On her way out of the preserve, she made two stops. At the main studio she tucked two envelopes in the edge of the doorway. One held her cabin key and a note to Casey apologizing for her quick departure. The other envelope contained a note for Micah. She smiled as she thought of the words she’d written to him, basically repeating the instructions Gregory had given her when they’d first met: Find your creative eye. Keep your skin thick.
Her last stop was Gregory’s cabin. She knew it was a risk to come—he could already be awake. Could be on the front porch waiting. But he wasn’t. His cabin was dark, the curtains inside pulled tight against the strong morning sun that would soon hit them.
She set her last envelope on the chair by the door. In it, she’d tried as best she could to capture her feelings on paper. Her gratitude. Her appreciation. What twisted and turned in her heart. Despite her rambling words—she was never very good with those—somehow she felt he’d understand.
It was 6:30 a.m. when she pulled down the preserve’s long, winding driveway through the trees. Moss and vines hanging from tree branches looked ghostly in the glow of her headlights. As she turned north and headed for the interstate—no slow two-lane highways this time—the barest tinges of fuchsia and violet swept the sky.
It was too early to call Betsy, but Full Cup would already be open.
“It’s a beautiful day at Full Cup Coffee. How may I help you this lovely Tennessee morning?”
Jenna smiled. Mario answered the phone with a different jingle every day. “It’s Jenna.”
He whooped. “Girl, it’s about time. Please tell me you’re coming back.”
“I will if there’s a job for me.”
“Hallelujah. The imbecile they hired to replace you threw his apron down yesterday and quit. It was that Rich woman. You’re the only one who knows how to handle her.”
“What about Melissa? She was doing well before I left.”
“Oh no, she quit too. Couldn’t handle the pressure. Things fall apart when you’re not here. Oh, and your boyfriend still comes in every day. He’s a sad little puppy.”
“He’s not my—”
“Yeah, yeah. So when are you coming back?”
“I have a stop to make on the way, then I’m coming home.”
thirty-seven
Ty
Hurricane advisory 33. Winds from Hurricane Ingrid continue to increase. A gradual turn to the north is expected today. Ingrid is expected to make landfall within 24 hours as a dangerous hurricane with winds of at least 150 mph.
Ty awoke to news that the world had changed. Well, not the whole world, just their little corner of it. While they were sleeping, Hurricane Ingrid had charged ahead like a freight train toward the northern Gulf Coast.
When he reached the barn at four forty-five, his radio was already on, tuned to the local weather. For all of the previous day, the cone of uncertainty had shifted between the Louisiana-Mississippi coast and the Mississippi-Alabama coast. Now it appeared it was zeroing on extreme western Alabama, putting Elinore squarely on the stronger east side of the storm. Basically the worst place to be.
Carlos sat in Ty’s office, his hat in his hands. Ty leaned against the desk and sucked in a mouthful of hot coffee. As it scalded the back of his throat, eliminating any remnants of sleep, the phone in his pants pocket buzzed. He pulled it out and checked the screen.
“Mornin’, Roger.”
“Just making sure you’d heard the news. It’s headed this way.”
“Sounds like it. But we’ve suspected it for a while.”
“Yeah, well, this is the one we hoped wouldn’t come.”
When he finished with Roger, assuring him he’d take all the necessary precautions, he turned to Carlos.
“Well?” Carlos said.
Ty shrugged. “We get to work. Cows have to be milked, hurricane or no hurricane. We’ll adjust the last milking time to make it as late as we can, then put the herd in the open pasture. Glad we got those fences fixed already. We’ll move the tractors and equipment out there too.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk. “We need to check water pumps and the ID tags on the cows.”
“Pray,” Carlos said.
Ty nodded. “Already a step ahead of you.” He nudged Carlos’s foot with his boot. “Go ahead and refill your coffee. It’s gonna be a long one.”
While Carlos and Walker double-checked the generators and fuel supply, Ty walked through the field, taking stock of the herd. He didn’t know if it was some acute sense of smell or hearing, but the cows always seemed to know when bad weather was coming. They’d skitter around, startling easily and generally acting like nervous old women. Today was no exception.
He ran his hands down their backs and murmured soft words to them the way his grandfather had taught him all those years ago. He scratched their ears while he made sure their ID tags were in place and legible. Nevertheless, they remained nervous and jumpy, not calming at his touch as they usually did.
The sky was cloudy from stem to stern, no differentiation in any direction, so the casual bystander with no knowledge of hurricanes might think it was just another cloudy day with impending rain. But Ty sensed the coming storm as his cows did—tasted it, smelled it. He could almost feel it, like his skin was extra sensitive to the barometric pressure and electricity in the air. A strong wind already whipped through the trees.
By noon he was tired. The humidity made the air feel heavy, pressing on his shoulders, weighing him down. He worried for his herd, but more than that, he worried for the three girls waiting up in the house. And the fourth—Jenna—who was on her way.
After receiving the news last night that Jenna’s return was imminent, Ty wasn’t sure what Betsy’s state of mind would
