by Lucy Score
“What does your mom being engaged have to do with anything?”
Sara gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I thought maybe you were still like pining over her or something.”
“Did you think we were going to get back together?” he asked, a headache forming between his eyes at the thought of his daughter being disappointed.
“Geez. No. I just think that Mom’s happy now. But you’re not. So why don’t you go find someone who makes you happy?”
“People don’t make other people happy,” Noah pointed out.
“Life lesson,” Sara stabbed her pointer finger at him accusingly.
“Sorry.” Noah hid his smile.
“You never have fun, Dad. I worry about you.”
“I have plenty of fun,” he argued.
“No. You don’t. You work, and you lecture me, and you worry about stuff. Zero. Fun. Ever. I kinda wonder if maybe you don’t know how to have fun.”
Noah did the only thing a father could do when faced with such an accusation. He hit his daughter in the face with a pillow.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cat finished up the email and pushed away from the work station in her apartment. Rain, a deluge of it, made it impossible to see through her fourth-floor windows. The edges of Hurricane Veronica were doing their best to remind New York City that no one messed with Mother Nature. She couldn’t imagine what a direct hit would look like.
The TV screen mounted on the wall flickered, catching her attention. She picked up the remote and turned the volume up.
“Hurricane Veronica has made landfall over Long Island and continues to head for the Connecticut coast.”
Cat squinted at the screen, stepped closer. “Crap,” she muttered. Right between New Haven and New London, directly in the path of the tropical bitch, was Merry.
She grabbed her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found Kathy Hai.
“Kathy?” Cat said, as soon as she heard the woman’s voice.
“Cat? I can’t hear you very well. Reception’s spotty.”
“Are you guys okay? I just saw on the news that you’re in for some rain.”
Kathy’s laugh was forced. “Oh, just a little sprinkle. Nothing to worry about.”
Cat heard static, and then Kathy’s voice came through clearer. “Sorry. I had to come upstairs. I didn’t want April to hear me freak out over the phone.”
“Oh, geez. Are you guys okay?”
“Michael and I are debating whether or not we should go to the shelter.”
“Kathy, you live eye-level to a river that’s about to be raging. Get the hell out of there.”
“I know, but I’ll be worried about the house the whole time.”
“You can rebuild a house,” Cat reminded her.
“Yeah, but not as nice as you can,” Kathy gave a sad laugh. “This place is our home, and you made it that way for us.”
“I’ll be up with my tools and my brother if need be,” Cat promised.
“You’re a good person, Cat King,” Kathy told her.
“Yeah, well let’s just make sure you’re a safe, dry person. I’ll call you guys tomorrow and make sure you weren’t total idiots who decided to stay home.”
Kathy’s reply was cut off by static, and the line went dead.
Cat looked back at her computer, at the pile of work waiting for her, and then at the TV screen. The Hai family was one of her favorites from the show. A few years back, their car had been hit by a drunk driver. A hit and run. Between the medical bills and not working, the Hais had come within weeks of losing their home. Kings of Construction had swooped in, not only renovating the home but paying off the mortgage, and the town had chipped in with a generous donation to help with the family’s remaining medical bills. Since then, the Hais were back on their feet, and Cat stayed in touch with the family, even managing to get together once a year or so.
The town of Merry itself was postcard adorable. No box stores graced the town limits. The downtown was all mom and pop shops, kids walking home from school, and waving neighbors. Merry’s fame came from its Christmas Festival. The entire town decked its halls to the nines and hosted late shopper nights. Every year, they transformed the park into a winter wonderland with three acres of Christmas lights viewed from the country club’s borrowed fleet of golf carts.
There were hot chocolate and kettle corn stands, handmade crafts, and an entire Santa’s village. On Christmas Eve, the town could rival the North Pole in festivity. If you lived within one hundred miles of Merry, you went there for Christmas Eve. It was part of thousands of families’ Christmas traditions.
Where would they go this year? Cat wondered.
She picked up her phone again, dialed.
“Hey!” Her sister-in-law’s cheery greeting was undercut by Gabby’s squeal of delight or frustration. The one-year-old certainly had gotten the volume from the King side of the family.
“Hey, Paige. I just talked to Kathy Hai,” Cat said, cutting to the chase.
“Oh! How is she? How’s April?” Paige asked. Cat’s sister-in-law had an uncanny memory for the families they’d featured on all four seasons of Kings of Construction.
“It was hard to hear her over the hurricane bearing down on her.”
“Oh, no! I haven’t caught up on the news. Are they going to be okay?”
Cat blew out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know. I mean it’s a direct hit.”
“And their house is across from the park,” Paige said, getting the gist.
“And the river.”
“If they need anything at all, you know you can count on Gannon and me.”
“Thanks. I think I just want someone else to worry about them with me.”
“Consider me your partner in concern,” Paige promised. “How’s Operation School Days coming?”
Cat flopped down on her overstuffed sofa and turned off the TV. “I’m not on speaker phone, am I?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I’m so fucking pumped about it. I think I just found my ideal facilities manager, and I’ve got a few lines on some other VIP staff. And I’m dying to talk about it. But until I have a location, what am I going to say?”
“That you’re an amazing woman who is going to train other amazing women to work in trades and run their own businesses?” Paige suggested.
“Awh. You’re pretty amazeballs yourself, Paigey. How’s my beautiful niece?”
“Big, bad, and beautiful. Just like her daddy and her aunt.”
“What’s next on your busy filmmaker schedule?” Paige had gotten her start behind the camera in reality television. She’d worked her way up to director and had started her own production studio that developed documentaries. Her first documentary, on women in the television industry, had opened eyes across the country to double standards and inequalities. The Reno and Realty Network—probably fearful that Paige would take aim at them specifically—had started a program to advance women behind the camera and put in place an equal pay policy.
Paige filled Cat in on the particulars of her latest project. “But listen, when this school thing pans out, I’d be interested in documenting it.”
“Really?” Cat kicked her legs up over the arm of the couch. “Like a day in the life?”
“I’m thinking following the first class to graduation and then beyond.”
“You must have a lot of faith in me.”
“In the words of Gannon King, ‘I’d be a fucking moron not to.’”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. Is my uglier, older half around?” Gannon and Cat were twins born two minutes apart. Neither of them was hard on the eyes, and their sincere brotherly-sisterly angst had won the hearts of viewers everywhere. The reality TV world was still mourning the fact that Gannon had gone back to managing their grandfather’s construction business.
“He’s putting Gabby down, but he’ll want to know about the Hais.”
“I’ll
call him tomorrow once I know how they fared.”
“Okay. If they need anything at all, let us know. I’m serious. I’ve got some time between now and the end of the year. And I know Gannon will juggle things to make time.”
“Will do, sis. Thanks.”
They ended the call, and Cat listened to the unceasing rain while staring up at her ceiling. She’d been in this space for five years now. Everything in the two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment was exactly the way she wanted it. The teal textured walls of the master bedroom. The refinished hardwood. The kitchen had taken her eight weeks of her own labor to get just perfect. Everything in it was just perfect right down to the custom-sized clawfoot tub in the bathroom.
It made her antsy.
Cat would never consider herself a settler-downer. Sure, Gannon made it look appealing with his smart-ass, beautiful wife and their gush-worthy baby girl in their gorgeous brownstone six blocks away. But that wasn’t for Cat. The idea of walking in the same door every day to the same man? It gave her the heebie-jeebies. Life was too big and bright for that. Maybe later. Maybe when she hit her mid-forties she’d change her mind. But for now, she loved her life just the way it is. Traveling light and not having to consider anyone else’s feelings or opinions on decisions. She went where she wanted when she wanted, slept with men without strings or guilt, and designed her space to exactly suit her tastes.
Maybe it was time to move on and find a new real estate project to satisfy her wanderlust?
She thought of the Hais and felt a stab of guilt. Here she was mentally whining to herself about living in the same perfect property for too long, and her friends were in danger of losing their home. It’s not like the network would swoop in a second time to rebuild their home—
Cat’s feet hit the floor as she propelled herself into a seated position.
Maybe they would…
CHAPTER FIVE
“Holy. Shit.”
Cat muttered the pronouncement as she sat on the tailgate of a pick-up truck and pulled on a pair of her father’s hip waders. The muddy, murky floodwaters lapped at the stack of sandbags some enterprising employee had thought to set up in the grocery store parking lot.
After her epiphany the night before, she hadn’t slept. There was too much planning to do. She’d swung by her parents’ empty house at midnight and raided her father’s fishing gear while talking her favorite location manager into an early morning road trip. They’d left Brooklyn in one of the Kings Construction pickups at dawn and headed north in the rain.
The trip had taken hours longer than usual with road closures and Lauren’s frequent pee breaks. The system, now downgraded to an annoying tropical storm, had pushed further inland, which meant more flooding would be likely for the coastal areas as rivers and creeks pushed their overflow to the ocean.
Cat had parked the pickup in a half-flooded grocery store parking lot where a dozen other civilian vehicles towing boats and carting kayaks were lining up. They’d heard on the radio that New Haven had gotten quite a bit of water too, and that’s where most of the help was focused.
Merry was on its own.
The river had overflowed its banks and taken up residence in the lower end of downtown. But the stalwart New England community was ready to save its own ass.
“You’re not going out there,” Lauren announced, tossing her hair over her shoulder. The woman was seven months pregnant and in no condition to physically stop Cat.
“Lauren, Lauren, Lauren,” Cat tisked. “If I don’t go out there, how will we know how extensive the damage is? This is our chance to put together a real Christmas special here. Something that means something. The network needs to know what a hot mess we’ve got on our hands, or they’ll never agree to it. And Merry will miss out on its biggest source of revenue.”
“Hell to the no.” Lauren shook her head and crossed her arms over her baby bump. “If the insurance company finds out that your fine ass went into waist-deep flood waters you’ll have bigger problems than Christmas decorations.”
They watched as a pickup truck backed a trailer hauling two Jet skis into the murky water. Lauren shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re watching someone launch Jet skis from a ShopRight.”
Cat spotted a flat-bottomed boat trolling down what yesterday had been a street and used her taxi whistle to catch the man’s attention. She waved and he changed directions.
“You are going to get me fired, and then this baby won’t be able to go to college!” Lauren wailed.
“You’re not getting fired. No one’s going to know. I’m just going to take a little boat tour, and you’re going to document whatever damage you can from safety.”
“I’m going with you,” Lauren said stubbornly.
“You and I both know your wife is one of the scariest women on the planet. If she found out I let your pregnant ass get on a fishing boat and go trolling through flood waters, she’d murder me. Stay!”
Cat hooked a leg over the bow of the boat and clambered aboard.
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Stuart was a middle-aged man of few words. He piloted the small boat down flooded town streets with close-mouthed determination. Just another fishing trip for him, Cat thought. He had no idea who she was, just that she was some crazy woman who showed up to a flood with a small cooler of sandwiches and water and a thermos of coffee. She was just another volunteer to him, and she was happy to keep it that way.
Cat was incognito in her ball cap and layers.
She’d recorded the canoe rescue of a young mother, her little boy, and a bedraggled cat from their flooded home. And Cat had taken dozens of photos of flood waters and damage. She’d coaxed Stu—Cat had no idea if he minded her calling him that—to float them through the park in hopes of getting close to the Hai house. The park itself was completely submerged. The tree… The tree that had been decorated and lit every Christmas season for the past fifty years was broken, on its side listing in the ice-cold, debris-filled water.
There’d be no Christmas Festival here. Unless the network put their money where their mouth was. If the suits didn’t jump on this as the most epic Christmas special ever—well, that wasn’t going to happen. She’d make sure of it.
Mindful of the current, Stu didn’t venture too far into the park. Instead he motored up Mistletoe Avenue. The Hai house, a cute bungalow that Cat had personally helped renovate from top to bottom, was sitting in three feet of water. The finished basement would be a complete loss, and the first floor would need new drywall, new floors, and new molding, but barring a further freak act of nature, it would be livable again.
They weren’t there. The sign on the front door said so. And Cat wondered who had the forethought to ask residents to post whether their homes were empty, saving rescuers time.
She snapped away pictures, video. Whatever it would take to convince the network to send her back to this tiny town.
Cat stowed her phone in her rain slicker and began scanning neighboring windows for movement. Burrowing deeper into her slicker, she shivered. She could see puffs of her own breath, silvery clouds in the frigid air. The floodwaters were even more dangerous with their Arctic temperatures.
She spotted movement up ahead. Arms waved from the covered porch of a cottage halfway down the block. Cat signaled Stu, and they chugged up the street. A family of four clutching garbage bags and each other waded out to greet them.
A woman, a complete stranger, handed Cat her most precious possession, her baby girl. “Thank you,” the woman whispered through chattering teeth as her husband boosted her aboard. Cat bit her lip and nodded briskly. She handed the baby back and plucked the little boy off his father’s shoulders.
“Hey there, buddy. Ready for a boat ride?”
He grinned up at her, too innocent to understand their circumstances.
“I like boats!” he announced.
Cat offered her hand to the dad and helped haul him into the boat. He picked up his son and put his ar
m around his wife, pulling her into his side.
“Where we takin’ em?” Stu wanted to know. It was the first full sentence he’d spoken to her.
Shit. When had she become the boss? “Let’s go back to the grocery store. There’s food there, cars. It’ll be easier for everyone to find a ride.”
Stu grunted and gunned the outboard motor.
The little boy clapped his gloved hands as they cruised through muddy water down the ruined street.
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She’d lost count of how many people they’d hauled to safety. Her phone had died hours ago and was left to charge in the truck. Lauren, a natural organizer, had set up a receiving area of sorts for people in the parking lot of the grocery store. The store itself had opened its doors and was grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and handing out bottled water and sports drinks to everyone who was in need. Donations of blankets and socks, dog and cat food, and other necessities were being sorted and distributed.
As if to add insult to injury, the tail end of the storm had stalled over Merry. The winds were calmer now, but the rain fell steadily soaking rescuers and their precious cargo to the bone. It was a deep-down chill that made Cat wonder if she’d ever feel warm again.
They’d all become immune to the rain. Now that the worst had passed, now that their town was underwater, a little rain was the least of their worries.
Cell service was non-existent, which added another jagged layer to the frustration everyone was feeling. Friends and relatives worried about Merry residents were convening in clumps at the edges of the flood waters. Lauren pressed them all into duty, giving everyone a task.
Cat made sure her friend had a sandwich and a chair before shoving off again with Stu.
She waved as they chugged away from the parking lot. They’d teamed up with two other boats and between the three tiny vessels had nearly cleared Mistletoe Avenue and Holly Alley. There were two more homes to clear before they could move on to another street.