Chapter 10
TEN
JUDAH
The net rips again in the same damn spot it ripped yesterday.
Third net this month, I think, adding another item to the mental list of never-ending things on the to-do list. Could patch it again. Should replace it entirely.
The morning sun cuts through the fog rolling off the harbor, painting everything in shades of gray and gold.
My boat, the Second Chance, rocks gently at her mooring, her white hull showing the scars of fifteen years of Maine weather.
She needs paint. New rigging. A complete overhaul of the hydraulics that I’ve been nursing along with duct tape and prayer.
But I still think she’s the most beautiful thing on the water.
There is nothing like the freedom of sailing off into the early morning dawn, coast receding at my back. Sometimes I like to imagine just how far I might get if I decide one day not to turn back to shore at the end of the day.
I toss the ruined net aside and reach for my coffee, gone cold an hour ago.
Around me, the harbor comes alive with the sounds of other boats preparing for the day.
Engines coughing to life. Men shouting to each other across the water.
The rhythmic clang of buoys being loaded for another run at the lobster grounds.
“Judah!”
I look up to find Brent Tomlin waving from his stern deck, his orange slicker bright against the morning gray. Brent’s been fishing these waters since before I was born, his face weathered into a permanent squint from decades of salt spray and sun.
“Weather’s turning,” he calls across the water. “Might want to get your traps in before the blow hits.”
I wave acknowledgment, already calculating. Storm coming means I should be out there now, pulling what I can before the sea gets ugly. But my crew’s thin—Danny called out sick, and Mike’s handling a family emergency—which leaves just me for a job that is best done with four men or more.
I drain the cold coffee, grimace at the bitter dregs, and start prepping for a solo run.
It’s stupid. Dangerous, probably. The kind of thing my mother would lecture me about if she knew.
But the mortgage on her house isn’t going to pay itself, and my sister’s college tuition doesn’t care about weather patterns or crew shortages.
The Daniels family has been fishing these waters for three generations. We don’t quit because things get hard.
We just get harder.
The engine catches on the third try—one more thing to add to the repair list—and I ease the Second Chance away from her mooring, navigating through the forest of masts and rigging that clutters the inner harbor.
A few other captains wave as I pass. I nod back, the wordless communication of men who understand each other without needing to speak.
Harmony Harbor looks different from the water. Smaller, somehow. The white church steeples and colonial storefronts that seem so imposing from Main Street shrink to dollhouse proportions against the endless gray of sea and sky. From out here, the whole town could fit in my palm.
From out here, it’s harder to remember why I stay.
The outer harbor opens up ahead, the breakwater falling away to reveal the churning Atlantic.
Waves slap against the hull in a rhythm I’ve known since childhood, the heartbeat of a life lived between land and sea.
Salt spray kisses my face, and for a moment—just a moment—nothing exists between me and utter peace.
This is what I was born for. What generations of Daniels men were born for. Not the paperwork or the regulations or the constant financial juggling. Just the boat, the water, and the simple satisfaction of honest work.
Then my phone buzzes in my pocket, and reality comes crashing back.
I ignore it. Probably my mother calling about Sunday dinner. Or my sister asking about the tuition payment. Or the bank reminding me about the second mortgage I took out to keep the boat running. Nothing that won’t keep until I’m back on solid ground.
The buzzing stops, then starts again immediately.
With a grunt of irritation, I cut the throttle back to idle and dig out the phone. The screen shows a number I don’t recognize—Harmony Harbor area code, but not one saved in my contacts.
I’m about to let it go to voicemail when some inexplicable urge makes me answer. Though it probably has something to do with getting three missed calls in a row from the same number.
“Hello.”
“Judah?” The voice is familiar, though I can’t immediately place it. Male, rough around the edges, with an undertone of urgency. “It’s Dom.”
The name hits like a rogue wave.
Dominic Romano.
I haven’t spoken to him in…God, how long? Months, at least. Maybe longer. We used to be inseparable, the three of us. Dom, me…and him. The one I don’t let myself think about. The one whose name I’ve trained myself to skip over like a stone skipping across water.
“Hey, Dom.” I keep my voice neutral, even as my gut tightens with something I refuse to name. “Been a while.”
“Yeah. I know.” A pause. Something that might be a heavy exhale or just static on the line. “Listen, I need to tell you something. And you’re not gonna like it.”
“Since when do you call to deliver good news?”
He doesn’t laugh. Dominic always laughs at my terrible jokes, even the ones that aren’t funny. The fact that he doesn’t now makes that knot in my stomach pull tighter.
“I’m at work,” I say, scanning the horizon for the marker buoys that signal my trap lines. “Whatever it is, can it wait?”
“No.” The word comes out clipped. Final. “It really can’t.”
I kill the engine entirely, letting the Second Chance drift on the current. Around me, the world goes quiet except for the slap of waves and the cry of gulls circling overhead.
“I’m listening.”
Another pause. When Dominic speaks again, his voice has gone strange. Careful. Like he’s handling something fragile.
“I was working the bar last night. Earl Miller came in—you know Earl, the mechanic from the airfield?”
“Uh huh.”
“He gave some people a ride from a private jet that had to emergency land. Engine trouble or something. They’re staying at the Seafoam.”
“Okay…” I don’t see where this is going, and the uncertainty is making me impatient. “Is there a point to this story?”
“One of the passengers.” Dominic’s voice drops. “It’s Mason.”
The name.
His name.
Air is driven from my lungs like I just took a punch to the gut. The phone nearly slips from my fingers, and I have to grab the rail to steady myself as the deck suddenly seems to tilt beneath my feet.
“What?”
“Mason is in town. Right now. At the Seafoam Inn.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but stand here, gripping the rail until my knuckles go white, while the world restructures itself around this single impossible fact.
Mason is here.
Mason is in Harmony Harbor.
After ten years of nothing—no calls, no letters, no word at all—Mason is less than two miles from where I’m standing.
“Judah?” Dominic’s voice sounds distant, tinny. “You still there?”
“Yeah.” The word scrapes out of my throat like broken glass. “I’m here.”
“I thought you should know. Before you heard it from someone else. Before you ran into him at the grocery store or some shit.”
Ran into him. The thought is absurd. Terrifying. The idea of turning a corner and suddenly finding myself face to face with—
“I have to go.”
“Judah—”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Wait. Just…wait a second, okay?” Dominic’s voice softens in a way I’m not used to hearing from him. “Are you gonna be alright?”
Am I going to be alright.
What a fucking question.
“I’ll call you later,” I say, and hang up before he can respond.
The phone goes back in my pocket. My hands find the wheel. The engine roars to life on the first try—of course it does, because the universe has a sick sense of humor—and I’m turning the boat around before I’ve consciously decided to do it.
The trap lines can wait. The storm can wait. Everything can wait except the desperate, overwhelming need to be on solid ground while I figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do with this information.
Mason is here.
The words play on repeat in my head as I navigate back through the harbor, barely seeing the other boats, barely hearing the shouts of greeting from fishermen who know my face if not my name.
Mason is here.