Lib Novel Page 13
“So it’s official…it’s a hurricane?” Trevor asked.
“Looks like it,” Devon answered. “They still have several scenarios for where it’s headed but Fort Myers and Cape Coral look to be a certain hit. They’re not sure if it will remain a hurricane or a tropical depression. It could lose steam or gain power, they just don’t know yet.”
Trevor had experienced hurricanes before but he never had a wife and children to worry about either.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
“Well, the first thing is the properties that are currently unoccupied, we can already start to cover the windows and secure whatever we need to without disturbing anyone. We keep an eye on the weather reporting and hope for the best.”
Trevor shook his head. “That can’t be our official statement, right?”
Devon looked at his son. “Is that a joke or are you seriously asking me that?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve seen how removed you can be about some things but I’ve also seen how you are with your grandchildren.”
Devon seemed upset by Trevor’s comment. “I have family just as you do, Trevor. I care very much about what happens to them. I also care about the people who have purchased our homes and live in our community. I’m not as removed from compassion as you might think.”
Trevor shrugged. “But not empathy. How can someone like you truly ever understand what it’s like to have nothing?”
Devon threw the television remote down on the office table. “I’m tired of apologizing to you for our money. I’ve worked hard all my life for the luxuries that our family enjoys. Do you really think that because you take a smaller salary that a poor person looks at you and thinks you’re one of them? You’re a Hutchins just as I am. I inherited the name on the sweat of my grandfather’s back and so did you. If that makes you unhappy, I don’t know what to tell you. No matter where you go or what you do for a living, you will still be a Hutchins. I suggest you accept that fact or you’re going to be a very unhappy man.”
Trevor watched his father walk out of his office and close the door behind him. Since working at his father’s company, he knew there was very little about the business that appealed to him. Providing affordable housing for people who otherwise would never own property gave him satisfaction but there was nothing anyone could do to convince him that he and his father were on the same page about that.
The dollar bill was Devon’s bottom line, and if there was money to be made by helping others, then he was on board; if not, he’d look for other, more profitable investments.
Trevor and his brother Clayton found ways to bridge the gap between them, but the relationship between Trevor and his father remained strained.
Staring at the closed door, Trevor processed the heated exchange that had just taken place. Hurricane Allan loomed hundreds of miles away, and yet the storm within the Hutchins family seemed just as fierce and carried with it a heavy warning of damage just around the corner.
CHAPTER 5
Millicent (Millie) Brenner put the newspaper on the kitchen table and walked to the refrigerator. Taking out a bottle of white wine, she unscrewed the top and poured the liquid into her wine glass.
She didn’t own a corkscrew and didn’t plan to buy one when she could just as easily select wine from a box or in a screw top bottle.
There were several decisions like this one that she made daily. Whether to spend money on something or make do with whatever she already had meant that many days she didn’t bother to go outside at all.
Unless she sat on a sandy beach, a bench or never got out of her car, every trip beyond her home was a potential expense she couldn’t afford.
She sipped her wine and re-read the article.
Becca Powell was coming back to Captiva Island and would be getting married at the Key Lime Garden Inn. The article was sure to create the kind of buzz that small-town islanders loved to gossip about.
That the wedding was taking place right at Christmas and immediately following the Christmas Fair made the event all the more exciting.
Millie was tired. She’d already spent the day walking every inch of Captiva Island in an effort to familiarize herself with her new home. The island had always been nothing more than a distant memory for her, and the truth was that she couldn’t tell if they were her memories or her mother’s.
When she was five years old her mother Kathleen whisked her away to Maine and, except for a brief visit when she was in high school, she hadn’t been back.
Now, sitting at her table with the newspaper in her hand, she turned to the back section once more. There in the middle of the Help Wanted section was her drawn red circle, the one that targeted a housekeeping job at the Key Lime Garden Inn.
Millie looked at the framed photograph of her mother which she’d placed on the bookcase shelf. Raising her glass to the photo she smiled, “Here’s to you, Mom. Looks like I’ve found a job after all.”
* * *
Without calling the owner of the Key Lime Garden Inn, Millie walked to the inn first thing the next morning in the hopes of getting an interview with Maggie Moretti.
Millie was up bright and early and put on her best summer dress and sandals. The weather was sunny and not too hot which was normal this time of year. She passed the various restaurants and businesses which were relatively quiet. November wasn’t Captiva’s busiest season and therefore Millie felt she’d get a better chance of meeting people and forming new friendships.