Page 51 of Savage Surrender

The captain brings us into the public marina between fishing boats and much larger ones. Weller helps tie us off and Owen climbs onto the dock and checks both directions before reaching for me. I let him lift me by the waist in a way that’s not entirely brotherly. The whole dock moves faintly beneath my feet even after the boat settles.

A cute village begins at the end of the dock, a loose collection of buildings gathered around brick paths and patches of grass. Restaurant patios are already filling for lunch. Someone is frying seafood nearby, and the smell tangles with sugar from a bakery and the ocean still clinging to my face. A trio plays outside a pub beneath strands of lights that probably look magical after dark.

Families pull wagons loaded with towels and toys. A group of women in matching hats wobble past on rental bicycles laughing and holding on to their fruit-topped drinks. Golf carts roll through the narrow lanes with dogs hanging their heads over the sides, and none of the people who pass look like they give a shit about us.

It’s perfect.

A golf cart slows nearby and Owen moves closer until his arm brushes mine, but the driver only waves us out of the lane and continues toward the marina.

Nobody recognizes us. Nobody calls our names.

Tristan leads us past a small grocery with baskets of produce outside and a hardware store displaying beach chairs, batteries, and hurricane shutters in the window. Weller clocks both without comment. I do too. Food, water, tools... all of the essentials. Charming is nice. Useful is even better.

The ice-cream shop order window catches my eye. I slow beneath the painted sign showing a strawberry cone, and Freddie changes direction so quickly Weller nearly walks into him.

“We need to keep moving,” Weller says.

“But she wants ice cream.” Freddie practically whines.

“I never said that.”

Freddie gives me a look. “You made a face.”

“What kind of face?”

“The one where you pretend you don’t want something in case someone tells you no.”

That is rude, invasive, and unfortunately accurate. Before I can deny it, he’s already at the window ordering strawberry in a waffle cone. Weller studies the people around us, Owen studies the roofline, and Tristan leans against the wall beside me as if he has nowhere else to be.

“He’s going to buy you everything you look at,” Tristan murmurs.

“That sounds expensive.”

Freddie returns and hands me the cone with both dimples showing. The first bite is cold enough to hurt my teeth, sweet and bright against the salt on my lips, and I close my eyes while it melts across my tongue.

When I open them, all four alphas are watching my mouth.

“You people need hobbies.”

“Apparently, it’s keeping our little sister out of trouble,” Tristan says.

“Fat chance of that.”

Weller makes a displeased sound, but his attention drops when a line of pink ice cream slips over my thumb. I lick it away slowly because I am not above making his day more difficult.

Tristan’s attention shifts past my shoulder, and I follow it to a narrow pharmacy wedged between a souvenir shop and a golf-cart rental. His smile disappears so quickly that my fingers tighten around the cone before he touches two fingers to Weller’s arm and crosses the brick path.

Through the front window, I watch him speak to the woman behind the counter. She checks the shelves at her back, disappears through a doorway, then returns shaking her head. I watch as she writes something on the back of a business card and passes it over.

He folds the card once as he comes back and looks at me before Weller, which is answer enough.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing here. She gave me three places on the mainland to try.”

I take another bite before worry can ruin the ice cream.

We continue toward the music. Freddie disappears from my side for less than a minute and returns with a bundle of flowers wrapped in brown paper - daisies, snapdragons, and several wild-looking purple things sticking out at every angle.