After they’d all said goodbye, Kate took a walk down one of the ramps that led to the boat slips. The vessels ranged from vast iron-sided fishing tenders to one-person wooden skiffs, with a few speedboats and sailboats mixed in. There were even a number of houseboats releasing puffs of smoke from their smokestacks.
The float rose and fell with the ocean, as if it was breathing deep and slow. She found its motion highly soothing. It lulled all the thoughts that had been swarming her brain since she’d gotten the call from her law firm. None of that mattered right now.
All that mattered was the scent of salt and tar that rose from the harbor. The overhead caw of a seabird. The excited laugh of a child wrapped tight in an orange life preserver onboard a water taxi. The breath of the wind against her cheek, with that edge of cold from passing across the glaciers of Lost Souls Wilderness.
A seagull lighted on a post up ahead and settled its wings into place. It gazed down at her with a tilt of its head.
“Sorry, I have no food.” She spread her hands apart. “I’m just passing through.”
It cocked his head the other direction, still looking at her.
“But if you need legal advice, I’m here for you,” she added.
With a noisy flap of its wings, it launched into the air, wheeled around and headed across the harbor.
“I really know how to clear a room,” she murmured under her breath. The seagull joined a flock of other gulls who were circling a fishing boat just gliding into the harbor. Funny how they had their own community up there in the sky. A society of seagulls, mostly oblivious to the society of people down below in Lost Harbor—unless they could provide food, of course.
Speaking of community, in some ways, Lost Harbor was the only one she had. With her chaotic childhood, she’d never felt connected to any place except this one. When her life had gotten turned upside down, she’d fled back here, because where else would she go? Lost Harbor had always been a haven for her.
But now that she had a job waiting for her in LA, she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave. Even if she could guarantee her own safety, there was something else she kept thinking about—Dylan and S.G., and how she could use her legal skills here to advocate for kids like them, kids who didn’t have adults looking out for them.
She would really love that kind of work. And she could do it here. She could study her ass off for yet another bar exam. Once she’d passed the Alaska bar, she could set up a law office here in Lost Harbor. What’s-his-name was retiring, after all. There was always a need for lawyers, even in a little town like this.
The best part was, she wouldn’t have to say goodbye to Darius before she was ready. When she’d told him about the job offer, he hadn’t reacted. He hadn’t asked her to stay. Why would he? They’d never talked about the nature of their relationship.
If she stayed here, they wouldn’t have to. She wouldn’t even have to tell him she’d rejected the job offer. She wouldn’t have to make a big deal out of it. They could just…keep going. Keep spending nights together. Keep having amazing sex. Keep getting closer. Keep avoiding any mention of deeper emotions. Nothing would have to change.
Perfect for a Team Sex non-romantic like her.
She laughed out loud and danced down the float. Maybe it was the influence of Toni’s weird shots, or maybe it was the relief of making a decision. She wasn’t ready to go back to LA and that was the end of that.
Even if she took Darius out of the equation, she wasn’t ready. Emma needed her. As much as her feisty grandmother didn’t want to admit it, she couldn’t handle the entire harvest by herself, even with her helpers. Summer was almost here and Kate didn’t want to miss a minute of it.
She pulled out her phone to communicate her decision to her law firm before she could spend any more time agonizing about it.
Chapter Thirty-One
“This is a hockey stick. That’s a puck. The net’s thataway. You hit the puck with the stick into the net, no matter who tries to stop you, and that’s all you need to know about hockey.” Darius handed the stick to Dylan. The boy was gingerly testing the ice with the new hockey skates Darius had bought for him.
They’d finally made it to the Lost Harbor ice rink for Dylan’s first hockey lesson. Darius had started to suspect that his son was avoiding the rink, but how could that be possible? What could be more fun than hockey?
“You skipped the part where I get good at skating,” Dylan grumbled.
“I’m surprised your mom didn’t teach you. She and I used to skate at a rink in El Paso. She was great on skates. She used to dream about being a figure skater.”
“I didn’t know that.” Dylan slipped and clutched at the boards. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Take your time. Get your skates under you, as they say. I’m gonna go say hi to some folks.”
Dylan nodded, his attention on the patch of ice right before him. Darius struck out across the rink to join Nate and Zander and a few others from the amateur team.
Maybe he was rushing it with this hockey thing, but he was just so eager to find a surefire way to bond with the kid.
“How’s it going, Dad?” Nate asked as Darius swirled to a stop next to them.
“Not too bad.” He glanced back at Dylan and winced as the boy wobbled again. “Skating might not be our thing. But we’re getting on okay. I want to get him into school, but it’s too late for this year. I need to line up a summer tutor so he can catch up.”
Zander paused in the midst of wrapping tape around his wrist. “So he’s staying on through the summer?”
“Maybe. I’m working it out with his stepfather back in Texas. Buck’s glad to have Dylan off his hands, at least for now.”
“And he wants to stay? He doesn’t miss his friends?” Nate asked.
Darius didn’t know the answer to that. Should he? Why didn’t Dylan talk about that stuff? “He doesn’t say much about what he wants. Zander, you know about boys. How can I get him to talk to me?”
Zander was raising his two younger brothers. Now that he’d gotten engaged to Gretel Morrison, he had help; but for years he’d been on his own.
Zander mulled that over as he tugged on his gloves. “You could bring him up to our place sometime. We just set up a basketball net. Sometimes things slip out.”
Darius smiled gratefully at the younger man. Zander was an ex-Marine and still had that posture that screamed military. He had a lot of respect for what the guy had done, leaving his career and taking on the care of his brothers. “We’ll do that. I’ll talk to Dylan about it. You guys are right, he could use some friends.”
Nate tap-tapped his stick on the ice in one of his warmup exercises. “I know S.G. likes him. A lot. I believe it’s a first-crush kind of situation.”
“No doubt. I don’t ask about that.”
Nate gestured for him to take a position a few yards away, and they began passing the puck back and forth. “Darius, I gotta warn you about something. I’ve overheard some talk at the firehouse. A few of the volunteers aren’t happy about…well, about Dylan.”
“What do you mean?” Darius slapped the puck back to Nate, who had to scramble backwards to stop it.
“They feel like he’s getting off easy with just community service. He admits that he set all those fires. We were lucky no one got hurt.”
Darius’ stomach clenched with tension. He didn’t give a crap about people’s opinions about himself. But when it came to Dylan—that was different.
“He’s a minor. He’s doing community service and restitution. Hasn’t missed a day. What do they think should happen?”
“I’m just letting you know that I’ve heard some whispering. That’s it. Don’t jump down my throat.”
Darius shook off his anger. Nate was right. He shouldn’t shoot the messenger here.
A crash from the other side of the rink made them all turn around. Dylan was sprawled face down on the ice as a younger boy skated away from him. Darius recognized him as the son of one of the volunte
er firefighters. That kid was an ace hockey player who played on the peewee team. He was too skilled to have tripped Dylan by accident.
“Hey!” Darius skated across the ice toward Dylan and crouched next to him. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He planted his hands on the ice and pushed himself up. Darius took his hands and gently turned them palms up. They were scraped and bloodied. “Whose genius idea was it to ride on top of a pair of knife blades?”
Darius helped him to his feet. “Did that boy trip you? What happened?”
Dylan refused to answer, which Darius took as a “yes.”
“I’ll talk to his father. That’s not okay.”
“No!” Dylan shook Darius’ hand off his shoulder. “Don’t. It’s a scrape. It’s no big deal. I just need to get these stupid-ass skates off my feet.”
He managed to skate toward the gate well enough, and stomped off the ice.
Darius planted his hands on his hips and circled the ice to cool himself down. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe the kid hadn’t intended to trip anyone.
But he had to face facts. Even before Nate had mentioned the “whispers,” he’d noticed something was off. There was a coolness in the way the crew treated him. Nothing blatant, nothing disobedient. Nothing that would require disciplinary action. But noticeable.
Maya had warned him the town might take a while to forgive Dylan. But how could he just stand by and watch his son get shunned?
He mentioned the problem to Kate while they were snuggled in each other’s arms that night.
Things had been a little strange between him and Kate since she’d dropped her bombshell about her old law firm wanting her back. He hadn’t pushed her about it.
He didn’t want her to leave, but how could he ask her to stay? Please, Kate, I wish you’d stick around for the great sex and the fucking confusing new parenthood scene. Sounds fun, right? Even more fun than being a hotshot lawyer with a fancy car?Yeah, thought so.
Instead of some bullshit like that, he’d decided to wait and see what she decided. If he had to deal with her leaving, he would. But he wasn’t going to do that until he absolutely had to.
In the meantime, he kept sneaking upstairs every chance he got.
“Kate, you still awake?”
“Mmm-hmmm. Sort of.” He loved the way she looked when she was half asleep after one of their intense lovemaking sessions. Stretched next to him with her dark hair in an inky fan across the pillow, her curvy limbs relaxed and content.
“You’ve been coming to Lost Harbor for a long time. Do you think people are going to get past what Dylan did?”
One shoulder moved in a shrug. “Like, what people? There are some grudge-holders around here. Some of the fishermen’s feuds have been going on for decades. But Dylan’s just a kid. Who holds a grudge against a kid?”
“That’s true.” He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Dylan was still a minor, a few months from turning sixteen. But with that attitude of his, he wasn’t making many friends beyond S.G.. “The thing is, he isn’t from here. No one knows him. All they know about him is that he set some junky sheds on fire.”
“I got into tons of trouble around here when I was an angry kid. I smoked weed under the boardwalk. I shoplifted. I snuck into the Olde Salt. I spray-painted an octopus on the boardwalk.”
“An octopus?”
“I had a thing about octopuses. I used to cry when people ordered calamari because squid are related to octopuses. Anyway, the point is, I got into plenty of trouble when I was his age. I was forgiven. No one even remembers that stuff anymore except for Maya. She’s still mad about all the times she covered for me.”
“The town forgave you because Emma’s your grandmother.”
“Probably.”
“Dylan doesn’t have an Emma. All he has is me. And I’m pretty new around here myself. I thought I was in good standing with this town. But my own crew is giving me the side-eye.”
Kate sleepily patted his chest. He covered her hand with his, trapping its warmth against his heart. “Give it time. Lost Harbor’s a small town and people are protective. But they love you here. You’re the hottie fire chief.”
He snorted and traced her fingers with his. “Never heard that one before.”
“It’s more of a behind-the-back thing. Anyway, don’t worry about Dylan. It’s just going to take a little time.”
He fell silent for a moment, turning her words over in his mind. “Maybe, but is that fair to Dylan?” He spoke almost to himself more than to her. “He’s been through so much. I’m not excusing his actions, but I have to take some responsibility for them because I’m his father and I wasn’t there for him.”
A snore interrupted him. Apparently he’d put Kate to sleep with his middle-of-the-night worries. He kept talking anyway, because it felt good to get it all out there.
“Dylan must have grown up wondering about his real father and what kind of person I am. I bet he thought all kinds of shit about me because Gillian chose Buck O’Connor over me. Who knows what she told him? He doesn’t talk about that. And then she died and he was alone with a stepfather who never really cared about him. The amount of grit it took to travel by himself all the way to Lost Harbor, Alaska, it’s pretty fucking incredible. I owe him, Kate. I owe him the best I can give him at this point in his life, now that I’ve found him. Is it fair to make him live surrounded by people who think the worst of him?”
He didn’t need an answer from Kate to know what his own heart was telling him.
Now that he knew about Dylan, he had to make him top priority. He had to do his absolute best for the boy—whatever that was.
A couple of days later, Dylan came home with a bruise on his jaw. He slumped onto the couch and refused to say what had happened.
Darius experienced a wave of so much fury that he stuck his head in the freezer to cool off while he grabbed an ice pack. Sure, he’d gotten plenty of bruises in his life. But his son? This confusing troubled thin teenager who had found a place in his heart so quickly?
He couldn’t bear it. He’d seen enough. The idea that had been percolating through his thoughts ever since the incident at the hockey ring suddenly seemed like the only option.
Darius retrieved the ice pack and brought it to Dylan to hold against the bruise.
“Dylan, I have an idea.”
“What?” he asked indifferently. Sullen, as if nothing was really going to make a difference in his life.
“What do you think about moving to Texas?”
“What?”
Finally, he got the boy’s attention. All his indifference disappeared as he sat bolt upright on the couch. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about us moving to Texas.”
“But—you live here. You’re the fire chief.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m a statue. I can move.”
“To Texas?”
“I am from Texas, after all.” He gave his son a wry frown. “That’s where you came to exist.”
Dylan adjusted the ice pack, which had gotten dislodged by his sudden movement. “You’re going to quit your job?”
“Yeah. I’m going to quit my job. I’ll find another one in Texas. People do that all the time, you know. I’ve only had this job for a year or so. Nate’s ready, he can handle it. Or the town will do a search for someone from outside. The point is, I’m going to Texas, and I want you to come with me. I want you to live with me. We’d have to work it out with Buck, of course. You have what, one more year of high school?”
“Two, after this year.”
“Right.” God, he should know that. He did know that. He’d just forgotten. He had to do better about staying on top of the details of Dylan’s life. Dentist appointments and hockey games, that sort of thing. Except maybe not hockey. Baseball, football, whatever. This was going to be his life now. Taking the best care possible of this grieving boy. “Don’t you want to be back in Texas for those two years instead of in a str
ange town with kids you don’t know?”
“I guess.”
“You didn’t intend to move to Alaska, right? You came to find me. What was your plan after that?”
“I didn’t really have one. I didn’t think—” A strange expression came across the boy’s face. “You’d really do that? Move to Texas on my account?”
“Yes,” Darius answered simply, arms folded across his chest. “I would. I will. Right away. They don’t even need much notice at the firehouse. Nate can step in today if needed.”
“I thought you liked it here.”
“I do. But Texas…my family’s there. They’d love to get to know you. Gillian’s family, too. I bet they’d be happier if you were closer.”
Try as he might, he couldn’t get a read on Dylan’s reaction to this plan.
“I’ve been thinking about it the past few days. Seems to make sense. At first I thought you should stay the summer. But when I saw you with that bruise, I changed my mind.”
Dylan looked away, toying with the ice pack. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.” His firm tone seemed to take the boy by surprise.
He stayed quiet for a moment, thinking his own mysterious thoughts. Maybe one day his son would share things with him; Darius would keep working on that. The kid needed to express himself instead of doing shit like starting fires.
“But what about Kate?” he finally asked.
The boy had put his finger on the one single biggest flaw in this proposal. Leaving Kate would be excruciatingly hard. But she’d made it clear that this wasn’t anything serious for her. It was a fun sex-drenched diversion. She enjoyed him, but she didn’t need him. This grieving, troubled son of his did.
“Kate’s got her own thing going on. She’s probably moving back to LA.”
“Really? S.G. didn’t tell me. Neither did Emma. I was working at the farm yesterday and they didn’t say anything.”
“They probably don’t know yet. Kate’s been pretty quiet about it, so don’t say anything to them.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, it’s not serious between us. We’re both adults and we didn’t go into this looking for romance.”
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