***
The sound of a shotgun blast next to my bed frightened a scratchy squeak from my throat as I bolted upright and looked around the dark room.
“What the hell?” I muttered as I drew the covers up around me. My heart was beating so fast and loud that I could barely hear anything else aside from my own shallow breathing and the rain pouring down outside.
But there was no gun. No crazed murderer standing over my bed. So that was a plus.
Which meant it had to have been the loudest thunderclap I’d ever heard to wake me up from a dead sleep like that, unless it was a freak earthquake.
Once I’d finally caught my breath and reassured myself another three times that I was alone and safe in my bungalow, I crawled out of bed and walked over to the window.
And had my breath taken away all over again.
A massive oak tree had fallen about fifty feet away from my window, and it looked like it just missed a bungalow but did land on a parked car, setting the alarm off.
Oh, shit. That was one helluva storm blowing out there.
The sound of the wind racing through the other trees and whistling around the bungalows was fiercely loud. I looked out of every window in my bungalow to assess the danger of falling trees, and returned to my cozy bed only when I had made completely certain that if any of the nearest trees were to fall, they wouldn’t bring the roof down on top of me.
For a while, I lay awake in bed listening to the loud storm, and my mind returned to wondering about Axel and Micah. What did they say and do after I left them? Did they go home? Were they awake listening to this same storm?
And from thoughts of them, my mind wandered onto my mother. While I didn’t much care if I never saw those boys—men—ever again, I did have a lot more curiosity about my mother. Despite our very shaky history, I hoped she was doing well, or at least better than I remember.
There wasn’t anything I could do about anything when it was the early hours of the morning, and high winds were howling. I snuggled up in the warmth with my thoughts and eventually fell asleep.
When I woke up next, the winds had dropped, and the bright sun was up. One glance out of my window was enough to tell me there wasn’t likely to be a wedding at the resort that day.
But before I made it to the window, I checked my phone. No notifications. No messages or missed calls. No reception at all. Needless to say, that was when I did peek out of the window just to check I hadn’t slept through the literal end of the world. Nope. Just a storm with all the usual signs of damage.
Chapter Five
Jasmine Bailey
The lack of a functioning cell phone left me with no other option than to venture out to check on the safety of my girls in person.
I knocked at Poppy’s bungalow, but my hammering there brought no response. I wasn’t surprised. She’d gone off to her parents’ house, last thing I knew. And she probably stayed over with them for the night.
Then there was Muriel—I knew her bungalow was nearby, but I didn’t know precisely which one. We’d made no plan for the event of no cell coverage.
For a few minutes, I kicked around on the porch of Poppy’s bungalow while I tried to decide what to do for the best.
Waiting in my own bungalow for the girls to turn up didn’t appeal; I wanted to be more proactive. And I had little choice but to walk to the main building as I couldn’t find them, and Muriel was the one with the car, and there was no chance of calling a taxi.
At least it would give me chance to get in some exercise, survey the scene, and enjoy the fresh air—there was plenty of that.
Torn leaves and twigs were scattered everywhere, making the place look a real mess, and anything that wasn’t tied down had been moved by the wind if it was small enough. But we weren’t facing widespread devastation. While the fallen tree colored my first impression, once I was outside, the damage didn’t appear too bad.
It was quite a hike to the main reception at the resort, but I was used to running on a treadmill in the gym in L.A., which replaced my previous walks in the woods that used to be a regular part of my childhood in Georgia, out in the sticks.
The front desk was a hive of activity, which was hardly surprising given that there should have been a wedding that day.
I got in line, ready to speak to the receptionist, armed with my mental list of questions, not least of which was could she contact Muriel and did she know what was happening about the wedding.