“Lovely, isn’t it?”
I nod, but I’m barely listening. A glimpse of Caleb’s clenched hand around the roots instantly transports me back to the elevator, when his strong fingers were buried in my hair, pulling me towards him. I snap my hair tie against my wrist.
“How do you know so much about native plants?” I ask.
“My godmother moved back to Fiji when I was twelve, and I’d come visit every few winters. Her father is Fijian, and she taught me all about the medicinal plants of the island.”
Guess I can cross environmental ignorance off my list of reasons to try and hate Caleb.
“I didn’t realize you knew the islands so well.”
Caleb nods.
“If I hadn’t started on yachts, I’d probably be somewhere on Viti working a dive job.”
It’s not hard to imagine given how easily Caleb moves through the water. I haven’t forgotten what he said on the beach about being a glorified babysitter. Maybe if he’d stuck to diving, he wouldn’t be in such a bad mood all the time.
“Do you regret it?” I ask. “Becoming a captain?”
“Not at all,” he laughs. “I love the Vela Bianca, and I like working for the Warrens. But one day I’d love to have a boat of my own. A charter I could run and captain myself.”
“You got a secret twenty million stashed away?” I ask him. “Because if not, I’m sure Patricia has some single friends you could work something out with…”
“Very funny,” Caleb says. “But I’m not talking about a motor yacht. A sailboat. Something older that I can bring back to fighting shape. I’d do winters in Hawaii or Mexico, maybe, and summers in Desolation Sound.”
My heart skips a beat, and I have to repeat the words over in my head to make sure I’ve heard him correctly.
“What did you say?”
“Desolation Sound. It’s part of?—“
“The Gulf Islands,” I finish for him.
“You know it?”
“My dad was Canadian. He used to take me up there when I was a little girl.”
The memory of it comes flooding back. My dad, alive and breathing—lifting me over the edge of the dock to watch the purple sea jellies bob and sway. The smell of pine and the sound of metal moorings knocking together. The three of us, up past dark, playing cards in the little kitchen of our rented cabin by the light of a rusted oil lamp. His pockets full of rocks and shells that Jules and I collected as we combed the beach that he never let us take home.
“These belong to the land, Stelly,”he would tell me, his voiceas warm as the fire that awaited us inside.“Let’s paint a picture of them instead.”
“What does a Kiwi boy know about Canada?” I ask Caleb.
“The Vela Bianca was docked there a few years ago, back when I was still First Mate. I haven’t stopped dreaming about it since. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”
“My first memory is in the Gulfs,” I tell him. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s my first. It was just the three of us—my dad, Jules and me. We used to rent the same old fishing cabin for two weeks every summer. There was this one bay he took us to that turned bioluminescent at sunset. I remember my dad jumped in with me off the dock—I was so afraid—and then the world lit up like the night sky. I felt like I was swimming through the Milky Way.”
“Sounds like you were pretty close with him.”
“That’s an understatement,” I tell him. “The three of us were best friends. Jules and I basically worshipped him.”
What would Dad think of me now? Risking my fellowship. Bending over backwards to avoid my loser ex. I was the rational daughter- the one who always took responsibility when things got messy. But where has it gotten me? I’ve become everything I tried so hard to avoid.
“How old were you when he died?” Caleb asks quietly.
“Barely eighteen. How did you know about that?”
The captain’s cheeks flush.
