No Judgments: A Novel (Little Bridge Island Book 1)

Residents are encouraged to dispose of the following hurricane debris at the designated landfill: yard waste, appliances, furniture, and any hazardous materials, including paint, fuel, and batteries. (No sludge will be accepted.)

When I woke the next morning, it was to the gentle, rhythmic sound of ocean waves lapping at the shore. Ocean waves, an unfamiliar grinding noise, and . . . voices?

At first, I thought the voices belonged to the gulls, chattering away out on the beach as they’d been doing the whole time I’d been at Drew’s house.

But the more conscious I grew, the more I realized these voices were forming words. And that one of them sounded a lot like Drew’s.

I sat up, looking around Drew’s bedroom. Sun was pouring in through the skylight. I had no idea what time it was because his only clock was digital, and without power the screen was blank, as was the screen to my cell phone.

Drew’s side of the bed was empty, his clothes gone. The only sign that he’d been there were the flung-back sheets and the sliding glass door, which was open. Since no dogs were piled on the bed beside me, I could only assume he’d taken them down onto the beach with him. That’s where the voices appeared to be coming from.

Wrapping myself in the sheet, I padded onto the deck to see if I could tell what was going on. Though it had to be quite early—the sun wasn’t that high in the sky—it was already blazing hot. Shading my eyes with my hand, I peered down at the water . . .

. . . and nearly died of shock.

The romantic private beach that Drew and I had been sharing was now crawling with SUVs, bulldozers, and white trucks from the Little Bridge Electric Company.

How I’d managed to sleep through that, I couldn’t imagine. Apparently, I’d been worn out by so much good sex.

I saw a number of people in orange jumpsuits scraping at the piles of seaweed with rakes. Drew appeared to be talking to their leader, who was too far away for me to recognize. I hurried back inside and jumped into the shower.

When I descended onto the beach, a mug of coffee in my hand—Drew had thoughtfully left a potful on the grill, along with half a breakfast burrito, which I’d ravenously consumed—I soon saw whom he was talking to. It was Ryan Martinez, the deputy sheriff. The men in orange jumpsuits who were cleaning up the piles of seaweed were prisoners he was supervising. Prisoners from the Little Bridge jail!

I nearly choked on my coffee when I realized it.

“Good morning there, Bree,” Ryan said amiably. He’d seen me approaching first, since Drew’s back was toward me. Drew spun around, then grinned happily to see me, even though I was choking.

“Hey, Bree,” he said.

I’d recovered myself enough to notice that Ryan’s lips were twitching with amusement at the sight of my wet hair and coffee mug. I had no doubt that word of the fact that I’d clearly spent the night with Drew Hartwell would soon be spread all over the island, despite the fact that there was no cell service. On Little Bridge Island there was something faster than texting or social media. Ryan would undoubtedly go home later and tell his girlfriend what he’d seen, then she’d tell everyone she knew, they’d tell everyone they knew, and so on.

This was called the Coconut Express, and I was about to become its leading headline.

I didn’t care, and apparently neither did Drew, since he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to his side, giving me a hearty kiss on the top of my head.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

I grinned up at him. I couldn’t help it. I was happier than I could ever remember being.

“Great,” I said. I indicated the coffee mug. “I could get used to breakfast on the barbie.”

“Best there is,” Drew said, with an equally wide grin.

Ryan cleared his throat, looking politely away from the two love-struck idiots beside him. This drew his attention to one prisoner who was also staring at us, so he shouted, “Hobart! What do you think this is, spring break? Get back to work!”

When he turned back toward me, he must have noticed that I was staring curiously at the orange-suited workmen, since he explained, “Governor instructed us last night to let the inmates accused of nonviolent, low-level crimes do hurricane recovery work. The sheriff has a big group of them over at the airport right now, clearing runways.”

Fortunately I hadn’t taken another sip of coffee, or I’d have choked again. “Really? Is this, uh, a normal procedure?”

Of course I knew the answer already. It wasn’t. The governor was only doing it because of my mother.

“Well, it’s not typical,” Ryan said. “But it’s happened before. The prisoners like it. They can get about three days off their sentence for every thirty days they work . . . but we’re not talking about a ton of time since there’s not that much work for them to do, and their sentences run less than a year to begin with.”

Hmmm, that made sense. But it seemed to work out well for everyone involved . . . except maybe for Rick Chance, who was operating a rake near us, and was staring in the direction of Socks. All of Drew’s dogs were leaping happily in and out between the waves, chasing tennis balls that Drew was casually throwing to them.

But Socks was the most excited about it.

“Is that my dog?” Rick asked in tones of disbelief, apparently astonished at the transformation of this sleek, confident creature before him, and the dirty, pathetic one that had lain for so many months beneath his bar stool.

The sheriff’s deputy was quick to retort, before Drew could say a word, “In your statement you said you didn’t have a dog, Rick.”

Rick turned swiftly back to his raking. “I don’t. I don’t.”

“Then try to keep your story straight.” To me, Ryan said, “Drew told me you’re running some kind of pet rescue for all the people who are stuck on the other side of the bridge?”

Startled, I said, “Oh! Yes. I am.” I couldn’t believe that Drew had been talking about me. “I mean, if it’s all right with you—”

“’Course it’s all right,” the sheriff’s deputy said. “I think it’s great. According to the engineers, it might be eight, ten days before we can get that bridge repaired. We’re gonna need all the help we can get—”

“Eight or ten days!” I was shocked. Most of the homes I’d already visited had left only enough food for two or three days. “We’re going to run out of pet food. Do you think Frank over at the Emporium is going to reopen soon?”

Drew was frowning. “Frank and his family evacuated, as well.”

I was horrified. “Where am I going to get food for all the dogs and cats people left behind?” I glanced at the sheriff’s deputy. “Do you think Frank would mind if I broke into his store and took what I needed, then left an IOU?”

Ryan was already shaking his head no in disbelief when Drew laid an arm around my shoulders. “We’d better leave the nice officer to his work, don’t you think, Bree?” he said, gently steering me in the direction of his house. “Be seeing you, Ryan. Thanks for the help.”

“Don’t mention it.” The sheriff’s deputy looked out at his rough-and-tumble crew, one of whom was taking an impromptu break to lean on his rake and flirt with one of the female electric workers. “Hobart!” The sheriff bellowed. “Back to work!”

Drew whistled to his dogs, who tore themselves away from the birds and sand and came loping after us. “Looks like we’ve got a big day ahead of us,” he said, his lips in my hair.

“We?” I loved the heavy weight of his arm around my shoulders. Even more, I loved the intimate way he dipped his head down to whisper in my ear.

“Of course we. You don’t think I’m going to let you run around town, getting all the glory for rescuing every pet in Little Bridge and keep it all to yourself, do you?”

This time, I didn’t mind when he said the word let. I loved his possessiveness.

I wrapped my arm around his waist and hugged him. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”