“She’s my friend, too.”

“She has never been your friend.” Trystan was pulling the sling back into place with one arm, firmly holding Storm against his chest with the other. “She had a hard case of hero worship that you encouraged because it fed your ego. Then you screwed her and left. That’s not how I treat my friends.”

“Is that what she said happened?”

“She didn’t have to.”

“Well, you have your facts wrong.” Not that wrong. He’d been immature and selfish. He knew that. But, “I’m not talking about her with you. Especially when you left this place on your own high horse, same as Reid and I did. Quit acting like your loyalty runs any deeper than our shallow ponds. Sophie and I are fine. That’s all you need to know.”

They were not fine. They got on with it, as Emma would say. They behaved like grown-ups when talking about work, bickered when it wasn’t, and spent a lot of time ignoring the elephant that took up all the air in any room they occupied together.

It was kind of exhausting to keep everything so filtered and corralled, to be honest. Hopefully, they could alleviate some of that while he was staying with her.

“I also told her we’re staying longer,” he admitted.

That decision had only happened a couple of days ago, on the heels of the news about Tiffany’s family. Or rather, the sister who seemed to comprise all that remained of Tiffany’s family.

“I thought Emma would have told her by now.”

“Sophie’s been busy at work.” The marina was nonstop this time of year. “Randy went back to Nanaimo for his final semester and exams.” When Logan had realized Sophie hadn’t had a proper day off in more than two weeks, he had insisted she take today.

Had he hoped that would put her in a slightly more receptive mood to his moving in? Sure. But he was also trying to at least glance at the labor standard laws.

Trystan did a safety check, running his hands across all the catches on the sling, ensuring Storm was firmly secured to his front before he released her and gathered her diaper bag onto his shoulder.

“I wish I wasn’t going to be away half the summer, but I guess we’re doing what we can, right?”

“Get those tours turning a profit. Or at least breaking even.” It would take years for the boats to be paid for, but they were already taking bookings for next season, which was promising.

Logan gave a quick wipe of his fingertip across Storm’s drooling chin, no longer squeamish about all the goop that came out of this kid.

No, he was far more apprehensive of what might happen with her aunt. And disturbed by how relieved he’d been when he and Trystan had agreed to stay.

He didn’t like it here. He wanted to go back to Florida. Didn’t he?

Storm, the little piranha, grabbed his finger and bit it.

Chapter Two

Sophie hurried to finish planting the potatoes, not even showering before she hiked up the trail to the Fraser house.

This house had seemed like a castle the first time she’d seen it, when her mother had brought her here twenty years ago. Gramps’s house was a modest homestead on the flats above the high-water mark, accessed by a lane that wound behind the bluff from the village. This one was perched to overlook the cove and marina.

After losing her husband to a logging accident, Janine Hughes had brought her young daughter to Raven’s Cove, where her father, Art, had been running the marina. Janine had taken a job at the general store, and Sophie had started kindergarten at the one-room schoolhouse up the hill.

Sophie could still remember how awed she had been when she had learned that boy lived in this house. Heading into her very first day of school, she had been intimidated by the rambunctious kids who were big and loud and all knew each other’s names. She had accidentally dropped her sweater and that boy had picked it up to give it back to her.

When school let out that day, on the teacher’s instruction, he had escorted her to the general store. The only other child her age, Trystan, had come with them.

“We live up there,” Trystan had said, pointing to where Reid was striding up the driveway ahead of them, moving with purpose and ignoring his younger brothers.

Reid had never been mean, but he’d never been warm or friendly, mostly keeping to himself. Trystan had become her playmate, disappearing regularly to spend time with his mother’s family, but always paired up with her for lessons, becoming a reliable companion and confidante.

Logan had been godlike, outgoing, and full of jokes. He’d been allowed to say, “Let’s go look at the boats,” and run down to the wharf with his little brother.

Sophie had had to sit at a table by the window in the general store, practicing her printing while her mother finished her shift.

Those early memories of watching Logan disappear down the ramp had ignited her interest in boats and their engines. Her grandfather had nurtured it, eventually taking her down to the wharf himself, then bringing her into the repair shop. Had he ever guessed the real source of her passion for marine mechanics?

Working alongside her grandfather meant seeing Logan. His passion for watercraft—how they were shaped and crafted and propelled—was in his DNA.

She had fallen in love with Logan the way a puppy imprinted on an alpha dog. She cringed thinking of how obvious she’d been with her terminal case of adoration. It had lasted all through their school years and might have been killed by teasing from her schoolmates if Reid and Trystan hadn’t stepped in at different times, telling other kids to, “Shut up. She can like who she wants.”

The fact her mother had been best friends with Glenda, Logan’s mother, had made it worse. So had her close friendship with Trystan. Sophie’s life had been so intertwined with Logan’s, it had made a romantic connection with him seem sensible and feasible. Inevitable. As though they were meant to be together.

She had completely taken for granted that they would marry and live happily ever after.

Meanwhile, he had left the minute he could, same as Reid had done before him. Same as Trystan did after him. All without any intention of coming back.

Glenda had put it nicely, saying the Fraser boys were “restless spirits.” A more accurate statement was that they had had a very complicated relationship with their father and each other. That was no surprise, given they had all been born from different mothers and crammed into the same house where Logan’s mother, Glenda, insisted they all get along. They had done their best for her sake, then got the hell out the minute they could.

Sophie had been convinced, deep in her heart, that Logan would come back for her, though.

Sure enough, as he was heading into his final year at university, he had returned. Glenda had finally had enough of Wilf’s cheating. Logan came back to help her move to Port Hardy.

Sophie had just graduated high school. She had been accepted at a trade school in Nanaimo, planning to become a marine mechanic. In some ways, it was a formality. Like Logan, she’d been learning at Art’s knee, sent into diesel-infused engine rooms from the time she could hold a wrench. Maybe she didn’t love boats the way Logan did, but she liked the work. She was good at it. It was a solid living, especially for a woman, and she found the work satisfying.

Three long, yearning years had slipped by at that point. Her feelings toward Logan hadn’t shifted one iota. If anything, they’d been fed and watered by fantasies of their making a future together.

The day he returned, he saw her. Really saw her. She had reveled in his surprise and sudden interest. They talked like equals. He asked her about her plans, and she told him she was leaving Raven’s Cove. He had congratulated her as though it was a huge accomplishment to move south seven hundred kilometers despite the fact he had chosen a school back east.

Their long catch-up that day had turned into a good night kiss. Several. They were as potent a match as Sophie had always believed they would be. She had always wanted him to be her first and, during a walk on the beach the next day, she asked him if he would be.

Logan had seemed startled but touched.

“Are you sure?” he had asked her a thousand times.

She had been more than certain. They were meant to be, weren’t they?

He had initiated her in a way that had seemed utterly perfect. Sexy and playful, tender and passionate. Maybe it hadn’t been exactly the way all those romance novels of her mother’s played out, but afterward, she’d been more in love than ever.

Then, two days later, when Glenda had flown to her new home in Port Hardy, and the trailer Logan was driving onto the ferry was loaded and locked, he had said good-bye.

Good luck at school. Make yourself a good life.

Sophie had packed a bag and caught up to him at the ferry slip. She would live with Logan while he finished university and go with him if he got into that program in Italy he was applying for. Trade school? Who needed it! She wanted their future together to start now.

Oh, to be that young and naïve. She had been so excited to surprise him with her decision. It was romantic, wasn’t it?