14. Camden #2
Camden shoved against the timber.
His right boot slipped.
He caught himself with the left, but the bottom of the post skated several inches through the mud. The slide ripped the wood through his palms again. He shifted his hands without releasing it, trying to regain enough purchase to keep the timber upright.
“Camden!” Tess shouted. “The base is sliding!”
“I’ve still got it. Don’t stop moving.”
The words came out before he had any proof.
Pressure drove him backward.
He lost a foot of ground, then another. Mud pushed over the sides of his boots while the timber stayed trapped between his shoulder and the hull. Camden tried to angle his body away from the slipping base, but there was nowhere left to go without letting the post fall.
The steel cradle stood behind him.
His back struck it first.
Pain tore across his ribs as the steel took his weight. Metal pressed into one side of him. The timber pressed into the other, leaving him wedged between the cradle and the post with Sully still beneath the boat.
Camden’s hands shifted on the wood.
Blood made the grip worse.
Not yet.
He reset one palm higher and shoved his shoulder beneath the wood again. The post scraped against the chine but stayed seated. Above him, the hull gave another low groan that carried through the timber and into the cradle at his back.
Sully crawled another yard.
“Keep going,” Camden shouted. “Past the stern. Don’t stop there.”
“I know where the damn boat ends.”
“Then get there.”
Sully planted both hands, hauled one knee free of the mud, and dragged himself toward open ground. His shirt caught beneath him. He tore it loose and kept moving.
The timber shifted again.
Camden’s boots slid until the cradle took more of his weight. His ribs met the steel with another hard impact, and for a second the yard narrowed to mud, wood, and the scrape of Sully pulling himself clear.
Tess called Camden’s name again from the deck.
He kept his attention on Sully.
Another push.
Another drag through the mud.
The old man’s shoulders cleared the outer edge of the hull. His hips followed. One foot remained beneath the stern before he kicked it free and rolled onto open ground.
Sully twisted toward Camden and threw up one mud-covered hand.
“I’m clear—let it go!”
Camden stayed against the timber.
He heard the order, but releasing the post too fast could push the hull past whatever balance remained. He eased his shoulder away a little at a time, keeping both hands on the wood while its base settled farther into the mud.
“Stay back,” Camden called. “I’m unloading it.”
“Don’t dump the pressure all at once,” Sully shouted from open ground. “Let the stands take her.”
Camden shifted one hand lower and gave the timber room to move.
The hull sank another few inches.
Wood ground against fiberglass. One of the surviving stands tilted, corrected against the load, then stayed put. The timber dug deeper into its pocket until the boat stopped moving.
Camden waited.
Nothing slipped.
Only then did he take his hands off the post.
The first step backward almost worked.
His boot cleared the trench beside the timber, landed in churned mud, and slid out from under him. Camden caught the cradle with his shoulder, but the contact sent pain across his battered ribs.
He dropped against the steel.
His back scraped down the cradle until he hit the mud, pulling one arm tightly against his side. Both palms burned where torn skin had filled with grit, and blood ran through the creases of his fingers.
Stay down for a second.
Camden hated the thought enough to try standing.
His boot slipped again.
“Quit being stupid.”
Sully appeared beside him, mud coating his shirt and both knees. He held out one hand.
Camden looked at it. “You were under a boat ten seconds ago.”
“And you just got driven into a steel rack.” Sully pushed his hand closer. “Give me yours. You’re not standing up alone like that.”
Arguing would take longer.
Camden caught Sully’s forearm instead of his palm, sparing both of them the worst of the blood. Sully anchored his boots and hauled while Camden pushed himself upright with one leg.
He locked his knee against a wave of dizziness, waiting for his vision to level out.
Sully kept hold of him until Camden found his footing.
“You good?”
“Ask me tomorrow.”
“That means no.”
Camden glanced past him toward the hull. The timber remained in place. So did the surviving stands.
Nobody was underneath it.
That was enough.
Sully followed his gaze toward the boat, then looked back at Camden. Mud streaked one side of the older man’s face.
“That thing was coming down on me.”
Camden wiped one bleeding palm against his work pants and immediately regretted it when dirt caught in the cuts.
“The stands held.”
“Not long enough.”
“The post held.”
“Because you kept it there.”
Camden looked away from him. Praise sat worse than the mud inside his boots. He had spent too many years accepting applause for things that mattered less than this.
“I kept a piece of wood from slipping.”
“You bought me time.”
Before Camden could answer, his name carried across the yard.
He turned.
Tess had left the bait-shack deck.
Her mug was gone. She came down the steps and crossed the ruined yard without slowing, abandoning the safe distance of the porch as she headed straight for him.
Camden paused where Sully had pulled him upright.
He took one step away from the cradle, catching his breath as the pain forced a stiff walk. He dropped his hands to his sides, trying to keep the torn skin out of sight, but Tess walked straight past Sully and stopped in front of him.
“Stop moving. Let me see your hands.”
“I’m fine. Sully’s clear.”
“I can see Sully.”
Her fingers closed around Camden’s wrists before he could pull his hands behind his back.
The contact stopped him more effectively than the pain had.
For weeks, Tess had enforced every boundary with ruthless consistency. Stay off the porch. Stay out of the shack. Take the motel. Wait in the clinic lobby. She had barely tolerated him within speaking distance unless work required it.
Now she stood in the mud holding him.
Do not turn this into something she didn’t offer.
Camden tried to draw his wrists back. “Tess, you don’t have to—”
“Turn them over.”
He obeyed, turning his palms up.
Blood had collected in the lines of his palms. Mud clung to the cuts, and several splinters remained buried beneath torn skin. One cut ran diagonally across the base of his thumb, dark with dirt where the timber had dragged through his grip.
Tess looked from one palm to the other.
“God, Camden.”
“They were already torn up.”
“That is supposed to make this better?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
She shifted her thumb along the side of his wrist, careful to avoid the open cuts. Blue paint from his forearm smeared across the front of her shirt, and mud streaked where his sleeve brushed her hip.
Camden pulled back.
“Your shirt.”
Tess tightened her grip. “Forget the shirt.”
“There’s bottom paint all over me.”
“I know what paint looks like.”
Another smear marked her clothes when she stepped closer to inspect his other palm. She paid no attention to it.
Camden stared at the mess instead.
A month ago, Tess would have put a counter between them if he stood too close. Now she was ruining her clothes because he had blood on his hands, and he had no idea what he was allowed to do with that difference.
Nothing.
He was allowed to stand still.
Tess released one wrist and pointed toward his side. “What happened there?”
“Cradle caught me when the post started moving.”
“Caught you where?”
“Ribs. Back.”
“Which side?”
Camden hesitated.
One look at her face killed the lie before he could tell it.
“Right side.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Without pretending you can?”
He glanced at Sully.
The older man wiped mud from his face with his sleeve. “Don’t drag me into this. I already watched you try to stand up twice.”
Camden looked back at Tess. “I can walk.”
“Fine. Then you’re walking to the porch.”
She kept her grip on his wrist and turned toward the office.
“Tess.”
“Sit on the bench. I’m getting those wood splinters out of your hands, and we’re putting ice on your ribs.”
“I can clean them myself.”
“You can also stop arguing for thirty seconds.”
There was no softness in the order. No declaration that anything between them had changed.
But she still had his wrist.
Camden followed her away from the unstable hull, through the ruined yard, and toward the office steps. He did not ask what the contact meant. He did not ask whether tomorrow would put the distance back between them.
For once, he accepted exactly what she gave him.
He let her lead him toward the porch.