Page 67 of Better When Shared (Kristin Lance Anthologies #2)

Hamish

This couldn’t be right.

The thing bobbing on the dark water of a lake at the edge of Seattle looked more like a child’s toy than an actual aircraft. It was bright yellow and well-kept, but… tiny. And it had pontoons. A young man was throwing luggage into a compartment in the tail, as a woman in a pilot’s cap checked something, then turned to the line of passengers.

Why had I rushed to stand in the front?

“First time on a seaplane?”

The pilot’s voice was aggressively cheerful. She had the kind of sun-weathered, rugged look that suggested she’d been doing this for decades, but that did nothing to settle my nerves.

“Is this...”

I cleared my throat, trying to inject some authority into my voice.

“Is this the only way to get to Friday Harbor today?”

“There’s always the ferry if you’d prefer.”

She took my ticket from my limp hand and checked my name off the manifest.

“You’ll need to catch a bus to Anacortes and get a ticket for the ferry. It takes hours. Seems like a waste when you’ve already got a ticket and can be there in thirty minutes!”

Hours on a bus and ferry versus thirty minutes in this aerial death trap. Which was preferable?

“Hamish, where’s your sense of adventure?”

The memory of Imogen’s voice echoed in my mind, and I closed my eyes, picturing her face, lit up with excitement, as she’d told me about her job. My chest tightened with the fear that had been clawing at me since she’d left. Since I’d backed out of going with her.

What if her adventure proved too alluring? What if she finally realized she was too good for me? I was too anxious, too boring, too set in my ways, and Imogen was all sunlight and smiles, beautiful in every way.

“The flight will be fine,”

I managed, rubbing at the ache in my chest that surfaced every time I thought of the possibility of being left behind.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? I was here to prove that I wasn’t a that guy anymore. I was here to show Imogen that I could embrace a more adventurous life, and that what we had was worth fighting for. Even if it meant climbing into a small yellow death trap.

I froze, my hand on the handle of the passenger door, as I rethought every life choice that had brought me to this moment. But when someone walked up behind me, I panicked and raced up the ladder, not wanting to be confronted about my fears.

Once I was inside, I wondered if a confrontation was truly the lesser of two evils. The cramped interior held only six seats, including the pilot’s. No first class. No business class. Just sticky vinyl seats and the overwhelming scent of cleaning solution.

I clambered over a folded seat and lowered myself into the seat behind the pilot, as the couple behind me settled together into the back row. The back of the pilot’s seat sat too close, crowding my knees. My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I was certain the other passengers could hear it.

“Beautiful day for flying!”

The man sliding into the seat next to me was middle-aged, with the kind of robust joviality that made it obvious that he was either American…or Santa Claus. Given his thick white beard, it could have gone either way. He settled into his seat with the casual ease of someone who considered small aircraft normal transportation. Another tick in the ‘Santa Claus’ column, I supposed, smiling to myself.

“You heading to the islands for fishing or relaxation? Or both?”

“Ummm. Neither.”

Telling him that I was chasing my wife seemed like an overshare.

“Well, you’ll relax whether you like it or not,”

he said.

“Been coming up to San Juan Island for fifteen years now, and I still get excited every time.”

I managed a weak shrug, not trusting my voice because while the American had been chatting, the plane had started to move, taxiing across the water with alarming speed. Planes were supposed to roll on solid ground, not bob and weave like boats.

The engine noise increased, a steady drone that almost drowned out my seatmate.

Unfortunately, he was up to the challenge, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.

“Of course, the weather can be tricky this time of year,”

he yelled.

“Had a crossing last month where the wind was so strong we had to circle Friday Harbor twice before we could land. The pilot earned her money that day, I’ll tell you what!”

What the fuck? Wasn’t it obvious that I was terrified? I might have told him so, if I hadn’t been too anxious to speak.

The plane was picking up speed now, the pontoons slapping against the water with increasing frequency. Through the small window, I watched the shoreline blur past, and my stomach lurched with each bounce.

This was it. This was how I was going to die. All because I’d been too much of a coward to join my wife when she’d first left for this trip.

“You okay there, son?”

The American was looking at me with genuine concern.

“You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

I wanted to tell him that no, I was not okay. In fact, every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to demand the pilot turn around and let me off this mechanical nightmare. But that, too, seemed like an overshare. So instead, I gripped the armrests until my knuckles went white and tried to remember how to breathe.

The plane lifted off the water. One moment we were bouncing across the surface of Lake Washington, and the next we were airborne, climbing into the gray Pacific Northwest sky with nothing but air between us and the ground far below. My ears popped, and I was quite certain I was going to be sick.

“Gorgeous view. My wife used to love it. Probably still does, but she fucked my best friend so I haven’t asked.”

The American did not seem to have any issues with oversharing.

“Look, that’s the Olympic Range. And over there, you’d see Mount Rainier on a clear day, but we’ve got too much cloud cover today. I get a kick out of seeing it from up here.”

I couldn’t look. I kept my eyes fixed on the back of the pilot’s seat, trying to convince my body that we weren’t thousands of feet above the ground in a machine that had no business being airborne. The American kept talking — something about salmon runs and tide tables and the best restaurants in Friday Harbor and the waitress he had enjoyed a brief dalliance with every year — but his voice seemed to be coming from very far away.

The flight felt eternal and impossibly brief all at once. Right as I was beginning to think I might survive the ordeal, the pilot announced our descent into Friday Harbor, and my stomach performed another series of gymnastic maneuvers that left me clutching the seat arms so hard I feared they might break.

The landing was smooth, the pontoons kissing the water with barely a splash before we were taxiing toward a small dock. Through the window, I caught my first glimpse of Friday Harbor — a picturesque jumble of buildings climbing up from the waterfront, backed by rolling hills covered in evergreen trees. I might have been stunned by the beauty, but all I could focus on was the fact that I was still alive.

“Welcome to paradise!”

the American announced as we came to a stop.

“Hope you brought a jacket, though. That shirt doesn’t look warm enough for today’s weather.”

A brisk sea breeze hit me the moment I stepped onto the dock, cutting through my summer clothing like tissue paper. I wrapped my arms around myself, staring at the town spread out before me. Friday Harbor was undeniably charming, and it almost reminded me of a small seaside town in Dorset. The air smelled of salt and seaweed. Seagulls wheeled overhead, their cries harsh and demanding, and the water stretched out toward distant islands that looked like sleeping giants.

Why had I thought San Juan Island would be a warm place? It sounded vaguely tropical, but maybe I was confusing it with another San Juan, like the one in Puerto Rico. I sighed and pulled out my phone and ordered a rideshare.

***

Twenty minutes later, I stood in my hotel room, and all I could think was: what the bloody hell had I been thinking? The Salish Sea stretched out before me, gray and choppy under an equally gray sky, and the temperature gauge on my phone informed me it was fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Fourteen degrees Celsius. Even colder than it had been in Dorset when I’d left.

I collapsed onto the king-sized bed, still wearing my jacket, and opened an email from my assistant, Kyle. I’d been too anxious to plan this grand romantic gesture myself, which probably said more about the fate of my plan than anything. He’d followed my instructions and booked me for a wide variety of adventures: surfing, sailing, kayaking.

Did he not research the weather?

I scrolled to my wife’s contact information, my thumb hovering over the call button. She was less than twenty minutes away in a small village called Hollis Cove, working. I could picture her perfectly—honey-blonde hair twisted into that elegant chignon she favored when she was busy, hazel eyes bright with purpose.

My chest constricted with a familiar panic. This was the bone-deep terror that had been growing in me for years now, ever since I’d noticed the restless look in her eyes. The look that said our life in Dorset wasn’t enough anymore.

“Fuck,”

I whispered, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes. The thought of losing Imogen made it hard to breathe. This was more than a panic attack; it was pure, unadulterated fear.

She was my everything. Not just my wife, but my best friend, my anchor, my entire reason for getting up in the morning. From the time we were children playing in the stables of neighboring estates, she’d been my person. The one who understood my silences, who could coax me out of my anxious spirals with nothing more than her laugh. The one who’d agreed to marry me despite knowing how boring and predictable I was.

If I wanted to prove I could be the man she needed, I had to do something impressive.

But what? Kyle’s itinerary made me wonder if Kyle didn’t like me very much. The surf lesson stared back at me mockingly. Wasn’t it too cold here to surf?

Sighing, I collapsed back onto my bed, the exhaustion of the long journey starting to hit.

I supposed I could worry about surfing later. After a brief nap.