Chapter 7: A Cup of Coffee
Abby Collins found him by the parts counter, standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the showroom floor as if he were memorizing it. She carried two paper cups, and she held one out without making a ceremony of it.
"Here," she said. "It's not fancy, but it's hot."
Nate Hargrove took the cup with both hands, the way a man holds something he is grateful for. "Thank you, Abby," he said. "You didn't have to do that."
"I know," she said. "I wanted to. You looked like you could use a minute."
He smiled, and the lines around his eyes deepened. "A minute is a fine thing. Most folks rush right past it."
She studied him for a moment, curious but not prying. "You sound like you've spent time around boats."
"A fair amount," he said. "I built my first one a long time ago, when I was young and stubborn and certain I knew everything. Turns out I knew almost nothing, except how to hold a plank steady while somebody wiser showed me what to do."
"What kind of boat was it?" Abby asked.
"A small one," Nate said. "Nothing grand. Just a hull and a hope, really. My wife and I worked on her in a borrowed shed, and we kept a logbook for every nail and every mistake. We wrote down the weather, the cost of the wood, and the names of the people who stopped by to help."
Abby's face brightened. "That's a lovely way to remember a boat."
"It was a lovely way to remember a life," Nate said quietly. "She wrote in that book in her own hand. On the good days, she wrote about the work. On the hard days, she wrote about why we were doing it. She said a boat was only worth building if the people who boarded her felt welcome."
Abby sipped her coffee. "What was the promise, exactly?"
"That every person who boards is a guest, not a wallet," Nate said. "That sounds simple until a stranger walks in wearing the wrong jacket and you have to decide who you are in that moment."
Abby looked down at her cup. "I think about that a lot here. People come in nervous. They don't know the words for things. They point and say, 'that big white one,' and they worry they'll sound foolish."
"And what do you do then?" Nate asked.
"I try to make it easy," Abby said. "I ask what they love about being on the water. Most people light up when you ask that. They forget to be embarrassed."
"That," Nate said, "is a gift. Don't ever let a job talk you out of it."
"Do you still have that logbook?" Abby asked.
Nate patted his jacket pocket, where the battered book rested. "I do. I carry it with me. Old habits."
"May I ask what your wife's name was?" Abby said gently.
"Margaret," Nate said, and his voice softened on the name. "She had a steady hand and a clearer head than I ever did. When I got grand ideas, she brought me back to the work. When I got discouraged, she reminded me why we started."
Abby was quiet for a beat. "She sounds like someone worth building a life around."
"She was," Nate said. "She still is, in the ways that count. I hear her in my head when I walk into a place like this. She asks me if I'm being patient. She asks me if I'm being kind."
Abby looked toward the shining flagship across the floor. "I wish everyone who came in felt that welcome," she said. Nate nodded. "They can, Abby. It only takes one person deciding to start." Before Abby could answer, footsteps crossed the showroom floor, quick and clipped. Cole Davenport stopped a few feet away, his smile thin, his eyes already moving past Nate toward the next sale.
"Abby," Cole said curtly. "We need you on the floor. The parts counter isn't a coffee shop."
Abby straightened, her cheeks coloring. "I was just taking a minute, Cole. He's a guest."
"He's fine," Cole said, without looking at Nate. "We've got real customers coming in. Let's not get tied up."
Nate did not rise to the tone. He lifted his cup slightly, as if offering a toast to patience itself. "No trouble at all," he said. "I appreciate the coffee, Abby. And the conversation."
Abby met his eyes warmly, and something unspoken passed between them, an apology and a promise at once. "Anytime," she said.
Cole turned on his heel, and Abby followed, glancing back once as Nate stood by the counter, calm and unhurried, holding his coffee in both hands like a man who had all the time in the world.