Alaskan Catch

by Sue Pethick

  She saw movement on deck and found Bear looking down at her, his tail wagging happily. He barked twice, and she waved her injured arm, the white bandage looking like a flag of truce.

  Maybe it is, Emily thought.

  Then Sam stepped up behind his dog, and Emily stopped breathing. He was dripping wet, standing there in the bottom half of a wet suit as the top half had been pulled down to his waist, his naked torso glistening in the sun as he dried his hair with a towel. The raw physicality of him made her heart race. She looked down and stared at her feet.

  “What are you doing here?” he yelled.

  “I, um . . .” Emily swallowed. “I—”

  “What? Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  Stop being silly, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a man without his shirt on before, and the poor guy would never hear her if she kept staring at the ground. Emily took a deep breath and lifted her chin. Sam had his head tilted to one side, trying to clear the water from his ears.

  “I came to apologize,” she said loudly. “And to thank you for helping me.” She held up her arm. “You were right.”

  “You’re welcome.” He leaned over the railing and nodded. “How’s it feel?”

  Emily shrugged.

  “It hurts. The EMTs fixed me up, and I gave the police a report. They said they’d keep an eye out for him. You said his name was Logan Marsh, right?”

  “Yup.”

  He looped the towel over his shoulder and started drying his back. Emily’s cheeks started to burn. She thought he might be the sexiest man she’d ever seen.

  “Anything else I can help you with?” Sam said.

  “Yes,” she yelled. “Can I take you out to dinner?”

  CHAPTER 9

  They ate at a fish and chowder shop near the wharf. Ketchikan was a pretty laid-back town, and even dressed as they were, Emily was sure they could have gotten into someplace nicer, but Sam seemed uncomfortable letting her pay at all, much less for something more expensive. As she watched him polish off a double helping of cod fillets, though, she thought he might have a point. The man could put away a lot of food.

  “So,” Sam said. “Tell me why you were wandering around in no-man’s-land this afternoon.”

  Emily shrugged. When she thought about it now, her crusade to find the source of Tim’s problems at the cannery seemed pretty childish. He hadn’t asked her to, and besides, what made her think she had a better chance of figuring it out than he did? Sam would probably laugh when she told him, but she supposed she owed him an explanation. She’d already had to apologize; a little more humiliation couldn’t hurt.

  “I wanted to ask if you could help me with a . . . Well, not a problem, exactly. More of a mystery I’m trying to solve.”

  “What sort of mystery?” He reached for his beer. “I have to warn you, I’m not much of a detective.”

  “I’m not, either,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I should be trying to solve it. It’s just that—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. ”

  Emily looked down at her plate. How could she explain why this seemed so important?

  “I guess I hate to see people get blamed for something they didn’t do. Even when I was a kid, I was always trying to fight back against injustice.”

  Sam picked up a french fry and pointed it at her.

  “Nobody likes a buttinsky.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I know, but aren’t there times when people need to get involved? I mean, if somebody is getting hurt, don’t you have a responsibility to try and help?”

  He put the fry in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

  “Maybe,” Sam said. “As long as you’re sure that what you’re doing is really going to help. As often as not, it seems to me that helping only makes the situation worse.”

  Emily rested her chin in her hand, picked up her fork, and started pushing the uneaten portion of her dinner around her plate. Maybe Sam was right, she thought. Maybe she should just leave well enough alone. But were things at the cannery really going “well enough”? Not if the others were right and someone was trying to get rid of the internship program.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what the mystery is?” Sam said. “If I can’t help you, then it doesn’t matter whether helping is a good idea or not, right? And if I can, then you can decide if you want to pursue it.”

  She stabbed at a cold piece of cod.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “I saw you take on Logan Marsh this afternoon. You can’t be that easily discouraged.”

  “Right,” she said. “And look where it got me.”

  Emily held up her bandaged arm.

  “Yeah, that is disappointing,” he said. “And here I thought you were some kind of kung fu master.”

  Sam grinned at her and took another sip of beer.

  Her mouth fell open. She hadn’t said anything to him about the incident with Bear in the cannery. Did someone tell him, or had he actually seen her divert his dog away from the slime line?

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Are you kidding? You’ve been the topic of conversation on the dock since it happened. If anyone had thought to get their smartphone out, you and Bear would be Internet stars by now. I’m sorry I missed it.”

  So Sam hadn’t seen what happened, Emily thought. Did it really matter? No, probably not, but still.

  “For the record,” she said, “it wasn’t kung fu, it was aikido, and I was just trying to keep Bear from running into the slime line.”

  “So, he didn’t knock you down?”

  “Not exactly.” Emily smirked. “And don’t look so disappointed.”

  Sam finished off the last of his fries.

  “Aikido, huh? Where’d you learn that?”

  “There’s a dojo near my house.”

  “And you took it for self-defense?”

  She laughed. “Not really. When I was a kid, my mother signed me up for every kind of lesson there was: horseback riding, tennis, swimming, kung fu, surfing, you name it. Aikido’s the only thing I ever enjoyed enough to keep at it.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “It was, for a while, but when every spare minute of your life is spoken for, it doesn’t leave you much time for anything else. I started feeling as if I was always preparing for life instead of living it. What’s the point?”

  “You certainly made good use of your aikido.” Sam reached down and stroked the dog’s head. “And I know Bear appreciated it.”

  “Yeah, at the time, I was feeling pretty critical of myself, thinking that I shouldn’t have fallen. Now, though, it makes me happy. All those hours of practice finally paid off in the real world.”

  He looked up at her and smiled.

  “First, Bear runs into you at the cannery, then this afternoon he gets between you and Logan Marsh. Don’t look now, but I think my dog has a crush on you.”

  “Well, I doubt that,” she said, glancing at the dog lying quietly under their table. “But if he does, I’m flattered.”

  “Speaking of Bear,” he said, “we need to get home. I think I hear his stomach growling.”

  “Oh.”

  Emily couldn’t help feeling disappointed. In spite of any second thoughts she might have had, she’d still been hoping to ask Sam if he could help her with the problem at the cannery. Now, it looked as if she’d missed her chance.

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin, then wadded it up and dropped it on the table.

  “Come on,” he said, standing. “You can tell me about your mystery on the way.”

  * * *

  Sam’s house was a four-bedroom split-level with a view of the harbor and a backyard big enough for a dog Bear’s size to stretch his legs. While the Newfoundland waited impatiently for his dinner, Emily gave herself a tour of the upper floor. In the living room, she saw two comfortable couches facing each other in front of a brick fireplace. An old harpoon was mounted over the mantelpi
ece, and bookshelves lined the wall on either side. She wandered over to take a closer look. In addition to the predictable—Melville, London, Poe—she found novels by Llosa, Proust, and Conrad, and nonfiction titles on celestial mechanics and physics, including one of her personal favorites, What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Richard Feynman. When Sam walked into the room, she turned to him and smiled.

  “I’m trying to decide what your major was in college. Literature or physics?”

  He glanced at the bookcase and frowned.

  “Neither,” he said. “I’m just one of those dummies who reads what he likes.”

  Emily felt herself flush. She hadn’t meant to insult him.

  “Sorry. I mean, not everybody goes to college. I know plenty of smart people who—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Can I get you a glass of water?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, relieved. “That’d be nice, thank you.”

  While Sam went back to the kitchen, Emily took a seat. As nice as the house was, it felt as if something was missing. Parts of the interior were well-furnished, but others were completely bare, with only faint outlines on the wall to indicate that something had been removed and not replaced.

  Someone’s left him, she thought, and not that long ago, either. His wife? Or a girlfriend, perhaps? Not that she’d ever ask. Even a buttinsky had her limits.

  Sam, however, must have been watching her and guessed what she was thinking. As he handed Emily her water, he said: “Last month.”

  She took a sip. “Hmm?”

  “Tiffany, my ex-girlfriend. She moved out at the beginning of May. Isn’t that what you were wondering?”

  Once again, she felt her face redden.

  “Was I that obvious? I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s okay. I thought it would last, but then she started using. It’s not easy when you realize that someone loves their addiction more than they love you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I know a lot of people are dealing with the same thing.”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay. We’re both better off now.”

  The two of them sat there for a few seconds more, lost in their own thoughts. As sorry as Emily was for Sam’s situation, there was a part of her that felt glad he was unattached even as she felt guilty for feeling that way. It reminded her that she hadn’t thought of Carter all day—not even when the EMTs were bandaging her arm. In three months, she’d be home and Sam would be moving on with his life. She had no business having any feelings for him at all.

  Time to get down to business.

  “So,” she said. “The mystery.”

  Sam nodded. “Let’s hear it.”

  For the next few minutes, Emily detailed everything she knew about what had been going on at the cannery. Some was firsthand, but for most of it, she was passing along things that the other interns had seen or heard about, including their surmise that the ultimate aim was the elimination of the internship program. Sam listened attentively, interrupting her only to clarify something he wasn’t sure about. Even if it turned out that he had no more clue how to fix the problem than she did, Emily appreciated his taking the whole thing seriously. If she’d been in his shoes, she wasn’t sure she’d have done the same.

  “So,” he said, when she was finished. “You want to find out who might or might not be trying to embarrass Tim and/or sabotage the interns, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you just want my opinion, or are you asking if I can help?”

  “Well . . . both, I guess.”

  He took a deep breath and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

  “I can see why you’re upset. Tim sounds like a good guy, and the program gives experience to people who might not be able to get it anywhere else.”

  “Right, and if NOAA shuts it down—”

  “Hold on. The problem is, you have no way of knowing if what’s going on is being done deliberately or is just coincidental.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “You’re also taking the word of the other interns as gospel,” he said. “Something I’d be very careful about if I were you. People often exaggerate, even when they don’t mean to. Unless Tim Garrett tells you that he needs your help, my advice would be to let this go—”

  “But—”

  “—for now. In the meantime, keep your eyes open, write down anything concrete that you find, but don’t jump to any conclusions. This could be something real or it might just be someone’s overactive imagination. At this point, I don’t think you know enough to tell the difference.”

  Sam pointed toward a book on the shelf behind her.

  “Remember what Richard Feynman said: ‘The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.’ ”

  Emily thought about that for a moment. Had she been fooling herself? The fact was, she had very little actual evidence that some larger conspiracy was behind the problems at the cannery. What if they were just normal, everyday issues that had nothing to do with Tim or the interns at all? If that was the case, then trying to solve the “mystery” would be a waste of time. Emily had come to Ketchikan to get experience and, with luck, a glowing recommendation from her supervisor. She couldn’t afford to waste her time chasing after a chimera.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I need to remember that. Thanks for listening.”

  “No problem; you’re good company. And, hey, if you see or hear something that convinces you there’s more going on, I’ll be happy to help. Now come on,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  Emily got up and grabbed her purse.

  “Oh, no. That’s okay. I can walk.”

  Sam gave her injured arm a pointed look, and Emily chuckled.

  “On second thought,” she said, “that would be nice. Thanks.”

  * * *

  Emily stood by her front door and waved as Sam drove away. It had been a good evening; she was glad she’d asked him to dinner, happier still that she’d shared her suspicions about the cannery. He might not have a college degree, but Sam was a deep thinker. He’d been able to see through the complicated scenario she’d presented him with and point out the essential truth she’d been missing. In the future, she would try to remember Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is most likely the right one.

  Kimberley was waiting for her when she stepped inside.

  “Where have you been? We were all worried about you.”

  Emily looked around. There was no one else in the room.

  “Who was worried?”

  “Everybody. After work, you just ran off and nobody knew if you were okay. We had to go to dinner without you.”

  “I’m sorry if you were worried,” she said, setting her purse on the floor. “But I had someone I needed to talk to.”

  Kimberley crossed her arms, tossing her head toward the door.

  “You mean Sam Reed.”

  Emily gave a grunt of confusion.

  “Yes, if you must know. Why? What do you care?”

  The girl hesitated, looking momentarily flustered before recovering her nerve.

  “I thought I told you—”

  “What, that you saw him first? And now he’s your personal property?”

  The girl’s cheeks flushed. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Good. Because I’m not trying to take him away, all right? When this”—Emily held up her bandaged arm—“happened, Sam and his dog chased the guy off. I thought I’d buy him dinner as a thank-you. That’s all.”

  This declaration seemed to mollify Kimberley somewhat. She uncrossed her arms.

  “How’s it feel?”

  Emily hadn’t thought about her injuries the entire time she was with Sam. Now, her whole arm was starting to throb.

  “It hurts like hell. So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get ready for bed.”

  She opened the hall closet and took out a towel.

&
nbsp; “But we were all going out for karaoke,” Kimberley said. “I was just waiting for you to show up. Don’t you want to come?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Whatever.” She snatched her wallet off the table. “Don’t bother waiting up. We’ll be back late.”

  “Fine,” Emily said as she headed down the hall. “Maybe I’ll take another pain pill, too, so I can get some sleep. Which isn’t easy, by the way, with you guys walking in and out of my ‘bedroom’ all the time.”

  She walked into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER 10

  Sam kept a sharp eye out for Logan Marsh as he drove home. Emily had heard nothing from the police about an arrest, and the uneasiness he’d felt seeing the guy near his neighborhood that morning still lingered. He did a quick swing around the block before turning up his driveway and into the garage. The last thing he needed was to be caught unawares.

  Bear shot past him into the kitchen when he opened the door, nosing his food bowl aside and checking the floor for any overlooked morsels. Sam set his keys on the counter, then went to check the doors and windows before hanging up his jacket. It was probably more vigilance than the situation warranted, but then, no one ever died from an excess of caution.

  There was cold beer in the refrigerator. He took one out and popped it open. Now that the fishing ban had been lifted, he’d be back out on the water in the morning, but he still wasn’t sure whether Bear would be with him. Sam glanced at the time—even for a work night, it was too early to go to bed. He wandered into the living room and turned on the television.

  He stood there flipping through channels, hoping to find something halfway interesting to fill the time, then turned it off and tossed the remote back onto the couch. Since Tiffany’s departure, his life had changed in a lot of ways, but evenings were the hardest. Bear was good company, but it wasn’t the same as having another human being in the house. Maybe that’s why he’d been so willing to hear about Emily’s mystery. It meant he could hold back the loneliness a little while longer.

  He heard the phone ring and walked back into the kitchen to see who it was.

  “Hey, Kallik. What’s up?”