Ignoring the pounding of her heart, she smiled. “I came to thank you for last night. What you did for Mack.”
“She told you?”
His hair was very dark and his features strong. The blue of his eyes was the only thing that softened what might otherwise have been described as a hard face.
“She was very shaken up. And grateful to you.”
“Seemed to me I upset her. I’m not used to talking to kids. I don’t know the right way.”
“She’s a teenager. Today’s right way is tomorrow’s wrong way.” Her mouth felt so dry she could hardly speak. Right now she felt like a teenager herself. “She’s grateful and I’m grateful, too. If anything happened to her I’d—”
“I don’t think she’ll be doing it again.” He turned back to the truck and hauled some bags out of the back, the muscles of his shoulders flexing. “Are you feeling better? I haven’t seen you since that day at the ferry.”
Why was she looking at his muscles? What was wrong with her? “I’m sorry Mack blurted it out like that. The fact that you’re her father.”
“I am her father.”
She’d spent so long trying to forget that fact that it was a shock to hear him say it so calmly. “It wasn’t the way I would have chosen to spread the news.”
“News spreads. The method doesn’t generally matter.”
She knew it wouldn’t take long for it to filter through to the locals, but he probably wouldn’t be around long enough for it to bother him. “I
didn’t think you’d still be living here. I was surprised to see you.”
“I gathered that by the way you keeled over on the dock.”
She would have felt embarrassed if she hadn’t been busy wrestling other feelings. “I assumed you’d be sailing a far distant ocean somewhere.”
His face was inscrutable. “No.”
“Mom mentioned that you’ve been doing some work on the house. You’re working here full-time?” The boatyard belonged to the company Island Marine and had occupied this corner of the harbor for as long as she could remember. The owner Joshua Roper had died a few years previously and left the business to his son Charlie, who had been a couple of years ahead of Jenna at school. “You’re working with Charlie?”
“Sometimes.”
Sometimes. When it suited him. Life on his terms.
Some things hadn’t changed.
But he’d saved her daughter.
“It’s cold. Let’s take this conversation inside before you catch pneumonia.” He transferred the bags to one arm so that he could unlock the door of the office, and then dumped everything onto the table.
Captain bounded into the room and settled himself on a large cushion in front of the log burner.
Lauren glanced round the place, wishing she could stop shivering.
One half of the room was used as an office, complete with file cabinets. There was a desk, and she noticed a high-spec computer. The other half was equipped as a kitchen. It was surprisingly tidy, every surface clear and shining. She remembered visiting a couple of times with her father when she was young and the place had been a mess. It seemed Charlie hadn’t inherited his father’s untidy traits.
The walls were covered in maps, some of them annotated with bold black strokes of a pen.
She stepped closer. “What are the lines and arrows?”
“They’re the routes I’ve sailed.” He lifted milk out of the bag and stowed it in the fridge.
She studied the map, relieved to have an excuse not to look at him. “You’ve virtually sailed round the world.” Single-handed. Alone.
“There’s a lot to see.”