Page 24 of Eye of the Hurricane (Weathering Doves Harbor #2)

Katherine

Tropical Storm Celine quickly turned into category one Hurricane Celine.

The local weather station thought that would be the worst of it.

Up until the final twenty-four hours she remained a one, stuck in a pocket of hot water off the coast. Even when Celine strengthened to a two, no one panicked because they seemed sure she would weaken by landfall.

It wasn’t until she sat in that pocket for longer than expected and grew to a category four that people started to panic.

Landfall isn’t projected to hit us head on, but it’s many miles closer than it was supposed to be. Celine inched her way down the coast over the span of a week, putting her within our county limits. Still, it’s better than the alternative—being right on top of us.

I’ve been glued to my TV since the moment the news went out that she had strengthened this much. The scary part is that once we knew there was a reason to evacuate, many people didn’t have time to do it .

It’s now 6:00 A.M. and Celine is set to make landfall sometime after midnight tonight.

I know it seems like the obvious answer is to get in my car and haul ass until I’m inland. But it’s not that simple. Not when thousands of people were just given the same news. Not when the highways are in a standstill.

The odds of getting stuck in her path without gas, food, water, or shelter are higher than it’s worth to try for.

The weather channel feels like a train wreck I can’t tear my eyes from. There’s no comfort in the things they’re saying. Still, I feel like it’s the only way I can be prepared.

They show the flood zones and I’m not in the highest risk but I’m certainly not in the lowest. Shit .

If I had a better mom, I might call her and ask her for advice or comfort. I don’t, though, so I’m on my own for this one. Unless Luna is well versed in hurricanes, she’s lived here a while.

Katherine

Should I be worried about this hurricane?

Luna

Nah. All hype. I evacuated to my parents house a couple hours inland but only because they made me.

Katherine

Do you think I need sandbags?

Luna

You don’t have sandbags?

Katherine

…

Luna

KAT! Did you board your windows?

Katherine

…

Luna

What the hell? Don’t they have hurricanes in Louisiana?

Katherine

Well, yeah but we lived pretty far from the coast.

Luna

Sandbags and boards, now. Text me when you’re home safe.

Katherine

Got it.

Shit, okay. What’s worse than a hurricane barreling toward your cute little beach town? Being wildly unprepared for it.

It’s early in the morning, still. I should be able to get out, get the necessities and be back home before noon. Luckily, I got groceries earlier this week, so I don’t have to worry about that. God knows the bread shelves are empty at every store in a five mile radius already.

I rush into my bedroom and pull a white and blue floral dress over my head, matching white heels to go with. I don’t bother much with my hair, clipping it back.

When I walk back out to the living room, there’s this loud banging noise coming from outside. It’s like a jackhammer, but right outside my window. I poke my head out the front door to see if for some unknown reason they’re doing roadwork on the morning of a hurricane. No one is out front, though.

I step out on to the porch and peak around the side of the house .

There stands Ares with plywood and a hammer. He’s boarding up the windows of my house.

Just like that, I feel less sure of the distance I put between us.

“What are you doing?” I call out to him.

He turns his head to me, sweat slicking his waves to his forehead. He looks fucking good. I never thought the sweaty, handyman thing would do it for me but g oddamn .

“What does it look like? I’m boarding your windows,” he says, holding the hammer up for emphasis.

“Okay, smart-ass. Why are you boarding my windows?” I counter.

“Because I was in the neighborhood last night and noticed you hadn’t done it,” he answers.

“Thank you.” I say, quietly.

“What was that, honey? Speak up,” he says, smiling widely. His tongue glides across his top teeth and I feel it between my thighs.

“I take it back. You’re an ass!” I yell back to him. He just chuckles and goes back to hammering plywood over my windows. I turn the corner of my house and stand next to him.

“Do I need sandbags?” I ask.

“You don’t have sandbags!?” he exclaims, stopping everything he’s doing to face me. I give him a sheepish smile in return.

There’s a feeling of shame that I can’t quite shake. I should have thought of it. I should have handled this.

“Come on, we’re going now,” he says, setting his things down.

“I can handle it,” I argue. A slight smile tugs at his lips .

“I know you can.” He nods firmly. “I’d like to help you anyway,” he admits.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he says, walking to his car. I follow behind him. “You want to drive?” I shake my head, walking around to the passenger side and getting in.

Driving through Doves Harbor today is eerie, to say the least. The streets are mostly empty, but a select few places are busy. The gas stations have sold out signs, grocery stores have lines out the door, and there are sandbag stations filled with hundreds of people.

Seeing a community collectively doing preventative measures fills you with a type of unease I can’t explain. It’s like validations of your fears but in the worst way. Like instead of being told they understand and it’ll be okay, you’re being told they understand that it won’t be.

It takes over an hour for Ares and I to get a parking spot to get our sandbags and carry them to the car.

An overwhelming anxiety is very present for the entire morning. It’s not until we pass a homeless man on the way home with a sign asking for a ride inland that fear sets in.

I shift in my seat, checking my phone.

Four texts from my mom asking if I have everything I need.

She also asks if my boyfriend will be sheltering with me.

I want to ignore her messages altogether, but I don’t.

As difficult as she can be, I don’t want her to worry all day and night.

So I send a simple message letting her know I’m okay and safe.

If I’m being honest, I don’t even know if it’s true when I say it. I wonder if I made a mistake not evacuating. But then I remember the way traffic was at a standstill on the news. I remember the meteorologists themselves saying those people may not make it out of here.

“You go inside, I’ll do the boards and the sandbags,” Ares says, turning the car off.

“I can help,” I tell him.

“I know. Let me do it anyway,” he says.

“You say that a lot.”

“I don’t want you to feel like I do these things because I think you can’t,” he explains. “Now go, let me work,” he says, standing from the car and shooing me toward the front door.

I wander all around the house looking for things I can do inside to prep for the storm. I take to the internet to find some advice on what I’ll need. I fill empty cups in the house with water. I also clear out a space in one of my closets in case of tornadoes in the outer bands.

It’s now 9:00 A.M and we’re only a handful of hours away from the first bands coming on shore. Once everything that can be done inside is done, I sit back down on the couch and turn on the weather channel.

Direct landfall has shifted another couple of miles closer south to us. Official landfall is expected at 1:30 A.M. but conditions will begin deteriorating this afternoon.

Ares knocks on the door. I call out to him, without getting up. “Come in!”

He walks in the door with a big duffel bag in hand. I think for a moment it’s some kind of tool bag, but then he sets his actual tool bag down on the ground next to it.

“What’s in the bag?” I ask, sitting up straight in my seat.

“You think I’m leaving you to sit out a category four hurricane by yourself?” He scoffs like I’m nuts.

“Just because I’m a woman—” He cuts me off.

“It’s not because you’re a woman, Kat. It’s because I care about you. I wouldn’t let Roman sit through one alone either. But Audra, Beck, and Sebastian are hunkering down together. Mom and Dad are together.”

His genuine kindness melts away some of my remaining defenses. It’s the kind of good guy thing that makes him impossible to stay away from. The kind that makes all of this a slippery slope.

“I asked for space,” I state firmly.

He chuckles for a single moment before gathering himself.

“Then I’ll give you space. But I’m doing it from your house.” His voice is firm and I hate to admit that it does something for me.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” I roll my eyes.

I decided We decided that the distance would be best practiced if I spent the night hanging out in my room and Ares spent the night hanging out in the living room.

I thought We thought it would be practical and maintainable, until thunder rattled the entire house and everything went dark and silent.

It’s pitch black as the storm howls outside.

All that can be heard inside is the sound of the bell on Bellatrix’s collar.

A few seconds after the outage, Ares is standing in my doorway with a phone flashlight in one hand and my cat in the other.

“Are you okay?” he asks .

“Yes. Lucky for you, I’m not scared of the dark,” I snap. So, stress doesn’t make me the kindest person. Sue me.

“Lucky for me? More like lucky for you. Part of your poor planning was not having a single flashlight in the house.” I see stress doesn’t make Ares the kindest person either. It’s kind of comforting, in a way. Seeing him be so… human.

“Shit,” I mumble to myself.

“Do you have candles?” he asks.

“Yes, lots,” I tell him, standing from the bed.

I walk past him into the living room. I turn on my own phone’s flashlight and make my way to the cabinets under the TV stand.

Just as I’m about to open them, the emergency weather alert goes off on both of our phones, sending my blood pressure through the roof. It’s letting us know that our area is under a tornado warning.

Hurricanes, I’ve done—sort of. Floods, I’ve done. Tornadoes? I am absolutely terrified of.

“Where is Bellatrix?” I call out, my voice shaking.

“I still have her,” he assures me. I grab the nearest bottle of water and rush past the couch toward the coat closet I cleared out earlier.

I stop in my tracks outside of the closet trying to think of anything I’m forgetting. Water, first aid kit, cat, boyfriend FAKE boyfriend, closet, that’s it.

I reach for Ares’ hand and haul him into the closet with me, closing the door behind us. We both fit in the closet but it’s a tight squeeze. Our bodies are only inches from each other.

“The weather. Can you put on the weather?” I ask, voice trembling. I reach out to take Bellatrix from him but she crawls further up his chest .

“Yeah, I’ll put it on.”

He pulls the phone from his pocket and does as he says, pulling up some stream of the weather. We both watch intently.

There is a radar-indicated tornado by Everest Hills headed in our direction. It’s currently 9:23 P.M. There’s three other time stamped locations and then Doves Harbor, set to be hit at 9:38.

My heart is racing and I can feel myself hyperventilating. Ares looks at me with sympathetic eyes but doesn’t say a word. I find myself disappointed that he doesn’t make some effort to comfort me. It isn’t fair, though. I’m the one who put the distance between us.

“I’m really scared, Ares,” I admit quietly.

Just like that, his walls melt to the ground and he’s pulling me in. My head hits his chest. Fuzzy black fur tickles the side of my head.

“We’re going to be okay,” he says, chin resting on the top of my head.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, because I’m watching this stream and it’s going to miss us,” he says, pulling back from me and pointing to the screen. He’s right. It’s going to miss almost all of Doves Harbor.

“This is all very scary to me. We had hurricanes back in Louisiana, but tornadoes… I’ve hardly had to deal with those. I’m just freaked out,” I admit.

He hums in understanding as he holds me, rubbing comforting circles on my back. I lean into him slightly, soaking up his warmth, before I freeze in his grasp. We’re supposed to be doing distance, regardless of the circumstances, and this? This is about as not distanced as we can get.

I know he can tell that I’ve locked up, but he doesn’t stop holding me or comforting me. Instead, he speaks in a low and soft tone.

“Tonight is going to be a long night no matter what. But it’s going to be much longer if you insist on doing it alone just for the sake of distance.”

He isn’t wrong and I want to snarl at him for reading me so well. But there’s not enough room in this closet to pull back far enough to fight. Even if there was, there’s not enough fight left in me to try.

“I don’t disagree,” I murmur. “But I meant what I said. We need distance.”

“Okay, then let’s do distance after the hurricane is over. Call it even for the night,” he suggests.

It’s playing with fire. I know it is. Still, I find myself nodding.

“Deal,” I agree.

I expect him to say deal or nod. But instead, the hand that was rubbing comforting circles on my back slowly makes its way to the nape of my neck.

“Good. Come here,” he says, hauling my lips to his.

His kiss is feverish and demanding, melting me into him.

In mere seconds, I’m wrapped back up in the whirlwind that is Ares Dawkins. A force I can’t seem to compete with these days.