Hey all. Thanks for the follow and fave! Here's the prologue, as promised! I hope everyone is safe and healthy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable.

Mine to Keep

Prologue

"Ain't that right, Cass?" Jack Driscoll drawled with a cocky tilt of his chin.

Cassie Murphy gifted him with an "I don't know what you're talking about" look, over the campfire. She settled further back in her Adirondack lawn chair, stretched her long tanned legs out toward the flames, and lifted her beer to her lips, pausing before she took a drink. "I'm afraid I have no idea to what you refer to."

Jack cocked one dark eyebrow, holding Cassie's flat gaze.

Cassie cocked her own brow in challenge.

Jack's hazel eyes merely twinkled more. Settling deeper into his own chair, he stretched his own legs out in front of him also. He pointedly moved his attention to her mom before it came back to Cassie. "You better tell your momma the truth, it's been twenty years," he advised.

Beside her, Sue Murphy laughed softly but said nothing.

Maintaining eye contact, Cassie settled her elbows onto the wide arms of her chair and loosely clasped her beer bottle in front of her with both hands. "I am. Your memory is faulty. I," she said, exaggerating the last word, "did not push you. You were clumsy."

Jack snorted. "You're the one with a faulty memory, and I have the scar to prove it," he said. Cassie's sister in law, Meg, sat to Jack's right. He handed her his beer and pulled up his grey t-shirt to reveal the jagged scar on his right side near his hip.

"I'm sorry, but that proves nothing, Jackson," Cassie countered amusedly. Honestly, Cassie had no memory of if she pushed Jack out of the tree that day or not, but nothing would surprise her, given Jack's penchant for annoying her.

Still, she was not going to admit that to him.

Of course, this had all happened when Cassie was still very young, and before they had learned, the Reverend Driscoll's nephew couldn't be friends with Silas Murphy's only daughter. She was one of the unclean, one of those marked out for their sins as Cain had been. Cassie had never pointed out that Cain's mark was to protect him. She and Jack had never been what Cassie would consider friends exactly anyway. He was two years older than her. When they were young, he had picked on her. When they'd gotten older, and his wild and reckless side had drawn them together that one summer, it was something other than simple friendship. Maybe it was a flaunting of authority and predetermined view of who they each were. In the end, it hadn't mattered, Cassie left to attend UNE that fall, and that was it. It wasn't exactly a romance anyway.

Oh, how life had changed when Nathan couldn't let Audrey Parker go.

"You always did have selective memory loss." He accused, distracting Cassie from her train of thought.

"Maybe that's because half of what you say isn't worth listening to." Cassie countered, her green eyes twinkling.

"I don't recall saying you have selective hearing. I said memory loss."

"Oh, she has selective hearing too," her brother chimed in from his seat on the other side of his wife.

Cassie leveled Matty with a scowl. Undeterred, he leaned his dark head closer to Jack. "Are you sure you wanna get into business with her?"

They shared a conspiratorial look.

"She is kind of a pain in the ass, isn't she," Jack said.

Looking at the watch on his left hand, Jack drained the last of his beer and stood. "Enough of this," he said dramatically before he gave a big toothy grin. "I gotta get going."

Winking at him, Cassie watched as he walked over and bent down to give her mother a hug.

Cassie quickly drained the rest of her beer also. She placed the empty bottle on the ground and stood up and fell into step beside Jack. They made their way across the shadowed yard toward his old truck, her hands shoved in the pockets of her cut off jean shorts. Moonlight shone through the thick canopy of the ancient white pines trees overhead, doting their path across the lawn with dancing dappled light. Lighting bugs flitted through the humid night air all around them.

"So, I'll meet you at the marina at around eight?" Jack asked as they reached his old beat-up pick up truck.

Cassie nodded, stepping closer to the open window as Jack got in and closed the door.

"Are you sure you don't want me to meet you out here?"

"It's not the first time I've taken a boat into Haven, Jack."

Cassie knew why he was offering. This was something Cassie, and her dad had always done together. And this first time she had done it since her father passed away.

"I got it," she assured him, a small smile appearing about her lips. Matty had offered to go with her also, but this was something Cassie felt she had to do alone.

Jack started his truck, his attention returning to Cassie, his expression serious. "I ran into Dwight yesterday."

"Yeah," Cassie said, ignoring the way her stomach twisted. It was not at all lost on her that she had an easier time covering her response to the mention of Dwight when she first returned to Haven after the Troubles were gone. Part of Cassie had hoped she would run into him, just wanted to get it out of the way, but it hadn't happened. The more time wore on, the more frazzled she became. She had found herself reliving that moment at the gas station the day she left over and over again. If Cassie were honest, her stomach still coiled into knots, and her chest tightened with that hollow ache when she thought about him. Cassie shoved the thought away along with the memory of how he looked at her that day.

Jack reached out, running his thumb along a dull spot in the chrome surrounding his side mirror. "You should talk to him, Cass?"

"No."

"Look, Cass, I know you don't want to, and I get it, but neither of you is going anywhere. Eventually, you are going to run into him."

"It's not that simple, Jack."

"I know it's not," Jack said, giving one nod of his head, "And I know what happened feels pretty horrible, Cass, but it's not your fault. You did the only thing you could."

Cassie scrubbed her hands down her face, just wishing Jack would drop it.

Apparently, taking the hint, he said, "anyway, I gotta go." Jack started his truck, " It was just food for thought, Cass." With that, he put his vehicle in drive and drove off.

XXXX

Dwight Hendrickson stepped inside the busy interior of McHugh's Bar, his gaze searching for McHugh himself. You would never have guessed just a few months ago the place had been boarded up like most Haven businesses. People clustered around the pool tables and lined the counter. Take it on the Run, played on the jukebox.

Dwight made his way through the crowd, lifting his chin at his long time friend in acknowledgment. Dwight slid his coat from his broad shoulders and sat down on one of the stools.

"What brings you out, brother?" Brian McHugh asked, grabbing the edge of the bar with his hands. "Where's Lizza Bell?" McHugh asked next, using the nickname he had given Lizzie.

"Gloria took her to Portland with her."

McHugh nodded, pouring Dwight a beer without his friends having to ask. He honestly couldn't believe his long time friend had let Lizzie out of his eyesight. He was barely comfortable letting her go to school for a few hours every day and to dance classes a couple of times a week. "How long?" Brain asked as he placed the pint glass on the bar in front of Dwight.

"Til' Sunday."

Again, McHugh nodded as he moved to fill a drink slip one of his waitresses had just left on the counter.

"Not that I'm big on fishing, but you want to go out tomorrow?" McHugh said, placing the Long Island IceTea on a tray on the counter. "I heard the Blue Fin are running out off of Crooked Jenny Neck."

"Sounds good. Do you got a seaworthy boat I don't know about?" Dwight asked, then took another drink.

"You're the one with the connections, " Brain said, moving to his register. He picked up a card, placing it on the time-worn bar in front of Dwight. He pushed it closer to his friend with one finger.

Dwight picked the card up, framing it with two thick fingers. Murphy's Cabins. Sportfishing and Guide Service. Family owned and operated since 1941. There was a phone number, website, and email address as well.

"Cass dropped those off the other day," McHugh offered, watching his long time out of the corner of his eye.

Dwight glanced up and nodded before his attention returned to the card in his hand. He had wondered if they would reopen, but it wasn't that had his stomach tightening.

"Have you been out to see them?" Brian carefully asked, not mentioning that Cassie had had much the same look on her face when he mentioned Dwight.

"No," Dwight said, placing the card back by the register.

Dwight had come in that afternoon after Cassie left Haven. His long time friend had not handled Cassie going well at all. McHugh had always figured Dwight dismissed his own feelings for Cassie as a byproduct of her family's trouble. However, Brian Mchugh was fairly sure Dwight had had those feelings on some level for some time, but his friend had other things to deal with then.

"Is Matty moving back?" Dwight asked, watching his friend carry drinks further down the bar.

There was no way; Cassie could run the service without some help. She had done the bookkeeping and took charters trips out and worked at the tackle store nearly as long as Dwight had known the family. But it was still too much for one person. Silas had still been alive then, but even with the two of them, they had to hire extra help. Matty generally took time off in the fall and came back to help with the hunting season. Dwight himself had even helped out from time to time. He had gotten a guide license for precisely that reason. He knew after all their history; he should have been out to their place by now. He had attended Silas's memorial service after the troubles left, but he hadn't been back. He had talked to Sue and Matty that day, but not Cassie. He knew she was aware. She had been on the front porch watching as he drove off. He had never felt like more of a coward in his life.

He used having Lizzie again as an excuse, but really, it was more than that, and he knew it. It was Cassie herself. How desperately he had wanted her to stay. He had felt like she tore him apart. He knew that was how her trouble worked, but it still felt like a knife to his gut. Especially after…...Dwight shut that thought down, going there was not a good idea he already knew from experience. All he could say was if she had affected him that way, it was probably just as well that she had hidden herself from the one. In his defense, he had cared about Cassie far longer than he ever realized.

"Matty's here right now, but he's heading back to Skowhegan soon." Brian replied, leaning against the bar across from his friend.

Brian didn't point out that at one time, Dwight wouldn't have had to ask these questions. His long time friend was close enough to old Silas and the rest of the family he would have already known.

"Who'd she get to help her?" Dwight asked, lifting his beer back to his lips. He tried to ignore the way thinking about her still made him feel. He couldn't imagine how she felt if he was still confused and uncertain over how he reacted to her. He'd promised he could protect her no matter what. He needed her. He recognized she had done what she did for both of them and whoever he was. Dwight would never have been able just to let her go, and she had known that also. Especially not after what had happened between them.

"Jack and Aiden Driscoll, believe it or not."

"Really?" Dwight asked after a moment, his brow growing heavier as he looked down at his beer. He knew Jack had been spending time around Cassie and her family.

"You don't have much going on when Lizzie's in school," Brian went on carefully, "I bet they would be grateful if you offered to help them out for now."

Dwight didn't say anything.

Brain went on. "Besides, I bet Silas Murphy would like it better if it was you, helping Cassie then the Driscoll boys, brother." Brian tilted his head to the side, testing the waters again. "Makes sense to me anyway, that you'd be the one helping her."

"Just leave it, brother," Dwight said. He got enough pushing from Gloria; he didn't need it from McHugh also.

"Fair enough," Brain said, taking up his place leaning against the counter again. "Seriously, though, you want to go out tomorrow?"

Dwight nodded, "sure if you got away."

"I do. Henry Ruth is moving and wants me to buy his boat. He told me to use it if it helped me make up my mind. I had thought if I didn't buy it, maybe you would."

"Sounds good, " Dwight said, not bothering to ask why his friend didn't lead with that. Dwight knew why.

Dwight hung out a while longer and played a couple of games of pool before he finally left. They were meeting at the marina at seven-thirty, maybe not the best time to head out, but McHugh said they would probably need to gas up and tune the engine up a bit. Ruth hadn't used it since before the town had been blocked off from the rest of the world by the impenetrable fog bank.

Dwight didn't miss how the offer to go fishing was accompanied by the need to get the boat running first. He had asked if maybe they shouldn't dry dock it and work on it that way. McHugh was confident they could get it going. This wouldn't be the first time, Dwight had questioned his friend's overconfidence. But what else did he have to do, even if they did just spend the day drinking beer and tinkering with a boat motor at the marina?

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to let me know what ya'll think, much love, NPlT!

A/N: So, I know Jack Driscoll might be a surprising choice, but I thought after everything that happened, lines would be different. And just maybe Old prejudices wouldn't matter so much.

Also, I'm not discarding Dwight and Charlotte's canon romance. Cassie just fit in , and now you see after!