8
Jack
For all my misgivings about being a fishing guide, my first few hours aren’t terrible. Mr. Morgan stays up on the flybridge, periodically shouting into his phone and more frequently shouting at us that he doesn’t have a signal. David answers all his questions and commands patiently, and I don’t have to deal with him very much. The wind has come up as we drift farther offshore, and eventually Mr. Morgan finally accepts that his cashmere isn’t going to cut it and takes my offer of a coat, but otherwise he keeps to himself. Harper will probably give me shit for spending more time with David than with our VIP, but whatever Mr. Morgan came up here for, it obviously wasn’t to fish.
David, though, seems to be enjoying himself. He keeps checking the lines even though there’s nothing to do now but wait, and he asks a lot of questions about me and the industry, listening attentively while I give him the basics of what we might catch out here.
“The halibut can get to be over a hundred pounds,” I say. David’s eyes widen, and he grips the end of his rod tighter. I laugh and put a hand on his back. The muscle beneath my palm is solid. “No rush. We’ll know if we land something like that.”
Except we aren’t landing much of anything. The boat has all the bells and whistles, and I’ve got five rods running, but whether it’s the bait, the sunshine, or the wind, the fish aren’t interested in what theWinter Hawkhas trailing behind her.
“So how long have you been doing this?” David asks.
“My whole life.”
“Born and raised in Alaska?”
“Yup. I crewed on different boats for a while, then finally bought my own a couple of years ago.” And sold it as soon as there were enough hours of daylight to show it to a buyer this winter. I’d hoped it would be enough for Stef and Robbie, but an old boat like that isn’t worth much. Hope is worth less.
“Do you ever think about doing anything else?”
He sounds like Stef. Like I have options without a college degree. Like I haven’t tried to find new things to do, only to have life drag me back to the small town I grew up in over and over.
But I can’t say that when she’s the one who needs my help now, just like it doesn’t do me any good to brood in front of the guests, so I force a smile as I ask David, “I like being on the water. What about you? Are you from the Northeast too?”
He shakes his head. “North Dakota.”
“No shit?” I don’t mean to curse—that’s on page seven of the employee manual under the heading Standards of Professional Speech.
“Yeah.” He grins crookedly. “Not what you were expecting?”
“If you don’t mind me saying, I feel like North Dakota might be even harder to get out of than Alaska.”
He laughs. “Not that hard. You get on a bus and never look back.”
And have a family you won’t miss, based on what he said this morning. That’s the hardest part for me. Alaska is far from everything, and my parents are getting older. Stef was gone for more than a decade, and even though she’s back now, she doesn’t have any room to take on more responsibility.
“David!” Mr. Morgan’s voice cuts through the air before I can get too down on things.
David turns with a tight smile. “Yes?”
“Where are the fish? You said we were going to have a nice day fishing, but where are my fish?”
David laughs, but his amusement doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sure we’ll find some, sir.”
Mr. Morgan spins back in his chair, green deck shoes braced against the console as the boat rocks. “I don’t like to be disappointed, David.”
I reel in a few lines to check the bait and whisper quietly, “Is he always like this?”
David checks over his shoulder before he leans in so he can’t be heard. “This is him on a good day. The thing with the other Mr. Morgan... it’s ugly. He didn’t want to come up here, but it seemed best to get as far away from the scandal as possible.”
“What scandal?” I ask, and David straightens immediately, face going blank. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.” He tugs at the bottom of his jacket. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. But this isn’t his scene at all. He likes to live his vacations vicariously whenever possible, unless it involves sun and alcohol.”
“So he takes you all over the world, and you get to have all the fun? That’s a pretty sweet gig.”
“Something like that. Most places aren’t quite this isolated, so I have more to look out for.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but before I can ask, one of the lines runs out with a hiss. I leap forward to catch the rod before it pops out of its mount at the same time David does, and we wind up in a tangle of arms. I stare up at David’s eyes as the rod strains in our hands. His pupils dilate as he studies me too.
