“That’s Evan Cole.”
Jolene Watts, the resort’s head housekeeper, had appeared behind her with a stack of towels balanced against one hip. A woman built like a fireplace and roughly as warm.
“Dock master?” Margot asked.
“Marina maintenance. Dock master. Boat whisperer.” Jolene shifted the towels. “Whatever you want to call it. He keeps to himself. Does good work.”
“Sounds ideal.”
Jolene’s voice dropped half a register. “He’s had a rough go. Lost his wife a few years back. There was an accident during the Christmas boat parade.” She stopped herself and reset her expression. “Anyway. Good people. Don’t expect small talk.”
“I don’t need small talk. I need people who show up and do what they say they’ll do.”
Jolene gave her a look. “Then you two might get along just fine.”
Margot looked back at the dock. Evan had stood up and was coiling a rope with the precision that suggested muscle memory, not thought. There was something in the way he moved, unhurried but not lazy, that made her aware of her own posture. Her own shoulders had been drawn up toward her ears since she’d turned off the highway.
She made herself lower them.
He glanced toward the terrace. Toward her. For half a second their eyes met across thirty yards of sun-bleached boardwalk, and a forgotten warmth unfurled in her chest. Not attraction, exactly. More like recognition. The look of someone who understood what it meant to keep moving because the alternative was standing still.
He didn’t wave. Didn’t smile. Just looked, the way you look at weather coming in.
Then he turned back to his work.
Margot was still watching the dock when Jolene shifted the towels against her hip.
“Speaking of people who show up,” Jolene said, “you’ll want to talk to Lacey Morgan before you start moving anything near the marina pavilion.”
Margot dragged her attention away from Evan and looked at Jolene. “Lacey?”
“Lacey Morgan. She runs events here, did Wish Upon the Harbor last month. She’s on through the summer. You’re over the big productions. She’s got the marina-side stuff and her festival. She’s still around, left you color-coded binders and enough notes to wallpaper a room.”
Margot remembered the folder. Elaine had sent six attachments at midnight and labeled all of them urgent. One had included photos of a wooden sailboat glowing in the pavilion while blue paper stars hung inside the sails.
Pretty. Sentimental.
Also, a logistical nightmare if the wind shifted.
“The wish boat event,” she said.
“That’s the one.”
“I read the recap. Missing wish cards. Pier issue. Storm relocation.”
“That’s the sanitized version.” Jolene’s mouth twitched. “The real version had more rain, more panic, and one maintenance man with enough sense to use stainless steel.”
Margot glanced back at the dock. Evan had returned to his cleat.
“Not him. Ben Carter. Carter Marine. He and Lacey handled the boat. Good people. They’ll be around this week if you need marina history or someone who knows which resort traditions are beloved and which ones need to stay in storage.”
“I’ll take all of that.”
“Thought you might.” Jolene pulled a folded note from the top towel and handed it over. “Lacey dropped this at the desk for you.”
Margot unfolded it.
Welcome to Harbor’s Hope. If the Christmas-in-July binder still has my sticky notes, ignore the one about the west pavilion outlet. Ben fixed it. Do not ignore the one about the south dock gate. It sticks when the humidity climbs.
