9. Without a Press Release #3
Nolan lowered his hand. The old version of me would have gone with him just to keep the argument contained. I would have climbed into the car, shut the door, and made myself smaller so nobody else had to witness the inconvenience of our marriage.
That woman had driven south four months ago.
I wasn’t getting back into his car just because he asked.
Nolan stared at my stomach again. “Have you been working like this every day?”
“That isn’t your concern.”
“It became my concern the second I found out you’re carrying my child.”
“You don’t get to decide that in the driveway.”
His face tightened, but I refused to fill the silence for him. Behind me, someone moved a tackle box across the boat deck. The marina kept running because my marriage had never been important enough to stop anybody else’s work.
Nolan shifted his weight, hovering just outside the space I’d already taken back from him. “Please, Piper, just get in the car so we can go to a hotel. You shouldn’t be out here working in this heat in your condition.”
Before I could answer Nolan, the captain came down the dock steps with the final commercial slip in one hand.
“Piper, I’ve got that final slip for you.”
I turned away from Nolan. “Give it here.”
The captain passed me the paper and pointed back toward the boat. “Everything’s loaded and secured. Lawson checked the straps twice.”
“Good. Hold on while I sign it.”
I lowered the clipboard from my chest to the crook of my arm.
I pulled the pen from beneath the clip, laid the slip flat against the board, and found the signature line.
Nolan remained behind me near the SUV, but the paper in front of me required more attention than whatever argument he had carried down from New York.
I signed my name.
The carbon sheet caught against the edge when I separated the copies, so I flattened it with my thumb and tried again. The captain waited without rushing me. A few feet away, Lawson moved the empty loading cart clear of the dock entrance.
“Here is the signed manifest.” I handed the captain his copy. “Have a safe trip offshore.”
“Thanks, Piper.” He tucked the paper into his shirt pocket. “We’ll be back before sundown if the fish cooperate.”
“They rarely do.”
He grinned. “That’s why we keep coming back.”
The captain headed for the boat. A moment later, the twin outboards started, their rumble rolling across the marina as Lawson released the stern line.
For one ordinary minute, everything worked exactly as it was supposed to.
Then Nolan said my name.
“Piper, please.” He had moved no closer. “Just give me five minutes to explain what happened.”
I put the pen back beneath the clip before turning toward him. “I am on the clock, Nolan. Your polished media apologies are worthless to me in the real world.”
He frowned. “This isn’t a media apology.”
“It sounds like one.”
“I’m trying to talk to my wife.”
“And I’m trying to finish my shift.”
The charter boat eased away from the dock behind me. Water churned white beside the pilings before settling back against the wood.
Nolan watched the boat pull away, then faced me. “You really won’t give me five minutes?”
The question almost made me angry enough to laugh. Five minutes. As if time had been the thing standing between us.
“You had four months to explain.”
He flinched, but I kept going before he could answer.
“Four months, Nolan. You knew I left. You knew why I left. You knew exactly where the problem started, and you still let four months pass before you came looking for me.”
“I thought you wanted space.”
“Of course you did.”
“Reid said—“
I lifted the clipboard between us. “Do not finish that sentence.”
Nolan stopped.
There it was again. Reid said. Reid thought. Reid decided.
Even after driving all the way down here, my husband still had his father’s fingerprints on every explanation.
I lowered the clipboard. “You don’t get to stand on Skipper’s property and tell me Reid’s version of my own marriage.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do.”
“Then stop trying to explain the last four months like they happened to you.”
He opened his mouth, but I turned before he could build another argument.
“Nolan, get off this property.”
“Piper.”
“You had four months to explain. Now get off this property.”
The shells shifted beneath my shoes as I crossed the driveway. Lawson stood near the fuel post with the coiled stern line in his hands, watching without pretending otherwise. I gave him a small nod as I passed, enough to tell him I didn’t need help.
He stayed where he was.
I climbed the dock steps back above the driveway, and the bait shack door stood open ahead of me.
The aerators hummed inside, unchanged by Nolan’s arrival.
Boxes still needed sorting. The signed copy still needed filing.
Tomorrow’s bait orders would not prepare themselves because my husband had finally decided our marriage qualified as an emergency.
I stepped behind the counter and slid the charter paperwork beneath the receipt book. I set the clipboard beside it, and I pulled the next inventory sheet from the stack.
I brought my pen to the first unchecked line.
I went back to work without looking over my shoulder.