Chapter 6 #2
“Chin down a little.”
He obeyed.
“Hands loose.”
“They are loose.”
“They look like you are preparing to arrest someone.”
His fingers flexed.
“Better.”
I took two frames.
He watched me over the top of the camera.
That was worse.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know something.”
“I know several things.”
“Most of them are weather.”
“Some are tides.”
I lowered the camera.
His mouth almost moved.
There.
I took the shot.
“Done,” I said.
“That was quick.”
“You forgot to hate it for a second.”
I checked the back screen.
The frame was good. Very good.
Cole in profile, softened by reflected water light, one hand relaxed against the seat back. Not smiling. Not shut down either.
I turned the camera toward him.
He stepped closer to see.
Too close.
His shoulder brushed mine.
My body made an immediate and deeply unprofessional decision that this was excellent.
Cole looked at the screen.
“You make people look better than they do.”
“No.”
His eyes shifted to me.
“I make them look like themselves when they stop trying to control the evidence.”
“That sounds invasive.”
“It is.”
“Do you do that to everyone?”
“Occupational hazard.”
“And what does the evidence say about me?”
I should have made a joke.
Instead I looked at him.
“That you want things you don’t let yourself reach for.”
His face went still.
Too far.
Maybe.
I started to step back.
Cole caught my wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough to stop me.
The air changed instantly.
“Don’t,” he said.
I looked down at his hand, then up at him.
“Don’t what?”
“Make a joke because you think you went too far.”
Well.
That was invasive right back.
I set the camera carefully on the bench.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
“I just did.”
His thumb moved once against the inside of my wrist.
My pulse reacted like it had been waiting for instructions.
Cole felt it.
I knew he felt it because his eyes dropped to where he held me.
“Rafe is easy about wanting things,” he said.
“Rafe is easy about announcing things. That’s not the same.”
A small nod.
“Gray makes rules.”
“Gray makes rules because feelings refuse to use calendars.”
That almost got a smile.
Cole released my wrist.
The loss of contact annoyed me immediately.
He leaned back against the cabin wall and looked toward the window.
“Hannah used to tell me I could turn anything into a safety problem.”
I stayed quiet.
“After she died, people kept telling me I was still young. That I’d meet somebody. Like grief had a recommended replacement schedule.”
My chest tightened.
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Usually they meant well.”
“Still terrible.”
“Yeah.”
He looked at me.
“I haven’t brought anyone into Nora’s life. Haven’t wanted to.”
“Until?”
His jaw tightened.
I did not rescue him from the question.
Finally, he said, “Until now.”
The words landed low and heavy in my stomach.
I leaned against the opposite wall.
“That scares you.”
“Yes.”
“Because of Nora?”
“Partly.”
“And the rest?”
His gaze held mine.
“Because I know exactly how much it costs to love somebody and lose them.”
There was nothing useful to say to that.
No clever answer.
No promise that wanting me would be safe.
So I did not insult him with one.
“I can’t make that safe,” I said.
“I know.”
“I’m here for six weeks.”
“I know.”
“I kissed Rafe.”
“I know.”
“And Gray.”
His mouth tightened.
“I definitely know now.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t apologize like you did something to me.”
The exactness of it hit hard.
I looked at him.
Cole pushed off the wall.
One step.
Then another.
The cabin suddenly had nowhere left to put the air.
“If you want them,” he said, “that’s your business.”
“And if I want you?”
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
My entire body went alert.
“That is the problem.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you back.”
There it was.
No joke.
No logistics.
No safe version.
I put one hand flat against his chest.
His heartbeat was hard under my palm.
“Then maybe stop treating wanting me like a marine warning.”
Cole’s hand closed around my waist.
“Bad advice.”
“Probably.”
He kissed me.
There was nothing cautious about it.
My back met the cabin wall with his hand behind my shoulder before I could hit it hard. His mouth covered mine, hot and firm and almost angry in a way that made my knees feel unreliable.
I grabbed his shirt.
He made a low sound against my mouth and pressed closer.
Every inch of him was controlled until it wasn’t.
His other hand slid to my hip, fingers spreading over the curve of me like he had been thinking about doing exactly that for longer than he intended to admit.
I kissed him harder.
Cole’s restraint snapped with gratifying speed.
His mouth moved to my jaw, then back to mine. His hand tightened at my waist. I could feel the solid line of him against me, the heat of the cabin, the faint salt still dried on his skin.
“Still think this is a safety problem?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I laughed against his mouth.
He kissed me again.
“Stop enjoying that.”
“Impossible.”
His forehead touched mine.
We were both breathing harder than two adults standing still had any right to.
I expected him to retreat.
He did not.
That mattered.
Cole looked at me, close enough that I could see the tiny sun-faded lines at the corners of his eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said.
“Good. Neither do I.”
“That doesn’t concern you?”
“Deeply.”
His mouth twitched.
I slid my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck.
“But I am not going to pretend I don’t want this because the spreadsheet has missing columns.”
“That’s Gray.”
“Metaphorical spreadsheet.”
“I don’t use spreadsheets.”
“Of course you don’t. You use weather models.”
That got the laugh.
Quiet, but real.
Then his face changed again.
“What happens with Rafe and Gray?”
“The same thing that happens with you.”
“Which is?”
“I figure out what I want one relationship at a time and don’t promise anybody exclusivity I haven’t offered.”
Cole absorbed that.
There was jealousy in his face.
Not hidden.
Not weaponized either.
“I don’t love it,” he said.
“I wouldn’t believe you if you did.”
His thumb moved along my waist.
“I also don’t want you to stop.”
I smiled.
“That answer is getting easier.”
“No.”
“Still counts.”
A knock sounded on the hull above us.
We both froze.
Rafe’s voice came through the open hatch.
“If you two are conducting maritime photography, Gray wants to know why the remediation guy is standing in the yard holding a moisture meter and judging all of us.”
Cole closed his eyes.
I bit my lip so I would not laugh.
Rafe continued, “Also, I would like credit for not coming downstairs.”
Cole looked at me.
I whispered, “Remarkable restraint.”
“Heroic,” he said flatly.
I lost it.
Rafe shouted, “I HEARD THAT.”
Cole stepped back, but his hand stayed at my waist for one extra second before he let go.
Not an apology.
Not a mistake.
Good.
I picked up my camera and checked that I had not knocked any settings loose against the bench.
Cole opened the cabin door wider.
Before he went up, he looked back at me.
“That wasn’t temporary to me.”
My heart stumbled.
He frowned, as if the sentence had come out wrong.
“I don’t mean I know what it is. I mean I am not going to call it nothing because you’re leaving in six weeks.”
For a man who rationed words like emergency water, that was a flood.
I nodded.
“Good.”
He waited.
Apparently he needed more than good.
I smiled.
“For the record, Captain, I wasn’t planning to call it nothing either.”
His shoulders loosened.
Then Rafe yelled down, “THE MOISTURE METER HAS BECOME HOSTILE.”
Cole looked toward the hatch.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means Gray is impatient.”
“That means something.”
We climbed out into the glare.
Across the yard, Gray stood beside the remediation technician with a clipboard. He looked at Cole. Then at me. Then at my mouth.
Of course he did.
Rafe leaned against the storefront railing, grinning like a man who had just received free premium cable.
I lifted my camera.
“Say one word and I post the Father’s Day credential photo.”
Rafe’s grin vanished.
Cole stared at me.
Gray said, “Effective.”
“Thank you.”
The remediation technician cleared his throat.
Gray looked back at his clipboard. “Cottage walls are dry enough to close.”
The joke went out of me.
I looked toward the detached cottage behind the house, visible beyond the marina fence only as an idea in my head. My private room. My desk. The thing that had been promised before any of this got complicated.
Gray watched my face.
“No rush,” he said.
Rafe’s grin had disappeared too.
Cole did not say anything.
That was somehow worse.
The cottage becoming habitable was good news.
It was also the first door opening out of the house.
For the first time since I arrived in Cape Mercy, I was not sure I wanted to walk through it.