Christmas Harbor Secrets (Harbor Secrets #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

A December breeze whipped dense fog off Estero Bay, curling through the blinking Christmas lights strung along the marina railing. Isobel Lane’s fingers locked around the cool metal as she searched the fog for the truth about the father who’d abandoned her all those years ago.

Boats loomed in shadowy rows, masts stabbing upward like a forest of skeletal trees. Four docks speared off from the main platform. Somewhere out there was the trawler her estranged father had chosen over her and her mother twenty years ago: the only thing he’d left Isobel in death.

A bell gonged somewhere across the water, a hollow knell that felt like an omen. No one was waiting for her arrival, so she rolled her suitcase down the gangway, weaving between coils of rope and gull droppings. The wheels thumped over the boards—thu-thump, thu-thump—too loud in the silent morning.

A cough. A squeal. A groan. Sounds without sight.

At the end of the main dock, she hung a left and rolled to the end.

Slip D9. The trawler loomed in the mist, a hulking shadow wider than the dock itself. Her pulse stumbled. The name was scrawled across the back in big, bold, blue letters. Family First. The words shot at her like a whale harpoon through her chest.

A chilly wind speared her skin like an icy injection. Too damp, too cold for Fort Myers Beach. Wasn’t Florida supposed to be endless sunshine and sweltering heat?

Her body coiled into a tight rage, ready to break free all over the dock. Was he mocking her in death?

Family. The one he’d abandoned, or had he found a new one? If he had, why weren’t they here?

She shook off her anger and made her way to a side boarding door and leaned closer to the back cockpit, listening for any sounds of life aboard.

Her suitcase fell with a thud to the planks behind her, echoing through the harbor.

She squinted to see beyond the etched glass back windows to the inside of the boat. A dark shape shifted.

Overactive imagination… or a two-decade-long wish to see her father manifested in ghost form onboard?

She abandoned her suitcase and pushed open a tiny door that looked like it was made for a Chihuahua.

She stepped aboard, the scent of old diesel and brackish water filling her lungs. The cockpit yawned, silent except for water lapping at the hull, but the double doors leading inside sat ajar.

“Hello?” she called.

Only a distant bark from somewhere else on the docks answered, so she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped inside her father’s world.

The air inside was thick with old diesel and oil—yet beneath it lingered a sharper note, one that stopped her cold.

Cedar. Musk. A scent she’d once thought belonged only to him.

After years of prowling store aisles, lifting bottles of cologne and deodorant in search of it, she’d never found the right one.

The sniff test had cost her more than a few awkward dates, ending evenings before they began.

Not that it mattered. She didn’t trust men.

Her lifelong friends’ accusations of paranoia were recently proven wrong with the disappearance of her ex and all her money.

She forced her eyes open and took in the salon. By boat standards, it was palatial, or at least compared to the small boat her father took her on for lake outings when she was a child. When she’d thought they’d been happy.

Wood slats paneled two walls, and above her, a mildewed ceiling trimmed in molding, an almost coffered elegance.

Her shoes squeaked against the teak floor, only to sink into a ripped rug that gave off the sour tang of old dog. Had her father owned a dog? If so… was the animal still around? Or had someone else been here, caring for it?

“Hello?” Isobel called again, her voice swallowed by the stillness. No bark answered, no shuffle of feet.

She stepped deeper into the salon, though it looked more like a workshop. One side housed the galley and eating area, the other, an L-shaped sofa that sagged beneath a blanket, and a scatter of spare parts covered every surface, as if her father had been mid-project when the ocean had claimed him.

Drowned.

The attorney had only shoved papers across the desk, informing her she was the sole heir to his “estate”—a twenty-four-year-old boat. No explanation of her father’s life or death.

Her footsteps whispered down the narrow hallway, dingy runners muffling the sound.

A cabin to the left overflowed with boxes, a bathroom crouched to the right, another cabin stood just beyond.

To her left, a steep staircase twisted upward, and ahead, a queen-berth stretched larger than she’d expected.

A scratch.

A creak overhead.

Her pulse kicked. “Anyone up there?”

Silence.

She flicked the light switch. Nothing. Great. No power. That would be first on her list—if she could even afford to fix it. Not with her ex siphoning off her savings and leaving her little choice but to make this boat her only option for a home until she sold it.

Jaw tight, she gripped the railing and climbed the spiral staircase. The second step groaned beneath her weight.

Thumps raced overhead. A squeal of a door. Slam.

Her heart lurched. She stumbled back to the main floor; her back hit the wall with a thud.

A shadow blew past the back doors. “Dad!”

She bolted down the hall, through the salon, out the doors and vaulted through the side opening, tripping over her suitcase.

Her knees slammed against hard wood, but her body kept moving.

She pitched over the side of the dock. Cold surged against her scalp.

She fought for purchase to keep the lower half of her body from joining her head in the murky water.

A hand clamped around her leg and yanked her back onto the dock.

Isobel whirled, shoving wet hair from her eyes. A broad-shouldered man loomed over her, shadowed face, storm-gray eyes.

Not her father.

She kicked. Hard.

He doubled over with a grunt. “What. That. For?” he wheezed.

“You grabbed me,” she gasped, scrambling upright against a piling.

He stood upright and rolled his shoulders back. “Instead of kicking me, maybe thank me for keeping you out of the bay.” His gaze drifted to the water. “Things disappear in that water,” he said, his voice rumbling low and rough as a muffler.

A bark exploded through the fog. Isobel startled. A German shepherd bounded to the man’s side, teeth bared at the water. Her suitcase bobbed past, spinning slowly toward the channel. The dog lunged, barking louder, hackles bristling.

Isobel’s chest squeezed. “That’s everything I have left.” She darted to the edge, but the man’s arm locked around her waist, hauling her back.

“Let it go,” he growled in her ear. “Not worth dying over.”

She stiffened, caught between fury and the surprising solidity of his grip.

He released her slowly, stepping beneath a dock light that carved his features into sharp planes.

A deep scar ran down his right temple, but he was handsome in a dangerous way.

The kind of man her mother always warned her about.

A break in the fog allowed a sliver of silver light to reach the docks, and a hint of orange spread in the distant sky.

“Best get out of here. This area’s for owners only.”

“That’s my father’s boat,” she snapped, jabbing a finger at the trawler. “I inherited it.”

The man’s jaw flexed. “No.”

“No, what?”

“Just… no.” His gaze lingered on her one beat too long. “Leave.” He turned and strode into the fog, the dog trotting at his side, barking once more as the suitcase drifted further away.

Isobel wrung water from her hair with a sharp huff.

She didn’t need him. She didn’t need any man to rescue her, not after a lifetime of learning she couldn’t rely on one.

Her gaze tracked the suitcase as it bobbed once, twice, then disappeared into the outgoing tide.

Just like everything else she’d ever counted on.

Hopefully, her father had left behind more than spare parts, maybe even clothes and a way to wash the brackish stink out of her hair.

Squaring her shoulders, she climbed back aboard. The deck groaned under her boots, but this time she didn’t hesitate. She marched up the narrow staircase to the pilothouse, each step a silent dare to whatever secrets this boat held.

At the top, there was a glass-ringed space with a view of the marina lights glowing through the mist. A massive wooden helm stood at its center, polished by years of use.

For one breathless moment, nostalgia swept her back to summer afternoons on the lake, her father’s hands over hers as she steered.

But the ache that followed reminded her this wasn’t a memory.

This was reality, and he’d chosen a trawler over her.

Something glinted at the wheel. She stepped closer.

A Christmas ornament dangled from the top spoke, catching the glow of the lights outside. Her breath hitched. Slowly, she reached out, fingertips brushing the cool red ball trimmed in gold as if the touch might summon a connection to the man she had once believed would love and protect her always.

She’d known someone had been up here. It hadn’t been her imagination. With trembling fingers, she turned the ornament around. Carved into the back, one word stared up at her, jagged and deliberate.

Leave.

The morning chill gave way to sweltering heat under the afternoon sun but then waned to cool by evening tide.

The dangerously distracting female two slips down had gone from shivering to slipping off her shirt to work in nothing more than a sports bra and leggings in the afternoon, wiping sweat from her forehead, to putting the shirt back on by evening and wrapping her arms around herself for warmth or comfort.