleaning, and the chaotic schedules so the golden boy of Hollywood never had to break a sweat off-camera.
Now, I watched a Hollywood billionaire shivering in a freezing shed, shoving a rusted metal cart across concrete simply because I told him to.
He offered no argument. He threw no money at the problem. He just ruined his hands to protect my things.
I swallowed hard, refusing to let it show.
I stepped back against the steel prep table, watching him force the cart over the concrete floor.
A massive gust of wind hammered the side of the shed. The corrugated tin walls rattled, groaning under the sudden, violent pressure.
I spun around just as the metal door bowed inward. The rusted track gave way as the bottom edge of the panel popped free of its guide, kicking the loose bricks across the wet concrete. A spray of sleet and rain blasted through the newly opened gap, hitting my face like tiny needles.