Seabreeze Book Club: Summer Beach, Book 6 by Jan Moran

Author:Jan Moran [Moran, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub

14

Beside her, Bennett sputtered and coughed as he took on saltwater. As the surf receded, Ivy clutched him around the chest. Using her weight as leverage and relying on her lifeguard training, she shifted him higher onto the shore and turned him over.

Bennett raised his hand, motioning to her. With a great cough that seemed as if it turned him inside out, he shoved himself to his knees.

The liquefied sand beneath them once again became terra firma.

“Don’t try to talk,” Ivy said, shivering in her wet shirt and jeans. Her slip-on loafers were gone, as was the jacket she’d draped over her shoulders.

With a great, hacking cough, Bennett pulled himself up. “I’m okay—” He stopped as another great cough seized his chest. “Let’s get in there…make sure guests are okay.” He glanced behind them in the dark. “Could be a big wave coming.”

A terrible thought seized Ivy. “A tsunami?” She knew it was possible; giant waves could sweep thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, but local quakes could also trigger them. If the plates had shifted under the ocean, that action could generate high waves.

Bennett nodded grimly. “In 1960, the Valdivia earthquake in Chile sent a tsunami to Hawaii—my parents survived that.” With Ivy’s help, he crawled to his feet. “We have to get people to higher ground. The city has trained for this.”

“I need to call the girls, too.” As they raced toward the house, Ivy patted her pocket, but her phone was gone, ripped away in the waves—just like her shoes and their wine glasses. “Do you have your phone?”

“In my room,” he said. “We need to get people out first. Summer Beach has an evacuation plan, which Chief Clark and others are probably putting in place.”

They hit the terrace, which was wet. The water in the pool was still sloshing back and forth over the edges as if a great unseen hand were shaking it.

Bennett jerked open the kitchen door. Darkness enveloped them, with only shafts of moonlight through the windows lighting their way.

“Flashlights are under the sink,” Ivy said, pausing to slip her bare, sandy feet into Shelly’s garden clogs by the rear door.

“I’ll get them.” In the dark, Bennett rummaged in a cabinet. “Here we are. Torches, as Arthur and Nan say.” Flicking one on, he swung a beam around the kitchen.

Ivy crossed the room, dripping water as she went, glass crunching beneath her feet in the sturdy clogs. A commotion rang throughout the house. Taking a flashlight, she opened the door to the lower level. Pricks of light pierced the darkness. She shone the light down the stairwell.

“How is everyone down there?” Ivy called out. “Anyone hurt?”

Pixie’s frantic yaps greeted her, and Poppy’s nervous voice floated up to her. “Mostly okay, I think. Just shaken.”

Directing the light onto the stairway, Ivy gingerly made her way down, testing each step for stability. Bennett was right behind her. Poppy met them at the base of the staircase, her face a mask of shock.

Ivy glanced around the dimly lit space.

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