Page 29 of No Judgements

It made sense to me that a dog who’d gone through a bad time ought to have a new name, as well, as long as he wasn’t too attached to his old one. Gary had been found as a stray on the streets by volunteers for the animal shelter. They’d decided to call him Gary, and the name seemed to fit him. I hadn’t even considered changing it, since he came cheerfully when called.

But why not change an abused dog’s name to something different to represent his new, better life?

“Well,” I said. The man really did look great without a shirt on. There was no denying it. “That’s good. As long as he’s happy.”

“He seemed very happy,” Drew said, “when I left him this morning. He’d taken over my bed with all my other dogs. I’ll be lucky to get it back, I guess.” He drilled another screw.

Well. This told me something else about Drew Hartwell. He let his dogs sleep in his bed.

Not that this was a bad thing. I let my cat sleep in my bed.

But Gary was only one cat. Drew now had four dogs. It seemed as if things were getting fairly crowded in Drew Hartwell’s bed.

Wait. Why was I even thinking of Drew Hartwell’s bed? I was on a mancation. I wasn’t even supposed to be interested in that kind of stuff. I was only supposed to be working and painting and enjoying a healthy Little Bridge lifestyle. Get it together, Bree!

My conversation with Drew Hartwell seemingly at an end thanks to the scream of his drill, I opened up the café and went to work writing the specials on the chalkboards, as I’d promised Angela I would, minding my own business and paying no attention whatsoever to the extremely good-looking shirtless man putting up the shutters outside the place.

At least, that’s what I told myself. Truthfully, I might have slipped him a glance or two. I definitely overpoured more than a few cups of coffee as I watched him bend over to pick up more screws, and once I accidentally gave the mayor over easy instead of sunny-side-up eggs.

By the eightA.M.hurricane update—when the place was as packed as I’d ever seen it—Drew had mercifully finished shuttering everything except the front door. We had to hang a handwritten sign (Come on in! We’re open!) so people would know there was life inside (although the lights were on, and there was cold AC blowing). This was a relief, not only because he put his shirt back on, but also because I could once again concentrate on my work.

Still, the eight o’clock update was grim. Reports had finally begun to roll in from Cuba. A ten-foot storm surge had taken nine lives so far. The storm was now only two hundred miles away and though winds had dropped to “only” Category 2 level (as Lucy Hartwell had predicted, the mountains of Cuba had taken a lot of energy out of the storm), forecasters expected Marilyn to gather strength over the warm waters between Cuba and the Keys, then hit coastal Florida with “possibly unprecedented strength, causing imminent death.”

Many of the old-timers, upon hearing this, lifted their beers (it was never too early for beer at the Mermaid) in a toast. “To our imminent deaths!”

But this turned out not to be as humorous as they thought when it was reported that, even though the storm hadn’t yet arrived, there’d already been a death in Little Bridge attributed to Marilyn.

“You guys, I was already called to the scene of an accident out on Highway One,” Ryan Martinez, one of the sheriff’s deputies, came in to breakfast to announce. “An evacuee, in a panic to leave town before the rains hit, had a stress-induced heart attack at the wheel, then drove his vehicle straight into the mangroves. He drowned before emergency personnel could get to him.”

“More people die evacuating from hurricanes than from the actual hurricanes themselves,” Ed informed us gravely.

“True.” His shuttering complete, Drew had come inside to enjoy his usual (Spanish omelet, only he’d added a side of real bacon, most likely since he’d expended so many calories lifting the heavy metal panels). “But don’t most deaths occur in the aftermath of storms, from flooding?”

“Yes,” Ryan said. “But that’s not going to happen here. The sheriff’s got me and the other guys helping him set up cots over at the high school as a shelter of last resort for anyone who hasn’t been able to evacuate and feels they might be in danger. High school’s on high ground and built to withstand Cat Five winds. I think we’re gonna have quite a crowd in there.”

I was listening closely. “What about pets?” I asked. “Will you take people with pets?”

“Of course. Me and my girlfriend are going to hunker down there with this fine lady for the duration.”

At the words “this fine lady,” Ryan softly tapped the lowest rung of the stool he was sitting on, and his canine partner—a beautiful and sweet-natured German shepherd who’d been dozing peacefully at his feet—alertly lifted her head and gave her long, fringed tail a wag.

The dog’s sweet nature was deceptive, however. I’d once seen her lock hold of the wrist of a diner fleeing without paying his bill and refuse to release it until Ryan gave her the command.

“We were going to spend this weekend in Orlando at my cousin’s wedding,” Ryan went on, “but duty calls. This’ll be more fun, anyway.”

“Only a cop would consider a hurricane more fun than a wedding,” Angela whispered to me in passing, rolling her eyes, and we both laughed.

As the day wore on, the crowd at the café began tothin out, even the island’s hardiest charter boat captains beginning to take the order to evacuate seriously. Everyone began going home to make sure their houses and boats were secured against the expected 130-mile-an-hour winds.

By one o’clock, the place was empty—save for a few of the regular afternoon barflies—and dark, thanks to the shutters and the fact that the sky had become so gray and overcast. Thunder rumbled in the distance—though there was no visible lightning—and the wind was stronger than ever, thirty miles per hour, with gusts of up to fifty, according to the Weather Channel.

“Anyone left in the Florida Keys,” a reporter stationed in Key West cheerfully said into his microphone as wind and surf buffeted him, “must surely have a death wish.”

“Go on home,” Ed said to me and Angela gruffly, switching off both TVs. “I’m gonna close up early today. I’ll pay you through the rest of your shift, though.”

Angela and I eyed each other uncertainly. Although Ed and his wife happily paid their employees’ insurance, they had never, in all the time I’d known them, let us off early with pay.

“Are... are you sure, Ed?” Angela asked.