Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
IRIS
My lips were still tingling, my entire body humming with the aftershock of Austin’s kiss. It hadn’t been a tentative kiss. It had been a message. A clear signal sent right across the water to his entire nosy, well-meaning family at the brewpub.
A sharp, tremulous thrill shot through me.
I reeled from the emotional whiplash of it all.
The easy camaraderie at the bar, Austin’s stony face when he returned from the back room, and now…
this. His possessive and possibly world-altering kiss.
A certainty settled deep in my bones that something significant had gone down in that back room, something that had pushed him to make this public statement.
And I understood this man well enough to know that pushing him to talk about it would be fruitless.
Austin moved on his own timeline.
Stepping onto Line Dancer was like stepping into another world.
Austin’s world. It wasn’t a luxury yacht, designed for champagne and indulgent selfies.
It was a serious, hardworking fishing machine that exuded competence.
The deck was spotless, every rope coiled with a precision so quintessentially Austin it made me smile.
Rods stood at attention in their holders like well-disciplined soldiers.
The air smelled of salt, diesel, and the faint, clean scent of the sea itself.
I had a strange sense of privilege, a feeling that he was sharing a part of himself he didn’t share with many people.
He moved with an easy, practiced grace, his body perfectly in tune with the rhythm of the boat.
He untied the thick mooring lines with a few efficient movements, his muscles flexing under his shirt.
Jumping behind the helm, he flicked a series of switches, and the twin diesel engines rumbled to life, a low, powerful thrum that vibrated up from the deck and through the soles of my shoes.
“You can sit there.” He nodded toward the cushioned bench seat beside the helm. “Or hold on. Whatever you do, don’t fall overboard. The paperwork is a nightmare.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, his way of cutting through the lingering intensity of the kiss. And the mysterious meeting.
My lips curled in response as I settled onto the bench seat. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
He guided Line Dancer away from the pier and through the channel, the setting sun glinting off the water and turning it to molten gold.
The tense, cornered man from the back room of Tidal Hops was gone.
In his place was Captain Coleridge, a man in his element, at peace with the vast expanse of the sea.
Once we cleared the last of the channel markers, Austin pushed the throttles forward.
Line Dancer surged ahead, the bow lifting as we sliced cleanly through the turquoise water.
The wind whipped my hair back from my face, tasting of salt and freedom.
Austin stood tall with one hand resting lightly on the wheel, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
He wasn’t staring at the glowing GPS screen or the complex-looking radar display.
“How do you know where you’re going?” I had to raise my voice slightly over the roar of the engines.
He glanced at me, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, as if the answer was something he never even thought about.
“See that dark patch over there?” He pointed to a section of green-tinged water about a half-mile off our port side.
“That’s a grass flat. Good for bonefish.
The channel runs just to the east of it.
And that distant smudge on the horizon?” He gestured straight ahead.
“That’s Pigeon Key. I’ve known these waters since I was a kid.
Don’t need a machine to tell me where I am. The GPS is for fog and tourists.”
The quiet confidence in his voice, the deep, ingrained knowledge of his home, was more impressive than any display of bravado could ever be. Relaxing, I enjoyed the shifts in color of the water and the birds circling in the sky.
After another ten minutes, he throttled back, guiding the boat into a protected cove, the water here an otherworldly, jewel-toned aqua. The silence was sudden and profound, broken only by the gentle lapping of water against the hull.
“All right.” He turned to face me, his expression open and at ease in the soft, golden light. “Let’s see if we can do better than a rainbow trout.”
“You’re going to teach me to fish?” I asked, clapping my hands. “After my less-than-impressive story?”
A smile touched his lips. “Consider it an effort to redeem your angling reputation. My first rule of fishing is don’t hook yourself or, more importantly, the captain.”
“Duly noted,” I said with a laugh. “That seems like a solid life rule in general.”
He moved with that easy competence I found so alluring, selecting a lighter spinning rod from the impressive arsenal arranged in the rocket launchers overhead.
Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a small, worn canvas pouch. His nimble fingers untied the drawstring and selected a small, sharp hook with a short piece of line attached. He tied it to the rod with a series of swift, intricate knots.
“Ah, a man prepared.” I had to smile. "Do you always carry fishing hooks around in your pocket?"
He glanced at me, a flicker of amusement eyes. "I keep this pouch on the boat. Then in my pocket when I'm on board. It’s kind of a part of me."
He tucked it away carefully before baiting the hook with a piece of shrimp in a few swift, practiced movements. “Okay, come here.”
I slid off the bench seat and stood in front of him at the rail.
He stood behind me, his body a solid wall of heat at my back.
One of his calloused hands covered mine on the cork grip, the other gently adjusted my fingers on the reel.
A hint of his scent wafted toward me. I was intensely, overwhelmingly aware of every point of contact—his chest against my shoulder blades, the rough texture of his jeans against the back of my legs, his warm breath stirring the hair near my ear as he leaned in to speak.
“It’s all in the wrist.” His voice was a low rumble close to my ear. “You don’t need to throw it a mile. Just a quick flick. Bring it back here…” He guided my arm back. “And snap it forward. Like this.”
He helped me with the first cast, our bodies moving together in a single, coordinated motion. The line sailed out, the light weight plopping neatly into the water about twenty feet from the boat. It was far more graceful than any cast I’d ever attempted on my own.
He let me try the next few casts by myself.
Most were clumsy, landing with an ungraceful splash much closer to the boat.
But Austin was a patient teacher, correcting my stance, reminding me to keep my wrist loose, his instructions calm and clear.
There was no hint of the impatient, gruff man who had glared at me over a broken sprinkler head.
Out here, he was a different person. Calm, confident, and in control.
On my fifth or sixth attempt, something tugged on the line.
“Got one,” he said, his voice instantly sharp, professional. “Okay, reel it in. Steady. Keep the tip up.”
My pulse hummed with excitement. I cranked the reel, the rod bending with the weight of the fish. It wasn’t a huge fight, but it was a battle. With Austin’s coaching, I brought it alongside the boat. He leaned over with a net and scooped it out of the water.
According to him, the fish was a grunt. Maybe six inches long, its silver scales flashed in the setting sun, a jewel from the sea.
“Well, look at that.” The warm approval in his voice made my chest swell. “You’re a natural.”
He showed me how to hold it carefully, avoiding the spiny dorsal fin, his fingers brushing mine as he guided my hands. The fish was surprisingly solid, its life force a vibrant, wriggling thing in my palm.
“Oh, look at him,” I breathed, grinning completely. “He’s kind of small, though. Bigger than my trout, if I recall, but maybe we should throw him back.”
“Yeah, he’s still got some growing to do.”
He gently took the fish from me, removed the hook, and slid it back into the clear, blue water. It gave a flick of its tail and was gone.
The moment was significant, a quiet act of respect for the ocean.
I glanced up at Austin and found him smiling at me, an unguarded smile that made crinkles appear at the corners of his gray eyes.
And seeing him in his element, with the golden light of the setting sun on his face, something shifted inside me.
Not just a flutter of attraction anymore.
My chest filled with something that felt dangerously, wonderfully, like falling.
The sun was a fiery orange ball now, kissing the horizon and painting the underside of the few stray clouds in brilliant streaks of pink and gold. The water around us transformed into a sheet of shimmering, liquid copper. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
After thoroughly washing our hands, I leaned back against the cushioned seat. A contented sigh escaped my lips. The tension of the last few weeks—the constant worry about the house, the contractors, the budget—all melted away out here, dwarfed by the sheer, magnificent scale of sky and sea.
Austin disappeared for a moment into the cabin before emerging with a thick, navy-blue blanket. Without a word, he draped it over both our shoulders as we sat side by side on the bench. We sat in a companionable silence for a long time, just watching the sky put on its nightly spectacle.
But my mind drifted back to the scene at Tidal Hops.
The easy camaraderie between the brothers, then the jagged shift in the atmosphere after Austin had been pulled into the back room.
Bolstered by the easy intimacy of the sunset, by the simple, solid weight of his arm now resting over my shoulders, I ventured into more dangerous waters.
“So,” I said softly, my gaze still on the horizon, “I know we mentioned this, but was everything really okay at the brewpub? With Eli and Braden?”
Austin was quiet for so long I thought he was going to ignore the question. He tensed beside me, the easy relaxation of a moment ago evaporating. I almost wanted to take the question back, to fill the silence with some trivial comment about the beauty of the sunset.
“It’s nothing,” he said finally. “They like to give me a hard time.”
It was a dismissal, a clear don’t-pry signal, but this time I didn’t let it go.
“It seemed a little more than that,” I said gently, still not looking at him. “You were upset.”
He let out a slow, heavy breath, a sound of pure, weary resignation. “They were thrown. I don’t bring women around the family. Well, ever.”
My heart gave a little squeeze at the admission. “Ever?”
He paused again, his gaze fixed on the last sliver of sun disappearing below the horizon, turning the water to a deep purple.
“I haven’t been seriously involved with anyone in over a decade. The last time, a long time ago…” He paused, and I could feel the struggle in him, the immense effort it took to even speak these vague words. “The relationship ended badly. Unexpectedly. It—it shook me.”
A vast, cold ocean of pain lay beneath that one, simple phrase.
It shook me.
Something had fundamentally changed a part of him, a part he had spent thirteen years carefully walling off. This was the reason for his solitude, his grumpy armor, his fierce, almost pathological, need for control.
With absolute certainty, I knew this was not the time to ask for more. He had just handed me this broken piece of his past in a profound act of trust, a gift more precious than any flower. My role now was not to question or pry, but simply to hold his trust, to show him it was safe with me.
I nodded, leaning my head gently against his shoulder. “Thank you for telling me that, Austin.”
He didn’t reply, but the tension in his shoulder eased. He shifted slightly, his arm tightening around me, pulling me into his warmth, his scent of salt and sea and safety.
We sat as the first stars began to prick the velvety darkness, the silence between us no longer awkward or charged, but full of a fragile and deeply felt understanding. He hadn’t told me everything. He hadn’t even told me much. But he had opened the door a little.
And for a man like Austin Coleridge, that was everything.
Eventually, he started the engines, the low rumble a comforting sound in the deepening twilight. He guided Line Dancer back toward Sunset Siesta. I stood near him, the soft blanket still draped over my shoulders, the warmth of his body a solid presence next to mine.
When we reached the dock, I moved with newfound confidence, helping him secure the lines as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I wasn’t just a guest on his boat anymore. I felt like a partner, a first mate, however temporary.
Once the boat was secured, he turned to me in the soft glow of the dock lights and pulled me close. “I never mix drinking and boating. But now that we’re safely tied up… how about a glass of wine?”
A slow smile spread across my lips. The earlier vulnerability was gone, replaced by the thrilling, electric hum of building desire.
“Oh?” I took a step closer, my hand skating across the stubble of his cheek. “Trying to earn more brownie points?”
He covered my hand with his own, his thumb stroking my skin and sending a bolt of searing heat through me. A lazy, devastatingly sexy smile touched his lips, the one that made my brain short-circuit.
“Do I need them?” His voice was a low, husky purr.
I leaned in, my lips brushing his, a silent promise of what was to come. “Absolutely not, Captain. Lead the way.”