After the Storm

Copyright © 2023 by Ashley Farley All rights reserved. Cover design: damonza.com Editor: Patricia Peters at A Word Affair LLC Leisure Time Books, a division of AHF Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. For my darling girls, Emmie and Willa contents Prologue 1. Lizbet 2. Jamie 3. Sean 4. Sean 5. Lizbet 6. Sean 7. Lizbet 8. Sean 9. Jamie 10. Lizbet 11. Sean 12. Jamie 13. Lizbet 14. Sean 15. Jamie 16. Sean 17. Lizbet 18. Jamie 19. Sean 20. Lizbet 21. Jamie 22. Sean 23. Lizbet 24. Sean 25. Jamie 26. Lizbet 27. Jamie 28. Sean 29. Lizbet 30. Sean Also by Ashley Farley Acknowledgments About the Author prologue The storm systems slammed into the South Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane with 80 miles per hour winds. Driving rain pounded the window from which Sean watched pine trees sway and the tidal surge spill over the seawall into the yard. With dusk setting in, he could barely see the dock or the marsh beyond. The damage to the area would be widespread. Meteorologists really blew it by predicting the hurricane would be downgraded to a tropical storm. Most locals didn’t consider it a threat and therefore didn’t bother to prepare. A loud banging sound startled Sean away from the window. At first, he thought a tree had fallen on the house, but hearing the noise a second time, he realized someone was pounding on a door. Who in their right mind was out in this weather? His parents’ home on their ten-acre estate was secluded—the last house at the end of a winding inlet creek—and sometimes creepy, especially when he was here alone in a storm. After checking the front door on the main level, Sean hurried down the stairs to the game room. The figure in the door’s window stopped him dead in his tracks. He almost didn’t recognize his own twin brother at first. Cooper looked like he’d been through hell. Sean unlocked the bolt, swung the door open, and hauled his brother in out of the storm. He engulfed Cooper’s drenched body. “You scared the heck out of me, Coop. What’re you doing here in the middle of a hurricane?” “When I left Richmond, the forecast was only calling for rain and wind gusts. I didn’t know it would be this bad. It’s raining so hard, I had to drive ten miles an hour from Charleston.” “Thank goodness you made it safely.” Sean helped Cooper out of his sodden raincoat and draped it over the back of a chair. “Come on up.” He motioned him to the stairs. “I was getting ready to make some dinner.” Cooper cast an uncertain glance at the door. “I should get my stuff.” “Forget it, bro. You can get it tomorrow.” Sean nudged him toward the stairs. “I stopped by Sweeney’s and picked up some mussels on my way into town.” “I’m not hungry. But I could definitely use a drink,” Cooper said as he traipsed up the stairs. He went straight to the bar in the family room and helped himself to their father’s whiskey. Sean watched him with curiosity. Cooper usually preferred beer. “What’re you looking at?” Cooper asked, filling the glass with ice and brown liquor. “You! You look awful. When’s the last time you showered and shaved? And since when do you drink the hard stuff?” Cooper mumbled something Sean couldn’t make out, but he didn’t ask him to repeat it. Something was off about his twin, but Cooper would confess his problem in due time. Sean went into the kitchen, removed a bowl of mussels from the refrigerator, and set it on the counter. He was melting a chunk of butter in a pan when his cell phone blared out a piercing alarm. An automated voice alerted them to a tornado sighting and directed them to an interior room on the lowest floor. “So much for dinner,” Sean said, returning the mussels to the refrigerator. The lights blinked several times. “There goes the power.” Sean grabbed a battery-operated lantern off the counter. “The downstairs bathroom doesn’t have windows. It’s probably the safest place for us.” The brothers were halfway down the stairs when the house went dark. Sean clicked the lantern’s power button, but the light didn’t come on. “Ugh. The batteries must be dead.” “And you call yourself an Eagle Scout.” Cooper snatched the lantern from him and fiddled with it a minute. “Yep. Dead batteries.” “For the record, I got more Scout badges than you,” Sean said, and used his phone’s flashlight to guide them through the game room. Closing the bathroom door behind them, the brothers sat side by side on the floor with their backs against the wall. Sean turned off his phone’s flashlight to preserve his battery, and they were once again enveloped in darkness. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?” “It was an impulse decision. I needed to get away from Richmond for a while,” Cooper said with an unfamiliar edginess in his voice. The twins were close. Even though they lived in two different cities, two states away, one rarely made a move without letting the other know. “How long are you staying?” “Indefinitely. My boss gave me approval to work from home.” Sean’s suspicion mounted. “Indefinitely doesn’t sound like an impulse trip to me, bro.” “Stop with the inquisition already,” Cooper grumbled. “Why are you here anyway? I thought I’d have the place to myself.” “Good to see you too,” Sean said, sending an elbow to his brother’s ribs. “Where are Mom and Dad?” “In Charleston. They were invited to