Cottage at the Beach (The Off Season)

by Lee Tobin McClain

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  MOMENTS AFTER ERICA plunged out into the storm, despite her boots and rain gear, she was soaked. She put her head down and fought her way through the water flooding the street, the force of the wind pushing her, slowing her legs.

  She tensed her muscles for balance and looked back at the cottage. Through the dense rain she saw Amber illuminated in the light of the front window. Erica had left her wrapped in a blanket and fortified by black coffee. She’d hated to do it, but when Trey hadn’t come back, Amber had begged her to go, to search for Hannah.

  She sloshed through puddles, squinting against the needles of rain that struck her face and eyes. Hannah had to be out here somewhere. Probably at risk and afraid.

  And Ziggy. Ziggy couldn’t understand weather. He had to be terrified, and the thought of him running around in the storm, frantic and barking, looking for his humans, broke her heart.

  Trey had gone to find them. But where was he?

  Trey could take care of himself and she could guarantee he wasn’t frightened. But she could also guarantee that he’d put himself at risk to save Hannah or even Ziggy. That was who he was. He’d sacrifice himself in a heartbeat, and what if he’d done so?

  What would the world be to her without him in it?

  Her chest ached at the very thought. She stopped dead still, water washing around her ankles, rain plastering her hair to her head.

  She loved him.

  She’d gone and fallen in love with him and it stunned her. Oh, she’d known her heart was going in that direction, that she felt drawn to him, that the fact that her infertility meant she couldn’t be with him had become not just sad, but crushing.

  But love?

  She’d never even dated much, let alone fallen in love, so these feelings had crept up on her and she had no framework to understand them.

  She wanted his arms around her. Wanted his touch, his kiss. Wanted to talk to him, explain more fully why she couldn’t be with him, reassure him that it was nothing unlovable about him.

  Maybe even to try to find a way to make it work despite all the obstacles.

  Right now, she just wanted to find him, see him and make sure that he was safe. Because of who Trey was, she was pretty sure that finding Trey would mean finding Hannah and Ziggy.

  She passed the motel and saw Julie standing under an awning, arm around an older woman, pointing out into the parking lot where cars were axle-deep in water. She ran toward them.

  “Have you seen Hannah, or Trey, or Ziggy?”

  “They haven’t been by here,” Julie said. “Oh, honey, are they missing? How can I help? I can’t leave the motel, I’m needed here, but I can ask around.”

  “Ask if anyone’s seen a big white dog,” she said. “He’d be the most noticeable, and he’s the one Hannah would be following. And Trey went out to find them.”

  “I saw a big white dog running around,” the elderly woman said unexpectedly. “Looked like a giant drowned rat.”

  “What direction did he go?”

  She gestured vaguely toward the waterfront. “That way, but it’s been a while.”

  Of course Ziggy would head for the water. Exactly where you weren’t supposed to go during a bad storm. A cold hand seemed to squeeze her stomach. “Thank you. I’m going to go look for him. For them.”

  She left the hotel and now she ran, rather than walked, toward the beach. Water splashed up as she stomped and skidded through the puddles, and rain lashed at her face. As she got closer to the beach, road signs rattled on their poles with the force of the oncoming wind. The noise made it hard to think. She shivered in her soaked clothes.

  Beside the road, a tree rocked and swayed and suddenly uprooted. She backed away, panting, and it crashed down directly in front of her.

  Her heart pumped double-time. She could have been killed! But there wasn’t time for maybes or even prayers of thanks; she had to keep going.

  Thinking of Ziggy and Hannah out in this storm stole her breath.

  At the beach, the water was pure chop and the waves splashed up as high as the pier. Someone had put caution tape across the beach access, but it had blown partly down and was flapping wildly.

  As she reached the row of Sunset Lane houses they’d worked on, she felt a flash of relief that the shutters were closed and the roofs and boards seemed to have held.

  The argument between the elder and younger James men flashed into her memory.

  “It’s too early in the season,” Kirk had said, and, “Hurricanes don’t make landfall here.”

  Old Mr. James was right, she said in her head.

  “I was right!”

  Her head whipped around toward the James house. Had she really heard a voice in all this wind and rain?

  * * *

  IN PRIMROSE MILLER’S HOUSE, Trey knelt beside Ziggy, who’d stood up and was pacing restlessly. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay.”

  Ziggy gave his face a distracted lick and then walked over to the window and put his big paws up, standing like a person, much to the delight of Venus, who started snapping pictures with her phone.

  Trey was proud of the little group of local teenagers, mostly the support kids but a few from the main school, as well. They’d assured him that their parents knew where they were and had given them permission to come to Sunset Lane when the storm had worsened. He didn’t know how they’d convinced their parents to let them leave home in a dangerous storm, but apparently one of the students’ fathers had driven his SUV around picking them up and brought them here. They’d wanted to make sure the older folks were okay and to help get the plywood up over windows. King had led Trey that way, too, somehow tracing the scent of Hannah and Ziggy despite the storm.

  Trey had seen LJ first, and stopped to yell a greeting on his hunt for Hannah; then the girl herself had burst out of Primrose’s house and shouted to him. Ziggy had rushed toward him and King, stopped only by Hannah setting her heels and holding tightly to his leash.

  Cell phone service wasn’t working, so there was no way to let Amber and Erica know that Hannah was safe. Trey figured to send someone back to the house as soon as they got all the Sunset Lane residents settled and secure.

  Primrose, navigating her home in a wheelchair after some recent surgery, was fretting that her garden would be ruined. Ziggy paused in his pacing to nudge his big head under Primrose’s hand.

  “You smell like a wet dog,” Primrose said, but a shaky smile crossed her face.

  Ziggy leaned against her leg, looking up at her with a doggy smile. Then he stood and trotted to the window again.

  What was bothering him?

  Maybe just the storm, because King was pacing restlessly, too.

  “Over here, Mr. Harrison,” LJ yelled from the James place, and after ascertaining that two of the teens would stay to keep an eye on Ziggy and Primrose, he hurried next door. The wind had died down a little, and the rain might have let up a tiny bit.

  A tree limb had fallen onto the corner of the house, cracking a window through which the rain was coming in. Working quickly with duct tape and garbage bags, they created a makeshift patch.

  Trey went next to look in on Mary, who was hunkered down in her house, comforting Baby-the-Maltipoo and seeming perfectly self-sufficient. Moments later, Hannah came rushing over and pounded on Mary’s door. “Come on back to Primrose’s,” she said to Trey. “My cell phone worked for a little over there, and I got a text to Mom. Erica’s not there. Mom says she came out looking for us!”

  Erica was out in this storm? Anxiety gripped at him as he followed Hannah back to Primrose’s house, yelling for those at the James place to come along.

  Just as they trooped in Primrose’s front door, Ziggy started barking and jumping madly and scratching at the back door, and understanding dawned. Trey hurried to open the door, hoping against hope, and...

&
nbsp; There was Erica. She stood, soaked to the skin, breathing hard, staring at him.

  Before he could think or react, Ziggy and then Hannah flung themselves on her.

  Incredible relief and wild joy danced inside him, and he wanted to wrap his arms around her and never let go. Held tight on to a kitchen chair so he wouldn’t do it.

  He couldn’t follow his impulses, because they’d been proved not just wrong, but downright destructive. Now the storm had boiled things down to elementals and he knew one truth: he couldn’t survive if he let her keep on breaking his heart. “Glad you’re okay,” he said, and turned away.

  She broke away from Hannah and Ziggy, walked across the room and gripped his arm. “Trey, I... Can we talk?”

  He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to.

  Pulling away from her was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he set his jaw and did it. “Why put ourselves through it? We both know it’s not going to work.”

  He turned away quickly, because she was softhearted and his words, though true, might make her cry. And he couldn’t watch that happen without throwing all good sense aside and taking her into his arms.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ERICA WANTED TO go collapse in a ball and cry, and she did slip away into Primrose’s bedroom for a miserable half hour and did just that. Soon enough, though, the rain ended and there was work to do. She helped a couple of the kids gather Mr. James’s bent and broken lawn ornaments and store them in the shed behind his house to repair later. Then they lifted the awning that had fallen and moved it to the side, weighting it down with concrete blocks.

  The physical work almost drove away the pain of Trey’s rejection. Almost, but not quite. She’d had the crazy hope that, after all they’d been through together, he would have been willing to talk about what she’d said at the restaurant. Maybe they could figure out a way to try.

  But apparently it was too late. He’d given up, said it wasn’t going to work, wasn’t worth bothering about.

  Ziggy and Primrose came out to join them. Primrose eased her way carefully down her wheelchair ramp, Ziggy walking slowly beside her. When they got to the bottom, she leaned over and dried him off with a towel she’d been carrying in her lap, and he not only allowed it, but gave her a quick lick on the cheek.

  “Ziggy’s been so great,” Hannah said. “He’s like a different dog. I guess it’s Trey’s training, that or the fact that he knows people are upset.”

  Trey’s training. That probably wouldn’t happen anymore, since the school year had ended. He was surely making plans to leave forever.

  The thought of him leaving made her want to double up with pain. Only with an effort could she hold herself together. She sucked in a breath and pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger, willing herself not to cry. “What happened that you and Ziggy even went outside?” she asked Hannah.

  “It was my fault he got out,” Hannah said. “I’m so sorry. I opened the door to see what was going on, how bad the storm was. And you know how he is—he pushed past me. I felt terrible that he was out in the rain, so upset, so Mom let me go out looking for him.”

  Mr. James chimed in then. “I didn’t know what to think when this crazy dog came running down the street with the girl behind him. Me, I was out in the yard trying to get some of the plants and lawn chairs inside.”

  “Which you shouldn’t have been doing,” Kirk said. “I was going to get to that, just as soon as I’d checked on a couple of folks down the street.”

  “Women,” Primrose mouthed to Erica with a knowing nod. “He had to check on his lady friends.”

  Old Mr. James ignored his son and Primrose. “Anyway, I saw them coming and I just opened our gate and called to the dog. He came running in and I shut the gate and he was caught.” Mr. James looked proud of himself. “Then this young lady comes in and thanks me and starts helping me gather up my lawn chairs and get those hurricane shutters closed. And soon enough another kid showed up, and then another.”

  “I was watching out the window, and at first I thought they might be coming to loot us,” Primrose admitted, “but they’ve been real sweet.”

  “I got stuck helping Mary with her generator,” Kirk said. “I was worried about Dad, but when I checked on him, he said everything was fine, the kids were helping.” He looked steadily from one to the next. “I’ve misjudged you. I’m truly grateful for what you did for Dad.”

  Some part of Erica felt good about the kids, the same part that put her arm around Hannah and gave LJ a pat on the back. It was as if she was reaching out from beneath a coating of cotton to interact with the world.

  This is what you have, the kids. This has to be enough.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  She felt Ziggy beside her pressing against her leg. Hannah was right: he was much calmer than what she’d expected.

  The storm was abating now and Primrose invited them all to stay awhile. She’d collected rations and had candles and a lamp, and they all gathered around and ate cookies.

  Even Trey stayed, at the kids’ urging. And sat as far away from Erica as was possible.

  He didn’t meet her eyes.

  They sat talking for another half hour while the rain came and went. Erica wanted to go home, to lick her wounds in private, but she just didn’t have the energy.

  Finally, there was a pounding on the door. “Police!”

  It wasn’t Earl Greene, but another of his officers. As she checked with everyone, making sure there were no injuries, Principal O’Neil pushed into the room.

  “There you are!” he scolded when he saw a couple of the kids from the mainstream school there. “Your parents have been worried sick about you because they couldn’t reach you on your phones. They called me on my landline because they knew the school might be used as a shelter. And then I heard from another parent that you were here.”

  “Why were our parents upset?” one of the kids asked. “I left a note about where I was and that I was safe.” He gave the principal a skeptical look, as if he didn’t believe his parents were really worried.

  Erica wouldn’t put it past O’Neil to exaggerate for effect.

  “I texted my folks,” another said, “although cell service hasn’t been good.”

  “Leaving a note or texting isn’t the same as getting permission.” He frowned at Erica and then at Trey. “It’s just like the parents on the board have been saying—those support kids are having too much of an influence on the rest of the students. I’d like to speak with the two of you.”

  It was the only thing that would put them within arm’s length of each other. Numb, not looking at Trey, Erica followed the principal into Primrose’s kitchen.

  O’Neil turned to face them both. “We had a meeting tonight, as I’m sure the two of you saw on your little date.”

  Just the thought of that date was enough to make Erica’s chest ache.

  “The parents on the board are very concerned that the support kids are leading the rest of the students into poor behavior.”

  Trey spoke up. “Helping older people in need is bad behavior? How do you figure that?”

  “Going out at night, in a storm, without permission—yes, it’s a problem, though I wouldn’t expect you to see that.” He frowned at them severely. “I’ve been thinking about what recommendation to make about the group, and this is the last straw. The program just isn’t going to work. I’m recommending we close it down.”

  It wasn’t going to work. Just like she and Trey weren’t going to work.

  She knew she should argue but she didn’t have the strength. She couldn’t help what was happening with the kids, couldn’t save it. She’d done her best and it was all just a disaster.

  Losing her job meant she couldn’t keep Hannah and Amber at the beach.

  “So there won’t be a behavior support program next year.” Trey said it
with some kind of emotion in his voice, but she couldn’t pull herself together enough to analyze it.

  Dimly, she realized that Trey was arguing a little, challenging O’Neil’s decision. But, of course, it didn’t help. The program was going to end, and that was all she needed to know.

  They’d failed. She’d failed.

  Tears welled, and she couldn’t let them fall in front of her boss and Trey. She cleared her throat. “If you’re taking over with the kids, I’ll go.” She snapped her fingers to get Ziggy’s attention and picked up the leash he was dragging.

  The teenagers were all talking energetically, high on the adrenaline of the storm, unaware that their program was about to end. Let O’Neil be the one to tell them. Him, or Trey. She didn’t have the stomach for it. She opened the door, slipped out quietly and slunk home to reassure Amber that Hannah was safe.

  Then she climbed the stairs to her bedroom and wept.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, when Erica dragged herself outside—because Ziggy had to be walked, no matter how Erica was feeling—the rain had stopped entirely and the air was already humid as the sun beat down. Tree limbs lined the road, fences were flattened and electric lines were down. People walked around their yards assessing the damage, with lots of conversations and greetings. There’d be plenty of hard work to get the town in shape by the time the high season started in just a couple of weeks.

  The good news was, no loss of life, no serious injury and only a couple of structures had been badly damaged by the storm.

  As she trudged down the street behind Ziggy, someone who was grilling burgers called out an invitation. Ziggy strained toward the scent, but she waved and shook her head and pulled the dog back onto course. She wasn’t hungry and she couldn’t face anyone.

  Last night, she’d seen finality in two men’s eyes.

  O’Neil was firm in his decision that the program had to end. And sure, she could blame Trey for letting the kids all stay on Sunset Lane and work together during the storm, but there was nothing wrong with what he’d done. He’d found Hannah, and the other kids had found their way to the same place, and they’d all helped the elders of Sunset Lane. They’d done the right thing, and she was proud of them.