Gale Force

7

Ridley had the turbocharger torn apart when McKenna poked her head into the engine room. The engineer was covered in grease, and he might have been bleeding. But he was grinning at McKenna, and he sure didn’t look tired.

“Figured it out,” he told the skipper. “Just have to pick up a couple parts when the stores open and we’re good to go.”

McKenna surveyed the engine room. Like any self-respecting towboater, Ridley kept the place spotless. It was a good-looking engine room—the twin twenty-cylinder diesels, the shiny diamond-plate flooring, every pipe and wire color-coded and labeled. Ridley was proud of these engines, and McKenna’s dad had been, too. She couldn’t come down here without seeing the old man.

Her mom had split after her dad bought the Gale Force, the purchase the final blow to the Rhodes’s long-suffering marriage. She’d moved inland, Spokane, and dragged McKenna with her. There was a lot of bitterness, resentment, a lot of awkward, stilted phone calls, and months-late birthday cards, postmarked places like Hawaii, Panama, Vladivostok, Hong Kong. And McKenna marooned and landlocked, waiting tables and growing old fast, missing the water something terrible.

That was years ago. She’d ditched Spokane as soon as her mom remarried. Split for the coast and caught up with the Gale Force on a turnaround, the crew licking its wounds from a busted run to California, an oil tanker, eight figures easy, another soul-crushing loss to Christer Magnusson’s Titan. Found her dad here, in this engine room, grease stains and coveralls. She’d picked up a wrench and tied her hair back and been crew on the tug ever since.

She’d upgraded the auxiliary with the last of her dad’s insurance payout. Swapped in a brand-new 450-horse Caterpillar to keep the lights on, and the cranes, winch, and firefighting equipment working whenever she wasn’t using the main engines. There wasn’t quite enough money to cover the cost of new mains, though, and for all of Ridley’s late nights and sweat equity, they’d put in their time.

Ridley caught her eyeing the mains and read her expression. “Don’t stress the motors, skipper. They’ll get us there.”

“Yeah,” McKenna replied. “But will they get us home?”

“They’ll get us to eight figures, and that’s all that matters. We get up to Alaska, put a line on that Lion, tow her to the first port that’ll fit her. After that, who cares? We’ll overhaul this old girl the minute the check clears.”

McKenna rubbed her chin. “Just keep her running, Nelson.”

“She’ll run, skipper. Right as rain.” Ridley turned back to the disassembled turbocharger. “Give me to lunchtime, we’ll be ready to go. You get a hold of the whiz kid?”

McKenna didn’t answer. Waited until Ridley turned back around to study her face. He nodded. “I guess that means you did,” he said. “And I guess that means he’s not coming.”

“Poker,” she replied. “He said he’s playing poker.”

Ridley wiped his brow with the back of his hand, said nothing, and McKenna wondered if he was thinking about the last time they’d all seen one another at her dad’s memorial in Ridley’s living room, McKenna drunk on wine and shots of somebody’s whiskey, trying for a eulogy and missing the mark something awful.

She’d wound up telling Harrington, in front of the whole room, that she guessed he had no reason to be there anymore, now that the old man was dead and she wasn’t worth settling down for. Told him maybe it was good that things had ended this way. The whole spiel had culminated with McKenna in tears and Ridley spiriting her away from the party. The next thing she remembered, she was in the engineer’s upstairs bathroom, puking up the whiskey and trying not to ruin the one good dress she owned. By the time she’d regained control and come back downstairs, Court Harrington was gone, and none of the rest of the crew wanted to look her in the eye.

Christer Magnusson had sent a floral arrangement, damn him, on Commodore’s behalf.

“You know,” Ridley was saying now. “I know you two had your differences, lass, but we could really use the boy. Court’s the best shot we have at raising that—”

She cut him off. “I know, Nelson. I tried. He just didn’t want to give up on that poker game. That’s it.”

She held his gaze. “Must have been some game,” he said at last. “I guess we’ll make do without him.”

“He’s not the only architect,” she said.

“No,” Ridley agreed. “But he’s damn well the best.”