With the childcare question still unsettled, he left Piper with Mrs. Tran once again for his first meeting with Fire Chief Boone. The Lost Harbor volunteer fire department was housed in one wing of a building it shared with the police department. Behind the building towered a lovely grove of birch trees.
One thing he already appreciated about Lost Harbor was the building-to-nature ratio. Everywhere you looked there was a stunning view of mountains or a lush jungle-like growth of what the locals called “pushki,” elephant-eared plants with massive leaves that could cause blistering. He’d been warned to keep Piper away from pushki, which was difficult because they could have come from a Dr Seuss book. Things grew fast in Alaska at this time of year, when the days lasted up to twenty hours. T
