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“When are you leaving?” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“I don’t know. I have to make some calls.”
She nodded, but kept her face hidden. Her shoulders seemed to tremble under his arms.
“Ahoy!” Biyen shouted from outside. “Cloe, can I come aboard?”
Cloe drew back and swept a surreptitious knuckle under her eye before reaching for her crutches.
“Sure, buddy,” she called, voice only cracking a little. In an undertone, she added to Trystan, “I’ll tell you why Logan lets me to work on the weekend. So he has a reason to send Biyen up to tell me to quit.” She winked.
“That man does not have a subtle bone in his body.”
“Uh-oh,” Biyen said when his head popped over the gunwale and he saw Trystan. He finished coming aboard. “Logan said I should tell Cloe to go home before you got back and found her working ’cause otherwise you would cut off his”—he cupped around his mouth to whisper-spell—“N-U-T-S and feed them to the squirrels.” He immediately started giggling in his infectious way.
“I’m probably going to do that right after I finish my chores on theStorm Ridge. You want to help me?”
“Do the chores or…?” His crinkle-browed expression was priceless.
They all cracked up.
“Thechores, you clown.”
“Sure!” Biyen said. “Will you text my mom and tell her where I am so she doesn’t worry?”
“Sure thing.” Trystan exchanged a look of wry amusement with Cloe, silently agreeing that Sophie and Logan were not worried. “Do you need anything before we go?” he asked her. It was starting to hit him that she was really leaving. This was over.Theywere over.Shit.How was it possible to be both fully grounded and standing outside his own body?
“I have one more cabin I want to finish before knocking off.” Cloe untied her coveralls and started to slide her arms back into the sleeves. “I’ll see you at dinner, though. Emma invited me.”
“Okay. Good.” He wanted to spend every last second with her, but Biyen was already down the ladder, calling, “Bye, Cloe!”
Trystan waved and followed him.
*
Trystan lucked out.A pilot he knew brought in a pair of guests from Vancouver two days later. He said Trystan could hop in for the flight back if he covered the fuel.
Within the hour, Trystan was on the tarmac, saying the emotional good-byes he had hoped to avoid. The one with Cloe on the wharf yesterday had been hard enough. All the women had cried, especially Cloe when she had finished hugging Storm and handed her back to Emma.
Logan had given her contacts in Miami to ask about work and a place to stay. Reid told her again that she was welcome anytime to visit Storm.
Trystan hadn’t known what to say. He’d only hugged her and asked against her ear, “You sure you’ll be okay?”
She had nodded, kissed the corner of his mouth, then clambered aboard the water taxi wearing that threadbare packsack that should have been eighty-sixed when she had arrived.
Now it was his turn to say good-bye and a weird déjà vu accosted him. It wasn’t a full five months since he’d crawled out of a plane to find Sophie waiting for them here, but so much had changed. Not the weather, of course. It was raining again, but he and his brothers had been surly and sullen as the skies that day.
Today, Reid and Logan shook his hand and clapped his shoulder, wishing him luck. Emma had been quiet and intimidated back then. Today she grew teary as she hugged him.
“I’ll miss you, mate. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
Even Sophie, who was never sentimental about his comings and goings, sniffed and hugged him extra hard. “Don’t you dare miss my wedding. You’re my flower girl.”
“I thought I’d have to fight Reid for that honor.”
“He’s singing ‘Ave Maria’ while I walk down the aisle.”
