Winter at the Beach

by Sheila Roberts

  Jenna understood perfectly. She wasn’t feeling so well, either. “Of course,” she said.

  Two more of their guests came in. Lisa Whitaker and Karen Owens, the sisters who’d come down for a weekend getaway. “We’re sorry to have to check out early,” said Karen, “but we’re thinking maybe we should head home.”

  Jenna wanted to say, “Stick around. It’s bound to get better.” But that would’ve been wishful thinking. The lights in the office flickered, and her eye twitched again. “Of course. I understand.”

  “Your place is really cute,” said Lisa. “We’ll have to come back in the summer.”

  “I hope you will,” Jenna said earnestly.

  “We will,” Lisa assured her. “We’ve been here before, years ago, and we know how pretty it is when the weather’s cooperating.”

  They paid their bill and left. Jenna could see more people hurrying in her direction across the parking lot. Oh, boy.

  She put in a quick call to Courtney. “If you’re not afraid to get blown off the face of the earth, could you come and help me? I’ve got a stampede of people leaving.”

  “That sucks,” Courtney said.

  That was putting it mildly.

  Courtney promised to be over in five minutes, and Jenna braced herself to greet the next evacuees. “We’re going to be checking out,” said an older man.

  She didn’t blame him. If she could have, she would’ve checked out, too.

  By the time Courtney arrived there were several people in the office, tapping their toes, watching the wind blow branches around outside the window, checking watches and cell phones and calling relatives and pet sitters to let them know they were coming home.

  “Bunch of lightweights,” Courtney whispered.

  That at least made Jenna smile.

  Finally, the crowd left, and it was only the two of them in the office. “Wow,” said Courtney. “You’d think we had a tsunami coming.”

  “It probably feels like it to them,” Jenna said.

  “Is that everyone?”

  “Almost. Half of the Brown party left, but the other family is still here. So are the two guys and the newlyweds. I don’t think they were planning on leaving their room much anyway.”

  “The sun will probably be out tomorrow, and then people will wish they’d stayed,” Courtney said.

  “You believe that?”

  “Not really, but I thought it would make you feel better.”

  Jenna’s mom called. “How’s it going down there? I heard you’ve got a big storm.”

  “Who told you? Celeste?”

  “Yes, but it was also on the news. I’m sorry, sweetie. I wish I was down there with you.”

  “Trust me,” Jenna said. “You don’t. Good thing you had to work.”

  “You know I’d always rather be with you girls.”

  “You wouldn’t want to be here to witness this disaster.”

  “I’m sorry your parade got rained on.”

  “Rained on and blown away,” Jenna said. “Just like all the people who’d been staying here. Almost all our guests have run off.”

  “Hey,” Courtney said, pointing to the parking lot. “Look.”

  Jenna looked to see a car pulling into the lot. The couple with the little girl had come back. They got out of the car, and the stylish crabby woman began banging on the door of the room next to theirs.

  “I guess they forgot something,” Jenna said.

  But they were followed by another car pulling in. It stopped in front of the office, and Jenna saw the Wilsons, the middle-aged couple who’d left a little earlier.

  He’d had a commiserating smile for her when he’d checked out, but he wasn’t smiling now. And here came that stylish crabby woman, marching across the parking lot, looking ready to strangle someone with a string of Christmas lights.

  Right along with her came the tic. Blink. Blink. Blink, blink, blink. Stay calm, Jenna told herself. Blink, blink, blink.

  “Hello,” she greeted Mr. Wilson. “Did you forget something?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m hoping I can get my room back.”

  “Of course, you can. But why?” Like she should look a gift horse in the mouth?

  “We can’t get out of town. A couple of big trees have come down over the roadway, as well as some power lines. Nobody can get past, and there’s a traffic jam on the highway with people trying to turn around. It’s a mess.”

  Power lines. Don’t panic. We still have power.

  But for how long? Jenna felt twitchy as she retrieved the Wilsons’ room key. Had Seth made it to the gas station? Most of their guests hadn’t been happy when they left. Now how were they going to feel? The lights in the office flickered.

  “Uh-oh,” said Courtney.

  Okay, panic.

  “I imagine we won’t be the only ones coming back,” Mr. Wilson said.

  “Well, don’t worry. We’ll take care of you,” Jenna said with a confidence she was far from feeling.

  The crabby woman entered the office. “We left the key in our room.”

  “No problem,” Jenna told her. “We keep spares.”

  “You’ve got trees down on the highway,” she informed Jenna. “People are stuck here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jenna said. “But we’ll take good care of you.” She felt like Jolly Roger, parroting the same phrase over and over.

  The woman frowned as though she didn’t believe it, took her key and stomped out of the office.

  “Another satisfied customer,” Courtney murmured.

  Jenna grabbed her cell phone and called the house. “Tell Aunt Edie to make as many cookies as she can,” she told Celeste when she answered. “I have a feeling we’re gonna need them.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Celeste.

  “The highway’s blocked. A lot of the people who checked out are returning.”

  “That’s good news, right? People will have to come back.”

  With the frame of mind everyone was in, Jenna wasn’t so sure it was good.

  “Here come some more,” Courtney said.

  “Okay, gotta go,” Jenna said to her sister. “You guys keep baking like crazy. Whatever you can make that’s fast and easy.”

  “Got it,” Celeste said.

  Jenna ended the call as two more families walked back in the door. Well, the good news was that the Driftwood would be back at full capacity. She only hoped they were ready for whatever came next.

  Brody’s sporty ’Stang pulled into the parking lot. “Here comes the stud,” Courtney said. “I’ll watch the desk and feel jealous if you want to go out with him.”

  As if Jenna dared leave the sinking ship. “You know there’s nothing between us.”

  “Just keep telling yourself that,” Courtney teased. “I hope you brought booze for her,” she said to Brody as he walked in.

  “Actually, I was thinking maybe you’d like to go out and grab a drink,” he told Jenna. “After the day you’ve had, I figure you need one.”

  “After the day I’ve had, I need to run away,” Jenna said.

  “So, run away with me. Where do you want to go, Tahiti?”

  She shook her head at him. “What would you do if I took you up on that offer?”

  “Get online and order tickets and buy you a bikini. But due to your overactive sense of responsibility, I doubt you’re going to take me up on the offer. So how about the Porthole? The bartender makes a great eggnog martini. We can find a warm corner and storm watch.”

  “Go on,” Courtney urged. “I can handle things here.”

  With his easygoing attitude, Brody would be the perfect man with whom to unwind. Except Jenna didn’t want to do her unwinding in public where fellow business owners would look at her like she was the Grinch in drag, the author of their holiday fest
ival misery. Anyway, she didn’t want to leave her sister. After what she’d roped Celeste into, she owed it to her to stick around.

  “I can’t,” she told Brody. “I need to spend some time with Celeste.”

  “She can come with.”

  She’d like to have said yes, but she resisted. “I need to help her and Aunt Edie bake cookies. You might not have heard yet, but the road out of town is blocked. I don’t think any of our guests are happy to be stuck here, and we’re going to have to try and placate them with carbs.”

  “Okay,” he said. “How about dinner and line dancing at The Drunken Sailor on Sunday then?”

  Everyone would’ve checked out by then, her sister would be on her way home and Jenna would need to decompress. “Deal,” she said.

  “Meanwhile, no feeling guilty about how the day went,” he said. “You’ve done a great job of spearheading this festival, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

  She didn’t need anybody to tell her different. She had herself for that.

  “He’s such a sweetie,” Courtney said as he drove off. “You should take him up on the Tahiti offer. Or are you holding out for someone else?” she asked slyly.

  A certain dark-haired man with swarthy skin and brown eyes came to mind. No point in pretending she didn’t know who Courtney was talking about. “He’s not interested.”

  “Right. I’ve seen the way Seth looks at you.”

  “Looking and following through are two different things,” Jenna said. “Anyway, I don’t want to be in a hurry to jump into anything.”

  “Jump? You haven’t so much as stuck a toe in the water,” Courtney said. “But hey, I get it,” she added. “I felt the same way after losing my loser. Still, I gotta say, after a while going to bed alone sucks.”

  “We need to find someone for you...”

  “I actually started looking. I’m trying the online dating thing. Going to meet someone for coffee the night before Christmas Eve. I’ll be in Seattle to see my mom anyway, so what the heck.”

  “Good on you,” Jenna said.

  “A woman can’t wait forever. And I’m sure done waiting for Santa to come through.”

  “I think he only specializes in toys.”

  “He should branch out. And you should get back to the house and get in some sister time.”

  “You sure you don’t mind being here on your own with everything that’s going on?” Jenna asked.

  “Absolutely not. If I get bored, there’s always the TV in the office. I can stretch out and nap on the couch in between reruns of Project Runway.”

  “Okay,” Jenna said, and left for the house. She did, indeed, need some downtime, and helping her great-aunt and her sister bake cookies would be the perfect way to recharge her batteries.

  It was now five o’clock, and daylight had been eaten up. The darkness, coupled with the howling wind, felt more like Halloween than Christmas, and she was happy to get inside where it was warm and dry. The house smelled like sugar and chocolate. Oh, yeah. She felt better already.

  She found her family busy in the kitchen with Roger on his kitchen perch, supervising. “Chocolate is good for you,” he greeted Jenna.

  “I see you’ve been teaching him some new words,” she said to Celeste.

  “It was time to expand his vocabulary.” She held out a bag of mint chocolate M&M’s to Jenna.

  “I hope you didn’t try and feed those to him,” Jenna said, taking one. “He’s plump enough, and God knows what those would do to his birdy constitution.”

  Roger almost looked ashamed. “Roger’s a pretty bird. Give me whiskey.”

  “He never quits,” Aunt Edie said with a chuckle. She opened the oven and the aroma of brownies danced out of it like a genie from a bottle.

  “Those look delicious,” Jenna said, and inhaled deeply.

  “They’ll taste delicious, too,” Aunt Edie said, and set the pan on the stove top. “We’ve also got some snowballs done.”

  “Great. That should make our guests feel better,” Jenna said.

  “It’ll make me feel better.” Celeste helped herself to more M&M’s. “Aunt Edie’s got corn chowder heating on the stove and the water’s ready for hot buttered rum. See, life’s not so bad.”

  “Maybe not,” Jenna decided. “After all, things could always be worse.”

  And then there was a big boom. Followed by darkness. Goodbye, power.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’ll go get us something to eat,” Darrell said to Kat. “What would you like?”

  She already had her shoes off and was climbing into bed, clothes and all. “I don’t care. Get whatever you want.”

  He knew she just wanted to sleep. But she needed to eat. “How does clam chowder sound?”

  “Good,” she murmured, and rolled over onto her side.

  “Okay. I’ll run across the parking lot to that fish place. Be right back.”

  “Take your time,” she said. Her voice was faint, smothered in exhaustion.

  He left the room, cursing the damned cancer that had done this to her, cursing the weather for ruining their anniversary getaway, cursing whoever should’ve been clearing the road and wasn’t, and cursing himself for not getting them out of town at the first hint of a storm. As he crossed the parking lot he pulled out his cell, called the fancy restaurant where he’d wanted to take Kat and canceled the reservation.

  The Seafood Shack was packed with people, some of whom he’d seen around the motel. Two couples had three little kids bouncing around like characters in a video game. One of the women was trying to settle them down. The other one looked ready to murder somebody. Oh, yeah, fun times at the beach.

  He was finally able to place his order and came away with two containers of clam chowder and some crackers. Not exactly the elegant meal he’d planned. But then nothing had gone according to plan.

  He got back to the room to find Kat asleep. Should he let her continue sleeping or wake her up and make her eat? He set the bag with their meals on the nightstand and eased onto the bed next to her and thought of anniversaries past, when they’d wasted very little time in bed sleeping. After they made love, she’d cuddle up to him with that soft little body of hers and tell him he was the best lover ever. As if she had anything to compare him to. He’d been her first and only, and she’d been his.

  Was it selfish of him to urge her to go through all this so he could keep her with him longer? He was a selfish man; he’d be the first to admit it. He hogged the remote and drove her crazy with his constant request for spaghetti dinners every week. He’d balked at taking ballroom dance lessons when she’d begged him to, all because he hadn’t wanted to look stupid. He should have taken those lessons. He would once she was better. He’d do anything. Please, God, let her come through this.

  He must have said that prayer a thousand times since her diagnosis. Was it doing any good? Was God listening?

  He slid under the covers and spooned against her, pulling her close. “We’ll get through this, babe,” he whispered just as the lights went out.

  * * *

  “Uh-oh,” said Celeste.

  “Uh-oh,” Jolly Roger repeated, then subsided into silence as darkness took over the kitchen.

  More like oh, no. “Okay, don’t anybody panic,” Jenna said as panic flooded her entire body. “We need candles.” And flashlights. And she had to get outside and start the generator. She made a dash for the drawer where Aunt Edie kept her matches and emergency candles and collided with her sister, who was obviously on the same hunt.

  “Whoa,” squeaked Celeste as she ricocheted against the kitchen counter. This was followed by the plink of cookies tumbling to the ground. “Oh, no! The snowballs.”

  “Don’t move,” Jenna said as she slid along the floor, feeling for the drawer. She got to it and fumbled around inside until her
fingers closed around a thin candle and then a box of matches. She managed to light the candle without setting her fingers on fire and held it up.

  There, in the thin circle of light, stood Celeste, staring at the floor, horrified. Jenna bent to inspect the damage. Cookies lay scattered across the vinyl like pebbles, most of them broken.

  “Some of them are okay,” Celeste said and began to scoop them up.

  “You can’t give people cookies that have fallen on the floor,” Jenna protested. All they needed was for someone to get sick and sue them.

  “Sure, you can. Two-second rule,” Celeste said. “Anyway, Aunt Edie’s floor is so clean you can eat off it. Right, Aunt Edie?”

  “Yeah, with Pete trooping through here all the time in his muddy boots? Toss ’em,” Jenna ordered and dug a candle holder from the drawer. “At least we still have the brownies.”

  “And a few of the snowballs didn’t fall,” Aunt Edie said. “With them and the brownies, we should have enough to put on some small plates. And we can make some non-bake chocolate cookies to add.”

  Jenna set the candle on the counter, then pulled out a flashlight. “Round up some of the scented candles,” she told her sister. “And get a fire going in the woodstove. I’ll bring in the lantern and the oil lamp from the garage when I come back.”

  “Where are you going?” Celeste asked.

  “To start the motel generator.” And to have a quiet nervous breakdown.

  She heard the generator buzzing as she stepped out onto the back porch. Thank God. Seth was already on it. The motel would at least have power for heat and light. She hurried down the steps and to the side of the motel to find him walking in her direction.

  “I was just coming to tell you the generator’s up and running,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said, and gave herself permission to breathe again. “At least that’s going right.”

  “For the moment.”

  “We’ll probably have power back sometime tomorrow.” Wouldn’t they? Of course, they would.

  Was she lying to herself? Of course, she was. But they had a generator. Granted, it was an older model, but it was working fine.