“Listen first,” he said, gentle, but firm, still holding on to her. “I called the hospital in Bella Bella. They said the coroner will come as soon as they can. A couple of hours maybe. You can go and sit in the house with him if you want to, but we can’t move him or anything. Okay? Do you understand?”

“You’re wrong, Logan.”

“I’m sorry, Sophie. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” She shoved at his hands, forcing them off her, then she leaned weakly against the cash desk, realizing she was shaking so hard her bones were rattling.

She knew how to do this. She’d been through it before. Get a grip. But it hadn’t been like this. The last time she had had time to prepare herself, even though she hadn’t been prepared. Not really. She had known what to do, though, because she and her mother had talked about it. Gramps had been there to help her…

Oh God.

Tears formed behind her clenched eyelids, leaking onto her lashes. He wasn’t here for her. The emptiness of that emptied her mind, making it impossible to form a clear thought. She couldn’t move and only knew she was breathing because each inhale felt forged in fire, each exhale nothing but noxious smoke.

“I’ll walk down with you,” Logan said, voice sounding far away. “Or I can stay with Art if you would rather not, but I need you to tell me what you want to do with Biyen? Trys will keep him. Or Reid and Emma. You can wait to tell him later if you want to.”

Clarity arrived. “No. I have to tell him. Oh my God, Logan.” Now it was coming. The agony of loss was seeping past her shock. It was becoming real.

“I know.” His arms came around her, holding her together as she shook and fell apart. “I know. I know.”

He did know. That was the excruciating, consoling, unbearable truth as she clung to him and massive sobs convulsed her. Many would mourn her grandfather, but no one else would cry this hard with her. While she wet the shirt under her cheek with her tears, he clenched his fingers against her back and released choked noises against her hair. He moaned in anguish, same as her. For long minutes, they were captives racked in the shared cage of losing someone precious.

Eventually, her nose was in danger of running all over him so she broke away and grabbed a tissue.

He took a couple for himself and ran them across his cheeks, eyes bloodshot, face lined as if he’d aged ten years. She must look equally devastated.

“Will you get Biyen for me?” she asked, voice rusty and thin.

He nodded and picked up his sunglasses, putting them on as he walked outside.

*

This was the worst day of his life.

Logan felt as though he walked through glycerin. The air felt thick enough to make every movement an effort. He could hardly breathe it in. His lungs were clogged and his throat was tight.

“What’s going on?” Reid asked as Logan strode down the wharf toward him.

Biyen was on the deck of the Storm Ridge, putting on the life preserver Trystan handed him.

“Trystan is going to take me to the fueling station,” Biyen said. “Is Mom coming?”

“Bud, I’m sorry. Your Mom needs to talk to you. She’s up at the hardware store. Can you go see her right now?”

“Aweh.” He glumly handed back the jacket.

“I’ll wait for you,” Trystan promised.

“What’s going on?” Reid asked.

Logan held up a hand as he watched Biyen walk up the wharf and ramp, then break into a run toward the hardware store when he reached solid ground.

“It’s Art. Can you…” Fuck this was hard. He scrubbed across his stubbled jaw, trying to make his numb lips work. “The coroner is on the way.”

“Oh fuck,” Reid breathed.

“Sophie’s at the hardware store? I’ll go sit with her.” Trystan tried to hand off the keys to the Storm Ridge to Logan.

“I’ll stay with her,” Logan snarled.

For a minute, they held a staring contest through the lenses of their reflective sunglasses.

“I lost him, too.” It felt almost childish to say it, but Logan’s grief was too colossal to downplay. This wasn’t like losing their father, where they all held a certain ambivalence about the man who had raised them. Art had been his teacher. He had patiently answered Logan’s questions and helped him understand this world—the one filled with the smell of salt and the creak of wood and the endless rhythm of tides. When he was here, he was never lost.

There was nothing Logan could do about Art being gone, but he needed to be with Sophie, to look after her while she went through this. He needed to go through it with her.

Trystan gave a jerky nod. Then he abruptly clasped his shoulder and pulled him into a brief, hard hug, smacking his back once.

“I’m sorry, man. We all feel this one. I’ll go ask her if she wants me to take Biyen for a while.”

“Thanks.” Logan swayed after Trystan released him.

Reid’s hand on his shoulder steadied him.

“Have you called your mom?” Reid asked.

“Not yet.” So many people would have to be told, not just here in Raven’s Cove. Art was well known up and down the coast. They had just done this for Wilf, yet Logan couldn’t pick apart the steps to figure out what needed to be done first. All he knew was that he had to do it so Sophie wouldn’t be burdened by it.

“I’ll call Glenda. Go see what you can do for Soph.” Reid squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Logan.”

“Thanks.” With boots made of lead, he started back to the hardware store.

*

The local search and rescue crew arrived shortly after the coroner. They assisted in taking Gramps to the coroner’s boat. Given his many health problems, his death was attributed to age and natural causes. Sophie would have to go across to sign paperwork, then he would be cremated and his ashes scattered on the same beach where he had scattered Sophie’s grandmother’s ashes.

She sat down on the steps of the porch next to his empty lawn chair. She wanted to cry again, but her taps had run dry for the moment. Her eyes were sandpaper, her throat a desert.

Logan sat down beside her. He’d been here the whole time as they waited, neither of them saying much. He’d made coffee and answered a few texts and looked over the copy of the will she had pulled from the freezer.

He had answered the phone a couple of times. Word was getting out. People would start arriving soon. Sophie knew how this went and it was a necessary purge of the collective sadness, but she dreaded it. It made it all the more real.

“We should have given him a last ride in his Gator,” she murmured as her gaze fell on the shed and the rickety old machine he had kept running for so long. “To take him to the boat.”

“Oh Christ, Sophie.” Logan choked out a ragged laugh.

“Gramps would have thought that was funny.”

“He really would.” His chuckle became a near sob. “I feel like I wasted years when I should have seen more of him.”