K. Weiland - Storming

“It’s okay.” He crouched in front of her and reached for her with his free hand. “It’s okay, darlin’. It’s just me. I’ve come to take you home.” He pulled her nearer, tentatively, then slipped a hand around her shoulders.

Her backbone was so sharp it practically poked through her dress. She remained stiff for a second. Then, with a stuttering exhale, she sagged against his chest. “I caused this—this storm. Did I cause this?”

He held her and patted her back. “Not a chance. You had absolutely nothing to do with this. The only thing you did was call it exactly like it was—which was a heap more’n most of us had the guts to do yesterday.”

“But I knew. That man told me. I tried to tell… somebody. But they didn’t believe me.”

“That’s not your fault, Aurelia. You tried, you did your best. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I don’t know that anybody could have stopped this from happening.”

She reared her head back and looked up at him. Her bloodshot eyes were red almost clear through. They charted his face. “I remember you. You’re Hitch Hitchcock.”

He smiled at her. “Yeah.”

“You were… you were Celia’s husband. Weren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

In the straw beside him, Walter shifted. He looked back and forth between Hitch and Aurelia, wide-eyed and interested. So he hadn’t known. He was probably too young to have met Celia, much less remembered her, so why would he know Hitch was his uncle? Nan had no doubt avoided talking about Hitch for all these years.

A shadow blocked the light, and Hitch looked back.

Jael stood there, cocking her head slightly like she did whenever she was caught off guard and trying to figure something out. The lines between her eyebrows deepened a little. Women never were very understanding about a man who would leave a woman—for whatever reason.

His throat tightened and he turned back.

Aurelia’s bloodshot eyes looked up at him without anger, without blame. “I remember you,” she said again. “You gave me a violet handkerchief.”

“Yes, I did.” Celia had washed it with his dungarees and it had come out purple.

Her lip trembled. “It caught on fire and burned up.”

“Oh, well. I’ll get you another one, how about that?” He tried to ease her up. “But first we have to get you home, all right? Nan and everybody’s worried about you.”

She darted out a hand and gripped his coat. “Wait.” Her lip trembled still more. “Do you think it is true? Will the air beast kill us all?”

Walter watched him, as intent on the answer as his aunt was.

“Aurelia, listen to me.” Hitch looked her in the eye. “You’re scared, that’s all this is. And that’s okay.” He put a hand on Walter’s shoulder and glanced at him too. “We all are, I reckon. This is something nobody could have planned on happening. But the world keeps on spinning and people keep on living—through worse things than this. This is just a couple guys in an airship. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Promise?” Aurelia asked.

“Reckon I can’t quite promise. But I will tell you this. I’m sure. And I will bring it down.”

“Even if it shoots at you?” Aurelia whispered.

“Reckon so.” He shucked out of his sopping coat, draped it around her shoulders, and eased her to her feet. “Now, come on.”

WHEN HITCH AND his group arrived in the Carpenters’ muddy yard, the rest of the searchers were already there. Nan’s husband Byron, Griff, and the Berringer brothers gathered beside Griff’s Baby Grand roadster in the mud of the yard, talking urgently. A distracted Molly—her red hair plastered into clumps down her back—herded the twins toward the porch. Nan’s urgent voice sounded from just within the house, as if she were speaking on the telephone.

As Hitch supported Aurelia on the way through the yard gate, they all looked up. Relief passed across most of their faces.

Only Griff’s tightened.

Nan burst through the screen door and down the porch steps. She wore a plaid kerchief tied under her chin and a yellow slicker belted at her waist.

She reached for her sister and pulled her into a hug. “Aurelia. Thank God, thank God.”

Jael and Walter both stepped back to give her room.

The rest of the group approached. Griff’s eyes were darker than the thunderclouds.

And… this was where it got awkward. Hitch let go of Aurelia and stood with his hands in his pants pockets. He’d done a good deed, but he was still the black sheep. He was standing on property Nan had told him never to set foot on. And he was trailing her kid, who she’d told him, in no uncertain language, to stay clear of.

Nan lifted her gaze to Hitch’s. Her mouth worked for a moment, as she seemed to consider all that. She’d sure like something else to be mad about. That was just the way she was. She’d love you forever until she hated you—and then she’d hate you forever. When he married Celia, he qualified for her love; when Celia died… well, there it was.

But if he’d ruined one of her sisters’ lives, he had just rescued the other.

She eased the clench of her jaw and took a breath. “Thank you. I… appreciate it.” The words sounded rusty as all get out, but at least she was giving him that much.

She started to turn toward the house, her arm around Aurelia’s shoulders.

Griff, who had stopped just in front of them, reached to take Aurelia’s other arm.

Nan glanced back. “Walter, come along.”

This was probably the closest Hitch was ever going to get to her not being full-blown angry with him. If ever they were going to clear the air between them, this was it.

He took a step after her. He didn’t look at Griff. “Nan—”

She turned over her shoulder. She bit her lip, her eyes big and a little afraid. For the first time in as long as he’d known her, she looked downright vulnerable—as if she knew what was coming and wasn’t any more ready for it than he was.

He swallowed past the sudden scratch in his throat. “Nan, I’m sorry.” He put all his energy into looking at her, not Griff. She was almost close to understanding, and shockingly it was somehow easier to say all this to her, instead of him. “Back then, I didn’t see any other way than leaving, but if I could do it over again, I’d do it all different. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m just asking you to… to believe that.”

She had always been indomitable, tough as a mud hen protecting her nest and just as stubborn. When they were kids, she’d been able to beat up most boys dumb enough to tangle with her—or, worse for them, her sisters. She and he had never quite got on; they’d rammed heads too often for that. But before he left, they’d at least been able to share some kind of mutual respect for each other’s grit.

He’d never seen her weaken. Never.

The edge of her mouth quavered. “I… believe you.” She breathed out. Her voice was weary. “For whatever it’s worth anymore, I believe you.”

Griff closed up the hand he’d extended to help Aurelia. “What are you saying?”

Nan looked at him, and she gave her head a slow shake. “I’m saying I’m tired. I’m saying I have better things to do with my life than hate your brother for the rest of it. And so do you, Griff.”

“No.” He came forward. Rain ran off the back of his fedora’s brim. He turned his fierce gaze on Hitch. “It’s not going to work that way, Hitch. You can’t just come back after nine years, stay a couple days, bring Aurelia home, and get everybody to absolve your sins.”

Here it was then. At last.

Hitch looked him in the eye. “I didn’t ask for absolution.”