Mary Catherinewas larger than she’d expected, a working fishing vessel with a covered deck area and what looked like a small cabin below.Bryan jumped aboard first, then turned to help her across the gap between the pier and the boat.His hand was steady on her arm as she stepped down onto the deck.
The covered area provided immediate relief from the rain.She could still hear it drumming on the roof above them, but at least it wasn’t pouring directly onto her head anymore.She wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to shiver.
Bryan disappeared into the cabin and emerged a moment later with two towels and a flannel blanket.He handed her the blanket without a word, and she took it gratefully.The fabric was worn soft from years of use, and it smelled faintly of diesel and salt air.
She wrapped it around her shoulders and finally looked at him properly.Really looked at him.
He looked as exhausted as she felt.The scrape on his jaw was bleeding slightly, and there were rope burns on his hands that matched her own.His shirt was ruined, torn and soaked through, but he’d already grabbed one of the towels and was using it to wipe the rain from his face.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.“I wouldn’t have been able to hold that on my own.”
He lowered the towel and met her eyes.Something had shifted in his expression.The hostility from their previous encounters was gone, replaced by a hint of respect.
“You did good.”He nodded toward the tent, now safely secured on the pier.“Most people would have run the other way.”
“I thought about it.”
“But you didn’t.”He leaned against the wall of the cabin and crossed his arms.“That’s what matters.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable.It was the silence of two people who’d just survived something together, who’d fought side by side against a common enemy and come out the other side still standing.
She pulled the blanket tighter and tried to ignore the way her hands were starting to shake now that the adrenaline was wearing off.She’d done physical work before, of course.Gym sessions, yoga classes, and the occasional corporate team-building exercise that involved climbing walls or navigating obstacle courses.But this had been different.This had been real.
“I came to apologize,” she said finally.“For the meeting.For steamrolling over your concerns and acting like I knew better than everyone who’s actually lived here.”
He raised an eyebrow.“That’s why you were looking for me?”
“Yes.”She met his gaze directly.“I was wrong about a lot of things.I treated the festival like a marketing case study instead of something that actually matters to people.To you.”
He studied her for a long moment, and she fought the urge to fill the silence with more words and defend herself the way she always did.Instead, she waited.
“I wasn’t exactly welcoming either,” he admitted.“I saw you walk into that meeting with your fancy clothes and your marketing degree, and I assumed you were just another outsider trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.”
“It is a little broken, though,” she said carefully.“The festival, I mean.The attendance numbers, the budget issues, and the fact that half the town seems to think it’s not worth the effort anymore.”
“I know.”He scrubbed a hand over his face.“I’ve known for a while.I just didn’t want to admit it because that would mean admitting that maybe I’m not doing a good enough job and that maybe I’m the one who’s letting everyone down.”
The vulnerability in his voice caught her off guard.This was the man who’d stood up in that committee meeting and accused her of trying to destroy everything his family had built.But underneath the anger and the defensiveness, he was just scared of failing.
She understood that fear better than she wanted to admit.
“You’re not letting anyone down.You’re trying to hold together an entire town’s tradition while running a restaurant and a fishing business and probably a dozen other things I don’t even know about.That’s not failure.That’s just impossible.”
He shrugged.“My grandfather did it.My father did it.”
“Did they do it alone?”
The question hung in the air between them.Bryan looked away, staring out at the rain-soaked harbor.The storm was starting to ease, the wind dropping from a howl to a steady push.The worst of it was over.
“No,” he said finally.“They had help.The whole town helped back then.But things are different now.People are stretched thin.Everyone’s fighting their own battles.”
“Then maybe we need to stop fighting and start working together.”She adjusted the blanket around her shoulders.“I know you don’t trust me yet.I get that.But I’m not here to turn your festival into some corporate event.I just want to help make it successful.The way it used to be.”
He turned back to face her.His expression was still guarded but hopeful.“You really mean that?”
“I do.”She held out her scraped, rope-burned hand.“Truce?”
He looked at her hand for a moment, then at her face.Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him because he reached out and clasped her hand firmly.His grip was warm and rough, and she felt something shift inside her.Not attraction exactly, though she couldn’t deny he was handsome in a rugged, practical way that was completely different from the polished corporate men she usually dated.
