Page 13 of Home Again

“Nah, gotta get the shutters locked down. I’ll see you soon enough, but don’t let her cut her visit short, I’m going to be here for two weeks.”

“I won’t. She loves spoiling our grandbabies. Bye, Son.”

“Goodbye, Neil.”

Sebastian ended the call, then went looking for Gianna. He found her at the back of the house, in the sunroom, she was in one of the rocking chairs, studying one of the old coffee table books that Lazar had lying around the house.

“Brought back your phone,” Sebastian said as he handed it to her.

She smiled as she took it.

“You didn’t have to leave,” he said.

“Oh, okay.”

Sebastian got the feeling that she would leave in the future too. Somebody had taught her courtesy. She hadn’t talked about her mother; he wondered what she was like.

“Did you find out the combination?”

Sebastian grimaced. “Don’t need it. Armand has the drill somewhere in the house. Neil gave it to him. Gotta go wake him up again,” Sebastian said with disgust.

“Again?”

“I already woke him up once to ask him the combination. Dumbass should have known I needed the drill.”

Gianna’s lips twitched.

This was definitely a mystery; why in the hell was she cozying up to a man who was a drunk and a fool? Well, he didn’t have time to figure this shit out now, he needed to get the shutters closed. He’d have plenty of time to work on that tomorrow. In the meantime, he’d focus on trying to get his uncle to remember what in the hell a drill was, let alone where it was.

* * *

“Are you safe?” Jada asked.

“I’m fine,” Gianna assured her friend over their video call on her computer. She pulled up the extra blankets so that her legs were covered, and was happy that she was wearing her hoodie. It was warm and humid, but there was something about the sound of wind and rain that made her feel cold.

“Seriously, babe, I’m hearing this could turn into a Category Five hurricane, and you’re in the middle of bumfuck Louisiana with the drunk, handsy-assed clown. Are. You. Safe?”

Gianna snickered as she turned down the volume on her computer. She would’ve worn her headphones, but then she’d have no idea how loud she was, and Jada had a tendency to make her laugh really loud.

“Turn up your volume, because I’m going to whisper,” she told her best friend.

“What, are you telling me that the boozed-up Cajun isn’t passed out tonight and might actually hear us? Or does the Crypt Creeper have his hearing aids in?”

Gianna giggled even louder. “You gotta stop making me laugh, Sebastian will hear me.” Then her head whipped up as she heard another piercing howl of wind coming from behind the shuttered windows. “Scratch that, nobody’s going to hear anything above the wind.”

“That goes back to my original question. Are you safe?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sebastian made me come stay at the big house when he realized that the carriage house didn’t have storm shutters.”

Jada’s brown eyes got wide. “Sebastian is there? As in Navy SEAL Sebastian Lazar Durand the Fourth?”

“That’d be the one,” Gianna confirmed.

“Holy shit. What is he doing there? According to everything I sourced he left at eighteen and has never shown back up.”

“You’re my information guru, go find out.”

Jada shook her head, her curls bouncing. “I will get you everything you need, you know that, after you answer my damned question. Are you safe?”