Page 54 of Mourner for Hire

“Damn right, you are,” she responds, pulling my face to hers. And once again, Vada Daughtry has turned me into a pile of mush. When she pulls away from the kiss, she says, “We’re in public. ”

I clear my throat. “And you’re a lady.”

“And you are a gentleman.” She smiles up at me and tosses me my shirt. “Put your shirt back on. No shirt, no service.”

I kiss her nose, suppressing a chuckle. “Put the car in park, Hot Pocket. I want to show you something.”

She shifts the brake, and the surrey jerks forward.

I hold out my hand to help her out, and she clutches her ripped skirt with her other hand.

She’s covered but no doubt disheveled. She laughs as she plants her feet next to mine, and I help her tie the torn fabric around her waist and guide her down the rocky slope of the beach until we’re under the Piccolo Pier.

“This seems like a great place to hide a body.”

A quick laugh escapes my mouth, and I turn to face her, studying her coy expression. “I’m not sure I’m in the mood to hide you.”

For a brief moment, her confidence slips, and it reads all over her face.

“What’s wrong?”

She blinks away. “Nothing.”

“Vada…”

“You're just…” she hesitates. “You’re just the you I met. It’s good to finally see you again.”

I nod slowly, absorbing the guilt of how much of an ass I’ve been to her. I squeeze her hand three times. “Sorry, it took me so long to come back around.”

She grins, pink rising her cheeks as we walk farther under the pier.

“We’re almost there.”

“What is it?” she asks, just as we reach the place I wanted her to see.

Her expression turns curious and then mesmerized as she takes in the sight of the rock.

It’s the size of a sofa and shaped like a bean, smooth and polished by natural elements that have crashed into it for years. Her fingers trace the etchings all over it.

She chuckles. “This town really loves to declare their love on objects.”

“This one is different. Look closer,” I prompt.

“Love. A baby. Health… Money.” Her smile morphs into a laugh on the last one.

“We call it Hope Rock. It’s been here for as long as I can remember, and everyone would always use it as a bench and take pictures.

But before you do…” I crouch down and grab a pebble from the shore and place it in her palm.

“You have to carve your biggest hope into it.” I shrug.

“A little different than initials and hearts.”

Her grin widens. “That’s sweet.”

“But there’s a rule. You can only carve one thing, one time, or it won’t come true,” I say.

“Oh, come on.”

I throw my hands up. “I don’t make the rules. There was a sailor named Thomas Reinhart who started the tradition. He carved crab—he was a fisherman, and he wanted to ensure his bounty. But then as he got older, he carved safety. He was lost at sea the following week.”

She gasps. “That’s terrible.”

I nod. “Now it’s just an honorary landmark of Shellport.”

“Why haven’t I heard of it before?”

“Locals keep it port local. We don’t want to carry the hopes of every person who passes through.”

She smiles. “So, you’re saying I’m a local?”

“I’m saying you can stay… You know, if you want.”

There’s a deep, heavy pause after I say it, and I can’t quite read her.

She smiles softly and traces her fingers over the plaque with the sailor’s name and the year he was lost at sea. “What did you hope for?”

“I haven’t written anything yet?”

Her head snaps in my direction. “You’re kidding. ”

“I have too many hopes to narrow it down to one, and I don’t want to choose wrong.”

She laughs and sits on the rock, gently dragging the pebble I put in her palm just minutes ago. “So what, you were going to trick me into engraving my hopes, only for them to wither away.”

“Something like that.”

She sighs and looks out at the waves crashing against the poles of the pier.

“I’m going to have to think about it. I still have a few weeks left, right?”

“Right.”

A few weeks left.

For the last couple of months, this timeline would’ve been a relief, but now, all I feel is disappointment.

“Tell me the best part of living in Shellport,” she says.

I shrug. The sticky taste of regret is bitter on my tongue.

“Oh,” she says in acknowledgment.

“Oh, what?”

“You hate it here.”

My chin snaps back as the sun begins to set. She doesn’t say anything else, but her expression encourages me to continue.

“I don’t hate it here.”

“Fine. Then what’s the best part of living in Shellport?” She repeats the question, and something twists in my stomach. She must sense my unrest because she blanches. “Oh. Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. That was incredibly insensitive of me.”

My brow twists in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, your mother just died, and here I am asking you why you love living here when the grief you’re experiencing is woven into the very fabric of this town.”

She stands and meets my gaze.

“There’s a little more to it than that.”

She nods once. “It’s getting cold. Let’s start a fire at the cottage, and you can tell me everything.”

Thirty minutes later, the fire on the beach is blazing, and Vada is wrapped in a flannel blanket and seated in an Adirondack chair next to the fire. I reach out and grab her hand, holding it as the flames illuminate her face.

“Tell me,” she prompts, and I take a breath.

“Remember how specific you were in figuring out who I was when we first met?”

She nods.

“Well, I was in active duty when my father died.” I clear my emotion from my throat. “I thought I had more time. I thought it was a small heart attack. I thought he’d make it out of surgery and be fine, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t.”

Her grip tightens, and I focus on the flames before me.

“He… um… died during surgery. His heart wasn’t strong enough to make it through the procedure. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to be there for my mom.”

“You couldn’t,” she cuts in.

“I know. But it still stings. Regret can still bloom in impossibility, you know?” Each point is punctuated with an ache in my throat I can’t clear no matter how many times I swallow.

“Dominic, he wouldn’t have blamed you,” she says softly, her voice like warm embers on my skin.

“It doesn’t matter. When you regret something, it doesn’t matter.

Because I wish I had been there. I wish I had told him everything was going to be okay.

I wish I held his hand and told him I loved him.

I didn’t get to do that. There isn’t another way to frame it to make me feel better.

I wish I had been there. Point blank period.

And I will spend the rest of my life missing him and wishing the end was different. ”

An exhale shudders out of Vada, but she doesn’t respond. She just grips my hand. Then it hits me…

Maybe I’ve always understood.

“I get why you do what you do,” I confess.

Her grip tightens, but she just looks at me, empathy encompassing her beautiful eyes .

“Death is unpredictable and unexpected. What an honor it must be to guarantee you give them the final word.”

Again, she doesn’t speak, but I watch a tear drift down her face and fall past her chin onto the flannel blanket.

“Any chance Chelsey can handle things at the bar tomorrow night? I want you to come with me.”

“To what?”

She smiles, tears in her eyes. “I have a very special funeral to attend tomorrow.”