Catch and Release

by Laura Drewry

  “What are you…How the hell did you even get here?”

  “Didn’t Jessie tell you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, because it was pretty clear he had no idea. “I came in on the Cessna. It’s premiere night, and since you guys don’t have cable up here, I brought Hooked to you.”

  She reached inside her giant bag, fished around for a few seconds, and pulled out a pair of safety goggles, a parachute-cord bracelet, and a small black flash drive. When Ro frowned at the first two things, she blushed, gave a crazy little grin, then dropped them both in the bag again and waved the drive between them.

  “We’ll just plug this baby into the TV and we’ll be all set. And to celebrate…” She reached over to the counter beside her, tugged what looked like an emergency blanket off the boxes, and lifted them into her arms. “You get the night off.”

  Before Ro could answer, Jessie’s voice cut through the quiet of the cove.

  “Did you remember the olives?”

  Hope’s gaze never left Ro’s face.

  “You know it,” she called back, then lowered her voice so no one else could hear. “She was really adamant about—”

  Ronan took one step inside the shack, slid his hands around the sides of her face, and kissed her. He only meant for it to be a quick one, something to take the edge off, but the second his lips touched hers, she sighed, and that was it; he was done for.

  The damn pizza boxes pressed into their stomachs, but neither of them made any motion to set them aside. Ro didn’t know why Hope didn’t do it, but in his case, he knew if he got too close to her just then, if any part of her body other than her mouth touched him, he was gonna fuckin’ explode.

  So he held on to her face, stroking his thumbs over her cheeks and kissing her like he’d been waiting to do since she left the other day.

  “Well, okay, then.” Blinking fast, she seemed to sway a bit before finding her balance and sputtering out a laugh. “Hi.”

  “Sorry.” Stumbling back a step, Ronan blew out a hard breath and grinned at her. “Sorry, I uh…hi.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she laughed again. “If this is how you react to pizza, I’m going to start bringing it in all the time.”

  He couldn’t help it—her teasing smile made him lean in and kiss her again, softer this time, slower, until he could feel her start to lose her hold on the pizza boxes. Ronan wrapped his hands around hers, growled over a low chuckle, then kissed her one more time before taking the boxes and stepping back.

  “It ain’t the fuckin’ pizza,” he muttered, realizing too late he’d said that louder than he meant to. He would have kicked himself for it, but her smile widened, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes got all bright and sparkly.

  It was dangerous standing there, having her look at him like that and knowing he was probably looking at her the exact same way. He wasn’t ready for that, wasn’t ready to be soft on her, so he did the only thing he could think of right then. He lifted the lid of the top box, waved it up and down a few times, and inhaled deeply.

  “Okay, it might be a little bit about the pizza.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” she said. “Come on, we better get it up to the lodge before Jessie comes looking for her olives.”

  They started up the path side by side, Ronan’s arms full of pizza boxes, while Hope refolded the blanket and tucked it in her bag.

  “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?” she asked, tucking her hand under his elbow.

  “Not a damn thing.” Nothing better than her coming back anyway.

  “What about JD? Did you find him a home?”

  “Yeah. He seems pretty happy.”

  “Oh.” Hope lowered her head a little and nodded slowly. “Well, that’s good, then, right?”

  Ronan didn’t say anything, just started up the stairs to the lodge door, but he’d only made it to the second step before Hope stopped so suddenly that she jerked him back with her.

  “You called him ‘he,’ ” she said. “You never called him ‘he,’ you always called him ‘it.’ ”

  Ro pressed his elbow against his ribs so she wouldn’t let go of him and tugged gently until she started moving again.

  “Can you get the door?” he asked. “My hands are kinda full here.”

  She reached for the handle, but her narrowed eyes never left his, not until she pulled the door open and the first sounds of whining hit her ears.

  “You kept him,” she cooed, her voice so soft and freakin’ happy as she smiled down at JD that Ro couldn’t help but smile, too.

  “Well, no one else wanted him, so what was I supposed to do?”

  “Yeah, right,” she said, a little dubiously. “Did you even try to find him a home?”

  “I googled a few places, yes.” He tried to sound indignant as they crossed the lobby, but it wasn’t easy when she kept looking at him like that, as if he was full of shit, or when he watched the way JD’s whole back end swayed when he wagged his tail like that.

  “But did you phone any of those places?”

  “Did I…?” Using his hip, he nudged her into the great room ahead of him. “You ask too many questions.”

  Ro set the pizzas down on the table, then helped Kate and Finn rearrange the furniture so there were enough seats facing the TV. Jessie brought in a stack of plates and napkins, Liam followed with a tray of drinks, and Hope headed to the TV and pushed the drive into the port. A few seconds and a couple of remote clicks later, the first episode of the new Hooked was ready to go.

  “Do you want to heat the pizza up before we start?” Hope asked.

  “Nope,” Finn said, snorting quietly. “It’s already warmer than any other pizza we’ve ever brought in; it’s fine.”

  “Okay,” Hope said, breathing the word out on a whoosh. “Unlike regular viewers, you get to watch Hooked commercial free, which is always a bonus. I’ve already watched it—a couple times, actually—and I think it’s great, but please, if there’s anything you don’t like, anything at all, tell me.”

  “Oh, we will,” Kate said, laughing as she lifted her beer and held it out for everyone to tap. “Here’s to Hooked.”

  Ro tapped his mug against the glasses, then leaned forward in his chair, with JD at his feet, and braced himself. With the exception of Hope, who stood behind all of them, everyone else copied Ro’s position, and for the next twenty-odd minutes, the only sound anyone made was when they laughed, snickered, or sipped their drinks. Not a single one of them touched the pizza.

  It was the weirdest thing in the world watching all of them on the screen, and yet no matter how hard he tried, Ro couldn’t find a damn thing he hated about the show. Somehow, Hope and her crew, and the unknown people who turned all the footage into an actual episode, had done just what they said they would.

  They showed the Buoys for what it was, not as the caricature Ro had feared. The opening shots of the lodge, the cabins, and the surrounding trails and lakes were nothing short of amazing, and they’d picked the absolutely perfect clips to show who Ro’s family was, somehow combining their good points with their individual quirks to make them all seem…funny.

  Ronan had never thought of them as being funny before; sure, they might have their moments, but listening to Finn make those smart-ass comments about Ro’s apron, seeing Kate roll her eyes at Liam and call him “Sporto,” something that almost always ended with Liam kissing her, and watching Jessie run the place as well as she did, always smiling, always with a sarcastic shot and teasing wink for Finn, and always with time for the guests—yeah, it was good. And the footage out on the boats, with everyone having a good time, holding up their catches, and pointing in awe every time a whale breached near them—yeah, that was good, too.

  Great, actually.

  The final credits scrolled up the screen and yet they still sat there, silently watching until the last line disappeared. One by one, they all sat back, their gazes meeting and then moving to the next person. Slowly, almost tentatively, Hope stepped out from behind them
and smiled nervously.

  “So…” she said. “That’s it. Thoughts?”

  “Yeah, I got a thought.” Standing up, Finn leaned over the table and filled a plate with a slice from each pizza box. “If you want this show to really take off, you need to delete every scene that’s got Ro’s ugly mug in it.”

  Ro knew that was coming and was off his chair before Finn knew what was happening. Luckily, Jessie had anticipated it, too, because she grabbed Finn’s plate a second before Ro tackled him. They hit the floor, grunting and laughing and swinging missed punches, with JD running around them barking, until Ro finally managed to wrangle both Finn’s arms behind his back.

  “Say it,” he ordered, wrenching Finn’s arm just enough to get his attention.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Wrong answer.” They both laughed as he wrenched a little harder, ignoring Jessie, who was yelling at him to let Finn go. “Say it.”

  Growing up, Finn had always been squirmy little shit who’d usually find a way to slip out of Ro’s grip when they fought—whether they were goofing around or not—but Ro wasn’t letting him get away this time. And, okay, it was possible that Finn wasn’t exactly putting up his best fight, either.

  “Say it,” Ro repeated. “Say it or I’ll tell Jessie how you used to—”

  “Sorry!” Finn’s yelping laugh made them all laugh, too. “I’m sorry. Keep Ro in, Hope. Get rid of Liam!”

  “There we go.” With a final shove, Ro pushed off Finn, stole his brother’s plate from Jessie, and flopped on his chair before glancing up at Hope, who looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or be shocked so she was kind of doing both.

  “Sorry you had to see that,” he said, lifting one of the slices in mock toast at Finn, who’d finally gotten back to his feet. “But sometimes you gotta speak the language he understands, you know?”

  “I…” Her gaze shifted from Ro to Jessie and then to Finn. “Are you okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Ro said, even as Finn started hamming it up, rotating his shoulder a little and rubbing it as if Ro had really hurt him. “Walk it off.”

  JD stood next to Ro’s chair, tail wagging, his tongue hanging out the side of his smiling mouth. Weird dog.

  “Anyway,” Kate said pointedly. “Can we get back to the show, please?”

  Liam, Jessie, and Finn all answered at the same time.

  “It’s great.”

  “Love it.”

  “Once you get Liam out…” Finn dodged Liam’s kick and grinned. “Okay, okay, seriously, it’s great, Hope.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Hope’s sigh of relief made them all laugh. “Just wait till you see what they’re doing with the next episode.”

  “Let’s watch it again,” Kate said, pushing the pizza boxes toward the far end of the table. “Eat up.”

  And so they did, only this time they were all much more relaxed, especially Hope, who actually sat with them. When the credits rolled at the end again, Jessie immediately started shifting what was left of the pizzas into one box.

  “Thank you, Hope. I think we all feel a lot better now—am I right, guys?” Everyone agreed. “But, I’m sorry to say, we still have work to do tonight, so make yourself at home. There’s movies over there, books, cards, whatever you like.”

  “I, uh…” Hope hesitated, then lifted her shoulders in a short shrug. “I could help.”

  Lots of people would have said, “No, that’s okay, just relax,” but not Jessie. She took help wherever she could get it, and if Hope was going to offer, Jessie was going to accept.

  “Great!”

  Before Hope could catch her breath, Jessie had her dusting and vacuuming the great room and lobby while the rest of them headed off to their own jobs of cleaning the cabins and guest rooms and doing laundry, boat maintenance, and yard cleanup. Hope didn’t seem to mind any of the jobs Jessie gave her. In fact, unlike the rest of them, when they’d finished for the night she was still looking for her next assignment.

  “That’s it for tonight.” Jessie laughed as Finn took her by the hand and practically dragged her toward the stairs. “The rest of it can wait until the morning.”

  “Quick!” Liam said. “Make a run for it before she changes her mind! Kate, let’s go!”

  And just like that, Ronan and Hope were left standing in the quiet of the lobby with JD, whose squirming and turning in circles could only mean one thing.

  “I need to take him out,” Ro said. “So, uh…”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You sure? It gets kind of chilly out there at night.”

  Hope retrieved her bag from the great room, reached inside, and pulled out a long black scarf.

  “All set.”

  Shaking his head and laughing quietly, Ro grabbed a flashlight off the lobby desk, then pushed open the front door.

  “Okay, seriously,” he said, “what’s the deal with you and that bag? How can one person be so prepared for everything all the time?”

  It didn’t take her that long to answer, but it was long enough that Ro started to regret asking.

  “Hope—”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said, snuggling deeper into her jacket. “I, um…You know those stories you hear of people driving down deserted country roads and getting stuck or lost? Well, that was us, my folks and me, driving home from a cabin we’d rented over Christmas. The roads were god-awful, but we had to get back because, although I didn’t know it at the time, they’d planned a surprise party for my eighteenth birthday.”

  She paused as they started up the north trail, with Ro keeping the flashlight beam fixed on JD ahead of them.

  “We came around a corner and there was a truck in our lane, so Dad swerved, but it was really icy, he lost control, and we ended up going off the road.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. According to the cops, whoever was driving the truck never turned himself in, so for all we know, he didn’t even know what happened.”

  “What did happen?” Ro asked, wrapping his hand around hers.

  “We went down a couple hundred feet, flipping over and over again until we hit a tree. The car sort of bent, you know, like it was kind of wrapped around the tree. They, uh…they said Mom probably died on impact, because she’d twisted in her seat to try to reach me and her back and neck snapped.”

  “Hope.” Ro stopped walking and just looked at her. “I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded too quickly, smiled too brightly, neither of which did anything to hide the haunted look in her eyes or to cover the crack in her voice as she tugged him forward.

  “Dad was banged up really bad, too, had a huge gash on the side of his head and his right shinbone was sticking out of his leg, but he was conscious. For a while anyway.”

  “What about you?”

  “The sun rises and sets on me, remember?” She laughed, a sad, empty sound that made Ro’s gut ache. “My left leg was broken in two places; I had some bumps and bruises, a bit of a concussion, and ended up with frostbite on a couple of my toes, but that was it.”

  That was it? Ronan shuddered just thinking about it. God almighty.

  “How long were you down there?” he asked.

  “Three days.”

  “Three—” Ro gaped. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. And the only reason we were found was because a guy stopped on the side of the road to take a leak and saw our car. That’s what the cops said anyway. I can still hear that guy’s voice calling down, asking if anyone was there, but I couldn’t get out of the car and I’d already lost my voice from screaming so much, so when he stopped yelling, I was pretty sure that was it—that I was going to die, too. I don’t know how much time went by between him yelling and the first rescuer showing up, but it felt like forever.”

  “I bet.” Shit, Ro didn’t even want to think what that must have been like, trapped in the car, her parents both dead, and thinking she was going to die, too.

  “And you know,” she said, tipping her head a bit, �
�my parents were great people. Dad had three or four offers from big law firms that wanted to pay him stupid amounts of money to go work for them, but he turned them all down because he wanted to work at Legal Aid. And Mom…”

  Hope trailed off for a second, then swiped the back of her fingers under her eyes.

  “She was always one of those ‘involved’ moms, you know?”

  Ro didn’t, but he nodded anyway.

  “She was the one who chaired the parent committees at school; she fundraised to make sure there was breakfast available for any kid who wanted it; she volunteered with my Brownie unit, made sure my friends and I got to all of our soccer practices and games—that was Mom.”

  “She must have been something,” Ro said. “Your dad, too.”

  “They were. And yet all the newspapers—when they wrote about our accident—the only thing they focused on was the fact we weren’t prepared. Was it stupid to be out on that road unprepared? Absolutely, but did they have to keep saying that Dad might have lived if we’d had enough water, blankets…a first-aid kit? We had extra clothes, sure, but that was it. Not even a box of tissues.”

  “Shit,” he muttered. “That must’ve been…I can’t even imagine what that must’ve been like.”

  They stopped by the run-down old tree house Da had built when they were little, to let JD do his sniffing around.

  “Good.” This time when Hope smiled, it was still sad, but it didn’t have the same ache to it. “I’m glad you can’t, and I hope you never do.”

  Ronan tugged her closer, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and pressed his lips against her forehead.

  “So now you’re prepared for anything, is that it?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Can I ask you something else?” He knew she was going to nod anyway, so he just kept talking. “In all the scenarios you must imagine happening, in all the emergencies or sticky situations you’re anticipating, in which one of those do you picture yourself needing a pair of safety goggles?”

  Hope dropped her forehead to his chest and laughed—finally a real laugh.