Page 92 of No Judgements

He shook his head. “They’re probably going to tell the cops. Your ex seems like the type.”

“I don’t think so. And even if they do, don’t you think the sheriff has a little more to do right now than worryabout a pink-haired waitress who shot a bottle of tequila in some snowbird’s house?”

He considered this. “You’re right. In about six months, he might get around to looking into it. But even then, what’s he going to do? Charge you for illegal discharge of a weapon? Hell, half the town shoots off their guns into the sky every New Year’s Eve.”

I thought about the bullet I’d lodged in the back of the waterfall, then decided that Caleb could pay for its removal, if his second cousin ever noticed it was there.

“Thanks for being there for me,” I said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “I know that was... weird.”

He looked surprised. “What are you talking about? I was ready to beat that guy’s head in. I don’t know why you didn’t let me. Now would have been the perfect time to do it, too. No cops, no accountability.”

“But it’s my problem,” I said. “It felt good to settle it myself.”

It did, too. Even if the way I’d done it might have been questionable, I felt a strange sense of peace, and no anxiety whatsoever.

It was an unfamiliar sensation. But good. Really good.

“Yeah,” Drew said. “You do seem sort of... calm.”

“That’s thanks to you,” I said. “Now let’s get back to your aunt’s place and see if there’s anyone new on the list. Then we need to go back to Chett’s and his friends’ to check on their animals. They all need to be fed and walked again.”

“God, you know all the right things to say to get a guy in the mood for romance.”

I laughed. I was still laughing, in the best mood I could remember being in in a long time—and that was saying something, considering how happy I’d been last night—when I walked up the front steps of his aunt’s house.

Right up until the moment the Hartwells’ front door was flung open, and my mother walked out of it, threw her arms wide, and cried, “Sabrina!”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Bottled water and MREs are being provided by FEMA in the Publix parking lot on a rotating schedule. Both are available from 7A.M.—9A.M., 11A.M.—1P.M., and 5P.M.to 7P.M.This schedule is subject to change.

Oh my God.” I froze in my tracks.

My mother was wearing a flight suit. Literally, a gray flight suit like the kind astronauts wear. Only hers was silk and probably Armani.

“Sabrina, sweetheart!”

My mother flung her arms around me.

She was soft and smelled as she always did, of Chanel No. 5. Being hugged by my mother triggered something deep inside me, a memory I hadn’t thought of in a long, long time. It took me a few seconds to realize what that memory was, and then, like a lightning bolt, it hit me: home.

But it was also so strange to see my mother on Little Bridge Island. She looked so out of place, with her paleblond blowout and her manicure and her carefully made-up face. Not to mention the flight suit.

I wasn’t sure, after the incident not ten minutes earlier with Caleb and Kyle, how many more out-of-town visitors I could take.

“Sweetheart, I was so worried about you. Are you all right?” She pulled back to look at me, allowing me to steal a glance at Drew. He was trying not to laugh over by the gumbo-limbo. I could have killed him. “Oh, sweetheart. Your hair. It’s so...bright.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said from between gritted teeth. “What are you doing here? And what are you wearing?”

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, taking my hand. Her skin felt cool because she’d been inside with the air-conditioning for so long. “You’ll never believe it. Your uncle Steen got us a cargo plane. Because you know they weren’t going to let us land the jet here, because this place has been declared a national disaster zone by the governor. So we had to bring recovery supplies. But don’t you worry, we brought plenty of things for your new little friends, plenty of good, healthy things, like bottled water and fresh vegetables and diapers and some of those things, what are they called—”

“MREs.”

She’d pulled me inside now, into the living room, where her lawyer, Steen, dressed in a business suit, was sitting on the couch with a satellite phone in his hand.

“Meals Ready to Eat,” he elaborated, with a brief smile at me. “Hello, Sabrina.”

“Um, hi.” I really could not deal with seeing so manypeople from my New York world in my Little Bridge world in one day. Not on this day, of all days, when I was so happy because of Drew. It wasn’t fair.