squeezed between two roadblocks. He could see why everyone had been chased into the stillness of their homes. The hungry gale wolfed off the bay, the balmy breath of Mother Nature itself. The water that he imagined was usually calm, presently chopped and slapped the eastern shore of the bay in whooshing crests. The rain seemed to slacken off as he neared the entrance to the pier and the edge of the seawall that dropped straight into briny waters. Even without the rain, the air kissed the skin with salty residue. Licking his lips, Gerald tasted it on himself already.
The wind whipped at his coat, grabbing and tugging. A gust hit him in the middle and pushed him back from the edge of the long plunge into the bay—a fair warning. El Niño was bitter and hungry and, despite the fact that it was now getting on into fall, it wasn’t giving up its hold of the Gulf Coast quite yet.
A particularly large gray wave came rolling toward the seawall and him. Gerald took several quick steps in retreat but the water sprayed up and drenched him as the wave pounded into the wall below.
Gerald laughed, rubbing a wide-palmed hand over his wet face. “Bloody marvelous,” he murmured, grinning like the fool he was.
Yes, he had been right to come here. He hadn’t seen it in the light of day yet, but Gerald knew without a doubt that he could write in this sleepy little bay town. Turning regrettably away from the storm’s impressive display, he walked back to the rental car.
Now, to find Olivia and get the answers he’d been desperately scrambling for since she left their honeymoon suite in Las Vegas.
* * *
BLENDERS BUZZED, BOTTLE tops sucked and hissed, and glasses clinked. Speakers blared, pool balls clacked and hearty conversation all joined the tavern chorus to drown out the wind rattling the windows facing the listless bay. Only a handful of days away from Halloween, the wooden walls of the tavern were strewn with faux cobwebs.
“Jimmy Buffett, eat your heart out,” Olivia announced with a wink to the gentleman on the other side of her bar who’d ordered a tall margarita.
“Hold on to your hat, newcomer,” one of her regulars, Charlie, muttered, giving the gentleman a supportive pat on the back.
“How much do I owe you?” the newcomer asked her.
Olivia beamed. “On me. Didn’t you hear? That storm is headed for N’Awlins. We’re celebratin’.”
“Though God bless all those poor Cajuns,” Olivia’s part-time waitress Monica Slayer said. “First Katrina. Then Gustav. Now this. They can’t ever seem to catch a break.”
Charlie snorted. “It’s what they get for living below sea level.”
“Careful, Charlie boy,” Olivia warned. “We’re not too far above sea level ourselves. Another beer?”
“Still nursing this one, sweetheart.” Charlie’s eyes twinkled. “You’re pretty as your wildcat mama, you know that?”
Olivia shook her head. “You’re shameless as a hound dog, old man.”
“You tell Rosa I’m still waiting for her,” Charlie advised before tipping his bottle back and gulping deep.
Monica nudged Olivia with an elbow. “If that Freddie character comes on to me again, I’m gonna show him what it’s like to have a three-inch heel shoved up his ass.”
Olivia eyed the gangly giant in question. “Oh, come on. He’s harmless. What’s he doing to harass you?”
Monica rolled her eyes. “His lips are moving.”
Olivia belted out a laugh. “When you first started working for me little over two years ago, you said he was pretty hot stuff.”
Monica snorted. “That was before he went and married Elaine.”
“You’re still sore about that?” Olivia chided, brow quirked. “It’s been eight months.”
“Well, yeah, I’m sore! The few decent guys there are in this town get hung up in seconds...usually with the worst women.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Olivia said with a doubtful glance around the room. Fairhope was as peaceful as small Southern towns got. It might be the quintessential place to retire or raise kids, but like most small towns there was a deplorable lack of good, unattached men to go around. “Don’t sweat it. She’ll get bored with him, and you can be the first to lick his wounds.”
“I don’t do seconds.” Monica brooded before chugging down the shot of Jack Daniel’s the wizened man across the bar had bought her. Her lips curved into a practiced simper. “Thanks, Pete.”
“Hey, Liv!” someone called from the other side of the bar.
Olivia laughed fondly at the baby face of Skeet Bisbee. “Hey, cutie. I haven’t seen you since you left for Tuscaloosa. What are you doing here?”
Skeet grinned, radiating collegiate charm as he sat on the vacant stool next to Charlie. “I came to order a drink.”
Olivia narrowed her eyes and angled her head in scrutiny. “Does your mama know you’re here?”
Skeet beamed. “I mean it. I want a black jack.”
“As pretty as that face is, I’m gonna have to say no,” Olivia told him.
“All right, all right.” Skeet reached for his billfold and held it out to her. “Check this out. I turned legal just a few hours ago. I was lucky the DMV was open. You know, with the storm and all.”
Olivia scanned the temporary license. “Hell, that ain’t even in plastic yet. That can’t be legal. What do you think, Monica?”
Monica glanced at the ID, then up at the hopeful, handsome face before her. “Come on, Liv. Give the man a drink.” The waitress poured a jigger of Jack herself and sent it sailing across the bar with a wink. “On me.”
Skeet blushed to the roots of his hair.
Olivia cackled, grabbed Skeet’s face in her hands and pressed her lips to his. A chorus of catcalls went up around the tavern, and Skeet bloomed from pink to cherry-red.
“Happy birthday, Skeeter baby,” Olivia said before raising her voice over the music. “Hey, everybody, it’s Skeet Bisbee’s birthday and I want you all to buy him a drink!”
Obliging volunteers pushed their way toward the bar and the two tavern-keepers got busy quickly.
Though Fairhope wasn’t as exciting as...say Vegas, the town and the tavern had been Olivia’s one and only home for twenty-nine years. It was practically her lifeblood. The minute her adventurous parents handed the reins of the business to her seven years ago to fulfill their cross-country traveling dreams, she’d found a deep sense of purpose in keeping the family trade alive and strong. Her mother and father had built it from the ground up. It was her job to nourish and sustain it. And that she had, even through the worst downturn of the local, small business economy.
For seven years, her life had been a chorus line of late working nights. It’d take more than a hurricane to break that chain and her love of it.
“Oh,
