Chapter 4 #2
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he turns back to the little girl in pink and points out a pair of otters playing near the rocky shoreline. The tourists lean toward the rail, phones raised, and I use the moment to study Dean’s profile.
Up close, the scar through his left eyebrow is more pronounced—a thin white line that cuts through the dark hair, pale against his tanned skin.
He’s got crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes like he squints against the sun more often than not.
His stubbled jaw is set. That stubble should look careless and sloppy, but on him, it works.
Of course it does.
Nothing about Dean Kinsella has the decency to be unattractive.
Well, except maybe his personality.
The boat rounds a point of land, and the water changes. The chop smooths into long, rolling swells that lift the hull and set it back down with a rhythm that’s almost, almost bearable. The ginger has done its work, and my stomach has stopped staging its mutiny. I can breathe again. I can think.
“J Pod’s paying us a visit.” Dean points to something on the port side, and there’s a collective gasp from the tourists.
I turn as the first dorsal fin cuts through the surface.
A second, smaller fin appears beside it. A calf.
Then a third, larger than both, surges up, water cascading off its back in sheets.
Orcas.
My notebook hits the bench with a soft thud. I don’t remember dropping it. My hand is on the rail, then both hands, and I’m leaning over, and the cold spray hits my face when the largest orca slaps the water with its tail.
The calf rolls alongside its mother, close enough that I forget to breathe. Its white underside flashes pale against the dark green, there and gone. It’s huge, but tiny compared to its mother.
I spent an entire career in front of a camera, built on always having something to say.
But right now, I have nothing.
I lean out over the rail, desperate to catch one more glimpse of the calf.
A hand closes around the back of my jacket and hauls me upright.
“You’re damn determined to end up in that water, aren’t you, Hollywood? It’s forty degrees. Fall in and I’m not going after you.”
Dean sets me back on my feet, and I whirl to face him.
He’s scowling like I personally offended him.
“I didn’t ask you to go in after my suitcase this morning,” I snap back, smoothing my jacket where his grip wrinkled it.
My cheeks burn, partly from the cold spray, partly from the embarrassment of being manhandled like a child.
“And I didn’t need your help now either. ”
His gray-blue eyes narrow and the scowl lines around his mouth deepen. “One good wave and you’d have been swimming with the orcas.”
“I was being careful.”
“You were being stupid.” His jaw works like there’s something behind his teeth he’s decided not to say. “Sit down. The water’s getting rougher.”
“I don’t need to sit—”
He puts a big hand on my shoulder and steers me toward my seat. He’s not rough, but he’s also not giving me a choice either. I sit. But mostly because my legs are still overcooked pasta, not because he told me to.
“Stay,” he says like I’m a dog, and goes back to the wheel.
I should be furious. I am furious. But he’s already smiling again for the little girl in pink like the last thirty seconds didn’t happen, and, dammit, he’s probably right about the wave. I glare at his back, but I stay seated.
The orcas have moved on, their dorsal fins cutting through the water in the distance, and the tourists are buzzing with excitement, comparing photos and videos.
I pick up my notebook, flip past the color-coded feud questions, and find where I wrote Why so grumpy?
in handwriting that looks like it was written during an earthquake. I underline it. Twice.
Because Malcolm Merrick gave me a story about a hundred-year feud and a lost treasure. It’s a fine story. It’s the story I came here for.
But it’s not the one I’m interested in anymore.
Back at the marina, the passengers file off one by one, thanking Dean, tipping him, the little girl in pink waving until her mother scoops her up.
I take my time gathering my things. My legs have mostly remembered how to be legs, and the solid, unmoving dock under my feet is the best thing that’s happened to me all day.
Dean crouches on the dock, tying off the boat with those big, capable hands, when a door bangs open behind me.
I turn. There’s a squat, weathered building at the top of the dock, OLD SALT’S BAR hand-painted on a sign above the door, and the man coming out of it looks like he’s been inside since noon.
He’s sunburned to the color of a boiled ham, a sweating beer open in his hand.
He notices me standing on the dock, and his whole face splits into a grin I don’t like at all.
“Somebody get a camera,” he says loud enough to alert everyone at the marina and points the beer at me. “It’s the lady who lost her damn mind on live TV. Smile for us, sweetheart.”
My stomach, which had finally forgiven me, drops all over again.
“You are, aren’t you?” He’s coming closer now, unhurried, enjoying it.
“That clip where you screamed at that poor barista over a latte.” He snaps his fingers like he’s trying to remember a name.
“The one where security had to drag you out kicking. What was it—oh right. Scarlett Crawford.” He laughs, and it draws even more notice from the tourists.
“Yer the kind of woman that thinks the world owes you something, aren’t ya? Think yer something special.”
The dock feels very small suddenly. The tourists have stopped filing past. The little girl’s mother has her hand on the back of her daughter’s
head, steering her away, and I can feel every eye on the dock turning toward me.
My face is on fire. My hands have gone cold.
The man takes another pull from his beer. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Cat got your tongue? Usually you got plenty to say.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Not a single one of the sharp, practiced comebacks I used to deploy on camera. My throat has closed up the way it does when the panic hits, that old familiar tightening that started eighteen months ago and never fully went away.
“Curt.” Dean’s suddenly there, stepping between the drunk and me.
“Aw, come on, Coastie.” Curt’s grin comes back, but it’s thinner now.
He gestures around Dean’s shoulder at me with his beer.
“I’m just havin’ a conversation with the lady.
She’s famous, ain’t she? Eighteen million people watched her lose her shit over a cup of coffee. I figure she’s used to the attention.”
Dean doesn’t move. “She’s a passenger.”
“She’s a sideshow.”
“Not on my dock.”
The two of them stand there, and the air between them goes tight in a way that has nothing to do with me. Curt’s jaw works, and he takes another pull from his beer, eyeing Dean over the rim. Dean just stands there, arms crossed.
“Since when do you play bodyguard?” Curt’s grin turns sly, mean. “You of all people, Kinsella. Half this harbor won’t set foot on your boat, and you’re out here defending some washed-up—”
“We’re done here, Curt.”
That’s all Dean says. His voice is low, final, and he presses his hand to the small of my back, guiding me up the dock.
Curt calls something after us. The wind whips away the words, but the tone of it is ugly, and Dean tightens up beside me. His palm presses a fraction harder against my back as he steers me up the ramp, but he doesn’t turn around, doesn’t give Curt the satisfaction of a fight.
His hand doesn’t drop away until we are inside the Haven Tours office. Abel is nowhere to be seen, but Captain is there, preening his feathers from the top of the filing cabinet, and he tilts his head at me with what I swear is sympathy.
“Rude,” he announces.
Tell me about it.
My hands are shaking. I stuff them into the pockets of my jacket before Dean notices.
“That guy.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “Curt. Is he— should I be worried about him?”
“No.” He’s already moving toward the back room, like he can’t get away from me fast enough. “Curt Malloy’s a mean drunk with a grudge. He’s an asshole.”
“Asshole,” Captain echoes. “Asshole! Rude asshole!”
Dean glances over at his parrot with narrowed eyes before adding, “What Curt said has got nothing to do with you. Wait a few minutes before you leave. He won’t bother you again.”
But it feels like it had everything to do with me.
I hate that my public meltdown is my legacy. Nobody remembers I was once a good reporter who covered interesting, difficult, and meaningful stories. They only remember the morning show. The meltdown.
Dean could have let Curt have his fun. He could have stood there and watched the way everyone else on that dock did, and no one would have blamed him.
But he didn’t. Even though he obviously dislikes me. Even though he thinks I’m exactly the kind of woman Curt painted me as—washed-up, entitled, famous for the wrong reasons.
This man is a puzzle.
And I’ve never been able to resist a puzzle.
“Dean?”
He pauses at the door, one hand on the frame, and for just a second his shoulders drop.
“I want to book another tour.”