Page 154 of These Summer Storms

“Yikes,” Emily said.

“Mom is going toflip,” Greta said, eyes wide on the tree.

“It will be good for her,” Sam said.

“Jack! You’re alive!” Claudia called from the doorway.

“I am,” he confirmed. “Thank you for the concern.”

“We gotta stick together,” Claudia replied, and Alice couldn’t help the little kick of warmth in her chest at thatwe.

“Do we like Jack now?” Sam asked, dryly. “That’s my sister you’re all over, man.”

“I’m not going to apologize for it,” Jack said, softly at her ear.

“Please don’t.”

His arm tightened around her waist. “Hello, Storms.”

“God, look at this room—” Emily said, her gaze tracking over the wreckage. “Do you think Dad sent it? Like a sign?”

“A sign of what?” Greta asked. “Time to get new windows?”

“More like time to get off this fucking island,” Sam said. “If someone had been at Emily’s desk—”

He cut himself off as they all looked to him, the words sparking collective memory.

“I forgot about that,” Emily said, the words coming like the rain, soft and misty.

“Emily’s desk?” Jack asked.

Alice couldn’t help her little smile. “That desk was made from the wreckage of an eighteenth-century pirate ship.” All the kids snickered. “Dad swore it belonged to the owner of one of the longest-standing private casinos in London.”

Jack’s brows rose, already recognizing one of Franklin’s over-the-top stories. “And how did Franklin get it?”

They’d heard the story a million times and knew every answer. Alice replied, “It belonged to her—the owner of the casino was a woman, allegedly.”

“She passed it to her daughter, the first woman to own a major newspaper,” Greta said. “It stayed at the paper through her reign and the reign of her daughter.”

Emily took over. “Survived fire and war and politics and was moved from manor house to manor house for a while, before the family must have decided there was no need for such a massive piece of furniture.”

“Dad bought it at auction the year Emily was born,” Alice said, looking to her little sister. “He always said that a desk that had been owned by three powerful women was the perfect thing to commemorate the birth of his third daughter.”

“He didn’t care that I wasn’t his,” Emily said, happily.

Alice swallowed around the knot in her throat. “He definitely did not.”

“He was a blowhard and an asshole,” Sam said, “and I’m sorry to say, youwerehis.”

“You areours,” Greta amended.

“That’s what I said,” Alice said. “There’s no getting out. I should know.”

Emily laughed through her emotion—the surest proof that she was a Storm. “And here I was, hoping for an exit.”

“Take heart, we have our strengths,” Alice said. “For example, I defy you to name a group that reacts more calmly to a tree crashing through a wall. Mom didn’t even bother to get out of bed.”

Another laugh, this the real thing. “I gave her a gummy.”

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