In Your Embrace Page 2

  “You’ll get used to it,” Claire says as they follow Andrew toward the parking lot. Hannah’s hair whips around her face, torn this way and that by the gusting winds. Along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the breeze never seem to die off.

  They weave through the line of cars inching slowly toward the entrance of the airport. The sound of incessant honking is easily heard over the winds. “What’s going on?”

  Andrew looks back over his shoulder. “Rumor has it there’s a storm brewing off the coast. Supposed to be a big one. People started flocking out of here a couple days ago.”

  Hannah purses her lips at the influx of people she’d seen waiting in line at the ticket counters. “Do you think it will hit?”

  “Nah.” Andrew shakes his head. “They usually go around or hit further south of here. We’ll probably get blown around a bit but I doubt there’s much to worry about.”

  Lifting his free arm overhead, Andrew pushes the security button on his key fob. Claire chuckles beside Hannah and she glances over. “Am I missing something?”

  Her aunt’s grin makes small lines appear about eyes. Hannah has always thought Claire is beautiful. Her own wavy chestnut hair comes from this side of the family, as does her nose, wide, expressive hazel eyes, and quick smile, though her mother tends to lack the same carefree laugh.

  “He’s forgotten where we parked again.” Claire squeezes Hannah’s arm. “Third time this week. I think he’s coming down with a case of old-timers disease.”

  “I’m not deaf you know,” Andrew barks then cries out in triumph as he hears a familiar honk four aisles over. “See. Knew where it was all along.”

  Hannah and Claire share a knowing glance and follow silently behind. By the time they weave their way to the rear end of the Matthew’s rather rusted pick up, which looks like it is long overdue to be put out to pasture, Hannah is more than ready to get going.

  The Outer Banks boasts history, mystery, and waves. She can't wait to begin exploring. A full month should give her plenty of time to help out and do just that. Unburdened of her luggage, Hannah sinks into the back seat and closes her eyes. I’m finally here!

  TWO

  Boarding Up

  It’s been a long week for Timothy Lewis. It feels like he’s been going nonstop since word of this “storm of the century” first hit the news. Since then, he’s been helping with hurricane prep work for clients who were loading up cars and getting out of dodge. His hours have extended well past normal work hours. Sunday is usually his day off, but today the demand was just too high to ignore.

  He groans as he hefts a sheet of plywood over his shoulder, balancing it upon his head. Sweat drips down his neck from the dark strands that brush against the collar of his shirt, threatening to curl under.

  Guess I need to go see Joe for a trim after all this storm mess clears up. He turns, tilting his shoulder to avoid connecting with the corner of the house. Joe McIntosh has been cutting the Lewis family hair for as long as he can remember. He has fond memories of the older gentleman sneaking him a sweet while his mom settled up the bill, promising another when he returned a month later. Sometimes he still does. Just yesterday, Timothy helped Joe board up his shop before he left town.

  With a grunt, Timothy tosses the plywood onto a pile. It lands with a satisfying crash. He leans against a saw horse and wipes his brow with the back of his arm. Sweat stings his eyes.

  “Looks like you could use a break,” a voice calls from the street.

  Timothy turns and waves, blocking the sun with his hand to see Andrew Matthews hanging out the driver’s side of an old beat up truck. The back is riding low, weighted down with supplies. “Seems to me we all could,” he motions to the truck bed.

  Andrew nods and casts a glance toward the sky. The sun is shining and the clouds are sparse but Timothy can feel the change on the air. The hurricane is coming, that’s for sure. “Looks like the predictions about this storm are coming true after all,” he says.

  “Yep, I reckon they are,” Timothy agrees.

  “You need any help boarding things up?”

  Timothy grabs a bottle of water and breaks the seal before downing several large gulps. The water is warm. It’s been sitting in the sun too long but it is refreshing none the less. “Nah. I can manage well enough.”

  The older man turns away and Timothy steps forward to see Claire sitting in the passenger seat. “Nice to see you, Ma'am.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Tim. Haven’t I told you a hundred times to call me Claire?”

  “Yes, Ma'am.” He smiles and dips his head. “Might have to say it once more though.”

  “Let the man be, Claire,” Andrew chides, his hand slipping from the steering wheel. Timothy can only imagine he has twined his fingers with his wife’s. They do that a lot. Sometimes Timothy will see them out for a stroll on the beach, walking hand in hand. Sometimes with her head rested on his shoulder. It’s times like those that make Timothy hurt the most.

  Clearing his throat to push away that thought, he raises his bottle in the air. “Best get back to work. Don’t want to get caught with my pants around my ankles.”

  “Wouldn’t want that.” Andrew waves and begins to slowly roll his truck forward. “You take care of yourself, Tim. Call if you need anything.”

  He nods and turns his back on the couple, grinning at the sputtering growl of their engine as they pull away. Andrew and Claire Matthews may not be from Rodanthe, but he would be hard pressed to find anyone in town that didn’t like them.

  Rumor has it their niece is staying with them for a while. Timothy has yet to see her out and about, but that’s not really all that surprising, what with the storm preparations and all. He’s been up to the Serendipity Inn a time or two, and he knows how much work that place needs. He offered to help out, but so far, Claire and Andrew have made it clear that the bed and breakfast is a labor of love...even if it is heavy on the labor side.

  Pursing his lips, Timothy begins to whistle as he grabs his tape measure and sets to work cutting boards to fit the windows of his one and a half story bungalow home. It’s nothing fancy. Just a small two-bedroom set up and an attic renovation that stopped several months back. There had been plans to expand the house, make it perfect for a family, but that dream is lost to him now.

  Timothy falls silent and for nearly two hours the only sounds that reach his ears are the buzz of his table saw and the pounding of his hammer. It feels good to work. To do something physical. He has always excelled at working with his hands. His father wasn’t the least bit surprised when Timothy announced he was opening his own construction business. It only seemed natural. Too bad the recession struck during his first year in business and nearly took Timothy under.

  Grabbing a cloth from his back pocket, he wipes his forehead again. Sweat beads on the tips of his hair before his eyes. It is an unusually hot day for mid-September. Clusters of bugs hover over the yard. He swats at the occasional mosquito that takes him unaware.

  Grabbing his ladder, Timothy ignores the aches in his shoulders and the growling of his stomach as he begins the arduous task of hefting his boards onto the roof to finish off the second floor windows. The metal ladder rattles and shakes beneath him with each trip. It’s a good thing heights have never bothered him.

  Pain ricochets up through his arm with each stroke of his hammer, though with each nail he knows that he is nearly finished. His bungalow, situated in the heart of an older, yet tastefully kept neighborhood in Rodanthe, is not near the water. He cannot see the waves crashing or hear the gulls that swoop low, but he knows the storm surge could easily reach him. Nothing he can do will prepare for that.

  “There.” Timothy pounds the final nail into the frame of the attic window. “All done.”

  He leans back on the ladder to survey the sky. His smile of relief turns sour at the sight of dark, menacing clouds on the horizon. “Looks like I’m in for a long night,” he mutters to himself and drops his hammer onto the ground, followed by
a nearly empty pail of nails. With two feet firmly back on the ground, Timothy begins packing in his ladder.

  He has barely laid the newly condensed ladder on the ground before he hears the screen porch door of his neighbor’s house screech open and shut. Mrs. Iris Stevens is a bit of a busy body, a fact that she is more than happy to admit to anyone who graces the front steps of her porch. Why, those two Mormon boys who dropped by there the other day had her giddy with excitement for such a captive audience. Timothy isn’t so sure they shared her enthusiasm by the time they left.

  “Gonna be a bad one, Timmy Boy.”

  “Yeah, I reckon you might be right,” he calls back as he stacks his sawhorses on top of each other. Sawdust coats his yard. He can see his boot prints mingled with trampled blades of grass. “You need any help before I turn in?”

  Iris smiles. Timothy is sure at one time she had a lovely, full set of teeth but that must have been several years ago.

  At nearly eighty years old, Iris is a bit on the eccentric side. The odor of cats escaping her front door is nearly as strong as their hungry mewling each evening. Apart from Iris’ love of gossip, she has a kind heart, at least when it comes to animals. There are no strays in the neighborhood that she won’t take in.

  Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun. Fine hairs fly away about her temples, creating a white halo. There are deep creases in her forehead and about her eyes. Some people call them laugh lines. Timothy supposes at one time she had a good reason to laugh, but those times are few and far between now. Iris hardly ever has company. Her son took some big shot job with a pharmaceutical company up in Virginia Beach a couple years back. Timothy’s only seen him once since then and the man acted like he was doing his mom a favor by even being there.

  Iris had a daughter at one time. She has never really spoken much about her. He remembers hearing rumors when he was a kid about Samantha Stevens’ suspicious drowning, but he is not one to pry. He likes his space, his privacy. More so over the past few months.

  Part of it stems from the fact that she tries to sympathize with him over losing his wife and he makes a point of avoiding anyone with those specific sympathies. They just make it harder for him.

  Iris lost her husband, Arthur, some ten years back to cancer. It wasn’t the fast moving kind. Nor was it a peaceful passing. Still, Iris stood by his side those long years, refusing to let him be placed in a home. Ever since Arthur passed she hasn’t really been the same.

  “I might have a thing or two that could use a strapping young man to tend to, if you’re willing.” She turns with a smile and shuffles her house slippers across the wooden planks of her porch and disappears into the house.

  Timothy sighs, shaking his head. “One of these days, would it kill you to not offer to help out?”

  He places a hand to his shoulder and rolls it gingerly. He has overdone it today. What with trying to get in a few last minute rush jobs for clients to help them board up their houses and putting his own place off till the last minute, Timothy is beat.

  After carrying the majority of his tools into the locked garage at the back of his house, Timothy grabs his tool belt, loops his hammer back on and prepares himself. Iris has a warm heart and nearly a century of stories to share. Timothy only hopes today she is not in one of her more talkative moods.

  As he steps onto the warped step leading up to Iris’ green and white bungalow, he can’t help but notice its obvious state of disrepair. Although similar in design to his own, this home has obviously not had any attention lately.

  “Some neighbor I am,” he mutters to himself as he grabs the screen door and steps inside. The door shuts behind him and he forces himself not to pause to try to fix the uneven hinge. It has never shut correctly, and the perfectionist in him is twitching.

  The dingy white shutters bordering her windows are missing slats, letting in abstract lines of light through the front window. It highlights the numerous stains on the once beige carpet, and he treads carefully, sure that the cats had something to do with it.

  “What can I help you with, Mrs. Stevens?” He uses his foot to shove two tabby cats out of his path.

  He finds her sitting on a metal chair before a small, four-person dinette set that sits off to the corner of her kitchen. The vinyl seat cushions are worn and stuffing has begun to poke out. The silver table legs look dented and tarnished, like so much in the house.

  As he looks about the kitchen, he realizes that it is sparsely decorated compared to the other rooms he passed through. The living room is packed from wall to wall with cabinets of trinkets, many of them porcelain cats, and seats. The dining room table is buried under a mass of fabrics, all of which boast a thick coating of dust, and the hutch is overflowing with papers and odds and ends. From where he stands, he can see a path of picture frames lining the hall. Each one proudly displayed for visitors to be introduced to her family.

  The kitchen, on the other hand, is clean. No dishes in the sink. No clutter on the counters. My mother was like that. She always said cleanliness is next to godliness. Guess Iris only had enough godliness to cover one room of the house. Timothy chuckles silently to himself.

  Dim light filters in through the unwashed window over the sink. He can see straight into her backyard. It is more a field now than a real yard. Weeds conquered it long ago. Some reaching nearly waist height, by his best guess.

  He turns to find Iris staring into the dregs of her tea cup, as if the remains could tell her exactly why she invited him into her home. Some days Timothy worries about the old gal. She seems too forgetful. Too absent minded.

  “Your windows aren’t boarded up,” he chides as he moves to look out onto her back porch. A stack of old lumber sits where he chucked it after the last storm passed by a couple months earlier. He’d helped her board up then, but it was a false alarm. Hurricane Judith turned and went right out to sea.

  “Hmm?” Iris raises her head and Timothy has to force himself not to sigh. It’s going to be one of those days apparently.

  He kneels down in front of the old woman and places a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to take care of your windows, Mrs. Stevens. Why don’t you make us some of your famous lemonade?”

  Everyone in Rodanthe knows that Iris Stevens makes the best fresh squeezed lemonade in the South. Course that might have something to do with the 5lb bag of sugar she dumps into it, but no one says anything. His neighbor brightens at the idea and rises to her feet. Her robe drapes around her thin frame and Timothy is reminded of just how much weight she has lost this past year. He makes a mental note to be sure to check in on her more often.

  It’s not that he hasn’t had good intentions about helping out. He has. It’s just that life, and his business, tends to get in the way. To be fair, Timothy doesn’t complain. He likes working. Likes getting his hands dirty. Likes keeping his mind busy and his body sore so that when he limps home each night the only things on his mind are food and sleep.

  His smile deepens as he hears her begin to hum an old hymn as she sets to work. Timothy slips out the back door to survey what’s left of her pile. A couple of the neighborhood kids hopped the fence not too long ago to confiscate some boards to finish up their tree house. Although Timothy is sure that Iris didn’t mind, it does put him in a bind for properly protecting her windows.

  Less than twenty minutes later, Iris shuffles out with a pitcher of lemonade that quenches his thirst and eases the heat. He can hear her old A/C unit out back struggling to keep up with the increasing heat. Even with night falling, the humidity has yet to break.

  Iris watches and sips her drink as he quickly moves about her house, making do with what he has. He scolds himself for not thinking ahead of buying extra supplies to help her out. His own supply at the shop ran out early this morning, and with the flood of people racing to Ace hardware, he knows there’s no sense trying to make a run tonight. No one will be out and about. Everyone is preparing to hunker down and ride out the storm.

  Using the last board a
vailable to him, Timothy steps back to admire his work. It’s not the best job he has ever done but it will do. He glances toward the stairs leading to the upper floor but Iris waves him off. “Nothing up there except chests of old clothes the moths starting munching on years ago.”

  Timothy laughs. “Fair enough.”

  He gathers his tools and as Iris begins humming Amazing Grace, Timothy is reminded of the sermon his pastor shared recently. Pastor Justin is new to Rodanthe. Like most who move to a new town, he seemed to struggle for the first few months to fit in, but Justin’s easy smile and willingness to roll up his sleeves and lend a hand has helped him to break through many barriers that would have taken other men twenty years to break.

  Timothy has worked side by side with the man on several occasions. Justin never complains. He never slides on his duties. In fact, he is usually one of the last people to leave.

  Justin is a humble man. From what Timothy can tell, he has devoted his life to serving his new church family and the community. Every sermon is not only well planned but heartfelt, spoken with love and conviction. If a person walks out of church feeling nothing at all, then they simply weren’t listening closely enough.

  Maybe that’s why Timothy hasn’t been back in a couple of weeks. Justin’s last sermon on giving forgiveness even when it isn’t due struck a chord with him, and it still resonates today. Talk of calming the inner storm within, of resting in God’s embrace, set him to squirming like a toddler ready to bust free of the pew. Messages like this are too close to home for Timothy. All they do is remind him of how much he has changed since Abby passed.

  Pausing to wipe his eyes so his tears will pass as sweat, Timothy snatches up his hammer. The feel of it in his hand is reassuring, helping to ground him to reality once more. “You sure you’ll be alright here all by yourself?” He pauses at the front door.

  Iris looks so frail as she sits hunched over in her rocking chair before the TV, her lap filled with cats. The blank screen shows her reflection in the dying light. “Don’t you worry about me, Timmy Boy. I’ll be right as rain.”