15. Unwanted Exposure #3
Weeks of scraped hulls, motel nights, storm repairs, and quiet apologies had led to this. Yesterday he had put himself beneath a falling boat to save Skipper. This morning he had been repairing a rail before breakfast.
Now Reid had shown up, applied pressure, and Nolan was going back.
Reid glanced toward the bait shack. “Grab your bags. The driver isn’t waiting around while you play dockhand.”
Nolan stayed in front of me.
“I don’t have anything to pack. Just get in and let’s go.”
Something about that answer hurt worse than if he’d hesitated.
There was no trip back to the motel. No argument about staying another night. No request for time.
He had made himself ready to leave in the same breath he used to protect me.
Skipper turned toward me, but I kept my attention on Nolan.
The photographers reached the SUVs. One door opened, then another. Reid looked so satisfied I curled my hands into fists against my sides.
The cameras were backing away, and Nolan was going with them.
Nolan stayed between me and the cameras as they retreated toward the driveway.
“Stay by the shack until they’re in the cars,” he said.
I stepped around him.
“No. You don’t get to decide where I stand while you’re leaving.”
His face changed, not much, but enough. The intense focus he’d kept on Reid broke as he turned toward me. Behind him, someone loaded a camera case into the rear of the second SUV.
I stopped in front of him.
“You’re actually leaving with them. The second things get complicated, you run right back to the machine that ruined us.”
“Piper—”
“No.” I held my ground. “You spent weeks telling me you understood. You slept in that miserable motel. You scraped boats until your hands split open. Yesterday you nearly got crushed saving Skipper, and this morning you were fixing his dock before anyone asked you to.”
Nolan held my gaze.
Reid stood near the lead SUV, checking his watch as though my marriage had already taken too much time from his schedule.
“And then he shows up,” I said, “and suddenly you’re getting into his car again.”
“I have to do this, Piper. It’s the only way to make sure they leave you alone.”
There it was.
Protection.
That word had followed us since draft night, even when neither of us said it aloud. Nolan had hidden our marriage to protect me. He had let Reid control the public version of his life to protect what we had at home. Every compromise had arrived dressed as something necessary.
“You said hiding me was protection too.”
He looked down for a moment before meeting my eyes again. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because this looks exactly the same from where I’m standing.”
“It isn’t.”
“You’re getting into his SUV.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
A sharp, bitter laugh escaped me. “That’s another one I’ve heard before.”
Nolan looked past me toward the shack, then toward Skipper. The gaff still rested in Skipper’s hand, though he had finally lowered the hook.
When Nolan faced me again, he didn’t reach for me.
“I can’t let them stay here,” he said. “They came because of me. The cameras leave when I leave.”
“So that’s it?”
“For now.”
Those two words made the decision for me.
Not because they were cruel. That would have been easier. He sounded exhausted, and that almost made it worse.
I had spent the last few weeks learning how dangerous hope could be when Nolan Callahan was involved.
This morning, I’d stood by the bait shack and wanted to make my husband coffee.
Now his father had arrived with Sloane and a press crew, and Nolan was leaving in the same convoy.
Reid opened the rear door of the lead SUV. “Nolan. We need to go.”
Nolan didn’t look at him.
“Piper.”
I stepped back before he could say anything else.
“Then don’t ever bother coming back. Have a wonderful life in the VIP box, Nolan.”
He looked like I had hit him, just for a second.
He could have argued.
He could have reminded me that he’d just blocked the cameras with his own body, or that he hadn’t let Sloane hang on him this time. He could have listed every job he’d done for Skipper and every boundary he’d respected since showing up in the Keys.
He said none of it.
“Goodbye, Piper.”
Nolan turned and walked toward the SUV.
Each step put more of the yard between us. Sloane moved aside to let him pass. Reid held the door open until Nolan climbed into the back seat, then got in after him.
The PR handler hurried into the second vehicle. The photographers piled into the third, their cameras finally pointed at the ground instead of me.
Doors shut across the driveway.
Skipper came to stand several feet away, close enough that I knew he was there, but quiet enough that I didn’t have to speak.
The first SUV pulled forward.
Its tires scattered shells as it angled toward the road. The second followed, then the third, carrying the photographers who had turned my child into a headline before the world even knew her name.
I watched until the last vehicle reached the highway.
Nolan didn’t come back.
The road emptied again, leaving only the marina, the damaged rail, and the breakfast I had never made.
I turned my back on it.