Vivien and Jo Ellen exchanged a look so obvious that it couldn’t be ignored.
“However, I amnotleaning,” Maggie clarified. “On him or anyone.”
“Of course not.”
Brick, at that moment, walked past the boardwalk with a sheet of plywood balanced on one shoulder with ease. He turned his head toward Maggie as he passed, did not stop, gave her a single slow wink so obvious that Vivien very nearly fell off her chair.
“Maggie Fredericks Lawson,” Vivien whispered.
Jo Ellen giggled exactly like she had when all of Sigma Nu turned up at the Tri-Delt house to serenade them in 1967.
“Oh, hush, both of you.” Maggie picked up her lemonade and took a long, dignified sip and did not, under any circumstances, smile.
Later, cleaning the kitchen, somehow alone, Maggie looked up from the counter, surprised to see Brick standing there.
“We’re in good shape out there,” he said. “Down to the careful, deliberate phase of last cuts and final caulking.”
“You think the house will survive?” she asked.
He considered the question, stroking his beard. “If the path stays east, yes. It’ll take some weather, but Eli and I were just on the roof and?—”
She gasped. “What? You were on the roof?”
“Someone had to check. Didn’t want Eli to do it alone.”
“That’s dangerous for a seventy-five-year-old.”
“Pffft. I was a roofer in another life.”
“Well, you’re about to have another life—one in heaven—if you don’t stop climbing up on roofs.”
He grinned and leaned on the island. “You be careful, Mags. I’ll start to think you care about me.”
She gave him a look that turned into a beat too long of eye contact and, for the tenth time that day, a flush rose.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “You said we were friends.”
She waited for the fast and flirtatious quip, but he just let his silly grin grow serious. “I respect that, Mags.”
The simplicity of the statement touched her, and she didn’t know how to respond, so she
handed him a glass of water.
He took it, drained the water, set the glass down, and looked at her for one more second before he turned to go back down the steps.
“You should pack,” he said.
“Now?”
He nodded. “Outbound traffic is insane. Like, truly hellacious. It’s gonna be a haul to Crawfordville and I arranged for you and Jo to stay with my daughter until we hole up at Gator Jack’s. You won’t want to make that drive tomorrow. It’ll take ten hours during last-minute panic evacuation.”
Considering that, she nodded. “Okay. We’ll leave with you and follow when you go.”
By five o’clock,the Summer House was sealed.
Every window covered, every door braced. Sandbags were stacked six high at the dune line. All of the generators had been tested and were ready to be pulled out of the garage and put into use when the storm passed. The deck furniture was stacked in the living room and garage, and the pool covered.
Exhausted, the group ate pizza together on the boardwalk, sitting on blankets and folding chairs, the late afternoon sun coming in low and gold. The Gulf churned as a constant reminder that this wasn’t a picnic.
