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Chapter two

Wes

T he Atlantic stretched before me like a pewter plate blanketed with mist. I stood in my doorway, bare feet against cold wood, steam rising from my coffee mug in lazy spirals.

Ironhook had always been about silence. Not the hollow kind. It was the full kind that lets you breathe without wondering what comes next. Where the only sounds were those that belonged: waves against granite shores, wind through the scrub pines, and the distant bark of seals on the ledges.

That silence lasted until precisely seventeen minutes past sunrise.

The voice that shattered it came with the shuffle of socked feet on the kitchen floor. "Oh, wow. This place is incredible."

I didn't turn around. If I ignored him long enough, maybe he'd take the hint and keep his observations to himself.

"Is there coffee? I mean, I can make my own, but I didn't want to—"

"Cabinet above the sink. Filters are in the drawer."

"Thanks." A pause. "Do you always drink your coffee outside?"

I took a deliberate sip, letting the bitter heat anchor me. On clear days, you could see all the way to the mainland. Today, with morning fog, the world ended about fifty yards from my front door.

Kitchen sounds interrupted the peace—cabinet doors opening and closing, the kettle's whistle, and the chair's scrape. Eric was settling in, making himself at home in a space that had been mine alone for most of the past sixteen years.

"This view." He approached the doorway again. "I can see why you'd want to wake up to it every day."

I stepped outside, letting the screen door bang shut behind me. The fog swallowed the sound almost immediately, but not before I heard Eric's soft intake of breath from inside. Conversation wasn't part of the package.

Ironhook used to be a place to disappear. Now, it sounded like a dorm room on move-in day—all shuffling feet and curious questions.

I pulled open the shed door, and the hinges protested with a grating squeal. Inside, my nets hung in neat coils. This, at least, remained unchanged. I grabbed a coil of rope that didn't need checking and began working it through my hands, feeling for weak spots that weren't there.

The rhythm should have been soothing. It had been for so many years. But today, with Eric Callahan making coffee in my kitchen, the familiar motions felt like trying to meditate in the middle of a parade.

He was humming now—something low and tuneless that drifted through the screen door. My shoulders tensed.

The call had come on a Tuesday in March, crackling through the satellite phone with all the warmth of a tax audit.

"Hunter? This is Margaret Sinclair from the Penobscot Bay Island Trust."

I'd known what was coming before she'd even cleared her throat. The trust owned most of Ironhook and a handful of other islands scattered along the coast like forgotten coins.

They paid me to keep an eye on things—maintain the trails, maintain the lighthouse, monitor for erosion, and ensure summer visitors didn't burn the place down with their campfires. It wasn't much, but enough to keep me fed and left alone.

"We need to discuss the Callahan boy."

Eric.

Margaret continued. "The university's coastal resilience project has funding through the National Science Foundation. They need accommodation for their researcher. You're the only viable caretaker residence left on the island in September."

I'd stared out at the Atlantic through my kitchen window, watching the waves churn against the rocks below. "Send him to Stormbreaker. They've got the inn."

"Stormbreaker's booked solid, and it's not the focus of the research anyway. Ironhook has a unique history, Wes. It has to be you."

She'd trapped me, not with threats or ultimatums, but with simple geography.

Ironhook was fifteen miles from the nearest bed-and-breakfast, twenty from any hotel worth the name.

If Eric wanted to study our stretch of coast, he needed somewhere to sleep, and I was the only option with four walls and a roof that didn't leak.

The trust paid my property taxes and covered the generator maintenance. Margaret Sinclair held more cards than I did.

The screen door creaked, and I looked up and saw Eric standing in the doorway, coffee mug cradled in both hands. He'd found one of my heavy ceramic mugs—the blue one with the chip on the handle—and something about seeing him drink from it made my jaw clench.

"Morning." He sounded cheerful, like a neighbor next door, but he was occupying my space.

I grunted something that might have passed for a greeting and went back to my rope. Eric didn't take the hint. He stepped outside, letting the door bang shut behind him, and wandered over to where I was working.

"So, what's the routine around here?" He leaned against a split-rail fence along the edge of the cottage's property. "I don't want to get in your way."

I set down the rope and faced him squarely. "We need to talk."

Eric's coffee mug paused halfway to his lips.

"My tools stay where they are. You need something, you ask." I gestured toward the shed. "I'm not spending my days hunting for a wrench because you thought you were being helpful."

"Got it."

"Second, we share the kitchen, but you clean up after yourself. I'm not your mother."

"Of course."

"Third, the generator runs on a schedule—four hours in the morning, four hours at night. If you need power outside those windows, you ask first. Fuel's expensive, and the boat with tanks only comes twice a month."

"That makes sense." Eric sipped his coffee. I smelled a hint of vanilla—he'd found my stash of flavored creamer. "What about—"

I cut him off. "I'm not a tour guide. If you want to know about the island's history, there are books in the library back in Whistleport.

If you have questions about the ecosystem, bring your own field guides.

I'm here to make sure the place doesn't fall apart, not to hold your hand through your research project. "

The words were about twice as harsh as I intended, but Eric merely nodded again. For a moment, I thought I'd managed to establish the boundaries I needed. They would keep him at arm's length, letting us get through the next few weeks without any complications.

Then, he smiled.

It wasn't a big smile, only a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth that made his eyes crinkle slightly. Still, it was warm and genuine and completely unbothered by my attempt to scare him off.

"Fair enough. I'm pretty good at entertaining myself."

That should have been reassuring, but something twisted in my gut. Eric Callahan was supposed to be intimidated by my gruffness, not charmed by it. He was supposed to keep his head down, not lean on my fence drinking my coffee like he had every right to be there.

As I watched him gaze out over the fog-shrouded water, his face lit up with the curiosity I remembered from another lifetime. I realized that nothing about our arrangement would go the way I'd planned.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to prove myself wrong.

Eric had come into the kitchen after breakfast, notebook in hand and hair still damp from his shower.

"Hey, quick question—do you know if the south trail loops all the way around to the cliffs, or does it dead-end?"

I wiped coffee grounds off the counter with the heel of my hand. "It used to loop. There's a downed tree about a mile in, last I checked. You'll have to double back."

"Got it. I'll flag what's still clear."

"And the fog…"

"Yes, I'll be careful."

He scribbled something, smiled, and vanished out the door like a gust of wind.

I was hauling a coil of netting back to the shed when I heard him coming up the path again—boots crunching through the undergrowth.

He pushed through the clearing, flushed from the hike, a few bits of bramble caught in his socks, and his t-shirt darkened with sweat and clinging to him in ways I tried not to notice.

"South trail's passable if you don't mind ducking under branches." He panted slightly to catch his breath. "Pretty sure I ate a spiderweb or two."

I meant to answer with something neutral, maybe a nod, but my gaze lingered. His shirt tugged tight across his chest, collar slightly askew, freckles visible at the neckline.

I looked away fast enough to be noticed.

I told myself I was annoyed. It wasn't quite true.

"Thanks, I'll update the map."

He beamed like I'd handed him a trophy. Then, he disappeared inside to clean up, whistling like the hike hadn't drained the life out of him.

I turned back to the netting, hands suddenly clumsy on the rope.

By noon, the fog had burned off enough to reveal the jagged coastline in patches, like a photograph developing in slow motion. Eric disappeared into his room after a peanut butter sandwich lunch—something about organizing his research materials—and I'd thrown myself into maintenance work.

The hinges on the shed door got a complete disassembly and oiling.

Next, the section of fence near the bluff that had been listing to one side for months suddenly became urgent enough to require immediate attention.

I even dragged out the trail markers that had been gathering dust in the corner of the shed, telling myself it was time to check the blazes on the hiking paths that wound through the island's interior.

I did anything I could to avoid going back inside. Eventually, the physical work ran out, and my knee started sending up the familiar warning flares that meant I'd pushed too hard. I limped back toward the cottage, telling myself I only went in for some ibuprofen and a glass of water.

I found Eric in the main room, sitting cross-legged on the braided rug with papers spread around him in tidy piles.

He'd claimed the coffee table as a desk, opening his laptop.

The sight of his things mixed in with mine—his bright blue notebook next to my stack of weather logs and his phone charger coiled beside my reading glasses—jolted me.