Page 4

FOUR

EMILY

I am not, in fact, pleased to meet him. And judging by the scowl on his face, which resembles that of someone who just stepped on a LEGO, he isn’t pleased to meet me, either.

“I meant ‘well, shit’ in a positive way,” he says, looking slightly embarrassed. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“Of course,” I reply. “Because everyone knows you say ‘well, shit’ when you’re happy about something. That’s definitely what people say when they win the lottery and not when they get cut off in traffic.”

“To be fair,” Ryder counters, “I say much, much worse than that when I get cut off in traffic.”

“Now, that I can easily believe.”

He glances toward the railing like he’s contemplating jumping again, except this time off the boat and directly into Lake Superior.

“So,” he says finally, “it seems like we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Well, that’s one thing we can agree on.

“Yes,” I say. “It does.”

Ryder takes a deep breath and reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, and I make a concerted effort not to notice his very noticeable triceps muscle.

“Look, I really am sorry that I offended you by jumping onto the ferry,” he says.

“It’s not about offending me,” I insist. “It’s about endangering yourself and others, which is not something I take lightly.”

“Right, you’ve made that pretty clear. But what did you want me to do—miss the ferry?”

“No,” I say, marveling at his audacity. “I wanted you to be on time. So that you could walk onto the ferry like a normal person.”

“Well, I want a million dollars,” Ryder says dryly. “But we can’t always get what we want.”

“How is that even remotely the same thing?” I ask, waving my hands in frustration.

Ryder sighs. “Look, ma’am, I’m sorry I—”

“Whoa,” I say, raising my hands in front of me. “There is no need to call me ma’am.”

He furrows his brow in confusion. “What’s wrong with calling you ma’am?”

“Ma’am is what you call a Karen who’s yelling at the manager. I am not a Karen.”

Ryder raises an eyebrow, and I realize that my incensed tone is not helping my case.

“I mean, I am not a Karen,” I say more warmly, trying to arrange my features into a pleasant expression. “In my opinion.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, squinting at me. “Are you getting seasick? You look nauseous.”

“What? No. I’m smiling.” I point to my lips, which I’m straining hard to arrange into a grin. “This is my smile.”

“Huh.” Ryder nods. “Interesting.”

I stop smiling instantly.

“Anyway, I don’t think you’re a Karen,” he says. “But to be clear, you did yell at me.”

“I did not yell at you,” I clarify. “I merely pointed out that your stunt could have ended in severe injury, thereby traumatizing everyone aboard this ferry.”

“Did you just say thereby ?”

“I did,” I say in a clipped tone. “Because that’s a word that people use.”

“Sure, maybe if you’re Charles Dickens.”

“I really don’t know what that means.”

“Look,” Ryder says, “if you don’t want me to call you ma’am, what would you like me to call you?”

I stare at him. “My name would be sufficient.”

Ryder nods. “Okay, then. Edwards it is.”

I actually meant my first name, seeing as how we’re not two buddies at a frat party or wildly overzealous members of Jason’s adult kickball team, but okay, fine. I guess calling me “Emily” would be too friendly.

“I really am sorry that I caused you stress,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “It won’t happen again.”

“Thanks,” I say begrudgingly. “And I’m sorry if I got a little intense with the whole ‘blunt force trauma to the head’ thing. It’s just, I’m an ER physician, and I see the aftermath when—”

“When people make dumb choices,” he finishes. “So you said.”

He sounds almost hurt—which he shouldn’t be, because I called his choice dumb, not him, even though he’s not exactly coming across as witty—and I wonder if I couldn’t have been a bit more tactful in my approach. Like not coming at him in front of the entire ferry, perhaps. But what’s done is done, and Ryder seems to think so, too, because he looks at me for a long moment and then extends his right hand.

“How about we start over?” he suggests.

“Oh. Right. Sure.” I place my hand in his, and between the tension in the air and the fact that my palm is alarmingly sweaty, it’s the most awkward handshake I’ve ever participated in. And considering that my high school boyfriend tried to shake my hand farewell after dumping me during a family vacation to Myrtle Beach because he “kind of had a thing for my cousin Allison,” that’s really saying something.

“I’m Ryder Fleet,” he says, still shaking my hand. “I’m an adventure tour guide from Colorado, and I like fishing and sleeping in.”

This feels like we’re contestants on one of those old-fashioned dating shows, but hey, I respect the fact that he’s trying.

“I’m Emily Edwards,” I tell him. “I’m a physician from Ohio. I don’t like fishing and I can’t sleep past seven a.m., but I do like reading and doing jigsaw puzzles.”

I realize that to someone like Ryder, who cartwheels off glaciers and tromps through the wilderness for a living, I probably sound like the most boring person on the planet.

“Sometimes I make beaded jewelry,” I add in an attempt to make myself sound more interesting. “Necklaces, mostly.”

Ryder nods slowly, like I just announced that I enjoy watching paint dry.

“So, reading’s cool,” he says after a long beat. “Are you reading any good books right now?”

“Oh. Yes, actually. I’m reading The Song of the Cell . It’s a nonfiction book about the evolution of human understanding of the cell.” I squint at Ryder as the sun comes out from behind the clouds. “What about you? Are you reading anything interesting?”

“Sure am,” he says, shrugging off his backpack and unzipping it to pull out a slim volume. He holds it up toward me, and I glance at the cover to find the illustration of a boy and a tiger flying out of a red wagon.

“ Calvin and Hobbes ,” I say, reading the title aloud. “Oh, nice. I used to love cartoons.”

“It’s technically a comic strip,” Ryder says. “It’s an epic story about a boy and his stuffed tiger.” He taps the cover with his free hand. “Calvin is the boy. Hobbes is the tiger.”

“Hey, Calvin and Hobbes !” a squeaky-voiced Girl Scout says as she walks by. She has braces and a polka-dotted headband and cannot be more than nine years old, and she points at the book with adorable enthusiasm. “I used to love that when I was a kid. But I’m into more grown-up stuff now, like Magic Tree House.”

And then, blissfully unaware that she just delivered a savage blow to a grown-ass man, she waves sweetly and trots off.

Ryder coughs. “It has a lot of valuable lessons for adults, too,” he mutters, his cheeks turning a bright shade of pink. “Anyway, I’m gonna put this away now.”

“I’m sure it does,” I say quickly, but he’s already stuffing the book into his pack and zipping it shut.

“So,” he says, his gaze not meeting my eyes, “should we talk about trail logistics?”

I want to say something comforting, because I know how crappy it feels to be judged for your tastes. Jason used to tease me about my Sunday night face mask and trash TV habit, and after a while, his casual needling took a little of the joy out of a once-comforting routine. But Ryder’s jaw is set in a firm line, and I decide to let it go.

“Sure,” I tell him. “I emailed Tara a copy of my itinerary, and I was thinking—”

“Hey, man!” One of the college-aged guys waves at Ryder from across the deck, a football in his hand. “We’re gonna throw the ball around a bit. You in?”

“Throw it where?” I mutter. “It’s not that big of a boat.”

“No thanks,” Ryder calls back. “I’m—”

But the guy launches the ball toward us without waiting for an answer, and I let out a petrified squeak as it flies toward my head. I swat it away as hard as I can and accidentally send it flying sideways, where it sails over the railing and plops into Lake Superior.

“C’mon, lady!” the guy cries in exasperation. “That was our only ball!”

“Boo, wet blanket,” one of his buddies hollers, giving a rude thumbs-down in my direction.

And while I know a cheeky gesture from a rando in a trucker hat shouldn’t hurt my feelings, it actually kind of does. Because believe it or not, I don’t go out of my way to ruin other people’s fun.

I ruined enough for Dad, even though I didn’t mean to.

“Hey, man,” Ryder says, his tone surprisingly gruff for a man who said surf’s up not more than ten minutes ago, “why don’t you stick your thumb up your—”

“You know,” I say quickly, “I think I’ll pop down to the cabin for a bit and read.”

“Right on. I’ll join you.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary.”

“Okay,” Ryder says, “but don’t you think we should review our trail routes and—”

I wince and place a hand on my stomach, suddenly feeling like I have to throw up.

“I think I am getting seasick after all,” I explain, willing the churning in my abdomen to stop. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit, okay?”

And then, before Ryder has a chance to argue or call me ma’am again, I shuffle toward the cabin as fast as the crushing weight of my backpack will let me.

I’m only half lying to Ryder as I hurry down the stairs, eager for solitude and a chance to hyperventilate in peace. Because I am nauseous and slick with sweat, but it’s not because of the boat’s rhythmic rocking or the overwhelming stink of fish or even the fact that instead of spreading Dad’s ashes with someone who knows and loves me, I’ll be doing it with someone who thinks I’m a tense Debbie Downer.

I’m nauseous because I truly believed that once I set out on this trip, I would somehow feel Dad’s presence. I thought I would breathe in the fresh lake air—well, fresh with a subtle undernote of dead fish—and see a dazzling swarm of butterflies or a soaring eagle, and some of the crushing guilt inside me would disappear. But the only soaring thing I’ve seen is Ryder flying off the dock, and what’s disappearing is any shred of hope that finishing Dad’s bucket list will help me move forward.

Because I haven’t even reached Isle Royale yet, and the truth I’ve spent eleven months trying to escape is finally catching up to me: if I had been a better daughter, Dad might be here right now, standing on the creaky deck instead of stuffed into an urn, all six feet and two hundred pounds of his goofy, dad-joke-loving self reduced to ash and powdered bone.

But I wasn’t, so he isn’t. And there’s not a tour guide in the world who can help me with that.

—

The first thing I do below deck is tear off the bucket hat and stuff it as far down inside my backpack as I can reach. Then I park myself on a bench seat covered in squeaky blue vinyl, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light shining through the porthole windows. I open The Song of the Cell and try to focus, but the ink swims before my eyes and the strong scent of mildew worsens the churning in my stomach. When I glance up to blink the swirling print away, I’m startled to find a grim-faced man with a scraggly gray beard and a cold expression watching me. He’s got a three-inch scar tracing down the left side of his face, paired with an unblinking stare that makes me think of Bloodsport and a documentary I watched last week called Killface: Evil in the Grocery Store about a deranged serial killer who found his victims in the produce section.

I give the man a cautious half smile, thinking he might just be seasick, but he doesn’t smile back. Instead, he gazes at me for a second longer before turning his attention to a map unfolded on the table in front of him. A shiver runs down my spine, and I pretend to read my book for a minute before I glance up to find him watching me again. I know he’s probably just daydreaming, but the truth is, he looks like someone who has at least three dismembered body parts in his hiking pack. I’m not looking to be added to that collection, so I shut the book and decide to haul ass upstairs. I’m not exactly popular up there—Ryder seems to think I’m uptight and overbearing, and I’m pretty sure Loretta-not-Emily would relish the chance to throw me overboard—but it’s better than getting eye-murdered by Killface McGee over here. Besides, my tour guide might be a total himbo, but he’s got tree-trunk arms that could easily bear-hug someone to death, or at least hold them down long enough for me to zap them with bear spray.

I stand up from the bench quickly, clutching the book to my chest in case I need to pelt it at Killface. But as I turn toward the stairs, my left elbow collides with something solid.

“Oof,” a disgruntled voice says, and I realize that I’ve accidentally elbowed a passenger in the stomach. A tall, auburn-haired passenger wearing a tweed jacket and oversized tortoiseshell frames. He looks like a professor—a hot professor, the kind that manages to make a cardigan look masculine and only exists on soapy TV dramas.

And I greeted him with a sharp jab to the intestines.

“Sorry!” I say quickly, mortified. “Are you alright?”

“I think I’ll live,” Young Hot Glasses Professor says with a cheeky grin, his hot professor-ness underscored by an accent that I think is Irish. “You can bump into me anytime you like.”

I feel my cheeks heat up, and the sensation makes me blush even more. Is YHGP flirting with me? It seems like a long shot, since the Lake Superior winds did no favors for my curly hair, but hey. Maybe he’s got a thing for barely contained frizz tucked under a polyester neck nape. You never know.

“Well, I try not to make a practice of knocking the wind out of people,” I tell him, reaching a subtle hand up to check the status of my hair. “But the constant rocking of the boat doesn’t help.”

“Indeed it doesn’t.” His gaze shifts toward my book, and his eyes flicker in recognition. “ Song of the Cell ? Brilliant. Just finished it myself.”

He reaches inside the satchel slung over his shoulder and pulls out an identical copy, except his is littered with colorful sticky tabs poking out of the pages.

“Have you reached the part about the antibiotic revolution?” he asks. “I found it particularly fascinating that—well.” He pauses and gives me a sheepish grin. “Forgive me. I’m sure you have better things to do than talk science with a certified nerd like me.”

Shockingly, between options A) get shat on by seagulls above deck while I treat Ryder to an enthralling description of the puzzle I’m working on at home—a three-thousand-piece jigsaw of animals on safari complicated by the fact that the elephant and rhino pieces are the exact same shade of gray—or B) enjoy an invigorating discussion with a man who sounds like Colin Farrell and has hair that shines like the sun, I choose B.

“I really don’t have anything better to do,” I tell him, tossing a quick glance over my shoulder to see if Killface is still watching me. He is. “I mean, no, I haven’t gotten to the antibiotic revolution yet. I’m halfway through the chapter on the universal cell.”

“Ah, that’s a good one.” He nods approvingly and sits down on a bench, motioning for me to do the same. “Have you read Mukherjee’s other work?”

I slide onto the bench opposite his and cast an assessing glance toward Killface, who frowns and returns his attention to his map. “Not yet. You?”

Young Hot Glasses Professor shakes his head. “Unfortunately not. I don’t have much time for reading anything besides dissertations and academic research.”

Aha. So he is a professor. “Dissertations? Do you teach?”

“Yes. I teach and I research, and very rarely I stumble into pretty brunettes on boats.” He smiles, and I know if I’d been a student in his course, I would have had a hell of a time focusing on the material.

His compliment causes a warm flutter in my belly. “Can’t say it happens to me all that often, either,” I tell him. “But I’d take ferry rides more often if I knew it meant crossing paths with handsome professors who read for pleasure.”

I can hardly believe my gumption. Not only did I say something flirty, but my voice also rose saucily in pitch when I said pleasure . Forget boring bucket hat Emily; there’s a new harlot in town.

“I guess it’s a lucky day for both of us, then.” The fair-skinned researcher extends a hand toward me. “I’m Dr.Killian Sinclair, chair of Science of the Human Past at Harvard.”

Harvard. Wowza. I shake his hand, hoping my palm is less of a sweaty mess than it was earlier. “Science of the Human Past? Are you a historian?”

“Archaeologist, actually,” he explains. “I specialize in maritime and underwater archaeology, with a particular interest in the protection of underwater cultural heritage.”

“Oh. Wow.” That sounds a lot more exciting than my job, where I extract a Tic Tac from the nose of a small child at least twice a week.

“It’s a fancy way of saying I study shipwrecks.” He adjusts his glasses and studies me. “And you are…?”

Oh. Right. I should probably introduce myself, too. “Dr.Emily Edwards,” I say. “Emergency medicine physician. I’m from Ohio.”

“Emergency medicine, huh?” He leans forward, his elbows resting on the table between us. “How impressive. You’re a literal lifesaver.”

“Sometimes,” I admit. “But in between the true emergencies, it’s mostly a lot of sprained ankles and worried parents freaking out because their kid took a sip out of the bubble bath.”

Killian laughs. “I’m quite sure that’s not true. You must be excellent under pressure.”

“I’m practiced under pressure. That’s what counts. We have protocols for every situation, and as long as I follow those, I have no reason to be anything but calm.”

I don’t tell him the full truth—that since Dad’s death, I’ve started taking my work home. I used to be reasonably skilled at keeping the personal and professional parts of my life separate, but now I can’t close my eyes at night without seeing the anguished faces of the patients I treat during the day. I can’t take a shower without hearing the pained cries of the guy who lost half his leg in a motorcycle accident, or the hushed prayers of a wife begging the universe not to let her become a widow. I can’t eat or read or bake without picturing the details of Dad’s final moments, and I can’t help but see his face in every person who comes through the doors of the Greater Columbus Medical Center. Unfortunately, this kind of bleeding-heart emotionality isn’t conducive to the clear, composed thinking necessary to do my job well, and it turns out that bursting into tears in the middle of your shift kind of freaks the patients out. Or so I’ve been told by the department chief, who pulled me into her office to order me to pull myself together in the nicest tone possible.

“Anyway, I’d love to hear about what it’s like to study shipwrecks,” I tell Killian, trying not to think about how a shipwreck is an excellent metaphor for the current state of my life. “Are we talking, like, the Titanic ?”

He shakes his head. “The Titanic is the most famous case, of course, but I’m more interested in smaller, less illustrious wrecks. The wrecks that few people have heard of and almost no one has explored.”

“Are there many of those?”

Killian smiles. “More than you’d imagine. The Titanic garners so much attention because of the glitz and glamour of the ship, but I think we can learn just as much, if not more, from the humble sunken fishing boat and the capsized passenger steamer. These smaller shipwrecks are untapped artifacts of the human condition, and if we allow their secrets to become lost to the passage of time, we’re losing more than just historical data and physical artifacts. We’re losing a chapter in the story of humanity.”

He pauses, his smile turning bashful. “My apologies. I get quite melodramatic when I talk about my work.”

I’m all for melodrama if it means he’ll keep going with that charming accent. “There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your job.”

“It’s more of a calling than a job, really. Saying that out loud makes me want to kick my own arse, but it’s true.” Killian laughs, and I feel a pang of nostalgia for the days when I felt that way, too.

“That’s why I’m headed to Isle Royale,” he continues. “To study the Explorer .”

“Is that a ship?”

He nods, pulling a slim book from his satchel and opening it to reveal pages of black-and-white maps. “It was a package freighter that sank in 1897, just off the coast of Isle Royale. Right here.” He taps a black dot on the map with his finger. “There was a terrible storm one night in early summer, and lightning struck the hull, creating a massive hole. There were thirty-five crew members and twelve passengers aboard.”

“What happened to them?” I ask breathlessly. “Did they die?”

“No. All survived, actually, except for one.” He flips to another page, where the black-and-white portrait of a dashingly handsome naval officer stares out at me. “Captain Sebastian Evermore, forty-two years old. He directed his crew and their passengers onto the lifeboats, waiting to board one himself until every man, woman, and dog was safe.”

“There were dogs on the ship? Really?”

“The engineer had an English setter named Madeline,” Killian says with a grin. “She never really took to maritime life, not that you could blame her.” He turns the book toward me, and I study the captain’s raised chin and stern, determined expression. “The ship rolled dangerously in the rough waters, but Evermore held it steady until everyone was accounted for. Tragically, when it was finally his turn to escape, the water rushing in became too much for the ship to bear. It capsized quickly, and Captain Evermore sank with it.”

“Damn. Poor guy.” It’s bleak, but it’s also way more interesting than listening to Jason recount the colonoscopies he oversaw in excruciating detail over dinner.

“He was a hero. A good writer, too. A previous dive team brought back letters from the wreck, beautiful love letters he wrote to his wife Katherine.” Killian sighs and tucks the book away. “I’m leading an artifact recovery team to see what more historical knowledge we can gather from the ship.”

“That’s fascinating.”

Killian gives me a cheeky grin. “It is, isn’t it?”

“I mean, love letters and a shipwreck?” I say. “Sounds like something out of a movie.”

“That it does,” Killian agrees. “But it’s not just one shipwreck. Isle Royale’s seen more than twenty. Most people visit the national park for its remoteness, or to say they lived among wolves for a while. But it’s the ghosts of all those ships, and all the magnificent and ordinary lives that went down with them, that makes me so enamored with the island.”

“Enamored,” I repeat, my heart thumping as he adjusts his glasses. “Right.”

He perks up like he has an idea. “You know, I could show you some of the shipwrecks, if you want. I have a pair of very expensive, very precise binoculars on loan from the Smithsonian, and if you promise not to drop them into Lake Superior, I’m happy to take you above deck and point out the wrecks as we go. If you’re interested, of course.”

An above-deck field trip with a man who talks about beautiful love letters and has the coolest job ever? Hell yeah. Don’t mind if I do.

“I’m interested,” I say quickly. “In the wrecks, I mean.”

“Brilliant. Follow me, then.”

I stand up and hoist my pack over my shoulders, marveling at the fact that not only have I found the one person on the ship besides Terrence who doesn’t think I’m a serious killjoy, I get to spend even more time with him. And as I follow Killian out of the cabin, I realize that for the first time since I left Ohio yesterday morning, I feel somewhat like myself.