Redemption (Desire Never Dies) by Clara Grace Walker

Author:Clara Grace Walker [Walker, Clara Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2014-06-18T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 36

Shirley sat glued to her chair, watching the map on The Weather Channel. Out over the Atlantic, a colorful patch swirled in an angry circle, turning from red at its center, to orange, to yellow, to dark green as it moved to the outer borders.

“It’s pretty late in the season for a hurricane,” Debbie Evans said to her colleague on the television screen. “Still, we’ll be watching Tropical Storm Phoebe to see if she’s aware of the calendar.”

Chuck Adams, her colleague, laughed. “Can’t help but wonder if Mother Nature knows hurricane season is supposed to end in six days.”

The Weather Channel anchors shared another laugh while Shirley watched the circling storm. She hated the thought of hurricanes. Not the thought of the storm itself, so much as the flooding that might accompany it. She’d never been in a hurricane. She’d only been in Florida a few years. But she knew when people talked about hurricanes, they talked about flooding. And she remembered Katrina.

Growing up in Missouri, she’d experienced flooding from the Mississippi River; lost the few meager belongings she’d had as a small girl, including the prized white jewelry box with the spinning ballerina inside that her father had bought for her when she was born. But losing her possessions, even losing the jewelry box, had been nothing compared to what the storm had really taken from her. It had taken her father, the person who loved her most in the world. The flood had destroyed the small factory where he’d worked canning corned beef; and had destroyed their uninsured home. That flood had left her father unemployed and his family homeless. And a year later, deep in the depths of despair, he had hung himself, while Shirley and her brother watched, crying and pleading with him not to do it.

Shirley hated floods. She hated the very thought of them. And now she sat staring at the television, unable to tear her gaze away from the developing storm.

Mother Nature was cruel and fickle. In opposition to the order people like her sought to bring to the universe.

“What are you watching, Miss Cantwise?” Ryan entered her office, knocking and talking at the same time.

“The Weather Channel,” she said, quickly putting a smile on her face, pretending that the swirling mass didn’t bother her.

He came fully into her office, closing the door behind him. A scowl marred his brow. “Is that a hurricane?”

“No.” She shook her head, still smiling. “Just a tropical storm.”

“So it might become a hurricane?”

“Doubtful.” She laughed, echoing the snickers she’d heard from the news anchors on the television. “Hurricane season ends in six days. This storm is just a left-over straggler. It should be breaking up over the Atlantic soon.”

Ryan nodded, his face placid. “Yeah. That seems likely. Do you want me to make plans for an evacuation, just in case?”

An evacuation would mean Earl leaving, and possibly not coming back. That thought frightened her more than the hurricane. Shirley smiled, shaking her head, taking care not to overdo it.

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