“I’ve never told anyone outside the family.” He managed a smile. “Bad for the image.”

Touched, she rested her forehead against his. “You’re right. It could have been Seth,” she murmured. “What happened to you, it could have been Seth. Your father saved him from that. You and your family saved him, while mine’s done nothing. And worse than nothing.”

“You’re doing something.”

“I hope it’s enough.” When his mouth came to hers, she let herself slide into comfort.

FOURTEEN

PHILLIP UNLOCKED THE boatyard at seven A.M. The very fact that his brothers hadn’t given him grief about not working the day before, or about taking a full Sunday off the previous week, had his guilt quota at peak.

He expected he had a good hour, maybe a little more before Cam showed up to continue work on the hull of the sport’s fisher. Ethan would put in a morning of crabbing, taking advantage of the fall season, before heading in to work that afternoon.

So he would have the place to himself, and the quiet and solitude to deal with the paperwork he’d neglected the week before.

Quiet didn’t mean silence. His first act when entering his cramped office was to hit the lights. The next was to switch on the radio. Ten minutes later, he was nose-deep in accounts and very much at home.

Well, they owed just about everybody, he concluded. Rent, utilities, insurance premiums, the lumberyard, and the ever popular MasterCard.

The government had demanded its share in the middle of September, and the bite had been just a little nasty. The next tax nibble wasn’t far enough away to let him relax.

He juggled figures, toyed with them, stroked them, and decided red wasn’t such a bad color. They’d made a tidy profit on their first job, the bulk of which had been poured back into the business. Once they turned the hull, they would get another draw from their current client. That would keep their heads above water.

But they weren’t going to see a lot of the color black for a time yet.

Dutifully, he cut checks, updated the spreadsheet, reconciled figures, and tried not to mourn the fact that two and two stubbornly insisted on making four.

He heard the heavy door below open, then slam.

“Hiding up there again?” Cam called out.

“Yeah, having a real party.”

“Some of us have real work to do.”

Phillip looked at the figures dancing over his computer screen and laughed shortly. It wasn’t real work to Cam, he knew, unless you had a tool in your hand.

“Best I can do,” he muttered and shut the computer down. He stacked the outgoing bills on the corner of the desk, tucked the paychecks in his back pocket, then headed down.

Cam was strapping on a tool belt. He wore a ball cap backward to keep his hair out of his eyes, and it flowed beneath the down-sloped bill. Phillip watched him slide the wedding band off his finger and tuck it carefully into his front pocket.