Shelter Island by Carla Neggers

Author:Carla Neggers [Neggers, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460395486
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2003-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

A hurricane watch went up overnight for Cape Cod and the islands. Mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders had been posted for vulnerable areas. Hope remained a Category 2 hurricane and looked as if it would hit the Cape before it made its expected turn east.

No one, Hank thought, would be concerned about the one cottage left on Shelter Island, even if they thought of it. The spits of sand along the elbow of Cape Cod had been rearranging themselves for millennia and would again with this storm. Shelter Island could take an entirely different shape by the time Hope blew over. North Monomoy and South Monomoy Island were formed in the notorious blizzard of 1978, when the single main island split into two islands. Both were part of the Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Refuge Complex, eight ecologically diverse refuges that provided habitat, resting and feeding grounds for a wide variety of plants and animals, in addition to birds.

Hank hoisted his backpack onto one shoulder, Antonia’s onto the other as they set off across the narrow island. If the powerful winds and surf and torrential rains of Hurricane Hope rearranged these stretches of sand again, at least he and Antonia wouldn’t be around while it happened.

They took a twisting path through stunted pitch pine and patches of juniper, low-growing wild blueberry bushes, the ever-present bearberry and beach grasses. It was just spitting rain, but the wind had kicked up, and he could hear the waves pounding the shoreline. Antonia would never have made it across the narrow inlet to the mainland in her kayak. The inlet wasn’t as choppy as the Sound, but, as they walked out onto the beach, which was just down from a fertile salt marsh, he noticed the whitecaps. Even with the stiff, steady wind at her back, she’d be lucky to keep herself afloat, never mind on course.

She’d put on jeans, a polo shirt and a windbreaker for their ride back to the mainland and seemed less strained and preoccupied. Hank liked to think it was his presence. She’d finally told someone about her unsettling incidents—he thought their lovemaking might have helped a little, too. He smiled to himself, but noticed her frown as she paused at the water’s edge. “Where’s your boat?” she asked.

Hank hadn’t even thought about his boat, just assumed it’d be where he left it. But it wasn’t. He squinted out at the water, seeing only whitecaps and seagulls against the graying sky. Where the island’s myriad of birds were, he didn’t know—it was as if they’d all vanished ahead of the hurricane. “It should be right here,” he said. “I dropped anchor just off shore.”

“Maybe it pulled loose.”

“It should have held, even in this weather. Damn it, I grew up in a marina. I know how to secure a boat.”

“But you spent all those years in the air force tinkering with helicopters.”

“Tinkering?”

“It’s not like you were in the Navy or the Coast Guard.” But Antonia’s halfhearted attempt at humor didn’t seem to work even with her, and she abandoned it.

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