Page 5 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
At the marina gate, the breeze off the channel came with that brackish-metal taste again. She pushed through, a bag biting each forearm, and stopped dead at the top of her dock.
The port bow line swung lazy, slack. Not off, not yet—but barely wrapped, the hitch she’d set replaced with a quick-and-dirty loop meant to give with the next decent tug.
She hurried to the slip to discover words scrawled through the dust with a finger on the starboard window with letters big enough to read all the way from the end of the dock.
LAST WARNING.
Heat drained out of her face. Then anger charged in and filled the space it left.
“Okay,” she said to no one, voice flat. “You want a fight?”
She set the bags inside the cockpit, retied the line properly, yanking until the rope bit the cleat with satisfying finality, and marched two slips over.
Rone’s boat sat quiet, bow into the breeze. It was the kind of vessel that looked capable without advertising itself—linesclean, deck clear. The dog was the first to materialize, a German shepherd in a black-and-tan suit, rising from the shade like it had been carved there. Ears pricked. Eyes on her. He—Echo, she remembered—didn’t growl. He didn’t need to.
Rone stepped out of the shadow behind him a beat later—ball cap pulled low, T-shirt dark with sweat at his defined six pack. He moved like a man who kept weight on his heels until it was time to move fast.
She didn’t give him the chance to get a word in first.
“You,” she said, jabbing a finger at his chest. “I tied that line this morning. Properly.Don’t play games with me.”
His gaze flicked down the dock, then past her shoulder, quick, assessing. “What line?”
“The port bow. It didn’t untie itself. And the note on my window.Last warning?” She chopped the air toward her boat. “You still denying you’re behind the ornaments-and-threats routine? What is it? Did my father promise you his boat or something, and I’ve ruined your plans?”
Something in his face pinched—annoyance, or restraint. He didn’t bother defending himself. “You retied it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Cleat hitch, of course.” She threw the words like a challenge. “Want me to draw you a diagram?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It didn’t last. He scrubbed a hand along his stubbled jaw, eyes not leaving hers for long, but not quite staying.
“I didn’t touch your line,” he said.
She took a step into his space because she was past caring whether it was smart. He towered over her, not like a bodybuilder but a hard worker who earned his muscles in the wild. “You knew my father asShade, and you seem to think you get to police his boat from two slips over. If you’ve got something tosay to me, say it. Don’t carve it into ornaments and write it on my windows like a coward.”
Echo’s ears angled a degree left. The dog’s nose lifted, drawing the air in little tastes.
Rone’s eyes cut over her shoulder again. Whatever he saw this time shifted his weight forward a fraction.
“Answer the question,” she pushed. “Why do you call him Shade? Who are you to?—”
He didn’t answer. He lookedpasther, jaw snapping tight, and the transition from stillness to motion was so fast she felt it before she understood it—his shoulder bumping hers, the sudden heat of his palm on her upper arm, a shove that wasn’t cruel, just decisive, setting her back against the piling.
“Stay,” he grunted, already stepping around her.
“Excuse me?” She twisted to follow him, outrage rising fresh?—
Echo exploded past her first, nails skittering on the planks. The dog’s bark cracked the afternoon open, sharp and furious.
Rone was already moving down the dock at a run, eyes locked on something behind her she couldn’t see.
Echo surged ahead.Leash burned Rone’s palm until he loosened it and gave the dog the foot he wanted. The water had gone from glossy to black as the sun slid behind a cloud; every reflection broke and re-formed until the whole basin looked like it was breathing.
He hated Shade’s boat. Not because of the paint scum or rattling blocks. He hated it because it was a shrine to bad choices. A man who made them. A man who hid things in compartments, locked them down, and left the lies to rot with the rope.
