Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Isobel’s shirt clung between her shoulder blades; every surface on Family First felt tacky with salt and old air.
She’d spent the night stretched on a blanket on the salon floor, sweating, swatting no-see-ums that seeped through the old-fashioned keyhole of the wooden doors, and cursing the dead A/C.
If she could at least open a window, she’d be cool with the brisk breeze outside.
The boat still held last night’s misery like a fever.
Every time she’d closed her eyes, the name on the stern mocked her and threatened bad dreams.
Family First. Funny. Her father had christened the lie in gold leaf, then cruised straight out of their lives.
Two slips over, the man who’d warned her off without lifting a finger to help—Rone—had slept just fine, she bet.
She could picture him and that German shepherd tucked into the shadows of his deck, watching, judging.
He’d said a lot with that blunt no and the way his dog glued itself to his knee.
Whole speeches in silence. And that name he’d tossed out like it was nothing.
Shade.
He’d said it like everyone knew it. Like she should’ve, too.
She hadn’t asked. She’d been too furious, too stubborn, too…
whatever she always was when a man tried to steer her choices.
After he’d walked away, she’d returned the ornament to the pilot house where it dangled from the helm, tapping with each wave that tilted the boat from non-lawful boaters in the no-wake zone, pretending the sound didn’t crawl under her skin.
He’d denied leaving it. She didn’t believe him.
Men like Rone liked control. Warnings were control with a bow on top.
By morning, anger had given her enough stamina to push through the grime. She scrubbed the galley until the counter under her elbows wasn’t sticky anymore and cleared the sofa of the blanket and spare parts so there was a place to sit that didn’t smell like damp cloth and secrets.
Before she went ashore, she made herself walk the deck again—checking lines like Rone’s barked orders had somehow become rules she was willing to follow.
Starboard cleats, good. Fenders, good. The port bow line…
she re-tied it herself, slow and neat this time, and tugged hard until the knot didn’t slip.
She stood back, hands on hips, daring the boat to try anything. It rocked, sulky, and settled.
She headed up, and a man with a phone earpiece that looked like the ones the pilots wore stepped out from the Marina office.
“Hey there, sailor!” the man called, leaning on the doorframe with a grin that could sell bait to a vegetarian.
“Heard you bought Shade’s old boat. That’s either real brave or real foolish—haven’t decided which yet.
What’s the plan? Headed out to find buried treasure or just running from your in-laws? ”
Isobel slowed, trying to decide if he was serious. “Neither. Just… fixing her up.”
“Ah, a fixer! You and half the folks in this marina.” He wiped his hands on a rag that had definitely seen better days.
He wasn’t tall or short. Kind of a nondescript type visually, but the Hawaiian shirt tucked into his belted shorts and his smile made him memorable.
“Name’s Al. I run this joint, more or less.
Also provide free local wisdom, unsolicited advice, and the occasional fish fry—usually in that order. ”
She smiled despite herself. “Good to know.”
“Yeah, we got a whole lotta history around here. There’s a lighthouse down the coast that’s haunted by an ex–weatherman, a diner that still sells pie like it’s a food group, and a bait shop that might double as a black-market art gallery. Don’t quote me on that last one.”
“I… won’t,” she said, blinking. “You get a lot of tourists?”
“Only the brave ones. Or the lost ones. You’ll fit right in.” He winked, then nodded toward the docks. “That your man out there wrestling with the toolbox?”
She followed his gaze to Rone, who was half under the hull. “Not my guy.”
“Too bad, Rone’s handy. And tall. Two rare qualities these days. Don’t let him near the wiring, though—he’s got the look of a man who thinks he can fix everything with duct tape.” Al lifted his chin as if he could stretch another six inches to Rone’s eye-level.
Isobel laughed, surprised. “You might not be wrong.”
“I’m never wrong,” Al said cheerfully. “Except when I am. Which is, you know, daily.” He waved and ducked back into the office, allowing Isobel to continue on her grocery run up the hill to a squat building with sun-faded posters of oranges taped to the glass.
The walk felt longer than it should in the midmorning glare.
Asphalt shimmered; palmettos clicked in the breeze like a thousand fingernails.
Halfway up, she got that prickly feeling between her shoulders, the one that says you’re not alone.
She turned once. Nothing but cars and heat mirage and a cyclist pedaling through it like a ghost. She told herself it was the lack of sleep and kept moving.
Inside, the store air smelled like lemon cleaner and old produce.
She kept the cart small—bottled water, coffee, eggs, bread, a rotisserie chicken, because cooking in the Florida heat that had made an appearance yesterday afternoon and clung tight to everything felt like punishment.
Not to mention the fact that she didn’t have power working yet.
She added a cheap fan—determined to figure out how to get that hooked up outside at least—and a coil of deet bracelets at the register. Her father had always claimed he could live off coffee and crackers on the water. She refused to adopt even one of his habits if she could help it.
The feeling of someone watching trailed her out of the store. Eyes. Or the idea of them. She scanned the lot harder on the way back. Still nothing but a gull riding a thermal and a boy with a fishing rod dragging the tip across the asphalt like chalk.
At the marina gate, the breeze off the channel came with that brackish-metal taste again. She pushed through, a bag biting each forearm, and stopped dead at the top of her dock.
The port bow line swung lazy, slack. Not off, not yet—but barely wrapped, the hitch she’d set replaced with a quick-and-dirty loop meant to give with the next decent tug.
She hurried to the slip to discover words scrawled through the dust with a finger on the starboard window with letters big enough to read all the way from the end of the dock.
LAST WARNING.
Heat drained out of her face. Then anger charged in and filled the space it left.
“Okay,” she said to no one, voice flat. “You want a fight?”
She set the bags inside the cockpit, retied the line properly, yanking until the rope bit the cleat with satisfying finality, and marched two slips over.
Rone’s boat sat quiet, bow into the breeze.
It was the kind of vessel that looked capable without advertising itself—lines clean, deck clear.
The dog was the first to materialize, a German shepherd in a black-and-tan suit, rising from the shade like it had been carved there.
Ears pricked. Eyes on her. He—Echo, she remembered—didn’t growl. He didn’t need to.
Rone stepped out of the shadow behind him a beat later—ball cap pulled low, T-shirt dark with sweat at his defined six pack. He moved like a man who kept weight on his heels until it was time to move fast.
She didn’t give him the chance to get a word in first.
“You,” she said, jabbing a finger at his chest. “I tied that line this morning. Properly. Don’t play games with me.”
His gaze flicked down the dock, then past her shoulder, quick, assessing. “What line?”
“The port bow. It didn’t untie itself. And the note on my window. Last warning?” She chopped the air toward her boat. “You still denying you’re behind the ornaments-and-threats routine? What is it? Did my father promise you his boat or something, and I’ve ruined your plans?”
Something in his face pinched—annoyance, or restraint. He didn’t bother defending himself. “You retied it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Cleat hitch, of course.” She threw the words like a challenge. “Want me to draw you a diagram?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It didn’t last. He scrubbed a hand along his stubbled jaw, eyes not leaving hers for long, but not quite staying.
“I didn’t touch your line,” he said.
She took a step into his space because she was past caring whether it was smart.
He towered over her, not like a bodybuilder but a hard worker who earned his muscles in the wild.
“You knew my father as Shade, and you seem to think you get to police his boat from two slips over. If you’ve got something to say to me, say it.
Don’t carve it into ornaments and write it on my windows like a coward. ”
Echo’s ears angled a degree left. The dog’s nose lifted, drawing the air in little tastes.
Rone’s eyes cut over her shoulder again. Whatever he saw this time shifted his weight forward a fraction.
“Answer the question,” she pushed. “Why do you call him Shade? Who are you to—”
He didn’t answer. He looked past her, jaw snapping tight, and the transition from stillness to motion was so fast she felt it before she understood it—his shoulder bumping hers, the sudden heat of his palm on her upper arm, a shove that wasn’t cruel, just decisive, setting her back against the piling.
“Stay,” he grunted, already stepping around her.
“Excuse me?” She twisted to follow him, outrage rising fresh—
Echo exploded past her first, nails skittering on the planks. The dog’s bark cracked the afternoon open, sharp and furious.
Rone was already moving down the dock at a run, eyes locked on something behind her she couldn’t see.
Echo surged ahead. Leash burned Rone’s palm until he loosened it and gave the dog the foot he wanted. The water had gone from glossy to black as the sun slid behind a cloud; every reflection broke and re-formed until the whole basin looked like it was breathing.