Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Isobel jogged down the dock with Rone at her side, the planks still gritty with extinguisher powder that puffed ghost-white under their shoes.
Smoke hung low in places, stitched together with curls of cooler bay air.
Lanterns from a few cabin windows threw thin slices of yellow across the water.
Beneath them, the black sheen of Estero Bay slid between hull and piling like something thinking.
“Echo,” Rone called again, his voice rough at the edges. The night took his word and dimmed it. He didn’t slow. He moved like a man who’d counted too many seconds in his life between calling a name and getting no answer.
“Echo knows where home is,” she said, for him and for herself. “He’ll come back.”
“He does.” Rone’s jaw flexed. “He’s smart.
” He said it like a fact on a report, not comfort.
His burned hand sat tight at his side. The bandage she’d wrapped glowed pale against the night.
He hadn’t flinched when she taped it. He wasn’t flinching now.
It made her want to both shake him and shield him, which she knew was its own kind of trouble.
They reached the end of the finger pier where the main dock opened wider, and the sounds of the marina spread out: a splash, a gull’s late complaint, the small clanks and sighs boats make when they’re settling after excitement.
People were out—robe-clad neighbors with mugs, bare-chested fishermen who slept on decks because air-conditioning had given up long before they did.
The dockmaster hustled past with a clipboard he pretended was a shield and a whistle no one would obey.
They jogged. The marina changed as they moved—voices thinning, the cheerful clutter of dock boxes giving way to the quieter stretch where liveaboards kept to themselves and winter transients tried to pretend they belonged.
Somewhere, a radio murmured a Christmas song about snow no one here had ever seen. The irony made her teeth ache.
As they ran, she felt Rone’s presence like a guardrail—close enough to brace against, not so near it took her attention.
He ran without wasting motion, breath measured.
He’d been in emergencies before, she thought, and then chastised herself because of course he had.
Men like him wore history in the set of their shoulders and the things they didn’t say when the world went loud.
“Echo!” Rone’s voice went out again. “Here!”
They reached C-row. The channel cut black along its far side, mangroves crouching like a fringe of old men holding their breath. Isobel swung her light low and saw the glimmer of two small circles in the water—then realized they were only reflected stars.
“Echo!” she tried, and hated the way worry thinned her voice.
Isobel turned her flashlight under the walkway where barnacles clung like old secrets. A jellyfish drifted by—slow, serene, utterly unbothered by the chaos above. The beam caught on a tangle of rope, a glint of metal, nothing alive. Her throat tightened.
Behind her, Rone shifted—measured, not anxious. Always in control, or pretending to be. “Check C-row,” he said. “He’s jumped over there before to cut off a runner.”
“You think he’s trailing that man?” she asked, breath coming shallow. The messenger’s words came back: If you ever want to see your father again. The weight of them pressed into her ribs like a sucker punch to her side.
“Perhaps.” Rone’s chin tipped toward the dark stretch ahead.
“Then we go,” she said, moving forward. Anything to keep from drowning in stillness.
But a beam of light cut through the haze, slicing across the dock and freezing them both. The crunch of heavy boots followed—the kind of stride that carried ownership, not authority.
A man in a tan uniform stepped out of the smoke, Echo’s leash clenched in his fist.
For a heartbeat, Isobel couldn’t move. The sight slammed into her—raw and dizzying. Echo.
He’s alive. The thought came sharp and bright, so fierce it hurt.
The shepherd’s coat gleamed wet under the dock lamps, tail low but steady. “Echo,” she whispered, before realizing the dog wasn’t looking at her—his eyes locked on Rone, waiting for a command that hadn’t come.
“Evening,” the man in uniform said, voice low and unimpressed. His hat shadowed his eyes from the lamp post, but his smirk wasn’t hidden. “Got a call about trouble down here. Imagine my surprise when I find you at the heart of it Rone, again.”
Isobel frowned. Again? The word the sheriff said landed heavy. Rone didn’t rise to it. He stepped forward, calm and solid, one hand hanging loose at his side.
“Evening, Sheriff,” Rone said in an unfriendly tone, but it wasn’t defiant either. It was the kind that refused to bend. “There was a fire on the dock. Several pedestals. I shut it down before it spread and put out the fires.”
The sheriff snorted, giving a lazy tug on Echo’s leash. “Funny, last I checked, the marina didn’t have you on payroll.”
Isobel’s spine stiffened. She wanted to say something—anything—but the unspoken tension between the two men said it wasn’t her moment.
Rone stood firm, no puffed chest, no theatrics.
Just quiet, measured strength. “Someone had to keep this place from burning,” he said.
“You’re welcome to file a complaint if it bothers you. ”
The sheriff’s smirk faltered, just a flicker, before his expression cooled. “Always got an answer, don’t you?”
Rone didn’t blink. “Always will, when someone asks the wrong question.”
Isobel had seen men talk themselves into fights before—her father used to call it puffing smoke with your ego—but this wasn’t that.
Rone’s words weren’t challenge, they were boundary.
Unshakable, steady as tide against stone.
And for the first time in her life, Isobel admired a man not for what he said, but for what he didn’t.
There was power in restraint, she realized. Grace, even.
The sheriff crouched, unclipping the leash from Echo’s collar with a little too much familiarity. “Good job, boy,” he said, giving the shepherd’s head a rough pat. Echo’s tail didn’t move.
Rone’s jaw ticked once. “You found him?”
“Wasn’t hard,” the sheriff said, straightening. “Dog came to the station dock, sat like he was waiting for orders. Smart animal. Had sense to get the police involved. Shade trained him well.”
Isobel froze. The words didn’t fit right in her mind. Shade trained him well. She looked at Rone, searching his face. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. Just took a quiet step forward and placed a hand on Echo’s shoulder, reclaiming something that maybe was never his to begin with.
“You didn’t tell me,” she said softly, but Rone didn’t answer. His gaze stayed locked on the sheriff.
“Shade did good work,” the sheriff continued, glancing at her now with an assessing squint. “Shame how that all went down.”
Her stomach knotted. The air seemed to thicken between the three of them. “You mean Echo’s not yours?” she asked, the question tasting like disbelief and betrayal all at once.
Rone’s eyes flicked to hers—steady, unguarded for just a heartbeat. “He’s not anyone’s,” he said finally. “He chooses who he lives with.”
It was simple, honest—and evasive all the same. Why had she started believing she could trust this man? Again and again she’d been taught a lesson she didn’t seem to learn.
The sheriff’s smirk returned, lazy and knowing. “Still keeping strays, huh, Rone? Can’t tell if it’s loyalty or penance.”
“Guess that depends on how you measure the two,” Rone said evenly. “Now, if you’re done making small talk, Sheriff, maybe we can focus on the fact someone tried to torch the marina.”
“Sure,” the sheriff drawled, looking out over the black water like it might answer him. “Or maybe it’s just a power surge you’ve made into another one of your bad nights. Hard to tell with you.”
Rone didn’t move, but Isobel could feel the tension ripple through him. It wasn’t anger—more like control at its breaking point. Still, his voice stayed level. “You got your report. I’ve got cleanup. Echo and I will handle it.”
The sheriff stared a beat longer, then jerked his chin toward her. “You’re new around here. Take some advice. Watch who you trust. This man’s had more second chances than most deserve.”
Despite her desire to remind herself men weren’t trustworthy, something sharp rose in Isobel’s chest—instinctive, protective. “He just saved this dock. Seems like a good start on earning one more.”
The sheriff’s smile thinned. “Suit yourself, sweetheart.” He tipped his hat and turned, his boots thudding away down the pier until the night swallowed him whole.
Isobel stood in the quiet that followed, her heart still pounding. The waves licked the pilings, the scent of smoke still lingered, and Echo pressed his nose into Rone’s hand like the whole exchange had cost him, too.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Rone said finally, eyes on the water.
“Do what?”
“Step in.”
She met his gaze. “He was wrong.”
He gave a slow nod, like he didn’t quite believe her but appreciated the attempt. “Maybe. Doesn’t mean he’s done.”
Isobel folded her arms, the chill seeping through her sleeves. “You going to tell me what’s going on between you and the sheriff?”
Rone’s eyes shadowed. “Not tonight.”
“Will you?”
“Maybe,” he said. Then, softer, “When it matters.”
She studied him in the dim light, the burn on his hand, the unflinching way he stood even when accused. Whatever ghosts walked beside this man, they weren’t gone. But they hadn’t taken all his goodness with them either.
As Echo leaned into Rone’s leg and the moon caught the gleam of his wet fur, Isobel realized her pulse was finally slowing. She didn’t know what kind of trouble had found its way to the docks—or what this man was hiding—but for the first time since the fire, she felt strangely safe.
And that terrified her more than the smoke ever had.