His answer came as a shout. “None. Not even any damage to the building. Only the scaffolding is destroyed. Stroke of luck, really.”
I tried to take a deep breath and relax because no one was injured as the ten-story scaffolding, which circled half of Jerome’s new building collapsed and managed not to touch a single person.
That meant Katy was safe. She’d spent more than one of her afternoons protesting Jerome’s building, a monstrosity she called it. How would anyone but the people of Pelican Bay consider a ten-story building a monstrosity? I warned Jerome of the possibility of problems the first time he proposed building something new in place of an old brick building that had sustained heavy damage during an explosion one Christmas season.
Jerome laughed. He hadn’t lived in Pelican Bay. His side of the family only used the town as a vacation spot and had no experience with the set-in-their-ways townspeople I dealt with daily. He also wasn’t around to deal with their constant complaints. Somehow over the years I became Pelican Bay’s complaint box. I blamed Katy. Eventually everything always came back to Katy.
I finished up another circle as I paced in front of my large window and then started again. Across the road and half a block away, Katy’s home sat quietly. Her car wasn’t in the short driveway and no one had gone in or out.
If there were no injuries at the accident site, where the hell was Katy?
“Did you check inside the building?” Maybe she was lying in a hallway bleeding internally. Katy was so freaking stubborn she’d lie there all night before she called out for help.
“I promise, Pierce. There are no injuries. The insurance rider is safe. Your investment is okay,” Jerome said around a laugh that I chose not to correct. Let him believe my concerns were over money.
A set of headlights bounced down Bayside Street growing closer to my home. They slowed in front of Katy’s house and jerked into her driveway.
“I have to go. Talk to you later,” I said before hanging up the phone. If there really were no injuries, he needed to handle whatever mess his crew created. Screw the money.
I hovered by the front door watching to see what Katy would do. She threw open her car door and slid both her legs out.
Good, no injuries. She didn’t hobble or sway or limp.
But she also didn’t do what I wanted. Which was turn around and come to my house. My hand hovered over the doorknob ready to walk across the street and yell at her, anyway. It didn’t matter that she was nowhere near Jerome’s scaffolding when it collapsed. The fact she hadn’t been home or where I could see her was terrifying enough. And when it came to Katy, who knew where she’d been.
When I thought of the worst-case scenario, Katy always outdid even my worst nightmares.
She stopped right in front of her side door and then her shoulders slumped and she shook her head before turning and glaring at my home. I allowed myself to smile as she walked across the street rather than going into her place, but by the time she reached my driveway I’d schooled my features into a more acceptable emotion.
Irritation.
I opened the door before she knocked, giving away the fact I’d been waiting for her. Her hand hung in the air and her eyes were wide. Both of us were speechless. I’d watched her from the window before, but now I took my first breath of relief seeing her in the flesh so close. She sported no dripping gashes from her face or tears in her clothing. A chalky smell coated the air, a reminder of how close this accident came to being a tragedy.
Katy moved first. She stepped into my home and propelled her hands around my middle. I used her movements as a cue and brought her closer, settling my chin on the top of her head and allowing myself to take in the smell of her Jasmine shampoo.
For a few seconds it didn’t matter that she was Katy Kadish and I was Pierce Kensington. The two archrivals of Pelican Bay. I held her in my arms and allowed myself to be happy.
“What happened?” Katy asked, and I thanked God she didn’t confess to being involved somehow.
“Jerome’s building had an accident.”
She shook her head twice in the crevice of my shoulder but didn’t launch into a Katy tirade where she called me the scourge of the earth and blamed all of Pelican Bay’s problems on me and my cousin’s giant building. She truly was shaken.
“We felt the ripple and then saw was a huge plume of dust. Downtown is blocked off. They evacuated everyone. There were sirens everywhere. I didn’t know what to do. Is everyone okay?”
I squeezed her tighter, unable to stop myself. “It was windy today and a rather powerful gust ripped the top layer of scaffolding off the new building and caused the rest of it to collapse. No one was hurt. There’s just a lot of cleanup.”
She nuzzled her face deeper into my shoulder and my heart sang. Wasn’t that how I’d always wanted to have her. If it took a major accident in my cousin’s building to get Katy in my arms this way, then so be it. I would knock down the whole damn building.
Katy being there also provided immense relief; she wasn’t the cause of an underlying issue to the scaffolding. Katy was not an actress; she wore every one of her emotions on her face the instant she felt it. The woman thought she could lie through her teeth, but I saw the truth. And she’d never mean to cause destruction, but lately her pure hatred toward my family had grown exponentially. No longer was it a cute bickering we shared between us but something almost hate filled.
“It felt like the world was ending.” Her words were muffled, getting lost in the fabric of my shirt.
Jerome kept me up to date on what happened since the Pelican Bay Police and the State Police would not allow me to drive downtown myself. He said the dust had mostly settled, but a few people still gathered at the crash site. The ambulances had left since there were no injuries, and only a few stray firetrucks and police cars cordoned off the area to make sure no pop-up fires started.
Unexpectantly Katy backed away, but I only allowed her to gain six inches or so of freedom. She dropped her head and looked to the ground sheepishly.
Even though I knew what came next—an argument—I didn’t stop myself from being glad she hadn’t been injured. I’d wanted to tear down the city looking for her, to see her with my own eyes, but I knew Katy would throw a fit if I drove Main Street yelling her name.
