The Secret Storm

by Peggy Trotter

  He made his way back to the winch in the stern, letting Delbert take the lead near the drum. Even since his marriage to Stormi, he’d lost his pull master position. Hoge had put him there years ago because he’d been the strongest. Now, mouse-sized Delbert kept the ground cables winding in and out. Ah, well. Less problems with jellyfish smacking him in the face. They’d soon be changing over to lobstering when the weather warmed anyway.

  The deck pitched a bit now as they moved out to deeper waters just as Hoge stuck his head out of the wheelhouse. “Now.”

  Delbert jerked on the lever, and the one hundred foot gillnet spun from the drum. Heff stepped to the other side, watching for snags, while Neff stepped back near Ake and shoved his ham-sized hands under his armpits. His face glowed raw and red, contrasting against his ginger hair and beard. He caught Ake’s eye and gave a nod. The vessel slowed right on time.

  Now they would wait and yank the whole kit and caboodle back in. The calm before the storm. He hoped they caught the right kind of fish to even out Hoge’s quota. A helicopter passed over their heads.

  “Troopers on the prowl today, eh?” Heff hocked a huge loogie from his throat and spit it over the edge of the boat. “Hoge’ll be snapping off our heads soon if they don’t let up.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Heff jerked his head and raised his brow at him. “But then, he’s been gnawing on you for weeks, hasn’t he, Ake?”

  Ake sent his glance to the blurry wake behind the boat. He couldn’t recall any of the crew on the Sea Wheat 1 ever calling him by his given. “Reckon.”

  The huge redheaded man growled a laugh. “Guess you got the last laugh with that handsome lass you netted, huh? Sure showed us, didn’t you?”

  “It ain’t—”

  Hoge yelled, “Wind her in.”

  The winch groaned and the men yelled directions to one another as the fish flopped to the deck. Instead of telling Heff that God had given him Stormi, he began to pray the net contained no cod. He briefly shot a glance to the sky as he chucked an eighteen inch bluefish into a basket and tossed a black sea bass to another. He instantly tossed several small haddocks over the edge, hoping he might reunite with the creatures in April when the regulations relaxed.

  He shot a glance behind him. Hoge stood just beyond the puddle of twitching fish, gloved fists buried in his sides. His brother may think he didn’t know squat about all the new governmental rules regarding their fishing business. But that’s where Hoge was wrong. And that wasn’t the only thing he was wrong about.

  Soon Delbert yelled and Ake caught sight of the fuzzy ends of the cod end, marking the end of the net. Here a huge quantity of catch bulged the mesh into a bell of squiggling fish. Neff made quick work of opening the bottom, flooding Ake knee deep of fish. Getting Hoge to express his feelings and understand his marriage fled from his mind as he flung the fish to the proper containers.

  ***

  “Oh, Alan. I can’t believe it’s you.” Stormi squealed and launched herself at her old schoolmate and now, mentor.

  Tears fought their way through her lids and spilled down her cheeks. She squeezed tighter and tighter. Alan was why she had a fresh life. A saved life. He’d helped yank her from destination Hell.

  There was no way to thank a person for such a thing. Instead she hugged his insulated form as if squeezing the threads from his coat. After a long, long, hug, she let go, laughing and wiping tears from her eyes. Thankfully the back parking lot of the chain café appeared mostly vacant. She tugged her eyes from the surroundings and focused on him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have hugged you like that. I mean you are a married man. And hey, I’m a married woman.” A hiccup giggle cascaded out. “But I just can’t ever express to you…my gratefulness for, you know…”

  Her throat throbbed from trying to push out her emotions. and tears continued to tighten her esophagus until she had to stop. And pathetically she continued to flap her arms as if that kicked in to translate when her voice couldn’t.

  He laughed. “Hey, it wasn’t me. It was the Holy Spirit that made you aware of your need for Christ’s forgiveness. I can’t take credit for any of that. I’m just a messenger.”

  She clasped her hands at her lips, trying to stem the insanely stubborn tears. “True. But if you hadn’t taken the time to reconnect with me online, I’d probably be dead, right now, lying in a grave and spending eternity in torture.”

  Alan gave another half laugh and bumped his glasses up on his nose. Such a humble guy, nerdy, even. At least that’s what she’d pegged him as in school. Gracious, how many teenagers seriously read their Bible in study hall? And when the devil costume appeared, decorating his locker in derision by the jocks, he simply removed it and went on his way, quietly leading by his example. She’d lost a good horned mask in that prank.

  He shrugged. “I was just glad I had a revival close by.”

  “Two hours is not close by, Alan.”

  “Still. Close enough.” His eyes dropped to her belly. “Are you feeling okay?”

  She took a deep breath. How to not dump all her anxiety about the baby, Hoge, and everything?

  “I’ll take that as a no?”

  “Actually, I have felt just strange. My stomach feels…hard sometimes.” She paused to gaze at him at the precipice of full blurt.

  “You’ve been to the doctor?”

  “Of course. I may be a hot mess, but I’m not stupid.” She sniffed as she jammed her hands into her white parka. “I haven’t heard the heartbeat yet, but the doctor says it’s not quite time yet.”

  “Well, it could just be anxiety.”

  He didn’t know the half of it.

  “You want to grab a sandwich really quick?” He pressed a hand to her back, and she stepped towards the restaurant. Mid-afternoon lulled the place to just a few customers.

  With a deep sigh she let him escort her to the door, while she found a tissue in her pocket to blot away the stray mascara on her face.

  They found a table near the large wall of windows. She still couldn’t suppress the smile. “I owe you like fourteen hundred apologies, you know that, right?”

  He grinned as he took the menu from the table. “Shoot, that’s just from freshman year.”

  A laugh burst out, but she shook her head, feeling emotion rise again—not from gratefulness this time. From regret.

  Biting her lips she raised her head. “I’m serious, Alan.”

  He peeked over the menu. “I know. Forgiven.”

  She yanked the cardboard partition down. “How do you do that?”

  “What? You’re tearing up the menu.” He raised his eyes, humor resting there. “They’ll throw you out.”

  She reared back and gave a snort. “I’ll drag you along with me as an accomplice.”

  “Hostage, you mean.”

  They shared a laugh till moisture seeped from their eyes. The waitress arrived and they put in an order. But when she left with her tri-folded menus, Stormi doggedly went back to her question.

  “But how do you forgive so easily? I’m being honest here now. Sometimes when Hoge starts and says the most insanely unpleasant dig or just looks at me with those bushy, bossy exploding brows throbbing, I want to thunk him in the chest. And that man is just huge. He’d kill me in a millisecond. Dumb big oaf.”

  “I never said it was easy.”

  Stormi’s mouth fell open. “But you just said…”

  A sad grin lifted his cheek. “You think I didn’t know whose Devil’s mask was plastered to my locker our senior year? Sure I did. It hurt. You get over it and move on.”

  She sucked in a mouthful of air. “You knew?”

  He nodded.

  A couple walked by their table with a pair of chattering kids, drawing her attention for a moment. “Your mother must have hated me.”

  “My mother was a praying warrior. I think you topped her list for several years. She still asks about you.”

  “O
h, Alan. You’re killing me right now.” King Kong must be throttling her neck. She could barely breathe.

  He reached over, the sunlight catching his plain brown hair, his brown eyes softer than a tulip petal. “It’s what we do, Stormi. We pray for lost sinners. We persevere when life tugs us down. ‘We are pressured in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; hunted down and persecuted, but not deserted, struck down, but never destroyed.’”

  Stormi pressed a fist to her mouth and contemplated the solemn face before her. He was right. First it had been Mother. Then her life choices. Now Hoge. She’d been pressed, struck down, emotionally, psychologically, even physically, but she was still not destroyed.

  ***

  Ake clenched his hands on the grips of the steering wheel in the mostly empty lot. He’d followed his wife, hoping to catch a late lunch with her. It was a rare day indeed when Hoge hauled the big net in and gave them all a few hours off. But today, the catch had been monumental. Maxed their quota out. He’d contemplated sitting with Hoge and airing their differences. But he chose instead to chase down Stormi. Big mistake.

  He tried to focus on his brother’s smug face from earlier. It was much easier than thinking about his wife with her arms draped around another man, hugging him for all her worth, wiping her eyes in obvious pleasure at seeing him. His steamrolled heart stuttered to force life-sustaining blood through his constricted veins.

  Hadn’t he wondered secretly in his heart? That little whisper that told him she couldn’t be trusted with a background like hers? But he’d never fed that ugly flicker, never let it flare up. Now it roared and consumed him as he leaned back and shoved the truck into the gear.

  He quickly got out of traffic and headed towards his hometown, no destination in mind. Without much thought, he’d pulled into the meandering cemetery where he’d buried his mother. The single-lane curving road doubled up on itself and wound to the back section where the twin-hearted gravestone, fresh and shiny, shone in the late afternoon sun.

  He stopped mid-lane and exited. His boots sank into the wet spring soil. The pile of soft new sod mounded upon his mother’s fresh grave forced him to drive his fists into his pockets. He came abreast and stood at the foot of the rectangular patch of tumbled clods. Maude Anne Pearson. Gone but not forgotten.

  “Mom, you kept a lot of secrets.” He harrumphed and his body seemed to deflate. “Stormi’s got them too, apparently. And Hoge.”

  He kicked a clod of dirt and fought the unrest that threatened to steal the air from his lungs. “Pop’s not doing good, Mom.”

  Much better subject. Handy he’d learned to push away that heavy feeling of pain. Store it. Duct tape it up and shove it away. Right helpful.

  He crossed his arms and glared at the mound of dirt. “We have to put him in a home, Mom. I know you disapprove, but…”

  A catch caught in his throat. “I know what you’re thinking. I won’t divorce her, don’t you worry. She’s having my baby.”

  He nodded as if she’d answered. “Yeah, I know she doesn’t love me. It’s okay. I think only really the Lord does. Maybe you and Pop, too. At least back when he could remember. But then, forgetting isn’t all bad.”

  Coe Cain

  The vision of Stormi with that man in the parking lot pulsated through his brain.

  “Yep. Maybe Pop is better off the way he is.” He spun and strode back to the truck.

  ***

  “What are you doing?”

  Hoge’s voice came right unwelcome as the back of Ake’s hand plowed against the truck’s engine. He grunted. Maybe if he ignored him, he’d go away.

  “Dummy. It’s too durn cold to be out here under that piece of junk you call a truck. Why aren’t you in the garage?”

  Ake slid out from underneath and stalked to Hoge and shoved him hard. “Go home.”

  Hoge stepped back in surprise. “Boy, you in the mood to sign your death sentence?”

  He threw the wrench down, and it clanged against the asphalt. Then Ake stormed to the house and slammed the door. A drink of water and a deep breath might calm his choppy insides.

  Unfortunately, Hoge opened the door and came through. The lock. What a time to forget that. Hoge stood staring at him, a puzzled look on his face.

  “Ake. What’s going on?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. You practically let Pop burn the house down.”

  “Now you listen—”

  Ake had had enough. He threw the glass against the far wall, and it shattered against the drywall, sending shards tumbling onto the T.V., water flying. “Get out of my house.”

  Hoge held up his hands and backed away, a strange expression flittering on his face. Without a word he turned and exited through the door, shutting it quietly.

  Waves of anger came to rest one by one on the shore of sanity. He hung his head. He hadn’t had an angry outburst in years. It disgusted him. His mother would be terribly disappointed. She’d worked hard to calm him.

  He grabbed a towel and wiped the water from the wall and hunted for the shards. He had to get a handle. Stormi would be home soon. He couldn’t let her know he’d seen her in the parking lot with another man. He couldn’t. The truth straight from her lips might kill him.

  Once he’d pitched the glass pieces into the trash, he jumped in the shower. Somehow he had to erase that image from his mind. And carry on.

  ***

  Stormi waved goodbye to Alan. Unbelievable. She’d been able to thank her mentor in person. There wouldn’t be much she’d trade for that. She couldn’t stop grinning as she drove across the city. Things were just beginning to smooth out. Make sense. She could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

  Despite Alan’s advice, her marriage was working out. This pregnancy would just glue it all together. It would only be a matter of time before Hoge came around. Yeah. Sure it would sting when the whole adoption/pregnancy mess came out, but she was just certain everything would settle into blessedness. She sniffed. Oh, good grief. The hormones were sure making her weepy.

  She detoured to her favorite specialty grocery store. Ake deserved a special meal. And he’d be out for hours yet, so she had plenty of time. Maybe she could even stop off at the baby store. A shiver of anticipation rippled up her frame. Yes. Life suddenly made sense.

  Her impromptu stops turned into a longer visit than she’d thought, but then, Ake hardly got in before six. She still had plenty of time. Her headlights pointed the way up the hill beside Pop’s house, and she gratefully drove up to the garage and pressed the opener. Just as she thought. He wasn’t even home yet.

  But to her surprise his truck was in the garage, and he was stooped beside the rear left tire. The truck was jacked up at a precarious level. What was he doing? He shot a glare at her headlights. She turned the engine off which powered down the bright lights.

  “You startled me. I didn’t expect you to be in the garage. What are you doing?”

  For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then a mutter. “Brakes.”

  “Oh. Shoot. I just shopped and shopped thinking you’d still be out.”

  He lifted the unwieldy tire and settled it on the lugs. The ratchet clicked a fast pace as he cranked on the bolts. But he said nothing. Probably a little peeved she’d gotten home late.

  “I’ll hurry in and get dinner started.”

  She returned to the car and dangled all the bags on her arms. But he was there by her side, taking them from her with a grim face.

  “I’m sorry, Ake. I really am. I can get these.”

  But he was halfway to the house, so she followed him. What a dork she’d been. Why hadn’t she called? Because that stupid boat rarely got a phone signal, that’s why. He laid the parcels on the counter and returned to the door.

  “That’s all…” she completed the sentence to an empty room, “there is.”

  Cold air rushed to her ankles. She pondered his quick exit, but when he didn’t return, she assumed he’d gone back to finish the brakes. No
matter. Dinner awaited. Jamaica Jerk chicken with sautéed onions and a rainbow of peppers. She couldn’t wait to get started.

  She puttered about the kitchen, checking the recipe on her phone as she stirred, fried, and cooked. Meal preparation was something Stormi rather enjoyed. That was unexpected. Definitely a step up from Mother’s fried bologna sandwiches. On Thanksgiving. Ugh. Not a thought she wanted to entertain now. She hummed as she filled the bowls and set the table.

  When all was ready, she called Ake, and he came in to wash. She soaked the pans and threw the rest of the dirty dishes into the dishwasher as she waited for his return.

  They sat and he blessed the food. She sliced the chicken open. Perfecto. That’s right. The next big reality TV chef. Oh, yeah. She stifled a giggle. More hormones, no doubt. She cut a glance at her somber husband. He, on the other hand, seemed to have grazed on downers.

  “What time did you get home?”

  He shrugged.

  She lowered her fork. “Was it late or early?”

  “Early.”

  He peered at the chicken as if he expected a hundred dollar bill to come racing out. It was awesome chicken, but seriously.

  “Ake?”

  After a long pause, he looked up.

  “What time?”

  With a wave of his fork he mumbled, “Elevenish.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You’ve been home since eleven? Why didn’t you call me?”

  He stilled. “I wish I had.”

  “Well, me too. I—” Her phone buzzed on the counter. She scowled at it. “I’ve had two calls from Marla today. There’s no way I’m answering.”

  Again with the shrug. He stood with his plate wiped clean and strode to the sink. Then he made a beeline for the garage door.

  “Where are you going? You can’t be done already?”

  “Yep.”

  The door shut off her next question.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Well, that was a disappointment. So much for this special meal. Meant nothing. She stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry as she rose to clear the table. Hoge must be riding Ake hard. Then her motions came to a stop. Why had he come in early? Perhaps he’d ironed out everything with Hoge. Judging by his demeanor, maybe not.