Maybe he should just put Tyler in the car and drive him to Raleigh. He only had him for three hours and had almost gotten him killed.
Warm wetness spread across Jax’s arm supporting Tyler’s butt.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Guilt rose up and grabbed him by the throat. He’d scared Tyler so bad, he’d wet his pants.
He had to get inside and get control of himself. Jax forced himself to breathe slowly in time with his steps as he retraced the path back to the motel.
“Okay.” Jax shut the door behind them and flicked the deadbolt. For good measure he latched the chain. He set Tyler on the bathroom counter, so he could see his face. Tears spiked his thick lashes and ran down the red-blotched cheeks. Jax forced his voice decibels lower, but found he still had to clear his throat a couple of times before he could speak. “Let’s start over. Where the h—where were you going?”
“Gan-gan said the hurr’cane’s gonna get us. She said it’ll get us if we stay where it is. We got to run away. We got to hurry.”
So the witch had scared Tyler first. There was some comfort in knowing he wasn’t solely responsible for the tight shoulders and quivering lips. But he couldn’t shift the blame to Lauren for screwing up with Tyler. If he’d let Tyler leave with her, this wouldn’t have happened.
No. He’d screwed up all by himself—and his mistake almost got Tyler killed. Only through sheer dumb luck had he noticed Tyler was AWOL in time to avert disaster.
The sight of Tyler’s terrified little face was like a knife twisting in his gut. He needed to reassure the child. He wasn’t sure how. “It’s all right.” He patted the boy’s narrow shoulder. “Don’t worry about what your grandmother said. I’m going to take care of everything.”
Inside his head the voice—always grading his performance, always evaluating whether he’d led well or poorly—sneered, Yeah, right.
Reacting would have to stop. What he needed was a plan.
A knock sounded at the door. He lifted Tyler down from the counter. “Find some dry shorts in your suitcase,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
The paunchy owner of the motel was at the door, a scowl on his gray-whiskered face. “You the fool that was running on the roof?” he demanded. “What the hell were you doing?”
Jax felt his face coloring. “My son ran away.” Because I failed to anticipate him.
“And you thought he was on the dad-blamed roof?” the man bellowed.
“I needed a high vantage point to see which way he went.”
“How the hell did he get away from you in the first place?”
I didn’t understand what he meant when he kept saying he wanted to leave. “He was afraid of the hurricane. He got away when my back was turned.”
“Got away!” The old man hauled his pants up over his paunch. “They said he was clear on the other side of Sal’s before you caught him. He’s in more danger from you than from a hurricane.”
The old windbag was right. Jax deserved every bit of scorn the man could give him.
You didn’t realize how upset Tyler was, he accused himself. You didn’t anticipate he would leave the room by himself. You didn’t keep up with where he was. You didn’t lock the door between trips to the car. Excuses don’t count. Results do.
“Yes, sir,” Jax met the motel owner’s faded blue eyes without flinching. “It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right, it won’t.” The old man’s mouth was a thin, angry line, but after a moment his eyes slid away. He stared at the planter by the door and continued, “Not enough sense to know you gotta watch kids. Running on the roof. I don’t need this with a hurricane coming on. Get your stuff and get out. I’ll tear up the charge slip. Just get out.”
So that he wouldn’t give into the urge to slam it, Jax closed the door very, very carefully after the departing owner. The man was a coward, unable to look at him while giving him the boot, but the responsibility for their predicament rested squarely on Jax’s shoulders.
He was out of options for keeping Tyler with him. By now, there probably wasn’t a hotel room to be found near Wilmington. If he had to drive further inland anyway, he might as well take Tyler to his grandmother’s house in Raleigh.
But damn! He wasn’t ready to accept defeat. He wanted—needed—to keep trying. If he let things end like this between them, every bit of hope for him and Tyler was gone. From the day he arrived on Topsail Island, and found Tyler so cold, so changed from the child he remembered, Jax had only been reacting to everything, thinking that maybe time would close the gap between the two of them. Thinking maybe it didn’t matter if the gap didn’t close, regardless of how it made him feel, because he’d shortly have to give up Tyler anyway.
Reacting, instead of thinking strategically, had gotten him here, fresh out of options.
What he needed was a plan, and he didn’t have one.
He scrubbed at his forehead with a fist. He knew eighty-six ways to kill a man, how to make a bomb from ingredients found under a kitchen sink. He could hotwire a car, pick a lock, and start an IV. He spoke four languages, two fluently. SEALs, able to operate on the sea, in the air, and on land, were the most highly trained warriors in the world. And a helluva lot of good that did him right this minute.
Tyler was where he had left him, sitting on the black-and-white tiles of the bathroom floor, still in his wet shorts.
First things first. He lifted Tyler to his feet. “Come on, buddy, let’s get you some dry pants.”
He pulled the wet shorts from the smooth little buns, and his mind, still turning over his problem, slid on the crumbling-edge feeling of déjà vu.
Wet shorts. Tyler had gotten his shorts wet when they’d built the sand castle. The hour or so they had spent digging and molding sand was the best time they’d had. They hadn’t said much. Pickett had hung around making suggestions and chatting. Jax was amazed later when he realized how much information she had elicited without seeming to. Once Pickett left, Tyler had acted a little shy again, but they’d done okay. Good, really.
The corners of Jax’s mouth kicked up. Pickett with the mischievous, bright turquoise eyes and dancing, golden curls—the sand castle had been her idea.
She said she lived near Topsail Island, but on the mainland.
Tyler liked her. This was more than he could say for how Tyler felt about him. At last he could imagine something happening between him and Tyler that he wanted to happen.
It would take a lot of balls to call up a woman he hardly knew and ask for shelter from a hurricane, but hell, he was a SEAL. SEALs did things all the time other people didn’t think were possible. And—he grinned at the thought—they showed up where they were least expected.
Pickett … what was her last name? … Sessoms! His even teeth gleamed white in a sharkish smile.
“Put these on.” He tossed a pair of dry shorts toward Tyler.
Jax flipped open his cell phone and reached for the phone book. “I’ve got us a plan.”
SIX
Hurricane Elvira, a category one storm, packing winds of eighty-two miles per hour, is barreling down on the North Carolina coast, folks, and it’s already bringing tides four feet above normal, with beach erosion as far north as Nags Head. Located three hundred twenty nautical miles—” Pickett cut the weather girl’s relentlessly upbeat recital of the storm’s current position. Someday she’d have to learn what a nautical mile was, but today all she needed to know was that the storm would come ashore sometime early the next morning. Neither did she need the weather girl’s ridiculously cheerful warnings about the dangers of storm surge, high winds, and flooding.
Pickett made a face. Her great-grandfather would be proud of the farmhouse he had built. In its hundred-year history it had weathered worse that this hurricane and, despite being on the sound, had never flooded. The boring truth was that the worst danger she faced was the possible loss of electricity, and that was pretty much a sure thing.
But the amount of dirt and dog hair that would accumu
late with two dogs in the house if she couldn’t vacuum? Now that was scary. Not to mention the laundry that would pile up. And living without hot water.
The worst thing about losing power, though, was that she didn’t have city water. She depended on a well. No electricity, no water. All she could do to prepare was fill plastic jugs and the bathtub. When that was gone she’d have to buy drinking water for herself and the dogs.
Lucy thrust her black muzzle with its white streak under Pickett’s hand, and raised anxious eyes to Pickett’s face. Patterson’s radar instantly detected affection being handed out and lumbered over, leaning his big old yellow Lab body against Pickett’s other side.
Pickett knelt and put an arm around each dog’s neck. “It’s going to be okay, you guys. But let’s go over the hurricane rules. One. No shedding. Two. No drinking from the toilets. Three. Try to convince your brother, Hobo Joe, it’s safe for him to come in the house. He’s lived here long enough to know this is his home now.”
The two pairs of eyes fixed on her were earnest enough but Pickett didn’t sense a lot of cooperation forthcoming.
She gave each dog a final pat and stood up. “Okay, since we’re going to end up with a mess, we’d better start this hurricane with a house as clean as I can make it.” Pickett grabbed dish towels from the sink and headed for the mud room to start the washer. “But I do wish you’d talk to Hobo Joe.”
Two hours later Pickett smoothed clean sheets onto her bed and pulled the comforter in its blue-and-white eyelet duvet into place. She surveyed the room with satisfaction. It was the most recently finished one in her ongoing renovation of the old house.
Pickett’s face softened with affection for her family as she looked about. Everywhere she looked she could see some family member’s contribution.
The king-sized pineapple post bed came from her grandmother. Her grandmother claimed she needed to get rid of it to free up a room for her painting hobby. The Oriental rug in shades of green, rose, cream, and blue, her aunt declared, was a decorating mistake she never wanted to see again, and Pickett would do her a favor by taking it. The exuberantly feminine duvet with its matching pillow shams and dust ruffle was a gift from her mother. A slipper chair and lamps came from her sisters Grace and Sarah Bea. And Lyle had been right. Painting the walls a deep green harmonized all the elements.
It was a shame she’d had to leave last night after less than an hour, but since it looked like this section of the North Carolina coast might take a direct hit, it was probably for the best.
Lyle was the only member of her family who wouldn’t be calling to ask if Pickett planned to evacuate, for which Pickett was grateful. Her other sisters would be on her case, as would her mother.
Pickett nudged Patterson from the nest he had made of the bed’s pillows on the floor. “Get up, Patterson. I’ve got to put the pillows back on the bed.”
The yellow face looked at her accusingly. “I know you think it’s my fault if you lie down on the pillows. You’re saying, ‘Pillows on the floor are for dogs,’ and I put them on the floor. However, I am the mama and you are the dog, so move!”
Patterson shambled his old bones into the hall where he hoped to find a place a dog could get some peace. It sounded like someone had dropped a sack of potatoes when he lay down. Pickett laughed in amused affection. Patterson wasn’t going to be happy when she vacuumed the hall, and that was going to happen next.
She giggled and tossed the new needlepoint pillow with its cynical epigram high in the air. She didn’t know all that much about men, but she did love her dogs! She set Lyle’s gift on top of the other pillows at the very center of the bed.
The phone rang.
“Pickett, this is Jax Graham.” His voice was warm and dark.
Pickett’s heart changed gears without warning. Having a fantasy call, when you were expecting your mother to be on the line, did that.
He continued, “Have you heard the weather report? The hurricane has turned this way, and speeded up. They’ve ordered evacuation of the beaches from here to Nags Head.”
She Wasn’t Interested in Lt. Jax Graham, U.S. Navy SEAL, stationed in Little Creek, Virginia, visiting his rarely seen son (and what did that tell you about his priorities?) with whom he was definitely out of his depth. She’d learned a lot about him as they talked—getting people to tell her a lot in a short time was her job—but that didn’t mean she was interested. Really, she wasn’t—fantasies last night notwithstanding. His behavior in the grocery store made it clear he wasn’t interested either.
Professional sympathy, that’s what she needed to respond to him with. “Too bad,” she said. See? It wasn’t too hard to stay cool. “This will really cut your vacation short.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Is your house safe or are you planning to leave too?”
Pickett gave a short laugh. “My house has withstood storms for nearly one hundred years, and going to my mother’s house with three dogs and a duck is more hazardous than facing a hurricane. And I will not leave my animals,” she finished simply. “Why do you ask?”
“Actually, what I was wondering is …” Jax sounded oddly hesitant, not so cocky. “Look, the thing is,” he started over, “I need to ask you for a favor.”
A favor, not a date. Guessing the rest of what he wanted wasn’t hard. “Does your mother-in-law not have anywhere to go? Would you like to bring her and Tyler here?”
Whoa! What made her say that? Her heart gave a little lurch, whether of gladness that Jax hadn’t disappeared from her life, or dismay that kindness might force her to sit out a hurricane with three relative strangers and no electricity, she didn’t exactly know.
“That’s the thing. Lauren is going to go to her home in Raleigh, but I was wondering if Tyler and I could camp with you for a couple of days. If it’s not a bad blow, we’ll just open the cottage back up tomorrow or the next day.”
A family was one thing, but a man by himself was another. Did she really want to invite a man she hardly knew into her home? They wouldn’t be alone together of course with Tyler there, but you couldn’t expect a child to be much of a chaperone.
Jax realized that Pickett had been silent just a beat too long. “Look, Pickett, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Forget—”
“No, wait.” Pickett interrupted again. “Forgive me if this is blunt, but why do you want to stay here? Why don’t you just go to Raleigh with your mother-in-law?”
Jax took a deep breath. “It’s a reasonable question. Look, you know I’ve pretty much made a mess of my relationship with my son, right? But I’m trying to see what can be pulled out of this screw-up I’ve made. We don’t exactly get along when we’re here, but when we’re at his grandmother’s house in Raleigh, he just ignores me, like I’m not there. If we go back there now, I’m afraid we’ll lose every gain we’ve made. And by the time we get back here, my leave will be half over.”
Pickett stepped out onto the back porch. The sky, milky-looking earlier, was grayer, and the air was hotter and more humid, even since this morning. “What is it that you want to have happen with your son?”
“I don’t know, Pickett.” Jax sounded sad and tired. “I guess I need to find out if he really is better off with his grandmother, if I should just leave him with her. But I need to find out, too, whether he could be better off with me.”
“Y’all come on here.” Pickett’s voice was so quiet, Jax almost wasn’t sure he had heard her.
“You mean it?”
“Yes. Come on.”
“I appreciate it.”
Forty-five minutes later, Pickett had the flashlights and batteries organized, the spare battery pack for the cell phone charging, and the Coleman lantern located.
As soon as the phone rang again, Pickett knew who it was.
She considered answering “Yes, Mother,” but that pushed her mother’s buttons. Since she was going to upset her mother anyway, there was no need to make it worse.
> As usual her mother started in as soon as Pickett said hello.
“Did you know the hurricane is going to come ashore tonight?”
What did her mother think? They didn’t have TV? Patience and the respectful manners drilled into her kept her tone even, but nothing, since her mother couldn’t see her, kept her from rolling her eyes.
“Yes, I knew that.”
“You’re going to come here, aren’t you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“They’ve ordered evacuations of the beaches!”
Pickett prayed for patience. “Mother, I don’t live on the beach.” Why should she have to say that? Her mother knew that. “I’m not in any danger.”
“Well, I’d feel better if you were here. What if your power goes out?”
Pickett took a deep breath. The power was sure to go out. So what? Did she really think Pickett couldn’t light a candle? She tried reason. “The hurricane is as likely to hit Goldsboro as here. There’s no reason to think I would escape it if I was with you. Besides, there’s no way I’m leaving the dogs, and you know you’d not be pleased to welcome them at your house.”
Now that was an understatement. Pickett’s mother did not share her love of creatures, and was particularly appalled that she had three large dogs and kept two of them in the house.
Oh no! Why had she mentioned the dogs? To her mother that would be just one more instance of Pickett’s impracticality, her over-emotionalism. Proof that she couldn’t take care of herself—anybody who would take in three strays had a few screws loose, as far as her mother was concerned.
“Mom,” Pickett took control of the conversation, “please don’t worry. I’ll batten down the hatches and I’ll be fine.”
“It’s just that I hate to think of you being there alone.” To hear her mother’s nervous dithering, you’d never think she was head of one of the highest grossing insurance agencies in the state.
Not for the first time, Pickett reflected that being a family therapist didn’t make the dynamics of one’s own family any easier to deal with. What was she supposed to say?
Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle Page 6
