15. Unwanted Exposure
Unwanted Exposure
Piper
The sun burned bright across Osprey Bluff, with salt riding the breeze and puddles still gathered in the low spots around the yard.
I pulled a light flannel over my tank top before stepping down toward the bait shack.
The air had enough bite to justify it, though the morning light was already beginning to reach across the docks.
A hammer struck wood somewhere ahead of me.
Nolan stood beside the damaged walkway, one boot braced near the rail while he drove a nail into a replacement board.
Tape showed beneath his shirt where his ribs had slammed against the steel cradle yesterday.
The cuts across his palms had been cleaned, but there was no hiding the care in the way he wrapped his fingers around the hammer.
I stopped outside the shack instead of going in.
Yesterday kept threatening to replay whenever I looked at him—the boat shifting, Skipper trapped beneath it, Nolan running into the yard before anyone could stop him.
I had spent weeks questioning whether every scraped hull and filthy shirt was another performance meant to earn his way back into my good graces.
There had been no audience yesterday.
He finished the nail before glancing over. The smile he gave me was tired and uncertain, nothing like the polished grin he used to produce whenever a camera appeared.
“That rail can wait until you’ve eaten something.”
Nolan tested the board with his palm, then shifted the hammer to his other hand. “This one’s still loose. I’d rather fix it before one of the charter clients catches a foot on it.”
“You have bruised ribs.”
“I remember.”
“Do you?” I nodded toward the hammer. “Because this looks suspiciously like someone who forgot.”
Another wry smile touched his face. “I’m taking it easier than yesterday.”
“That’s not much of a standard.”
“No. Probably not.”
The old Nolan would have argued. He would have explained that he knew his body, that trainers had cleared him after worse hits, that sitting still made him crazy. The NFL had taught him to treat pain like an inconvenience that could be taped over until the next game.
Instead, he set another nail against the board and waited until I moved clear before raising the hammer.
The next strike drove it partway down.
There it was again—that same stubborn concentration I remembered from college, when he would stay on the practice field after everyone else had left because one route had bothered him all afternoon.
Back then, I had loved that part of him.
His determination had never frightened me until Reid taught him to point it toward contracts, headlines, and anything that could make Nolan Callahan worth more money.
Now he was using it to repair Skipper’s dock.
This was the man I remembered.
That thought should have made me retreat into the bait shack.
I stayed.
Nolan paused when he caught me watching. “You need something moved before you open up?”
“No. Lawson handled the worst of it yesterday.”
“Okay.” He looked back at the rail. “Tell me if that changes.”
No sales pitch followed. No reminder that he had saved Skipper. He didn’t ask whether yesterday had changed anything between us.
The restraint mattered more than I wanted it to.
“You’ve been out here since sunrise.” I folded my arms against the morning breeze. “Your ribs are bruised. You should come inside and let me make you breakfast before you tackle the dock.”
He stopped the hammer just above the next nail.
For a moment Nolan only looked at me. Then he lowered it to his side.
“I just want to finish this last section.” His gaze flicked toward the bait shack before returning to mine. “But I’d love a cup of coffee if there’s any left in the pot.”
I should have pointed him to the mugs and made him pour his own coffee.
Instead, I turned toward the shack with the beginnings of a smile I had no interest in explaining.
For the first time in months, I wanted to make my husband coffee.
The calm lasted until the tires hit the shells.
I had taken two steps toward the bait shack, already thinking about coffee, when the first vehicle turned off the highway. A second followed, then a third. Three black SUVs rolled into Osprey Bluff in a line, churning up the driveway Skipper kept packed flat for boat trailers and delivery trucks.
Behind me, Nolan went perfectly still.
“Were you expecting a delivery?”
I turned toward the driveway. “Not three of them.”
The SUVs kept coming.
Morning customers knew to leave the ramp clear. Whoever was driving either didn’t know or didn’t care. The first vehicle cut toward the bait shack, the second tucked in behind it, and the third parked so close to the loading lane that Skipper would have to navigate the next boat around it.
Nolan set the hammer on the rail and came down from the walkway.
“Stay here,” he said.
He was already looking past me toward the tinted windshields. “What is it?” I asked.
Before he could answer, the office door opened.
Skipper stepped onto the porch with his coffee mug still in one hand. He tracked the row of vehicles, then glared at the trapped loading lane. “What the hell is this? Who authorized a fleet of city cars to block my boat ramp?”
“Nobody.” I stopped near the corner of the shack. “Skipper, I didn’t call anyone.”
“Then somebody’s about to learn how much I charge for unauthorized parking.”
Under any other circumstance, I might have laughed.
The lead SUV door opened. Reid stepped out.
For a moment, the marina carried on around him. The bait aerators rattled inside the shack. Water dripped from the end of a hose near the cleaning station.
Then Sloane Prescott climbed out from the other side.
I forgot all about the coffee.
She looked as out of place here as Reid, both of them dressed for a city appointment instead of a marina where yesterday’s storm had left mud around the pilings and broken boards stacked beside the dock.
Sloane pushed her sunglasses into her hair and turned toward the yard as if someone should tell her where to stand.
The back door opened next.
Reid’s PR handler appeared next, a tablet tucked against his side. Two men emerged from the second SUV, armed with telephoto lenses. One adjusted the strap across his shoulder, while the other checked his gear before looking toward the docks.
I touched my stomach once, then dropped my hand to the edge of my flannel.
They had brought cameras.
For months, nobody here had cared whose wife I was. Charter captains wanted their bait counted. Delivery drivers wanted signatures. Lawson wanted the blue-tagged coolers ready. Skipper wanted the books balanced and the fuel dock clear.
Now Reid stood in the middle of that life with photographers behind him.
“It’s Reid.” My voice came out lower than I intended. “He brought the sports media right to our front door.”
Skipper set his mug on the porch rail. “Sports media can turn around and take the same road back out.”
Nolan moved between me and the driveway.
He faced his father, raising one hand as if he meant to stop anyone from crossing farther into the yard.
“Nolan.”
He glanced back at me.
I hated how familiar this arrangement looked: Reid arriving with a schedule, Sloane beside him, cameras waiting for whatever story they had been promised. Three years of my marriage had been built around stepping out of sight before people like this could ask questions.
Nolan pointed toward the shack.
“Get inside, Piper. Do not let those cameras see your face.”
The doorway sat a few steps behind me, open and waiting.
Yesterday, he had put his body between Skipper and a falling boat. This morning, I’d looked at him repairing a dock and let myself imagine that maybe we could build something different here.
Now Reid was standing in my driveway, and Nolan’s first answer was the same one I’d lived with for years.
And just like that, he was telling me to hide again.
I stayed beside the bait-shack doorway.
Reid crossed the yard without looking at the mud left behind by the storm.
His shoes sank into the softened shells near the loading lane, but he kept coming as if the inconvenience belonged to somebody else.
The photographers trailed several steps behind him, cameras already raised, while the PR handler hovered near the SUVs.
Skipper came down one porch step. “Stay off the working dock unless somebody here tells you otherwise.”
Reid spared him a glance. “I’m not here for the marina.”
“Then you’re standing in the wrong place.”
Reid turned his attention back to Nolan.
That dismissal was nothing new. Skipper, the business, the boats, the people who worked here—none of it counted because Reid operated on a timetable he considered more important. I had spent three years watching rooms rearrange themselves around that attitude.
Except this room was open water, battered boards, and Skipper’s property.
Nolan stayed where he was near the rail.
Reid stopped in front of him. “I gave you the chance to get this pathetic AWOL tantrum out of your system, Nolan. Now get in the car. NFL Honors is tomorrow night in Miami, and the brand CEO is waiting.”
Nolan’s expression went blank. “You brought photographers to drag me back to an awards show?”
“I brought people who know how to salvage the disaster you’ve created.
” Reid gestured toward Nolan’s clothes, the repaired walkway, the boatyard around us.
“You vanished during the playoffs. You embarrassed the team. You abandoned a global launch. Now you are going to stop pretending this little rebellion means anything.”
The word little almost made me laugh.
There was nothing little about the weeks Nolan had spent scraping hulls, washing his own ruined clothes, sleeping at the Driftwood, or sitting outside my appointment because I wouldn’t let him through the clinic doors.
Reid knew none of that. He had arrived expecting the same son who used to follow him into a car after one stern conversation.
A sweet perfume cut through the salt and diesel.