Wild at Heart: A Kincaids of Pine Harbour Novel

by Zoe York

  They were at odds. That didn’t mean they didn’t like each other. It meant… He lowered his voice. Like this was top-secret. “Do you?”

  That made her lift her head, and she looked at him straight on. “Like you?”

  “Yes.”

  She thought about it long enough to make him nervous. Maybe they weren’t on the same page after all. “Enough to offer a truce.”

  Ouch. A pity truce, then.

  But if they stopped this bizarre war of feelings, maybe he could show her he was actually that nice guy everyone else seemed pretty fond of. “Then truce accepted. But I thought we’d been getting along better.”

  She shrugged. “On the surface, maybe. There’s a difference, you know.”

  He did. But the way she said it made him frown. “Of course I do.”

  “That.” She snapped her fingers. “That, right there. Whatever thought just went through your head? That’s the part of you that doesn’t like me.”

  There was no part of him that didn’t like her. “I don’t like that you think I don’t know the difference between playing nice on the surface, and actually being at peace with someone. But—”

  “Maybe you know the difference and do it anyway.”

  Because he couldn’t help himself.

  But that made him sound like a fourteen-year-old boy, so he didn’t say it. “Or maybe I didn’t realize how I was acting, or what I was projecting. I promise you, it isn’t that I secretly don’t like you.”

  She shifted again, restless.

  “I like you a lot, actually.” He cleared his throat. “You make me nervous, and that’s not a bad thing. I told you—don’t stop holding my feet to the fire.”

  “You mean it.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged.

  “All right.” She paused as their food arrived. “I make you nervous?”

  “We can add that to the long list.”

  “Because I’m bossy?”

  He laughed. “No. Because you’re direct and bold and brave. All good things.”

  That got him an honest to God beaming smile. “That’s kind of you to say.”

  “Thank you. I’m trying.”

  She laughed. “I have noticed, by the way. That you’re being careful not to be too critical.”

  Now he was grinning back at her. “Good.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you were being nice to me because you think you should be nice to everyone, or…”

  Will didn't know what to make of that thought. Of course, that was why he should be nice to Catie. That was why he should be nice to everyone. “You object to kindness as a civic responsibility?”

  She frowned in thought and dipped a French fry in ketchup. “From people in general? No. From you? Maybe.” She ate the fry and her expression morphed through a few reactions, settling on something thoughtful. “I think that there's a difference between being civil—or a truce, for example—and fake niceties.”

  It was the fake part that bothered her. That made sense. Will leaned in. “I promise that there is nothing fake in my desire to be kinder to you. I will never be fake with you. Maybe—and I know I should not be proud of this—but maybe that's why I was grumpy with you for too long about something stupid. Because I couldn't cover up my initial grumpy feelings with you. And I own that I should have handled that with more maturity. I own that I should have continued communicating with you and then we would have avoided the whole problem. But if there's any silver lining from that period where I was an ass to you, it is that I promise I cannot be fake with you.”

  Shock rippled across her face. “Well. That’s an angle I hadn’t considered. I just… I've seen it too many times. Where people say one thing to your face and another when they turn around. When your back is turned, they’re scurrying off to whisper rumours.”

  He frowned. “Is anyone spreading rumours about you?”

  The thought hurt him to his core that anyone would be making Catie's life difficult. He hated that.

  She made a face “No. Not now. I go out of my way to avoid being fodder for the rumour mill.”

  So it was in her past.

  Will felt like he was getting closer to understanding what drove Catie, what made her so wary of him. But he also sensed that he couldn't push her, that if she wanted to share she would and if she didn't, it wasn't his place to ask. Not yet. Maybe one day. If their friendship grew, then she would confide in him.

  And until then…they had SAR.

  They dug into their food, and the conversation drifted to the competition next. Then they talked a bit about the paid parking drama, and finally, as their plates were cleared, Will remembered that he owed her a proper apology.

  “Listen, you wanted to clear the air, and I appreciate that. But I think I also need to say, directly, that I’m sorry for not handling any of this better before. You told me I owed you an apology—”

  “That was before you rescued me.” She gave him a crooked half smile. They hadn’t talked about that again.

  “One does not replace the other. So…I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” She sighed and rubbed her belly. “That was great. The conversation and the burger. But I should get going.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Neither of them moved. And then they both did, at the same time, so they bumped into each other as they stood up. Will stepped out of the way, letting Catie go ahead of him.

  Outside, he followed her to her car, because it seemed like the right thing to do. She unlocked, then opened her driver’s side door.

  And still, they lingered, staring at each other. If she were any other person, if he hadn’t spent months being an absolute shit to her for no good reason, Will might think this was a prelude to a kiss. A soft, unexpected, gentle kiss full of potential. A spontaneous opportunity to turn a friendship into something more and see where it might lead.

  Except he didn’t even have a friendship with Catie.

  He had a truce. And one did not spontaneously kiss the opponent during a truce, primarily because they were your opponent.

  “Listen, I just wanted to say—” Catie started.

  “We should keep talking,” Will blustered out at the same time. Then he heard her. “Sorry, yeah, you go.”

  “Thanks for letting me talk to you about the misunderstanding. That meant a lot.”

  “Of course. Any time. And thank you for letting me apologize.”

  She smiled. “Any time.”

  Chapter Twelve

  For Sam’s one month anniversary of working for her, Catie asked Isla to bake him a special mini cake. And then she asked him to consider taking on even more responsibility. “In two weeks, I’m going away for five days for a Search and Rescue competition. My plan was to shut the salon down, but Bailey Patel has agreed to work here in the afternoons. So there will be a grown-up in the building, but the store front jobs would be all yours. Do you think you can handle it on your own?”

  His face lit up. “You bet.”

  That was one issue sorted. Another was her response to Will’s email about the business club. That was decidedly not sorted. She looked at it almost every day, and wondered what he meant with the sign-off… Whatever works for you. Yours, Will. Their tenuous new friendship was confusing at the best of times, and then he added in a Yours? It triggered a strange, wibbly-wobbly feeling, and made it hard for her to compose a response.

  But time was ticking away, and she wanted the business club firmed up on her schedule for the fall. Besides, she’d been poking the bear a bit pretending she wasn’t sure if Thursdays would work, when she’d already cleared her schedule for SAR training. The business club would just slide in right before training.

  From: Catie Berton

  To: Will Kincaid

  * * *

  Will,

  After careful consideration, I have decided Thursdays are ideal. Can we meet to discuss the details?

  Catie

  She sent the email in the morning, then went out to show Bailey a f
ew more investment properties, because she was starting to think the motel was dead in the water. For whatever reason, the legal office that paid the property tax each year was not interested in communicating with a real estate agent about the property.

  When she got back to the salon in time for her afternoon clients, there was a response waiting.

  From: Will Kincaid

  To: Catie Berton

  * * *

  I’m always available for our new community advisor. Dinner tonight after training?

  She was pretty sure I’m always available for our new community advisor was an exaggeration. That wasn’t something Will would usually say. Although maybe she didn’t know what he would usually say to someone he wasn’t holding a weird grudge against. The last thing she should do was read too much into basic human kindness. And she needed to remember that for months, he hadn’t trusted her enough to have a proper, straight up conversation.

  She really had missed an opportunity in the spring to develop a crush on literally anyone else. Dilip had been right there. There were other people around town, too. Campbell Mills, although he seemed cockier than Will and Josh combined.

  No thank you.

  She sighed. The problem was that Dilip and Campbell weren’t her type.

  Will was her type.

  She pushed away that annoying thought and fired back a to-the-point response.

  From: Catie Berton

  To: Will Kincaid

  * * *

  Sounds like a plan.

  That night, Sean Foster came to talk to the group about nutrition around the competition. The former elite athlete now used a cane, following a debilitating injury while overseas with the military, but he had transitioned into a career as a sought-after coach.

  “The Pine Harbour Search and Rescue team is probably his lowest paying client,” Tom said during his introduction. “So I hope you guys give him your full attention, because this man’s knowledge is out of this world.”

  Sean gave Tom a lopsided smile. “What he doesn’t say is that my brothers—and Tom here—used this training facility to pull me out of a deep depression following the injuries that changed my life forever. I owe a lot to your fearless leader. But we aren’t here for a mutual appreciation society tonight. Let’s talk about what you guys have in common with elite athletes, and it might be more than you think.”

  He gave them a brief rundown of mishaps that had happened to him when he’d gone off plan with food as a younger athlete. “What I learned was that while what I ate did matter, what mattered even more was that I ate the same thing for a competition as I did in the workup to that. Which usually means bringing food with me. Even now, when I travel as a coach, I bring food with me a lot of the time instead of relying on restaurants to cover off everything."

  Catie wondered if she should mention that her most consistent sources of nutrition, also known as fuel for her athletic body, were Frank’s burgers and Isla’s pies.

  Probably not.

  She did find the conversation interesting, though. Consistency as a training principle just made sense. And it would be awful to work this hard on the competition, only to get knocked out by a weird gastro response to the wrong thing.

  After Sean’s presentation, Tom walked them through what to expect on competition day. There would be three different locations all within walking distance of each other, and each would host two or three events, meaning there would be seven events happening at the same time.

  Catie couldn’t picture the schedule in her head, but she didn’t need to. That was Tom’s job as team leader. She just needed to show up where she was told, and do the job asked of her.

  When they were dismissed, she found a text message on her phone.

  Will: Meet at Mac’s?

  She glanced across the room to where he was talking to Sean, his phone casually held in one hand.

  Catie: Sure… Are we being super stealthy about it for a reason?

  He glanced at the screen, then covered his mouth, suppressing a laugh.

  Will: No. Did it read that way? I was just confirming. We can drive over together if you want.

  Catie: I’m already deeply invested in sneaking around. Business Club discussions are top-secret. There will be a password.

  As she kept typing, she tracked him excusing himself from the conversation and crossing the room to where she was still staring at her phone. She hit send as he stopped in front of her.

  Catie: The password is maraschino cherry.

  He laughed out loud.

  She glanced up. “Ready to go?”

  “Yep.”

  She waited.

  He sighed, then muttered under his breath, “Maraschino cherry.”

  Now she was the one laughing as they headed to the parking lot.

  But once they got to the diner, Will set the tone—all businesslike and thorough, giving her a complete history of the Business Club over the last two years, and what he knew of it from when the high school was its own entity.

  Catie tactfully decided not to bring up the window-washing debacle, and focused on objectives Principal Kincaid wanted his new community advisor to design a program to meet. “Is the goal here to engage kids who might one day go into the business world? Or to demonstrate every day math and social studies in action? Or reinforce curriculum?”

  “Yes, yes, and ideally, yes.”

  “Tall order.”

  “You’re up to it.” He held her gaze for a moment. “And you’ll have support. Mine, of course, although that’s…well, it’s not my forte. But January Howe is also happy to help.”

  Catie felt her eyebrows shoot up. “Was that a little slice of Will Kincaid humility?”

  “Two weeks in a row,” he muttered. “We could make this a regular thing, eating humble pie with you is better than therapy.”

  She laughed as the waitress approached. “Anything else for you two?”

  “Just the bill, please.” Will stopped Catie’s protest that they should have two bills. “We talked about nothing but work. This is on me.”

  “In that case… Speaking of pie,” she said sweetly, holding up her finger to keep the waitress next to them. “I’ll take a slice of the cherry pie to go.”

  Will nodded. “One for me, too.”

  When they were alone again, he stretched his arms wide across the back of the booth. “Is yours a midnight snack, or a very good breakfast for tomorrow?”

  “Breakfast.” She jerked her chin up at him. “You?”

  “Midnight snack.”

  “Interesting.”

  “We’re not that different, you and me.”

  She rolled that observation over in her mind. Did she think they were different? Or annoyingly too similar? “Maybe not.”

  “In fact…” He paused as his phone vibrated on the table between them. He glanced at the screen. “It’s Tom. He wants to know people’s preferences for carpooling for the competition.”

  Catie pulled out her phone, too. “Same message.”

  “Are you going to drive with Lore?”

  She shrugged. “I could. We haven’t talked about it.”

  “I was going to volunteer to drive, because my truck has room for gear. The passenger seat is yours if you want it.” He looked at her expectantly.

  “Do you want to be stuck in your truck with me for eight hours?” She laughed.

  “Well we get a break on the ferry.” He groaned. “No, that sounds wrong. Yes, I want to be stuck with you… You know what I mean. We’ve been working well together. We can spend the drive prepping for the events we’re in together. Or talk more about the business club. Whatever you want. We make a good team.”

  She wanted to not be flustered by the offer. “We. You and me. Tenuous truce people.”

  He shrugged. “We’re teammates. Personal history aside, there’s no I in team.”

  “There is no Catie and Will in we,” she retorted a little too quickly.

  Because he frowned at her clumsy respons
e. “That doesn’t make any sense. You can say, there is no I in we, although that’s basically what I just said. But Catie and Will is—” He paused, thinking.

  “Oh my God, you’re counting the letters, aren’t you?”

  “There are twelve letters that you are saying can’t be crammed into two letters. I mean, obviously—“

  “I can’t believe you counted.” She sighed, and laughed, and tossed her napkin at him. “Yes. I’ll ride up to Timmins with you.”

  “I’m in charge of the music, though.”

  She snorted. “I wouldn’t have even suggested otherwise.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Will pulled into her driveway at six thirty in the morning. Catie had been watching through the window, and was out the door with her backpack and cooler of carefully packed snacks before he even turned off his truck.

  He gave her a big grin as he opened the passenger door for her, indicating where she could tuck her bags behind the seat. “Ready?”

  She practically bounced in response.

  They convened with the rest of the team at Mac’s Diner, where Frank had coffee to fill their travel mugs and breakfast sandwiches made to order.

  “Don’t eat the food on the ferry,” he warned Catie as she gave him a tight hug in the kitchen. “And don’t let that Kincaid boy get under your skin.”

  She didn’t bother to correct her mentor over Will’s age. Maybe they were all still kids in one way or another. “We’re getting on better than before.”

  “Good.” He jerked his head to the door. “Go on. Make Pine Harbour proud up north.”

  In Tobermory, they queued up in the line of cars, waiting to board the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry to Manitoulin Island. The ferry’s nose was up, revealing the vehicle deck they would drive onto, and the horn blared regularly, the loud sound matching the heavy thump of Catie’s pulse.