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And until right now, he hadn’t been.

A college-aged kid had brought the
Lady Jane
in and gotten everything settled, and at some point shortly after, the occupant had arrived and the kid had left. Shelby had been in Hattiesburg at her cousins’ for a couple of weeks, so her father had been the one to get Declan settled in. By the time she’d gotten back from Mississippi, their new resident had established himself as a bit of a ghost—to the extent that Shelby often forgot he was even there. She’d see lights on at night, and his car would disappear from the parking lot on occasion, but aside from her servicing the water and waste tanks, he might as well
not
have been living aboard, for all the extra effort it had caused her.

It was odd, sure, but not odd enough to even ping
on her radar as concern. This was Magnolia Beach; they had plenty of odd ducks in town. And most of
them
were far more interesting than some Yankee—the SUV in the parking lot had Illinois tags—who was probably just suffering through a Jimmy Buffett–inspired midlife crisis.

The
Lady Jane
was starting to take shape in the dark in front of her. It really was a damn nice boat, the kind a lot of people only dreamed of owning one day. Built for serviceable, but not overly luxurious, comfort, it was easily big enough for one person to live aboard reasonably well for an extended but limited time, as it was really designed more for weekend excursions and deep-sea fishing.

The hermit in question came into view, standing near the rail of the cockpit. In the dark and from this distance, it was hard to tell much beyond that he was tall and broad-shouldered. She cut the engine on the dinghy and let it glide the last little bit, sliding easily alongside the bigger boat until she could catch hold.

It only took a second to secure her dinghy to the
Lady Jane.
Then she was climbing aboard, ignoring the hand extended to help her.

“I’m very glad to see you.”

Her earlier assumption was proven wrong immediately. Declan Hyde was not some middle-aged former salesmen in an existential crisis. In fact, he probably wasn’t much older than she was, maybe in his early thirties or so. It was hard to tell due to the darkness and the wild overgrown “I’ve been living on the sea” hair-and-beard combo he sported. He was wearing jeans with the knees ripped out and a T-shirt that once upon a time might have been blue.

“I’m Declan Hyde,” he continued, offering his hand again. “Welcome aboard.”

“Shelby Tanner,” she replied, returning the
handshake briefly while biting back the snarky but deserved comment she knew she’d probably regret later. He seemed about to say something else, but she knew she would not be able to manage polite chitchat right now. Not under these circumstances. “The keys?”

Declan nodded and opened the door to the cabin, giving her a glimpse inside. Papers and books were scattered around, and a laptop graced the center of the mess. A writer, then. She’d seen that before, too.

Please don’t tell me about your book.

She accepted the keys and tried to start the boat, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. “Great,” she muttered, praying for patience.

“It looks like I would have had to call you regardless.” The voice came from right behind her, causing her to jump. He’d followed her up and was now eyeing the controls with a shake of his head. “I certainly don’t know anything about engine repair.”

Of course you don’t.
He seemed to find this slightly amusing, but Shelby was unable to share in the humor. “Well, it’s a good thing I do. There’s a small toolbox under the seat in the dinghy. Would you mind?”

Declan went to get her tools as she assessed the situation. There was a flashlight stowed inside the engine door, and she held it between her cheek and her shoulder as she checked the most obvious culprits, hoping it would be something easy.

“Maybe we should call the Coast Guard,” Declan said, returning with her tools and setting them beside her.

“I don’t think that will be necessary.” She’d have to be on fire or sinking before she’d call the Guard. She knew every one of those guys, and she’d never be able to hold her head up again if they had to
come get her for anything less than a bona fide maritime disaster. And probably not even then.

“Should we drop the anchor or something? We’re still drifting.”

The fact he hadn’t tried already meant he probably didn’t know how. “I promise we won’t drift far. We’re fine.”

He squatted beside her. “Can I hold the flashlight for you?” he offered. She must have looked at him funny because he added, “At least that way I won’t seem completely useless in this time of need.”

Declan’s self-deprecating smile told her he saw the ridiculousness in the situation and his part in it, and that finally helped tamp down her irritation. “It’s hardly desperate times.” But she put the flashlight in his hand anyway and adjusted him so it would point where she needed it.

As if he knew she was not in the mood, Declan didn’t try to make conversation while she worked. Thankfully, the problem was easy to find—and would be easy to fix. “It’s just a bad wire. Won’t take me but a minute,” she told him.

Declan was quite large and the space was not, so his head was right over her shoulder. Contrary to what his hair and clothing said, he wasn’t doing the unwashed-hippie thing. He actually smelled nice, kind of woodsy. “You’re very capable,” he said after a minute or two of watching her.

She snorted. “We are a full-service marina.”

“I think this situation is a little above and beyond the usual offered services.”

He sounded sincere, which took the edge off.
A little.
“It’s a first—that’s for sure.”

“I’m sorry I had to wake you up. I honestly have no idea how the boat got loose. I worked until after midnight, then went to bed. I don’t know what woke me up, but I realized it was a lot darker than normal
and there was a lot more movement. I was rather surprised to find myself out here.”

It would be disconcerting, to say the least. “Well, I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“You know how this happened?” He sounded surprised.

“I have my theories, but I also have video surveillance of the entire marina. It won’t be hard to find out.” She reached for the electrical tape, thumping Declan in the chest with her elbow in the process. He grunted. “Sorry. I’m not used to working with an assistant.”

It wasn’t the cleanest of repairs, but it wasn’t terribly bad, either, for three something in the morning. Declan moved aside as she stood and tried again to start the boat. This time, the engine came to life easily.

“I’m impressed.”

He was obviously easily impressed, then, but since it wasn’t often that she was able to impress people, she took the ego boost happily. “It’s holding together with tape and prayer, but it’ll get us back to shore. I’ll fix it properly tomorrow—I mean, later today.”

“There’s no real rush. I don’t exactly have plans to take her out or anything.”

The smile on his face told her he thought he was being funny, but she didn’t see the humor this time, either. She stowed the flashlight and closed the engine door. “It’s a safety hazard, though. Any particular time you’d prefer I come?”

He finally took the hint and quit trying to be cute about it. “At your convenience.”

That would be a nice change.
Yawning widely, she turned the boat toward shore.

•   •   •

Shelby Tanner was not happy with him—that much was very clear. Declan couldn’t exactly blame her, though. No one liked being dragged out of bed in the small hours of the morning, but what else could he have done? Thomas had loaned him the
Lady Jane
with a laugh simply because he
didn’t
know anything about boats. He’d have plenty of time to study and catch up on all those books he said he wanted to read and all the movies he’d missed—and he’d get to catch up on all the sleep he’d lost in the last few years, too.

And, Thomas had added, he needed to start finding his sea legs. Miami was a boat culture. A few months in Magnolia Beach would be an easy introduction.

Shelby, though, obviously knew a hell of a lot about boats. It was to be expected, of course, since she worked at the marina, but there was an ease and confidence to her movements that told him this was second nature to her. Even the matter-of-fact way she’d fixed the problem with the engine spoke to a level of competence unusual in someone so young.

And she was young—maybe early or mid-twenties—which seemed very young to be in charge, yet she was the one answering the marina’s phone in the middle of the night. She must have had some level of responsibility.
Interesting.

The same ease with which she handled the boat was almost a rebuke to his lack of skills. It wasn’t a slap to his ego or anything—he was well aware of his skill set and had no need to get into a pissing contest over it—and he could see her side of things. In a broader sense, yes, someone living on a boat should at least know how to start the engine.

And he’d had every intention of learning.

He just hadn’t found the time, yet. The movies
and books and sleep—and the amazing antebellum architecture in this part of the country—had proven to be far more attractive.

She still would have had to come and get him—the engine
had
been broken, after all—but the event wouldn’t have had that farcical overlay, adding insult to injury.

It wasn’t going to be a long trip back to shore since he hadn’t drifted that far, but he wasn’t sure what he should do during that time. He had nothing to offer in the way of helping—not that Shelby seemed to need it—but it seemed rude to go below into the cabin as if Shelby were some kind of chauffeur. At the same time, it seemed rude to stand there and hover like he needed to supervise her.

He settled for leaning back against the console, out of the way but still nearby, and scanned the shoreline. Magnolia Beach was a poor substitute for Miami. It was just a tiny Southern town, smaller than even one of Miami’s suburbs, and without any of the culture or excitement. Yes, both towns were on the water, but he wasn’t sure this interlude was going to transition him from life in Chicago to life in Miami in any meaningful way.

But he couldn’t take possession of his apartment in Miami until January second, and Suzanne had been very clear that he couldn’t continue live in their apartment in Chicago. He had too much pride to couch surf at his friends’ places for the next couple of months, and with winter setting in, leaving Chicago seemed to be a good idea anyway. He was sick of the snow.

So one drunken night, two weeks after he’d lost his job and Suzanne had kicked him out, he’d let Thomas convince him that living on his family’s boat in Backwater, Alabama, was an excellent idea. To someone who hadn’t had an actual vacation in
more than five years, four months on a boat had sounded like paradise.

And while the last six weeks had been restorative, he wasn’t sure he would make it all the way through December.

Shelby wasn’t one for small talk, it seemed—whether it was her personality or the fact she was peeved at being pulled out of bed, he didn’t know. If it was her personality, that trait put her in the minority of people he’d met down here. He’d never had so many small-talk conversations with strangers in his entire life as he’d had recently. But even if that was her preference, he felt he needed to say
something.
He settled for “How long have you worked at the marina?”

“My whole life,” she answered. “My parents own it.”

That explained not only her familiarity with boats, but also with the dock area, as she maneuvered around buoys and navigated without so much as crinkling her forehead with the effort. So while he doubted she needed full concentration to work, he took her lapse back into silence as a hint.

After killing the engine, Shelby quickly jumped to the dock and the
Lady Jane
slid back into her spot with a gentle bump. Within moments, the boat was secured in place and Shelby was plugging it back into the main power, bringing the lights on the boat back to full strength. The whole adventure had taken less than an hour from start to finish. A mere thanks didn’t seem like enough, but Shelby merely shrugged when he said so.

“You’re safely back, and that’s what matters. We’ll sort everything else out in daylight. Try to get some sleep.” Then, without even waiting for him to respond, she was untying her little dinghy from the
Lady Jane
and puttering over to the main dock,
where the large shaggy dog that roamed the property came out to meet her.

Shelby stopped to pet it briefly, and then the dog followed her back to the main building. A moment later, the light downstairs went out.

No other lights came on, meaning Shelby was doing exactly what she’d told him to do: getting some sleep. But he was awake now; the adrenaline in his system was not quite flushed out yet. Back in the cabin, he shot a long look at the bed visible through the open bedroom door and sighed.

Another episode of
Breaking Bad
, coming right up.
It wasn’t like he
had
to get up in the morning or anything.

He opened his laptop and took it over to the couch.

Out of habit, he opened his e-mail client first, but only a few e-mails had landed in his in-box since he’d last checked a little before midnight. Most of it was spam, so he started tagging it for deletion.

One subject line caught his attention, though:
NO BETTER WAY TO SAY ‘THANK YOU!’ THEN WITH FLOWER’S!!

Unnecessary exclamation points and poor grammar notwithstanding, the message did ping his conscience. Hadn’t he just been thinking that a simple thanks wasn’t really adequate enough for Shelby’s assistance tonight? Flowers would be a nice gesture, and might help smooth over her irritation with him. Hell, it had always worked with Suzanne. If he’d irritated her and
hadn’t
sent flowers, he’d have been asking for the silent treatment.