Page 5 of At First Catch

“That marina needs a miracle,” Crew says.

“It needs someone stubborn enough to love it,” Lila replies absently before taking a sip of coffee.

And my brain betrays me with the image of Nolan standing at the edge of the docks last fall while the wind off Back Bay shoved at his clothes. He’d been staring out across the water with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and exhaustion carved into the corners of his face, and even then—before I knew what his hands felt like against my skin—I noticed him.

I hate that I still do. I hate that some reckless little part of me still notices things. Like how careful he is with Lark. How observant he becomes when he thinks no one’s watching. How he always looks uncomfortable when someone thanks him for something genuine.

“Hadley.”

Holt says my name softly this time. I glance over. There’s no teasing in his eyes now. Just concern. Twin concern. The kind that’s been hardwired into both of us since birth.

“You sure you’re okay?”

That nearly breaks me more than the jokes ever could.

I force a quick smile onto my face and toss the towel over my shoulder. “You’re being weirdly intense over muffins this morning.”

“Deflection,” he says immediately.

“Annoying.”

“Truthful.”

Holt pushes out of the booth and wanders over to the counter, reaching past me for one of the muffins cooling beside the register.

I slap his hand away.

“Those aren’t yours.”

“Family discount.”

“That’s not how discounts work.”

Before I can respond, the bell over the café door jingles, letting in a gust of cool salt air strong enough to flutter the napkins near the register.

Conversation doesn’t stop exactly, but it shifts. The way a room shifts when someone walks in carrying their own gravity.

I look up, and there he is.

Nolan stands just inside the doorway with wind-tousled dark hair and sunglasses hooked into the collar of a faded charcoal Henley stretched across broad shoulders. The sleeves are pushed halfway up his forearms, revealing tanned skin and strong hands that my body remembers far too well.

For one suspended second, everything inside me goes completely still, then every nerve ending lights up at once. Which is deeply inconvenient before eight in the morning.

His gaze lands on me.

Not the counter. Not the menu.

Me.

Nolan’s demeanor barely changes, but I see it anyway—that tiny flicker of recognition that passes between us every time our eyes meet now.

Beside me, Holt goes very still.

Oh no. No, no, no.

I can practically feel the moment my twin notices something shift in the air.

Nolan finally looks away first, giving Lark a brief nod when she lifts a hand toward him from the pastry case.