Chapter Thirteen

“What was that?” Seb woke from a wild dream with persistent banging in his ears and a large cat sitting on his chest. “T.T.? What’s the matter, boy?”

Unlike Fenady, Seb didn’t live on the shore. He had a small apartment at the back of a house up in town. However, in a place the size of Rockpool, no one was ever very far from the sea.

Anchored by the cat’s considerable weight, Seb reached for his phone. Twinkle Toes often slept with him, but seldom on him. Seb’s ears told him the reason.

The storm had found them. Squinting at his phone, he saw it was only four a.m.—the storm hadn’t been predicted to hit till later that morning. Yet outside his window, wind and rain racketed, proof of an early arrival.

“Shove up, mate,” he told the cat, and slid out from under. Going to the window, he discovered the banging sound came from a loose shutter slamming against the house.

He swore softly and tried to switch on the lamp, only to have it click but produce no result. Power was out. Already.

His thoughts flew to Fenady. If the storm slammed town this hard, what would it be like down along the shore? Would she have time to get out? He needed to make sure.

The cat, no doubt able to see in the dark better than Seb could, watched him struggle to dress in the gloom. One sock, two. His T-shirt on backwards.

In the hallway, he donned his windbreaker—ha! No coat could hold back this wind. He wasted ten minutes groping for his car keys.

“Wait here,” he told the cat. “I’ll be back.”

It would have been faster and more practical to call Fenady, but he didn’t have her number. Anyway, love…love wasn’t reasonable, as he discovered when he set out on a nightmarish drive through half-flooded streets blocked by downed trees and power lines. Love wanted to see her with its own eyes, fold her in its arms, and assure itself she was safe.

Love wanted to protect her, but there she was, in the middle of danger.

When he reached the parking lot above the shore, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Lit by a wild, eerie radiance that seemed to come in from the sea, rain pounded down so hard it made an impenetrable wall. When he climbed from his car, he could barely stand upright for the wind. And the waves—

No, those couldn’t be the waves, clawing so high on the shore they threatened the line of shops and cottages, usually well above the waterline.

Fenady was down there. Unless she’d had the sense to get out. But no, he could feel her, sense her fear and distress.

He’d have to do the rest of the trip on foot. He spoke a prayer as he went, a summoning of protection, while slipping and sliding on the steep track down, stumbling over and over again. Unable to see, he fetched up against a large boulder, smacking his knee so hard it stole the breath he needed to swear.

Limping, he went on. No lights in any of the cottages—no electricity anywhere. The freezers would shut off, he thought madly. All their ice cream would melt. Did it matter, now? All that mattered was holding Fenady in his arms.

He’d almost reached the back of her shop when the first wave hit the fronts of the shops and cottages. It broke against Fenady’s tiny porch and sent spray up and over the roof. Barely able to catch his breath in the wind, Seb threw himself at her apartment door and pounded.

“Fenady? Fenady!”

No sound, no sight. Maybe she’d gone. Another wave broke, and the very fabric of the door quivered beneath Seb’s hands. What should he do? Stay? Go? He could die here.

The door opened. Not expecting it, Seb stumbled through and smashed into Fenady. They both fell down.

“The sea’s gonna take the buildings,” Seb shouted. “We have to get out of here.”

“No. I can’t—”

“Didn’t you feel that? Come on. My car’s up in the lot. If we can reach it—”

“All my things! My altar!”

“Leave it. Leave it all.” Terrified for her, if not himself, Seb hauled her up from the floor. When she protested again, he kissed her. She was crying; he tasted the tears.

“This place is all I have, everything I’ve worked for. It’s my whole life.”

“And you’re mine.” Seb said it with certainty. He swung her up in his arms and dashed out the door, even as the tiny building shuddered around them.

“Let me down.” Up on the path, she began to cooperate. At least now the wind was behind them. Seb half dragged, half carried her up the path which now ran with water, and heard her sobbing.

When they reached the parking lot, they looked back, and Seb blinked the rain off his lashes, doubting the evidence of his eyes. All up and down the shore, the line of little shops had become a break wall. Waves smashed up and over the roofs, twenty feet high.

“Oh, my goddess,” Fen breathed.

“Get in the car.” Seb wrestled the door open and thrust her into the passenger seat. When he joined her, he found that, perhaps mercifully, the water sluicing down the windscreen kept them from seeing that terrible sight again. They were both wet to the skin—two drowned rats.

And Fenady—Fenady covered her face with her hands and wept, brokenhearted.

“Don’t, love. Don’t.” Seb pulled her into his arms. She wore her night clothes, a loose T-shirt now clinging to her and a light pair of pajama bottoms. Nothing but Fen, underneath.

“Please don’t cry.”

She fought valiantly to stop. “The last ten years of my life are back there. All my dreams. I was even willing to give you up for—for that place. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You think so?” Seb held her closer. The car rocked so violently he expected it to roll over. He barely cared.

“I know so,” she wept.

“Then it’s okay, yeah? I’m right here. Right here.”

He kissed her, or maybe she kissed him. Or maybe the Universe merely drew them to one another.

“We’re going to lose everything,” she groaned then.

“On the contrary, love. I think we’ve just found everything.”