13. Shifting the Weight #3
“You can’t drive a rental SUV back to town in this downpour. The highway floods over the medians during these winter squalls, and you’ll end up in a ditch.”
“I’ll drive slow and keep my hazard lights on.”
“That doesn’t stop floodwater.”
“I know how to drive, Piper.”
“You know how to drive on an interstate. This isn’t the same thing.”
He stopped near the back door and looked at me. The keys remained in his hand.
“I don’t want to intrude on you and Skipper.”
There it was again.
No mention of the docks he had helped secure. No reminder that he had just held the storm door shut with his body. No argument that being my husband gave him some automatic claim on a dry room.
Just the boundary.
Outside, runoff streamed past the bottom of the back steps in a muddy sheet. The road beyond the marina would be worse, and Nolan had no idea which stretches flooded first or where saltwater crossed the pavement when the wind came from this direction.
Respecting my space was one thing.
Letting him do something stupid to prove he respected it was another.
He started toward the exit.
I stepped in front of it before he could reach the handle.
“Put the keys away.”
Nolan stopped with his hand still near the back door. Rain streaked the small window beside him, turning the marina lights outside into blurred smears.
“Piper—”
“You’re not driving back to town tonight.”
His gaze dropped to the keys in his hand. “I don’t want you thinking I’m using the storm as an excuse to stay.”
“Then don’t.” I moved away from the door and pointed toward the office building through the rain. “Just follow me.”
He pocketed the keys without another argument.
We crossed the yard with our heads down against the weather. Water rushed through the ruts in the shell driveway and spilled around my shoes, while the wind drove rain beneath the awnings between the buildings. Nolan stayed beside me without touching me, even when I slowed near the office steps.
I pushed through the mudroom door.
Skipper stood inside unzipping his rain jacket. Water ran from the hem onto the mat, and the room smelled of wet clothes and old coffee. He looked from me to Nolan, then down at the blood streaking Nolan’s forearm.
“You two finish locking the shack?”
“Door’s bolted,” I said. “Inventory’s moved. The exterior lines are holding.”
Skipper nodded toward Nolan. “What happened to your arm?”
Nolan looked down as if he had forgotten about it. A rope burn crossed his forearm, raw enough to leave a thin trail of blood beneath the grime.
“Line caught me. It’s nothing.”
“That answer works better when you’re not dripping on my floor.”
Nolan glanced at the water gathering beneath his shoes. “Sorry.”
Skipper shook the water off his jacket over the mudroom sink before hanging it on a hook. “The fuel mains are locked. The docks holding up, Callahan?”
“Piper locked them down tight. She didn’t lose a single line.”
The answer made me turn toward him.
He could have said we. He could have mentioned the tarps, the doubled ropes, or the door he had held shut while the wind tried to rip it off its hinges.
Instead, he gave me the credit and left it there.
Skipper studied him for another moment. “Good. You earned your keep today. Don’t bleed on my upholstery.”
Nolan looked toward the back office. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Neither was I when I bought that couch, but life disappoints us.”
A laugh almost escaped me. I covered it by opening the cabinet beside the coffee maker and pulling out an old towel.
“Here.” I handed it to Nolan. “Wrap that around your arm before Skipper decides the upholstery matters more than you do.”
“It does,” Skipper said.
Nolan pressed the towel against the burn. “Message received.”
The battered leather couch sat beneath the back-office window, its cushions worn flat from years of charter captains waiting out weather and mechanics stealing naps between jobs. I crossed to the storage closet and pulled a folded blanket from the top shelf.
Nolan remained near the doorway.
He didn’t assume.
That mattered more than I wanted it to.
I set the blanket on the couch. “This is yours tonight, Nolan. But this doesn’t mean everything is forgiven.”
He held my gaze for a second before he answered.
“I understand, Piper. I won’t overstep.”
“You’re staying because the road isn’t safe and because you helped save this place tonight.”
“I know.”
“There’s a first aid kit in the cabinet. Keep that cut clean.”
“I will.”
Skipper started toward his own office, pausing long enough to point at Nolan. “And if you drip blood on that couch after she just gave you a towel, I’m charging you for it.”
Nolan looked at the faded cushions. “I’m guessing that thing survived worse.”
“Don’t test me.”
Skipper disappeared down the short hall.
Nolan sat on the edge of the cushions and pulled the blanket over his lap. He looked exhausted in a way I had never seen after football games, stripped of the crowds and trainers and cameras that usually surrounded his pain.
“I’ll be upstairs,” I said.
“Goodnight, Piper.”
“Goodnight, Nolan.”
I left Nolan on the couch below me, closer than I had allowed him to be in months.