Into the sudden lull she said, “I see you like to fish.” She pointed toward the picture. He stepped toward her, and once he was close, she felt the warmth radiating from him. He smelled like salt and wind.

“Yeah, I do,” he said quietly. “My father was a shrimper, and I pretty much grew up on the water.”

“How long ago was this taken?”

“That one’s about ten years old—it was taken right before I went back to college for my senior year. There was a fishing contest, and my dad and I decided to spend a couple of nights out in the Gulf Stream and we caught that marlin about sixty miles off shore. It took almost seven hours to bring him in because my dad wanted me to learn how to do it the old-fashioned way.”

“What does that mean?”

He laughed under his breath. “Basically it means that my hands were cut to pieces by the time I was finished, and I could barely move my shoulders the next day. The line we had hooked it on wasn’t really strong enough for a fish that size, so we had to let the marlin run until it stopped, then slowly reel it in, then let it run again all day long until the thing was too exhausted to fight anymore.”

“Kind of like Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea .”

“Kind of, except that I didn’t feel like an old man until the next day. My father, on the other hand, could have played the part in the movie.”

She looked at the picture again. “Is that your father standing next to you?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“He looks like you,” she said.

Garrett smiled a little, wondering whether or not it was a compliment. He motioned to the table, and Theresa sat down opposite him. Once she was comfortable, she asked:

“You said you went to college?”

He met her eyes. “Yeah, I went to UNC and majored in marine biology. Nothing else interested me much, and since my dad told me I couldn’t come home without a degree, I thought I’d learn something that I might be able to use later.”

“So you bought the shop. . . .”

He shook his head. “No, at least not right away. After graduating, I worked for the Duke Maritime Institute as a dive specialist, but there wasn’t much money in that. So, I got a teaching certificate and started taking in students on the weekends. The shop came a few years later.” He cocked an eyebrow. “How about you?”

Theresa took another drink of the SevenUp before she answered.

“My life isn’t quite as exciting as yours. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and went to school at Brown. After graduation, I bounced around in a couple of different places and tried a few different things, eventually settling down in Boston. I’ve been with the Times for nine years now, but only the last few as a columnist. Before that, I was a reporter.”

“How do you like being a columnist?”

She thought about it for a moment, as if she were considering it for the first time.

“It’s a good job,” she finally said. “A lot better now than when I started. I can pick Kevin up after school, and I have the freedom to write whatever I want, as long as it’s in line with my column. It pays fairly well, too, so I can’t complain about that, but . . .”

She paused again. “It’s not all that challenging anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do, but sometimes I feel like I’m writing the same things over and over. Even that wouldn’t be so bad, though, if I didn’t have so many other things to do with Kevin. I guess that right now, I’m your typical, overworked single mother, if you know what I mean.”

He nodded and spoke softly. “Life doesn’t often turn out the way we think it will, does it?”

“No, I guess it doesn’t,” she said, and again she caught his gaze. His expression made her wonder if he’d said something he rarely said to anyone else. She smiled and leaned toward him.

“Are you ready for something to eat? I brought some things in the basket.”

“Whenever you are.”

“I hope you like sandwiches and cold salads. They were the only things I could think of that wouldn’t spoil.”

“It sounds better than what I would have had. If it was just me, i probably would have stopped for a burger before I went out tonight. Would you like to eat down here or outside?”

“Outside, definitely.”

They picked up their cans of soda and left the cabin. On their way out, Garrett grabbed a raincoat from a peg near the door and motioned for her to go on without him. “Give me a minute to drop the anchor,” he said, “so we can eat without having to check the boat every few minutes.” Theresa reached her seat and opened the basket she had brought with her. On the horizon, the sun was sinking into a bank of cumulus clouds. She pulled out a couple of sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, as well as some Styrofoam containers of coleslaw and potato salad.

She watched as Garrett set aside the coat and lowered the sails, the boat slowing almost immediately. With his back to her as he worked, she again noticed how strong he looked. From where she was sitting, his shoulder muscles appeared larger than she had first realized, amplified by his small waist. She couldn’t believe she was actually sailing with this man when only two days ago she was in Boston. The whole thing seemed unreal.

While Garrett worked steadily, Theresa looked upward. The breeze had picked up now that the temperature had dropped, and the sky was darkening slowly.

Once the boat had stopped completely, Garrett lowered the anchor. He waited about a minute, making sure the anchor would hold, and when he was satisfied, he took his seat next to Theresa.

“I wish there was something I could do to help you,” Theresa said with a smile. She flipped her hair onto her shoulder the same way Catherine used to, and for a moment he didn’t say anything.

“is everything okay?” Theresa asked.

He nodded, suddenly uncomfortable again. “We’re fine right here. But I was just thinking that if the wind keeps picking up, we’ll have to tack a bit more often on our way back.”

She put some potato salad and coleslaw along with his sandwich on his plate and handed it to him, conscious of the fact that he was sitting closer than he had before.

“Will it take longer to get back, then?”

Garrett reached for one of the white plastic forks and took a bite of coleslaw. It took a moment for him to answer.

“A little—but it won’t be a problem unless the wind stops completely. If that happens, we’d be stuck.”

“I take it that’s happened to you before.”

He nodded. “Once or twice. It’s rare, but it does happen.”

She looked confused. “Why is that rare? The wind doesn’t always blow, does it?”

“On the ocean it usually does.”

“How come?”

He smiled in amusement and set the sandwich on his plate. “Well, winds are driven by differences in temperature—when warm air rushes to cooler air. For the wind to stop blowing when you’re out on the ocean, you’d need the air temperature to exactly equal the water temperature for miles around. Down here, the air is usually hot during the day, but as soon as the sun starts to set, the temperature drops quickly. That’s why the best time to go out is at dusk. The temperature is changing constantly, and that makes for great sailing.”

“What happens if the wind does stop?”

“The sails empty and the boat comes to a halt. You’re absolutely powerless to do anything to make it move.”

“and you said this has happened to you before?”

He nodded.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing, really. Just sat back and enjoyed the quiet. I wasn’t in danger, and I knew that in time the air temperature would drop. So I just waited it out. After an hour or so, a breeze picked up and I made it back to port.”

“Sounds like it ended up being an enjoyable day.”

“It was.” He looked away from her intent gaze and focused on the cabin door. After a moment he added, almost to himself, “One of the best.”

Catherine scooted over in her seat. “Come here and sit next to me.”