“I should have gone and found her,” Brendan said, more to himself than anyone else. “When she didn’t show up at the dock. I should have gone to find her. What the hell did I leave for?”
“She did show up,” a woman’s voice said behind him. Sanders’s wife approached, a half-drunk beer in her hand. “She was there, just late. Blubbering all over the place.”
Brendan had to rely on the stool to hold his weight.
“Told her to toughen up,” his crew member’s wife said, but her tone changed when people around her started to mutter. “In a nice way,” she added defensively. “I think.”
Jesus. He could barely breathe for thinking of her crying while he sailed away.
He couldn’t fucking stand it.
Brendan was still reeling from the news that Piper had come to see him off, that she’d shed tears over missing him, when an older man ambled toward the front of the crowd with a white bandage taped to his head.
Abe? The man who owned the hardware store in town with his sons?
“It was my fault Piper was late to the dock, Captain. She’s been walking me to the museum every morning so I could read my paper. Can’t get up the stairs alone these days.” He fussed with his bandage. “Fell and smacked my noggin off the sidewalk. Piper had to stay with me until Todd came. It took a while because he was dropping my grandbaby off at school.”
“She’s been walking you to the museum every day?” Brendan asked, voice unnatural on account of the wrench twisting a permanent bolt into his throat. She hadn’t said anything about Abe. She’d just picked up another best friend and made him important. It was what she did.
“Yes, sir. She’s the sweetest girl you ever want to meet.” His eyes flooded with humor. “If my sons weren’t married and she hadn’t gone and fallen in love with the captain here, I’d be playing matchmaker.”
Stop, he almost shouted. Might have, if his vocal cords had been working.
He was going to die.
He was dying.
“Sweet doesn’t even cover it,” piped up Opal, where she stood near the back of the crowd. “I hadn’t left my apartment in an age, since my son passed. Not for more than grocery shopping or a quick walk. Not until Piper fixed me right up, and Hannah showed me how to use iTunes. My granddaughters brought me back to the living.” A few murmurings went up at the impassioned speech. “What is this nonsense about Piper going back to LA?”
“Yeah!” A girl Piper’s age appeared at Opal’s side. “We’re supposed to have a makeup tutorial. She gave me a smoky eye last week, and two customers at work asked for my number.” She slumped. “I love Piper. She’s not really gone, is she?”
“Uh, yeah,” Hannah shouted. “She is. Maybe try showing up on time, Westport.”
“Sorry about that,” Abe said, looking guilty along with everyone around him. “There was an oil rig fire off the coast. A young man from town works there, drilling. I reckon everyone was waiting for news, to make sure one of our own was all right, before heading to the party.”
“We really need to get a television,” Hannah muttered.
Brendan sat there bereft as more and more proof mounted that Piper had been putting down roots. Quietly, carefully, probably just to see if she could. Probably scared she wouldn’t succeed. It had been his job to comfort her—and he’d blown it.
He’d lost the best thing that ever happened to him.
He could still hear her that night when they’d sat on a bench overlooking the harbor, moments after she’d waltzed into the memorial dinner with a tray of tequila shots.
Since we got here, it has never been more obvious that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m really good at going to parties and taking pictures, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But what if that’s it? What if that’s just it?
And with those insecurities in tow, she’d proceeded to touch everyone in this room, in one way or another. Carving her way into everyone’s hearts. Making herself indispensable. Did she even know how thoroughly she’d succeeded? Piper had once said Brendan was Westport, but now it was the other way around. This place was her.
Please . . . don’t doubt me, Brendan. Not you. Have faith in me. Okay?
There was no way, no way in hell, he could let that be the last thing she said to him. Might as well lie down and die right there, because he wouldn’t be able to live with it. And no way her last memory of him would be leaving his house, leaving her crying, for God sakes.
Brendan steadied himself, distributing his weight in a way that would allow him to move, to walk, without further rupturing the shredded heart in his chest. “It’s my fault she’s gone. The responsibility is mine. She is mine.” He swallowed glass. “And I’m going to get her.”