She’d spent two days with Nat, enough to form an opinion but little else. But instinct was the one sense the fire hadn’t fully stripped from her. Regardless of the incriminations and recriminations, her instincts told her Nat Rhone was innocent.
“Can you guys pitch in?” Merle was limping around the store, assisting customers. “I got to go to the storage shed for more sheets of plywood. Bert, you see to those ladies there. Abby, you ever worked a register?”
“No.”
“It’s a piece of cake. If you can use a calculator, you can use a register. Heck, this clunker’s more like an abacus.” Merle gave her a speedy tutorial on how to operate the antiquated machine.
“What if I mess up?”
“Then it’s coming out of your pay,” he said with a wink.
People were waiting, so Abigail hurried to punch in the prices and tally the tax and totals. Five customers in, she had the swing of it. The flashlights were flying off the shelves, along with the batteries.
“You best get to the market soon yourself, dear,” an older woman suggested. “Another hour and there’ll be no more bottled water.”
“If we’re going to be evacuated, why would you need bottled water?”
“It’s not written in stone they’ll do that. Storm’s coming whether we’re here or not.”
At that moment, it crystallized for Abigail that there truly was a hurricane heading for Chapel Isle. She’d experienced run-of-the-mill weather changes back in Boston, such as snowstorms and humid summers, but nothing with the intensity of a hurricane.
Once the store eventually cleared out, Abigail and Bert found Merle hefting sheets of plywood onto the flatbed of a truck parked in front of the shop. Another car with boards strapped to the roof was pulling away. Merle laid the last piece of wood on the flatbed and hobbled onto the sidewalk as he bid the driver goodbye.
“The upside to a hurricane is extra revenue.”
“Then you’ve got a lot of upside,” Abigail informed him. “I was making change for people with nickels and dimes instead of dollars.”
“You should have told me.” Bert produced a slew of quarters from his pocket.
“See, Bert’s ready for the hurricane,” Merle joked. “He’s got himself weighted.”
The comment was meant in fun, yet Abigail had to wonder, could anyone ever really be ready for a hurricane?
“Hey, y’all. Hey, Abby,” Denny called, coasting up to store in a green truck.
“Denny, my friend, you’re just the man I was looking for,” Merle told him.
“Really?”
“Abby here has to be prepped for the hurricane. There are sheets of plywood in the basement of the caretaker’s house. I ripped ’em down to fit the windows years ago. What I need you to do is get them nailed in.”
Denny jumped at the opportunity to impress her. “I’m on it.”
“Bert, you go with them.”
“Righto,” Bert replied.
“Thanks, guys,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. It took effort.
News of the hurricane had shaken loose the townsfolk of Chapel Isle. The square was bustling the way Abigail imagined it did during the summer season. Drivers were cruising for parking spots, and pedestrians were rushing from place to place, weaving through the stopped cars, carrying grocery bags. Abigail didn’t mind leaving the chaos behind for the calm of the lighthouse.
Denny and Bert followed her home in Denny’s truck. When they arrived, the two men were staring at the lawn as though it were a mirage.
“How’d you cut all this grass?” Denny asked her in awe.
“With a lawn mower.”
“The whole place?” Bert said. “By yourself?”
The men were flabbergasted. It was as if Abigail had moved a mountain with a shovel.
“I knew Merle’d been meaning to get around to cutting it himself,” Bert told her. “It was the getting-around-to- it part that gummed him up.”
“Guys, I didn’t cut the lawn with a pair of scissors. It’s only grass.”
“But it’s a
“New? I used the hand mower from the shed.”
Bert
