Page 178 of At First Catch

Paperwork covers nearly every surface. Repair estimates. Insurance follow-ups. Revised dock stabilization quotes. Investor proposals printed on paper too expensive for the kind of soulless ideas written across them.

Luxury expansion.

Private membership slips.

Corporate oversight.

Every phrase turns my stomach.

Outside the windows, sunlight spills across Back Bay, flashing bright against the restored slips and dock lights while tourists wander the marina like this place hasn’t become a financial storm cloud hovering directly over my head.

Usually the marina calms me. Today every thought circles back to the same ugly facts. The inspector wasn’t wrong. The west docks won’t survive another hurricane season without major structural work. Every week I wait, the repairs become more expensive. Every storm forecast feels like a countdown. And every investor in town knows it.

And worst of all?

I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.

For the first time in my life, my uncertainty is affecting the people I love. Hadley. The town. Every worker who believed in this place because I told them it had a future.

“You’re staring at the same page again.”

I glance up.

Miguel stands in the office doorway, holding a receipt folder with the appearance of a man seconds away from offering unsolicited emotional commentary.

“I’m working.”

“You’re intimidating the paperwork.”

He steps inside and sets the folder on the edge of my desk, eyes drifting over the proposals before I can flip them closed.

A subtle shift flits across his face.

“Investors again?” he asks.

I lean back in my chair and scrub one hand down my jaw.

“Meeting tonight.”

Miguel whistles low under his breath.

“The fancy dinner one?”

“Unfortunately.”

He studies me for another second. “Hadley know?”

Immediate guilt hits hard enough that I look away first.

Because yes.

And no.

She knows enough to worry.

Not enough to understand how bad this is becoming.

“She knows I have a meeting.”