Page 86 of These Summer Storms

“The Secret Service.”

“Cool! Like, the president?” Oliver asked, his excitement palpable. Infectious, if one weren’t a Storm, conditioned to eschew excitement.

“The president isn’t with them today, but yes, like her.”

“Can I go watch?”

“Don’t get in their way.”

“Can I go, too?” Saoirse jumped to ask. “Unless you…need me to stay?”

It was thoughtful enough to feel like a trap. “Go.”

Her face, in that awkward place between the adorable kid she’d been and the beautiful woman she was going to become, split into a bright smile. “Thank you!” She followed her brother out of the bell house, leaving Sam in a quiet that should have felt like a relief, but seemed strangely empty instead.

“The Secret Service are here?”

Not so quiet, after all.

“That’s what I said.”

“And you’re in here. Fixing the fog bell.”

“That’s right.” The words came out clipped. He knew what she was getting at. He’d thought it, too, and he didn’t want to. He should be out there, just as his father would have. And instead, he was in here, oiling a 150-year-old machine that no one needed to use anymore, because maps existed. Computers existed. Because boats didn’t run into islands anymore.

“Don’t you think you should be out there? Being, you know, a man?”

She wanted a fight. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I am certainJackis out there, meeting those helicopters,” she said.

“Jack is managing director at Storm, so yeah, I would think so.”

“Who cares about managing director when you’re going to be goddamn CEO?”

He ignored the question and the way it opened something unpleasant in him. In her, too. Instead, he circled the machine attaching the weight required for the mechanism to work.

“Are you hearing me?”

“You make it difficult not to hear you, Sila.” He returned to winding the drum again, the tension of the cable making the task more challenging and deeply rewarding. The mechanics moved smoothly as he set the machine back in order, returned a series of pins to their proper places, and stepped back. “That looks good,” he said. And he meant it.

Sila didn’t like sincerity. “God, you are such an asshole.”

He looked to her, enjoying the way the words rolled off him for the first time in a long time. “What do you want from me, Sila?”

“What do I—” She looked like she might lose her mind. “I want you towin,Sam. I want you to be furious that there’s even a possibility that you might not. I want you toclose.”

Sam had never much liked Sila’s father, even before he was convicted of scamming millions off his wealthy friends and colleagues. Franklin had loathed him—something Sam had always imagined Sila knew, considering how committed she’d been to becoming a Storm in the first place, and the ease with which she’d turned her back on her own family when her father had been sent to prison. But now, with her spitting the wordcloseat him, Sam was reminded that his wife carried no small amount of her father in her heart.

That, and it was clearer than ever that she didn’t care for her husband.

Which was fine, as it had been a long time since he’d cared for her. “You don’t want me to win,” he corrected her. “Youwant to win.”

“It’s expensive to live our life, Sam. It’s expensive to keep you happy.”

He doubted Sila had thought about his happiness in years, if ever, but he didn’t push back. “I know,” he said, hating the way the reply sounded, petulant. Like she was his mother. God knew she felt like his mother sometimes with the way she ran the show, as though he couldn’t be trusted.

He could, of course. That wasn’t why she kept such close tabs on him. She had one path to money and power, and she wasn’t about to let it out of her sight.