Michael (Wild Men #8)

Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dinner is fish, of course, one that Michael caught before he turned his attention to teaching me.

We sit outside on the tiny front porch and watch the sun set over the blue, shimmering lake.

The fish is so tasty, and we spend the first few minutes just eating and enjoying our meal.

“To what you said earlier,” Michael says. “I’m not used to this kind of intense attraction either. Honestly, my cousins like to joke that the boat is my girlfriend.”

I smile. “I’m sure you take that well.”

“Right.” He shoots me a half-grin. “But they have a point. I’d go to bed exhausted from a day on the water, and I’d wake up thinking of nothing else. How much can we make today? Can we stay out of the black? Is it too stormy to go out this morning, or can we make it back before it rains?”

“My days used to be all about planning how to land the next client. I loved it. I think.” I pause, realizing I’ve never really thought about it before. “What I really loved was figuring out how to tell a story to best sell the product.”

“Do you miss your job? ”

I stare at him. “You know, that’s a good question. Not yet, to be honest. I’ve enjoyed doing my own thing. My dad worked for the same company his whole life. Different field, so I never thought I was following in his footsteps.”

“Are you close with your dad?”

I nod. “I’m close to both my parents. But he and my mom are fixed in place. They’ve traveled to Maine, but that’s it. And my dad…I think he shut down after Uncle Tony drowned. He was never a risk-taker, but that event shaped him. I guess it did me too, even though I was so young. Tony became this mythic figure in our family, a hero really. And Dad is now afraid to fly or go on cruises—all sorts of things he never used to be scared of. I don’t think he ever fully processed his brother’s death.”

Michael clenches his jaw. “We had a memorial for the Lucky Queen a few years ago.”

“The fifteenth anniversary.”

He jerks his head to meet my gaze. “You were there?”

I shake my head. “I was supposed to be there. Mom and I came down with the flu the day before we were scheduled to fly out. My dad didn’t want to fly by himself because…well, his fears. So my aunt went alone.”

“Lynn was the only family member of Tony’s I recall from that night,” he murmurs like he’s back there. “She was really affected by the memorial. She hasn’t been back to Lucky Bay much since she lost Tony.”

“She doesn’t like to go back there,” I say. “She still owns their waterfront cottage.”

“I know. She has me check on it once in a while. She’s been renting it out for years now.”

“She says she wants to focus on her present and not her past.”

Michael’s dark eyes flash with an emotion, but then he blinks and whatever I thought I saw is gone .

“Did Ayden have any of the same fears as you about having a family?”

He looks at me, and I catch the surprise in his eyes. “They call our family cursed in town. Our grandfather skipped town after losing his business, and then of course our dad left early for a different reason. I don’t know—the label stuck.”

“It couldn’t have been easy living with a hurtful label like that when you were kids. Or adults.”

“It was tough. And Ayden felt it, no doubt. But he shouldn’t be worried. He doesn’t fish for a living. And he won’t go bankrupt—our wealthy cousins would never let him. He’s tight with Colton and Dylan—closer than he is to me in some ways. They look out for him.”

“Still, kids can carry real trauma from the death of a parent and can create stories. Even illogical ones. Maybe it was harder for Ayden than you think.”

He nods slowly. “Maybe it was. When I got checked out after my near-accident, the doctor…” He hesitates. “Well, he gave me a therapy referral.”

I nod. “That makes sense. Therapy for past trauma can really be beneficial. It’s not for everyone, of course.”

“I wonder if I should look into it.” He shrugs. “The very idea of going to a shrink is so far out of my comfort zone. The people I hang with in Lucky Bay think the way to get over trauma is a night at the local bar. Everyone knows your name there, and we all look out for each other.”

“That sounds nice,” I say.

“It is. But it can keep you stuck if you’re not careful. I needed to come here, to Montana. To see that there are other ways to live besides the short walk between the dock, the bar, and my apartment.”

“I get it.” I do. And now that I have no job holding me here, I wonder if I need to get out of Montana for a while and spread my wings. “It will be surreal to go to Lynn’s together tomorrow.”

He nods. “She’s the only living person who represents the tie between us.”

“The invisible string,” I say quietly as we stare out at the shimmering blue lake together.

“Right.”