Chapter 7: Ben's POV: The Lines

Ben's POV

The woman at my gate did not come in.

She stood on the gravel for a full minute and looked at my father's sign.

Then she said something to her driver, and he walked up to the shop door with a cream-colored card.

"Mrs. Tamblyn would like a word at nine tomorrow," he said. "On the dock."

I took the card.

"The dock is public," I said. "She can stand on it."

He nodded and went back to the car.

When I turned around, Maggie was standing very still beside the drafting table.

"You don't have to be here when she comes," I said.

"I know."

"I'm going to be here."

"Ben."

"It's my dock."

She almost smiled.

She looked at the card in my hand.

"She'll offer money first," she said. "Then something worse."

"What's worse?"

"Kindness."

I turned the card over.

The back was blank, the way it is with people who never need to write anything down.

"Then I'll make the coffee," I said. "Bad coffee is a good defense against kindness."

"Is that a boatbuilder's rule?"

"It's mine."

She laughed, once, and the shop felt warmer for it.

Neither of us mentioned the flat of her hand, still trembling a little, or the taped fingers she was hiding in her sleeve.

I hadn't told her I'd known who she was since her first week.

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