Louisa turned and saw McKenzie and a dark-headed girl (not a woman because Louisa wasn’t sure she was even out of college) running toward Cody, who was tying the cutter to the dock and talking with some of the other guardsmen.

She quickly looked away. “I’ll be inside.”

People started showing up for the regatta around nine in the morning, when the festivities began. Louisa had hauled all the silent-auction baskets out to the tables they’d set up near the food booths, and she did a perfectly stellar job of pretending Cody Boggs wasn’t there at all.

He was busy with the water-safety protocols and giving tours to little kids, which he did with such charm and kindness Louisa couldn’t help but notice it made her heart double in size. For a fleeting moment, she pictured him with kids of his own, a little boy maybe, with dark curls and a carbon copy of his brown eyes. She could see Cody carrying him on his shoulders, making him laugh, protecting him from the monsters under his bed. He’d be a good dad.

“Is this where you want the trophies?”

Louisa turned toward a man carrying the box of awards she’d had engraved for the race winners. The kids’ race started in twenty minutes—this guy was cutting it really close.

“Sorry they’re late. We found a mistake on the way out the door. Thought it was better to get it right. I think my boss emailed you?”

Well, she couldn’t fault him for that. “Thanks. You can set them here.”

She led him to the table they’d reserved for the bling, right next to the podium where the announcer would give the play-by-play for each race.

Louisa was helping the man unload the trophies and medals when she accidentally glanced over toward the Coast Guard setup and accidentally noticed that Cody was no longer there.

She scanned the crowd and braced herself for the impact of seeing him with McKenzie (again)—would it ever get easier? But it wasn’t McKenzie he was talking to. It was Louisa’s dad.

Oh no. Would Cody ask him about Maggie’s accounts? She hadn’t been clear enough that she had a strategy when it came to broaching the subject with her father. Namely, Don’t broach the subject with my father. But Cody was curious, so he’d likely broach away.

“I think the medals are upside down.”

“Huh?”

Louisa turned and found the trophy deliveryman pointing to the medals she’d just laid out on the table. They were, in fact, upside down.

She glanced up just in time to see Cody walk off with her dad and shake hands with someone else. Her stomach roiled.

Could this day get any worse?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO