His Last Defense

His anguished eyes delved into hers. “You know why I might think that.”

His quiet words fired through her. They reminded her of her anger when he’d caught his friend manhandling her and had jumped to conclusions. Dylan always assumed the worst. Given his critical parents’ abandonment, she understood why he would expect life’s letdowns. Back then, she’d been naive, thinking she was the exception from that view. Stupid to think the years might have changed him.

Clearly, he was the same person. And so was she. It was the reminder she needed to steer clear of him. To be glad he’d be transferring from Kodiak soon.

“If you think that about me,” she said through shaking lips, “then you don’t know me at all.”

She threw off the hand he’d placed on her wrist, yanked down her shirt, flung open the truck door and hopped out, her fleece shoved under her arm.

“Nolee!”

She whirled. “What?”

“Tell me you’re not taking out that boat.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Have you heard the weather predictions? They’re expecting record-breaking temperatures. Storms.”

“So?”

“You’d be a fool to go.”

“Yep. That’s me.” She studied his familiar, handsome face then turned and spoke over her shoulder. “Always the fool.”

* * *

THE FOLLOWING EVENING, Nolee stretched her aching muscles. She’d spent the day retrofitting the Pacific Dawn’s crab pots for opilio and now dutifully stood behind a table laden with a variety of modern and traditional Alutiiq dishes, serving their community during the annual winter festival. The air was thick with smoke, fresh seafood and the occasional curse. Her stomach growled and she sighed with relief at the dwindling end of the buffet line.

“Do you want an extra scoop?” she asked as she ladled soup into a stooped man’s outstretched bowl. He shook his head and smiled, his skin exploding into lines that radiated from his eyes and mouth.

“That is enough.”

She nodded and rubbed her low back. She needed rest. A hot soak to relax her screaming muscles. And an aspirin. Her brain hurt worse than her body. Her spirit? Flatlining. The Pacific Dawn needed more repairs than she’d imagined. With only eleven days left until inspection and the opening day of the regular season, she wasn’t sure she and her remaining crew members would have the boat seaworthy in time. To fill the impossible quota she’d promised her skeptical bosses, she couldn’t miss even one day of the regular opilio season.

Making matters worse, she couldn’t stop thinking about Dylan. Last night’s kiss had shaken loose feelings she needed to keep locked down. It’d felt so right, so perfect to be in Dylan’s arms she’d almost forgotten all of the very solid reasons things hadn’t worked nine years ago. She’d made the right choice to let him go then, and she needed to steer clear now and focus on her career and her family.

“Take a break.” Her Aunt Dai squeezed her arm and nodded in Nolee’s mother’s direction. Kathy Arnauyq sat at the end of a long folding table that had been mostly cleared by hustling volunteers. She was small, dark and intensely serious, her gray-streaked hair in a braid she’d pulled forward over her right shoulder. A young couple and their three boisterous children occupied the opposite end. “It’s time you talked.”

Nolee bit back her sigh. Since losing her boat, she hadn’t dared visit her mother, unwilling to subject herself to a solid round of I-told-you-so’s. Tonight, though, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

The chair scraped against the tiled floor when she pulled it out and seated herself opposite her parent. “Hi, Mother.”

Kathy nodded as she toyed with the metal spoon in her empty coffee cup. Her neat, slightly sharpened features revealed none of the discomfort twitching through Nolee.

“Did you get enough to eat? Because I could—” She cut herself off at the shake of her mother’s head. “Okay. What would you like?”

“I’d like you to leave the Bering Sea and come back to Kodiak. Stop this foolishness,” Kathy said in the feather-soft voice that made others lean close and pay attention.

Old frustration flared inside. “Captaining a boat is not foolish.”

“A commercial boat.” Kathy’s hands were cool as she pushed a lock of hair away from Nolee’s eyes in a tender gesture that nearly brought her to tears. “They’re greedy. Taking more of the world than is needed. That’s not our way.”

Nolee sighed. “No. It’s not.” She’d grown up being taught the value of subsistence living, a part of her tribal culture that went back thousands of years. What others might consider poverty, they believed to be a revered, responsible way of living. For Nolee, however, it’d been a relentless childhood of scraping by on whatever family members could toss their way. Their poverty had made them powerless, her mother’s precarious health preventing her from holding down a lasting job. “But I need to pay the bills. And where is your oxygen tank?”