Her throat tightened. Whatever that meant in His economy.
After helping convert the front parlor into a children’s playroom, Daphne left Lucy and Winston in the arms of a small army of grandmothers equipped with games, crayons, and unconditional love. Just being around people—instead of alone in her apartment—lifted her spirits. And the inn, thanks to its backup generator and water system, had power, plumbing, and plenty of room, which made a world of difference in comfort, even if it meant a little crowded comfort.
She was surrounded by people she knew, and those she didn’t know all seemed to be working toward the same goal: service.
In as many varied ways as the imagination could conjure up.
The place buzzed with activity. The butler’s pantry was now a first-aid station. The solarium held rows of cots. The long buffet table in the dining hall overflowed with bottled water, granola bars, and donations that came out of nowhere—and everywhere. Work boots from the hardware store. Dry socks and thermal blankets from Packed-Up’s camping shop. She’d even heard of local farmers using their tractors, backhoes, trucks, and wagons for rescue efforts or to build makeshift roads over washed-out places in order to get people out.
It was chaos. Beautiful, hopeful, sometimes heart-wrenching chaos.
And the whole town showed up for the assignment.
Someone from the Wisteria Fire Department had parked their truck out front and was helping triage the elderly as they came in.
A man she recognized from the vet clinic came in with a load of pet carriers and started helping get animals into one corner. “Figured folks wouldn’t leave without their critters,” he said. “Heard you had room.”
“We’ll make it work,” Daphne said, setting up another folding table.
Volunteers poured in—shop owners, high school students, church members, even teenagers from the hiking club. People showing up not because someone told them to but because it’s what one did in their town.
They lent a hand. Or a coat. Or a shovel.
Whatever they could to help a fellow Wisterian.
Case in point, Daphne walked by a storage closet that had been turned into a make-shift communication center where Milo Jenkins—fifteen, homeschooled, and fiercely proud of his FCC license—had dragged his ham radio up from his basement the minute the cell towers went down and looked for a place to be useful. With a thermos of lukewarm cocoa and his granddad’s World War II headset clamped over his ears, he was patching through updates from emergency services, giving local volunteer updates—especially related to the dozen churches that had not only opened their doors but were offering hot meals from their grills and gas stoves, recounting calls for extra hands with four-wheel drives, and passing them across Wisteria. He and old Wallace Granger—army signal corps veteran and local lawn-chair philosopher—had been taking turns at the helm of the “radio club” for the past few hours.
No cell towers. No internet.
But plenty of connection. In the face-to-face, arms-wide kind of way.
And stories. So many stories.
People walked in soaked to the bone and carrying hope like it weighed nothing.
For the past three hours, Daphne had been in full work mode as daylight faded into dusk. But there was an overwhelming amount to do, and at the moment not only was she busy, but she began to realize more and more that she’d been one of the more fortunate ones.
The water levels had stopped rising. The rain had ceased. So, even if her shop was destroyed, she still had all the things in her apartment to salvage. From the stories coming in, so many people had lost homes. Some—her chest squeezed—had lost much, much more.
Reuniting loved ones had become her favorite pastime of the last few hours.
She’d even helped a man find his missing dog.
Daphne directed teens from the hiking club to organize shoes by size. She sent two shopkeepers to assist in the kitchen, organizing meals over propane burners. She labeled donated clothes with a Sharpie and helped translate for an elderly couple who’d lost their hearing aids in the storm.
Each task gave her purpose. But none distracted her for long.
Because every time that front door creaked open, her heart jolted.Please be him.
And every time it wasn’t, she buried the fear deeper and kept moving.
Then finally—the front door opened and...
“Granny D!” Daphne dropped her clipboard on the nearby table.
Granny D, wrapped in a blanket like a warrior-queen returning from battle, was flanked on one side by a young woman trying to give her directions and a man who looked as if Granny D had already given him a piece of her mind... because he walked a few steps behind.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you.” Daphne rushed across the foyer. “Are you okay?”
