Page 1 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
CHAPTER ONE
A December breezewhipped dense fog off Estero Bay, curling through the blinking Christmas lights strung along the marina railing. Isobel Lane’s fingers locked around the cool metal as she searched the fog for the truth about the father who’d abandoned her all those years ago.
Boats loomed in shadowy rows, masts stabbing upward like a forest of skeletal trees. Four docks speared off from the main platform. Somewhere out there was the trawler her estranged father had chosen over her and her mother twenty years ago: the only thing he’d left Isobel in death.
A bell gonged somewhere across the water, a hollow knell that felt like an omen. No one was waiting for her arrival, so she rolled her suitcase down the gangway, weaving between coils of rope and gull droppings. The wheels thumped over the boards—thu-thump, thu-thump—too loud in the silent morning.
A cough. A squeal. A groan. Sounds without sight.
At the end of the main dock, she hung a left and rolled to the end.
Slip D9. The trawler loomed in the mist, a hulking shadow wider than the dock itself. Her pulse stumbled. The name wasscrawled across the back in big, bold, blue letters.Family First. The words shot at her like a whale harpoon through her chest.
A chilly wind speared her skin like an icy injection. Too damp, too cold for Fort Myers Beach. Wasn’t Florida supposed to be endless sunshine and sweltering heat?
Her body coiled into a tight rage, ready to break free all over the dock. Was he mocking her in death?
Family. The one he’d abandoned, or had he found a new one? If he had, why weren’t they here?
She shook off her anger and made her way to a side boarding door and leaned closer to the back cockpit, listening for any sounds of life aboard. Her suitcase fell with a thud to the planks behind her, echoing through the harbor. She squinted to see beyond the etched glass back windows to the inside of the boat. A dark shape shifted.
Overactive imagination… or a two-decade-long wish to see her father manifested in ghost form onboard?
She abandoned her suitcase and pushed open a tiny door that looked like it was made for a Chihuahua.
She stepped aboard, the scent of old diesel and brackish water filling her lungs. The cockpit yawned, silent except for water lapping at the hull, but the double doors leading inside sat ajar.
“Hello?” she called.
Only a distant bark from somewhere else on the docks answered, so she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped inside her father’s world. The air inside was thick with old diesel and oil—yet beneath it lingered a sharper note, one that stopped her cold. Cedar. Musk. A scent she’d once thought belonged only to him. After years of prowling store aisles, lifting bottles of cologne and deodorant in search of it, she’d never found the right one. The sniff test had cost her more than a few awkward dates, ending evenings before they began. Not that itmattered. She didn’t trust men. Her lifelong friends’ accusations of paranoia were recently proven wrong with the disappearance of her ex and all her money.
She forced her eyes open and took in the salon. By boat standards, it was palatial, or at least compared to the small boat her father took her on for lake outings when she was a child. When she’d thought they’d been happy.
Wood slats paneled two walls, and above her, a mildewed ceiling trimmed in molding, an almost coffered elegance.
Her shoes squeaked against the teak floor, only to sink into a ripped rug that gave off the sour tang of old dog. Had her father owned a dog? If so… was the animal still around? Or had someone else been here, caring for it?
“Hello?” Isobel called again, her voice swallowed by the stillness. No bark answered, no shuffle of feet.
She stepped deeper into the salon, though it looked more like a workshop. One side housed the galley and eating area, the other, an L-shaped sofa that sagged beneath a blanket, and a scatter of spare parts covered every surface, as if her father had been mid-project when the ocean had claimed him.
Drowned.
The attorney had only shoved papers across the desk, informing her she was the sole heir to his “estate”—a twenty-four-year-old boat. No explanation of her father’s life or death.
Her footsteps whispered down the narrow hallway, dingy runners muffling the sound. A cabin to the left overflowed with boxes, a bathroom crouched to the right, another cabin stood just beyond. To her left, a steep staircase twisted upward, and ahead, a queen-berth stretched larger than she’d expected.
A scratch.
A creak overhead.
Her pulse kicked. “Anyone up there?”
Silence.
She flicked the light switch. Nothing. Great. No power. That would be first on her list—if she could even afford to fix it. Not with her ex siphoning off her savings and leaving her little choice but to make this boat her only option for a home until she sold it.
Jaw tight, she gripped the railing and climbed the spiral staircase. The second step groaned beneath her weight.
