by Annie Rains
“Buying that boat back would be a good start,” her mother said.
Grace glanced over. “We don’t have the money, and you’ve always said you don’t know who you sold it to.”
“Garrison Tomlin,” her mother said quietly.
Grace’s mouth fell open. “You know who bought the boat?”
“I know. I’m a despicable woman.”
“Stop that,” Grace said, raising her voice. “Just stop. You’re not despicable, but that was despicable behavior.”
“I was jealous, okay? You don’t know how it feels to be second best to a dead woman.”
Grace tried to understand. “So you want me to tell the Sawyers who bought the boat? They’ll still hate us. Probably more, because you knew all this time who the owner was. They could’ve bought it back.”
Tears collected in her mother’s eyes, making Grace feel guilty for her harsh tone of voice. “I don’t know how to fix this. I just know I’m tired of living with what I’ve done.”
Grace moved her hand over her mother’s, trying to still the worsening jerky movements. “I’ll figure this out.”
“All I’m asking is that you try to fix things. I don’t want to be hated when I go.”
“Stop talking about going, Mom. You’re not going anywhere.” At least not on Grace’s watch. She’d do whatever it took to take care of her mother—including finding a way to ease her regrets.
—
Jack looked at his watch on Monday morning. It was still five minutes earlier than the time he and Tristan had agreed on. He’d give him another fifteen minutes before calling. Jack grabbed his sander and started to smooth the rough edges of one of the wood pieces. After twenty minutes had passed, he looked at his watch again. Where the hell was that kid? Jack pulled out his cellphone. Just as he was about to dial the kid’s number, Tristan pulled into the open field across from where the new pier would be built and parked. The teen got out and headed in Jack’s direction.
“About damn time,” Jack said, not in the mood to baby-sit the kid this morning. This was work.
“I’m sorry,” Tristan said, pulling the ball cap on his head a little lower to cover his face. The teen was wearing dark sunglasses.
“What, you’re not even going to try to give me an excuse?” he asked. Not that he could think of any excuse that would appease him.
Tristan shook his head. “No.”
Jack nodded. “Uh-huh. Well, there’s a brush,” he told Tristan. “You can start staining the wood for the second kayak launch,” he said.
Tristan grabbed the supplies and started working without another word. They both labored in silence for a good hour before Jack headed to the truck to get a drink. He looked back at Tristan with his ball cap still low over his face. Dark sunglasses still covered his eyes. “How can you do a good job with those shades on your face?” he asked.
Tristan shrugged.
Jack had a good mind to yank the sunglasses off him, but thought better. Since the kid had arrived, he’d done a good job. “So about that water?” Jack asked again.
Tristan looked up and nodded. “Thanks.”
Jack grabbed two bottled waters from the back of his truck and headed back over. Twisting the cap off his water to drink, he sat down behind the boy and watched him work, giving him a few tips as he did. Tristan didn’t move for his bottle, however. “Something on your mind?” Jack asked. Tristan wasn’t just quiet, he seemed upset.
“Not really,” Tristan said.
Jack didn’t believe him. “You want to talk about it?”
Tristan tipped his head back to look at the sky as a bird flew overhead.
Jack’s gut clenched. There was a dark purple bruise underlining Tristan’s right eye. “Who gave you that shiner?” Jack asked.
“None of your business,” Tristan snapped back. It was the first sign of life Jack had seen since the boy had shown up this morning.
“Someone did. How does the other guy’s eye look?”
Tristan glanced over, finally reaching for his bottle of water. He twisted the cap off and took a long drink. “The other guy is my dad.”
If possible, Jack’s gut clenched even tighter, to the point it made it hard to breathe. He knew Dewy was less than a stand-up guy in the community, but he hadn’t known he was an asshole at home, too.
“Is this the first time?” Jack asked.
Tristan gave his head a slight shake. “No. But I deserved it.”
“I doubt that,” Jack said, unable to believe his ears. “How old are you, Tristan?”
“ ’Bout to turn eighteen in a few weeks.”
A man in his own right. He’d graduated high school last spring. “So why are you still living with your old man? If he treats you that way, you should leave.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Tristan said. “This is my first job, you know.”
“I see. Well, you can’t come into work looking like that.”
The kid stiffened. “Are you telling me to leave?”
“Of course not.” Jack shoved his hands on his hips. “I’m just laying down my expectations. We have clients here. If they see someone working on our property with a black eye, it doesn’t exactly send a positive message. You’ll have to steer clear of your old man’s temper while you’re working here. Plus, you deserve better. Maybe it’s time you came up with a different living arrangement.”
“I can’t. I have no money.”
Jack rubbed a hand behind his neck, lengthening the muscles that pulled there. “After today, your debt from the wreckage is paid off. I still need help building the pier that’ll go here, though. If you’re interested.”
“For pay?” Tristan asked.
Jack nodded. “Yep. But you need to get to work on time from now on. Think you can manage that?”
A smile twitched on Tristan’s mouth. “Definitely.”
Chapter 5
After working at Sawyer Seafood Company for only a couple of days, Grace already had the job down to an art. Compared to serving drinks to sometimes rude and often loud patrons on the west side, this new job was perfect. Even the Sawyers were treating her well, with the exception of Noah. He was three years younger than she was, and had still been just a kid when she and her mother were asked to leave. He’d been the first to treat her like an actual sister when she entered the family and the one to fall into animosity the easiest.
She glanced over her shoulder. Noah had entered the office ten minutes earlier, and she might as well have been invisible. Since starting, he’d said all of zero words to her. Grace distracted herself with the flyer she’d found under the door when she’d walked in this morning. It was for the East Coast fishing tournament, something Jack had always participated in with his late friend Chris Watson. She swallowed back the pain she felt for Jack’s loss as she skimmed the text.
$20,000 FIRST PLACE CASH PRIZE
Her eyes settled on the figure. She could do a lot of good with money like that, starting with buying back the Beatrice for the Sawyer family. It’d seemed like an impossible idea when she’d spoken to her mother the other night, but with a cash prize like this, she could do it.
“Hey there, bro,” Jack said, high-fiving Noah as he came through the front door.
Grace turned from the paper and her heart swelled uncomfortably in her chest with just the sight of Jack’s tanned skin and unshaven face.
Noah turned from what he was doing. “Hey. I saw Mitsy today.”
Jack shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, which fit him oh so right, hugging parts of his body that had Grace’s imagination running wild.
She reined in her eyes and her mind. If she let herself, her admiration of Jack’s body could lead her back to her high school crush all over again. She knew better. Crushes and falling over herself at the sight of Jack’s drool-worthy body would complicate things. Which was why she had to stop.
“I don’t know a Mitsy,” Jack said, absently.
“My tuna. I swear it w
as the same one that got away last year. She has the same scar on her dorsal fin. I saw it. Shaped just like a heart, man. I swear.”
“So you got it today?” Jack asked, heading toward Grace’s desk.
Her heartbeat went erratic as he took long strides toward her. If he was wearing that same cologne he’d had on every day since she’d started working here, she was a goner.
“If I had caught her, I’d be smiling right now,” Noah said. “Do I look like I’m smiling?”
Jack chuckled as he looked over at Noah. Then he plopped down a white paper bag in front of her.
She could smell the hush puppies inside. And Jack’s cologne.
Goner.
Jack gently patted her shoulder. “Maybe Grace will be nice and share her chowder with you. Abby’s fresh clam chowder always makes things better.”
Noah’s gaze skittered toward Grace, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
“Um, sure. I’ll share if you want some,” she offered, wishing the youngest Sawyer would at least acknowledge her presence in the room.
“I’m good,” Noah told Jack, not addressing her. She was still invisible and he certainly didn’t want anything she had. “See you later, bro. I’ve got actual work to do.”
Jack lifted a middle finger, returning the playful banter. “I’ll have you know I’ve already been hard at work this morning. I’m adding a second launch and a small walking pier at the rec area with Dewy’s kid.”
Noah shook his head. “Good luck with that.” He waved, but only to Jack, and walked out.
Grace hunched over her desk. “He hates me,” she groaned after the door had shut.
“Who?” Jack stole a hush puppy from her bag.
“Are you kidding? Your brother.”
Jack looked genuinely surprised. “Noah?”
She pushed her neck forward. “Men really are oblivious.”
“Not true and not fair.” Jack pulled a chair up to her desk and sat. “Don’t compare me to other men. I’m nothing like any other man you’ve ever known.” A flirty quality tinged his voice.
Grace swatted his hand as he reached for another hush puppy from the bag he’d brought her.
“Hey! You said you’d share.” He frowned, which only served to draw her gaze down to his mouth. He had a thick covering of dark blond stubble surrounding his full kissable lips.
Her heart kicked in her chest. “I said I’d share with Noah. Because he hates me and I want to change his mind.” She stuffed a puppy into her own mouth and finally offered one to Jack, which he playfully snatched.
“Thanks.” He grinned, his eyes steady on her.
The room seemed to grow smaller whenever he looked at her the way he was doing now. The air became thicker, harder to breathe. And there was this strong desire within her to lean over and kiss him. Crazy.
“Noah’ll come around. He always does.” His voice went low and deep. “I kind of thought this was just a job for you anyway. Admit it. You still love us,” he said playfully. “Despite our massive flaws.”
A nervous laugh tumbled off her lips. “Before I admit that, you’d have to admit that you still love me, too…I mean us.”
The twinkle in his eyes left. Us implied her mother—which if she’d been thinking straight, she’d never have implied—and judging by the look on Jack’s face, he’d rather take a trip to hell than admit to still harboring affection for Tammy Donner.
A deep sense of regret swallowed all those bubbly feelings that had been floating around inside her chest like the carbonation in champagne a few seconds earlier. She understood a little bit about what her mother had asked her to do the other night. Her mother was tired of living with all of her regret. Grace was tired of carrying it around, too.
I can’t fix the damage, she thought, watching Jack now. It’s impossible. Unless…Her gaze flicked to the tournament flyer and the twenty-thousand-dollar prize. She’d had crazy ideas before, but trying to win a fishing tournament bordered on insanity, even though she’d had plenty of fishing experience.
Bad idea.
She turned her attention back to Jack. “Anyway, if you want to win me over, you’ll have to bring me a lot more chowder and hush puppies,” she said, trying to lift the mood back to where it’d been before introducing her mother into the conversation.
“Done.”
“I was just kidding about that, you know.”
“Well, I’d rather give it to you than have you feel like you had to take it.”
Grace drew back. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying, if you need anything here, just ask.”
Her lips parted. There was a hidden meaning there. Or not-so-hidden meaning. “You think I’d steal from you?” she asked.
Jack was silent.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why did you leave Dewy’s?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. You do think I’d steal from you. I left Dewy’s because I was falsely accused.”
“Is that the truth?”
“Listen, if we don’t trust each other, this won’t work.” She pushed back from the desk like she was going to leave, but who was she kidding? She needed this job as much as her next breath. She’d thought Jack understood her better than to believe the worst about her. Evidently the damage her mother had done in her marriage to Pete Sawyer extended to Grace’s own reputation, though.
Her mom was right. She had to fix this rift. If not, the Donner and Sawyer families would always have distrust. If she ever had children, they’d be subject to the Sawyers’ beliefs about them. It would never end, unless she ended it.
“Wait,” Jack said, laying a gentle hand on her wrist. “I had to ask. Sam heard what happened at Dewy’s. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you just ask me outright?” She settled back into her chair and took a breath. “Dewy Capps was upset because I wouldn’t sleep with him. I guess he wanted revenge.” She lifted a shoulder, tears suddenly burning behind her eyes. She wasn’t upset about being let go from Dewy’s. The fact that Jack had believed she’d stolen the register money stung, though.
“I’m sorry,” Jack whispered. He reached out and ran his hand along her shoulder. “Hey. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…”
“You needed to know. I get it.” One tear streamed down her cheek, followed by another. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let herself get teary eyed in front of someone. This was so embarrassing.
“His loss, my gain.” Jack grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the edge of her desk and offered it to her.
“Thank you. I guess I should’ve told you the reason I left my last job in the first place.”
“We could both work on our trust issues.”
She nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Jack scratched his chin. “How about we get started right now?”
She dabbed the moisture under her eyes and looked up. “What do you have in mind?”
—
Looking at Grace’s tear-dampened eyes, Jack felt like the biggest prick this side of Blushing Bay. But that title belonged to Dewy Capps.
“The delivery guys for Southport are both throwing up,” Jack said. “They called me on my cellphone on the way here. Both men ate something bad on their last trip and can’t do the morning deliveries. One of the major Southport restaurants needs its fish by 4 P.M. before the dinner crowd hits. I keep telling the owner he needs to keep a couple days’ worth of fish in the freezer just in case, but he never does.”
Grace shook her head. “You want me to drive the delivery truck? I’m not sure—”
“No, I’ll drive. But you can come with me. I could do it on my own, but it’d be a lot more fun with you. We can trust each other with the next few hours of our lives. Maybe even with some more of our deepest, darkest secrets.” He waggled his eyebrows and Grace laughed.
“I didn’t realize delivering fish was part of the job,” she said.
“Knowing all the jobs is part of the jo
b. It’ll be fun. Just say yes.”
She inhaled deeply and nodded. “All right. You’re the boss, so it’s whatever you say.”
Which tempted him to say a whole lot more, which could spell a whole lot of trouble. “I’m not the boss. I’m the boss’s son.” He hooked his head. “Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, Jack and Grace were on their way to Southport in a truck carrying a cooler of fresh fish. His brothers and their crews went after tuna, but they often caught a lot of mullet, flounder, and whatever else was jumping while they were at sea. Sometimes they threw it overboard as chum to catch the bigger fish, but often they sold that catch to clients along the coast, too.
“I’m a little surprised this truck doesn’t reek.”
Jack took in a deep breath, inhaling the strong scent of raw fish. “It does. You’re just getting used to the smell. Already immune to fish guts after only a week with us.”
“Not sure that’s a good thing,” she said.
“Number-one quality for a fisherman’s wife to have is an immunity to the fish smell.” His gaze slid over. “Not that you’ll end up with a fisherman,” he said quickly. “It’s just a good quality to have.”
“I’ll put it on my next résumé.”
His gaze slid again. “No next résumé. You’re doing an awesome job for us so far. You’re staying.”
“Noah—”
“He’ll adjust,” Jack said, firmly. “So, uh, how’s your mom?” he asked, wanting to change the subject. Grace’s mother wasn’t his favorite topic, however.
Grace shifted. She was wearing khaki shorts today that rode up on her thighs as she sat in the delivery truck beside him. Her skin was tanned, which pulled his mind back to when he’d seen her walking on the beach the other day. She had a toned body with dips and curves that made his fingers itch to touch her.
Easy, Jack. She’s look but no touch.
“She’s Tammy,” Grace said in response to his question. “What else can I say? She’s always been strong willed and it’s to her advantage now that she’s sick. At least now I can afford to buy her medication again, thanks to you.”
Jack frowned.