The northbound lane of Main Street was packed with cars—evacuees heading north to the mainland. Southbound was completely empty. No one dared venture farther south with Hurricane Matilda on its way. She was supposed to be big. According to the weather channel, she would be the biggest storm to hit the Keys in over a century. Unless she changed direction, she would make landfall in just under two days.
“Why didn’t they leave when Matilda was first spotted? I don’t know what we’ll be able to do if there are this many cars still on the road when she hits.”
I shrugged. “They’ll be gone.”
Alexei poked his head out of the office. “Upgraded to a cat five.”
“Close the damn door! You’re letting all the cold out.” Dmitry’s irritated voice rang out from inside.
Alexei, never one to follow orders, strode out of the office leaving the door wide open. In low-hanging shorts and an open shirt, he looked like a surfer. He was always laid back and easygoing, even in emergencies.
Dmitry grabbed the door and slammed it shut, grumbling the whole time.
“We should probably go around the island and encourage people to leave. See if they need any help with evacuating.” Serge rolled his neck. “It makes my skin crawl to think of weak humans facing a hurricane of this expected magnitude.”
I grinned as Serge’s mate, Hannah, came out of the office and strolled toward him. Wrapping her very human body around his from behind, she sighed. “They’re driving me crazy in there.”
I could read the tension in Serge’s face. He was very aware of how delicate his human mate was. He also knew she wasn’t about to leave the island without him. Unless he nabbed a car and drove north, she was remaining on Sunkissed Key with the rest of us while Matilda battered the island. She was the real reason he was so anxious about the incoming storm.
To avoid hearing them argue about it again, I headed down the street, taking in the scene and trying to mentally calculate how many people were leaving versus how many would be staying. Thankfully, it seemed as though most of the island’s residents would be seeking safer ground farther north. Houses were boarded up and garages and driveways were vacant of vehicles. As I scouted, whenever I came upon any of the few people still working, trying to board up their homes, I stopped to help.
The work was a far cry from the often perilous, tactical missions we’d performed while based out of Siberia, but it was something to do. I helped a few more people finish loading their cherished possessions into their cars and helped a few more cut into traffic. The little island was emptying faster by the hour. That was a good thing. People were heeding the threat. Matilda wasn’t turning, nor was it growing weaker. She was headed our way with a vengeance.
I cut down Palm Street and then Parrot Cove Road to gain access to West Public Beach. The Bayfront Diner sat just off it, and Susie, who owned the place, was a sweet older woman who happily fed us cinnamon rolls and sweet tea all the time.
The sign in the window read Closed, but I could see Susie inside. She waved me in with a warm smile.
“Roman! Come on in, honey. I don’t have anything made right now, but I can whip you up some cinnamon rolls in a jiffy.” Her tall beehive of hair bobbed precariously on her head. She looked like she’d been caught in the middle of fixing it.
“What are you still doing here?” I sat across from her on a worn barstool and frowned. “You’re not planning to stay, are you?”
She looked away. “I’m not planning, no. I am staying.”
“Susie—”
“Now, Roman. I’ve lived on this island my entire life. I’ve been through rougher hurricanes than this one a-coming. I’m not leaving my diner.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a coffee cup. “Coffee?”
I shook my head. “I’ll watch over the place for you. No sense in you tempting fate.”
“And no sense in you trying to convince a hard-headed old woman who has her mind already made up.” She poured me a cup of coffee. “You need coffee. I don’t care what you say. Everyone needs coffee.”
I took a long sip just to be polite. I tried to ignore the fact that I was adding warmth to my already overheated body. “Where will you be bunking down for the storm?”
“Right here. My Sammy helped me build this place. It’s all I’ve got and I ain’t leaving it.” She looked out through the front windows at the bay and smiled. “Although, I could use some help with boarding up the windows.”
I downed the rest of my coffee and stood. “Say no more. Do you have boards, or should I go find some?”
She pointed me to the back and grasped my arm. “You’re my favorite of the gang, you know that?”
It would’ve been a more flattering compliment if I hadn’t heard her say the same thing to Alexei just last week. Still, she made me smile. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
5
Megan
I dragged the large sheet of plywood out of the rear of the shop and toward the front. The windows were still uncovered. It seemed that while I’d been on a hiatus from reality for the past few days, Dylan hadn’t bothered to take care of closing up the shop. Every single business on the island had been boarded up. Every one but ours. Maybe he’d been too busy boning his girlfriend.
I shook my head and huffed as I stopped to take a breather. Balancing the wood against my hip, I looked around the shop dejectedly. Nothing had been put away. Nothing had been taken care of.
Dylan was sitting in the back, in his office, doing god only knew what. He was well aware that I was in the showroom—alone. Working to get the windows boarded up—alone. Did he care? Apparently not.
My anger toward him that was long overdue had been gradually coming to a simmer the last couple days. Suddenly, it threatened to boil over. “Dylan, can you please help?”
We hadn’t spoken much since the disaster that Monday afternoon. I’d been in the garage pretty much nonstop since then, finishing each and every project on my list. I’d jumped head first into completing all the things I’d put off in exchange for working endless hours in the shop. I’d barely come up for air and, more notably, I’d avoided my husband.
My anger had grown. My sadness had not.
In truth, I didn’t even know which one of us I was angrier at. Him, for being a lying, cheating backstabber, or myself for deciding not to throw in the towel.
I wasn’t a quitter. I’d made vows. Together we owned a home, a business, and two cars. We’d gone through the ups and downs of life together for over ten years. I wouldn’t just walk away from that at the first sign of trouble. There had to be some way to salvage our marriage.
“I’m busy, Megan.” Had his voice always been so condescending and I’d just not realized it, or was that a recent development? Maybe he thought less of me for staying, too.
“This is important.”
“You’re strong. You can handle it.” He’d barely stepped foot out of his office before he turned to go back in with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Dylan. I need help. I can’t hold this board up and nail it in place, too.” My voice sounded like I was forcing it out through gritted teeth. Probably because I was.
“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s your area. You ought to enjoy it, since that kind of thing is all you’ve wanted to do lately.” He gestured toward the wood in my hand. “You sure have been slacking here at the shop.”
“You could’ve had your girlfriend cover my shifts, I guess.” I threw that down like a gauntlet, ready to duel it out with him if he was going to be such an asshole.
“She has a job, Megan. And don’t be ridiculous. She’s not going to come here and do your job.”
“Oh, no? She seemed to like doing my job in our bed a few days ago.”
“So, you want to do this now?” He nodded and walked toward me. “Granted, Brandi and I shouldn’t have been in our bed, Megan, but let’s face it, you haven’t been meeting my needs. None of this has.” He waved his hand around, gesturing to our surroundin
gs.
My head snapped back like he’d slapped me. His indication that our shop was somehow at fault for his behavior was the breaking point. “Oh, this hasn’t met your needs? The shop that you insisted we open? The shop that you begged and pleaded for, the shop you bitched about for months until I gave in? And why was that again? Because no other work around this island fit your needs? So, the shop we opened because you couldn’t get another job not filling your needs either, now?”
“Geeze, you’re mad because I criticized the shop? Not that I was screwing someone else in our bed? Doesn’t that say it all?”
I opened my mouth to argue and then snapped it shut. Everything that was on the tip of my tongue—all the anger and vitriol that was right there ready to be spewed—was contrary to the decision I’d made. None of it would help solve our issues or heal our marriage. “Dylan, neither of us have had our needs met lately. The answer wasn’t to sleep around on me, though. We should’ve worked it out. Together.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not how it played out.” He turned to walk away. “I need to finish up some paperwork back here.”
“No. We need to batten down the shop. It’s a two-person job, Dylan. I can’t do it alone.”
“Stop acting as though you’re helpless, Megan. You’re a big girl.”
His words—casual and flippant—tumbled from his mouth so easily, yet they hit me like a brick. The extra pounds I carried were an area of self-deprecation for me. Walking in on my husband and his mistress and seeing her petite figure with a waist the size of a child’s hadn’t helped my insecurities. Dylan knew all the ways I’d been teased from my teenage years on into college. I was a head taller than most of the rest of the girls and had always had a thick build.
He knew the impact the words “big girl” carried for me. Maybe it was a slip, but it was one he’d never made before.
“Fuck you.”
Dylan jerked around and came at me with a furious expression twisting his face. “No, fuck you!”
I let the wood fall to the floor with a loud slap. “Why? For walking in on you? For forcing you to work in the shop alone, the same way you’ve made me do so many times before, probably so you could sneak off to be with another woman?”
“Oh, poor Megan. You’ve had it so rough, haven’t you?”
I backed away. “You know what? You can close up yourself.”
“Fuck that.”
“Close up the shop or let everything be ruined by the storm. I don’t care. I’m tired of picking up all the slack for you.”
“Go to hell, Megan. This! This right here is why I have Brandi. She’s not sour and bitter like you.” He grabbed my upper arm and yanked me back around to face him. “You think you’re so much better than me. I can see it. The way you’ve been acting the past few days. You think you’re suddenly “holier than thou” because you didn’t sleep around. But put yourself in my shoes. Married to someone who’s cold and dead inside. It’s like being married to a big, limp fish. Jesus, Megan, I think I hate you.”
His fingers cut into me as he spoke, my arm throbbed under his grip, but I refused to flinch. I wasn’t going to let him know how badly he was hurting me—both physically and emotionally. “Let me go.”
He immediately released me and shook his head. “I don’t know why I even try.”
I laughed bitterly while rubbing my arm. “You’re trying?”
He just marched back into his office and slammed the door.
I could no longer hold back the tears. Through blurred vision, I let myself out of the shop and drove home. With practically the entire island evacuating north, the southbound lane was vacant. Our home at the end of Beach Street was, appropriately, on the beach. It stood feet from the ocean on pillars. It was a beautiful home, inherited from my grandparents, and I’d nearly completely renovated it myself.
My home. No longer our home, if that’s what I chose. I could kick Dylan out—send him on his way. There’d been a prenup involved with our marriage, even though we’d gotten married at such a young age. I came from a family with money who’d demanded it. Perhaps they’d been smarter than I was and saw the inevitable future of my marriage to Dylan that I’d been blind to.
Divorcing Dylan was an option. As I looked down at the angry red fingertip marks on my arm that were turning purplish, it didn’t seem like the worst option. I hated divorce, though. My family was one with a legacy of divorces. My mother and father were each other’s third and fourth spouses, respectively. Their marriage had only lasted three years. And after their divorce, each had subsequently gone through several more spouses.
I didn’t want to be another family joke.
In the guest room where I’d been staying, I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head. Finally, I allowed the tears that had been choking me on the drive home to flow freely. Once they came, they didn’t feel as though they were ever going to stop.
6
Megan
Sunday morning. Matilda was still heading straight for us. I’d spent the night crying into my pillow and listening for Dylan to arrive home. He never did. When my alarm went off that morning at six, the same as it did every day, the local news blared warnings about the incoming storm.
Still a category five, it didn’t look as though Matilda would go easy on the islands. It took Maverick Maine, the local DJ, sounding out his last broadcast to really light a fire under me. He was leaving the island, and the station would be broadcasting the national weather service alerts until he returned. Matilda was less than eighteen hours away.
I jumped up in a panic. Shit. I hadn’t done anything to protect the house. I’d been so lost in the difficulties between Dylan and me that I’d let it completely slip my mind. Ugh, stupid. I didn’t take time to change or shower, I just rushed downstairs and raced out onto the beach. The water already looked choppy and agitated. It seemed to know something big was coming. The sky was dark and gray, a harbinger of dangerous weather.
Other than the wind and waves, the surrounding neighborhood was eerily silent. Most people had vacated while I was in my stupor. I ran my hands over my face and then rushed to get to work. I could lose everything if I didn’t board up the house.
My fury spurred me on as I worked tirelessly. The windows had shutters that I bolted closed. The first floor of the house was surrounded by a deck so those windows were easy to access. After making sure the shutters were secure, I nailed sheets of plywood over them, ensuring the house would be as protected as possible.
The second-floor windows were more of a challenge. Those had to be accessed by a ladder and each one took entirely too long. I couldn’t carry a sheet of plywood up a ladder and then hold it steady over the windows while securing it. Not without help. So I nailed a couple of planks across the shutters on the second floor, in hopes that it would be enough. By the time I finished, I was flushed and sticky with sweat. The strong breeze coming off the ocean did nothing to cool me down.
Time was passing too rapidly. It had taken hours for me to secure the house alone. Before I knew it, it was late afternoon and the sky was darkening faster than it should have been. I was still tuned into the weather broadcast, and I could hear it blasting away in the house. While Matilda had been downgraded to a category four, she was moving in more quickly than first predicted.
In a state of sheer panic, I jumped in my SUV and sped down to the shop. In the back of my mind, I was hoping that Dylan had uncharacteristically stepped up and closed up our shop. I was hoping to maybe pull up and find him still there, finishing up.
Main Street was empty. Everyone had either already evacuated or, if they’d decided to stay put, had retreated indoors. I was the only idiot on the road. It took me less than two minutes to get to the shop and what I found made my heart sink. Nothing was covered. The glass windows that lined the front of our shop were still perfectly naked and I could see right through them to the prints in the shop, still on display. They had also not been packed up or moved to a safer location.
/>
Dylan hadn’t done a damn thing. I searched my pockets for my phone but came up empty. It was wherever I’d left it the night before—probably on the guest bedroom nightstand. I slammed the car door, unlocked the shop, and headed straight to the office to grab the phone. I halted in my tracks when I saw the state of the small back room.
It was completely trashed. Empty file folders littered the floor, the desk drawers ransacked. The computer was gone, the safe under the desk was open—and empty. My hand flew to my open mouth as I sank into the office chair. I hadn’t been around to do the deposit drop for a few days, but I knew we’d made several sales. I’d had some thank-you emails from customers saying they loved their new pieces. The register drawer was always placed in the safe. And it was there alright. But it was empty.
My brain reached for possibilities. We could have had a break in—been robbed. I knew the truth, though. My heart was in my toes as I reached for the phone with a shaky hand.
Dialing Dylan’s number, I almost hoped he didn’t answer. I didn’t want to hear the truth. The reality I was facing was ugly and cruel, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it while trying to take care of the business we owned together. I was devastated, not so much by the idea of losing him, more by the fact that my life was turning into a joke. I was also so furious with myself for falling into an avoidance/denial trance for the last week. I wasn’t usually so lax about protecting the things I owned and cared about. I’d been through hurricanes before. I knew what to do and I’d always handled things capably and responsibly. Not this time. Waiting until last minute was not just stupid, it was dangerous. Hell, I didn’t even have a decent evacuation plan.
The line clicked and Dylan’s voice came through clear. “Megan.”
I sank into the chair and looked up at the ceiling. It was stark white. I noticed a cobweb in a corner. “You took everything, didn’t you?”
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