13. Tess
Tess
The VHF radio shrieked against Tess’s palm while the wind tore loose strands of hair across her mouth.
She turned her shoulder into the gust and stared past the bait shack toward the commercial slips, where the water had gone from rippled blue to a churn of slate under the advancing storm cover.
The afternoon light had taken on a sick yellow cast, and every loose line on the dock snapped against wood, making her flinch.
Then the Coast Guard voice broke through the static again.
“Severe gale warning in effect for the lower Keys. Mariners are advised to secure vessels and seek protected harbor immediately.”
“How many times did they repeat it?” Sully called as he shoved out through the office door, one hand holding his cap to his head.
“Twice.” Tess tightened her grip on the radio as another gust tore at her tank top. “Keep moving. I’ll stay on the channel.”
Sully reached the edge of the deck and looked across the marina. A tackle crate skidded several feet before catching against a piling. Beyond it, one of the canvas covers snapped hard enough to lift from a hull and slap back down.
Tess raised her voice over the wind. “Pressure is dropping fast. Coast Guard pushed the warning to severe. If this crosswind gets under the shack roof, we could lose panels.”
Sully checked the bait shack, then glanced toward the fuel pumps.
“You stay off the fuel side,” he said.
“I’ve got the shack and the slips. Go.”
“Chain the outboard racks. Lock the bait freezers. Get anything loose away from the windows.” Sully pointed across the yard. “I’m shutting the fuel mains before this gets worse.”
The order landed without ceremony. No softening because she was pregnant. No suggestion that she sit somewhere safe while the men handled the work. That was Sully’s version of trust: he gave her a piece of the marina and expected it to still be standing when the storm passed.
Tess thumbed the radio volume lower and turned toward the commercial docks. A gust drove icy spray across the deck, biting her skin. Somewhere in the yard, metal scraped over dirt.
Sully pivoted toward the repair area. “Ford!”
Camden looked up from beside an open engine housing. A wrench was still in one hand, another tool on the ground by his boot.
“Dump the hardware!” Sully shouted. “Get the canvas for Tess!”
Camden let the wrench fall into the mud.
No complaint followed it. No glance toward the office, no question about whether someone else could take the job, no pause to protect the hands he had already torn up working Sully’s yard. He bent, shoved the second tool aside, and broke into a run toward the supply pallets.
Tess watched him cut across the yard through the first hard sheets of rain.
That should not have mattered. A storm was coming, Sully had given an order, and Camden had obeyed. Nothing about that erased the clinic waiting room, O’Malley’s, or the months when his first instinct had been to protect a campaign before he protected their marriage.
But she had expected hesitation.
The old Camden would have looked for the person paid to handle canvas. Or he would have reached for his wallet and tried to solve the problem by paying for more hands. This Camden hit the mud at a run before Sully had finished turning away.
Camden reached the first pallet and grabbed the edge of a folded tarp. The wind caught it at once, ballooning the canvas against his chest until he wrestled it back down.
“Where to?” he shouted.
Tess lifted one arm and pointed toward the dockside stack nearest the bait shack. “Bring them to me. We start with the exposed slips.”
He nodded once and hauled the canvas free.
Another burst of static rasped from the radio. Tess raised it toward her ear while the clouds swallowed the last clean strip of afternoon sky.
“Wind conditions deteriorating. Secure all exposed equipment.”
Sully was already moving toward the pumps.
Camden sprinted for the supply pallets.
Tess tucked the radio beneath the bait-shack awning and caught the edge of the canvas before the wind could rip it out of her hands.
The fabric snapped, jerking her shoulder forward, but she planted her boots and dragged it toward the first exposed slip.
Rain swept across the dock in slanting sheets, turning the boards slick beneath her feet and flattening her hair against her face.
“Give me slack on this side,” she shouted.
Camden dragged the first line behind her, water streaming from his sleeves. “You’ve got it. Move to the next hull.”
She didn’t waste time answering. The marina had narrowed down to whatever could still be tied, covered, latched, or dragged out of the weather before the next gust hit.
Tess wrestled the canvas over the gunwale while Camden fed the line around the first cleat, his hands moving without the usual flourish he brought to anything physical.
“Figure-eight,” she called. “Don’t cinch it flat. It needs room to pull without slipping.”
“I know.”
The next gust snapped the canvas between them. Camden caught the loose corner before it struck the side of the boat, wrapped the line again, then hauled it down until the fabric pulled taut.
Tess moved on.
The rain turned colder as she reached the next slip. Icy spray needled across her cheek and collected in the seams of the dock. She bent to seize another length of canvas, and the weight of it burned her palms as the soaked fabric clung to the boards.
A truck engine roared from the driveway.
Briggs’s pickup fishtailed through the mud, corrected, and stopped crooked near the bait shack. The driver’s door flew open before the truck had even finished rocking. Briggs hit the ground running, crossed the yard, and charged onto the dock with his shirt already plastered to his back.
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Working.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
He grabbed the canvas from her hands.
Tess held on.
“Let go,” Briggs said. “I’ve got the weight.”
“Then hold it where I put it. I’m not done here.”
He swallowed whatever he was going to say and shifted his grip instead of arguing. That alone bought him the next instruction.
“Pull it over the bow. Keep it low.”
Briggs dragged the canvas forward while Tess fed the edge across the rail. Behind them, Camden hauled another line into place and wrapped it around the cleat exactly where she had pointed.
“This side’s holding,” he shouted.
“Then take the stern line. Briggs, keep that canvas down.”
Neither man challenged her.
That was the strange part.
On any other day, Camden and Briggs moved around each other with the careful stiffness of men who disliked sharing the same patch of ground. Now Camden bent over the cleat while Briggs muscled the canvas into place, both of them focused on the work instead of each other.
Briggs looked back at her. “You’re done after this one.”
“No.”
“Tess.”
“The exposed slips aren’t secured.”
“They will be.”
“Not if I walk off while half the perimeter is still loose.”
Briggs swore under his breath and yanked the canvas lower. “Then stay behind us.”
Camden looked up from the stern cleat. “He’s right about that.”
Tess cut him a look.
Camden returned his focus to the line. “I’m not ordering you inside. I’m saying the wind’s getting worse.”
Another gust hit before she could answer. The tarp cracked against the hull, and Briggs shoved his shoulder into the fabric to keep it from lifting. Camden pulled the stern line tighter, then shifted to the next cleat before she had to direct him again.
Tess grabbed the loose edge and forced it down.
“Now,” she shouted.
Camden trapped the line over the horns and pulled it into the final figure-eight.
Briggs kept the canvas pinned until the fabric stopped fighting them.
For a moment, all three of them stayed where they were, bent into the rain, checking the strain on every line they had just set. Nothing lifted. Nothing slipped.
Tess straightened and looked down the dock.
The last canvas held.
Briggs peeled away toward the outboard shop as Tess snatched the radio from beneath the bait-shack awning and ducked through the door with Camden behind her.
The panel slammed shut against the wind, muting the worst of the squall without bringing anything close to quiet.
Rain battered the tin roof in relentless bursts, and the chum stink trapped inside the shack bloomed with the damp heat of two soaked bodies crossing the floor.
Tess set the radio beside the register and turned toward the front windows. Several tackle boxes sat stacked beneath the glass, and the display racks nearest the wall trembled each time the wind struck the building.
“What goes first?” Camden asked.
“Anything that can break or move.” She pointed toward the front corner. “Start where I point.”
He followed her hand to the overloaded rolling rack packed with lead sinkers and terminal tackle. The rack had always been a pain to move even on a dry day, and now one caster sat crooked against a seam in the floorboards.
“That rack goes in the freezer,” Tess said. “If those windows come in, I don’t want lead and broken glass flying through the room.”
Camden crossed to it and grabbed the side rail.
The rack barely shifted.
“Wheels are seized.”
“Then don’t pull it.” Tess moved around the opposite side and kicked a loose carton out of the way. “Push from the frame. Keep the weight straight.”
He changed position without argument, planting both hands against the metal. The first shove yielded nothing but a scrape and a small shudder through the shelves.
Tess crouched near the front caster. “Stop.”
Camden held the pressure while she dragged a flattened bait carton out from beneath the wheel.
“Try it now.”
He drove into the rack again.
The caster broke free with a grinding squeal that cut through the pounding rain. Lead weights rattled inside their bins, several shifting toward the edge before Tess caught one container and shoved it back into place.
“Slow it down,” she said.
“I am.”
“Then keep it centered. Left wheel is drifting.”