Southern Storm ( The Southern Series Book 3) (Souther Series)

by Natasha Madison

  “She’s sleeping,” I say and hear shouting in the background, then a car door slam. “Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way to the bar,” he says, and I wait for the other shoe to drop. “Someone just set fire to Savannah’s bar.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Savannah

  I hear the buzzing coming from somewhere, but I think it’s a dream until it starts again. This time, my eyes fly open, and I jump up, seeing the unknown number on the screen. “Hello?” I grumble.

  “You need to get gone, bitch.” The sound of the male voice is muffled.

  “Who is this?” I ask, but the phone beeps, letting you know the person has disconnected. I’m about to put the phone down when I hear Beau’s voice. “She’s sleeping.” I slip out of bed, walking in the hallway. After he walked out of the house to go to his parents’ house, I ran to the bathroom and threw up whatever was in my stomach. Ethan came down to find me over the toilet bowl. The worry in his face made me feel even worse than I did before. I got up and rinsed off my face, assuring him that I was okay. “What do you mean, it’s on fire?”

  My whole body feels the dread, my body preparing for the worst, yet not really believing that it could be coming. “Fuck,” he hisses. “Where is she now?”

  I stand here in the doorway to his bedroom, and he sits on the side of his bed. He’s in white basketball shorts and no shirt with his head down as he listens to whoever is on the phone. “Okay, I’ll get her up.” He tosses the phone to the side and rubs his face.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask softly, and his head snaps up.

  “Why are you up?” He doesn’t bother answering my question.

  “I got a call from the unknown number.” I shrug. “This time, he spoke.” He flies off the bed and comes to me.

  “What did he say?” he asks at the same time we hear a soft knock. “Fuck, that’s Kallie.”

  “What’s going on?” I look at him while he walks past me, going downstairs to open the door.

  “Hey.” I hear Kallie, and then I walk down the steps, and the two of them just look up at me. Kallie has tears in her eyes.

  “What happened?” I ask again, and this time, my heart starts to speed up because they both look like someone died. “I’m starting to freak out.”

  “There’s a fire.” Beau starts to say something, and it’s like my everything is going on around me, but I’m not there. I see their lips moving, but all I can do is listen to the galloping of my heart.

  “Beau.” I hear Kallie say his name. “I think she’s going down.”

  He rushes to me, but my ass hits the step before he can get to me. There is screaming somewhere, a bloodcurdling scream. “Ethan,” Kallie says his name, and I turn to see him standing at the top of the stairs with tears running down his face. Kallie runs past us to gather him in her arms. “It’s okay, buddy,” she tells him.

  “Baby,” Beau says, “you need to look at me.” I blink, turning to see him, noticing that I’m now sitting in his lap.

  “Why?” is the only thing I can say. “Why?” I whisper again and again. He gets up and walks back up the steps, going to his room.

  “I have to change, and then we can go,” he says, putting me down. My hands fall in my lap limp, my whole body is limp. He rushes to the closet, coming out dressed in jeans, when the buzzing starts again. Looking down, I see it’s Beau’s phone with Jacob’s name flashing across the screen. “Yeah,” he answers. “We’re leaving now.” He looks at me. “How bad?”

  He doesn’t say anything else; he just puts his shoes on, then gets my shoes on, and I’m carried out to his truck. I don’t see anything, and I don’t register anything until he turns the corner, and the sight of orange flames fill the sky. I gasp, seeing that a fire truck is already on the scene, and the water is going. “Oh my God,” I say, watching the flames getting higher and higher. Beau stops the truck, and I get out. My hand holds the door as I take in the sound of wood crackling. I start to walk toward my bar when I’m pulled back by Beau.

  “You can’t go too close,” he says, and I stand here hopeless, watching everything that I have ever worked for go up in flames. The sound of the windows breaking makes me jump a bit. “We need to find Jacob.”

  “It’s gone.” My eyes fixate on the sight of the bar. I remember when I bought it; I thought I owned the world that day. I sat in my studio apartment, looking over the deed to the bar. There was nothing that you could have said to erase the smile on my face that day. I owned something. Something was finally mine, and I was going to show everybody that I could do this. I would make them eat their crow when I owned the most successful bar that ever was. It took blood, sweat, and tears, but I did it. There were more tears and sweat, but I did it. I put my bar on the map, and people would come from two counties over just to be at my bar on a Friday and Saturday night. I provided for my son and for myself, which is the only thing I ever wanted. “It’s gone.” I repeat when I see a part of the roof has collapsed. “It’s going to be all gone.”

  Beau stands behind me with his arms around my shoulders. We stand here just watching the fire spread until the whole roof collapses. It almost sounds like a tree falling in the forest when it takes down other trees around it. “Jesus.” I hear Jacob’s voice beside me, and when I look over, I see him clearly in the dark night with the fire lighting up the sky. “I just spoke with Blake,” he says. “He says it could take a couple of hours before the fire is out.”

  “Do you want to go?” Beau asks, and all I can do is shake my head. The three of us stand here and watch as my bar burns down to the ground. Little flakes of ash float through the air like snow. I wipe the tears away with soot on my hands. The whole time, Beau holds me, his hold never loosening, and it’s a good thing because I don’t think I would be able to stand. Every time another piece of the bar collapses, he kisses the side of my head.

  The dark of the night eventually turns an amber color when the sun comes up. I don’t know how long we stand here, but when I see Blake coming my way, the look of devastation and tiredness is all over his face. Smudges of black soot are on his face. “I’m so sorry, Savannah.” I can’t say anything. I just look at the pile of rumble that is left. “We tried to save it.”

  “I know,” I say, my heart broken. “It’s not your fault.”

  “We are going to go through it later when all the fire is out and get you a report as soon as we can,” he says with his helmet under his arm.

  “What do you think it could be?” Jacob asks, and he looks down.

  “It can be a whole list of things.” He tries to be as diplomatic as he can be. “Let’s not speculate.”

  He turns and walks back to his team as they all look at me.

  “We all know that this was intentional.” My voice comes out clear as day. “Right before you called, I got a call.” I turn in Beau’s arms, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead, his arms move lower, and he holds me around my waist now. “From an unknown caller. I thought it was another crank call, but this time, he spoke. Told me I needed to be gone.”

  “Who did?” Jacob asks while I shrug.

  “His voice was muffled, but it was a male,” I tell them, looking back at the bar. “Guess they made sure I would get gone.”

  “We should get you home,” Beau says. “Ethan is worried sick about you.”

  I go through the movements of walking away from the bar. I get in the car, looking out the window the whole time. “I shouldn’t have threatened him,” I say. “You shouldn’t have gone over there.”

  “If this is my father’s doing,” Beau says, “he’s going to pay for it.”

  I laugh bitterly. “He’s never paid for a single fucking thing he’s done in his whole life.” I shake my head. “Last year, Herman,” I mention the guy who owned the gas station, “he disagreed with your father at a town hall meeting. He wanted to see the budget because he didn’t understand a couple of things. Two weeks later, he was out of business. No suppliers would sell anything to him
. He tried to keep it going, but when you can’t get gas there, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a gas station.”

  “What?” he asks, shocked.

  “You really didn’t know?” I look over at him. “Like at all?” He just shakes his head. “Dude,” I say, looking down at my hands and seeing they are almost black from the ashes.

  We pull up, and as soon as we shut off the truck, the front door is thrown open, and Ethan comes down running, tears streaked down his face. “What the fuck am I doing all this for?” I mumble as I get out of the truck and catch him in my arms.

  “Mom.” I pick him up now, something that he’s stopped making me do since he’s ‘a growing boy’.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, buddy,” I say and walk toward the door where Kallie stands.

  “I couldn’t get him back to bed. He just kept asking questions,” she says, and I smile at her. “Ethan, why don’t we cook a huge breakfast for everyone while your mom and Beau go and shower?”

  I look over and see that Beau has ashes all in his hair and streaks of it on his face, too. “That sounds like a great idea.”

  “Are you hungry?” Ethan asks, and I lie, nodding my head. “Can we make pancakes?” Ethan turns to ask Kallie, who would give this kid the whole world if he asked for it.

  “That sounds good,” she says and holds out her hand for him. He squirms out of my arms, then walks up the steps and into the house with Kallie.

  I turn, sitting on the steps. “It dawned on me that I only opened that bar to show people I could do it,” I tell Beau who stands in front of me. “I wanted the people who spoke of me with disdain to look at me and say wow, she’s doing it or, better yet, look at how far she’s come.”

  “We’ll rebuild it,” he says without missing a beat.

  “I used to go into the bar, and I wasn’t Savannah the home wrecker or Savannah the one who had a child out of wedlock or ever Savannah ‘that one.’ I was Savannah, owner. No one felt sorry for that Savannah, and no one said a bad word about that Savannah. I was everyone’s best friend when I was pouring them a drink. They joked with me and told me secrets. It was as if I was never that first Savannah.”

  “You are the bravest woman I know,” he says, squatting down in front of me and grabbing my hands to bring them to his lips. I take one of my hands and put it on his cheek.

  “Has anyone ever told you how amazing you are?” I ask, then smile as the tears come. “Of course they did. You’re Beau.”

  We both look at the street when we hear a car door slam. Jacob gets out of his truck and walks to the stairs, and he sits down on the last step. “I’m so fucking done.”

  “You and me both,” I say.

  “Well, you guys have a couple of hours before we need to be ready,” Beau says, and we both look at him. “We’re getting married,” he tells me. “Today at three.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Beau

  “We are getting married.” She doesn’t know if I’m asking her or telling her, so I just nod.

  “Today?”

  “Today,” I say and look at Jacob who stares at me with the same look of surprise that’s on Savannah’s face.

  When we pulled up to her bar, and I saw the flames, I knew there would be no saving it. I also knew that the bar was a piece of her, and now it would be gone forever. I also knew that this would be another reason for her to want to leave, so I had to act fast in order to make her stay because losing her was not an option at this point. “Don’t you need a license or something?” Savannah looks at me and then at Jacob.

  “I’m the mayor,” I say. “I know who to call.”

  “But …” she says. “But it’s not worth it anymore.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask, and she throws her hands up.

  “There is nothing else they can take from me.” She stands up, and I stand with her. “Literally, they have taken everything I have.”

  “So you are just going to let them win?” I ask, putting my hands on my hips.

  “I’ve lost every single time.” Her voice goes low. “Might as well lose this round, too.”

  “You have seven hours,” I say after I look at my watch. “Come hell or high water, we’re getting married today.”

  “You’re serious?” She finally sees that I’m not joking. “You really want to get married today?”

  “I do.” I smile. “See that? I’m practicing.”

  She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, and when she thinks of something else, she opens her mouth again, but literally nothing comes out. “You’re going to catch flies if you keep your mouth open much longer,” I say, and she glares at me.

  “I don’t even have a dress,” she says.

  “Lies,” I say. “You went shopping last week and bought two dresses for my party, and well, you only wore one.”

  She glares at me. “You’re annoying when you try to sound like you know everything.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. “Go eat and then go shower.”

  “This is crazy.” She throws her hands up.

  “I don’t say this often,” Jacob says from beside me, “but she’s right.”

  I turn to glare at him. “Today at three, you’re the best man.” I grab his shoulder.

  “Ohh,” he says. “I’ve never been the best man before.”

  “You two,” she huffs up the steps, “are not thinking straight.”

  “I’ve never been more sure in my whole life,” I say while I look in her eyes. She doesn’t say anything else as she walks into the house and slams the door shut behind her.

  “I don’t know much about weddings,” Jacob says, “but pissing off the bride on the day of the wedding is not a good thing.” The front door opens, and Kallie comes out now.

  “What did you do to Savannah?” she asks, folding her arms over her chest. “She stormed in and stomped up the steps.” I smile. “It sounded just like Ethan did last week when I said he couldn’t play video games on a school night.”

  “We’re getting married,” I say, and I can’t explain how happy I feel right this minute.

  Jacob holds up his hand when he sees that Kallie is going to ask something. “In case you were wondering when, it’s today at three.”

  “What?” she shrieks. “Today?”

  “Today,” I repeat. “Oh, do you think she would want to get married at sunset instead?”

  “I think she would want to get married when she has a dress and flowers,” Kallie says. “And maybe her hair done.”

  “I don’t care what she wears,” I say, and Kallie rolls her eyes.

  “We’re aware,” Kallie says, “but this is a wedding.”

  “Can we at least push it back a couple of hours?” Kallie says. “Get maybe a couple of people to help decorate or something?”

  “You would do that?” I ask, not sure she would have even wanted to come.

  “Listen, she isn’t my best friend,” she starts and looks at Jacob, “but she’s Ethan’s mom and seeing Ethan happy is something that everyone has in common.”

  “I agree,” Jacob says. “Plus, this is a big deal.”

  I don’t disagree with him. It is a huge deal. Her as my wife is everything that I’ve ever dreamed of. “Okay, whatever you want. Three, five, seven, don’t care as long as by tonight, we are married.”

  “Talk about shotgun wedding,” Kallie says, turning around and walking into the house.

  “Are you going to tell her?” Jacob looks at me, and I just look at him. That is such a loaded question, and I don’t know how or what it means. “Are you going to tell her that you love her?”

  “I was going to ease into that,” I say.

  “Usually, you ease into the I love you and then you get married.” He laughs. “But I’m not even going to lie, this is exactly like you two.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask, and he just shakes his head.

  “Both of you in love with each other, but both of you to
o chicken shit to admit it.” His words are like a kick to my stomach.

  “She doesn’t love me,” I say. “You heard her yourself; marrying me is a nightmare.”

  “How can you be so smart yet so dumb?” he asks, and I’m about to answer him when the door opens, and Ethan comes running out.

  “We’re going to have a wedding,” he says, jumping up and down and clapping his hands at the same time. I call it his excited dance. “Kallie just said that I have to walk Mom down the aisle since no one in the world loves her more than me.”

  “Yeah.” I nod at him.

  “She says I have to put on my Sunday best,” he groans and gives it the thumbs down.

  “What are you guys doing standing around?” Kallie says from the door. “We have a wedding to plan.”

  “Dear God,” Jacob says. “She just used her ‘I mean business’ voice.”

  “That’s not good,” Ethan says now. “That means no one will have fun.”

  I smile at all of them, walking inside to take a shower. When I get out, I’m ushered out of the house and put in the truck. “You can’t see the bride on your wedding day,” Jacob says.

  “I saw her an hour ago,” I point out.

  “Listen to me, and listen to me good.” He leans in and points at my face. “This shit that you just pulled has everyone teetering on a fine line of crazy. My mother called me and she has all the flowers settled,” Jacob says. “Olivia—don’t even ask how—found someone who is going to send over a one-of-a-kind wedding dress from some designer on a television show. Charlotte and Billy are gathering whoever they can to cook the food. Casey has someone coming in with decorations, and I’m not even going to tell you everyone in town who is stepping up for her.”

  “Does she know?” I ask, and he just shakes his head.

  “Kallie said it’s best if we surprise her, and again, she used a voice I’ve never heard before,” Jacob says. “Now, I’m in charge of getting you and Ethan a suit, which, by the way, Ethan is against, so good luck with that.”