“Just go,” he yelled, then straightened up and looked at Maggie. “Sit down.”
Maggie got onto her knees, and Wyatt held onto the side of the truck bed as Axel pulled alongside the Toyota, then pulled behind it, tailgate to tailgate, with a significant height difference. Boudreaux was just as Maggie and Sky had left him.
Wyatt leaned over and looked down at Boudreaux, then back over at Maggie. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing. It was the storm.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know.”
Axel’s door opened and he and Sky jumped out into the water. Maggie put a hand on the tailgate, intending to climb into the back of the Toyota, but Wyatt pointed at her.
“Not you!” he barked.
Maggie stopped, and watched Axel and Sky open the back of the Toyota, climb in and reach for Boudreaux. They worked together to scoot him toward the larger truck, then Axel opened his tailgate and they lifted him up and slid him in.
“Yeah, we gotta go,” Axel said as he slammed the tailgate shut.
“There’s room in here, climb in,” Wyatt said behind Maggie.
She turned and looked at him, then shook her head. “I’ll ride in back with Coco.”
He frowned at her, but she sat down and pulled Coco to her. He sighed and slowly pulled himself back into the cab.
William was sitting at the white wrought iron table on the balcony, smoking a cigarette and trying to find the number for the insurance company, when he heard the rumbling from down the street.
He leaned over to try to see up the block, but ended up having to stand and go to the railing. He looked out and blew a cloud of smoke out in an excited puff.
“Robert!” he called out. “The looters are back!”
Robert appeared behind him, two glasses of tea in hand, just as the behemoth crawled through the intersection and passed below.
The two men stared down into the truck bed.
“It’s the little sheriff,” William gasped. “And a hyena.”
“And a dead guy,” Robert said.
William sighed. “Of course she’s got a dead guy. What else would she be riding around with?”
“Did you get the insurance company’s number?”
“No, let’s just move back to Fort Lauderdale, already,” William said. “I am up to here with living in Mystic Falls.”
Deputy Dwight Shultz turned onto Avenue D and coasted through the water. He’d been coming out of the parking lot at Weems Memorial when he met Axel and them pulling in. After a few terse explanations from Wyatt, Maggie had asked Dwight to drive over to Boudreaux’s.
He turned into the oyster shell driveway and shut off the cruiser, then opened the door and stepped out, his black rain boots splashing softly into the water.
He shut the door, then started up the walkway toward the front porch. Halfway there, he looked up and stopped short.
There was a miniature little old lady standing on the porch with a walker, her head poking out of an enormous black trash bag. When he looked her in the face to say something to her, he saw that there were tears rolling down her wrinkled brown cheeks.
A little less than twenty-four hours later, Maggie woke up from a nap to see Wyatt sitting in the ugly green vinyl chair next to her bed, as he had been when she’d gone to sleep a few hours earlier. As he had been all night.
He was reading a James Lee Burke book, with a pair of reading glasses pushed up onto his head uselessly.
“Hey,” Maggie said.
“Hey,” he said without looking up.
She waited a moment, but he just kept reading.
“Are you not looking at me?” she asked him finally.
“No, I’m not speaking to you,” he said to his book.
“You were speaking to me last night.”
“That was last night. Last night I was relieved. Now I’m just pissed.”
“What for?” she asked sharply, grabbing onto the bed rail.
The corners of his mouth turned down as he thought about that, then he stuck his finger inside the book to mark his place before he closed it and looked up at her.
“I’m not sure. Probably because you scared the crap out of me.”
“This wasn’t exactly my fault,” she said.
“No, but I don’t have anyone else to get mad at that isn’t dead already.”
She tried not to smile. “How long are you going to be mad?”
He stood up and put his much larger hand on top of hers. “Until I’m not.”
She smiled up at him, but he pulled his eyebrows together.
“Where are the kids?”
“They were beat. Your Mom took them back to her house.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“Out counseling your rooster.” He sighed when Maggie looked at him questioningly. “He went out there to take Stoopid some grit and check on the chickens.”
Maggie smiled and nodded. “Okay.”
He looked at her for a few moments, his face growing serious. “I was pretty scared,” he said finally.
“Me, too,” Maggie answered.
“Let’s avoid fear for a while.”
“Okay.”
Gray walked down the hallway, his deck shoes soundless on the tile floor. He kept his eyes on the right-hand wall, checking the numbers on the little black plaques as he went. Finally, he saw 202 and knocked twice, then gently pushed open the door.
The curtains were closed and the room was dim, with the only light coming from the partially-open doorway. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, then he stepped around the partition and walked over to the bed.
Boudreaux was raised up into a semi-seated position, with an IV in the back of his left hand, and a couple of monitors beeping behind him.
He opened his eyes as Gray stopped beside the bed and put his hands on the rail. His face was expressionless, and he didn’t speak. Gray swallowed, then cleared his throat.
“I hear your surgery went well,” he said quietly.
Boudreaux nodded slightly. “Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse and low.
Gray nodded back, then stared at the bed, somewhere around Boudreaux’s knees, for a long moment. Then he looked back up at Boudreaux.
“Well,” he said, and stuck out his hand.
Boudreaux took it and they shook. Gray nodded once more, then walked back out of the room and let the door close softly behind him.
He walked a few doors down, then opened the door to Room 209 and stepped inside.
Wyatt was standing by the bed, and he and Maggie both looked at Gray as he walked up to the foot of the bed.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he said to Maggie.
“Hey, Daddy,” she said, smiling.
Gray looked at Wyatt. “I’ve come to relieve you so you can go downstairs and get that X-ray.”
Maggie looked at Wyatt. “You need another X-ray?”
Wyatt sighed. “It’s fine. Dr. Hamilton’s just punishing me.”
“That’s bull,” she said. “You messed up your hip, didn’t you?”
“No, I’m coming along nicely, thank you.”
Gray reached over and slapped Wyatt on the shoulder. “Go on, before he decides you need a colonoscopy, too.”
Wyatt gave him a look, then stared at him for a moment.
“What?” Gray asked.
“I’m going to kiss your daughter,” he said.
“Well, just don’t be sloppy about it.”
Wyatt bent down and kissed Maggie lightly, then gave her a kiss on the forehead for good measure.
“How was that?”
“Neat enough,” Gray said.
Wyatt patted Maggie’s hand goodbye, and when he had left the room, Gray took his place beside the bed, leaned down and kissed the top of Maggie’s head.
“How are the chickens?” she asked him.
“They’re good. It’s still too wet to move them back to the yard, but they’ll be okay in the shed for one more night.”
“And Stoopid?”
“He’s about how you’d expect. He’s not loving Clancy’s old dog crate.”
Maggie smiled, then reached up and took Gray’s hand.
“Thanks, Daddy. I appreciate it.”
He squeezed her hand gently.
“Anything for my little girl.”
Two days later Boudreaux sat in the vinyl arm chair by his window, watching as county workers trimmed some damaged trees across the street. Everything was still wet, but the water itself was gone, and everyone was working to make it seem like Faye hadn’t happened.
He looked away from the window as he heard his door swish open, and Maggie walked around the partition.
She was wearing jeans and a flowered blouse, and the bandage on her head was gone.
“Mr. Boudreaux,” she said when she’d reached his chair.
“Maggie,” he said quietly.
She smiled at him a little. “You’re up.”
“Yes, they’ve decided I can be trusted to sit in a plastic chair without harming myself.”
She looked at him for a moment. “I’m not really surprised to see you’ve had some better clothes brought in.”
Boudreaux looked down at his silk robe. “Yes. I see you’re dressed as well.”
“Yes. I’m going home.”
He nodded. “Good. I’m glad that you’re recovering well.”
“Hard heads run in my family.”
He blinked at her, then gave her half a smile.
“Anyway, I just came in to thank you again.”
He put a hand on either arm of the chair and gently pushed himself up, then stood. “That’s really not necessary,” he said as he slowly walked over to the little plastic table by his bed and picked up a book.
“Thank you for the reading material. I enjoyed it.”
He walked over and held the book out to her, the James Lee Burke that Wyatt had been reading.
She took it, then looked at him for a moment. She seemed a bit uncomfortable.
“What is it, Maggie?”
She gently let out a breath before she answered. “I was thinking that I’d like to hug you goodbye.”
He looked at her for a moment, then swallowed and held out one arm. She stepped closer, and tentatively put her arms around his neck. He closed his arm around her waist, and he could smell coconut shampoo in her hair as he lowered his head next to hers. He breathed it in soundlessly, then put his other arm around her and held her.
As they stood there, he realized that it was the first time, the only time, that he had held his only child.
Then she stepped back and looked into his eyes and gave him a polite smile.
“Goodbye, Mr. Boudreaux.”
“Goodbye, Maggie,” he said.
Then he watched her turn and walk out of the room.
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I’d like to extend a special thank you to so many of you who have taken the time to send me an email or post on my Facebook page. I truly love hearing from my readers, and your enthusiasm and support has been incredibly encouraging to me.
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Thank you all!
Dawn Lee
Do you enjoy reading about Axel Blackwell?
He’s a great character, but he’s also an amazing author. If you or someone you know, especially teens and young adults, enjoy a great scary tale, beautifully told, check out his Sisters of Sorrow on Amazon.
Thank you to Tammi Labrecque, of LarksandKatydids, for her tireless editing efforts, hilarious comments, and constant encouragement.
Thanks to Colleen Sheehan of Write.Dream.Repeat for her beautiful book designs and high tolerance for my ADD.
To Shayne Rutherford of DarkMoonGraphics, thank you so much for your beautiful covers. They are truly the perfect designs for this series.
To my fellow patients at Author’s Corner; your support, assistance, hilarity, encouragement, experience and friendship have been and will always be among the things for which I am so grateful.
And to my family: all of you are the reasons that I write, and all of you are the reasons that I can. I love you something stupid.
Contents
Landfall
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Get Unforgotten
Do You Enjoy Reading About Alex Blackwell
Acknowledgements
Landfall Page 14
