Page 21 of Carry on Wayward Son

“So are you.” I let one corner of my mouth lift in a smirk. “For a sailor.”

The answering quirk of his lips felt like some kind of victory, which was ridiculous. I wasn’t here for the likes of Jace Hollingsworth. No matter how fine an ass he had.

But it didn’t change the fact that I’d noticed.

We stepped out of town hall back into the gray of late morning and stopped on the front steps.

“What do you know about Strand?” I asked.

“Honestly, not much more than Chelsea already told us. He’s had his eye on the north end of the island for years. Wants to do a big resort development, the kind of thing that would’ve fundamentally changed what Hatterwick is. My grandfather refused to sell his whole life, and when he died and Willa inherited, Strand came calling pretty much before Granddaddy’s body was cold.” He paused. “She told him no in terms that apparently still sting. I didn’t realize he was still sniffing around.”

I thought about that. “Willa inherited?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s your sister.”

“She is,” he confirmed.

“So the property was left to her specifically. Not to both of you.” It wasn’t quite a question, but he took it as one anyway.

I watched for defensiveness in his posture as he remained silent, but sensed none.

Eventually he said, “She’s the one who came back. Who took care of things when they needed taking care of. Stayed on the island, kept everything going.” He shrugged. “I’ve been off in the Navy. She deserved it.”

There was no residual edge to the words. No hint of bitterness or frustration. He merely stated a fact he’d accepted. I filed that away alongside the other things I was assembling about him.

I pulled my brain back to the reason I was here. “So Strand got shot down for his big project, but it sounds like he’s had his fingers in a lot of island pies, anyway. I can make public records requests for anything that was on record during Miles’s tenure—meeting minutes, approved contracts, budget line items, anything that went through official channels. It won’t give us the full picture, but it gives us the official version of events, which is useful even when it has holes in it. Sometimes, especially then. The holes tell you something.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll loop in Rios.”

“I’ll get the requests drafted this afternoon.” I felt the hollow in my gut that meant I’d been running on coffee and focus since before dawn, and checked the time. “Right after lunch.”

“What are you in the mood for?”

I glanced at him sideways. Apparently he was coming? I ran a quick internal accounting of whether that was wise, whether it complicated things, whether I wanted it to. Unquestionably no, yes, and yes. But none of it mattered. I was here to work with these people, and Jace was one of them. The rest of it was not a productive line of thinking in the middle of the day on a public street.

“I could go for a big, juicy burger,” I said.

“Home Port’s got the best one on the island.”

“Lead the way.”

It was a fifteen-minute walk down toward the commercial fishing end of the marina. Home Port sat back on the docks, looking like just what it was—a working bar that had been serving the fishing families and dock workers of Sutter’s Ferry for decades and had no particular interest in impressing anyone. Inside it was warm and dim and smelled of frying oil and old wood and the yeasty comfort of a place that took its beer seriously and its décor not at all. A few men sat at the bar with the unhurried quality of people who’d earned the right to sit still in the middle of a Thursday. A handful of other tables were filled, and a lazy game of pool seemed to be underway in the back.

Koa settled under the table without being asked, his chin on my foot, and a server appeared with menus.

I ordered the burger without looking at the menu for long, and then—because it was Home Port and some things stayed the same even when everything else changed—I added an order of hush puppies with Rotel dip.

Jace ordered the fish and chips, handed back the menu, and settled against the booth. Every line telegraphed a man comfortable in his own skin. I bet he was the same in a dive bar or a country club. His kind of confidence couldn’t be faked. It smacked of someone who’d grown up in privilege. Yet it hadn’t spoiled him. I’d seen him interact with people up and down the social strata, never with the kind of pretentious edge wealth often came with. And that made him a puzzle.

“So, where are you from, Layla Murphy?”

“Such a Southern question to lead with.”

“It tells you a lot about a person.”

He wasn’t wrong. Resigned to the get-to-know-each-other portion of the program, I settled back on my side of the booth. “Orcas Island. Washington.”