They’d taken an Uber to the fishing supply store last week, thanks to Brendan’s suggestion, and gotten most of what they needed to achieve the nautical theme, then ordered more accoutrements for cheap online. And to their utter astonishment, Abe’s sons had shown up last week to drop off some handcrafted bar stools and chairs as a thank-you for walking their father to the museum every morning. Piper told them it wasn’t necessary, but they’d refused to take no for an answer, thank God, because they had actual furniture now!
Piper and Hannah were applying slow strokes of lacquer to the antique bar when a boom of thunder outside made them both jump.
“Whoa,” Hannah said, using the back of her wrist to wipe her forehead. “That sounded like cannon fire.”
“Yeah.” Piper tucked a stray piece of hair into her ponytail and crossed the bar to look out the window. A shudder went down her spine when she saw the Red Buoy closing early. Same with the bait shop two doors down. Was there going to be a really bad storm or something?
Brendan.
No, Westport was far enough from the Bering Sea that he wouldn’t get hit with the same storm, right? She had no earthly idea. She was from Southern freaking California, where the sun shined and, other than fog, weather was just a vague entity people in other states had to worry about.
He’d be okay.
Piper pressed a hand to the center of her chest to find her heart racing. “Hey, can you call the record store and ask if they’re closing early?”
Over the last two weeks, Hannah had become a regular fixture at the shop. Once she’d revealed her expertise in all things music related, they’d asked her to help give the place an update. While it had cut into Hannah’s time working on the bar, Piper hadn’t been able to deny her sister this most epic opportunity to flaunt her music snobbery. Hannah was now an unofficial employee of Disc N Dat and had even made some local friends who went and drank coffee together after hours.
“Yeah, sure,” Hannah said, whipping her cell out of her back pocket. “I’ll text Shauna.”
“’Kay.”
Piper took a deep breath, but the pressure in her chest wouldn’t abate. Brendan was supposed to return the day after tomorrow, and she’d been mentally coaching herself to keep things between them strings-free. But with a storm darkening the sky, she couldn’t seem to think straight, much less remember why her relationship with Brendan had to remain casual. She needed to, though, right? No Name was almost finished, and they were super close to nailing down a grand reopening date, at which time they would call Daniel and invite him. Providing this plan to impress Daniel worked, they could be in the homestretch. LA bound. She couldn’t afford to get caught up with the boat captain, even if she missed him. Even if she looked for him around every street corner in Westport, just in case he’d gotten home earlier.
“I’m going to run over to the Red Buoy and see if they know what’s going on.”
Hannah saluted Piper on her way out the door. As soon as she stepped out onto the street, the wind knocked her sideways two steps, her hair blowing free of its ponytail and whipping around her face in a cloud, obscuring her vision. Quickly, she gathered the mane in a fist and looked up at the sky, finding big gray billowing clouds staring back at her. Her stomach dropped, and a wave of fear rolled through her belly.
This seemed like a big deal.
Unable to swallow, she jogged across the street, catching the girl who worked the register on her way out, her head buried in the hood of a rain slicker.
“Hey, um . . . is there going to be a pretty bad storm . . . or something?” Piper asked, clearly the most California girl who ever California’d.
The girl laughed like Piper was joking, sobered when she realized she wasn’t. “We’ve got a typhoon closing in.”
What the hell was a typhoon? She resisted the urge to get her phone out and google it. “Oh, but it’s, like, contained to the Washington coast, right? Or is it bigger?”
“No, it’s coming toward us from Alaska, actually. That’s how we know it’s going to be a bad motherfucker, excuse my language.”
“Alaska,” Piper croaked, her fingers turning numb. “Okay, thanks.”
The girl scurried off, climbing into a waiting truck right as the first raindrops started to fall. Piper barely remembered walking back across the street and taking shelter in the doorway of No Name. She got her phone out and searched “typhoon” with trembling fingers.
The first two words that came up were “tropical cyclone.”
Then, “a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters.”