Chapter 5: The Callie M.

At five on Saturday morning I climbed aboard the Callie M. in the dark, with a thermos in one hand.

Posy had slept over at Iris's.

The house was empty.

I had been alone in it for forty minutes before I gave up and walked down the hill to the wharf.

The harbor was black and still.

Frost shone on the pilings, and the boat's wheelhouse glowed yellow at the end of the dock.

Jude stood inside it with his back to me, checking a gauge.

He turned at the sound of my boots on the deck.

"You'll freeze," he said.

"I brought coffee," I said.

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

I stepped into the wheelhouse and pulled the door shut behind me.

It was small, warm and close, and it smelled of diesel and wet wool.

Charts lay under glass on a table by the window, and a heater ticked under the dash.

He took the thermos from my hands and set it down without looking at it.

"I looked in the hall desk last night," he said.

"There's a drawer of Christmas cards, from every year we were together.

"I went through them twice."

"And?"

"Nothing with the name Nora.

"The ones from Lena are on top, two hands full.

"There's no card I don't recognize."

"There's got to be one."

"Maybe.

"I'll look again."

He was standing very close to me.

"Is that really why you came down here?" he asked.

"No."

I put my hands flat on his chest.

His heart was already going.

"I haven't stopped thinking about it since Wednesday," I said.

"I know.

"I was trying to behave."

"Don't."

I pushed his coat off his shoulders and it hit the deck.

He kissed me up against the chart table with both hands in my hair, deep and starving.

I wrapped my fingers in his shirt and dragged him closer.

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