Page 10 of Acadia Falls

“Yeah, see ya.” I followed Tommy as he shuffled down the steps. He climbed into the truck, not saying a word.

“Don’t be sour.” I winked at him. “Maybe one of these days, M.B. will ask you to smoke weed out on a deck. That shit’s romantic.”

“Shut it, Jack.” He finished his beer and threw the can on the truck’s floor.

After a full minute of silence, he scrubbed a hand across his face. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What’re we going to do if Trey messes with our lines again? You can’t actually kill him. We need to call somebody.”

I sighed. “The one person we could call is crooked, and you know it.”

Tommy frowned as the truck bumped over the gravel. “Doesn’t Kyle have a boss?” Kyle Brennan, our cousin, was the Fish and Wildlife officer for the Acadia territory. He was as dirty as a cat’s ill-used litter box. He’d decided long ago that his salary wasn’t nearly enough, so he accepted bribes from all the local fishermen.

Except for us. Because I was never going to pay the motherfucker.

“I’m not trying to put you in a bad mood.” Tommy’s voice was gentle. “I just think we need a plan.”

“I have a plan,” I snapped. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?”

“Okay.” Tommy’s tone indicated that I was the boss. And also, that I was an asshole.

“Sorry, Tommy. It’s just that I feel like everybody’s after us since this manganese thing.” I sighed. We’d discovered a precious mineral called manganese on our route. Technology companies used it for cell phones and other electronics. We had a lot of tech companies suddenly interested in our fishing rights.

Trey and Cuddy, two local fishermen, had been giving us a hard time since we’d discovered the mineral on our route. They’d been messing with our lines and traps, trying to cut them. They were trying to steal from us, and I was ready to kick some ass.

“And I keep thinking about Dad.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what he’d want us to do.”

“I know he wouldn’t tolerate Trey stealing from us,” Tommy said. “But he probably wouldn’t want you spending the rest of your life in jail because you drowned him, either.”

I decided to let it go. There was no use bringing up the bad memory, which was always hanging around like a shadow in the background. It’s not like we could forget they’d pulled my dad out of the ocean last year. He’d had a heart attack while he’d been out fishing, even though Sean Brennan had been as fit as a goddamn fiddle his whole life.

No, we couldn’t forget. But we could fight to protect my father’s legacy.

If that meant someone was going overboard?

So the fuck be it.

Chapter Three

MARAN

Alex spent the day in bed; I spent the day getting organized. And regretting things. I definitely spent a reasonable amount of time regretting things.

How had I been so dumb? First of all, my hot hookup was a local, not a wedding guest. That sucked on many levels, not the least of which was figuring out how to avoid him all summer on Little Seal Island. I’d already seen him first thing this morning!

I vowed not to think about hot, strapping Jack and his magic penis. I was studying for the bar this summer; I had to pass. My whole future—my agonizingly planned out future—depended on it. Plus, I was done with men for the moment. It was time to focus on myself.

Tim, my last boyfriend, had turned out to be a waste of time. We’d dated on and off throughout law school. He was insecure and jealous that I’d landed a job at a big-five firm. As a result, he treated me like shit. I was so pissed I’d given him the better part of three good years. Never again.

Jack and his big biceps and his magic penis were going to have to find other girls to plunder. I was confident he’d have no problem with that. Which made me sort of sad, but whatever. With moves like that, he was definitely a man-whore!

The house was quiet. Alex was in bed, and her parents had already left. They’d thanked me repeatedly and hugged me. “So glad Alex won’t be alone.” Her mother clasped my hands. “She’s so lucky she has a good friend like you.”

I’d smiled and hugged her back, but inside, I was thinking, crap crap crap. I’d said yes to Alex because she was impossible to say no to. But I had to study this summer. The New York Bar was notoriously difficult to pass. If I failed, it was bye-bye big-firm job—the job that promised to earn me more money in one year than my mother had made in her entire life.

She must’ve known I was thinking about her. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed. “Hey, Mom.”