Chapter 8 #2
She has a point. I stalk from the cabin and pull up the deck trapdoor to the boat’s engine. The acrid tang of electrical burning wafts up, spilling out over the deck.
“Fuck.”
I hold the back of my hand to my nose as I wave the fumes and smoke away. Dammit, this will be an Emmett job. And we are stuck halfway to the mainland. I slam the trapdoor shut.
“Can we fix it?” Evie comes to my side, peering at the floor, like she can see right through the wooden deck.
“Nope.” I move back into the cabin, and she’s hot on my heels. I grab the radio and turn the knob up a little. “Bay Shore Harbor, this is Firefly. Over.”
The VHF crackles, and I turn it up.
After a minute, I try again. “Bay Shore Harbor, this is Firefly, please respond. Over.”
The crackle squeals and a voice as familiar as my own snaps through the small speaker. “This is Bay Shore Harbormaster. Over.”
“Emmett, you dolt. Busy doing nothing, buddy?”
A heady laugh echoes through the line before he says, “Yep, all slow days and leisure, my friend. What can I do you for, Cal? Over.”
“Engine’s out. ’Bout four miles out. Over.”
“Now who’s the man of leisure? You need a tow, or can I settle it out there? Over.”
“That’s your call, man.”
“Be there in—oh, shoot. I got a ferry coming in and a supply run after that. How does before sunset sound? Over.”
I hang my head. There goes my day. But Emmett will be here as soon as he can. He’s always been that way.
“Sure, man. We’ll take in the scenery. Over.”
“We? Oh, Evie’s with you? Over.”
“Yeah, bud. Two S-O-Bs.”
The radio is silent for too long before he comes back with, “No rush then. Over.”
I roll my eyes at him. Christ, that man and his damn soft side. Probably thinks if we’re stuck out here together long enough, I’ll cave on my long-standing no relationship, no women getting tangled up in my life rule. Look how that turned out last time.
“So, he’s coming eventually, then?” Evie says. Her pretty face is still carrying worry, although not as intense as before.
“He’ll be here when he can. Might as well make yourself comfortable. It’ll be a while.”
The radio whines. “You still there, Cal? Over.”
“Yup. Over.”
“Hang tight. Be there as soon as I can. Over.”
The lilt in his voice doesn’t have me convinced.
“Ten-four. Over and out.”
I hang the handpiece back on the radio body and drop into the captain’s seat, running a hand through my hair.
Evie walks the deck, looking out at the gentle, rolling water.
At least the weather is mild. Be a different story if a storm rolled in.
With nothing better to do, I wander to where she stands at the stern.
The ocean’s constant breeze plays with her long dark hair, and her clothes have dried already in the morning sunshine.
But she shivers with her arms wrapped around herself.
“How’s the book coming along?” I ask.
She turns to face me and offers a small smile. “Okay, I guess.”
By the way her smile falls, she doesn’t believe a word she said.
“What’s it about?”
Now, she scoffs. “You don’t want a rundown. It wouldn’t be your genre.”
I fold my arms over my chest and tilt my head to one side. “Try me.”
She drops her gaze to the deck and sucks in a breath. Damn, woman, not this timid bullshit. Not again.
If there’s one thing I could give her during her time on Fire Island, it would be to lose the Miss Meek-and-Mild and harness that feisty side of hers.
The streak of the fiery girl I’ve seen only a few times.
It’s addictive. Maybe it’s a good thing she’s not like that all the time.
Make my life a hell of a lot harder, not being to be able to control the effect she has on me.
Luckily for me, she stands unsure and fidgeting like if the real world can see who she really is, she’ll fall apart.
“Romance, then?” I ask, hazarding a guess.
“There’s romance in it,” she says, shifting on her feet.
“What’s the main story?” It’s like getting blood out of a stone.
“Um, fantasy. Pirates and all that.” She waves a hand in a half circle, not looking at me.
“Sounds fun?” I raise an eyebrow at her again for the second time in an hour. And if her chest wasn’t rising and plummeting like she’s about to have a panic attack, I’d push further. But I’m not that man, the one who gets off on making women feel small, so I don’t.
Not that the small town I grew up in would verify that statement.
“Not really, not anymore,” she says. She sounds defeated.
Not anymore.
Her words take me aback.
Like it’s something that she loved once before but no longer does. “What changed?”
Deep for a conversation between us, I guess. But what else do we have to do?
Now, brown eyes flick up, and she purses her lips before folding her arms over her body.
She looks like a deer caught in the proverbial headlights, and I hate it.
A stone grows in my airway, and I have no idea why I am feeling this way over a woman almost half my age, who I have made a point to stay away from.
A woman who is temporarily on my island. Temporarily in my life.
Old wounds, scabbed but never fully healed, seep through my soul, burying their way into my bones. Some days are better than others, but right now, the ache blooms to life as I watch her work through whatever is going through her mind.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. Just killing time.”
I wander to the cabin and open the small cooler, fishing out two sodas before returning to the stern and handing her one.
“Thanks,” she breathes.
I crack mine open and swallow the first few mouthfuls down.
We stand in silence, simply staring out at the water, and a million things I want to ask—and a few things I want to say—fly through my mind.
Staving off the need to fill the quiet, I continue drinking.
Evie nurses hers as she moves to sit on the side of the boat and trails a finger through the condensation on the can.
Her elegant digit tracks the logo before rounding the bottom and gripping the cold can between both hands.
“I used to love writing fantasy and romance. Romantasy, they call it.” A sad smile slips over her face.
“Yeah?”
I sit beside her, leaving enough deck between us that we don’t touch. Just.
“But...” She inhales and closes her eyes briefly. “Then, my husband died.”
My mouth slackens, and I can’t catch my next breath. That , I was not expecting.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
Evie huffs a laugh, but it’s as sad and strained as the look that now claims her face. “Me too.” Downing the last of her soda, she meets my gaze. “It was five years ago. Car accident.”
“Fuck, that’s terrible.”
“It was that and more. My wedding dress was ruined,” she says with a forced lilt, eyes lifting to the sky.
As the words register, my gut sinks, lungs stalling out. “Christ, Evie.”
She scrunches up her face, desperate to stem tears. But it takes her by surprise, and one falls.
Fuck.
Swiping the moisture from her cheeks, now pinked, she shakes her head. “I haven’t talked about it with someone I hardly know before. Guess it feels different telling you. Somehow it doesn’t feel as hard.”
My heart aches for her.
Because I’ve been where she is. Was.
No car accident, something slower. More preventable. Something I took the blame for, and still do.
I resist the urge to hug her. It won’t help, if experience has taught me anything. Being wrapped in sympathy only serves to prolong things. Who in their right mind would want to prolong a grief so deep?
“Now, you tell me yours.” Her eyes hold me to the spot.
“Mine?”
“Yeah. The reason you’re holed up on an island by yourself, in the prime of your life.”
A huffy laugh escapes my lips. Prime, my ass.
“Just the consequence of many choices—some good, some bad.”
“You ever think about leaving the lighthouse and rejoining civilization?”
“Not too often, no.”
“Really? You don’t get lonely?”
I didn’t. Not before she turned up on that damn marina dock. Now, the thought of going back to me, myself, and I seems more wrong than it should.
“Nah, I enjoy my own company. Besides, the conversation’s always on point.”
She raises one elegant brow. “You talk to yourself often?”
“About as much as you do,” I say, throwing her my biggest shit-eating grin.
Her cheeks pink again, and she shifts her gaze to the water. I hear her talking to herself in the bedroom. Testing out lines of dialogue and reading out loud when she thinks I’m busy elsewhere.
Shaking her can, Evie rises and takes mine. Her fingers brush over my knuckles, and my skin buzzes to life.
“Trash?” She looks toward the cabin.
“Left console cabinet. Thanks.”
She disappears into the cabin, but not before I lock eyes on the sway of her hips.
Those long legs, that hourglass shape, her narrow waist. It’s all my imagination needs to take off at full speed.
I need to readjust myself in my jeans when she bends over, putting the cans in the trash, and her jeans slip down.
The red band of her panties peeks over the top.
“What’s this yellow device by the trash?” she calls back.
“EPIRB. The emergency position-indicating radio beacon. It activates when it gets wet. So, if you?—”
She returns, excited and flushed. “You sink. If you sink, it activates?”
“Yep, that’s the idea. The front portion is removable if you’re ever in crisis and need immediate assistance.”
Evie frowns. “Isn’t that what mayday is for?”
“That too.”
“Oh, okay.”
She drops down beside me, bringing that damn scent of hers that floods in around me. Soft brown eyes study my face as she offers a small smile.
It’s going to be the longest few hours I’ve endured since forever.
Hurry the hell up, Emmett.