Read Online Love Slave for Two: Reckoning [Love Slave for Two 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Tymber Dalton - Free Book Online Page B

John.
    “Yes, surprisingly.”
    “All our lines are buried in the development. I expected to lose electric because of the feeder lines going down, but cable might stay up longer.” He picked up the house phone. Silence met him. “Landlines are down.” He picked up his cell phone from where he left it on the counter to charge and called Tyler’s phone. He waited, staring at Tyler’s phone on the counter. Finally, after three rings, Tyler’s phone began to ring. He immediately silenced it. “Wonder how long cell towers will last?”
    “Probably not much longer,” John said. He’d turned the TV and cable box back on and pointed at the radar image. Across the bottom of the screen, a crawler scrolled with information about various neighborhoods. “It’s a strong Cat 4, with Cat 5 gusts at the eyewall. Now they’re saying the eyewall isn’t going to make landfall until sometime late this afternoon.”
    “Shit.” Outside, the wind was already rushing past the metal storm shutters, punctuated by howling gusts. “We’re in for a long day.”
    “They said there’s flooding reported in a lot of places. Including Town ’n’ Country.”
    “I’m sorry,” Tom said.
    John shrugged. “Not much I can do about it. We’ve got insurance.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m going to tell Nevvie to go ahead and get Laurie registered for school up there. There’s no reason to drag her back down here when I don’t even know where we’re going to live.”
    “Well, for starters, you always have here,” Tom insisted. “And we don’t know for sure your house will be badly damaged.”
    “During the four-o’clock report, they had a reporter out on Tampa Road, less than a half mile from our house. He had water up to his knees. He was standing in the middle of the road.”
    “Oh. Shit.”
    “Yeah. Exactly. In my head, I think I’ve already written it off as a total loss. The good thing is, we’re used to moving. Kelly grabbed the important stuff like pictures and keepsakes that we can’t replace. We can buy more furniture and clothes and crap like that.” He patted Tom on the arm. “Since you’re up, I’m going to try to grab some sleep. Wake me if you need me.”
    Tom stared at the radar picture on the TV. Edgar was a weather monster of truly Frankenstein proportions. The newscaster repeated the very thought running through Tom’s mind.
    “…and this is the worst-case scenario emergency officials have been warning residents of for years. If you haven’t evacuated yet, officials say you must hunker down in place and wait out the storm. Fire rescue will not be dispatched after six o’clock this morning due to the high winds. If you are experiencing flooding, try to evacuate vertically into your attic, but make sure you have a means to escape if the water reaches that high. Officials recommend taking an ax or sledgehammer and breaking a hole in the roof for escape…”
    Tom heavily sat on the sofa and watched.
     
    * * * *
     
    Tyler cooked breakfast for everyone. The cable blipped out for a minute a little after eight in the morning, but came back on. Tom wondered how many more of those blips would happen before they lost it for good. They still had water pressure, and had stocked ten five-gallon jugs in the garage, as well as several flats of bottled water. Their three rain barrels in the yard were likely already overflowing, and if necessary, they could use that for flushing toilets.
    There wasn’t much they could do but wait and worry. Tom walked the house, checking for roof leaks. Around four in the afternoon, he used the ladder to crawl up into the attic access and shone a flashlight around. So far, so good.
    But they hadn’t even experienced the worst of the storm’s wrath yet. Latest predictions put the eye making landfall around eight that night. And they still had to survive the back side of the storm. The eyewall had grown in size and developed a classic “stadium” look on