Chapter 9

I watch with a confused frown. Is he giving me an unsolicited Baywatch preview? Because he should really have his shirt off for that.

When he gets to the end of the beach, he drops the backpack and searches inside for a few seconds before pulling something out—a plastic bag, maybe?

And then he wades into water, following the edge and completing my confusion.

I push myself up to see better, squinting as he starts grabbing the floating trash that’s washed up at the edge of the water and putting into the bag.

He’s being a garbage man.

Curse you, Beau Palmer.

I consider going to help, but there’s not that much trash, so he’d be done by the time I got there.

He jogs back, then wades to the boat and tosses the tied-up trash bag inside.

“Thought you were ditching me for a second there,” I say.

He laughs and dusts off his hands, heading toward me with the bottom half of his shorts wet again. “And where exactly would I have been going?”

I shrug. “Into the preserve? To be one with the manatees? I don’t know. You’re the one with insight into the criminal mind.”

He sets the backpack on the sand next to the towel .

“Do you always bring trash bags with you on forced tours of the island?”

He takes his seat on the towel again, but he’s closer this time, which I’m annoyingly aware of. “Stuff tends to wash up here because of how the current runs, but yeah, I keep trash bags in the cart and in my boat. It’s a lot easier to clean up whenever I see stuff than to let it collect.”

“And the city council won’t hire you on full-time? Do they know you’re also taking on island sanitation?”

He takes his sandwich in hand again and bites into it.

“They should know, Beau.”

“Nice rhyme,” he says through his chewing. I’m coming to understand that this man doesn’t take much seriously.

“Do you really want to be a full-time cop here?” I ask.

He fiddles with the brown paper around his sandwich. “Yeah. I do. I know that must be hard for you to believe, but I love this island. I’ll be here for the rest of my life. Or, I want to be, at least. Hard to do without a decent salary.”

“Could you work for your parents? Find a different way to pay the bills?”

“I could,” he says. “But I love what I do.”

“So, you want to have your cake and eat it too.”

“Absolutely. What’s the point of having cake if you’re not going to eat it?”

“Fair point,” I grant. I take another bite and spend a few seconds chewing. “You know what you need?”

“I’m scared to ask.”

“A good PR campaign.”

His brows hitch up. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t actually know much about what you do. Maybe you spend your part-time hours on the job eating donuts and using your radar gun to track the speed of tortoises and squirrels. ”

“Target practice with my squirt gun takes the bulk of my time, but go on.” He takes the last bite of his sandwich.

“Most people don’t understand the value of well-managed public relations.”

He grabs a bottle of Coke Zero out of his backpack and unscrews the lid. “Whereas you do?” He tips his head back and pours the soda into his mouth, never letting the bottle touch his lips. It’s more effective than any soda commercial I’ve seen.

“Of course,” I say, forcing my gaze to his eyes as he looks at me again. “It’s my job. I work for a PR firm.”

He hands me the Coke Zero. “I made sure not to get cooties on it.”

“Gee, thanks.” I have little confidence in my ability to pour it into my mouth without spilling all over my mom’s shirt. “If the city council is rejecting your request to make your position full-time, it’s because they don’t understand your value, which is another way of saying…”

“Bad PR.”

I nod. “I had a client earlier this year—super-smart, with a really revolutionary tech product built by a small startup. They couldn’t get any investors to back it because no one could understand its power—it was presented in a complicated way. So, they hired us. We put together a campaign to simplify and demonstrate the potential of the product and get people excited about it. And guess what?”

“It failed miserably.”

I elbow him. “They got twice the funding they were looking for. PR is powerful.”

“Are you offering your services?”

I snort. “You couldn’t afford me—not on a public servant’s salary.”

“Part-time public servant,” he corrects.

“Right. All I’m saying is if you really want to stay on Sunset Harbor for the rest of your life—which is completely crazy, for the record—and you also want to be a cop, and this is the only way to have that crazy-cake and eat it too…you need to work on your image. You don’t need to hire a PR firm to do that—never tell my boss I said that, please—but make your case. Present the evidence.”

He searches my face. “You mean a PowerPoint presentation or something?”

“I don’t know, Beau, is this 2001?”

He tries to suppress a smile, turning his gaze away. “Whatever the method of delivery, I don’t want to toot my own horn or…orchestrate photo ops or whatever a good PR campaign would entail.”

I shrug. “Suit yourself.” If he gives up so easily on his dream, it must only be a half dream.

“Are you not thirsty?” He nods at the drink in my hand. “That’s all for you.”

“Thanks,” I say, relieved I don’t have to make a fool of myself when I inevitably dribble soda down my chin. I put the bottle to my lips and drink, but inside I’m wondering whether I’m giving soda commercial vibes or toddler with her first sippy cup.

A loud ringing sounds somewhere near, and my gaze darts around, trying to locate it. Is there someone else here? I half expect to see Grams looking at us through binoculars from the trees.

Beau hurries to his feet. “That’s my work phone,” he explains, rummaging through his backpack. He gets up and answers, walking away so I can’t hear the conversation.

He hangs up less than a minute later and grimaces at me.

“Someone vandalize a sandcastle?” I reach for the soda cap and screw it on.

“Golf cart broken down in the road.” He comes to help me fold up the towel. “I’m really sorry.” He sets the towel in the backpack .

I feign an expression of disappointment as we head toward the boat, traipsing through the bath-temperature water. “You can imagine how gutted I am to have my date with the island cut short. Do you need help pushing back off?”

“I just need you to get in and take the anchor.” He tosses the backpack into the boat. “I’ll handle the rest.”

I have no doubt he will. I obediently climb into the boat, and he waits until I’m safely in to start rocking and pushing it into deeper waters. It gradually dislodges, and he makes his way to the back.

A minute later, I’ve got the anchor, and he climbs back in.

“We can finish this island tour another day,” he says a bit breathlessly.

I snort as I put the anchor into the locker.

“We agreed on four hours,” he says, standing in front of the wheel. “We’ve done two and a half, but I’ll round up to three because I’m generous.”

“Right, but?—”

“Are you a woman of your word, Gemma?”

I press my lips together and take the seat near Beau. Not because I want to be near him but because it’d be weird for me to sit as far away from him as possible. “You really think you’ll get another grain of sand on that scale with one more hour?”

“Possibly two,” he says, navigating the boat out of the little bay.

We get to deeper waters and pick up speed, leaving the pretty beach behind. The shadows cast by what’s left of the sun are long, making the island on our right look almost like a silhouette.

Like Beau said, it’s beautiful. But beauty’s not enough.

This island hurt my family. Badly. It took me almost three years to stop asking my parents when we’d be coming back.

“You’re not going to convince me to love Sunset Harbor, Beau. It’s not like this is a first impression you’re trying to change. Too much has happened. All my memories here are tainted. Four hours and a few grains of sand in the balance isn’t going to fix that. Why not use that hour and a half of your life to figure out how to convince the city council to make you a full-time employee?”

The frown returns to his brow at my mention of the topic, and I realize something right then: I don’t like seeing a sad Beau Palmer. It just feels…wrong. Like the world is off-kilter.

“You should give it another shot.”

He scrunches his nose. “I don’t know about that.”

“Come on. I can give you some tips. Trade secrets.” I wag my brows.

He chuckles as we reach the canal. “You’d do that?”

I shrug, even though I, too, am a bit confused by my offer. “Sure.”

He guides the boat to the dock, and I help by pushing out the fenders and getting the rope ready. I climb out—carefully, to ensure I require no saving this time—and Beau follows.

“I don’t even know where I’d start with a PR campaign,” he says.

I walk backward and put out my hands. “That’s why you’ve got me.” My face falls slightly at my poor choice of wording.

“That’s why I’ve got you,” he repeats, clearly thrilled to say the words.

“For an hour and a half,” I say to bring him back down to earth.

“I can do a lot with an hour and a half,” he says with a wicked grin.

My body heats up, but I keep an unamused expression, vowing to be sure the time I’ve promised him is massively boring for him.

His phone rings, and he holds it up. “Gotta jet. I’ll be back soon to claim my ninety minutes with you, though, Gemma.” He turns and jogs toward the driveway, and I stare after him, wondering what possessed me to make that offer and how much sand he’ll manage to heap onto the scale in an hour and a half.