Page 133 of If All Else Sails
I drop my thumb to tug at the corner of his mouth, which lifts and then drops into a playful frown.
“I’m happy to be shaken up. And to sometimes smile. For you.”
This all feels so right. And maybe this is what love is. Not trying to be everything for someone or to complete them, like a person could somehow be incomplete without another person. But perhaps love is being the exact right size of drill bit to tighten the other person’s very specific loose screws.
Okay, this analogy may not fully work since I don’t use tools and it sounds unnecessarily dirty. What I mean is that maybe love is giving the other person the something they may not have on their own.
It doesn’t sound scary to me. It sounds wonderfully terrifying. Like the floor is opening beneath me, but it’s not the real floor; it’s a ride. And I’m dropping, but with a safety harness that allows me to enjoy the fall.
“I love you, too, Wyatt Jacobs.”
His smile is a thing of beauty. There’s more kissing, and I think we might have gone on until we were waist-deep in high tide if an alarm didn’t go off on Wyatt’s phone. He pulls it out despite my grumble of protest and glances at the screen.
“The doggy day care is closing soon. Time to get the rest ofour family,” Wyatt says, and it makes me unreasonably happy to think about him and about Jib asfamily.
But these thoughts screech to a halt when we stop to pick up Jib and an employee who looks no older than seventeen mentions that our dog is pregnant.
“Oh, she’s not...” I start to say, then trail off, remembering a certain incident our very first night on the boat.
“The bulldog,” Wyatt and I say, looking at each other wide-eyed.
Is it even possible? Would they be able to tell so fast? How long is a dog’s gestation period? Could Jib already have been pregnant when I found her? And if she wasn’t spayed like the vet thought, what was the scarring on her belly from?
A million new questions flood my mind, and I find myself laughing as we walk out, carrying Jib. Who, apparently, isnotfixed.
Wyatt takes Jib from me, and she stretches up in his arms to lick his chin. I want to take a picture, but I just commit the image to memory instead.
“The look on your face is scaring me,” Wyatt says with a frown. “What are you thinking about?”
I give him my very best smile, and though he’s still frowning, I don’t miss the tiny twitch of his lips.
“I’m just wondering if they make maternity clothes for dogs.”
EPILOGUE
Can’t Quit the Murder Cottage
Wyatt
Two years later
There is what looks like an entire welcoming party waiting for us on the dock as Josie steers us into the cove, grinning.
I don’t like it. The welcoming party. Not Josie’s smile.
I always love her smile.
Josie waves so hard her hand goes blurry and she gets a little too close to the shoals.
“Watch it,” I grumble, trying to nudge her away from the wheel. She refuses to move, though, so I sigh and stand behind her, bending a little to rest my chin on top of her head. My hands come around hers on the wheel. “Was this really necessary?”
“It’s our homecoming,” she insists. “Don’t be such a party pooper.”
“Did you plan this?” I ask.
“Nope. I’m just going along with it. My money is onthe mothers.”
“Who even are all those people?” I squint as Josie cuts the engine and steers us toward the dock like she’s done it a hundred times before. In truth, it’s only been half a dozen. “Is that my brother?”
