Page 25 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
“No relation. Just a lawyer mix-up.” Rone grabbed Isobel’s hand and left without another word to the Sheriff.
He dragged her out into the Florida sun that had climbed high, flattening everything into glare and heat. Isobel walked beside him, her stride clipped and deliberate. He could feel her questions pressing against the silence between them like the tide pushing against pilings.
She halted and yanked her hand free. “What was that about? I’m not his relative?”
He scanned the area. “Not here.”
Echo nudged her with his nose as if to tell her to heed Rone’s warning.
She didn’t speak until they reachedMom’s Breakfast Trailer, an old silver Airstream surrounded by picnic tables and seashell sand mix. “Best cinnamon rolls? I’m in.”
She teased as if lightening the room.
“Breakfast sandwiches are just as good. Everything’s exceptional here.”
“Okay, enough small talk. You didn’t tell him everything.”
“I told him enough.”
“Enough for what?” she asked. “To keep me safe, or to keep your secrets?”
He didn’t answer. Because both were true.
They ordered Mom’s famous cinnamon roll, a breakfast sandwich, and two coffees, then found a table under the faded umbrella with its cheerful pattern of palm trees and sun-bleached parrots. Echo curled under Rone’s feet, a warm, silent shadow. The smell of frying butter clung to the air.
Echo gave him that side-ear, tell-her-the-truth glower.
He wasn’t wrong. Isobel crossed a line that couldn’t be redrawn. If Sheriff Fletcher was in the pocket of who he suspected were connected with the mafia, then he’d share Isobel’s connection to Shade.
“You asked me for the truth. Fine. Here it is. I don’t know that I can protect you now.” He rubbed his throbbing temples. How did he get himself in this situation… again?
“I never asked you to. If you want out of helping me, then walk away, but I’m not giving up the boat, or the chance to figure out why my father really abandoned me.”
Echo let out a whine and set his head on Isobel’s lap.
“Even if it costs you your own life?”
“Yes,” Isobel answered with no hesitation. Her eyes wide with promise. “Imagine a man who was the perfect father—attentive, loving, present—that disappeared in the night without a word. No one would tell you why. You spend your life searching, hoping, willing him to turn up, but he never does. Then, one day, after your life had completely crumbled around you, a lawyer waltzes in, drops a paper, and tells you that your father is dead and left you a trawler.” Her voice cracked.
He didn’t like it, and he wanted to reach across the table and take her hand, pull her into him to comfort her, but the other part of him wanted to shove her away so hard she couldn’t return to this place, the boat… to him.
“A trawler with a name that rubbed the brackish, salty Estero Bay water into a festering wound.” Isobel looked down at Echo, petting him with her complete attention, but Rone caught her trembling lip.
Waves lapped at the shore with extra force on the beach behind her. People mulled about near the trailer. Rone took adeep breath and knew he couldn’t keep hiding things from a woman determined to find the truth. Maybe if he gave her something, enough to satisfy her curiosity, she’d move on.
“Shade wasn’t a bad man. He helped me,” Rone said, staring at the steam rising off his cup. “Back when I didn’t think I could be helped. After my partner was killed, he was the one who made sure I didn’t eat my gun.”
Isobel’s hands stilled around her mug. “Were you military?”
“Once. Then police academy. Ultimately, I landed as a police detective. Always in other people’s messes. Always trying to fix things that couldn’t be fixed.”
“You cared about him.”
Rone nodded once. The memory came back uninvited—Shade’s laugh, dry as desert wind; his habit of sayingtruth’s a weapon, use it wisely.
“He wasn’t perfect,” Rone said. “But he had a code. The kind you bleed for.”
Isobel leaned forward, eyes bright with that mix of curiosity and ache that made him want to look away. “Then why won’t you tell me what really happened to him? Or what he left behind?”
