Alaska’s wildness snuck up on me. Mountainous spaces dashed by the car window—one serene vista after another—its beauty endless; and yet, I’d not passed a town for hours. Why had civilization not reached this place? And why on earth was I planning to live here?

Overwhelmed by a progressive sense of loneliness, I mentally disconnected from the remarkable views. Blocked patterns of green and autumn yellow beat out a checkerboard of shapes blurring past my windows. I kept my focus glued to the road that led down the Kenai peninsula. The steering wheel—cold and clammy beneath my fingers.

Sarah, the wifey, sat beside me. Another couple, bundled up in parkas, sat a foot apart from each other in the backseat of a rented sedan.

At the end of our journey down that scenic and dangerous highway, a large fishing boat waited for us in a town called Seward—a boat and a new life—starting a fishing business with this other couple—The Chatsworths.

“Stop, please! It’s a lookout point!” exclaimed Darcy Chatsworth—lovely Darcy, Caleb’s wife and the object of my starry-eyed obsession.

Darcy’s excited expression reflected in my rearview mirror. It was all I could do to keep from killing us all what with her beautiful face distracting me in that mirror, along with the beautiful scenery outside my windows.

I slammed on the brakes, steered into that wide spot on the road, and stopped the car.

The wifey jumped out first. Didn’t take long to unwind her short legs.

Darcy emerged more slowly from the rented sedan. I hung back, admiring her graceful strides as she sauntered straight to the edge of the cliff.

Caleb, Darcy’s husband, held back. He didn’t even venture as far as Sarah had. Of average height, with a boyishly handsome face and curly red hair, he carried a bit of a middle-aged gut before his time.

I strode out to the edge and stood next to Darcy—as close as I dared.

“Did you ever imagine it would be so wild?” I asked.

She didn’t take her deep blue eyes off the view when she said, “No, never! How could anyone from the lower 48 ever imagine this? It’s a different world here! Look how the emerald mountains walk right out to meet the ocean.”

“You’re waxing poetic again.”

“Am I? Sorry, it’s just so breathtaking!” She brushed aside her black hair and pointed to the sky. “Look, Max, over there—an eagle!”

I heard the screams before my eyes found the bird. Of course, Darcy would be the first to spot an eagle. She had crazy, better than normal vision. It’s true. She could see a lot further than the rest of us could see.

When I first noticed she could read the road signs before any of us, Sarah had explained Darcy’s gift, “Her parents were abusive—her childhood traumatic. It gave her some kind of syndrome—makes her five senses extraordinarily acute.”

“Yeah, don’t ever take her to a dump!” Caleb had teased.

Darcy had said, “It’s both a blessing and a curse.”

“You experience life in a heightened way,” I had said attempting to say something in Darcy’s defense.

Without a doubt, my senses were in a constant state of uproar whenever I was within reach of her.

Standing inches from her on that cliff, on our first day in Alaska, I stared at her gorgeous face—at the rapture displayed there as she gazed down upon the massive tidal plains. The low tide exposed the glacial silt, which painted a broad swipe of gold across our view and framed the edges of the emerald hills that glittered with touches of yellow gold from the quaking aspen trees. The landscape, however, lacked the vibrant reds and oranges of the deciduous trees we had back at home where no tree in its right mind would be changing its colors so early—this first week of September!

As luck would have it, we stood high on that cliff. If we had been any closer, the adventurous Darcy would have run out into those silt fields. Then I would most likely have had to mount a rescue because glacial silt can wrap around your feet and grab hold of you like cement!

Standing high above such temptations, on the edge of that cliff, we gaped at the majestic scene—a couple of innocents then—ignorant of the dangers that lay before us.

Out beyond this more colorful scene, the ocean lay gray and churning. Rain fell off in the distance. Darcy’s raven hair shimmered with blue against that pale backdrop.

I wanted to reach for Darcy’s slender hand. I wanted to share this amazing moment alone with her. Footsteps sounded in the gravel. We turned to see Sarah striding toward us.

Darcy adjusted her scarf—hand knitted by Sarah for Darcy’s last birthday. “Did you see it?” Darcy asked. “Did you see the eagle?”

Sarah pointed. “There’s two of them!”

There, flying high above us—one American bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, and its mate—more drab and brown. The color of the younger bird’s earthy feathers a perfect match to the color of Sarah’s hair—its body round and broad chested like my Sarah. Incidentally, if the female had been fully grown, she would have had the same coloring as the male; i.e., white tails and heads.

Sarah’s grating laughter hurt my ears. The bald eagle latched onto its mate. Conjoined in passion, the eagles dropped—screaming and falling in circular spirals in the sky.

I turned to Darcy. She brought her hands up to her face—her silken skin glowing in this dim light. The sight of those birds seemed to stoke the fires of Darcy’s rapture. Caleb, on the other hand, added his guttural guffaws to Sarah’s chuckles. Here the rest of us stood laughing and smirking our guts out, but Darcy? She soared high and free with those majestic birds sharing in the euphoria of their baby making plummet.

If not for Darcy, I would have guffawed along with the rest, but, I often acted the gentleman whenever Darcy was around. I wanted to please this woman, who had elements of a refined lady mixed with a country rustic.

“Darcy Chatsworth has a queenly quality,” Sarah once explained to me before I’d even met Darcy. “We’re all down in the dirt while she sits up high on her throne.”

Of course Sarah’s jealously had been talking when she said that because Sarah loved Darcy. The two of them had grown up as best friends and next door neighbors in Carnation, a modest country town full of farmers and computer programmers, who liked having some land while living not too far away from Redmond, Washington with its array of tech jobs.

Sarah and I met at the University of Washington. Darcy and Caleb were already married when Sarahand I met. Sometimes, I wondered, did I marry Sarah just so I could be near Darcy?

Stupid to let my mind wander like that. It did no good to dream about something that could never be, right?

Darcy turned to look at me—like she knew what I thinking. How did she always do that?

I ached—being so close to her and not being able to lay a hand on her!

Our eyes locked, and that familiar driving thrill broke like a stab of pleasure straight through me. If only Darcy would stop looking at me like this, maybe I could stop thinking about her all the time—get my head screwed on straight!

Darcy never said or did anything inappropriate. Oh, but the way she sometimes looked at me!

More footsteps—Caleb edging closer to the cliff’s edge and watching the birds. He turned to look at me. So, I was first to break eye contact with Darcy.

This obsession is going to destroy me! I can’t look at this woman anymore!

“Sin lies at the gate,” my old pastor used to say,  “and it always starts with a look.”

So, I fixed my gaze on Caleb. He smirked and nodded at the copulating fowl. He gave me a knowing glance like he knew what I was thinking.

If only!

I smacked my hands together against the cold and wondered: Did Caleb have a clue about what I was thinking? Did he know I was in love with his wife? Did he know I wanted to be in a screaming embrace with his Darcy?

Only Darcy could have talked me into leaving a perfectly good home on the banks of Lake Sammamish where I could jet ski every day before and after work. Only she could have enticed me to leave civilization and head into the wilds of Alaska.

Sure, the beauty here had appeal, but I had no doubt, whatsoever, that I was out of my freaking mind to have moved to a place I’d never been before—a place so wild and devoid of people.

Sarah said, “It doesn’t look very stable out here. We should move back from the ledge! ”

I almost snapped at Sarah for being a worry wort, but with Darcy beside me, my anger didn’t take root.

Darcy rose up on her toes. “Can’t believe we’re really here!”

I nodded. “Living your dream . . .”

“We have to meet the man at five; we’d better get going.” Caleb insisted. He knew we had more than enough time to get to Seward. He just liked spoiling these moments of rapture for Darcy. I had seen him do it many times before. Maybe he was afraid his Darcy would one day let her emotions sweep her away to a place he could not follow.

Was this why I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her—because she experienced so much more than the rest of us?

I hung to the rear when the others walked to the car. Caleb opened the door for her. He gave her that sick with love look he always gave her.

Who wouldn’t be sick with love?

Back at the wheel, I started the car and pulled onto the highway. We journeyed on down the scenic, dangerous road along the Kenai Peninsula. In Seward we would rendezvous with a man and a boat, and then we would journey on to a small fishing village further down the bay, which would be our new home.

I snapped my head back into the now to keep my focus on the two-lane road that clung like a lover to those cliffs. The occasional car passed going in the opposite direction. What did these other people do in this wild and empty place?

Darcy and I had always been like separate cars going in opposing directions, but now we had thrown in together on this big adventure. I traveled a dangerous road—headed for trouble—obsessed with my wife’s best friend.

How cliché, right?

Not really cliché because it was Darcy. Although she gave me those loin melting looks, she would never cross the line, or would she?

That evening, as scheduled, we met up with old Franklin—the consummate angler.

Mr. Franklin eyed the object of my obsession with a dubious expression. “You’re Darcy?”

I guess the two had only corresponded through emails.

Darcy offered him her hand. He didn’t take it but simply stared at her. “I thought you were, uh, a man.”

“Darcy can be a girl’s name too,” Sarah piped.

We all smirked, but Franklin appeared quite humorless. Getting down to business, he ferried us right out cruising across Resurrection Bay in Darcy’s new fishing boat—new to Darcy, but definitely well used. More than a decade old, the almost forty-foot boat seemed in better shape than I had expected. Clearly the previous owner, Darcy’s uncle Pete, had taken pride in this vessel.

We clipped along at a good pace across the placid waters, and in no time were at our new home—Sarah and I, Darcy and Caleb—partners in this mad adventure.

The sun set as Franklin pulled carefully up to the dock. “The service you hired has made your cabin ready,” he said. “You’ve got clean sheets on the beds and dinner in the fridge. I’ll sleep out on the boat. I suggest you make it an early night. We leave at first light.”

I followed the other three into the “cabin,” or in reality a generous, two-story home—done up in a rustic, mountain style with lots of wood and stone. Each couple had their own separate spaces—private bedrooms and baths. A fully stocked kitchen and family room comprised the common areas—along with a large wooden deck in front. The cabin belonged to Darcy’s uncle Pete. He had retired to the lower forty-eight and hated the idea of the place sitting empty.

When she bought the boat from him, he threw in the use of the cabin as part of the deal.

True to his word, Old Franklin rang the ship’s bell at dawn. We straggled downstairs rubbing yesterday’s travel from our eyes. The service had left us some muffins for breakfast. Old Franklin ripped off the plastic packaging and picked up a bran muffin. He started eating. Darcy had hired Franklin to train us so that we could act as expert fishing guides to tourists.

She hired the old guy to share his secrets with us for a month. A week would have been sufficient; but as it was her boat, she called the shots. Darcy, who had a love for adventure and the great outdoors, had sold all she owned to purchase this boat. Her uncle had used it to fish in the furtherest reaches of the Bering Sea. We four had much tamer plans. We would run a fishing boat for tourists—our base of operations would be in the more temperate bays surrounding the Kenai Peninsula.

We soon joined Franklin at the table chowing down on muffins.

Franklin chased his muffin down with a glass of milk. “So, what’s the plan?”

“You’ll have to ask Darcy,” Caleb chimed. “She owns the boat. Guess that makes her our default captain.”

“That makes you my first mate,” Darcy teased.

“I’m mostly along for the ride,” Caleb clarified. “Max, here will be our expert fisherman, no doubt, and Sarah will be our chief cook and bottle washer.”

 Sarah and I planned to fork out the money to outfit the boat with supplies. Darcy and Caleb would handle boat maintenance. They had way more skin in the game, but Darcy insisted on sharing profits fifty-fifty.

For me, it wasn’t about the money. Darcy was the lure. She alone had enticed me to leave it all behind and embrace this risky venture.

That afternoon, after we’d had some successes fishing, Franklin said to me, “Here, hold onto this salmon. Good, now, throw it in the air!”

“What? Over the water?”

“Yeah, slim.”

Caleb tried to take the fish from me. “Why throw away a perfectly good salmon?”

Sarah also chimed in. “We’re not here to catch and release. Besides, the fish is already dead!”

“Trust him,” Darcy interjected. “Franklin is the expert.”

Franklin said, “Throw it straight in the air.”

So, I threw the fish, not because I trusted Franklin exactly, but because Darcy asked me to trust him.

The fish went flying twenty feet or so into the air, and from out of nowhere eagles came. One giant eagle caught this great salmon in midair! Like a stealth bomber with its nine foot wingspan, it appeared out of nowhere!

Both women squealed with delight.

Franklin chuckled. “Tourists love this part.”

“May I try?” Darcy asked.

“Sure, you’re the boss,” Franklin said.

Darcy threw up a fish. An eagle sunk its claws into it seconds before it hit the water. She and Sarahsquealed and clapped their hands.

Caleb frowned. “Hey, I worked hard for that fish!”

I marked the site where the eagles had come—past the sixth fjord beyond our village, in the northeastern corner of said bay. I could easily find the spot again.

Later that evening, I was at the helm and carefully maneuvered the large vessel into the dock.

Caleb lazily watched my maneuvers. “Dog’s breath!” he hollered. “ I’ll never remember where that spot was—you know, where the eagles came.”

Guess that’s why Darcy thought we’d need Franklin for a month. She was married to the inattentive Caleb.

“Don’t worry. I marked it,” I said as I eased the boat in, touching the dock with a gentle nudge.

“Beginner’s luck,” old Franklin teased marking my skill with the boat.

A bit later, I followed Franklin into a shed built close to the water and just north of the dock. We loaded a white plastic bucket with the implements we would need for the job of gutting fish. Next to the shed, a large cement slab stood at waist height—a bit worn and pocked but perfect to get the job done. I attached a hose to a nearby spigot, which would give us water for an easier clean up.

I glanced around me—no sign of Sarah or Caleb. They had probably headed into our cabin. Sarah had said she was going to start dinner. Caleb, most likely, would shower and then bury his face in his latest novel. While the others had gone into the cabin, Darcy worked alone to secure the boat.

My jaw dropped as I watched Franklin, who could gut a fish and not get a bit of blood or guts on him! That man was a freaking wizard!

I, on the other hand, donned a rubber apron to protect my clothing. It was mostly clean but carried stains from the guts of other fishing days.

Franklin cut into his fish with a razor sharp knife. Cleanly and effortlessly, it sliced through a salmon’s belly. I attempted to follow his lead.

Franklin eyed me from across the table. “Start at the anus. Good. Not too deep now—you don’t want to puncture its smelly intestines. That’s right. Hey, you’re a natural at this!”

“Thanks.” I said, grateful that only a concentrated smell of sea water issued from the fish I worked on.

I scrapped away the scales with the knife’s edge. “Guess I should have done this first.”

Franklin said, “You can leave those on until you’re ready to cook it. Fish will keep better with the scales left on.”

“Oh, I didn’t know. Thanks.”

“No problem. You’re a hard worker, and you’ve got that photographic memory thing going, along with other important traits.”

Besides remembering all the locations of the best fishing spots, I could recount the common and scientific name of almost every fish, plant, or animal we had so far encountered in Alaska. I had always had a crazy memory for random stuff like that.

Franklin continued, “You’ll do well if you can learn one thing.”

“Okay?”

He didn’t continue. Instead he filleted the fish removing its back bone and ribs in one unbroken piece.

“What do I need to learn?” I asked.

“You’re a handsome guy—that chiseled jaw and those puppy dog brown eyes.”

“Er, thanks.”

“You’ve got some smarts, too, but you gotta learn.”

He hefted another fish onto the cement slab.

I filleted my fish—bones snapping—ribs coming out in three pieces. “Okay, so teach me.”

His gaze drilled into mine as he said, “There are some fish you just gotta let go of. Some extra-ordinary fish ain’t nobody ever gonna to catch.”

Franklin looked over at Darcy, and then he looked at me. “You know what I mean?”

I felt the temperature rising inside of me. Of course I knew what he meant; and I wanted to wipe that smug look off his face.

When she finished with the boat, Darcy jumped on the dock and sauntered toward us. The sunset lit a fire of red in her silken, black hair. She smiled. I could never look away when she was smiling.

“Gotta let some go,” Franklin insisted, “and you’ll do well. You’re a natural at most of this. You won’t have any trouble getting clients once you line up a dependable crew. Would you be willing to help out on other boats?”

Darcy had joined us by this point. “What do you say to that boss?” I asked.

Darcy lost her smile. “Share you?” she burst. “But we’re, erm, partners!”

“Gotta know when to let the fish go,” Franklin muttered to me as he hauled his bucket of cut fish up to the cabin where a giant freezer in a back utility room awaited the catch of the day.

“Is Franklin trying to pilfer you away from me?” Darcy asked when he walked out of earshot.

I dumped a half full bucket of fish guts into the bay. “He’s afraid I’m the one who might do the pilfering.”

“You? You’re the most honest man I know!”

“I don’t think he’s talking about pilfering crew members.” I dunked the bucket under the water and swirled it around to clean it of its messy contents.

“Er, fish then?”

“Not fish.”

“What?”

I vigorously shook the bucket and then set it on the ground. “Wives. I believe he was talking about pilfering other men’s wives.”

The setting sun sent rays of purple and red to light up her shocked face. I stepped up close beside her daring her to rip my guts wide open. I couldn’t keep a lid on my feelings any longer! Overwhelming desire for her colored my face with a desperate longing.

She shook her head no, but still wouldn’t take her eyes off of me. I couldn’t read her frozen expression. Oh, what was she thinking? I wouldn’t be the first one to look away—not this time!

So in the gathering twilight, she ripped her eyes from mine. The lights of the cabin illuminated her slender outline as she retreated. She meandered toward the cabin turning more than once to look back at me.

Franklin stepped out onto the porch watching her come.

I picked up the bucket and hosed off the gutting station. Anticipation set my heart to racing. I had wrapped this thread, which tied her heart to mine, with a heavier twist of fiber. Yes, the strength of my determination had increased because I had spoken a word about my true intentions, and she had not shot me down. She had not run away in a panic.

In spite of that, her tongue-tied reaction did puzzle me. An expert angler, she knew how to reel me in.

Months passed. We gained a foothold in the tourist fishing market. What with the crew and the tourists, Darcy and I never seemed to have a private moment. Finally, on Thanksgiving Day, we partners took the boat out—just the four of us.

We went far into the bay passing by the great cruise ships carrying tourists into Aialik Bay.

Later that afternoon, Sarah said, “Caleb, get your nose out of that book and come help me whip up some sandwiches. I’m starving!” They left us alone topside where I was mending a net. Didn’t they realize that Darcy and I should never be left alone?

Fingering one last hole, I tied the loose ends of the fishing net back together. “My dad threatens to cut me off if I don’t come back to Seattle soon and work for him again.”

“Do you miss finance?” she asked me as she gave her fishing line some extra slack.

I stood to fold the massive net. Darcy had been abused too. She would understand my position. So I blurted out, “All my life, my dad has abused me.”

Darcy turned her gaze to mine with compassion in her expression. “Sarah told me you had it rough.”

“Yeah. Don’t know why I agreed to work for him. He gave me a lesser payout than the lowliest account executive in his firm. He gave me only garbage clients. But I found my own clients, and he was getting rich off of me!”

“Has he ruined it for you?”

Had he? I stuffed the folded net into a storage hold accessed by a large, trap door. Then I shut and secured the door. “I’m planning on going back to it someday, when I make enough seed money to open my own business. I’ll set up shop and steal all his clients away from him!”

“Ahh!” Darcy cried. She’d hooked a fish! It broke through the crest of a wave.

“It’s a halibut!” I hollered. “A big one!”

It took everything she had to bring in that fish. She did most of the work, but I wrapped my arms around her to keep her from flying out of the boat. I wrapped my arms around her as if she were already mine! I buried my face in her hair—the scent like a profusion of wild flowers in a warm summer field.

Soon we netted the monster and drug it on board.

I bludgeoned it between the eyes. All the anger I felt toward my dad went into that blow. The poor fish didn’t stand a chance.

Darcy stood there looking at me as cold sweat dripped down our faces, turning to a crust of ice like the grizzled white beards that old men wear. I reached up to touch her cheek and my gloved finger left a mark on the frost there.

She lightly placed her hand on mine.

She might have been covered in frost, but she exposed the warmth of her heart saying, “When someone takes something that rightfully belongs to us, we should just let them take it.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake?”

She took a step back and our hands fell to our sides. “Because it generally means something better for us is in store.”

“Are you talking about my dad?” I asked as I tossed the fish she had caught on ice.

“Yeah, you are his son. You deserve to be treated better by him.”

I shut the lid to the ice bin and locked it up tight. “I thought at first that he was testing me, and in time he would share more of the business. But nothing ever changed!”

She secured the fishing poles and then plopped down exhausted onto a bench. “So, you have walked away?”

I grabbed a mop to swab the blood off the deck. “I’ve taken a temporary break from the business, but I will never work for him again.”

After mopping, I rested the mop in a bucket of clean water to soak. A large rip in Darcy’s pants just above the knee caught my attention. Her bare skin lay exposed. A bruise about the size of a grapefruit marred her pale skin. Dark and brown—something really heavy must have hit her.

“Whoa! Did that happen during our struggle with the halibut?”

She looked down at her leg. Seeing the rip in her pants, she grabbed at the loose fabric and tried to cover up her wound.

“No, it’s just the bruise I got on the river.”

“The river?”

“When we ran the Wind River rapids.”

“That was over a year ago!” I exclaimed as I lifted the flopping fabric to get a better look. She still carried a bruise from our trip running those category five rapids?

She fidgeted but did not push my hand away. “The bruise was originally from my hip to my ankle,” she explained. “All the residual blood has pooled here on the side of my knee.”

“A cannonball from a fifty-foot cliff had to do some damage, but I never guessed it was so bad!”

“Yeah, who does that, right?”

I sat down beside her. “Someone who has never jumped off a cliff before.”

“Exactly!”

“Wish I’d known,” I said with concern.

My compassion must have been too much for her because she jumped to her feet. Taking off her windbreaker jacket, she wrapped it around her waist—shifting it to the side in an attempt to cover up the hole and her bare skin beneath.

I shook my head. The poor thing must have been in serious pain for months!

“I should have warned you,” I muttered.

“You couldn’t have known I would do something so wild and brainless!”

“It was definitely wild!”

She paced back and forth in front of me. “Truth is: I’m deathly afraid of heights. I’ve worked hard to beat my fear, but knew if I stepped out to the ledge and tried to jump like everyone else was doing, I’d chicken out. So, I started running about ten feet from the ledge. When the ground disappeared, my instinct was to recoil, to protect my tender parts. You know.”

“So that’s why you did it?”

“And I had this insane notion about the giant splash I’d make. Thought it might be good for a laugh.”

I chuckled. “I remember more screams than laughter! It must have felt like hitting cement!”

“You can’t imagine how hard it was to walk out of that river. Oh, it hurt so bad!” She leaned over, rubbing her bruise. “All I knew was it was the stupidest thing I’d ever done, and I wasn’t going to top if off with wimping out or asking for help.”

I nodded, “One of those live and learn kind of moments?”

“Don’t know that I’ve learned much. If given the chance, I’d do it again.”

“Not the cannonball!”

“No, not that part, the jumping off the cliff part. Do you ever get the feeling that life is passing you by and you’ve live far too tame a life?”

“All the time! Why do you think I followed you all the way up here?”

“Followed me?” She turned her back on me and leaned against the railings looking out at the water.

“Who else?”

Standing, I strode right over to her—got right into her face. “I wish a man could have two wives!” I whispered in her ear.

Cocking her head, she stared at me.

I poured all the love I had into the look I gave her.

Darcy said, “I understand. You love Sarah. I love her too.” Darcy stepped back from me, and without skipping a beat, continued with our previous conversation. “You don’t have to surrender to your father. And you don’t have to hate him either.”

“But I get so angry when I’m around him!”

And just like that the opportunity to profess my true feelings to her disappeared. A thick fog blew in skimming across the bay and swallowing all my courage.

“Because of how he treated you in the business?” Darcy asked—still talking about my father.

“He used to beat on me with his fists until I got strong enough to fight back.”

She stopped her retreat. “And now he uses his words to wound you. That can be even worse.”

“Yes!”

“As a child, you had the right to a decent father, and he took that from you.”

“He did.”

“So, don’t surrender—simply give the past to him. Allow him the freedom to be a lousy dad.”

“And then be the dad he could never be?”

“You got it! I believe something better always comes along when we let go of a grudge.”

Our talks were not frequent, but we always managed to have significant conversation during these stolen moments with just the two of us.

“The fog is coming in,” she softly said.

I nodded. “We should head back.”

She turned to me. “I knew you had a troubled home life even before Sarah told me about it.”

I nodded. “The wounded recognize one another.”

“And we understand each other,” she said.

Sarah overheard this last bit. She came bearing a platter filled with sandwiches and chopped vegetables. I rushed over to Sarah to help her with the platter.

“That is all well and good,” Sarah grumbled. “But I’m the one who has to live with his temper!”

I never had, nor ever will lay a hand on Sarah; however, during those days, I sometimes found myself snapping at her over stupid things. She couldn’t help it that she wasn’t Darcy.

One night late in August, after a successful year in the fishing business, Caleb looked down at his dinner plate with disgust. “I liked working in downtown Seattle. I liked eating at a different restaurant every day. Fish, fish, fish! I can’t eat another fish!” he exploded, pushing his plate away.

“Maybe we could get a bigger spread and buy some cattle?” Darcy suggested.

“Like I want to shovel bovine crap!” Caleb exclaimed.

Darcy said, “I do miss my sisters.”

“That’s just it! From Seattle, we can visit them, easily. And I could have a normal human discussion again.”

Sarah spoke up, “Hey! What are we—chopped liver?”

Darcy set her fork on her plate. “I thought you were having fun.”

“What gave you that idea? You know I was reluctant to do this from the beginning!” he snapped. He stood—his chair scrapping the floor as he pushed back from the table.

“And being here hasn’t changed your feelings?”

“Nothing has changed!” Frowning, he stormed off upstairs to their bedroom.

Right after that, the crew’s attitudes changed. I questioned a worker and discovered Caleb had short-changed them on their last three paychecks. He kept promising to make it up to them.

Another angler grumbled, “Caleb said they were short on funds, but if we kept working hard and having good catches, he would soon make it up to us. It’s been six weeks that everyone’s paychecks has been short. We’re all about to go elsewhere, but we want our money first!”

“We’re not short of funds!” Darcy declared when I brought the matter to her attention. “Caleb wants out, and I guess he figures this is a way to ruin things. Tell the men—I’ll get them their money by tomorrow. I don’t want to lose any of them! Please reassure them that I’ll handle the paychecks from here on out.”

“You don’t have to do everything!” I erupted. “Caleb should pull his own weight around here!”

We stood together on the front porch. I didn’t care whether or not Caleb could hear us.

She shuffled her feet. “Not his cup of tea—I guess.”

“Why did he agree to come to Alaska in the first place?”

“Because I asked him to.”

I nodded. “People do what you ask.”

“Do they?”

“Yeah, you’re that kind of person.”

“What do you mean?”

“People want to please you.”

She looked at me strangely and then disappeared into the cabin. I heard raised voices coming from inside. A minute later, Sarah burst out the door.

“I think the Chatsworths need a minute,” Sarah said as she came down the steps to the deck.

So, wifey and I walked out on the dock. We took off our shoes and dangled our tired feet in the cold, soothing water.

Sarah said, “Sometimes, I wonder what she sees in him. I guess opposites attract!”

“Sometimes,” I agreed.

“That guy is relentless,” Sarah concluded.

The first week of September, we held a barbecue to celebrate our one year anniversary. The crew hands arrived on time to the party. (All of them had all decided to stay after Darcy got them their money.) Shortly after they arrived, Caleb burst out onto the porch with a spring in his step. “Darcy, I have a new job!” he hollered. “It’s in Washington, in Redmond, close to your sisters! My old boss is opening a new branch. They want me to manage it!”

Darcy’s face grew beet red. She silently busied herself arranging the food table.

Caleb followed in her footsteps. “Come on, Darcy, it’s management!” he whined.

A parcel of noisy kids from the neighborhood ran onto the beach crashing the party.

“Something smells good!” one of the kids hollered.

Sarah dished up heaping plates of food for these kids. She was gracious like that.

Darcy, too, seemed happy the kids had come. The ensuing commotion took the attention off of Caleb’s announcement.

Days later, the four of us talked. The fishing business had been a success. In five years, I would have enough saved to seed my own financial consulting firm.

Darcy offered to sell me the boat outright. She said she would take half its market value because that was all I could afford at the time. She refused to talk to me about me making more payments, at a later date, when Sarah and I would be able to afford to give her more. Darcy said, “It was a grand adventure, but I always knew it couldn’t last.”

She seemed determined to sever all ties. Would she break off her friendship with Sarah too?

On moving day, I had a moment alone with Darcy.

“Where’s Caleb?”

“He’s gone to Seward for more boxes.”

“Oh. Do you need help with that?”

I knelt on the lawn across from her helping take apart a bed frame.

“Where’s Sarah?” Darcy asked.

“She’s gone inside to lay down—put her feet up.”

“Stinks she has to have morning, noon, and night sickness!”

“No kidding!”

Darcy and I wrestled with the bolts on two opposing ends of that bed frame’s metal rails. At the exact same moment, we each freed our respective bolts and our eyes locked.

“Our talks have been the most significant of my life!” I blurted twirling the loose bolt in my hand.

She didn’t move. “They’ve been that way for me too. Is that why you’ve been so grumpy?”

I had been grumpy—miserable and pouting. “You’re leaving today. I’m grieving!”

Her hands gripped that iron bar like a lifeline—the bolt she held wedged between her fingers. “I understand,” she muttered.

“My heart is bleeding out!” I cried, resting the metal bar onto the grass.

She let go of her grip. “I love you,” she whispered.

I reached out across the divide between us dropping the bolt into her out-stretched hand. “I fell in love the moment I first saw you!”

Darcy’s face revealed her torture as she clutched onto those bolts. “And I love Sarah too. She’s my best friend.”

I yanked at my hair. “How cliché, huh?”

Darcy placed the bolts in her pocket. “Not cliché for us, because our kind of love can’t choose destruction no matter how great the desire.”

“So, you love Caleb?”

“I do. I see his strengths—the beautiful things he hides from the world.” She took a deep breath and then whispered, “I’ve heard that love spans the grave.”

The sound of a motor and the boat approaching brought our conversation to an end.

We stood side by side watching Caleb steer the boat into the dock roughly scrapping the sides of the boat against its mooring. He returned with more boxes and with lunch. Neighbors stopped by picking up the last of their furniture. Darcy fished out the bolts and handed them to the neighbor’s wife. “You’ll be wanting these,” Darcy said.

 Darcy had given everything she had purchased in Alaska away—even her beloved boat—that boat she had sold everything she owned to purchase—just to get away from me!

The neighbor offered to give the Chatsworths a ride into Seward. “Save on some gas,” he said to me not realizing that gas was nothing. He was stealing away my time with her!

That evening, Sarah gave Darcy a small watercolor she had done of the fishing boat. She had bought a frame for it and had it wrapped in bubble wrap to protect it on the trip back to Washington. Tears came to Darcy’s eyes when she unwrapped the picture. She threw her arms around Sarah and held her tight.

I held Darcy tight when we hugged good-bye; and then I shook hands with Caleb as we said our final good-bye.

A knife went through my gut as I watched them speeding away on this friend’s boat. I stepped up on the wall that bordered our dock, so I could see her longer. Sarah waved good-bye. “Why don’t you take out the boat?” Sarah said. “I’ll make us some supper. Take your time. It will take me a bit.” Sarah retreated back into the cabin. She wasn’t stupid. She surely had her suspicions about what Darcy’s leaving was doing to me.

Once Sarah was out of sight. I clawed at my chest. Oh, I should have cut the freaking cord!

I should have let Darcy Chatsworth go before she cut all ties to me!

But then Darcy turned around and raised her hand in farewell, and she held it there watching me watch her until she became a tiny spec on the horizon.

A horrible emptiness swept over me as that boat disappeared from view. I had been gutted by a woman I couldn’t let go of. Bleeding out like a stinking fish! Darcy said she would love me past the grave, and still she left me!

I took the fishing boat out on the water as the sun set. If I chased after Darcy, I still had a chance to posses her like I wanted—both body and soul. Was I man enough to fight for her? Would she even want me to do it? The sky grew pitch black, enveloping me with a sinking despair when on the radio Sarah’s sweet voice came calling:

“When are you coming home, Max?”

A brief pause and then,

“Over.”

I stared at that radio—the world spinning in broad swirls around me.

Wait a minute! Darcy had practically given her boat to me! She had given away everything she owned to acquire that boat, and now she’d gifted half the boat’s value to me. It was her way of telling me that she loved me even more than her uncle’s boat, and more than anything else she had ever owned.

“Oh, Darcy!” I shouted. “You said you would love me to the grave!” I had no doubt my love for her would last at least that long.

I shut my eyes imagining how Darcy must be feeling, and that’s when the cord that wrapped around my heart—the romantic ties cutting into the sinews of my being slipped a notch. Love was not bleeding out. This love I felt could only get stronger because my heart was growing!

Life with Darcy would have been so easy. It might have made me soft.

I looked up at the sky. “Must be a god up there because somebody designed our lives for struggle.”

The twine that bound Darcy and I together was tangible. It was real, and it was expanding, too, as my heart grew!

I didn’t have to let this extraordinary fish go, even if I never laid eyes on her again. Although she had cut me loose, the depth of her love—her true love—sent my heart hurtling into the sky with wild abandon! And like an eagle this beast called love would forever hold me in its clutches.

“. . . our kind of love can’t choose destruction no matter how great the desire,” Darcy had said.

The past echoed like a wistful song in my head, but the future reverberated with hope in my expanding heart. I raced across the waters crying big tears because, crazy enough I wanted to live forever in Alaska, in this wild, lonely, and beautiful land. And I knew in my heart what I truly wanted.

In my mind’s eye, I could see the painting Sarah had fashioned for Darcy—a colorful representation of our fishing boat. Sarah knew the truth! At that moment, I saw my Sarah with all her beauty and grace and those kind and thoughtful gifts she so freely shared.

I picked up the radio handset.

“I’m almost home, darling . . .

Over!”