“I wasn’t talking to him. I was talking to other people,” I hastened to remind her. “On the phone. Nothing is going on between me and Drew Hartwell, I swear. You warned me to stay away from him, remember?”

“Yeah, like you’ve ever listened to me.” Angela had a paper plate in her hand and was filling it with truffle popcorn. “I told you not to eat the lobster roll at Duffy’s Clam Shack and you went straight out and tried it.”

“It was featured on the Food Network!”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You know, now that I’ve gotten to know you better, I’ve come to think that you and Hartwell might not be the worst thing that’s ever happened. You actually have a lot in common.”

“Oh, right.” I sampled the spinach dip. It was delicious, like everything Lucy and Ed Hartwell made. “Name one thing.”

“Well, you’re both white.”

I smirked. “Oh, well, everyone knows that guarantees happiness in a relationship.”

She laughed. “And you can both be pretty sarcastic when you want to.”

“That might be true, too, but again, not a guarantee of relationship success.”

She grew more serious. “You do both like animals. You have that crazy cat, and Drew’s got, what, like five dogs out there on the beach with him?”

“I heard it was only three.”

She grinned at me. “Wow, you really are into him. You’ve been checking into his private life?”

“His aunt mentioned the dogs, that’s all. And anyway, what about that truck of his? You’re the one who told me—”

“Oh, forget about that. That was years ago. Before he left for New York. His truck has pretty much been parked in the same place for ages now.”

“Which is?”

“His own driveway. And the Mermaid parking lot. And Home Depot, of course, where he buys all his—”

“Excuse me.” A man’s deep voice cut through our conversation. I turned to see Drew Hartwell standing beside me, holding a paper plate.

I felt my face heating up again, and it wasn’t because of the sultriness of the evening air.

“Yes?” I asked, with concentrated primness. “May I help you with something?”

“My aunt’s brisket.” He pointed at something behind me. “You’re blocking it.”

“Oh.” I hopped out of the way while Angela stifled a snort of laughter. “Sorry.”

How much had he overheard? Any of it? All of it? He didn’t appear at all discomfited, if that was the case. He was digging into his aunt’s brisket like a starving man, piling it onto one of the rolls that had been provided to make sandwiches of the meat.

I should have known to run to a different section of the party when I saw Angela smiling mischievously beside me. But of course I didn’t.

“So, Drew,” she said conversationally, her laughter barely contained. “Is it true what I hear, that you’re going to stay in your house on Sandy Point for the storm?”

“It’s true.” Drew was hesitating over the vast selection of homemade and commercial barbecue sauces for his brisket sandwich.

“That’s a really bold choice, Drew,” Angela said, still grinning. “They’re warning everyone with places on the shoreline to head inland.”

“I built my place to withstand two-hundred-and-fifty-mile-per-hour winds.” Having made his selection, Drew now squirted barbecue sauce all over his brisket. “It’s made of poured concrete and rebar, on forty-foot pilings to keep it above the storm surge. The place should be fine. And if not, it’ll be good for me to be there to make any necessary repairs on-site as breaks happen.”

I stared at him. “Are you insane? That’s exactly what they’re telling people not to do.”

He’d taken a large bite of his sandwich. “You do realize,” he said, as he chewed, “that there’s nowhere on this island you can go that isn’t coastal.”

“Yes,” I said. “But you can go inland. You don’t have to stay on the beach—”

“What do you care?” Those bright eyes glittered at me a little too intensely. “Why is what I do during the hurricane so important to you?”

I took a sip of my wine to escape his smirk. “It’s not. Trust me, whether you live or die makes no difference to me.”

Drew grinned. “Now you’re starting to sound more like a local, Fresh Water. So where are you hunkering down, if you’re so intent on staying?”

I’m sorry to say that I flipped my hair. What was wrong with me? I wasn’t even drunk, I’d only had one Jell-O shot and a few sips of wine. “Oh, I have a lot of options.”

“Really?” He was still grinning. “Like where?”

“I invited her to stay with me,” Angela said mildly, leaning over between us to scoop some spinach dip onto a corn chip. “But apparently, she got a better offer, since she said no.”

I almost choked on the sip of wine I’d taken. This statement was a complete falsehood, and Angela knew it. What she’d actually said earlier that day back at the café was that she’d be staying at her mother’s during the hurricane. Mrs. Fairweather’s home was a historic Spanish-style bungalow made of concrete and not situated in a flood zone, and so ideal for hunkering down during storms.

I was welcome to join them, Angela had said, but her brother’s rottweilers would be there as well, and might not be too thrilled to see Gary.

I had not taken her invitation seriously.

“Um,” I said. No way was I going to mention that Drew’s own aunt had invited me to stay with her. That seemed like it would be walking into whatever mischievous trap Angela was setting for me. “Yes, well, Lady Patricia invited me to stay with her in a fourth-floor suite at the Cascabel—”

His grin vanished. “The Cascabel? You’re not staying there, are you?”

“Well,” I said, noting that his objection appeared to be over the hotel, not whom I was staying with. Lady Patricia was the most well-liked drag queen in Little Bridge, and everyone bought fabrics for their curtains and outdoor furniture at Patrick’s fabric shop. “Well, yes, I thought I might. Pat says it’s rated Cat Five, too—”

“The building itself, sure. But the lobby and stairwells flood every time there’s even a minor rainstorm. Why doesn’t anyone ever remember that?”

“Remember what?” Ed Hartwell was approaching with a platter still sizzling from the grill. He appeared to have almost every variety of barbecue possible, from burger patties to hot dogs to kebabs to portobello mushrooms.

“The Cascabel,” Drew said. “What’s the point of being safe from wind damage on a high floor when you can’t exit in an emergency because there’s three to six feet of floodwater on the first?”

“They have a generator,” Angela pointed out.

“Sure, to power the rooms,” Drew said. “Not enough juice to handle the hallways or lobby. And I wouldn’t trust the electricals anyway under those conditions. Salt water will have flooded the elevator shafts, corroding the cables. So you’re still going to have to walk up and down a dank, dark, smelly stairway every time you need to go out for anything—”