Page 37

I hold out his cup, same as every morning.

He looks at the cup. He looks at me. Then he walks past me like I'm a stone statue.

"Okay," I tell his back. It comes out smaller than I want it to.

Marcus appears and rescues the coffee before it dies of neglect. "Bless you," he murmurs, and doesn't quite meet my eyes. So the crew’s noticed too. Nobody's going to say one word about it.

Fine. Big morning, forty feet of boat about to hang in the air, he's allowed to be distracted. That's what I tell myself for the next hour, while Diesel leans his whole warm weight into my shin and refuses to leave my ankle. Like he knows I need the comfort.

The plan I fell asleep on was to get through the haul, wait for the yard to empty, and ask him, sober, if he’d like to come to dinner tonight. The rest of the invitation would be implied. It’s starting to feel less like a plan and more like a joke I told myself in the dark.

I decide to try again with actual news, because good news is legal tender around here. "Hendricks’ deposit cleared. First one in three summers, according to Marcus. If you want, I could frame the check-"

"Is the office locked?"

The question comes down from somewhere above my head. He still hasn't looked at me. "What?"

"You left my office standing open so you could carry coffee around my dock." Now he looks, and the green of his eyes is about the temperature of the harbor. "Go do your job."

"Oh," I say. "Wow. Okay." The cash drawer in that office holds forty dollars in cash and a spare key taped where anyone could find it, but sure. The office. My job.

Except I don't go. Two and a half weeks in this yard have taught me exactly one survival skill. Backing away from this man only teaches him that it works. "You hired me to run your paperwork. The haul paperwork is in my hand. I'm standing precisely where my job is."

He holds my eyes until I can't tell whether I'm standing my ground or just surviving it. Then he drops it without conceding a thing. "Then stay out of the way."

Whitmore chooses that moment to appear at my elbow in his fine linen shirt, silver hair artfully arranged, watching his boat rise out of the harbor dripping like a christening. "Marvelous operation," he says. "Would I be able to winter her here as well? I'll want the best rack you can offer, of course."

The unforgivable part is that none of it, the rudeness, the treating me like a statue, or my hurt feelings, has cooled me down by a single degree. Aiden's under the bow, shoulder jammed into the strap, feet planted on the dock, hauling against forty feet of boat like he's got a fair shot at winning. Sweat runs down the back of his shirt while July turns the whole yard into an oven.

And I have to talk about winter storage like I'm perfectly fine while my breath keeps catching halfway out. I have to swallow twice before I can get October past my teeth.

My heartbeat has moved. It's not in my chest anymore. It's down between my legs, keeping time with every pull he makes on that strap. And my mouth is watering. That's a new low, even for me. Standing on a public dock in front of God and a millionaire, mouth watering over the sweat on a man's back like he's something Carol baked.

He froze me out all morning and I want him anyway. He'd rather talk to a winch than to me, and I want him anyway. It isn't fair, and it changes nothing. I want him anyway.

The breeze picks that exact moment to go through my folder. Three sheets take off down the dock. I stomp on one, snatch another off a cleat, and Tommy spears the third with his boat hook right at the water's edge. He hands it back damp. Whitmore's invoice, naturally, because the universe loves a good joke at my expense.

The lift crawls up the rails with the Sea Ray swaying in the slings, and the crew stops to reset. It’s the first quiet moment of the morning. Aiden's ten feet away, coiling a line, his back half to me.

"Aiden." Nothing. "About last night-"

"We're working." He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't even stop coiling. The casual dismissal is worse than shouting, spearing straight through my heart.

"Okay," I say. "Got it."

It hurts. More than it should. And knowing that doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Whatever I did wrong between my front door last night and seeing him again on this dock, he’s not about to tell me. I've replayed last night enough times to wear grooves in it. He walked me home. We shared the world’s most incredible kiss. He turned down my very obvious invitation, like a gentleman. I locked my door like he told me to. I can't find the part where I screwed up.

Down the dock, the Hendersons' inboard grumbles awake, ready to head home now that the channel's clear. Marcus tips his chin at it. "They're casting off in a minute. Give 'em a hand with their lines?"

Marcus deserves a knighthood. This is just what I need. Something useful for my hands to do so I can salvage the last dregs of my pride. I grab a pair of thick gloves and pull them on, walking down the dock with my chin up.

The Hendersons' son is sixteen and nervous about docking in front of an audience, so I'm careful with everything he throws me. I slip the bow rope free, coil it, and toss it back. He catches it and grins. Easy.

The stern line is the one that gets me.

The boat's already easing forward when I flip it free, and the slack starts hissing out over the edge of the dock. There's a loop of it lying around my foot. I never even saw it. It snaps tight around my ankle and takes my leg out from under me like a trapdoor.

Then the dock isn't there anymore.