A year in Gull Harbor, and not one person here had ever asked me what I was.
They asked if I could get a bilge pump running before noon. I always could.
Nadine: You're late.
Josie: I'm not late. The sun is early.
Nadine: The sun is on time. You're the one who sleeps in a truck.
Ray: She's only mean in the mornings. Give her an hour.
Josie: I'm mean all day. You two just don't listen.
Nadine called me kid and meant it as love. Ray called me nothing at all and meant the same thing.
Nobody here knew I had no wolf. Nobody here knew I'd ever had a pack.
The fates had picked somebody for me once. He looked at me and said no, right in front of everyone.
I figured that was the whole story of me. It turns out a person can live fine inside a story like that, if she keeps it small.
Nadine: Man out front wants his engine looked at. Says he'll pay cash and not haggle.
Josie: Then he's my favorite person alive. Send him in.
I turned around with a rag in my hand, and the whole yard got a little smaller.
Not because of anything he did. He just walked in like he already owned the ground he was standing on.
Eli: You're Josie.
Josie: Depends who's asking.
Eli: Eli. I keep this harbor in one piece.
He said it plain, like a fact about the weather. Around us the yard got quieter without anyone deciding to be quiet.
Eli: Nadine tells me you're the best engine hand on this coast.
Josie: Nadine says that because I buy her lunch.
Nadine: I say it because it's true, and she buys me lunch.
He laughed at that, low and easy, and it was a nice laugh. That was the whole problem.
Then he looked at me a second too long, and the back of my neck went cold.
Eli: You're not from here.
Josie: Nobody's from here. That's the whole charm of the place.
My hand closed around the wrench without asking me first.
Eli: No. You smell like pine and diesel and a long drive. Where did you come from?
Josie: A place I'm not going back to.
Eli: I know the kind.
He said it soft. Not like a threat. Like he'd been there himself.
That was worse. A stranger being kind is one thing. A stranger being kind and knowing what he's looking at is something else.
Eli: I'm not going to run you off.
Josie: I didn't ask you not to.
Eli: I know you didn't. I'm telling you anyway.
A man who can make a promise like that is a man with the power to break it. That's how it works. That's how it always worked for me.
He knew what I was. He knew before he said one word about engines.
I had a small room, a small yard, and two people who liked me. It was enough. I had told myself a thousand times it was enough.
And I had nothing, not one single thing, to make him go away.