by Liz Johnson
She’d heard him on the phone trying to sell something. She’d heard him making arrangements, looking for a better deal.
Had he been so certain he was going to win her dad’s favor that he was already . . .
The truth slammed into her heart, stopping it for one endless beat. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. All she could feel was the searing agony of her own foolishness.
Oliver hadn’t only been trying to win her dad’s favor. He’d been trying to win hers too. This whole time. Either way, he thought he’d end up with the business. Either her dad would give it to him or she would.
But he’d never intended to keep it. He’d thought he would get her legacy at a cheap price and then sell it at a profit.
No. No. No. It couldn’t be. He would have to be the world’s greatest actor to pull that off. Everything he’d said. Everything he’d done . . .
She needed answers, and there was only one person who could provide them.
Oliver was pretty sure Meg’s car was the one kicking up a trail of dust as it spun out of her dad’s driveway and fishtailed onto the road. He wanted to follow her, to see what had her all riled up—and also to avoid the conversation he needed to have with Whitaker. But it wouldn’t wait any longer. His gut had felt a lot better after he’d decided what he was going to do. But there was an aching nerve that spit fire every time he played the conversation out in his mind. It was well past time to shut it down.
He rapped twice on the window of the Whitakers’ side door and then shoved his hands into his pockets. His phone buzzed, but he ignored it. Probably Violet calling again to ask why he hadn’t talked to his mom about Eli. But he could only handle one crisis at a time, and he was going after the big one first.
Whitaker answered within seconds. “Oliver. Didn’t expect you tonight. Come on in.”
The kitchen smelled like meat loaf, and Mrs. Whitaker sat at the snug dining room table, hands in her lap, a plate in front of her and a takeout container beside her.
“We were just sitting down to supper. Care to join us?”
Oliver swallowed, and it felt loud enough to ring through the whole house. “No, sir. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to have a word with you. Alone.”
Whitaker’s gaze darted to his wife. “Sandy? Are you okay?”
She nodded and took a sip from the straw in her plastic cup.
“I’ll be right back.” Whitaker led the way down a short hall to the office where he’d run his business for years. The single desk held an enormous monitor, as deep as it was wide. On the floor beside it, a computer tower whirred away. When everyone else had upgraded and downsized, Whitaker had kept what still worked. No need to upgrade when the old motherboard still worked fine.
The last time Oliver had been in the room, the desktop had been piled with paper and receipts and check stubs. Now it was mostly clean, save for a few receipts from the nearest grocery store.
Of course, the last time he’d been in the room, Whitaker had offered to sell him the business.
Whitaker pointed to the empty folding chair. Hard and cold, it wouldn’t be comfortable for long. At least Oliver wouldn’t be staying.
Whitaker lowered himself into the ergonomic desk chair, propping his elbows on the armrests and folding his hands in front of him. Leaning forward, he said, “What can I do for you?”
“Sir.” Oliver took a deep breath when the rest of the words didn’t come. He’d practiced them, but they were suddenly elusive. “I . . . um . . . I can’t buy your business.”
Whitaker’s mouth dipped in an offended frown. “You don’t want it?”
“Oh, no. It’s not that I don’t want it. I want it very much.”
Whitaker’s weathered features wrinkled more than usual, his gaze narrowing. With a slow nod, he said, “Yeah, the market’s been a tough one this season. You having a hard time coming up with the down payment?”
“You’ve been watching it?” Oliver couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
“’Course I have. Forty years fishing, watching those numbers every day, first with my dad, then by myself. It’s a hard habit to break. I wondered why you kids didn’t tell me about it though.”
“We didn’t want to add any worries.” Oliver dropped his gaze to his own folded hands before him. “Seems like you’ve got plenty of other things to think about.”
Whitaker nodded again. “I suppose. So, this is about the money?”
“Um . . . not exactly. I mean, it would be close, but I have what we talked about.”
With a grunt, Whitaker leaned even further forward. “Is this about the outside buyer you didn’t tell me about?”
His gut clenched, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from asking how Whitaker had found out about it. “I didn’t tell you about him because I hoped you’d choose me. I was afraid that a cash offer might look pretty appealing, and I knew I couldn’t compete with it. But I was coming here today to tell you the truth.”
“His email sure made it sound like you told him I would be selling soon.”
Oliver’s head snapped up. “No, sir. I didn’t say anything like that. I told him he’d have to talk with you. I just . . .” His voice trailed off as he fought the weight on his chest.
Whitaker was the closest thing he’d ever had to a real father, and he’d rather kick himself in the pants than ruin that relationship. But all those things Meg had thought about him at the beginning of the season, all the things Druthers had accused him of . . . well, maybe they had been right. He’d hidden what he should have confessed. He’d taken the easy road instead of the honest one.
“I should have told you right away. But I was afraid he’d make you an offer better than I ever could.”
Whitaker leaned back in his chair, his hands folded over his stomach and his jaw shifting back and forth. “What has ever made you think I cared about the money? You think Meg has more than a couple of loonies to rub together if I give it to her?”
“But this is her legacy, her heritage. I can’t take that from her. Not with everything else she’s losing.”
“So.” Whitaker’s voice did a little jig. “This is about more than the Pinch, eh?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” That wasn’t entirely truthful, but it wasn’t going to hurt anyone either.
“This is about Meg.”
Of course it was about Meg. Everything from the moment she’d said she wanted Whitaker Fishing until now had been about her. It wasn’t about teaching her the ropes or getting her to like him so she’d consent to selling to him. Not anymore. Not for a while.
Whitaker’s smile twitched, and Oliver leaned forward. He felt like he was missing something, but he wasn’t going to talk about Meg. Not until he’d talked with her.
“Well, I guess that’s all I have to say. I’ll finish out the season, and then I’ll be moving on.”
The smile that had barely been there fell away, and Whitaker scowled. “Where are you going to go?”
Someplace where no one had ever heard of Dean Ross. Someplace where his heart wouldn’t be pummeled every time he saw Meg around town. Someplace where he could forget just how much he loved her. “I’m not sure yet.”
“And you’d just give up on the chance to own my business.”
“You’re the first person to ever believe in me, to trust me, to take a chance on me.” Oliver looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m grateful. But I don’t have another choice.”
“But you still work for me?”
“Of course I do.”
Whitaker leaned forward again. “Good. I want you to take the Pinch out tonight. Go over to that favorite spot of yours. Feel the wind on your face. Remind yourself why you love this job.”
It wasn’t going to change his mind. He didn’t need to be reminded why he loved fishing. He’d never forgotten. But he nodded anyway.
Meg rubbed her eyes, praying the twilight and exhaustion weren’t playing tricks on her. But there was no mistaking Oliver’s for
m standing at the helm, the hum of the Pinch’s motor filling the marina.
She’d run all over town looking for him—at his place, at his mom’s studio, and even at Carrie’s. But of course he was aboard the boat. She bypassed the ladder and jumped right onto the deck with a thud. Immediately she realized she’d taken off her patch from that morning and hadn’t yet put on a replacement.
Her stomach dropped and then did a full barrel roll, and she staggered toward the wall, leaning on the cement with one hand.
“Meg? Did you hurt yourself?” Oliver ran to her, reaching out both hands, but she couldn’t stand for him to touch her.
“What are you . . .” She swallowed against the bile in the back of her throat. “What are you doing?”
“Taking the boat out. Your dad asked me to.”
“He asked you to sell his business too?” Her head started spinning in time with her rolling stomach, and she didn’t know if she needed to sit down or get to dry land immediately.
“No, Meg. That’s not—”
She waved her finger in his direction. She didn’t have the strength to listen to him try to explain away his sins. “Just like Violet told you to be nice to me.”
His face went white, his eyes unblinking. He’d been caught, and he knew it. Guilt was written across every feature and printed in his gaze. “It wasn’t like that.”
“You thought you’d get me to just give you the business. You thought you’d make it so hard I wouldn’t want it. You thought you’d make me look incompetent and ridiculous.”
A sudden realization made her face flush. It couldn’t be true.
But the pieces lined up like railroad tracks, every one fitting into place. The damages to the business had been relatively small and inexpensive to repair. They hadn’t stopped the catch or made a significant financial impact. And they’d been done by someone who knew when she and Oliver weren’t watching the Pinch.
It had all been to scare her off or make her look a fool without hurting the business. And he’d succeeded.
Staring him down, she said, “You sabotaged us.” A knife sliced through her middle, and she bent over.
Suddenly his hand was on her back. “Let me take you somewhere.”
“No.” She whipped back up, cracking his nose with her skull and setting off another bout of vertigo. Fire shot up the back of her head as she lumbered forward. “Just tell me the truth—you’ve been pretending this whole time. Everything with my mom was just so I’d think you were a good guy, so I’d think you deserved it. So my dad would think you deserved it.”
“No.” His eyes flashed brighter than the setting sun as he pressed a hand to his nose. “It wasn’t like that.”
“That’s not what Violet said.” She spit out the words. “She told me all about how she coached you. How she encouraged you to be my friend. Why?”
He scrubbed a hand down his face, his lips tight, pained. “All right, maybe it started like that, with me trying to be your friend. But we had to work together. I thought it would make things easier. I thought, yeah, okay, there was no way your dad would sell to me if you still hated me. But I swear, I never sabotaged anything.”
“You manipulated me,” she said between clenched teeth. “You purposefully pretended to be my—” Her voice caught and she couldn’t go on. She didn’t know how she wanted to finish. Her friend? Her confidant? Her love?
Oh, she’d been so stupid to open her heart.
“I swear, I didn’t know I could feel this away about anyone—let alone you.” His voice was so deep, thoroughly sincere, just like when he’d apologized that first time. “But I wasn’t lying when I kissed you. I wasn’t pretending to care. Meg, I love you.”
If that first apology had been a lie, then this could be one too.
Except part of her heart begged for it to be true. The very deepest parts of her soul had longed to hear him say those words.
Now they rang hollow, bitter, and stale.
“Not nearly as much as you love this boat.”
“How can you say that?”
A wave hit the boat, and her knees nearly buckled. She clawed at the wall of the wharf next to the ladder to keep herself standing. Her stomach ached, but her chest burned, her heart beaten and bloodied. “It’s not like you have a glowing list of recommendations.”
He jerked back, and she knew he’d heard exactly what she hadn’t said, Druthers’s words echoing between them.
“Just tell me one thing.” She took another stabilizing breath. “Was it all for show? All to win the business?”
His face turned to stone, and he crossed his arms. “If you have to ask that, then maybe we both know the answer.”
Well, give him the starring role in the next production at the Victoria Playhouse. Because he’d fooled her. And ripped her heart out along the way.
twenty-three
Meg didn’t get out of bed the next morning or the next. She didn’t go to the wharf, didn’t catch buoys, and didn’t haul in traps. She didn’t pick up coffee for the guys or laugh as Kyle downed his like a shot. She didn’t see Oliver’s dimples or the light in his eyes. Not that she was thinking about him.
She turned off the sound on her phone, ignored its buzzing, and wrapped herself in her quilted cocoon, praying something would sew all the broken pieces of her heart back together.
Nothing did.
“Meg, you home?” Her dad’s voice cut through the silence of her apartment, his steps into her living room loud as though announcing himself. “Honey? I’m worried about you. Kyle called. He said you didn’t go out this morning.” His voice drew closer.
Meg buried deeper. “Not today, Dad,” she mumbled into her pillow. The case was covered in damp spots, wicked reminders of the crying jags that had robbed her of sleep.
“Sorry, honey. Today is all we’ve got. Debi Ross is staying with your mom, and I’m here to check on you.”
She burrowed out from under her down comforter, peeking over the edge. Her dad stood next to her white dresser, running a finger over one of the necklaces on the metal tree stand. “Guess you don’t have much call to wear these in my line of work.”
Her eyes burned and she rubbed them, but they only felt like sandpaper. So she closed them and dropped her head. “Did you come here to talk about my jewelry?”
“No.” He plopped onto the edge of her queen-size bed, tugging on the corner of her blanket until her whole face was free. “I came here because I’m worried about you. Because I care about you. Because I know you’re hurting, and I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Tears rushed to her eyes, and she fisted them away. “What makes you think that? I’m fine.”
He let out a pop of laughter, running a big hand across her cheek and catching a few teardrops along the way. “Nice try. This”—he held up a damp thumb—“doesn’t look like fine to me. Want to tell me about it?”
“No.” Even that was hard to get out without her lower lip trembling.
“That’s all right. Can I sit with you?”
She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to tell him to go home to be with her mom. But mostly she wanted him to sit right where he was and hold her close. She nodded and then sat up, scooting to his side and letting him wrap his arm around her shoulders. They sat in silence for several long minutes.
“That must have been some fight,” he said.
She nodded again.
“You must have really cared about him.”
Another nod.
“What did you fight about?”
She couldn’t respond, her lower lip quivering at just the thought.
“From what Kyle said, I get the feeling that Oliver’s about as friendly as a mama moose.”
She stiffened at the use of his name, pulling her blankets tighter around her, holding them closed beneath her chin, and curling deeper into her dad’s side. She didn’t care how Oliver was. She didn’t.
Except that she did. Everything inside of her ached at what she’d said to him. A
t how she’d treated him.
She didn’t know the truth, and she hadn’t listened to a thing he said. She’d lashed out with all of her anger targeted at him.
Oh, how the tables had turned.
Maybe he hadn’t been an innocent bystander like she had been all those years ago, but he’d certainly taken the brunt of her unleashed anger. And he probably didn’t deserve half of it.
“I think Oliver’s been sabotaging the business,” she whispered through cracked lips.
“Oh, really? What makes you say that?”
She swallowed thickly and sniffed back a sob. “We ran into some trouble. A cut line. Someone tampered with the hauler.”
“And what makes you think Oliver is responsible?”
She stared at her legs dangling over the side of the bed, trying to remember how it had all seemed so plausible. Hating the memory at the same time. “It was all blatant, but it was fixable. It didn’t really set us back too much financially. It was more of a nuisance—like he was trying to make things harder. Like he wanted me to fail or to get discouraged.”
“And did you—fail, I mean?”
“No. I mean, we’re going to break even and then a little. And we got the lobsters in.”
“And were you discouraged?”
She closed her eyes, feeling once again the disappointment, but also the moment when she’d been able to fix the hauler. And all those nights on the boat. All those nights they’d shared together. “Not for very long.”
“Why’d it take you so long to tell me about the sabotage?”
She looked up, her dad’s sweet face blurring before her eyes. “I didn’t want to add anything more to your plate. I just wanted you to be able to focus on Mom.”
He sighed, patting the leg of her fuzzy pajama pants and then picking up her hand in both of his. “You know, Oliver said something similar to me the other day.”
She nearly choked at just hearing his name again. “Yeah, well . . .” She’d told him that. She’d told him they had to protect her dad. She hadn’t expected him to tell on her.
