Page 36 of Carry on Wayward Son

“Same.” He looked at me in that steady, unhurried way he had. “Coffee?”

“If you’ve got some water or electrolytes I can get through first.”

He disappeared inside, and I kicked my shoes against the railing to knock off the worst of the sand. Even in winter, it got into everything when you lived on an island. I was nearly through my quick stretch routine when he returned with a bowl of water for Koa and a tall glass for me. I took it with gratitude.

“How do you take your coffee?”

“Little cream, two sugars.”

With another quick nod, he went back inside, and I drained the glass, realizing I’d gotten far more dehydrated than I’d realized. Not like me. I was usually far more responsible.

Jace came back with two mugs and held one out. When my hands wrapped around one, he leaned in and laid his lips over mine. The kiss was unhurried and warm, with none of the urgency of the night before. Something in me hitched and sighed. Then he eased back, releasing the mug into my hands.

I stared at him a little dazed as he straightened with a lazy smile. “Hi.”

Yesterday had been heat and momentum and mutual acknowledgment of something that had been building since the beach. This was different. This was a man who’d made coffee the way I took it and kissed me good morning like it was something he intended to keep doing, and I was… not ready for that. My brain hadn’t budgeted for more than heat.

I didn’t know what to do with any of it, so I just said, “Hi.”

Someone cleared their throat.

Sawyer stood in the doorway in running clothes, Roy at his knee, with the expression of a man who had walked into something and was being extremely gracious about it.

“Mornin’.” He came out onto the porch. “Didn’t hear your car.”

“I didn’t drive.” I wrapped both hands tighter around the mug. “Ran up the beach. Sorry to disturb you.”

“Not at all.” He looked past me toward the waterline and back. “Wait. You ran all the way from town?”

I jerked my shoulders. There was no particular reason to explain that I kept myself in the kind of shape that could cover eight miles on a frosty morning without much trouble, or the reason I’d developed that habit in the first place, or what eventuality it was preparation for.

The dogs were in the midst of their greeting. Roy’s tail going at full speed, Koa dignified but receptive, his plume of a tail waving like a flag as the two of them circled each other with the ease of a second meeting between dogs who’d already decided to be friends.

The door opened again, and Willa came out in a robe, coffee in hand, stopping when she saw me. Her eyes moved from me to Jace to the two mugs and back to Sawyer, and something passed between her and her husband in the wordless language of two people who had been paying attention to each other for years. I watched it happen and tried to squash the sense of regret that I’d run eight miles directly into a situation I couldn’t walk back out of without being obvious.

I had not had enough coffee for this.

Apparently Sawyer had managed to communicate the kiss he’d witnessed to his wife, because Willa was now looking at Jace with an expression that contained an entire conversation, and Jace was drinking his coffee with the studied neutrality of a man declining to participate.

I fell back on the only safe ground available.

“I’ve been thinking about the money trail,” I said. Everyone’s attention shifted obligingly. “Given that the marina was sold a decade ago, unless Madden’s uncle kept records himself, we’re going to run into problems. Whoever prepared their taxes wouldn’t be obligated to keep records past seven years, and tax paperwork isn’t going to give us the operational detail we actually need. What we need is whoever did the books. Whether that was a family member, an existing marina employee, or someone who came on after Miles was already under their thumb.” I clutched the mug closer, as if it would steady me. “The records are probably gone. But the person might still remember something useful.”

Willa’s expression shifted into something more focused. “I think it was Diane Crowell. She came to the ferry company a year or so after the marina changed hands. She didn’t care for the new owners. At least, that was the reason she gave for leaving.”

“She still works for you?”

“Yeah, she’s in our accounting department.”

“Might be worth having a conversation with her.” I looked into my mug. “She may not know that she knows something.”

“Finish your coffee,” Jace said, “and I’ll drive you back to town. Unless you’re keen to make it sixteen miles today.”

“I am absolutely not. Thank you.”

Nineteen

JACE