Chapter 9 #2
“Hold this,” he handed me a fishing pole. “I guess I’m out of practice.”
“To be honest, you don’t really look like the fishing type either.”
“I hate fishing,” he admitted, straightening out the line and taking the pole back.
“Then what are we doing here?”
Isaac didn’t answer, suddenly too concentrated on a package of raw shrimp. He stepped behind me, placing my hands correctly on the pole. His casting instructions were warm, tickling the shell of my ear.
Of course, he was infusing this moment with sexual tension.
Except…this wasn’t sex.
What was this?
I fumbled with the fishing pole, failing four times before his chest pressed to my back, arms coming around me to show me the motion.
“See? You’re a natural,” he said when I finally got the line into the water.
There was a long stretch of quiet, then he murmured, “It reminds me of who I am. Or who I was. Or maybe both.”
“What?”
“Fishing.” Isaac took up his own pole, casting the line as casually as he did everything else.
It was easy to forget he grew up here. That this place was as familiar to him as the lines in his palms. I couldn’t picture it. Couldn’t make sense of a man like Isaac living somewhere like this.
Port O’Henry had a rugged sort of charm. There was a small town feel to some of it. Other parts were like any other tourist trap.
Where did he fit in among it all? When we first met, I assumed he was just another lawyer or doctor here for a fishing trip.
Seeing him here, I realized that wasn’t the full picture. He showed people only what he wanted them to see.
“We didn’t have much growing up.” He stopped abruptly, his jaw tight.
His wrist moved, slowly reeling his line in, eyes fixated on the surface of the water. “Some days we didn’t eat dinner unless we caught it. I hated it.”
I tried not to fill the silence that followed, tried to let his honesty catch in the wind and get carried away from us. I didn’t need to know about him. To feel anything for him.
And here I was feeling sorry for him.
That was always how it started. Thinking that once upon a time this man was just a little boy. Just some kid with a hard life.
Sooner or later, I would start plotting out all the ways I could fix him. Heal that inner child that had him reaching for something more.
Which was complete and utter bullshit. The only person that could make that kind of change was him. It wasn’t my place or my purpose.
When I decided to fall in love again, it was going to be with someone that didn’t need fixing. Someone that had their emotional shit together.
So, I was going to get my emotional shit together too.
Or that was what I told myself before I blurted, “Why did you stay?”
“In Port O’Henry?”
“Yes. I don’t get it. You don’t seem like you belong here. Or that you want to.”
He cleared his throat, sliding his sunglasses down over his eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it because of your brothers?” They were the only personal detail he mentioned until today. He spoke about them almost reverently.
“Yes, they’re part of it.” He exhaled. “I know this place isn’t perfect but…it’s home. I’ve bled into these waters, and they’ve bled into me. You don’t walk away from that. Sometimes I want to turn my back on it all, go where no one knows me. But this place—it always pulls me back.”
Like the tide. Dragging him back.
Time stretched. I let it.
“If only you could be as romantic about a girl as you can be about this dumpy town.”
Isaac shrugged, his air of nonchalance returning. “Wouldn’t want to give her the wrong impression.”
“So, do you take all of your one-night-stands fishing?”
“Only the clingy ones. Ask a girl to touch bait and suddenly she’s running the other way.”
“Right, this is how you get rid of me. It’s like a reverse psychology thing.”
I wedged the fishing pole between the rocks, sitting cross-legged beside it. The rock was a cool contrast to the sun on the water. It didn’t ease my growing restlessness.
I cleared my throat. “So, I’ve been thinking about getting my real estate license.”
“What do you know about real estate?”
“I like looking at nice houses.”
“That’s…something.” He snorted. “You planning on doing that here?”
I shifted. “I haven’t thought that far.”
“There’s real estate work in town.” He cast his line further than before. “If you were looking.”
My stomach dipped.
“Is that a pitch?”
“No,” he answered too fast. “Just an observation.”
My smile felt thin. “Good.”
“You city slickers don’t last out here.”
I stood, ripping my sunglasses off. “Is that a challenge?”
It always was with him. Pushing to see how far I would go. To see how much I would allow.
Isaac took his glasses off too. His features didn’t soften in the sun. They sharpened. Shadows cut deeper around his eyes.
This time, something in his face was wrong. The sun was behind him, but his eyes were golden—as if the light was coming from within them.
My breath caught. The air shifted. Heavy. Charged. Like a storm rolling in.
My heart stuttered. His rasping voice drew me back to the present. “What if it is?”
“What do I win if I prove you wrong?”
His mouth opened—then snapped shut.
The sunglasses came down over his eyes again, and Isaac turned back to the water.
“Nothing you want, darlin’.”
It was a lie. I could feel it like a thorn under my skin.
It was for the best.
Better for both of us.
Why did that feel like a lie too?