They’d been here ten weeks, Sophie had said. In some ways it sounded like forever, but he couldn’t believe how much this mix of sunshine and vinegar had changed in that time. She moved nonstop and was grabbing at everything. When she was on the floor, she scooted around, trying to crawl. She knew their names because when he said, “Where’s Trystan?” she turned her head to look for him.
She was strong enough to hold herself in a plank like a figure skater when Logan held her over his head—careful to watch for sudden spills out of those grinning lips.
“How’d it go?” Trystan asked.
Logan had asked him to cover for him while he went to “see a man about a room.” He had known Sophie would rather dig him a grave to sleep in. That’s why he’d walked over to tell her himself, away from work while her kid was at school. It had gone exactly as well as he’d expected.
“Art’s letting me stay with them,” he said very casually.
Trystan dropped the carrier back onto the counter. “No.”
“Tell me about my options.” Logan refused to sound defensive. “I could couch-surf, but we’re trying to make people believe we have our shit together. The lodge is overbooked. We need every contractor and laborer housed here so they can solve that problem for us. I looked into sleeping in one of the salvage boats in the boneyard. They all smell like rotten kelp and lung disease. Art was here yesterday, I asked him if he knew of anyone renting a room and he said I could stay in Biyen’s playroom. It has a bed. Mom slept there when she was here for Dad’s service.”
“What about Sophie?”
“What about her? Why are you so possessive of her?” He scowled at Trystan as Trys took Storm. “Maybe you’re the one we should be worried about where she’s concerned.”
“So we agree she ought to be worried about? I’m not possessive, I’m protective. She’s my friend.”
“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?
