Chapter 2
He really could.
Calum Trelawney could order more than one six-figure speedboat if he wanted. The internet told me that he’s richer than sin, and that sinning made him wealthy if you believe violence is always evil.
Gotta say, after seeing his older brother get all kinds of violent on French beaches, I’m not convinced it’s always that simple.
Reece only ever used his size and strength to wrestle traffickers away from families so he could tell them the real truth—there’s no room at the inn in Britain for weary travellers.
No welcome waiting on this overcrowded island for their kids even if they do make it across the Channel.
Better they explore some safer options, which the foundation Reece works for could help with.
This Trelawney brother doesn’t save lives.
Calum Trelawney uses all his muscle to score record-breaking contracts.
And win unfeasibly large trophies. Before an injury that the internet still debates over, uncertain if it affects his upper or lower body, Calum Trelawney rampaged through something called the playoffs like a modern-day gladiator.
Now he’s here in an ambassadorial role to promote the sport and visit UK clubs while rehabilitating.
That’s wild when I didn’t even know pro hockey was played in Britain.
I have so many questions. I start with the most intriguing.
“Why do you want me to make you look like a loser?”
He doesn’t answer, too busy looking around the inside of a cabin that suddenly seems a whole lot smaller with someone his size inside it. This space is plenty for me, even if there isn’t room to swing a mouse, let alone a cat, like Dad always grumbles.
For once, I see my living quarters through Dad’s eyes, even if I have no interest in his offer of a warm and cosy cabin aboard his own houseboat.
I also see my home through Calum Trelawney’s eyes, and it’s stupid to suddenly be self-conscious just because he studies the unwashed dishes in my galley.
“I’m not lazy. I take them over to the marina reception building to wash them. ”
His gaze flicks to me, one eyebrow twitching upwards, and I don’t owe him a single explanation. Two tumble out regardless. “My water pump quit, and the outlet drain is blocked.” A third confession slips out. “The stove isn’t working either.”
His breath plumes. “You can’t make yourself any hot food?”
“I use that on deck.” I point at a camping gas stove, but I’m speaking to his back because he’s already moved on. He steps down into my saloon where he turns in a slow circle, pausing at the rumpled tangle of my bedding. I can’t help snapping again. “It’s bigger than it looks.”
He looks back, that eyebrow twitching again. “What is?”
“My bunk. It pulls out. Or it used to before the mechanism seized.” That repair is way down my list. It’s unimportant. I still blurt, “It turns into a double,” as if telling him so is vital.
His slow circling continues. “Good to know.”
I’m fully dressed right now in a thermal jumpsuit emblazoned with a Juno Speedboats logo.
Despite its warmth, I shiver like I have done under those rumpled blankets since the onboard heater also gave up the ghost. “H-hey.” He isn’t done with turning in that slow circle, so I speak to his broad back.
“I asked why you want me to make you look like a loser.”
He doesn’t answer, and sure, another Trelawney used to pay la Sylvie plenty of visits back when Reece let me film his lifesaving work, but he was never intimidating.
Reece couldn’t have been—apart from when he was face-to-face with traffickers, he was a human version of my pile of bedding, all soft, crumpled, and far too gentle to ever ping my danger radar.
That radar pops off as soon as his brother turns to face me.
I’m still in the galley, which puts me almost level with a pair of ice-chip eyes, and with what takes a while to register as a major difference between this and our last meeting.
“What happened to your beard?” That’s such a stupid question. I can see exactly what a pair of clippers has done to it. “It’s shorter.” I frown even though this neat and tidy version suits him so much better. “Doesn’t that break a hockey tradition?”
He blinks. “You’re a fan of the game?”
“Hardly.” I’m not about to admit what I spent the last few hours doing.
He doesn’t need to know how many post-game interviews I’ve watched featuring him nearly naked in locker rooms full of other huge and hairy players.
I sniff as if I didn’t just waste ages watching his beard grow, game after game, to reach its former wild and bushy glory, yet I can’t help saying, “You told reporters your beard was the reason you won that cup last year, so you’ve only got yourself to blame if you have bad luck for the rest of your season. ”
He’s as bleak as I was earlier. “Pretty sure my season’s already over.
” He raises a hand to a neatly clipped jaw, and there’s fuck all scruffy about his face now, nothing rumpled or crumpled or soft and squishy around the edges like his older brother about him.
Apart from his lips, that is. They look plenty soft to me.
It’s a weird time to be reminded of Lito, but the sharp lines and acute angles he said could make my fortune are nothing compared to the cheekbones belonging to this visitor who I wasn’t expecting. And who I don’t know how to handle.
I really don’t.
It’s that plain and simple when the dim lighting of the cabin shows me something I should back away from.
He’s desperate.
Instead, I pass a hand over my chest-mounted camera, turning it on to capture what else he shows me.
And he’s drowning.
I’ve videoed enough people in the same situation to know it when I see it. I hear it too in his low rumble.
“As for luck? I need to make my own, and soon.”
If I have a fatal flaw, it’s sharing the kind of curiosity that gets felines into trouble. One step forward puts me almost against his chest, and he growls a gritty warning.
“Careful.”
Maybe I do have a preservation instinct—I go stock-still. Part of me wants to call out Papa, like I’ve only done once as an adult, when a pod of orca snacked on la Sylvie and I thought I’d lose her. The rest of me wants to see what will happen if I don’t follow that careful order.
I’m so fucking tempted to find out. To push closer and shove him.
I’m certain it would make for fireworks.
And for some fantastic footage if I edited him into a split screen with Reece, because if this Trelawney is as soulless as my research has suggested, the contrast with his brother could be another way to wow those contest judges.
I keep pushing. “What if I don’t want to be careful?”
He growls again, reminding me that he has good reason to hate me. “Then I can’t be held responsible for what happens.”
Not to me, it turns out, which is almost disappointing until he rummages in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie to pull out my missing Secret Santa gift.
He cups an egg I could have crushed if I had pushed any closer to him, and I let out a weak-with-relief sound I’ll have to delete later from this footage.
All his sharp lines soften. “Don’t worry.
You didn’t crack it.” He promises that without a hint of hate.
In fact, his soft Cornish accent brushes my cheek like a feather.
That should be a sign I’ve drifted too close for my own safety.
I’m virtually chest-to-chest again with someone known for thumping first and asking questions never, only right now, it’s hard to picture what else the internet showed me.
Neither of his huge fists are raised to bash me for my crimes against his closest friendship. And no blood smears the teeth a second surprisingly sweet smile of the day shows me. “Go ahead,” he urges. “Feel it.”
If Lito Dixon gave me the same order, I’d assume it was dick related. From Calum Trelawney, I do as instructed and take hold of an egg that, against all odds, is intact. And warm.
“I kept it safe for you, see?”
“Oui. C’est vrai ca.” Emotion always affects my internal language selector, but it really is true.
I cup a gift that shouldn’t have been on my Christmas wish list. All I should want from Santa this year is that trophy engraved with my name and enough prize money to buy my freedom, yet here I am, smiling like a sap over a shell that might hold a fluffy baby.
That’s when I catch him staring, although this time, Calum’s jaw doesn’t drop like it did out on the mooring. If anything, it tightens, and it takes a second to compute the reason—he holds in laughter.
I’m instantly defensive. “What’s so funny?”
“Just something my brother-in-law predicted. Hang on.” He brushes past me to climb the hatch steps back up to the deck, and, before I can follow, he yells, “Pat? Tell Seb he was right.”
My poor old la Sylvie. She was already too low in the water.
She sinks even lower when another Trelawney jumps aboard to peer through the hatch opening.
He’s joined by someone slighter who snaps, “Of course I was right.” He’s cute enough to pass for one of Santa’s elves, or he would be if his eyes didn’t narrow.
At me. “Ugh,” he says, as if I’m as slimy as Lito Dixon.
“Of course he’s your type. Don’t you dare have hate sex with him. ”
Calum laughs, and it’s been a while since anyone did that in this cabin. It’s also the last thing I’d expect from someone the internet states is aggressively heterosexual with no shortage of girlfriends.
His brother doesn’t join in with Calum’s laughter. This third Trelawney brother says a gentle, “Rude, babe.” He passes down an armful of bags that Calum takes from him. “Hurry up or we’ll be late for dinner.”
“Don’t wait for me,” Calum tells them both. “I’ll see you there later.”
I don’t get a chance to ask what the fuck I did to deserve the kind of ugh I usually reserve for wankers. Calum clears that up after I shut the hatch. “Seb’s almost as protective of Jack as I am.”
Ah.
How many more people are gonna turn up on this mooring to let me know I’m the world’s worst person? And the world’s worst salesman too, which I’m reminded of when stomping footsteps approach.
Dad bellows from too close for comfort. “Valentin? Don’t be late. I’ve got test drives booked solid for you all evening.”
I only realise my hold on the egg has tightened when a warm pair of hands close around mine again. Calum hasn’t done that to heat my chilly fingers. “Not so tight,” he murmurs as Dad’s footsteps fade, and I release an egg that I’ll struggle to keep warm if Dad keeps me busy for the whole party.
Calum solves that problem. He digs into one of those bags and comes out with exactly what I need to keep it cosy.
I read the lettering on the box he empties. “A mini incubator.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” He settles the egg inside, closes a bright yellow lid shaped like a roosting chicken, then holds up a cable. “Power?”
I show him an outlet beside my bunk, where I quickly disconnect my laptop. As soon as he flicks a switch, every cabin lamp fails, and we’re plunged into complete darkness.
Or almost.
A red light blinks on my camera and a golden glow emits from a safe haven that will make my life so much easier. That glow also shows movement. Not from the egg. This movement is Calum Trelawney stripping.
Out of his clothes.
“What the fu—”
“I need to change for dinner. Got held up trying to find this.” He taps the lid of the incubator.
“Go ahead if you need to leave. I’ll stay until I’m sure it’s working.
” He says all that as though a hockey player getting almost naked before doing a spot of egg-sitting for me is business as usual in this cabin.
It isn’t.
Neither is a sportsman worth a fortune crouching in his undies. That’s a lot more bunching muscle than I’m used to seeing beside my bunk. No one else has ever knelt there. Not for sex nor to tell a bedtime story like Calum murmurs.
“The temperature and humidity needs to be just right, and the instructions say that it can take a while to stabilise. Someone needs to make sure it isn’t too hot or too cold for you, yeah?
I won’t go until it’s just right.” He murmurs that to an egg as if it’s Goldilocks facing three bowls of porridge, and I can’t help smiling.
Calum doesn’t miss that, and again his tight jaw clenches until he gives up and grins at me like he can’t help it either.
I didn’t expect to share another smile with him. Or for him to worry on my behalf. “That was your boss?”
I nod. “My dad.”
“He sounded tetchy. Don’t get into trouble on my account.” He glances in the direction Dad’s footsteps had pounded. “Go, Valentin.”
That’s an order. I’m the worst at following those. Always have been. Tonight, a virtual stranger whose face is a reminder of someone who once saved my life issues another.
“Tell him you’ve made a sale. That is, if you’re up for the challenge of making me look like a loser. Think about it tonight, yeah?” He looks directly at my camera, confirming he knows it will record him rattling off his phone number. “Let me know before midnight, and I’ll place an online order.”
He still hasn’t told me why.
Dad booms a distant, “Valentin,” and I jump. Calum must notice that reaction. He stands, shielding me the same way I saw him doing for his teammates in YouTube highlight reels.
I don’t need his protection. Plus, I just heard him cooing to a duck egg, so I’m not sure his hard-man reputation tells his whole story.
I want to know what does.
I really do.
“Go, Valentin.”
This repeat order is quieter, as if he thinks the contents of that egg is sleeping and he doesn’t want to wake it. He shepherds me out of my own boat and onto the mooring, where an icy river breeze nips at my nose and Christmas lights twinkle around the marina.
“If you text me yes, I’ll be back in a few days to explain.”
He closes the hatch, and sure, I could wait for that explanation, but I have zero patience. Never did and don’t now.
That only leaves one option.
I march around the marina, determined to find out even sooner.