Chapter 4
2381 Words
4
Megan kept a tight grip on Ruby’s shoulder as they wended their way through the lunch crowd at Last Chance Pizza. She’d discovered, since arriving in Lost Harbor, that she didn’t much like crowds. Living mostly in cities, she’d never noticed it because it was always there in the background. But the relief of being on the water, with nothing but the vast arch of sky overhead and open ocean in all directions, had opened her eyes: she didn’t like crowds.
Most especially after what had happened at the university exactly a year ago.
Don’t think about that. Moving on. Moving on.
She forced her thoughts into another direction.
What if Forget Me Not Nature Tours went bust? Would she have to move back to a city to get work? Could she handle the crowds? She didn’t know, which was one more reason to make sure that didn’t happen. She didn’t want to go back. Couldn’t go back.
Zoe spotted them and waved them toward a table in the back. Even though the little restaurant was mobbed, she showed no signs of stress. She still moved at the leisurely pace of someone who only did exactly what they wanted to do. Zoe did not like to be rushed, and if anyone ever tried it, they might find themselves out on the boardwalk with no chance of pizza.
Most people liked to hang out at the front of the restaurant where the brick oven dominated the space. But Ruby always loved the back because the large picture windows looked out on the alleyway that ran behind all the boardwalk businesses. It was like a secret village that only the locals got to see.
Zoe’s place sat between a shop that sold native Alaskan crafts and a fish-cleaning station. Several such stations were scattered throughout the harbor for use by the public, but this one—and a few others—was reserved for the charters. Here, the deckhands cleaned and filleted the halibut and other fish that their customers had caught. They packed them into insulated containers and handed the booty back for transport to the “Lower Forty-Eight.”
It was bloody, squishy work and Ruby loved watching the workers in their rubber aprons twirling their knives so expertly. Sometimes Lucas joined them, and Megan had to admit, she took a few peeks herself when that happened.
“I snagged a couple of leftover slices for you, you want?” Zoe appeared at their table with two paper plates loaded with cheese-oozing pizza.
“Ooh, yes.” Megan accepted them eagerly and set them down between her and Ruby. “I know I should be eating those turkey-on-wheat sandwiches my clients completely ignored, but this looks a lot better. Can you sit?”
“No, there might be a riot if I take too much time. But I had to come say hi. I haven’t seen you two in ages. Been busy?”
“Sure,” Megan said, not really wanting to get into her lack of customers.
Zoe lifted one eyebrow. “That bad, huh?”
Megan bit into the pizza so she didn’t have to answer.
“Hey, it’s okay. Takes time. Did you put your name in for the show?”
“The ahh??” she asked through a mouthful of cheese. She held up a hand, asking for a pause, and chewed as quickly as she could. “The what?”
“That travel show everyone watches. I don’t even know what it’s called because TV just annoys me.”
“Wait…are you talking about Trekking?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Apparently they’re coming here to Lost Harbor and they’re looking for subjects to film. Shoot. Whatever. They want to follow people around with cameras for a day. They asked me and of course I said ‘hell no.’ I have enough business. Any more and my head would explode.”
Megan suppressed the automatic rise of envy. “No one told me about it.”
“Really? I think they wanted to profile one of our local fishing boats. I mean, it wouldn’t be Lost Harbor without one. I’m pretty sure they talked to Lucas. Why wouldn’t they? He’s the most photogenic of the bunch, that’s for sure.”
Megan’s envy turned to something more like bitterness. “Of course they would want Lucas. He’s the perfect choice. I can’t even argue with that. He grew up here. He’s gorgeous. He can turn on the charm when he wants to.”
Zoe lifted an eyebrow at her. As a part-Italian, part-Greek woman, she prided herself on her unapologetically thick eyebrows. She could express so much with those eyebrows: skepticism, curiosity, disapproval, excitement. “Did you just call Lucas Holt gorgeous? My ears must have glitched for a minute.”
“Oh stop. I never said he wasn’t attractive. I said he was a jerk. Don’t confuse the issue here.”
Zoe exchanged a knowing glance with Ruby. Megan found it infuriating and swiped her hand between the two of them as if she could erase that moment from existence. “Ruby, eat your pizza. You pestered me enough for it.”
“I don’t pester,” Ruby said with dignity as she lifted her pizza closer to her mouth. “I plead.”
And just like that, all of Megan’s irritation melted away. God, she loved her daughter. More than seemed humanly possible sometimes. “I stand corrected. Now eat.”
Ruby obediently guided the pointy end of the pizza into her mouth. She had her own technique for eating everything, pizza included. She had a three-corners approach; she liked to rotate bites at each corner, creating more and more sides to the pizza.
“I should have mentioned the show to you earlier,” Zoe told Megan. A customer was trying to get her attention but she ignored the man. “I should have figured you’d get overlooked.”
“Because no one likes me.”
“Because you’re new,” Zoe corrected. “No one ever thinks newbies will stick around.”
“Last winter doesn’t count?”
“Sorry, no. One winter is a kind of bare minimum base level commitment. Anyone can last one winter. It’s all a big adventure when it’s just one.”
It definitely had been an adventure, and to be completely honest, Megan and Ruby had spent several months of it in the Bay area. “Well, I’m sorry, but Ruby needed to see her father and—”
Zoe put up a floury hand to stop her. “Believe me, I don’t care how long you’ve been here. I’m just glad you are.”
“Really?” Megan blinked at her gratefully. Establishing herself in Lost Harbor had been tough—still was. Mostly she’d encountered skepticism and even some hostility. “I think you might be the only one.”
“Ignore the doubters. We still wouldn’t have recycle bins if you hadn’t shown up. And Lucas would have no one to argue with.” Zoe flashed her a wink, then sighed as someone back near the brick oven called for her. “I’d better get back to work. I’m training my twin sisters.”
Megan craned her neck to catch a glimpse of two dark-haired girls covered in flour and laughing hysterically. “Haven’t met them yet. How old are they?”
They’re sixteen and they’ve aged me about twenty years this week.”
Megan smiled affectionately at her friend. “You should come by for dinner and let us feed you for once.”
“I’ll do that. Hey, if I could get you a meeting with the show producer, would you want that? You could try to convince him that their viewers would rather see birders than halibut-hunters.”
“Could you really do that?”
“I can try. He left me his card.” A shout of alarm came from the front of the restaurant as a puff of smoke burst from the brick oven. “Can’t I step away for a damn second without them setting fire to the place? I’ll talk to you later.”
Not even smoke could get her to rush. With no hint of hurry, she strolled back to her station like a queen surrounded by her subjects.
Megan watched her with envy. As far as she could tell, Zoe didn’t have an anxious bone in her body. She used to be that way too—carefree and impulsive, adventurous. But that was before Ruby had arrived. And definitely before the—
Don’t think about that.
Settling in one place had become important to her, and she’d come closer to peace here than anywhere else. She glanced toward the next-door crafts studio. The owner was watering the flowerpots on the back deck. Behind him glittered the silver-washed blue of Misty Bay. The bay and the jagged ridge of snowy peaks on the other side—Lost Souls Wilderness—had a way of taking her breath away when she wasn’t prepared. All that extravagant beauty just minding its own business while the harbor workers went about their mundane tasks.
Sometimes she’d glance up while doing something basic like filling up her car and just laugh at the outlandish glory splashed across the bay like an artist’s backdrop. It was almost too spectacular for her eyes to take in.
Pulling her gaze away from the flowerpots next door, she switched to the neighbor on the other side of the pizza shop.
And there her glance landed on a different kind of work of art.
Lucas Holt cleaning fish. Lucas Holt without a shirt as he cleaned fish. The sun was beating down on his bare back. Holy halibut, did he have to be so bronzed and muscly? His head was bent over the white plastic folding table with the hose mounted to it. His rubber-gloved hands moved quickly and efficiently, cutting, rinsing, tossing bits to the waiting seagulls. He frowned as he worked; she got the impression that his thoughts were far away.
He was probably thinking about how much more money he was going to make when he starred in Trekking.
The worst part was that her parents watched every episode of Trekking. Maybe they’d finally accept her choice to live in Alaska if they saw her on TV.
But no, they’d be watching Lucas instead of her, and so would every travel hound in America. Would he take his shirt off for the show? Maybe he was practicing for his starring moment.
On impulse, she propped open the window and called out to him. “Hey Holt, don’t you know Trekking is a family show? Your cheap tricks won’t work.”
He glanced up in surprise, his hands stilling. “Spying, Megan? Or just enjoying the scenery?”
Her cheeks warmed. “I’m just giving you fair warning. I want that spot on Trekking and I’m going to work my ass off to get it.”
“Guess I’ll have to step up my game.”
“You will. I’m a very competitive person, you know.”
“I picked up on that.” He pulled out a handful of fish guts and dropped it in a five-gallon bucket. “Sorry to say they already scheduled a shoot with me. So you’d better get your ass in gear.”
“You shouldn’t refer to my ass.”
“You referred to it already.”
“That’s different. It’s mine. I can refer to it all I want. Like, kiss my ass, for instance.”
He laughed, gazing at her from the lower deck like a Romeo in oilskins. The sun glided across his bare chest picking out dips and ridges like an artist. “You trying to light a fire under my ass?” He paused. “I can refer to my own ass, right? You don’t have a problem with that?”
She had a problem with everything he did, to be honest. Perhaps because he always surprised her and that made her nervous. “I have no problem with that. Except it’s not going to work. I’m going to grab that spot if it kills me.”
Ruby crouched next to her, a warm little bundle at her side. Megan startled. She’d momentarily forgotten about her own daughter. Why was she talking about “asses” within earshot of Ruby? “If what kills you, Mama? Hi Lucas!”
“Hi there.” Lucas waved his fillet knife. “How’s the pizza?”
“You should come have some with us.”
Megan nearly panicked at the thought of Lucas sitting down with them. No no no. But of course she shouldn’t have worried.
“That’s nice of you, Ruby, but I’m all tanked up.” He brought a handful of fish guts halfway to his mouth and pretended to dive in for a voracious bite, like a pirate.
“Ewww.” Ruby laughed and squealed, and so did a few nearby patrons. Megan caught the sound of a camera clicking. Photogenic Lucas Holt was going to appear on someone’s i********:.
Well, he was probably used to it. All the fishing charter customers took tons of photos. She’d even noticed a photo of a much-younger Lucas on the bulletin board in the harbormaster’s office—apparently he’d caught a record halibut when he was a teenager. Making headlines even as a kid.
She couldn’t exactly compete with that, could she?
“Come on, Ruby, let’s finish our pizza and let the fish surgeon finish his operation.”
“Fish surgeon. Not bad, Bird Nerd.”
Megan gritted her teeth and dropped the window closed. With Lucas, she always tried to get the last word and yet so rarely succeeded. He was almost as good with the verbal jabs as he was with his fillet knife.
“Mama, what did you mean ‘if it kills you’?” Ruby wore a worried look as she scooted across the wooden bench back to their plates.
“Oh, it’s just a silly expression. It’s an exaggerated way of saying I really want something.”
“Want what?”
“To win. To beat Lucas.” She laughed at how competitive that sounded. “No, what I really want is the opportunity to be on a TV show that could be very helpful to the Forget Me Not.”
She had to keep her priorities straight here. Beating Lucas wasn’t the point. Keeping her business afloat was.
“Couldn’t you both be on the TV show?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, but Zoe said they wanted to profile one boat. If they only pick one, it will probably be the Jack Hammer.” She was so used to being overshadowed by Lucas and his charter business. He had the most desirable slip, the prime advertising spot on the Chamber of Commerce brochure, the most prominently located office on the boardwalk. It made sense; everyone knew the Jack Hammer and no one cared about nature tours. But sometimes she got discouraged. “I think that’s a great solution, sweetie. I’ll see what I can do. Now what do you say we go to the beach and walk off this pizza?”
“I wish we had a dog to walk,” Ruby said mournfully as they clambered down the scrubby path that led to the shoreline. “Or at least Fidget.”
Megan suppressed a sigh. If it wasn’t Lucas, it was Lucas’ dog. If it wasn’t Lucas’ dog, it was his boat. Lost Harbor was obviously Lucas Holt territory, and where did that leave her?
- Writer
