“Yeah.” She shook her head. “I was just remembering the sea shanties my grandmother gave me the other day. A whole folder of them she found. They were written by my father, apparently.”
“Wow.” He set down his spoon. Almost said, Why didn’t you tell me? But thought it would sound presumptuous. “That’s exciting, right?” He studied her features, noticing the tension around the corners of her mouth. “You’re feeling some kind of way about the whole thing, yeah?”
She made a wishy-washy sound. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh no. Nope.” He pushed his bowl aside, crossing his arms over his chest. “You want to bury my feet in cement and force me to talk about shit that makes me uncomfortable, Freckles, you’re going to do the same.”
“Uh, excuse me. Where do you get off being right?”
He cracked a smile, waved her on. “I’m waiting.”
Glumly, she shoveled a final bite of soup into her mouth and made a whole show of mimicking him, pushing her bowl aside and crossing her arms. “Look. This is me stalling.”
Why did he have to like her so fucking much, huh? “I can see that.”
“This isn’t going to distract me from the actual conversation we’re going to have,” she warned him.
His lips twitched. “Noted.”
“Well. Fine.” She dropped her hands and started to pace. “It’s just that . . . you know, Piper, she really connected to the soul of Henry Cross. When we were here last summer? And me . . . I was kind of pretending to.”
She stopped pacing to look at him, judging his expression, which he kept impassive. On the inside, he was curious as hell. “Okay. I get pretending.”
Hannah studied his face thoughtfully before continuing. “I was two years old when we left Westport. I don’t remember anything about Henry Cross or this place. No matter how much I dig, I can’t . . . I can’t feel anything for this . . . invisible past. Nothing but guilt, anyway.”
“Why are you under pressure to feel something?”
“I’m not under pressure, really. It’s just that I usually would. Feel something. I can watch a song play out in my head like a movie and bond with the words and sound, connect with something written about a situation I’m not even familiar with. I’m an emotional person, you know? But this . . . It’s like zip. Like I’ve got a mental block on anything related to my father.”
It was really bothering her. He could see that. And thus, it was bothering him. Not only that this lack of connection with Henry Cross was under her skin, but . . . what if he couldn’t find the right words to make it better? Comforting women wasn’t exactly his forte. “Do you want to forge some kind of bond with the past? With Henry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why were you drawn back here?”
“I missed my sister. I missed this place. I even missed you a little,” she said playfully, but sobered again quickly. “That’s all.”
“Is that all? Missing people? Or are you chewing on something you can’t quite name?” Fox wished he had his shirt off, so he could feel less exposed. And what sense did that make? “Same way you came in here, poking at me until I gave in and agreed to have the damn talk . . . Maybe you’re just doing the same with this place. Poking around until you find the way in. But you know what? If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t make you guilty of anything, Hannah.”
Slowly, gratitude spread across her features, and he let out a breath. “Thanks.” She stared at something invisible in the distance. “Maybe you’re right.”
Desperate for some way to get the attention off himself, at least while he was attempting to dole out comfort, he coughed into his fist. “Want me to take a look at them? I might recognize one or two.”
“Really? You still . . . sing shanties on the boat?”
“I mean, not very often. Sometimes Deke starts one off. Not joining in kind of makes you a dick. Case in point, Brendan never sings along.”
That got a laugh out of her, and some weight left his shoulders. “Okay, I’ll go grab them.” She seemed nervous about the whole thing, so they might as well get comfortable. While Hannah was in the guest room, he put their bowls in the sink and moved to the living room, taking a spot on the couch. A minute later, she returned with a faded blue folder stuffed with papers and sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, pausing slightly before opening it. She ran a finger over a line of script, brows drawn in concentration, then handed him a stack.