After the Storm

by Amy Knupp

  “I miss you girls,” Nadia said. “You’re always busy with your men now.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Mercedes said, setting aside the knife and washing her hands. “Now that Faith and I are both in relationships, you’ve stopped the frantic dating thing. You’re never going to find your man by working till midnight every night.”

  “There is no ‘my man’ and I’m fine with that.” Nadia popped a cherry tomato in her mouth. Ever since the summer, she’d dated less—okay, none—and at times she missed having a social life, whether with her girlfriends or the man of the week. “I do, however, think I need to get out more.”

  “What do you call this?” Faith said. “Homemade lasagna, two of the best girls around, casual clothes, no makeup required…”

  “I call it perfect.”

  “Who ruined you on dating?” Faith joked.

  “My last date was the disaster with Penn. That’s when I rededicated my life to my job.”

  “So has work slowed down at all?” Mercedes asked, pushing her wavy hair behind her shoulder and tossing the salad.

  Nadia laughed. “My events manager quit six weeks ago, we’re deep into developing our spring marketing campaign, and then throw in a hurricane that screwed up all kinds of events…all of that at budget time.” She intercepted Faith on the way to the table and took the stack of plates and salad bowls from her. Busied herself setting them at the three places. “Hasn’t slowed down a bit.”

  Faith added a basket of garlic bread to the table next to the salad. “Ready to dig in?”

  The three of them sat and began serving up food that smelled amazing.

  Nadia scooted her chair back. “You must be slipping, Faith. Where’s the wine?”

  “Scandal!” Mercedes said, grinning. “Maybe she’s been sicker than she let on. Or maybe she and Joe have been staying in all day drinking wine and eating strawberries in bed.”

  “I completely forgot. Check the wine rack over there. There should be a red you guys can open.”

  “You’re not joining in?”

  Faith shook her head. “My stomach is still iffy.”

  Without checking the label, Nadia took out a bottle of red and set it on the table. To her, wine was wine. It was all good.

  They caught up on Mercedes’s boyfriend, Scott, and his new job teaching EMTs and paramedics, on Mercedes’s grandmother, who lived with her, Faith’s parents, who were renewing their vows for their anniversary, and any number of other topics. By the time they stopped talking for a moment, half the pan of lasagna was gone, they’d devoured the bread, and most of the salad was history, as well.

  “Wow. We ate,” Nadia said.

  “We’re not done yet.” Faith went to the refrigerator and took out a homemade cheesecake and fresh strawberries.

  “You baked?” Mercedes asked. “I thought you’d been sick.”

  “Yeah.” Faith sliced the cake and transferred a huge slab of calories and sugar to a dessert plate. “About that…the cheesecake is to butter you two up.”

  “Fatten us up is more like it. I need to look good without my clothes on, you know.” Mercedes grinned wickedly.

  Nadia laughed and took the plate. “No one sees me naked. Where’s the whipped cream?”

  Without her permission, her thoughts veered back to Penn. To the high of breathing in his scent, of tasting him, feeling the warmth of his mouth. The very first touch of his lips had sent a jolt to her center, made her feel things, physical things, she hadn’t let herself feel for a long time. If ever. Though she used to date plenty, it’d been a couple of years since she’d had sex. All part of her strategy for not getting too involved. For a second, though, she’d wanted to get involved, in every way possible.

  “What are you buttering us up for?” Mercedes asked Faith.

  Nadia and Mercedes exchanged a curious look and watched Faith cut another large piece in maddening silence. Once she’d set the slice on the plate, she licked her thumb and set down the knife. Sat back in her chair. “Girls, I need your help planning a shotgun wedding.”

  Nadia dropped her fork, and the bite of cheesecake on it, to her plate with a clatter. She stared at her friend, waiting for the punch line.

  “You and Joe are getting married next spring,” Mercedes said, looking as dumbfounded as Nadia felt.

  “That was the plan. Things changed.”

  “You’re pregnant?” Nadia forgot about cheesecake, forgot about everything else.

  If there was one person who was vigilant about birth control, it was Faith, who lived for being a firefighter. Until she’d met Joe, her job had been her number-one priority in life. And pregnant people couldn’t fight fires.

  “Yep,” Faith said, stretching out the single syllable.

  Now that Nadia studied her, she saw fatigue and worry that went beyond a virus or a cold.

  “That’s why you haven’t worked all week,” she said. “You weren’t sick.”

  “Well…I was. I’ve been puking my brains out every morning. But like I said earlier, it’s nothing contagious. We haven’t told anyone at work yet. I’ve been trying to accept it myself first.”

  “Are you going to quit?” Mercedes voiced the question that was burning in Nadia’s mind.

  Faith stared at the cheesecake intently, but Nadia would bet she wasn’t seeing it. Faith shook her head slowly, clearly at a loss. “I don’t know.” She finally met their concerned gazes. “Not right now. I mean I’m obviously out for the duration of the pregnancy. Effective immediately. That’s all I know. I can’t think about…after the baby’s born.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Nadia said. Offering congratulations seemed insensitive. And yet condolences didn’t seem right, either.

  Faith forced a smile. “Say yes to helping me pull this off. We want to have the wedding within a month. Hopefully before I start showing.”

  “Of course,” Nadia said.

  “You know we’re in.” Mercedes patted Faith’s hand sympathetically. “You’ll be the best parents ever.”

  “With such short notice, the yacht idea we were planning is out. We can have the wedding in the church my family belongs to but the most pressing thing is a reception site.”

  “Lucky for you, you happen to be friends with the owners of the Silver Sands. I need to check our schedule to be sure, but if you’re interested, we can make it happen there.” Even if the ballrooms were full, Nadia would find a solution. The Sea Grass deck, maybe.

  “I’m interested. Enough to work around the hotel’s schedule if I need to. Will you let me know what’s available the next time you’re at your office?”

  “I’ll call you later tonight.” She’d be back at the office after this, anyway.

  “Bless you. You guys are the best.” Faith sat up straighter and cut herself a sliver of cheesecake about half the size of what she’d given Nadia and Mercedes. “It’s going to be okay, right?” she said, summoning up a cheerful tone as if she was trying to convince herself. “I’m marrying the best guy in the world. In a month.”

  “Joe’s perfect. Your child will be beautiful,” Nadia said. “And adored.”

  “And spoiled by his or her auntie-wannabes,” Mercedes added.

  “I can’t even…” Faith bowed her head so they couldn’t see her eyes but they didn’t need to to understand she was reeling. “I know I should be grateful but I feel like my career was just starting to roll. The guys in the department were finally starting to accept me and now…”

  Now it was over, just like that. Just like Penn’s career.

  “You should talk to Penn,” Nadia said. “I’m sure he’s going through some of the same things.”

  Faith zeroed in on Nadia. “Did he get bad news from his doctor?”

  Nadia didn’t answer. Penn needed to notify the fire department that he wasn’t coming back himself. Though Faith wouldn’t spread the news if Nadia asked her not to, it wasn’t fair to ask her to keep Penn’s prognosis from Joe, who was one of the officers. “You�
��ll have to ask him yourself.”

  Both women stared at her and Mercedes nodded. “She knows something.”

  “You went to Penn’s again? After you took him dinner?”

  “I… Yeah. I took him cookies before I came over here.”

  “The way to a man’s heart,” Mercedes said.

  “It’s not like that,” Nadia told them. Nothing like that at all.

  “If it wasn’t like that, I’m thinking you would have fessed up to going over there right away.” Faith’s eyes had a disturbing twinkle to them that had nothing to do with a pregnant glow.

  “You definitely look guilty,” Mercedes said.

  Nadia stuffed her mouth full of cheesecake to give herself time to come up with a response. “He blames me for the accident. Believe me when I say there’s no love lost.”

  “Maybe I’ll go see him soon. After he talks to the chief,” Faith said. “Hopefully by then I’ll be in a better place mentally. It’s a lot to swallow but…everything will work out. For both of us.”

  Everything would work out, Nadia did believe that. But Faith’s career…it was such a part of who she was, just like Nadia’s. And just like Penn’s…

  She took another bite in silence, deeply concerned about Faith, and even more so about Penn. At least Faith had a husband-to-be, and the possibility of going back to her career in a year or so. Because of fate and some help from Nadia, Penn had nothing.

  She set down her fork and shoved the plate away, her appetite gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A COUPLE OF HOURS AFTER Nadia left, Cooper and Zoe were still—or maybe once again—making noise in the kitchen as Penn emerged from his room and went to join them.

  He’d gone to bed to avoid them and then crashed hard, probably because of his state of mind when Nadia had left. Hard enough that he should feel a lot more refreshed. Instead, it felt as if cobwebs had taken over his brain and a pile of stones was weighing down his shoulders with every step.

  “He stirs,” Zoe said cheerfully as he entered the room. She stood in front of the sink. Coop was sitting at the island, sharpening one of the kitchen knives.

  “Guy’s gotta eat, like it or not,” Penn muttered, heading for the refrigerator.

  “Don’t you dare,” his sister said. “No snacking. I’m going all out for my last night here. We’re having shrimp creole.”

  “She’s a bossy one,” Cooper said. “Obviously you got all the ‘laid-back’ in the Griffin family.”

  “I only boss when it’s necessary. It just happens to be abundantly necessary where you two are concerned.”

  “Amazing we’ve survived so long without your guidance, Queen Zoe.” Coop grinned and paused his sharpening to take a swallow of beer.

  Zoe, who was peeling and deveining shrimp, zinged a piece of raw shellfish in his direction, missing only because Coop veered sideways at the last second. He turned to locate the shrimp on the floor, then shook his head in mock exasperation at Penn.

  “She stopped being my problem years ago,” Penn said, deciding a beer was exactly what he needed, whether he was supposed to have alcohol or not. He helped himself to the twelve-pack in the fridge.

  Coop retrieved the piece of shrimp and sauntered to Zoe’s side. Holding it out to her, he said, “I believe you dropped this, shrimp.”

  Zoe faced away from Penn so he couldn’t see her expression as she stared up at his roommate, but something in her stance, the set of her jaw, caught his attention. These two had gone back and forth, teasing and disagreeing about more than just health food for the entire time she’d been in town. But now, Penn wondered if there was more there. Zoe looked sassy and flirty. Shy Zoe who normally only did “sassy” to her brother.

  “You’re lucky I don’t like to waste good food or I’d peg you from close range,” Zoe said.

  Coop still held the now-sharpened knife in the hand away from her. He raised that hand slowly and presented it, handle first, to her. “Your weapon, madam. Use it wisely.”

  Penn narrowed his eyes at the pair. Their words were mundane enough, but Penn could practically see the tension arcing between them. He cleared his throat to remind them they weren’t alone and wondered where the hell he’d been while that was going on. Of course, the answer was easy. He’d been in a stupor, induced by either narcotics or depression depending on the moment.

  “So,” he said, still trying to wrap his head around the thought of his roommate and sister having anything in common. “How long does shrimp creole take? I’m weak with hunger.”

  Zoe seemed to snap out of her daydream and rinsed her hands. She took a cutting board from one of the lower cabinets, placed it on the counter to the right of the sink and set three peppers—green, orange and red—on top of it. “The sooner you get chopping, the sooner we all get to eat.”

  “Ask and you shall receive a task,” Coop said, amused.

  “And you,” Zoe continued, “can start the brown rice on the stove. It’ll need forty-five minutes to cook, at least.”

  “We have instant rice,” Cooper said. “Five minutes, no sweat.”

  Zoe shuddered and started to glare at him, then figured out he was intentionally egging her on. “Feel free to make that fake food for yourself but put some real stuff on for Penn and me.”

  “The woman doesn’t joke about food,” Penn said, trying to smile.

  “But she loves it when I do.” Cooper rummaged through the now-full cabinet and took out a bag of rice. He tried to covertly read the directions on the back.

  Penn took a drink of his beer to keep from laughing aloud. He was no kitchen wizard himself, but he could cook rice. His roommate, on the other hand, had never learned to make anything and seemed perfectly content to grab a bag of chips and a hunk of summer sausage to fill his gut.

  Penn sliced into the orange pepper as Cooper found a pot and added rice and water, muttering to himself about pushy women and the glory of takeout.

  “Would you like me to run out and get a bottle of wine?” Coop asked.

  “Oh, good idea,” Zoe said enthusiastically. “A nice, mellow cabernet-Shiraz blend would be perfect.”

  Coop glanced at Penn as if to ask if she was for real, and then laughed. “Beer guy here. I wouldn’t know a mellow cabernet from an irritable one.”

  “Cabernet-Shiraz,” Zoe said, clearly in her kitchen-autopilot mode. Then she looked up at Cooper. “I’ll write down a couple possibilities, and if the liquor store doesn’t have those you can ask them for something similar.”

  Coop raised his brows at her, unable to prevent a grin.

  Zoe scribbled some names on a paper towel and handed it to him. “Thank you, Coop. You’re a thoughtful guy.”

  He nodded as if satisfied and grabbed his keys from the counter where he’d thrown them. “Remember that,” he said as he left.

  “He just wanted to get out of food prep, you know,” Penn said.

  “Oh, I know. Poor guy is really anti-kitchen, isn’t he?”

  “Not everyone’s like you, Zo. What’s going on between you two?”

  “Going on?”

  “I may have my head up my ass these days, but even I couldn’t miss that.”

  She set the bowl of peeled shrimp next to the stove and eyed him. “I don’t know what it is. Well, it’s technically nothing. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. Returned to busying herself with ingredients. “It’s just as well. I need to catch up on my research. I haven’t gotten as much done here as I’d planned.”

  “Spending your time carting me around to appointments didn’t help.”

  “What?” Zoe stopped in the middle of rummaging through one of the drawers. “Penn, that’s what I’m here for.”

  “You’re here because Mom forced you.”

  “No. I could have refused. All I had to do was tell her I was behind on my research and she wouldn’t have pushed it.”

  Penn nodded. “Nothing’s changed, huh? School and achieve
ments are still her top priority.”

  “I don’t know that she’d agree with you on that,” Zoe said. “But she does have a boatload of money invested in my education. And we weren’t sure how serious things were down here.”

  “I’m sorry, Zo. Last thing I want to do is screw up your studies. You should have left two days ago.”

  “I’m crushed you don’t like my company.” Zoe poured cooking oil into a skillet, then gave Penn her full attention again. “I’m glad I was here. You’re trying to be all manly and act like you can handle everything on your own but you don’t have to be that way with me.”

  “I’m not being any way. I take care of myself.” Or he always had in the past. Zoe had been an angel but he couldn’t get used to it.

  “No one with a serious back injury takes care of himself. I’m worried about you.”

  “Nothing to worry about. I’ll be fine. Coop’s around if I absolutely need something. I’ll be driving in no time. I’ve got nothing to do but take care of myself.”

  “And that’s exactly what concerns me. What are you going to do, Penn?”

  Before he could answer, she noticed he’d finished chopping the peppers. She slid a fat onion in front of him and he began slicing, grateful for something else to focus on.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “Well?”

  “I know you’re reeling, Penn. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “I’ll…adjust. Eventually.” Maybe by the year 2030. “I don’t know what I’ll do yet but I’ll find something. Nothing to lose sleep over,” he lied. He hadn’t given his professional future any serious thought. Refused to.

  “I know you will but in the meantime…” She stared at him from the side and he gave all his attention to the onion. “Smaller pieces,” she suggested. “You’re down, Penn. You have to watch that.”

  “Of course I’m down! I just lost my entire career.” Cutting off anything else that might slip out, he rested the knife on the counter between slices. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m frustrated. I’ll get over it.”