Page 33 of At First Catch

Me

What.

Lark

I’m glad you bought the marina.

The message hits somewhere in my solar plexus. I stare at it while something uncomfortable shifts low in my chest.

I lock the phone and set it aside before I can think too much about why that bothers me.

Outside, the marina groans in the wind.

I stand from the desk and step out onto the dock, letting the cooler night air move over my skin. The tide has shifted higher since sunset, dark water curling around the weathered pilings beneath me. Somewhere farther down the shoreline, music drifts faintly from a beach bar near downtown. A guffaw follows it a second later, warm and distant.

I walk down the main dock with my hands in my pockets, boots creaking against old boards silvered by salt and weather. Several slips sit empty this time of year, though a handful of fishing boats rock gently farther out, their masts clicking in the breeze.

The marina should intimidate me more than it does.

Financially, this project is on the brink of irresponsibility.

The repair estimates alone are enough to make my accountant develop stress-related symptoms. The western dock needs major structural work before peak season. The restaurant building might need partial demolition. Half the electrical system predates common sense.

I stop beside slip twelve. One of the dock boards shifts beneath my boot. I crouch and press my hand against the weathered wood. Solid. Older than it looks. I make a mental note to replace the support underneath before summer. Then I catch myself. I’ve already started thinking about the next season.

I hang around the far end of the dock and take a look back towards the shore.

The remains of the old Sweetspire Hotel sit farther up the coastline, little more than surviving stonework and warped foundation pieces now. Before the hurricane, the hotel had been the center of half the town’s summer traditions. Weddings. Fishing tournaments. Fourth of July parties.

Lark says people still talk about it as if they lost a relative.

The marina survived because it was built tougher. Or maybe just luckier.

The thought follows me longer than it should.

A truck rumbles past somewhere near the main road, headlights briefly sweeping across the water. Wind pushes harder through the docks, carrying the scent of salt, marsh grass, and distant smoke from someone’s firepit.

Hadley pops into my head again. Everything keeps circling back to her lately. The way she looked standing outside the marina office this afternoon. The soft blue sweater. The loose knot of hair already falling apart in the wind. The way her pulse jumped visibly when I stepped too close.

And that moment.

Jesus.

That almost-touch.

My hand had moved before I fully thought about it. One second, I was looking at strands of hair blowing across her cheek, and the next, every instinct in my body wanted to tuck them behind her ear, just to see what would happen.

I came within inches of touching her. Then I stopped because I remembered exactly what happens when I touch Hadley Wright.

I remember her melting against me in the dark.

I remember her fingers sliding through my hair while rain hammered the windows outside.

I remember how she’d laughed into my mouth at one point, breathless and warm and completely undoing.

And I remember waking up alone afterward.

The empty side of the bed still bothers me more than it should. Not because she owed me anything. We never made promises to each other.