Storm Force. Meredith Fletcher

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      “I’m going to miss school,” Hannah said, then spooned more ice cream into her mouth. “I like school. We’re getting to finger paint.”

      “Very cool,” Kate said. “You should paint me a picture.”

      “I will.”

      “But that’s not exactly what I meant,” Kate said. “Won’t you get behind in your classes, Steven?”

      He was looking out the window. “Not really. It’s a private school. The teachers do whatever Dad tells them to do.”

      “Oh.” Kate sipped her water. She changed lanes again, watching the traffic closely. Although the truck handled a lot like the Jeep, it was different and she was conscious of the difference.

      Glancing back through traffic, she thought she saw the same black Lexus again, then realized there were a lot of Lexuses on the road.

      “You know,” she said as conversationally as possible, “your dad never did tell me why he wanted you to come stay with me for awhile. Or even how long you’re going to be here.” She smiled at the rearview mirror. “I guess with all the luggage back there, it could be for some time.” Please let it be for a long time.

      But even as she hoped for that, she knew that it was a double-edged sword. The longer they stayed, the more she would miss them when they were gone.

      “Dad just said it was business,” Steven said. “He didn’t say how long we were going to be down here.”

      “Well,” Kate said, “your grandpa is excited to see you. I think he’s got some new video games to play.”

      “Great!” Hannah cheered.

      “He wins all the time,” Steven protested.

      “Then beat him.”

      “I can’t.”

      “You can if you try hard enough.”

      “He doesn’t have to play so hard.”

      “One thing I learned from your grandpa,” Kate said. “He’s never going to give you anything you don’t work for. If you want it, you’re going to have to try to take it.”

      Steven frowned but didn’t say anything.

      Kate switched on the radio and concentrated on driving. Traffic was thicker than normal, what with everyone preparing to hunker down and wait out the storm or evacuate. There were only two kinds of people along the Florida coastline when it was storm season: those who stayed and those who left.

      “The weatherman said a storm was coming,” Steven said.

      “Her’cane Genevieve,” Hannah added.

      “There is,” Kate said.

      “I’ve never been here during a storm.”

      Kate suddenly realized that was true. With them only coming down during the early summer, Steven and Hannah had never weathered a tropical storm. Maybe that’s what’s got Steven so irritable, she thought. He’s scared. She felt badly then about her own feelings.

      “Don’t worry about it,” Kate told her son. “You’re going to be with me. Everything’s going to be all right. This’ll be cake.”

      “What if we lose power?” Steven asked.

      “I’ve got a generator,” Kate said. “We won’t lose power long.”

      Kate’s house was a two-story farmhouse with a screened veranda on two sides. When she’d been small, she’d lived there with her dad and brother and sisters. After she’d returned to Everglades City—actually, outside Everglades City—she’d lived with her dad in his other house, one that was a little larger than this one with its small three bedrooms.

      He’d kept the old house, though, as a rental property. After Kate started working for Epperson’s Contracting and Building, her dad had quietly closed out the rental agreement and given her the house. She’d tried to pay him for it, but he’d just pointed out all the work they’d done on it when they’d lived there while she was growing up. It wasn’t much of an investment, but it held so many memories.

      The house sat back in clumps of cypress trees in a yard that flooded during the wet season and got overgrown in the dry season if she didn’t stay on top of the mowing. It had been painted white for years and needed a new coat now. But the roof kept the rain out and the screen doors and windows kept out the mosquitoes.

      She pulled off Plantation Parkway and on to the shell-covered driveway that led to the house. The shells crunched under the tires. She parked under a copse of cypress and magnolia trees where the rope swing that Hannah loved hung. Steven’s tree house still occupied the lower branches, but he’d largely outgrown that these days.

      While Hannah occupied herself with a favorite DVD and Steven took over the PlayStation 3 in one of the other rooms, Kate went around the house and made sure all the shutters were locked up tight. The storm warnings said there was going to be a lot of wind. Flying debris was always a problem.

      As she walked around, a sleek black car drove by the front of the house. She was just coming up from the backyard when she saw the vehicle. It stood out at once in the neighborhood.

      An unexplained fear ripped through Kate. The black car slowed just for a moment, the ruby taillights gleaming in the gathering darkness of the storm. Then it sped up again and disappeared around a corner.

      For one insane moment, Kate felt certain whoever was driving the car was watching her. But that didn’t make any sense.

      Unless it’s Bryce, she told herself. Her ex-husband was totally into playing sadistic little mind games with her. He’d proven that over the last few years.

      Maybe the whole unexplained visit from the kids was some kind of test, designed solely so that she would fail somewhere along the way. Maybe he was even now plotting some way to take away the meager summer visitation she had with Steven and Hannah.

      Panic tore through her and she leaned weakly against the side of the house. She hated feeling helpless, and that was all she was whenever Bryce started playing his games.

      After a few minutes, she managed to force the crippling paranoia away and regulate her breathing, then she finished her inspection of the house. She was satisfied she was as prepared as she could be, but the best thing would be if the storm changed course and never came to Everglades City. Looking at the dark skies, she doubted that was an option. They’d just have to survive whatever it handed out.

      Kate prepared spaghetti and garlic bread in the same tiny kitchen where her mother had prepared so many meals. They also had salad, which she pointed out to Steven, was a definite healthy choice.

      Hannah had two servings of spaghetti.

      “I guess you didn’t hurt your appetite today with the McFlurry, did you?” Kate asked.

      “Nope,” Hannah agreed. “But you always make the best spaghetti. Not even Consuelo knows how to make spaghetti as good as you.”

      Consuelo СКАЧАТЬ