Romance on the Edge 01 - Hooked

was spilled on the floor.
    What a waste. Much like himself.

    “Dag nabbit!” Gramps threw his rain hat to the ground.
    Sonya had met Gramps and Aidan the next morning, as agreed upon, to mount the outboard onto the skiff.
    The jinxed outboard lay buried underneath a mountain of mud.
    Some time during the night, a section of the bluff collapsed due to the deluge of rain that had fallen and still continued to fall.
    Sonya bit back a laugh. Maybe now, they could buy a new engine.
    “Don’t go thinking what I know you’re thinking.” Gramps pointed at her.
    “What?” She gave him a wide-eyed expression.
    “I’ll save her. I’ll dig her out, clean her up, and she’ll be good as new.”
    “Gramps. It’s covered in mud. There comes a time when you have to bury the dead.” A chuckle did bubble free after that and she slid a glance toward Aidan. He hadn’t said anything since they’d rendezvoused this morning, other than a greeting for Gramps and a nod for her, keeping his distance from her.
    Aidan’s gaze met hers and his lips curved into a grin.
    “Nope,” Gramps snapped. “I’ll resurrect her. Just you two wait and see if I don’t. Wipe those grins off your faces. You look silly. I’m getting out of the rain.” He grumbled off down the beach toward the cabin.
    A taut silence settled between Aidan and Sonya, while rain spattered around them in big fat drops. They started back the way Gramps had huffed off.
    “Listen, Sonya, about last night.” Aidan hunched his shoulders into the depths of his rain jacket. “I understand now that we—” he swallowed and gauged the encroaching tide “—can’t be together. I don’t want the change in our relationship to affect the one I have with your family.”
    “Of course not, Aidan. I know how much they mean to you, and you mean a lot to them.” She slid her hands into the wide sleeves of her rain jacket. “Just so that you know, I never told them what happened between us.”
    Aidan gave a huge sigh of relief. “I appreciate that.”
    They fell into step, not completely comfortable with each other but not quite strained either.
    “How’d you get the other black eye?” Sonya asked.
    Aidan flushed and tightened his lips. “Just one of those things, you know.”
    She was afraid she did.
    “What’s your next move?” Aidan asked before Sonya could ask anything else.
    It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about how he’d come by the new shiner. Sonya decided now wasn’t the time to press. Their relationship was shaky after last night. No sense in rocking the boat. “Set netting this afternoon, just like you.”
    “No, I meant what’s your next move with this Kendrick mess?”
    “That will depend on what the medical examiner finds, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let anyone know about Garrett and me. The less who know the easier, understand?”
    “Yeah, fishermen are already upset with you fishing both gear types. Add you being sweet on a fish cop and your name will be mud.”
    “Exactly.” She lowered her ball cap over her face to help with the rain.
    “You sure don’t like making it easy on yourself, do you?”
    She indicated his new shiner. “I could say the same about you.”

    Set netting that afternoon turned out to be a bust. Just as Sonya had predicted, the southeast wind had driven the salmon deeper into the bay and away from shore where the nets waited. The rain continued to fall, the wind to blow, and the temperature to drop. All in all, it was chalking up to be one miserable day.
    Sonya also felt the piercing looks and the whispered accusations from the other set netters when they passed by. It seemed like the bay hummed with rumors and speculation regarding her involvement in Kendrick’s death.
    She sat hunched into her raingear at the stern of the skiff, the boat bobbing in the choppy, gray water tied to the running line. Wes was in the bow, sitting much the way she was. Anything to lessen the rain pelting them.
    Peter was warm and dry aboard the Double Dippin ’, anchored off the end of the running line’s buoy. Lana kept him company.
    There were no fish in the net to pick, as Sonya and Wes had just finished a wasted run-through. Now they sat and hoped that something fishy would swim into it.
    Sonya looked left at Aidan huddled down in his skiff. Farther up from him, on the Hartes’ other site, were Cranky and Crafty. The weather seemed to appeal to them. They were smoking