Page 10 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
Rone pointed. “It helps if the pedestal works. Been broken since last hurricane.”
She beat him to the pedestal because she needed to. Breaker down. She unplugged the cable, walked to the next pedestal and twisted it into place until the teeth bit and the collar locked. Up again. She went inside to the circuit board and checked that it was set to shore power, then ran back to the pedestal and flipped the switch.
Nothing. She went back inside and saw that the breaker had popped, so she flipped it.
She waited, breath pinned. Inside the cabin, a low hum woke like a heartbeat.
Rone appeared a few feet from her with resigned approval. “Good. Now flip your A/C breaker.”
She did, and the fan coughed stale non-air-conditioned air a few times before settling into something that skimmed damp off her skin. Not cool, not yet. But not hot. A ridiculous swell of pride rose under her sternum. She looked at him before she could help it. He didn’t gloat. He disappeared outside, then returned. “We’ve got flow.” Like the ocean had agreed to play nice. “Need to clean strainers tomorrow. I did them a week ago.”
“You did them?”
“Yeah, don’t like to see a boat fall apart. Just kept up the basics. Didn’t fix anything. Felt like I owed it to Shade.”
Something told her that he was holding back information about her father, but she didn’t push. She’d be more likely to get information out of Echo than Rone. Except for the accusatory comments about him as part of his plan to make her leave.
Rone pulled back old, torn oriental looking rugs. Had there been a woman on board who’d attempted to decorate at some point? Two small doors with handles were exposed in the wood. She didn’t want to admit she hadn’t even found the engine room before now. A part of her was thankful Rone was here, but she’d never confess that to him.
He opened one door and hopped down. Isobel slid down with less grace, unsure where to place her foot, and she swallowed a sudden squeeze of claustrophobia. Diesel hung thick; metal ticked as it cooled by her side. Rone hit the blower switch with a knuckle and set his watch. “We don’t breathe fumes we don’t have to.”
“Bossy,” she said, because it made her feel less like a child trailing her father through a third-grade field trip to the marina.
“Alive.” He pointed for her to climb out, and he followed behind. “Four minutes. Got flashlights?”
She walked back to the port guest cabin where a mound of tools sat on the desk. She pulled one out and handed it to Rone.
Echo sprawled outside the door, chin over paws, watching with the bored patience of a pro sitting out the less entertaining parts of a job until somebody said his name.
Sweat slid down her spine. Despite the working A/C, it would take a while to cool off the entire boat. She dragged her forearm across her brow and spotted a small, rectangular shadow tucked behind a large hammer on the shelf.
“Hold up.” She wedged two fingers into the gap and worked out a battered tin. Red paint, white letters rubbed almostsmooth: ALTOIDS. She knew that tin. Her father’s pockets had been bottomless for them when she was little. Wintergreen for headaches, peppermint for scrapes, always a tin rattling in the glove box of the truck.
Her pulse did a shift she didn’t like. She flicked the lid with her thumb. The hinge squealed. Inside lay a small coil of red cord, a brass washer, and… her breath stuttered— a tiny carved rabbit, worn silky at the ears.
For a second, the engine room was their old lake cabin kitchen—her six-year-old legs twined around the rung of a stool, her father sliding a length of rope across the table and wrapping it around her wrist.The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree, back down the hole. See?He’d carved the rabbit in one long evening, smelling like sawdust and cheap coffee, and had tied the little bowline for her over and over until she could do it, eyes closed.Little mate, as long as you can tie this, you’ll never drift away from me.He’d said it like gospel. He’d meant it.
Her throat burned. She didn’t want it to. She didn’t want anything about him to get in through the anger she’d lacquered on thick enough to weather a hurricane. But the rabbit sat there in a bed of wintergreen dust like proof that once upon a time he’d remembered her favorite flavor and the way to her laugh.
Rone stilled beside her. “What is it?”
She couldn’t talk right away. She didn’t owe him that, she reminded herself. But the wordloanwas still hanging between them, and the blower ticked time away, and Echo had scooted an inch closer—silent, like he could smell the shift in her posture.
“It’s mine,” she said. Her voice came out huskier than she wanted. She cleared it. “He carved this. Taught me a bowline with it. He… used to keep mints around for me.”
“Rabbits and knots.” Rone’s tone was neutral, a safe place to stand. “Old trick.”
“It worked.” She set the tin on a narrow shelf and slipped the cord free. The knot was perfect—bowline clean and snug, the rabbit threaded through like it had breached from the story itself. She put her thumb on the washer and felt an engraved burr. “There’s something on this.”
Rone angled his flashlight. The light caught under the cheap brass. Isobel eased the washer, flipped it. Letters crowded the curve in a cramped hand that had learned to write on a rocking table:FOR FIRST MATE—ALWAYS HOME. —DAD
Not Shade. Not even his first name. Dad.
The word went through her like cold water, shocking and bracing at once. He had left. He had lied with a boat name. He had made choices that blew people off course. All that could still be true. And also—he had put this where she, not a stranger, would find it. Hidden where mints would go. Tied the knot the way he’d taught her hands to move. Signed it with the one thing she hadn’t let herself say out loud in years.
Echo rose and pushed his head into her knee like he’d been cued. Isobel let her palm settle between his ears. The dog’s skull was warm, solid as anything in her new life. Something inside her loosened with a quiet snap.
She looked up. Rone’s face was a study in restraint, a man stepping back inside himself so she had space inside herself. The offer of the hotel sat unspoken on his tongue again, and she found she didn’t mind it.
