Tofino Storm

  TOFINO STORM

  Copyright © 2019 by Edie Claire

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Dedication

  For my husband, who makes “happily ever after” as real as it gets.

  Prologue

  Peck, Missouri, Spring 1994

  Christi Miller leaned over the perpetually sticky, discolored Formica countertop of her rental trailer to peer out her kitchen window. She didn’t like the look of the sky. Perhaps the peculiar yellowish cast to the clouds was an artifact of the scratched, cracked glass? There was no wind, nor was there any rain. But she felt uneasy. It had been cloudy all day, but in the last few minutes an oppressive stillness had descended on her home like a shroud.

  The toddler beside her shrieked with displeasure and squirmed in her highchair.

  “I know, I know, baby,” Christi cooed, opening the oven door to check on her latest mommy masterpiece — homemade macaroni and cheese. They might be living in a dump at the moment, but there would be no cheap boxed stuff for her little girl. Christi knew how to make the dish right, with two kinds of real cheese and the perfect speckling of bread crumbs. Unfortunately, the casserole was taking forever to get bubbly and browned, and Laney was hungry. “Just give it another two minutes, okay?” Christi extended a toy. “You want your fuzzy bug?”

  Evidently, Laney did not. The 20-month-old’s reddened face screwed up into a mask of rage, and she batted the toy away and let loose with another scream just as the phone rang.

  “Okay, okay!” the young mother capitulated, grabbing a box of goldfish-shaped crackers from the counter and shaking some onto the highchair tray. “Have an appetizer, then. But you’re going to eat a good lunch, young lady!”

  The child quieted instantly and reached for the crackers. Christi picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Did you see the tornado watch?” her mother’s voice asked worriedly. May Burgdorf was technically her grandmother, but neither made the distinction.

  “No, Ma, but I’m not surprised,” Christi replied. “What does this make now, three watches this week?”

  “Pack up the baby and come over here,” May ordered. “I hate you living in that wreck of a trailer. Makes me nervous. It’s not safe.”

  Christi stifled a sigh. It would be easier to argue if she didn’t second-guess her own decision on an hourly basis. She had nothing against the stately, yet homey red brick house on Second Street. She’d certainly had a warm and happy childhood there. But Christi had moved on once, and it didn’t feel right to go backwards. A married woman with a child should have her own place, even if she had no husband anymore.

  She clenched her jaws to stem the pressure that rose behind her eyes. She refused to cry again. Jimbo was gone now, buried three weeks yesterday, and her tears wouldn’t bring him back. She and Laney were on their own, and if the rental trailer was all she could afford until her widow’s benefits came in from the Army, so be it. Tempting as it was to crawl back into her childhood bed and do nothing but sob, she was a mother now. She could and would stand on her own two feet.

  But the damned sky was giving her the creeps. And she didn’t believe it was just the glass.

  “Okay, Ma, I’ll bring her over for her nap. Just let me finish up her lunch first.”

  “Well, hurry, honey,” May replied, sounding relieved. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Christi said goodbye and hung up. Laney was beginning to squawk again. The child had eaten only a few crackers before throwing the rest on the floor. “I thought you were hungry!” Christi bemoaned, peering into the oven again. She decided the casserole was brown enough. She grabbed a hot pad, pulled the dish out, and set it on the stovetop to cool. A cracker crunched under her foot. “Teddy?” she called over the child’s continuing wails. “Where are you?”

  The little terrier mix appeared, his nails clicking on the faded linoleum.

  “Aren’t you going to eat this?” Christi asked with concern, scooting a cracker in the dog’s direction. Since when did any food in her house last more than a few seconds at ground level? The dog practically lived under Laney’s highchair.

  Teddy moved toward the cracker, sniffed it, and pattered away again. Christi watched as he circled their small living area restlessly. Teddy had always been a hyper sort, but the not-eating thing was strange. He seemed anxious.

  Laney continued squawking. Christi spooned some of the mac and cheese onto a plastic toddler plate and began to blow on it. “Just a minute. It’s coming,” she promised, her eyes still on the dog. He had freaked out before in thunderstorms, but that was because he didn’t like thunder. There was no thunder now.

  Laney’s cries graduated to ear-splitting shrieks. Christi extended one reasonably cool spoonful of the cheesy noodles, but the toddler showed no interest. Her little hands clamped on the edges of her tray and she arched her back, trying to slip down through the hole to freedom.

  “Oh, all right, all right!” Christi agreed, removing the tray and unbuckling the child’s seatbelt. “We’ll eat something at Gran’s.”

  Laney slipped down out of the chair and was toddling off after the dog when Christi heard it. The high, mournful wail of the city storm siren. The tornado watch had turned into a warning. Her muscles tensed, but she was more annoyed than frightened. How she hated that sound! It had plagued her since childhood, sending her and her classmates to crouch beside concrete walls with their hands over their heads, driving her family into their little downstairs bathroom — sometimes for hours at a time. The little half bath had always smelled of sewer gas no matter how well May cleaned it, and now the unpleasant smell and the ominous wail of the storm siren were forever linked in Christi’s mind.

  She groused to herself as she fetched plastic storage containers from the cabinet. Tornado warnings in the spring were part and parcel of living in Peck, a town of roughly three hundred people situated on the flat plains north of the Missouri Bootheel. But this spring had been worse than usual. The warnings seemed to get more frequent every year, stirring everybody up over what almost always turned out to be nothing. She understood the terms: a watch meant that a tornado might happen, whereas a warning meant that somebody somewhere thought they saw a funnel cloud. But as many times as the siren had gone off, a real tornado hadn’t hit Peck in nearly a hundred years.

  “Laney, honey, can you find your shoes?” she called. “We’re going to run over to your grandma’s real quick, okay?”

  Teddy barked. Christi looked up from spooning hot macaroni and cheese to see the little dog running in tight circles in the living room. The toddler followed him around and around, laughing. “Teddy?”

  A sudden noise sent a cold chill down her spine. The wind had picked up. It had picked up considerably. Just minutes ago, there had been nothing. She whirled back to the window to see tree limbs bowing, some of their newly emerged leaves ripping from their still-green stems and flying away.

  Perhaps they wouldn’t go to the house on Second Street. It was only a five-minute drive, but…

  “Dog dog,” the toddler babbled, the light laughter no longer in her voice. “Go!”

  Christi didn’t need to look to know that the dog was now racing from one end of the aged two-bedroom trailer to the other with the toddler in full pursuit. She could feel the vibration of the floor beneath her feet. She grabbed the plastic containers and the still-hot casserole dish and shov
ed them all into the refrigerator.

  Something hit the side of the house with a bang, making Christi jump. Was that a stick? A tree branch? Her adrenaline spiked. Maybe this warning did mean something.

  “Laney!” she called again, thinking hard. What should she do? She couldn’t take her daughter out in the car now. Not in this wind, with everything blowing around! They’d have to take cover in the bathroom. They could get into the tub, put a mattress over their heads…

  “Dog,” Laney cried again, distressed. “Dog, Mommy!” The terrier was in the kitchen again, running rings around the empty highchair.

  “He’s okay, honey,” Christi soothed as she worked her way around the crazed dog. “Hey, I know! You want to play hide and seek? Teddy can play with us! We’ll all go hide in the bathtub. Okay?”

  The wind had gotten louder. The trailer began to creak and groan as if giant hands were squeezing it between them. Christi’s ears popped. They had to hurry! She had to get the mattress. But no, she couldn’t, could she? The new one Jimbo had gotten her for Christmas was queen-sized, and it weighed a ton. Even if she could move it, it would as likely suffocate them as protect them.

  The dog moved to the kitchen door. He jumped up and down, scratching at it frantically. The toddler teared up in distress. “Doggie wannow!”

  Christi paused for a fraction of a second, her brain dutifully registering the significance of what could possibly have been her baby’s first sentence. But she had no time to dwell on it. “No, he’s fine. We’re all going to play hide and seek!” Pellets of hail assaulted the metal roof and siding. Hurry! She decided to settle for the crib mattress. “Go and get in the tub right now!” she ordered, giving the toddler a push toward the little bathroom that was — at most — eight feet away. “I’ll be right there!”

  She scrambled into the nursery, pulled up the mattress, and stashed it under one arm. She was turning back toward the doorway when she heard a train approaching. It was rumbling across town at a crazy speed, vibrating, shaking everything in its path, coming on louder and louder still, bearing down…

  Christi moved as fast as she could back into the living room — it was only a few feet! — but she stumbled; her legs felt like lead. “Laney!” she yelled, but she could barely hear herself. Her ears were pounding; her whole body felt as if it were submerged in some mysterious liquid. “Laney!”

  The toddler wasn’t in the living room. She must be in the tub already. Good girl! Christi fought to cover the last few feet to the bathroom, but a wet wind struck her face, blew her backward, ripped the mattress from her arms. She looked with horror to see her kitchen exposed to the outside, the thin metal door banging furiously on its hinges.

  A fiery heat of determination surged through her veins. She pushed back against the strange pressure that surrounded her and forced her way toward the bathroom and her daughter. She had lost the mattress, but no matter. She still had her own, well-padded body…

  The tiny room was empty.

  Laney wasn’t there.

  Christi screamed. A loud, shrill, bloodcurdling scream. She whirled around, looked through the doorway to the other bedroom. Empty. The train hadn’t stopped. It was only getting louder. Stronger. Closer…

  She scrambled back into the living room. The walls of the trailer were groaning, heaving, straining… the kitchen door was gone.

  Doggie want out.

  Christi stared into the void. Debris flew past horizontally.

  Doggie want out.

  No.

  No, no, no, no…

  Christi lunged toward the open doorway, but wound up with her feet straight out in front of her and her back pressed against a wall. Where she could see grass before, tree branches waved.

  She remembered nothing else.

  Chapter One

  Tofino, British Columbia, Present Day

  Jason Buchanan shot a glance at the nautical clock that adorned the far wall of his office, which was also the lobby of the Pacific Rim Surfing Lodge. He blew out a breath of frustration. Ordinarily, he enjoyed his time here. He had paneled the interior by hand with reclaimed barnwood and decorated it with a personally pleasing mixture of nature photographs and surfing paraphernalia, and its giant picture window offered an amazing view of the Pacific crashing against the west coast of Vancouver Island. But his last guest of the day was now officially overdue. The surfing lodge was known for its casual atmosphere and self-serve mojo, but he still had to check new people in, and he’d been hoping this one would be early. A storm was coming in tonight, and he wanted to catch a late afternoon wave before conditions deteriorated.

  He turned his gaze to the vista outside, and a satisfied smile chased away his frown lines. Being able to lay his hands on a piece of property fronting Chesterman Beach had been the coup of a lifetime, and he appreciated it hourly. Never mind that the parcel in question had been a pie-shaped wedge littered with the debris of a collapsed shack and tainted by rumors of drainage and septic issues. Jason was good with his hands, and he knew people. He’d lived in British Columbia since he was ten and had been a fixture of the Tofino surf scene ever since he’d gotten permission to drive his grandfather’s truck down from Port McNeil. He’d been patient, he’d watched, and he’d waited. And when the right property surfaced, he’d jumped on it. Now, barely in his thirties, he was the sole proprietor of a one-of-a-kind hostel that provided fellow surfers around the globe with a comfortable, budget-friendly home base from which to explore the cold rush of the Canadian Pacific.

  Jason Buchanan loved his life. He loved Tofino, he loved his surf lodge, he loved women, and he loved his job — with the exception of moments like this one, when customers tested his sunny good nature by violating one of his few but clearly stated rules. Everyone knew that if you wanted a bed at his hostel, you’d better pick up your key during the designated window. Arrive after the stated hour, and catching up with the proprietor was your problem. It got dark early in January, and Jason had his own surfing and barhopping to do. It was simple common courtesy.

  He gazed out at the sky, which was rapidly darkening with heavy, fast-moving clouds. The waves were kicking up nicely, but unfortunately, so was the wind. Forget it, dude. There would be no more sweet rides today.

  He fired up his laptop. If he was stuck here awhile, he might as well catch up on his bookkeeping. As tempted as he was to put out his “no vacancy” sign and leave his tardy check-in to her own devices, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. If one of his regulars were messing with him, he’d have taken off half an hour ago. But the woman on the phone had sounded so clueless he felt sorry for her. She wasn’t a surfer and didn’t even know what a hostel was; she’d just been desperate for someplace inexpensive to stay. Fortunately for her, he’d had a single room open, and offering safe digs for women traveling solo was a point of pride for him. Besides, she’d said she was taking the ferry over from Vancouver, which meant she could have been delayed any number of legitimate ways.

  He was deep into accounting mode when the door to the lobby quietly opened and shut, followed by steps that were nearly noiseless except for the squeak of a wet sneaker on the floorboards. He clicked on save and rerouted his attention.

  The woman before him looked like a drowned kitten. Her puffy parka was soaked through, its useless faux-fur trimmed hood dangling down her back beneath wet, stringy clumps of blond hair. Her well-worn jeans were darkened with rainwater and her squishy shoes had left puddles in her wake. Jason had been so intent he hadn’t even noticed it was pouring outside. Still, there was no way the amount of liquid she was packing had fallen on her between the parking lot and his door.

  He couldn’t help but grin. She looked so adorably… well, pathetic. She was of average height and build for a woman, but being soaked to the skin did lend her a certain childlike quality, as did the plastered strands of hair that obscured the majority of her face. “Oh, my,” he said playfully. “Looks like you got caught in it.”

  The woman stepped up to the cou
nter. She centered her dripping coat over the floor mat but made no attempt to pull her soggy bangs off her face. “You still have a room?”

  Jason raised an eyebrow. Her tone wasn’t quite rude, but it was definitely all business, with virtually no inflection and absolutely no humor. Some of its flatness might be due to the midwestern American accent he’d picked up on the phone, but his casual levity was clearly not appreciated.

  He could have wiped the sympathetic grin off his face, but that wasn’t the way he rolled. “We absolutely do,” he said cheerfully, reaching under the counter. “Provided you are…” he trailed off, prompting her to supply the name on the reservation. He’d gotten burned by posers before.

  “Laney Miller,” she replied. “Sorry I’m late. The bus broke down.”

  Jason raised both eyebrows. “The bus?” he said incredulously. Nobody took the bus, at least not in January. The free shuttle around town only ran in the summer; winter visitors were pretty much stranded without wheels of their own. Besides which, the nearest bus stop was a good twenty-minute walk away. No wonder she wasn’t feeling it.

  He studied her further. She wasn’t supermodel material, but she was probably pretty cute without all the hair stuck to her face. What he could see of her eyes was certainly intriguing. They were large, beautifully shaped, and of a vibrant, cerulean blue. Jason cleared his throat, then served up his most charming smile. “Well, that explains a lot. Sorry for the lousy welcome to Tofino! If I’d known you were hoofing it, I’d have come out and picked you up myself.”

  The wet woman made no response. Her pretty eyes flickered over him with disinterest and focused on the picture window beyond.

  Ouch. So much for the charm offensive.

  “Can you see the ocean from here?” she asked, with the first detectable hint of pleasure he’d heard. Ordinarily it would be a stupid question, since only a few hundred feet separated the lodge from the powerful waves that buffeted the black rocks and brown sand of the coast. But at the moment, little was visible to her besides fat drops of rain streaking across the glass.