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All the weather apps had predicted the storm would be gone before dinnertime of the first day, but despite all the weather science that promised otherwise, the rain persists.
“Aspen said I’m not a weather witch.” I toss the sheet to the side, unsure if it can be washed or if we should throw it away. “This has nothing to do with me.”
“It just…”
When he trails off, I plant my hands on my hips and glare up at him. “What?”
He staples the string he holds to the ceiling, the spinning lights casting weird shadows over the large space. “It just feels like the storm is punishing Hartford Cove, don’t you think?”
I scowl at the dismantled dining table and stack of chairs I had uncovered before reaching for one of the large boxes. “Storms don’t have emotions, Owen.”
He climbs off the ladder to move it a few feet forward. “The streets in the residential area are flooding.”
I pause in the process of opening a large box. “How bad is it? The water’s not above the porches, is it?”
Owen climbs back up the ladder. “No, though some of the houses with basements are having problems.”
Worried now, I peel back the flaps to find a box full of quilts. “Are there sandbags to put in front of the ground-floor windows?”
“No, we had to ask Albert from the hardware store to go to one of the bigger towns to buy some.” Owen puts a staple into the string. “We never get rain like this here, so we weren’t prepared for flooding.”
“Sounds short-sighted to me,” I mumble as I pull the quilt out and set it aside to see what hides beneath. “Good thing we live on a hill away from everyone else.”
“Yeah, good thing.” He moves the ladder a few more feet. “The people stuck inside their houses must have it hard, though. Hopefully, the rain stops before they run out of food.”
My stomach tightens at the words. I may be angry at how they’re treating Owen, but no one deserves to starve to death. “If it comes to that, they can just turn into wolves and swim out of their houses.”
“What about the vampires and witches?” he asks softly. “It’s not just wolf shifters living here anymore. And Deputy Arden has been sleeping at the sheriff’s office.”
“That sucks, but there’s a couch.” I focus on the hand-embroidered pillows I pull out of the box. “Have you heard how the brigade are doing?”
“Abony has been staying with Barron and Jesse.” The sound of the staple gun punctures the pounding of rain on the roof. “Their house is closer to town, so it’s not in danger.”
Relieved that my friends are safe, my shoulders relax.
Beneath the pillows, I find a large photo album, and I set it on the edge of the box to open the front cover. A petite, red-haired woman smiles out at me, her blue eyes crinkled at the corners. The Wendall house rises behind her, the white paint brighter than it is now, with flowers hanging in baskets around the porch.
Unexpected grief cuts through my anger, and I trace the freckles on my mom’s nose. I was so young when she died that the only part of her that stuck in my memory was the horror and pain on her face as the werewolf took her life.
Dad hadn’t kept pictures of her in our house. I used to think it was because it hurt too much for him to see her, but now I wonder if it’s because he was worried about the huntsmen finding him. If they tracked him down, he didn’t want them to have anything connecting him to the Wendall line or Hartford Cove.
But now I can see that she had a beautiful smile.
“You look just like her,” Owen murmurs, his arms coming around me from behind.
“Yeah.” I touch her pointed chin. “It must have been hard for my dad to be reminded of her every time he looked at me.”
Owen hugs me tighter. “I think it made him happy that part of her still lived on.”
“I don’t know.” My finger moves up to the house behind my mom. “He hated this place. Hated that I was a witch. He tried to bury it under medication, letting me think I was crazy instead of bringing me to people who could help.”
“He was probably afraid that if he brought you to a coven, they would take you from him.” Owen rests his chin on my shoulder. “They wouldn’t have let a vampire raise a witch child. It would have also exposed you both to the paranormal council and alerted the huntsmen to his location.”
“So instead, he locked me away.” I turn the page to find another picture of my mom, this one of her standing on the sand dunes, her long hair swept back by the wind from the ocean. “Does falling in love with my mom and then hiding me for all those years make up for all the evil he did with Bryant? How many witches did he force into the Sunlight Project before love changed him?”
“You can’t let questions like that shadow your memory of your father.” Owen kisses my head. “People aren’t completely black or white. Those who do bad things can also do good.”
“Not you.” I turn my head to kiss the corner of his mouth. “You could never do bad things.”
