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I found the tool and placed it in his palm, our fingers brushing briefly. "How do you know so much about this stuff?"

"Trial and error." He threaded the new hardware into place with careful precision. "Years of keeping things from falling apart teaches you what works."

"Got family in construction?"

"No. Learned what I needed to learn."

An observation slipped out before I could stop it. "I'm starting to think resilience looks a lot like your hands."

"They're only hands."

"No, they're not." I leaned closer, close enough to smell the salt air that clung to his jacket. "They're hands that know how to fix things. They keep an entire island from falling apart."

We worked through the remaining repairs in comfortable companionship. By the time we'd secured the last bolt and gathered the tools, the afternoon had shifted toward evening.

As we walked back toward the cottage, tools clanking softly in their bag, I thought about how many repairs Wes had made over the years. Maybe that was what resilience really looked like—not the dramatic resistance to catastrophic failure, but the patient daily work of keeping things whole.

Back at the cottage, Wes hung his tool bag on its designated hook and washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

I watched him scrub the day's work from his hands—salt stains and stone dust disappearing under hot water.

There was something unexpectedly intimate about observing this simple ritual, the careful way he cleaned under his fingernails and worked soap between his fingers.

"Coffee's still warm," he said without turning around, testing the thermos's temperature with the back of his hand. "Made it before I headed out to the lighthouse."

Wes filled two mugs without asking if I wanted it, adding the splash of cream he'd observed me using since my first morning on the island. I accepted the mug he offered, our fingers brushing briefly during the exchange.

"Thanks." I settled into the chair that had become mine by unspoken agreement.

I opened my laptop and began organizing the day's accumulated observations, trying to make sense of the conversations I'd overheard in Whistleport and the growing complexity of my research focus.

Wes retrieved a thick notebook from the kitchen drawer and spread it open beside his coffee mug.

His handwriting filled the pages in neat, economical lines—weather observations, maintenance schedules, and what looked like supply inventories.

It was the kind of careful record-keeping that kept an isolated operation running smoothly.

We worked in parallel streams, each absorbed in our respective tasks but aware of the other's presence. The silence between us had evolved from the loaded quiet of our early interactions into something more restful.

I stole glances at Wes as he worked, noting how his forehead creased slightly when he concentrated and how his left hand absently rotated his coffee mug in precise quarter-turns.

The lamplight caught the gray threading through his dark hair and highlighted the small scar that crossed his knuckles—probably acquired during some long-ago repair project.

The evening stretched ahead of us, full of small domestic possibilities—dinner to prepare, a fire to tend, and the quiet satisfaction of ending another day in a place that was beginning to feel like home.

***

The following morning arrived gray and restless, thick clouds pressing down on the island like a wool blanket. I woke to the sound of Wes moving through the cottage with his usual early-morning efficiency.

When I emerged from the guest room, he was studying a hand-drawn map spread across the kitchen table. Red X marks indicated problem areas—washouts from recent storms, fallen trees blocking passage, and sections where erosion had carved new channels through established routes.

"South trail took a beating," he said without looking up. "Storm surge pushed farther inland than usual. Probably lost twenty yards of boardwalk where it crosses the marsh."

"Sounds like a big job." I settled beside him to examine the map more closely. His pencil marks showed a trail system more complex than I'd realized, connecting the island's scattered points of interest with a network of paths.

"Day's work, maybe two if the damage is worse than I think." Wes folded the map with careful precision, creating sharp creases that would help it lie flat in his jacket pocket. "You interested in seeing how repair gets done?"

The invitation startled me. Since the lighthouse project yesterday, something had shifted in his willingness to include me in his work. Still, I hadn't expected him to seek my company for a major undertaking.

"Absolutely."

A half-smile appeared on his face. "Grab your boots. We'll be walking through some rough country."

An hour later, we were hiking single file along a path that meandered through the island's interior, past stands of birch and maple that had begun their autumn transformation.

The trail showed evidence of heavy weather—branches scattered like pickup sticks and soft spots where standing water had turned solid ground into sucking mud.

"Here's where it gets interesting." Wes paused at what had once been a wooden bridge spanning a narrow creek. The structure now existed as scattered planks and twisted support posts, victims of storm surge that had carried debris from the harbor nearly a quarter-mile inland.

The creek had carved a new channel, broader and deeper than its original course. Water rushed over exposed granite, creating small waterfalls and pools that would have been picturesque under different circumstances.

I watched Wes survey the damage. "Could build another bridge, but the water will keep changing course. Smarter to work with what's happening instead of fighting it."

Fifty yards downstream, the creek widened into a natural ford where bedrock lay close to the surface. The water ran clearer there, shallow enough to cross safely with proper stone placement.

"This is where the trail should go." Wes set his pack down on the creek bank. "Work with the landscape instead of imposing solutions that don't fit."

He waded into the creek, testing the bottom for stable footing while identifying places where strategically placed stones could create a reliable crossing. "Hand me that flat stone." He pointed at a piece of granite roughly the size of a dinner plate.

I lifted the stone, surprised by its weight, and passed it to him carefully. He positioned it precisely, using a crowbar to align it with the creek bottom perfectly. Water flowed around the new obstacle, creating small eddies and finding new channels.

The next phase involved laying smaller stones to create a stable pathway from the existing trail to the new ford. "You're getting the hang of it," Wes observed, watching me fit a particularly stubborn stone into place.

I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. "It's like a puzzle. Each piece has a place where it belongs."

We worked steadily through the morning, building approaches on both sides of the new ford and reinforcing the trail edges where erosion threatened to undermine our progress.

I'd come looking for abstract theories, I realized, pausing in my stone placement, but Wes was actively preserving the past, adapting the present, and protecting the future with concrete actions.

It was active resilience, not an academic concept. It was daily practice. "I'm studying the wrong thing," I blurted out. "I should be documenting you."

Wes paused in his work. "Good luck getting tenure based on that."

I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in days. "I'm serious. Everything I've been trying to understand about community resilience and how places survive when circumstances change—you're living it. You're the case study I didn't know I was looking for."

Wes paused in his work and turned slightly. "And what are you going to do about that?"

"I—what do you mean?"

"You came to document the island and are halfway through your project. You've got your notes. So… if you're studyingme, what's the endgame?"

My cheeks flushed. "I didn't mean—"

"Yeah, you did." He paused momentarily. "And you're not wrong, but you should know—some stories don't tie up neat. Not this one."

I didn't know what else to say. When we finished the stone placements, we gathered our tools and headed back toward the cottage, following the repaired trail. The kiss from the hockey rink hung unspoken between us, present in every accidental touch and moment of shared concentration.

As the cottage came into view through the trees, I walked slightly behind Wes. He paused beside a massive oak whose trunk showed stress fractures from the recent storms, running his palm along the bark.

"This one will come down in the next big blow." He tilted his head to examine the canopy. "Probably take out a section of trail when it goes."

I watched his fingers trace the fault lines in the bark, reading the tree's weakness. There was something deeply attractive about his competence—how he anticipated problems before they became disasters.

It wasn't only the kiss at the hockey rink that had cracked something open inside me. It was this—watching him exist in perfect harmony with his environment.

"Come on," Wes said, shouldering his pack and continuing toward the cottage. "Need to get these tools cleaned before the salt air gets to them."

I followed, wondering how I would survive the next two weeks without letting him see how completely he'd rearranged my understanding of what I thought I wanted from life.