Page 47 of Won't Back Down

I let his words sink in, my brain wrapping around them. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Not a mistake, then. Turning my delighted grin into his shoulder, I relaxed against him, laying a hand over his heart. The hammer beat of it belied his exterior calm. His fingers curled around mine, and he brushed a kiss to my brow.

“Goodnight, Wren.”

CHAPTER 22

SAWYER

Ihadn’t expected to sleep. Not with the hurricane, and not with the world’s worst case of blue balls. I was never forgetting the sight and sound of Willa lost in pleasure. It had played on repeat in my brain long after she’d slid into dreams. But I woke to silence sometime just after dawn.

The dining room was dark, the candles having guttered out sometime in the night. The lantern batteries had died, but I could hear the quiet whir of the fan and the faint hum of the mini fridge running on the portable power station. Willa wasn’t doing her best impression of a koala, and I reached out to find the mattress beside me empty.

I sat up. “Wren?”

No answer.

“Roy?”

There was no telltale scrabble of claws.

Where were they? Were we in the eye, or was it over?

I was dragging on my shoes when one of the dining room doors opened.

“Oh, good. You’re awake. The storm passed about half an hour ago.” Willa’s voice was a quiet rasp. “I was just taking Roy out to potty.”

“How bad is it?”

“We’ve had worse. I didn’t go far. I wanted to wait for you.”

I followed her to the front door, noting the sandbags she’d already shifted and the weatherproof tape she’d removed to get the door open. Outside, the sky was a massive expanse of blue, interrupted only by the occasional wisp of cloud. It was as if last night’s chaos had scrubbed it clean. But the island itself was another story. Branches and leaf trash were everywhere. The garden we’d put so much effort into reviving had been ripped to shreds. Branches had been snapped off all the trees, some dangling, others having been carried off in the wind. Water stood in low spots that hadn’t been there before, because this storm had been big enough to truly change the topography of the land. We’d need to check the dunes on the property. Part of living on the Outer Banks was understanding that we fought a war to keep the land from being reclaimed by the ocean. Sometimes that battle involved making repairs to counter erosion.

A limb had punched through the roof of the garage. “Anything important kept in the top of the garage?”

“I don’t know. There’s a section of attic space there, but I’m not sure whether it’ll be impacted by that hole.”

“I’ll check that in a bit.”

Willa stuck close to me, and Roy close to her, as I worked my way slowly around the perimeter of the house. A handful of the wooden shingles had been ripped off the walls. Debris littered the deck, and some of the railing going down to the beach was gone, along with a few of the steps. But the hurricane panels covering the windows had done their job, and I saw no signs of downed power lines in the immediate vicinity. All in all, it appeared Sutter House had weathered this hurricane as well as it had countless others. There was nothing obvious that I couldn’t repair myself.

The garage was a little worse off. There was water inside and more debris, but the limb had missed the attic. Our vehicles were fine. Not that we could get anywhere if we wanted. Part of the road at the base of the driveway had washed out. We’d have to wait for the water to recede before we attempted to get to town, and that would likely be awhile. If the road had washed out at the base of the hill, it probably was through the marshes, as well. I knew from past experience that authorities would prioritize clearing up the town first, so we’d probably be on our own for a few days, depending on what they were dealing with.

My brain spun as I worked through the details. “God willing, we won’t have any major utility issues. Do you know if the boat in dry dock is seaworthy?” I’d noted the sailboat when we’d been locking things down, but hadn’t spent any time evaluating it.

“It was when Granddaddy put it up last year. After Grandma got sick, he didn’t pull it back out. Didn’t have the time or the heart.”

“We’ll keep that in our pocket as an option in case we need to get to town or the mainland before they deal with the roads.” It wouldn’t be easy to get it to the water from its current location, but if it became necessary, we’d manage.

Willa turned toward the woods, frowning.

“You want to go check on the horses?”

She pulled her lip between her teeth, and for a moment, all I could think of was kissing that little hurt and every other inch of her body. For the thousandth time, I questioned my choice of restraint last night, when it had seemed clear she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

“I know we have plenty to do around here, but if there are a lot of downed trees, it could impact the herd’s ability to move around and forage for food. I just want to know they’re okay.”