The storm didn’t just arrive; it descended on Northwood like a vengeful god. The sky, a bruised and churning purple, had been spitting rain for hours, but now it unleashed a torrential assault. Each drop was a bullet, hammering against the bookstore’s vulnerable roof, a relentless percussion that vibrated through the floorboards and up Chloe’s spine. She was on a stepladder in the poetry section, a dripping bucket in one hand and a useless wad of paper towels in the other, trying to stanch a leak that had metastasized from a drip to a steady, mocking stream.
The air was thick with the scent of wet paper and decay, a funereal perfume for dying words. Every plink of water into the array of buckets and saucepans she’d scattered across the floor was a tick of a clock counting down to total disaster. Bennett’s voice from their call last night echoed in her mind, smooth and logical. “Chloe, darling, it’s a building, not a person. You can’t save it with sentiment. Let a professional handle it.”
Easy for him to say from his climate-controlled corner office three hundred miles away. This building was a person. It was her grandfather, her grandmother, the ghost of the girl she used to be who believed in epic love stories and ink-stained fingers.
A low, guttural groan vibrated from the ceiling above the non-fiction section. It was a sound of immense pressure, of ancient timber giving up a fight it had waged for a hundred years. Chloe froze on the ladder, her heart seizing in her chest.
“No,” she whispered, the word swallowed by a sudden, deafening roar of thunder that shook the very foundations of the store.
The groan became a sickening crack, sharp and violent like a bone snapping. Before she could even process it, a ten-foot section of the ceiling directly over the history aisle gave way. Plaster, rotted lathe, and a black cascade of rain-soaked insulation exploded downwards. It wasn’t a leak anymore; it was a waterfall. A deluge of filthy water and debris crashed onto the shelves below, instantly pulping leather-bound histories and biographies. The sound was a deafening, wet cataclysm of destruction.
For a moment, all Chloe could do was stare, her knuckles white on the metal ladder. Dust and the smell of sodden earth filled the air. Water was gushing in, a torrent from the bruised sky, creating a rapidly expanding lake on the worn floorboards. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through her shock. This wasn’t a problem she could fix with buckets and resolve. This was an emergency. This was the end.
Her hands shaking, she scrambled down the ladder, her boots splashing in the spreading puddle. She fumbled for her phone, her fingers slick with dust and damp. Who did you even call for something like this? A roofer? A demolition crew? Her mind was a frantic blank. Bennett would know. He would have a contact, a risk-assessment plan. But the thought of his calm, patronizing voice telling her “I told you so” made bile rise in her throat.
Aunt Carol. Of course.
She dialed, her thumb slipping twice on the screen. It rang once before her aunt’s brisk, no-nonsense voice cut through the static. “Chloe? You sound terrible. Is it the roof?”
“It’s more than the roof, Aunt Carol,” Chloe choked out, her voice cracking. “It’s… it’s caved in. A whole section. There’s water pouring in everywhere.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end, followed by a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush. “Okay. Okay, honey, don’t panic. First, find the main breaker and kill the power to that part of the store. You don’t need to get electrocuted on top of everything else.”
Chloe’s eyes darted to the fuse box near the back office, and she nodded, even though her aunt couldn’t see her. “Okay. Then what?”
“Then you call the only man in this town who can handle a disaster of that magnitude on a day’s notice.”
“Who?” Chloe asked, already sloshing toward the back room.
“They call him Wrecking Ball Carter,” Carol said, her tone a mixture of reverence and warning. “He’s the best carpenter and contractor in three counties. Gruff as a bear and twice as big, but the man works miracles with wood and steel. He can shore up a collapsing barn in a hurricane. This will be right up his alley.”
The nickname sent a strange shiver through Chloe. It sounded destructive, brutal. “Wrecking Ball? Why do they call him that?”
“Some say it’s because he used to work demolition. Others say it’s because when he shows up to a job, he gets it done with the force of a one-man wrecking crew. Doesn’t matter. He’s your only shot. He’s expensive, and he doesn’t suffer fools, but he’s honest. I’ll text you his number. Call him, tell him Carol sent you, and pray he answers.”
The line went dead. A second later, her phone buzzed with a new text: Carter. Good luck.
After fumbling with the breaker switches and plunging the history section into a deeper, more ominous gloom, Chloe stood in the relative dryness of the checkout area, staring at the number on her screen. Wrecking Ball Carter. She took a deep, shuddering breath, the scent of rain and ruin filling her lungs, and pressed call.
It rang three times, each tone stretching her nerves tighter. She was about to give up when the call connected, but there was no greeting. Just silence, backed by the faint sound of a diesel engine and the rhythmic slap of windshield wipers.
“Hello?” Chloe said, her voice sounding small and thin.
“Yeah,” a voice answered.
The sound hit her like a physical blow. It was a low rumble, a gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate right through the phone and into the marrow of her bones. It was a voice that held the texture of sawdust, whiskey, and thunder. Utterly masculine. Completely unapologetic.
“I… I’m looking for a Mr. Carter?”
“You found him.” The voice was flat, impatient.
“My name is Chloe Maxwell. My aunt, Carol Sterling, gave me your number. I have an emergency at my family’s bookstore on Main Street. The Page & The Anchor.” She rushed the words out, desperate to convey the urgency. “The roof has collapsed.”
There was a beat of silence on the other end. For a heart-stopping second, she thought he’d hung up. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted, just slightly. The impatience was still there, but it was edged with something else. An assessing quiet.
“The Page & The Anchor?” he repeated, the name of the store sounding different in his mouth. Rougher.
“Yes. A large section just came down. It’s… it’s bad. Water is pouring in.”
“How bad is ‘bad’?” he asked. The question was a tool, sharp and precise.
“Ten-foot hole, maybe bigger. The shelves underneath are destroyed. The floor is flooding.”
Another pause. She could picture him on the other end—a huge, grizzled man in a muddy truck, frowning at the rain-streaked windshield, weighing her panic against his schedule.
“Ma’am, it’s pouring cats and dogs. I’ve got two other emergency calls I’m dealing with.”
Her heart sank. “Please,” she said, and she hated the desperation that bled into her voice. “I’ll pay whatever you ask. I just… I can’t lose this place.”
The silence that followed was the longest yet. The diesel engine idled. The wipers kept their steady, hypnotic rhythm. She held her breath, her entire future hanging on the decision of a faceless stranger with a formidable nickname and a voice that made the hairs on her arms stand up.
“Where on Main?” he finally asked, the words clipped.
“Number 214. The corner of Main and Elm.”
“I know it.” He said it like a statement of fact, not a discovery. “I can be there in the morning to assess and put up a temporary patch. Eight a.m. Not a minute sooner.”
Relief washed over her so intensely her knees felt weak. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen my bill,” he said, his voice dry and devoid of humor. “The nickname, by the way. Is it true?” she asked, a sudden, inexplicable impulse.
“What’s that?”
“That they call you Wrecking Ball.”
A low, humorless chuckle rumbled through the line. It was a startlingly intimate sound that did strange things to her insides. “It’s what they call me.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll see you at eight, Mr. Carter.”
“Carter is fine,” he said, and then the line went dead.
Chloe stood in the semi-darkness, the phone still pressed to her ear. The chaos of the storm and the collapsed roof receded, replaced by the lingering resonance of his voice. It was a voice that promised capability and competence, a voice that you listened to. But there was something else there, a rough, serrated edge of familiarity she couldn’t quite place, like a half-remembered song.
She shook her head, dismissing the thought. It was just the stress. She was projecting. He was a carpenter. A big, surly, expensive carpenter who was her only hope.
The rain began to soften, its furious drumming easing into a steady, somber beat. The immediate crisis was over, replaced by the heavy, damp weight of anticipation. Tomorrow, at eight a.m., the man with the wrecking ball reputation would walk through her door. He would see this catastrophic failure, this monument to her family’s slow decline, and he would pass judgment in the form of an estimate.
She looked at the wreckage, the dark maw in the ceiling still weeping rainwater onto the pulped remains of books. She thought of Bennett’s crisp white shirts and polished shoes, his world of clean lines and predictable outcomes. Then she thought of that voice—that gravelly, potent, earth-and-engine voice.
A tremor that had nothing to do with the cold ran through her. She had just placed the fate of her family’s legacy into the hands of a complete stranger. She squared her shoulders, the scent of wet plaster and old paper clinging to her like a shroud. She had until eight a.m. to prepare herself. She would be professional. Composed. Unflappable. She would meet this Wrecking Ball Carter head-on.
Outside, a heavy-duty truck, its engine a low growl that was momentarily audible through the rain, slowed as it passed the front of the store before continuing down the street. Chloe didn’t notice. She was too busy bracing for an impact she couldn’t yet define.