29. Fisher
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
fisher
“You really think we need these?” Libby holds up a hand, blocking out the sun, and peers up at me.
We’ve already hung two of the three cameras in the trees around her house, yet she’s still asking the same damn question.
“It feels so LA; not Monhegan. And nothing’s happened since Putt-Putt’s accident. ”
A sigh escapes me before I can stop it. “Lib,” I pull back and glare down at her from my spot on the ladder. “Someone cut your brake line. Nothing about that is an accident . With all the hills on the island and sharp turns on the paths, you’re lucky all you got was a bump on the head.”
She shifts on her feet. The telltale sign that she’s nervous, and a sigh breaks loose. But she doesn’t argue.
I hop off the ladder and wrap my arms around her. Loving the way she melts into me, I pull her tight. Her pink tank top is just short enough that my thumbs meet the strip of bare skin above her waistband. I brush slowly back and forth, urging her to relax.
Though it’s important that she take this situation seriously, I don’t want her living in fear.
“No one can get to you when you’re under my roof. Not only do I have cameras on every angle of my house, but the windows and doors are wired,” I remind her.
When she discovered those details, she tossed out words like paranoid and over-the-top . But it’s my job to keep Sutton, and now Libby, safe.
“I know,” she mutters into my T-shirt.
“But while you’re safe with me, I do not want someone fucking with your house. So let me get this last camera up, and we’ll make sure that no one snoops around there either.”
Her shoulders droop. “Again, very LA.”
It kills me, the way this person is stealing away the freedom Libby has found here on the island.
Even if she doesn’t stay, I want her to always associate this place with happiness.
With comfort. Because as pathetic as it sounds, if she loves it here, she might come back.
And I desperately want her to come back.
I’d be ecstatic if she never left, but that isn’t a realistic hope.
“Only you and me, Princess. No one else is watching them. This is your power, not your prison.”
She smiles against my chest. A sensation I’ve felt more and more over the past few weeks.
The summer, and my time with Libby, is passing way too quickly.
The Fourth of July parade was as ridiculous as I expected.
Libby and Sutton decorated the damn golf cart so that it was red, white, blue…
and pink. They put poor Bing in an American flag top hat, and blue star sunglasses.
The two of them, decked out in matching blue Boston Revs baseball caps and sunglasses like Bings, led the charge down from the dock to the beach, honking that high-pitched horn and tossing candy to the vacationers along the path.
We might only have four carts, eight bikes, two dogs, and a goat, but the parade is always a spectacle.
And this year didn’t disappoint. Halfway through the route, Betty chased Lulu, Star and Ivy’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel—the most anxiety-ridden dog in existence—past the pack of bikes and through the crowd.
The damn goat wouldn’t stop, and the dog, who apparently has more fear than sense, jumped onto the roof of the Monhegan Brewery’s golf cart, causing it to tip sideways into a mud puddle.
Poor Rip. Although Maggie, who was in the cart with her father, laughed so hard she was in tears, Rip looked more like his head might explode as muddy water dripped slowly off his gray beard.
Libby and Sutton turned back to help, and the little pink cart that could saved the day by pulling the brewery’s cart back onto its wheels so the parade could go on.
At least the fish fry and the fireworks went off without a hitch.
As long as we’re not counting the errant firework that put a hole in Wilder’s kayak.
Since he was the one setting them off and he seemed happy enough about not having to take it out with Nicole the next day, I can’t be sure that it really was an accident.
Yes, the woman is still here. Wilder is losing his mind.
I chuckle.
Libby lifts her head, her eyes narrowed. “Are you laughing at me?”
“No, Princess. I was just thinking about Wilder’s beard.”
Her nose scrunches up. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. It’s the patchiest, most awful-looking facial hair I’ve ever seen.”
My chuckle turns into a full-on laugh. My best friend has never been able to do facial hair. He knows this. But in a desperate attempt to get rid of the cling-on from the mainland, he’s chosen to engage in a no-shave summer.
“That one chunk on the left side looks like a dead mouse.” Libby shudders. “And what’s up with that perfect circle of smooth skin next to his lip?” She runs a hand along my jaw. “You need to give him a lesson. You have the sexiest beard.”
Stupid male pride causes my chest to puff. Fuck, I love it when my girl calls me sexy.
She pops up onto her toes and brings her mouth to my ear. “I especially love it when it’s tickling my thighs.”
With a grunt, I tighten my hold on her hips, my fingers biting into her flesh. “Is that a request?” If so, then fuck the camera. I’ll finish it later. After I make Libby come on my tongue. And then cock.
With Sutton helping Maggie paint sets for the play, we have the afternoon to ourselves.
Giggling, she steps out of my grasp and wags a finger at me. “Nuh-uh. You said we had to finish this.”
“Tease.” I chuckle as I climb back up the ladder. A warm breeze blows off the water, rustling the branches around me as I pick up the drill I left at the top.
“It’s such a pretty day.” Libby sighs dreamily. “We should take the boat out. It looks so sad over there, stuck in the grass. Boats need water to be happy.”
I shake my head at her nonsense. Only Libby Sweet would attribute thoughts and emotions and opinions to boats, golf carts, and houses.
“Plus I want to see a puffin,” she chirps. “So can we?”
Once the last screw is in place, I clip the solar panel onto the camera and switch it on. Done. Now I have every angle of the house on lockdown. No one is getting near my girl or her house without me knowing.
“Can we?”
“See a puffin?” I glance down at her.
“Yeah, go out on your boat and see a puffin.”
Lips pressed together, I shake my head. “That boat is winterized.”
Blue eyes bright, she blinks at me. “It’s summer.”
I rest my forearms on the top rung of the ladder next to the drill. “According to the lobster laws on Monhegan, we can only set traps October through April, so I don’t need the boat in the summer.”
Frowning, she looks from me to the boat and back again. “I can’t see you being a fisherman.”
I almost correct her. Lobstering and fishing aren’t the same thing, but that’s not the point. “That’s probably because I hate it.”
She tips her head, assessing me. “Then why do you do it?”
“Obligation.” I shrug. “Hunter worked hard to get the lobster license and even harder to acquire all the traps. It seems like a waste of his memory if I don’t use it all.”
“Hmm.” She turns back to the boat, studying it for a minute.
It’s nothing special, just a standard white and black dual motor Eastern boat. But it looks huge like it is, towering on the stilts in the yard. Especially with the black wire traps piled next to it.
Damn thing is so much work.
“There are only, what? Twenty of the metal box things? And maybe twenty-five of those teal and white floating parts?”
She’s so very scientific in her description.
“Traps and buoys.”
“Right.” She nods. “Traps and buoys. Couldn’t someone else use them? Or at least take a few off your hands so you didn’t have to spend so much time doing it?”
Setting twenty traps really does take quite a bit of time. Hours, in fact. Asking anyone to take on the extra work doesn’t sit right with me. I open my mouth to tell her so, but the truth is, I could give them away. I just don’t. Besides… “What would I do all winter?”
She spins back to me. “Your computer stuff. What is it you say you do? Make people’s lives miserable by wrecking their day?”
Chuckling, I jump off the ladder. “Hack, baby. I hack through firewalls.”
“Yeah, of course.” She nods as if she gets it, but she’s far too nonchalant to really understand. Before I can explain it to her, she goes on. “Surely there’s someone on the island who’d be happy to throw those traps into the water and then pray they don’t lose a finger when they haul them up.”
“Wilder loves it.” Nothing makes that man happier than being out on the water. Being a fifth generation lobsterer, it’s in his blood.
“Oh.” Face lit up, she claps. “That’s the answer. Let him do that, and you do the other thing.”
She makes it sound so simple. Give the job to someone who loves it. Give up what I hate. And it should be simple. But here I am, three years after my brother died, still doing all his jobs.
“So can we un -winterize that thing?” She tips her chin at the boat.
“No.”
Her lips turn down.
“But,” I sigh, “I’ll borrow Cank’s boat and take you out to see the damn birds.”
“Yay! Oh.” She turns, only to spin back to face me. “While we’re at it, can we stop on the mainland and get a bra for Sutton?”
Her words are casual, thrown out there like nothing, but when they register, my body locks up tight. That word— bra —rings in my ears. I must have misheard her. A pit forms in my stomach. That word and Sutton do not belong together. “W-what?”
“Yeah, a few of the other girls have them, and she really wants one.”
I blink. Not yet. The words play on repeat in my head. I’m not ready for this girl stuff yet. “My daughter is not old enough for a bra,” I grit out before I can process the words.
Libby’s eyes widen and her body stiffens.
I replay the phrase in my mind and as soon as I hit the word daughter, I flinch. I’ve never called Sutton my daughter. She isn’t my daughter. But at the same time, she is. Maybe it’s time to break into that box full of things and people that are just Hunter’s.
A sharp pain radiates through my chest and I slam my eyes shut. If I do that, it feels like a finality. Like acceptance that he’s really gone.
A warm palm rests on my arm. Comforting me. Reminding me that I’m not alone. Not anymore.
“It’s okay to call her that,” Libby whispers.
My heart fractures a little more. “She’s Hunter’s daughter.”
Slowly, she nods. “She was, yes, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be yours too.”
“I feel like she’s mine,” I admit, the words almost inaudible. “Like a piece of my heart lives with her.”
“Because you love her.”
I nod, then quickly shake my head. How would people react if I claimed a role that never should have been mine? “But everyone will?—”
“Everyone will know Sutton is lucky because she has you. And for every milestone moving forward, you’ll be her parent.
” She shuffles around until we’re face to face and squeezes my hands.
“We all know you aren’t trying to replace Hunter, but she deserves a parent who can do all these things with her. Things like buying a bra.”
I swallow past the boulder in my throat. She’s right. Sutton deserves a father, and by some twist of fate, I’m what she’s got. And apparently that means I’m the one who has to get her a bra.
My insides still shake at that idea. “Hell, Princess. You’re giving me chest pain.” I rub at my sternum. “She’s only eight.”
“I know, but it would be fun for her to see an actual store, don’t you think? And there is this boy…” Libby goes on to relay the details of the story that Sutton told her.
After I suppress the need to pummel the ten-year-old boy who mocked my girl, I begrudgingly agree to the bra trip.
“I need a drink.” I rub a hand over my face. How the hell am I going to manage puberty and the teenage years if I can’t even take her to buy a bra? “Want to take the damn cart to the brewery for lunch?”
Libby shakes her head. “That’s not her name. Call her Putt-Putt.”
“No.” I might think it sometimes, but I’ve yet to say that stupid name aloud.
“I’ll give you a kiss if you do,” she singsongs, stepping up in front of me and batting her lashes, looking so damn cute it’s almost impossible to resist. Almost . “You know you want one.”
Oh, I do. Fighting both a smile and an eye roll, I shake my head.
She leans in so close her warm breath skates across my cheek. The sweet scent of her perfume fills my nose, and just like that, I no longer care about the beer. All I want is time with Libby.
“Come on,” she urges. “Say it with me. Putt-Putt.” She kisses the corner of my mouth, teasing me. “Putt.” Her sweet, warm breath hits my lips with each enunciated word. “Putt.”
My dick twitches, and there’s no stopping my grin.
Instead of playing her game, I snake an arm around her neck and pull her to me.
When I press my lips to hers, she squeals. “Cheater.”
“Maybe so, but don’t worry; I have plenty of ideas for how you can punish me.” I toss her over my shoulder and carry her straight up to my bed.