Page 50 of Meet Me at the Grand

“Was planning to come by in the morning to fix that one.” Chuckling, Cody cocked his head. “Do you need to go work right now?”

“Nope. I’m free as a bird, considering Dani fired me yesterday.”

“Ouch.” Cody winced. “Well, wanna help me with something then?”

“Sure.” Better than holing up in his room with nothing to do but think about why he wasn’t on the ferry. He walked to the boat landing and climbed on board, suitcase in hand. From here, he could see that the back end was damaged. Not that he knew much about boats, but the splintering looked fairly extensive.

Cody stood at the top of a descending staircase. He had a dirty rag tucked into his back pocket and waved Liam after him. “This way.”

Liam left the suitcase on deck and followed him down the dark space, ducking so his head didn’t hit the top of the stairwell. “This boat yours?”

“Nah, a client’s.” Cody led him through a small kitchen galley, which was covered with a fine layer of dust, and a dark dining area with two large tables and a wall mounted with a TV suffering from a cracked screen. “He’s off island at the moment and bought this at a steal off Sam Caruthers, a guy who moved to Arizona last year.”

Pushing open a door on the opposite end, Cody ducked into what looked like a storage pantry of sorts. Half-empty Costco-sized boxes of various food items—round crackers, beef jerky sticks, nuts, and more—filled the shelves. A few individual packages of cheesy chips lay on the ground near Cody’s feet. “Anyway, the new owner hired me to get it season ready for him.”

“How can I help? I know absolutely nothing about fishing or fishing equipment, but I’ll do what I can.”

Cody lifted a hand and knocked against a big plastic container of pretzels. “Don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to help swab the poop deck or anything like that.”

“Ah, good. I would have worn my ratty shoes if so.” As it was, his white sneakers probably weren’t the best thing to wear on a dusty old ship, but it was better than his work loafers.

At that, Cody laughed. “At least you’re not wearing a suit.”

“It was supposed to be a travel day with no client meetings. I do own other clothes, you know.”

“I didn’t, actually.” Cody laughed. “Anyway, what Icoulduse some help with is clearing out this storage. All of this food has been here a while. Might even be salvageable if the due dates haven’t passed. We can donate that stuff to the church. Or we can junk it all. Whatever you think.” Cody leaned against the doorway. “You sure you don’t mind?”

“Put me to work.” It would be good for him to focus on something other than his failed hotel plans.

With a nod, Cody left for a moment, returning with a box cutter that he handed to Liam. “So you can break down any of the boxes.” He started to turn toward the door again.

Liam pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “And what are you going to do?”

A grin curled the edges of Cody’s mouth. “I’m gonna go swab the poop deck, of course.”

“Ha ha. What are youreallydoing?”

“Working on the engine.”

“Oh, sure. Leave me with the pantry cleaning while you get to do the cool, manly stuff.”

“Sorry, man. You wanna join me?”

“I’m just joking.” Liam held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’d be looking over your shoulder completely confused and asking dumb questions. Plus, I could use the manual labor. Leave me to it, Captain.” He saluted Cody, but instead of a laugh, he got a frown in return.

What had he said? Seemed like he was doing a lot of unintentional hurting lately.

Like Dani.

Sweet, beautiful Dani, whose sad, disappointed eyes had gut-punched him yesterday. He hated that he’d hurt her.

And maybe thatwas why he hadn’t been able to leave. Because deep down, this island was starting to mean something to him.

Shewas starting to mean something.

Liam hauled a stool over, climbed up, and snagged a box of ramen packets from the top shelf. Checked the expiration dates. Started organizing boxes in the galley into piles of things to keep, things to toss. He sneezed when he pulled down a particularly large box and a pile of dust fell from above, going everywhere.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. Travis.

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