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Chapter four

Wes

T he storm descended on Ironhook like a vengeful god.

It had been building all afternoon. That bone-deep ache in my knee caused by low air pressure flared, and the gulls went silent, disappearing hours before the first fat raindrops hit the cottage windows. Every pane of glass rattled in the howling winds, and the old pine beams groaned in protest.

The slate gray clouds made it dark inside. When our morning generator hours expired, I lit the oil lamps and pulled out the emergency candles. Their amber glow cast dancing shadows across the rough-hewn walls.

I poured three fingers of Jameson into a tumbler and settled into the worn leather chair by the woodstove, letting the whiskey burn away the persistent throb in my knee.

Outside, the storm put on a show that would have the mainland folks battening down and calling their insurance companies, but Ironhook had weathered worse. Much worse.

Eric stood at the kitchen window, palms pressed flat against the glass. His shoulders were tense beneath his UMaine t-shirt, and I caught myself studying the line of his spine. Despite the chaos outside, he held himself perfectly still.

"Holy hell," he breathed, his voice nearly lost beneath the wind's roar. "It's like the entire ocean's trying to climb onto the shore."

I took another sip of whiskey, savoring the heat as it slid down my throat. "This? This is only late September being cranky. You should be here in January when the nor'easters really sink their teeth into us."

He turned from the window, eyes wide. "You mean this gets worse?"

"This is a summer breeze by comparison." I gestured toward the couch with my glass. "Might as well make yourself comfortable. Ferry won't run again until this blows through, and that won't be before morning."

Eric crossed to the sofa, settling onto the cushions. The firelight illuminated the angles of his face, throwing shadows that made him look older than the earnest researcher who'd knocked on my door a few days back.

"You hang out alone through this?" He waved toward the windows where the wind was testing every seal.

I rolled the whiskey around in my glass, watching the amber liquid catch the candlelight. "It's quieter than being in a crowd of people."

"You mean safer."

The observation hit closer to home than I cared to admit, but I took another drink instead of responding. The storm pressed against the cottage like a living beast, and I was grateful for Eric's presence.

Storms were honest. They didn't pretend to be anything other than what they were—raw power without an agenda.

They weren't like the bright-eyed young man sitting across from me, expressing his curiosity about everyone and everything.

Eric settled deeper into the couch, pulling one leg up beneath him. He appeared to relax and accept the storm.

"How long have you been out here?" he asked.

"Long enough."

"That's not really an answer."

I took another sip of whiskey, letting the burn fill the space where an honest response could go. "It's the only one you're getting."

He didn't give up and back off like most people when they hit one of my conversational barriers. Tilting his head, he studied me with his clear blue eyes. "What made you choose Ironhook specifically? Of all the places where you could disappear, why here?"

It was a direct question. Most people danced around the obvious with me, but not Eric. He was incapable of avoiding getting to the point.

I sipped more whiskey. "You ask a lot of questions about me for someone supposedly researching coastal erosion."

"Occupational hazard." His grin lit up his entire face. "I've always been curious about everything, and it's always driven people insane, even my best friend, Ziggy, sometimes."

"I can imagine."

"My dad used to joke that I'd ask the weather questions if I thought it would give me a straight answer." A self-deprecating laugh bubbled up. "He wasn't wrong."

I watched how his hands moved when he talked. Unconscious gestures punctuated his words. His animated delivery made the cottage feel more alive and less like a tomb.

He leaned forward slightly. "You didn't answer my question. Why Ironhook? It's not exactly accessible. Twenty miles from the nearest anything, ferry service that's spotty at best, and winters that would test a polar bear's patience. You could have found isolation anywhere."

His persistence might have annoyed me. It could have triggered every defensive instinct I'd honed over the past decade. Instead, Eric impressed me. It took guts to keep pushing when someone signaled they wanted to be left alone.

In a softer tone, he tried again to lift the stone and peer underneath. "You're not hiding out here for the view."

"Drop it." I wasn't ready.

I expected him to apologize or change the subject to something safer. That's what people usually did when they bumped up against the boundaries I'd spent years constructing.

Instead, he commented about himself. I barely heard it above the storm. "I know about running. I left Whistleport to breathe."

His simple honesty landed with force. I studied his face in the flickering candlelight.

For the first time in longer than I could calculate, someone was looking at me and seeing something other than a cautionary tale or a puzzle to be solved.

He saw someone who understood what it meant to run.

Eric was building a bridge I didn't expect. His words— I know about running —cracked something open inside me.

"This place..." I started, then stopped, surprised by my own willingness to speak. Perhaps it was the whiskey or being swaddled by the storm, cutting us off from the rest of the world and all its expectations. "It's not about peace. It's a shield."

Eric nodded slowly.

I continued. "Small towns remember, and they remind you every damn time you think you might be ready to forget."

"God, yes." Eric's laugh was weary and mirthless. "Try being the fire chief's kid in a place where everyone knows your business before you do. I couldn't buy a scone at Tidal Grounds without three people calling my dad to make sure I wasn't developing a sugar addiction."

I nodded. "Everyone knows your name before you walk in the room."

"Because they know his," Eric finished, and the bitterness in his voice was so familiar it made my teeth ache. "Thomas Callahan's boy. That's all I was for the longest time. Not Eric, only an extension of someone else's reputation…and I put a happy face on it."

I set my whiskey glass down on the side table. "You said your dad's the fire chief. Callahan. That should have clued me in immediately."

"He's been at it for twenty-seven years and counting. Thomas Callahan, Whistleport's finest. Never met a burning building he wouldn't run into or a person he wouldn't pull out of whatever mess they'd created for themselves."

Memories started rushing back at gale force.

A summer night full of twisted metal and shattered glass, the taste of blood in my mouth, and the wail of sirens cutting through the darkness.

Strong hands pulled me from the wreckage that should have been my grave, and a calm voice told me to stay awake; help was coming.

"He ever mention an accident on graduation night?" I was asking the question that would raise so many more. "Two guys out for a joy ride? That kind of crash doesn't happen often in a little town like Whistleport."

Eric froze. His eyes widened, pupils dilating in the flickering candlelight as the pieces clicked into place. "That was you?"

I nodded, reaching for my whiskey again, giving my hands something to do. "Your dad pulled me out of a car that should have been my coffin. I spent the next three hours in surgery while they put my knee back together with pins and prayers."

Eric spoke softly. "He never shares names. It's about personal privacy and professional boundaries, but I remember that night." He stared at the wall beyond me.

"I was maybe six or seven. It was the only time I ever saw my dad cry. He locked himself in the bathroom. I heard the water running, but I heard him, too. He didn't know I was awake."

The sudden silence between us would have been uncomfortable at most times, but the wind and rain provided a soundtrack that eased some of the tension.

"I asked him once what happened that night." Eric rubbed his hands on his knees. "He said sometimes the job follows you home, and some calls stick with you longer than others. That was all I ever got out of him."

"Your father's a good man." My praise was genuine. "He stayed with me until the ambulance came. He kept talking and kept me conscious. I don't remember much from that night, but I remember his voice."

"Is that why you came here? Because of the accident?"

"Part of it." I took another sip of whiskey, concentrating on the burn.

"Hockey was supposed to be my ticket out of Whistleport.

Full ride to UMaine, scouts already sniffing around.

Then one night, one stupid decision, riding with a buddy who had a beer in his hand, and suddenly I was the dreaded tale they tell kids about drinking and driving. "

"But you weren't—"

"Doesn't matter," I cut him off. "Perception is the reality in places like Whistleport. And the perception was that Wes Hunter, golden boy hockey star, had thrown it all away for a six-pack and a joy ride."

Eric's jaw tightened. "That's not fair."

"Fair's got nothing to do with it." My voice cracked, and the words slipped out before I could stop them. "I got to walk away, but Derek—my cousin—he didn't." I clamped my mouth shut, the storm's howl filling the void where my confession hung.

Eric's eyes widened, but he didn't speak, his silence a weight heavier than the wind outside.

I gestured toward the window where the storm continued its relentless assault. "So, I came here. Where nobody knows my name, or if they do, they don't give a damn about what I used to be or what I might have been."

The silence that followed was different from before. Eric looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, and maybe he was. I was no longer the gruff hermit who'd been answering his questions with grunts and monosyllables. I was a person with conscientiously constructed armor.

Eric leaned back against the cushions, a soft laugh escaping him. "So we're both refugees from small-town expectations."

"Something like that."

The firelight played across his features, highlighting the thoughtful set of his mouth.

I paid more attention to his specific features than anyone else's for over a decade.

He had faint freckles across his nose, and his hair fell in sandy waves, echoing the ocean.

They caught the amber glow from the candlelight.

"It's funny." He tilted his head slightly. "When I was a kid, I used to wonder about that night. Not in a morbid way, but... Dad came home different. Quieter. He sat in that chair for hours. I knew it had been bad, whatever happened."

"Bad enough." I swirled the whiskey in my glass. "He got me out. That's what matters."

"He saved more than your life that night."

"What do you mean?"

Eric chose his words with care. "You're here. You survived. You built this life, even if it's not the one you planned. That's not nothing, Wes."

The wind outside reached a crescendo that made the whole cottage shudder. There was an unexpected parallel between the storm's intensity and whatever was growing in the space between us.

The cottage creaked, settling deeper into the storm's embrace, and I wondered what it would be like to not be alone through the storms yet to come. Silence had become my constant companion, but Eric pulled me out of that and into conversation.

It was disconcerting. I'd perfected the art of keeping people at arm's length, being polite but distant, helpful but unavailable. I'd constructed my life on Ironhook to avoid moments like this—moments when someone might see the safe harbor I'd constructed around my heart.

Sitting in my house with Eric, the son of the man who'd saved my life, I wondered whether maybe—just maybe—I was tired of being alone with my ghosts.

The fire popped and hissed, sending sparks up the chimney, and Eric stretched like a cat, a bit lanky but graceful. He looked like he belonged in my storm-swaddled cottage that had been my sanctuary for so long.

He flashed a gentle smile. "This is nice."

"What is?"

"This. Talking. Being here with you." He gestured vaguely at the space between us. "I can't remember the last time I had a conversation that felt this... real."

Real. The word settled deep inside me, sending out ripples.

Outside, the storm continued its relentless assault on the island, but inside, something was taking root.

Eric eventually dozed off on the couch and curled into the cushions. I threw a wool blanket over him when his breathing deepened, trying not to notice how young he looked in sleep.

The storm was still raging when I retreated to my bedroom, but the intensity had eased. It was less like an assault and more like white noise.

I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, reliving the evening. Eric Callahan. Thomas Callahan's son.

Of all the researchers who could have shown up on my doorstep, it was the son of the man who'd pulled me from that wreckage so long ago and stayed with me while the sirens wailed and my life changed forever.

Somehow, in four days and one storm-drenched evening, Eric had slipped past every defense I'd constructed. He'd looked at my isolation and seen strategy instead of pathology. He'd heard my story and offered recognition instead of pity.

The wind howled through the eaves, rattling the windows in their frames, and I thought about Eric's laugh. When was the last time I'd made someone laugh? When was the last time I'd wanted to?

I shifted my position again, trying to find a comfortable angle for my knee. Everything was on the verge of being different now.

Lying there in the dark, I listened to Eric breathing. I'd constructed a fortress on the island to keep the world out, but somehow, he'd slipped inside. And I wasn't sure I wanted him to leave.