Until Autumn Falls

by Elana Johnson

  She peered at the barely there driveway, the dark windows of her bungalow. “It’s small, but yes, I live here.” Hilary got out and hurried as fast as her pinchy shoes would let her to her front door. Tripp waited until she was safely inside before backing out, and she leaned against the closed door, her heart tumbling with her emotions.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she chastised herself as she pulled off the shoes. “You sat there while he ate and then he bought you ice cream. Wasn’t a date.”

  And in Hilary’s mind, that was the real problem.

  * * * *

  Hilary regularly bought from three fishermen at the wharf that stretched along the coast of Redwood Bay. Yes, she’d been favoring Tripp’s catch for the better part of two years, but he didn’t know that, and neither did Nick or Ben. At least she didn’t think they did.

  Saturday was a big day of the week for her—one of the biggest. And with the Summerfest in town, she’d probably sell out before eight o’clock in the morning. Lucy and Sophie would double their orders, and two vendors at the park were selling fish and chips during the fest. They’d need fish too, and she wanted to be the one to sell it to them.

  So Hilary dragged herself out of bed at four-thirty the next morning, cursing herself for staying out until nine-thirty with Tripp. He’d probably been up and out on the ocean by three o’clock, and part of her wished she were with him.

  Then, as he’d said the night before, she could catch her own fish instead of having to pay him for it. She marked it up when she sold it to the restaurants, but her margin was slim. Their profit margin was practically nonexistent, so she understood.

  She brushed her teeth with her eyes closed, prolonging the moment when she’d have to truly wake up. She’d never fancied herself as an outdoorsy type of woman. Never jogged or biked or hiked. She barely liked to lie on the beach, though she did enjoy getting a bit of warmth into her bones from the sun.

  No one would ever believe she lived on the West Coast and sold halibut and salmon and cod for a living. Which was exactly why she’d chosen that life once she’d left Miami.

  Finally opening her eyes, she got dressed, washed her face, and started on her makeup. The ugly red scars stared back at her, and though she disliked them, she didn’t grimace at the sight of them the way she used to.

  Dante—Hilary banished the name from her mind as she finished her mascara and turned toward the nail hanging on the back of her bathroom door. An assortment of scarves hung there. She had one in every color imaginable. Some striped. Some feathery. Some with tassels. Internally, she knew she shouldn’t care who saw her old wounds. At the same time, two years wasn’t that old. Sometimes she felt like the ropy scars seemed redder than the first time she’d seen them.

  After she’d been in a coma for two months, the slashes had mostly healed. Her hand drifted to the left side of her collarbone, but the memories of getting the injury were mostly white. Smoky, hazy, held behind a layer in her mind she couldn’t quite grasp.

  She took a steeling breath and pulled down a green scarf that would hide the scars and complement her black jumpsuit.

  The first inklings of sunlight stained the sky to the west as she exited her house. Really a mother-in-law guest house on a bigger property, the place had privacy Hilary loved. Sure, she only had a single bedroom and a bathroom she’d have to share with guests—if she had any. But she didn’t need much more. The carpet was brand new, the paint a pretty peach color, and the kitchen had all new appliances. Or at least it had when she moved in.

  She ducked around the back of the octagonal house and slid into her two-seat convertible, the only thing she’d bought after she’d left Florida. She didn’t take the time to put the top down, not this early in the morning. She did take the time to drive through Beans ’N Brew for her dose of liquid caffeine. With that in hand, she headed to the wharf.

  The lights along the boardwalk made the place seem like it was noon, and the two dozen cars did too. Hilary sighed as she pulled into an empty parking space and stepped from her car. She loved the wharf. The community of it. The way it operated like its own little city within the town.

  “Morning,” she said to Terrance as she passed him. He brought in squid and calamari, and Hilary didn’t have a lot of demand for that. He usually took his catch to Seattle first and came down the coast selling what he could get along the way.

  “Good halibut today,” he said.

  “I have orders in with Tripp and Ben.” Hilary gave him an apologetic smile and kept moving. She’d made the mistake of buying from Terrance a time or two in the past. His fish wasn’t as fresh, and both Sophie and Lucy had complained. Not only that, but with the new co-op, her focus was on locally sourced fish, and that meant Tripp, Ben, and Nick.

  She arrived at the waterfront and saw that Tripp’s trawler hadn’t pulled in yet. Nick had come back, and he had a handful of people in front of his dock. Hilary knew them all. Two of them had come from the lodge located in the Redwood National Forest, about ten miles south of town. They came every day, especially during the busy summer months.

  Another man bought from Redwood Bay and drove inland about twenty miles to the small town of Bedrock. He owned a restaurant there and had fresh fish on his menu on the weekends. He’d invited Hilary to come eat at his place a half dozen times. Every time he did, she said she’d come. She still hadn’t done it.

  “Morning, Glenn,” she said as he turned with his package of fresh fish.

  “Hilary.” The old man’s face bloomed into a smile. His bright blue eyes reminded her so much of her father’s that a sharp squeeze radiated through her chest. He lifted the white paper package. “I’m doing cod steaks with fingerling potatoes and roasted asparagus tonight. You should come.”

  She returned the grin with as much warmth as she could muster. “I’ll see if I can make it.” Even as she said it, she knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t go out to eat, not even in towns several miles away. She needed some time to be scarf-free, and besides, cooking was the best stress reliever she’d found.

  When it was her turn, she bought all the cod Nick had left. Tripp didn’t care for the fish much, preferring to spend his time mapping and following the halibut schools. As if summoned by her thoughts, his trawler came steaming into the wharf. She finished handing over her money for the cod and waited for Nick to wrap it.

  A man in his mid-forties, Nick looked like he’d spent his days fishing. His face bore lines shaped by sea and salt and spray, wind and rain and hard times. But his smile was quick and his movements were too. “There you go, Hil. Good to see you today.”

  She flashed a grin as she took the packages. “How’s Ruby?”

  Nick’s wife had been fighting pneumonia for months, and his eyes softened. “She’s doing a little better, actually. Loved that soup you brought last week.”

  “Does she like lemon-flavored things?”

  Nick’s face blanked. “I suppose.”

  “I make a mean lemon zucchini bread, and I’ve been itching to make it. I’ll bring you a loaf next week.”

  “That would be great.” Nick’s attention wandered to the person behind her, and Hilary stepped out of the way.

  Tripp would be twenty minutes before he was ready to sell, so she moved farther down the wharf toward Ben’s shop. He brought in whatever was biting, and sometimes she bought from him and sometimes she didn’t. This morning, he had dozens of beautiful, long salmon displayed on ice in his stand.

  Hilary’s mind flew to Lucy. She could put salmon on her menu tonight. Salmon cakes, or salmon fillets, whatever. Hilary pulled out her phone as she joined the line in front of Ben’s fish. Could you use some salmon?

  She sent the text to Lucy, fully expecting to hear back in seconds. Lucy didn’t sleep. At least not in the summer where there were tourists to feed. The diner opened at six o’clock sharp, and usually had a line waiting out front. Lucy would already be there, Hilary suspected. Her guess was correct, as Lucy texted back, Yes! Get what you can.
I’ll add it to the menu right now.

  Hilary smiled, her affection for the one person she’d let into her life bleeding onto her face. At the same time, a shock of cold fear hit her heart. When she’d left Miami, she’d vowed to never let anyone close to her, never tell anyone about Dante or her coma, any of it. Yet somehow, when Hilary was in Lucy’s presence, she felt calm, respected, safe.

  She always had, and she wondered if it was simply a special gift given to Lucy or if she’d suffered from some abuse in her past too.

  “I’ll take the salmon,” Hilary said when she got to the front of the line.

  “How much?” Ben’s gaze lingered on Hilary’s scarf. She was used to people staring at her somewhat odd accessories. After all, it didn’t make much sense to tie something about your neck when you lived in a beachside town, especially in the summertime.

  “All of it.”

  His gaze flew to hers. “All of it?” He glanced down at the fish.

  “Lucy wants it.” Hilary smiled as she waved her business debit card toward Ben.

  He chuckled as he started wrapping the fish. “You seen what Tripp brought in?”

  “No, he just pulled in and wasn’t set up yet.”

  “He radioed in about swordfish.”

  Hilary whipped back toward Tripp’s trawler, her hand already reaching for her phone. If she could get Vernon on the phone, she could sell that swordfish before she bought it.

  “Head on over,” Ben said. “I’ll have your fish ready for you when you get back.”

  Hilary flashed him a grateful smile and strode toward Tripp’s boat, half her attention on her phone and half on navigating the loose boards and the few remaining shoppers.

  “Vernon,” she said, making her voice bright and cheery. “Fancy putting swordfish on your menu tonight?”

  She caught Tripp’s eye, a wide smile on her face. He returned it, making her heart flip and flop like one of the fish he normally hooked. She lifted her hand in greeting, but turned her back to finish her call. And to settle her pulse back to normal before she spoke to the handsome fisherman.

  Chapter Three

  Tripp sensed Hilary the moment he stepped onto the pier. He couldn’t see her, but her recognizable scent lingered in the space where she’d been. He finished with one customer and glanced up, searching for her.

  He caught himself and focused on the couple in front of him. The sous chefs from the nearby national park. He wasn’t sure why today he suddenly needed to sell fish to Hilary. Sure, he liked her. Maybe he’d started looking at her differently these past few weeks. He didn’t think she’d seen him as more than an acquaintance—at least she’d never acted like she had.

  Her watching him eat a meal after his date had abandoned him could hardly be counted as romantic.

  He finished with the couple, and Hilary appeared. Her grin lit up her face as she held her phone to her ear. He smiled back at her, and she lifted her hand before turning to complete her call. Only seconds passed, but Tripp felt like the world had paused.

  He wasn’t quite sure what to do with these new feelings for Hilary. He wasn’t even sure when they had sprung into existence. Simply having Jared suggest a relationship was possible with Hilary hadn’t awakened something that wasn’t previously there.

  While she wasn’t looking, he enjoyed the curve of her hips and the length of her legs. The dark black romper she wore seemed almost criminal, and a flush flooded Tripp’s whole body.

  She turned back to him, and he dipped his chin to his chest so his eyes would fall on the fish in front of him. He cleared his throat, trying not to make too much noise, as she said, “Morning, Tripp.”

  At the genuine, sweet sound of her voice, Tripp glanced up. Her beauty nearly stole his breath, but he managed to inhale without sounding like a squeaky balloon. “Hey, Hil. What’ll it be?”

  “I heard you had swordfish.”

  “I do.” He turned toward the cooler behind him. “I was up all night,” he said, his words running away from his brain. “Thinking about you.” He spun around. “I mean—not that I was thinking about you. Thinking about how you ate that ice cream. I shouldn’t have eaten it so fast. I was sick for hours.”

  Hilary tucked a lock of hair that had escaped from her bun. “Wow, I didn’t know big, strong men like yourself got sick from eating ice cream.”

  He thrust her package toward her. “Eating ice cream too fast.”

  She took the fish and handed him her card. “Want to go get some more tonight?”

  “Heavens, no.” He counted out her change. “I mean—” He took a deep breath to try to find his center. It didn’t work, but he really wanted to stop saying stupid things. “I can’t go tonight.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “What about for lunch?”

  Hilary’s eyes locked with his. He couldn’t seem to look away from their foresty depths, and he wondered what she saw in his eyes.

  “I’m meeting some friends for lunch,” she said. “Sorry.”

  He handed back her money and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “That’s okay.”

  She backed up a couple of steps, stopped, and cocked her hip. “You know, you should go out with my friend Andrea.”

  Tripp’s heart crashed to the soles of his feet and stayed there. “Andrea?” Now his voice sounded like he’d sucked in a lungful of helium.

  “Yeah, she’s—”

  “I’m not really looking to date anyone right now.” She pressed his lips around the lie.

  “Oh, I just thought—you were out with that other woman, and….” She lifted her free hand up, palm forward, as if to say, Never mind.

  Tripp watched her walk away and collect a couple of packages from Ben, who then went with her carrying twice as much as she was. A hole opened inside Tripp, but he ducked his head and did what he’d always done: He worked.

  Hours later, after he’d sold his entire catch, after he’d scrubbed down his fishing boat, after he’d settled behind his desk in his office, he let Hilary’s words rebound through his mind. Had she really tried to set him up with another woman? Why would she do that?

  Tripp pulled a folder toward him and flicked it open. He couldn’t focus on the contents though, and he ended up pulling out his phone. “Call Hilary Finnegan,” he commanded, and the phone responded with, “Calling Hilary Finnegan.”

  She’d claimed she was having lunch with friends, but Tripp had detected the hint of a lie between her words, in the way her chin lifted just a notch, in the false quality of her voice.

  “Hey,” she said, and the distinct sound of restaurant chatter in the background came through the line.

  “Who’s Andrea?” he asked. He hadn’t meant his question to sound like a police request.

  “Oh, uh, she’s my landlady’s daughter. She’s nice.”

  Tripp didn’t care about Andrea, but he couldn’t say that. Maybe he should just go out with her so his interest in Hilary wasn’t quite so obvious.

  “She’s a manicurist. Has a salon out of her house.”

  “The house where I dropped you off last night?”

  “Sort of. The two-story one on the other side of the pool.” Something very much like silverware on dishes clanked on her end of the conversation. “I’ll text you her number.”

  Tripp’s mouth went dry. He didn’t want to call a perfect stranger and ask her out. How did he even phrase that? He had a hard enough time asking out women he knew.

  “Can’t you, I mean, maybe you could set it up?”

  Hilary laughed. “And then you can debrief me afterward. Is that it?”

  “I’m not cold-calling someone I’ve never met.”

  “Just a sec.” The chaos on her side of the conversation dimmed and then disappeared. “So you want me to set up a meeting?”

  “That would be nice, yes.” Tripp hated the direction this conversation had taken, hated that he’d called Hilary at all. He wanted to go out with her.

  “So I get to be your matchmaker?”
r />   Tripp rolled his eyes. “This call was a mistake.”

  “No, no,” Hilary said. “Don’t hang up.”

  “Why would I hang up?”

  She laughed, but now it had a nervous edge. “I don’t know. Listen, we should meet this afternoon. I can find out what kind of woman you’re looking for and go from there.”

  “I don’t—” Tripp couldn’t finish the sentence. He wanted to see her, and if that meant he had to pretend to be interested in dating her friends…. It wasn’t his worst option. “What time?”

  “I should be done here in an hour.”

  “I’m sitting in my office. You can come by anytime.”

  She confirmed, and Tripp ended the call. His first thought was to bolt from his office and never come back. “Stupid,” he muttered to himself, his fingers flexing with the need to build something. He retreated to the workshop behind the office. He’d turned down the last three orders that had come in, because it was the summer season and he needed his time to fish and book tour groups, not build end tables and barstools.

  But the smell of fresh wood, the feel of sawdust on his hands, the whine of the saw soothed him when he felt near the edge of reason. He didn’t think while in the workshop. Didn’t design or draw. He just created.

  “Knock, knock.” Hilary’s voice caused him to lift his attention from the nearly completed bookcase.

  He pushed the safety goggles onto his forehead, his anxiety blooming back into existence. He’d managed to keep it at bay while he nailed and sanded.

  “This isn’t your office.” She tossed him a half-smile and leaned into the doorframe. At least she hadn’t entered his space. He wasn’t sure he wanted her there. In fact, the only person he’d let into his sanctuary was his cousin Jared.

  “Sometimes it is.” He pulled the glasses off and laid them on the bench before grabbing a towel and wiping his hands. He moved toward her, expecting her to back up to give him room to enter the hall.

  She held her ground, her soft pink lips shining in the sunlight coming in the window opposite her. She’d reapplied her lip gloss, and her makeup seemed flawless. She wore a large pair of emerald earrings now that she hadn’t been wearing at the pier earlier that morning. They matched the scarf she’d knotted around her neck. The curve of her bare shoulder called to him, begged him to step close, trace his lips along the skin.