Of the two of us, Landon was the one who believed in destinies, but in that moment, I think I believed in them, too, because my heart—my verysoul—seemed to lurch inside me.
You’re going to say that it’s because I was fifteen, and here was the best-looking man I’d ever seenin my lifesmiling at me, almost a little sheepishly. That the frisson I felt, that sudden sense that I was waking up for the very first time, was nothing more than teenage hormones running amok.
And maybe you’re right. My inexperience, my naïveté, were definitely part of it. Landon was only twenty-six that year but still a grown man in my eyes, and yetnotlike those other men downstairs. Those men felt like… well, dads, honestly, regardless of whether they actually had kids. They felt like capital-M Men in a way that freaked me out at that age.
But Landon seemed somewhere in between them and the boys my age, not coarse and loud and hairy like those guys, not gangly and sweaty and embarrassing like the boys I went to school with. His hairwas a little too long, and instead of a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, he was wearing jeans and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
He had the prettiest eyes, too. Nearly black, so dark you couldn’t see his pupils.
“Like a shark,” Lo said later, but that’s not what I saw. Not then.
“I was filling up the bathtubs—that’s what you’re supposed to do in this kind of thing, right?” he went on, and my face felt scorched as I realized I’d been standing there, just staring at him, not saying anything.
“N-no. I mean, yes, yes, that’s what you’re supposed to do, that’s actually whatIwas coming in here to do, but you’re not… well, you’re notnotsupposed to be in here.”
“Not not supposed to be in here,” he repeated, scratching his jaw and studying the ceiling. “Okay, so I do believe that means I’m allowed in here, then?”
I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or making fun of me—there’s a difference, and by fifteen, I was very aware of that, especially where boys were concerned—but then he smiled at me and reached out, gently thumping my arm.
“Sorry if I scared you. Honestly, I was just trying to make myself useful doing something thatwasn’thard labor.”
He winked, and I somehow blushed even hotter, and then he laughed and said, “But if you’re here to take over, I guess I’ll have to go be manly with power tools or prove I can lift more sandbags than Dave.”
Then he tilted his head, squinting at me. “Unless you need an assistant?”
“I do,” I blurted out because in that moment, I would’ve done just about anything to keep talking to Landon Fitzroy.
I didn’t know that’s who he was until we were out in the hall and he formally introduced himself, but the name didn’t mean anything to me back then anyway. Remember, I was fifteen and living in a small town. I barely paid attention to anything that wasn’t school or my friends or the inn, so I definitely wasn’t well-versed in Alabama politics. Didn’t know Landon’s father was the state treasurer with an eye on the governor’s office. Didn’t know Landon had been a big dealin football at the University of Alabama, or that he was finishing up law school in the spring.
And I certainly didn’t know he was engaged.
Here was what I knew about Landon after that hour we spent filling bathtubs and sinks:
He loved music, the louder the better, and had seen the Doors play in Miami when he was just fifteen—had snuck out, hitchhiked, scared his poor mama half to death.
He’d hated school but liked history, enough that he’d gotten his degree in it at Alabama.
He’d come to St. Medard’s Bay as a kid with his grandparents a few times and loved it, thought it was the most perfect place on God’s green earth because it never changed. Every time he came back, it was like everything had been “preserved in amber” waiting for him.
He wanted to buy a boat, his own boat. His family had one, but it was too big, too grand, “like trying to take the fucking QE Two—pardon my French—out in a backyard pool.”
He wanted to sail around the world, wanted to spend as much of his life on the water as he could for as long as he could.
The whole time we talked, he never once treated me like a kid. But he also wasn’t creepy, either, you know? I was sheltered, but I’d been around older boys, and I knew when they were looking at me in a way they shouldn’t. When they were assessing how they could take advantage.
That wasn’t Landon. It was more like I was his buddy, just an interesting person he’d decided to pass the time with, and I loved that, loved how often he said my name as we talked, loved how he laughed when I told him thatlivingin St. Medard’s Bay sometimes felt like being frozen in time, too, but not in a good way.
Later, I realized he never really asked me much about myself, that I wasn’t so much “a companion” as I was “an audience.”
Another quality that he and Lo had in common.
By the time I went back downstairs to see if Mom needed anything else, I was in the throes of a crush so powerful it was almost painful, but I wasn’t in love with Landon Fitzroy.
That happened the next afternoon, when Velma made landfall.
So much of that storm is still a blur. It wasn’t as bad as Audrey, thank God. For one, we knew how seriously to take preparations this time, so all of us—me, my parents, Landon and his fishing buddies—were huddled in the kitchen in the back of the inn when the wind started to howl.
There were no windows in there, plus there was a back staircase up to the second floor in case we needed to get higher, so it was the safest place to be.
