Page 5 of Tender Heart
“Aye, righto. Keep your hair on. She can have the house. I’ll bunk in the slums. You have my word, oh pristine overlord.”
Her green eyes narrow, hands planting firmly on her hips. No wonder no man has braved that particular storm.
“You can come and check for yourself, warden, if you like.” I drain the coffee cup as the tea towel flies in my direction again. Grunting, I catch it in one hand. “See ye, Irry.” I toss the tea towel onto the counter and head for the exit. Folks dip their gazes as I wander past. Errol, the oldest Coast Guardsman ever known to man, throws me a fowl look, pulling down his standard-issue cap.
I shake my head at him, resisting the urge to slap that cap right off his head in my little sister’s café. “Hold a grudge long, Errol?”
Just fucking rude.
In our everybody-knows-everybody town, you can’t walk fifty feet without having to stop and chat. Not that it ever happens to me.
Not real big on small talk—or talk in general—with anyone other than my sister and my best friend, Emmett. Seems like he’s been in my life for eons, at least that’s how far back high school feels. Damn, I’m getting old.
Errol sneaks a look out from under his cap. “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, McCreary.”
“She’ll be here in thirty, Cal. Don’t you dare leave without her! You gonna make it for Wednesday dinner this week?” Iris calls out as I move toward the front door of the café.
I wave a hand over my shoulder in response. Wednesday—my birthday. Great, another year closer to fifty. Well, forty-three, but who’s fuckin’ counting?
Doubt I’ll be back.
She mutters something like “stubborn ass” as I push through the café door and into the sunshine. The marina is quiet in our sleepy little town. The gulls are already circling the morning’s fish market scraps down by the dock. The crisp winter air, salty on the senses as it always is, breathes life back into my body as I make for the marina. Guess I have to wait for a passenger now.
Christ, how hard is it to be left the hell alone?
I find Emmett striding down the gangway, doing his morning harbormaster rounds. Lucky bastard had the job passed down from his old man, after he graduated from the Corps, and was happy settling with the hand he’d been dealt. He waves when he sees me coming. I take in the boats bobbing in their slips as I make for mine.
“Cal, morning. How’s Iris?” Em pays me a fleeting glance as he leans over, checking the rigging on a schooner.
“Same as last fortnight, Em. Bossy.”
He chuckles. “Someone has to keep you on the straight and narrow.”
“Yeah, I’m a whole lot of trouble, holed up on a rock in the middle of the goddamn sea, minding my own business.”
“Your supplies turned up. Loaded them onto her for you. You all set?”
“Nope, gotta wait till the midday bus. Got a lodger.”
His eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “Someone ispaying youto live in that old hut? Man, it doesn’t even have electricity.”
“House, not hut.” I groan at the thought of some stranger in my space. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Possibly losing Fire Island’s only lighthouse is desperate times.
Not a big fan of change. I like my solitude on that tiny island. If taking a lodger on means I can keep that peace a little longer, I will.
Like Em’s father did for him, mine handed down his legacy—the lighthouse. Among some of the more stubborn features, our parents also handed the accent down to us. Although it’s waned since they’ve been gone. Now, the inflections, a handful of Scots words, and a few Gaelic phrases my father would use from time to time are all that remain from our parents’ homeland for Iris and me.
“Hell, that’ll be rough midwinter, bud.”
I huff a chuckle. “Survived worse, Em.”
His face falls. “Yeah, you sure have.”
The pang of the ghost of past heartbreaks haunts me for a beat. Clearing my throat, I compose myself and slap his shoulder as I walk past, heading for my boat. It’s not Em’s fault. It isn’t anyone else’s. Even all these years later, it still rips me up. I have managed to ignore it over the years. And time really does mend hearts. But the stitches old Father Time used to put my haphazardly beating organ back together show from time to time.
Footsteps from behind tell me Em is following. Probably to make sure the supplies are secure. And check I’m not going to sail off into the unknown, never to return. He’s like my brother. We’ve always been close. Through girls, sports, college, even my stint in the Navy, he would always be one of the first to meet me at the docks. His father’s death. My parents’ accident...
My morbid thoughts are interrupted when he catches up.
