Never Let Go (The Storm Inside #4)

by Alexis Anne

  Zoe and I reviewed the new schedule we were starting with the school year over afternoon tea. Jake and I were both taking the girls on the first day, but after that Zoe was stepping in for a couple of weeks while Jake and I were both swamped with work.

  It was probably this distracted chaos and the change in everyone’s schedules that threw us all so completely off when the unexpected happened. It was Wednesday when we missed the first signs. I was in bed reviewing the plans for Senior Night at the Trop on Thursday, half listening to the music in my right ear bud, half listening to Jake babbling about everything on the internet beside me. It was such an incredibly normal night for us: kids sacked out early from a busy first week back at school, the house locked up tight and all the lights off except our bedside lamps, Jake in boxers, me in a tank top and briefs, snuggled up in our fluffy bed trying to finish up our obligations to the outside world so we could get some sleep.

  “The Senator is polling well in all the early states,” Jake said.

  “He’s a shoe-in,” I mumbled back. At some point in the last month I’d decided the best course of action was to assume that Jake’s grandfather—the girls great grandfather—was the next president.

  Like whoa. This was an actual thing and I was going to have to get used to it.

  “There was a fight in the Jags locker room today?”

  I nodded, slipping into the number of ticket sales instead of the details of the fight. “Marie had to drive up after lunch. Ronson is one of hers.”

  “Have her over for dinner on Sunday?”

  That pulled me out of my numbers. I snorted and shot him a look. “You want the inside scoop?”

  He shrugged. “What’s the point of having friends with really cool jobs if we don’t take advantage of those perks?”

  I shook my head. “Funny, that’s the exact same reason my suite is almost always full these days.”

  “You say that like you don’t love it.”

  He had a point. I liked seeing the family suite busy and filled with our friends and family—even if I did get a lot more last second text messages from people asking for seats than I used to. “I’ll send her an invite. You can let Greg know.”

  We returned to what we’d been doing. I was getting sleepier and my lids drooped. Jake didn’t help matters any when he started massaging my thigh with long, strong strokes of his thumb.

  “Huh, there’s a storm brewing south of Cuba,” he murmured so low I almost didn’t hear him.

  “Mmmm?” I clicked my iPad off and tucked it into my bag on the floor, plugged in my phone, and took a sip of water.

  “The computer models are jacked. They look like a flying spaghetti monster. Some have it headed toward Cancun, these others point it up into the panhandle as a Category five, and this model here has it sitting on top of Cuba for the rest of the week.”

  I slid between the covers, yawning. “It’s too early. Give it another day before you start worrying about bread and milk.”

  Jake started stroking my hair as I drifted off into dreamland. The last thing I heard was his quiet reply. “I’m more worried about losing the house than whether we have bread.”

  I MISSED our morning meeting because I was having breakfast with a supplier at Grace’s coffee shop in downtown Tampa. It meant I got a glorious extra hour of sleep, but it also meant listening to differences between products printed on color versus products printed on white, for far longer than necessary. I had to hand it to Jenna, she was really enthusiastic about her job. I, however, just wanted to know how much it was going to cost to give every fan at the “End of Summer” game a bright blue baseball.

  “All right. Ten thousand of the navy on white and ten thousand of the white on navy. Got it.” She clicked her nails against the screen of the iPad in her hands. “So, can I ask you a personal question?” She glanced up.

  “Sure,” I shrugged, glancing at my smart watch. The morning meeting must be over because the avalanche of emails had started. I switched it to quiet mode.

  “I just moved to Florida three months ago so this will be my first hurricane. What do I need to do? Should I go straight to the store?”

  The vaguest memory of Jake mentioning a storm forming near Cuba flittered through my mind and I shrugged. “Don’t worry until there’s something to worry about. Most storms either miss us entirely or just turn into two days of nonstop rain. But it’s just good practice to always keep water, food, and batteries in the pantry. You’ll need them more for the afternoon thunderstorms we get in late August and September than you’ll need them for a hurricane.”

  Her lips turned down in a slight frown. “How many have you been through?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. We only count them if you have to hide in a closet—and I’ve only done that twice—but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking. There’s usually one or two a year that pass over as a bad storm or we get the edges of an honest to goodness hurricane as it passes by. Tampa hasn’t taken a direct hit from a hurricane since I’ve been alive.”

  Even as I said the words I felt the ominousness of what I’d said. Anyone who lived on the low-lying parts of Tampa Bay knew the warnings and storm surge maps by heart and it felt like I’d just sent a curse down from the hurricane gods. I silently calculated storm damage from a direct hit hoping to balance the universe.

  “So Tropical Storm Claudia?” she drawled.

  “Is probably not going to be nearly as exciting as she sounds on television.”

  “WE’RE CANCELING THE GAME,” Josh said as he slammed my office door.

  I froze, my hands just above my keyboard, and stared at him. The words didn’t quite compute. We’re canceling the game. Nope, still didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The game…” he waved his hand through the air in a large arc. “We have to cancel it. Buckle up, we’re in for a bitch of an afternoon.” He popped his hands onto his hips, pushing back his suit jacket.

  Maybe my coffee had backfired. Instead of waking me up it was turning my brain into sludge. “Tonight?” We had a 6:30 game against Toronto. It was Senior Night.

  Josh scowled at me. “Yes, Eve. Tonight. I’ve already had Rogers start in on the press releases and website. Can you organize the text messages and phone calls to VIP’s and season ticket holders?”

  The world started spinning far faster than I could manage. “Hold on. Back up. What the hell is going on?”

  Josh’s scowl slowly dissolved into dawning realization. “You missed the morning meeting. And I’m guessing you haven’t checked your messages or, I don’t know, glanced at a television?”

  I shook my head as the blood started to drain out of my head. There are times when you know something bad is coming and there isn’t shit you can do about it, but then there are times when a feeling beyond helplessness takes root deep inside. It’s just a little spark. A little niggle. Not big enough to alert your consciousness of real impending danger, but just enough to make you wonder if you should trust your instincts. The ones screaming that this is bad despite having zero evidence to support the argument.

  Josh sighed and rocked back onto his heels. “Claudia formed last night near Cuba and as of this morning she’s a Cat 2 a hundred miles southwest of Naples.”

  That didn’t explain why we were canceling a game in St. Pete. “So?”

  “So the models are all over the place and can’t keep up with what she’s doing, but damn near all of them have her flying up the Florida coastline today.”

  “And we can’t have a stadium full of people on an evacuation route with an unpredictable storm just off the coast,” I said half under my breath, my mind already off on a thousand different thoughts. After what Hurricane Charley did we couldn’t take a chance with the game.

  “Exactly. We’re canceling and rescheduling a double header for Saturday. Toronto is moving hotels to Orlando as a precaution. I’m sure it’s nothing. With any luck we’ll be fielding calls and emails f
rom pissed off fans pointing out that the weather was gorgeous for tailgating and we’re all a bunch of assholes for ruining their night.”

  I rolled my eyes and steeled myself for the inevitable. “You owe me a night at Bern’s if I make it though the week without telling anyone off.”

  He barked a laugh as he yanked my office door open. “I’ll even throw in dessert.”

  “Cocky!” I yelled.

  “Not cocky, just damn sure there isn’t a chance in hell I’ll lose this bet.”

  17

  JAKE

  I’d never seen people move so fast. The calls came in from the county thirty minutes ago and my mobile disaster team was already ready to go.

  “Good luck,” I said, smacking Darrell, my team leader, on the back. “Hopefully this will be one big long boring weekend.”

  He shook his head, obviously as doubtful as I was. The minute I saw the news last night I got this feeling things were going to be bad.

  “Either way, this is exciting.”

  It really was. This was my pet project and I was glad that it was finally getting a test run. Between my work overseas and my own personal interest in materials, I’d proposed a mobile disaster team of trained engineers to go into disaster zones with the support of local emergency responders. We lent our expertise with building collapses, flood zones, and infrastructure, and had been developing new products to assist with damage control.

  “It’s just the beginning,” I cautioned. There was still a long road to go. First we needed to prove that we were an asset and not a burden.

  “Gotta start somewhere.”

  And then my team hit the road. I went to Greg’s office for an update on the storm. He looked up as soon as I stepped in the doorway.

  “It doesn’t look good,” he grumbled.

  “Still a category two?”

  “Yes, but it’s growing. It looks alive. Watch this.” He spun his laptop around so I could see the radar over the last twenty-four hours. I had to admit, the way it grew, became a tightly wound storm with a perfect eye, and then seemed to pulse and grow, made it look alive.

  “Have the models changed?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “I think we’re going to have to assume this will hit us. There’s no way we’ll have time to prepare if we wait.”

  Well that settled that. “I’ll get the factory floor shut down and we’ll batten down the hatches.”

  He gave me a nod. “And we should probably start thinking about a plan for ourselves.”

  “That’s easy. We evacuate to Jennie and Andrew’s. But first, we get things ready here. If we start now we’ll have plenty of time for everything.”

  The look on Greg’s face said he thought I was crazy. Just to be sure I sent Eve a text just before I headed into the factory.

  18

  EVE

  I cracked my neck and counted to ten. “Yes, sir. I understand that you were entertaining clients from Japan, however there is nothing I can do about the weather. We will—”

  “Miss,” Mr. Harvey Watts of the Watts Car Dealership clipped at me for the third time during our brief two minute phone call, “there is no amount of food or drink that can make up for the opportunity I am missing because you are being ridiculous. I am a born and bred Floridian and we do not stop business because there is a little bit of rain in the Gulf. You’re being a bunch of pansies!”

  I lost it after that. Josh’s promise of dinner and dessert was nothing compared to the asshole on the other end of my line.

  “Mr. Watts. I am a third generation Floridian and I can tell you without a doubt that you are being unreasonable. Floridians respect the power of lighting and hurricanes because they’ve lived through it. Anyone who doesn’t is an idiot. Are you saying you’re an idiot?”

  He sputtered. “Excuse me, Miss?”

  “And don’t call me miss. The way you say it is condescending, as if you believe being a car dealer and a man makes you more important that a silly girl working in baseball. I will have you know I am an executive with more sports experience than you have in your little di—” the phone was yanked out of my hand.

  “I apologize Mr. Watts. Your comp food and beverage tickets will be waiting for you at Will Call on Saturday. Good afternoon.” Josh said clearly, hanging up the phone.

  I glared at him. “I’d yell at you for taking the phone, but instead I’ll say thank you for not letting me finish that word.”

  He set the phone in the cradle and leaned against my desk. “I really hope you were about to say dimple, but I’m pretty sure you weren’t.”

  I leaned back in my chair and grinned. “I hadn’t decided whether I was simply going to say dick, or go one up and say dickhead.”

  He groaned and put his face in his hands. “You can’t do that Eve. Not even with Harvey, who we all know is the biggest dickhead with the littlest dick of them all. I never should have asked you to call him. I still remember what you said to him at the banquet.”

  I shrugged. “He deserved everything I said to him at the banquet and he had no idea I was the same ‘girl’ who gave him a public tongue lashing for disrespecting his arm candy.”

  Josh grunted. “Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as the type to remember. Don’t all women look alike?”

  “Oh no. I’m sure he probably remembers their breasts.” I waved my hands in front of my chest.

  “I’ve got to go lose my lunch now and call my wife. She needs to hear that I love and respect her.”

  “You’re a good man,” I called after him.

  It was then that I checked my phone and saw all the missed calls and texts from Jake. I bypassed reading and called him immediately.

  “Finally,” he sighed.

  “What’s up?”

  “Have you checked the weather?”

  “Nope, I’ve been busy being insulted.” I clicked over to my browser and opened my favorite hurricane app.

  “Well, I think it’s time we come up with a contingency plan.”

  “Contingency plan—” I cut off my own question as the map loaded in front of me. “Holy mother of…”

  “I know. And the models are still all over the place but Eve?”

  “Yeah, contingency plans.” Hurricane Claudia was now a Category Four hurricane that had somehow managed to double in size since the morning. She was sitting almost stationary off of Fort Myers, well to our south, but it was anybody’s guess where the massive storm would turn next.

  “Have you talked to my dad yet?” I whispered. They were so close to the storm.

  “Winds are bad and pushing ashore. They’ve closed everything up, moved the boats into dry dock and are putting up the last of the hurricane shutters now. They’re headed north as soon as they can.”

  “Getting off the island is the first order. That should mean just about everyone trying to leave at once. That’ll be chaos, but once they hit the mainland they should be home free. No one down there evacuates.”

  “I told them to stay at our house tonight,” Jake said, “and we’ll all head over to Jennie and Andrew’s in the morning.”

  I clicked though the different hurricane models as I listened to Jake’s plans. “School will be cancelled tomorrow so that won’t be a problem. You already settled this with Andrew?”

  We’d always joked it would be our hurricane disaster plan, but had never had a reason to test it out.

  “He’s already filled the gas cans, checked the generators, and stocked the pantry. Jennie is making sure all the guest beds are ready. It’s going to be a full house.”

  And all that with a newborn at home. A newborn not named Eve. I supposed Avery was a nice name, too.

  I took one last look at the computer models, but finding no clear answers I shut down the browser and leaned back in my chair. “Well it sounds like you didn’t need any of my help after all.”

  “I do need a little bit of help,” he said. “Since the game is cancelled I was hoping you could get back to the girls early? We’ve got a l
ot to prepare here still.”

  Spencer, Hamilton, and Associates had a factory on the bay that would have to be put into hurricane lockdown, not to mention the crews dedicated to damage control after a hurricane. They would be gearing up and heading out of town to stage with the electric crews. Jake would have his hands full until well after dinner.

  “Yeah, no problem. They’ll want us all out early anyway. Half the staff lives down south and they take the Skyway home.”

  “That’ll be closed tomorrow.”

  “No doubt,” I agreed. “Good luck, babe. I’ll let you know when I leave.”

  The line was quiet for a moment. “I love you, Eve. Stay safe.”

  My heart skipped a beat. Did Jake have the same weird feeling that I had? “I love you, too. Good luck.”

  THE EVACUATION ROUTES were jammed full of evacuees heading north. Apparently I was right when I yelled at Harvey Watts: we did learn to respect our storms. At least after Hurricane Charley. I was pretty sure visions of Katrina were dancing through a lot of heads, too. While Charley had been a powerful hurricane, it was a tight little storm that moved fast. Claudia, on the other hand, was massive and looked a heck of a lot more like the storm that destroyed New Orleans.

  That was what was scaring me. Tampa hadn’t taken a direct hit as long as I’d been alive. That meant there were hundreds of homes in old Tampa neighborhoods that had never been forced to come up to hurricane code. Dozens of neighborhoods, including the island we lived on, were in the flood zone. A large storm like this, if it hit right into, or north of the bay, would push in a storm surge that would wipe out everything.

  “Pack anything they love, Zoe.”

  Her brown eyes widened for a moment. “Yes, of course.”

  “We can replace clothes, but not stuffed animals.”

  She giggled because of course we could replace stuffed animals, but not the sentiment that was attached to them. “You really think the storm might hit us?”