All eyes moved to Kate, who took a slow breath and held her someday-maybe-mother-in-law’s gaze. “I told you that you can have the honors.”
“You know about this?” Eli asked her.
Kate hesitated, then tipped her head. “I think it’ll be okay.”
“Oh,thank you,” Maggie drawled, but tempered it with a smile. “Honestly, Jo and I are quite capable of managing our schedules, safety, and evacuation plan. I’ll tell you all about it later, Eli.”
He studied her for a moment, glanced at Kate, then moved on.
“Okay, then. That leaves Tessa, Dusty, and Olive, of course.”
“We’re fine,” Dusty said. “Embassy Suites in Tallahassee, leaving Friday morning.”
“I’d rather stay with you in Rock Hill,” Tessa murmured to Vivien.
“Well, there’s room now with our mothers’ mysterious exit,” she whispered back.
“How’s your house?” Eli asked Dusty.
“We’re boarded as well as we could and I was able to finish up with Anthony before he and Crista left,” Dusty said. “Both places are as fit as they could be to weather the storm.”
Eli nodded. “We’ve got Connor, Peter, Viv, Meredith, Kate, and me. Oh, and Jonah and Atlas who will?—”
Jonah blew in that very moment, the front door slamming behind him. “Sorry I’m late!”
He came in with his chef’s jacket open over a T-shirt, his hair pulled back, his eyes a little tired and a lot alive. He set his knife bag on a console table, scanned the room, and went straight to Atlas.
He scooped the baby up without breaking stride and pressed his nose into Atlas’s peach fuzz hair the way a man did when he had been thinking about that head since two o’clock.
Then he opened his eyes and looked right at Pepper, the two of them smiling at each other like…well, yes, like he’d been thinking about her, too.
Tessa gripped Vivien’s forearm. “Oh,” she breathed.
“Oh,yes,” Vivien breathed back.
It was like Jonah found the one person in the crowded room who seemed to matter almost as much as Atlas. And as for Pepper? She seemed to freeze, flush, and stare…just like that.
Kate made a little whimpering sound. The exchange might have happened in the blink of an eye, but not one of the aunties in the room missed it.
“What’s up?” Jonah said, folding onto the floor next to Pepper as he held happy little Atlas in his arms. “Old Norm’sa three, I hear, and sliding east like a spitball. Gonna cream Mexico Beach just like Michael did in 2018.”
When they all looked surprised at his knowledge, he shrugged. “It’s all we talked about at work and closed early because—who knew—no one in Florida goes out to eat before a hurricane. Apparently, everyone is emptying the freezers and eating their saved steak before the power goes out.”
“No surprise,” Eli said. “Especially because Destin is still very much in the possible landfall path.”
“The ice cream cone of uncertainty,” Jonah sang in a thriller movie voice, tapping Atlas’s nose.
Eli looked a little bit irritated with his son’s humor. “We’re just discussing evacuation plans. Grandma Maggie and Jo Ellen have, uh, made other arrangements.”
That got the expected undertone of surprised laughs, the loudest from Connor, who got glared at by Maggie so hard it was a wonder he didn’t melt.
“Ooh,” Tessa said under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear. “You got your first Maggie Lawson Death Stare. Be strong, son. It doesn’t leave much of a scar.”
Connor looked suitably chastised as Eli continued. “Jonah, we have you and Atlas at the Airbnb in Rock Hill.”
Instantly, he looked at Pepper. “Where are you going to be?” he asked.
“At home, my dad’s house,” she said. “He’s been roped in to stay as a faculty member at the campus shelter, so I’ll be with our dogs.”
