Catch and Release

by Laura Drewry

  Damn it—he was doing that thing with his mouth again, that twisty half smile, half smirk.

  “You’ve still got more things rattling around waiting to come out, don’t you?”

  “Nooo,” she said, drawing the word out a little too long.

  “Liar.”

  Of course she did, but she’d already succeeded in making herself look like a big-enough idiot; she sure as hell didn’t need to prove it any further.

  “Hope.” God, his voice was incredible; low, deep, and bordering on raspy, it was as if he were caressing her name rather than speaking it. “Tell me.”

  “No. They’re stupid.” And the only way she was going to stop herself from spewing more of them was to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

  Stupid Matt Damon—what the hell did he know about anything? Insane courage and embarrassing bravery were supposed to pay off somehow, weren’t they? All they’d done was make it a billion times harder to look Ronan in the eye, but she had to do it, because if she didn’t do it now, she’d never be able to do it again, and that was going to make for an excruciatingly long summer.

  Shoulders back, chin up (attagirl), she lifted her hands in surrender and let her I’m-so-mortified smile out, because it was better to be honest than to try to fake anything at this point.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I misread things. I thought…Well, it doesn’t matter. You don’t want to and that’s totally fine. No problem. All good. I’ll just…yeah. I’ll say good night, then.”

  If there was anything she was proud of, it was the fact she’d maintained eye contact with him that entire time. But now that it was done, she looked straight at the door and headed for it with steadfast purpose. Exit…stage left.

  The last thing she expected was for him to step in front of her two feet shy of her goal. He didn’t touch her, just stood there, blocking her way.

  “I never said I didn’t want to.”

  So determined was she to get the hell out of there, it took her a second to understand what he’d said, and by that time he was already backing out of her way, hands lifted slightly.

  “But you said it yourself, Hope; you’ve only been here a couple weeks, so you don’t know me very well. Once you do, you’ll realize I’m not what you’re looking for.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Because I know me.” He grabbed the tea towel off his shoulder and twisted it between his hands. “And I know I’m not good at shit like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this.” He slumped against the counter again, arms crossed, a deep frown creasing his forehead. “Like you.”

  “Okay, first of all,” she said, “I’m going to choose to believe you didn’t just stand there and insinuate that I was shit.”

  There, that smoothed out a bit of his frown.

  “And second of all, I’m not asking you to marry me, Ronan. I’m only saying that it seems like there might be something here and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we spent a little time seeing where that goes.”

  For about two seconds she thought he was going to agree with her, but then he exhaled, long and slow, and shook his head.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said. “Believe me. But I already know how it’s going to end, and it’s not going to be good.”

  “Oh, I see, so you’re psychic now?” Hope opened her eyes as wide as she could and pretended to be amazed. “Funny, that wasn’t in any of the notes Luka gave me, but I gotta tell you, it’ll put a whole new spin on the show.”

  The sound that erupted out of him was more of a grunt than a laugh.

  “I’m trying to save you the aggravation,” he said. “Because things never end well with me. I’m gonna end up treating you like crap, and it won’t be because you’ve done anything. It’s just me.”

  “It’s just you?” Hope stared back at him for a second, waiting for something better than that. It never came. “Seriously? You’re giving me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech already? Wow. Okay.”

  Clearly Matt Damon didn’t know from shit about embarrassing bravery.

  “Then thanks, I guess, for saving me the aggravation.” She went to take a step, then changed her mind because another question was picking at her brain. “So the extra little bits you’ve done for me—the bag of cookies, the fancy dessert—what was that all about? Do you do that for everyone?”

  “No.” It actually looked as if that one word pained him.

  “Then why do it? If you don’t want this, if you think the idea is so horrific, then why do things like that?”

  Instead of answering, he pinched his mouth shut tight, sending the muscle in his jaw and the vein in his neck twitching.

  “You’re not going to answer that? Okay.” Hope stuffed her hands deep in her pockets and nodded, wishing his silence didn’t annoy and frustrate her as much as it did. “Then I’m going to need you to do me a favor, please, and just stop it. Don’t do anything special for me, stop looking at me like that, and don’t ever presume to think you know what’s best for me, Ronan. I’m a big girl, and I don’t need you or anyone else deciding who I should or shouldn’t be aggravated over.”

  “Hope.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said, forcing herself to believe it was the truth, even if it wasn’t. “I’m not mad; I’m actually glad we got this out of the way, because now I—”

  Ronan’s growl started low, but it was enough to stop her in mid-sentence. The memory of that conference call was still fresh enough that she knew what was coming—and yet it didn’t.

  “I told you I’m not good at this shit,” he said, his voice a barely restrained tight whisper.

  “Yup, you did. And going by what you’ve just told me, along with what I already know about you, I’m guessing part of the reason you think you’re not good at this shit is because of stuff that happened in your past. Part of it might be because you think I’m expecting a lifelong commitment right here and now, and part of it is because you think I expect you to use big flowery words and expound on what it is you’re feeling.”

  Something akin to shocked confusion flashed across his face. So she was right; that was exactly what he thought. It was no wonder he didn’t want to say anything half the time.

  “Look, Ronan, to quote this guy I know, it ain’t rocket science. I like you, and it seems as though you like me. Or at least it did until a couple minutes ago.”

  Wow—she’d never seen someone’s jaw grind that hard.

  “I get it, you’re not good with relationships, and maybe you’re right, maybe it’d save us both a lot of grief to ignore whatever this is between us.” She hesitated, not entirely sure she should ask the next question, but she was already hip deep, so what the hell. “Is that what you really want? Do you want to just blow this off without even giving it a shot? ’Cause if it is, I’ll walk outta this room right now and we can pretend I never walked in here, no pressure, no worries.”

  She tried to count the ticks coming out of that damn clock as they reverberated inside her head, but each one was a blaring confirmation that that was exactly what Ronan wanted, to leave things as they were. And when his head finally started to move, it was all she could do not to reach up and smack the clock off the wall, but then it struck her—Ronan wasn’t nodding, he was shaking his head.

  “No,” he growled. “It’s not what I want.”

  It took Hope an embarrassingly long time to stop grinning long enough to respond to that.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? A simple yes-or-no answer, easy peasy.”

  “Right,” he snorted. “This shit’s never easy.”

  “Well, maybe if you stopped calling it shit,” she muttered. “That might help.”

  The glare she shot him immediately dissolved when he grinned back at her, because that look right there—the one where his eyes, so soft, watched her with such bewilderment, as if he had no idea what to do with her—th
at was the look that had convinced her to come upstairs in the first place.

  And it was that look that made it damn near impossible to stay annoyed with him, especially when he tipped his chin and nodded.

  “No expectations,” he said hesitantly, as if he was feeling her out a little. “No flowery words and no expounding.”

  “No, no, and no,” she said. “I’m more of a single-syllable kind of girl.”

  “All right, then.” The sigh he released sounded as if he was bracing himself for the worst. “Ask me again.”

  Hope’s mouth opened, but the only noise she managed to produce was a short squeak.

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “You didn’t have any trouble the first time.”

  “Ha!”

  “Okay,” he conceded. “You had a bit of trouble, but it’ll be easier this time.”

  “For you maybe.” Hope straightened her shoulders, licked her lips, and expelled as much of her pent-up nerves as she could. “Are you going to—”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Of course that’s what she expected him to say this time, but she hadn’t expected him to say it so hard and fast, and she sure as hell didn’t expect to react the way she did: choking out a laugh, stumbling back a step and reaching for something—anything—to brace herself on. Since she’d been on her way out the door, the closest thing was the doorframe, so that’s what she grabbed.

  The craziest thing was that the more off-balance she felt, the calmer and more relaxed he seemed.

  “Any other questions?” he asked.

  “Uh…” She started to shake her head, then stopped. “When?”

  Before he could answer, JD let out a low growl that lasted a few seconds, until the back door opened and Liam walked into the mudroom.

  “Hey, JD,” Liam said, holding his hand out. “You gonna let me pet you yet?”

  The dog growled again, lower this time, and tucked himself against the wall until Liam moved past and stepped over the plywood.

  “Hey, Ro, I’m glad you’re still up; do you have any of that salmon left—oh, hey, Hope. I promised the guys in the orange cabin that I’d bring salmon sandwiches on the boat tomorrow.” He reached for the handle on the fridge, then stopped. “Sorry, did I interrupt something?”

  “No,” she said. “Not at all. I was just…uh…following up on something. He’s all yours.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I think we’re good.” Hope flashed a look at Ronan, whose neutral expression didn’t give off so much as a hint of what they’d been talking about a minute earlier. “Besides—guests come first, right?”

  “Right.” Liam jerked open the fridge door and leaned in, searching for the leftover salmon. He wasn’t in there long, but it was long enough for Ronan to offer Hope a brief and helpless smile, which immediately vanished when Liam turned toward him.

  “Good night, then,” Hope said. “See you in the morning.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, not even looking at her. “G’night. Hey, Ro, you got any of that chipotle spread left?”

  Ronan lifted his hand in a barely noticeable wave as Hope backed the rest of the way out of the kitchen and into the restaurant, her last question hanging unanswered. Now what the hell was she supposed to do? It had taken all the gumption she had to ask the first question twice; she didn’t know how long it would take her to ask the second one again.

  Blowing out a breath through puffed cheeks, she let the door slip closed behind her and stood by the bar for a few seconds to get her head straightened out.

  From the other side of the door, Liam’s and Ronan’s voices cut through the empty quiet of the pub.

  “You’re gonna have to find somewhere else to keep that dog, Ro. There’s already too much stuff in the mudroom.”

  “It’s not staying.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” It sounded as if Ronan ground the word out through clenched teeth. “None of us have ever had a dog.”

  “So? There’s a first time for everything, right?”

  Hope had just taken a step away from the bar, so she might have misheard him, but it sounded as though Ronan grumbled, “I’m getting real tired of people saying that to me.”

  Chapter 10

  “ ‘Ohana’ means family. ‘Family’ means no one gets left behind.”

  Lilo, Lilo & Stitch

  Ronan didn’t know what the hell to do with that damn dog. It followed him everywhere and then whined and carried on when Ro had the audacity to try to leave it on the other side of the bathroom door.

  There were a few rescue places in and around Port Hardy that might be able to take it, but there was no way Ro or any of them had the time to boat over there until Saturday afternoon. Another option was to try to convince one of the pilots to take it, but the first scheduled flight in or out of the Buoys wasn’t until Thursday morning, when Hope and her crew flew out again. And since Gavin had been the one flying them in and out to this point, it was a safe bet it’d be him again, which meant the dog wouldn’t get anywhere near that plane.

  The only other options would be to get it out when the Helijet came to pick up Dave Roth on Wednesday or to find room on the Cessna when it came to pick up a load of guests on Thursday. No matter how Ro looked at it, he’d be stuck with the dog for at least a couple of days, which meant he shouldn’t count on getting much sleep in the meantime. How the hell a little dog like that could take up so much space on a bed was beyond Ro.

  He shouldn’t have let it up on the bed in the first place, but it was either that or listen to it whine all night. Not that Ro slept very well anyway, not after that thing with Hope last night. He still couldn’t believe how it all went down, and a big part of that was because she’d surprised the hell out of him.

  It wasn’t the crazy bits of knowledge she threw at him that were so surprising—he’d sort of come to expect that; it was the way she walked into the kitchen so nervous and skittish and then turned into that no-bullshit chick who just wanted a straight answer.

  If he didn’t already think she was something else, that right there would have won him over. It took brass to do what she did, and if she hadn’t walked into his kitchen last night and laid it all out there, he couldn’t honestly say that conversation ever would have happened. He liked her, sure, and he knew Jessie had been right about him basically blaming every woman for shit they had nothing to do with, but that’s who he was now, and he’d learned that it was so much easier to play it safe, to inch toward the line but never actually cross it.

  Which was exactly what he’d been doing with Hope. Inching. But then she’d gone and called bullshit on him, and he hadn’t expected that. By the time he’d found his balance again, his instincts were already slamming on the brakes and throwing up roadblocks, and it almost worked, too: He almost made it out of that conversation as the exact same man who went into it.

  It was the look she gave him—mortified and yet still brave enough to look him in the eye—that made him step in front of her when she tried to leave. He shouldn’t have done that; he should have just let her leave, should have lied and agreed with her when she said she’d misunderstood things between them, but he couldn’t. She’d been honest with him, so the least she deserved was honesty in return.

  And he’d been honest, he’d put it out there, told her he was an idiot, and instead of doing the smart thing and bolting, she stood her ground. So hell yeah he was going to kiss her. And if Liam hadn’t walked in right when he did, Ro would have spent the rest of the fuckin’ night kissing her. Instead, he wound up making salmon sandwiches with his stupid-ass brother.

  Ro couldn’t remember a single thing Liam said last night, because all he could think about—all he was still thinking about—was kissing Hope. About how much he wanted to feel that pretty mouth of hers against his, to have her pressed against him, holding on, as he did everything he could to make her as weak as he felt just thinking about it.

  But when? That was the question left unanswered.
That was the question driving him crazy. Jessie was already up and hovering around the kitchen by the time Hope made it upstairs, and then there were guests to feed and lunches to pack. And even after Liam and Finn had loaded up and taken the first groups of guests out for the morning, others still wandered around, Jessie and Kate still ran in and out, and there was always Chuck.

  Chuck and his camera shadowed Hope almost everywhere she went, and even when he wasn’t glued to her side, there were still cameras everywhere, recording everything that happened in the main areas in and around the lodge. Privacy was a rare commodity at the best of times around the Buoys, but now—now it was practically nonexistent.

  So when exactly was Ro ever going to get the chance to kiss her without being tripped on by someone or recorded by one of the damn cameras?

  Sure they were within arm’s reach for a while when she and Chuck came into the kitchen to get some shots of Ro prepping for supper—something Luka thought viewers would want to see—but that was it. And it wasn’t as if they could even acknowledge each other, because Hope wasn’t part of the show, so she couldn’t be in any of the footage.

  For the most part, Ronan tried to ignore the cameras and carry on as he normally would, except he still hadn’t quite figured out what his new normal was.

  He’d left the Buoys at nineteen, and even though he’d been back to visit, living there permanently was something else altogether, and it was taking some getting used to. He was manning the kitchen instead of the boats; their menu now included things like quinoa and kale instead of just meat and potatoes; they had guests renting what used to be the employee cabins out back; and Jessie was no longer the only woman at the Buoys.

  Sure, they’d had a few female guests over the years, but Jessie had been the only permanent woman—if they didn’t include Maggie, which none of them did. But now there was Kate, too, and not a week went by anymore when they didn’t have a handful of female guests.

  It was a whole new world, one he wasn’t quite used to, but he was trying.