One to Love (One to Hold 4)

“Snapped in two. Just like that. Crack!” He turned his pipe over and slapped it against his wrist. His accent sounded French. “But you shouldn’t worry. Cargo ships don?

?t break.”

“They blow up.” A crewmember carrying a long, metal tube on his shoulder laughed as he passed us.

“We’re not carrying explosives, Anders!” McKinney hollered back and started to walk, so did I. He wanted to talk, and I had nothing to do but listen. I’d be lying on my cot down below otherwise. “Our biggest concern is the weather. We’ll make it to Hamburg in three weeks easy, but when the weather kicks up, a lot of the cargo can be lost overboard. That’s our pay disappearing into the depths with every box.”

“What do we do to stop them?”

“Nothing. Sometimes we have to cut them loose to avoid capsizing.” He shrugged lighting his pipe. “Hazards of the trade.”

We passed a quiet moment, and I looked across the bow at the thousands of containers, some twenty-foot in length, some forty. I wondered why I hadn’t started at the shipyards in the first place. Looking down at my palm, I remembered why. Doc had told me to start over, to live my life. I saw where that got me.

“Many fatalities on these trips?” Something sick inside me hoped he’d say yes.

“Not at all.” He puffed smoke in a blue haze around his head. “Collisions at sea can result in death. Or pirates. But we’re not passing through narrow channels or dangerous lanes. We should be fine.”

We were stopped again, and I was still looking at my palm, the heart. It was so small. I stared at it holding all the pain of what I’d lost.

“Why are you on this voyage, mate?” McKinney was watching me.

I decided to answer him truthfully. “Nothing left to lose.”

“Ahh, so you’ll be the one out in the storm trying to curb our losses?”

I shrugged. “If it’s not that, it’ll just be something else.”

He slapped me on the shoulder. “In the past when I thought all was lost, that was when I realized what was most important.”

It would’ve been good advice in some other situation. As it was, I only nodded and started walking again. I knew what was most important. I’d held it in my hands, and then I’d lost it.

Chapter 30: “Choice determines destiny.”

Kenny

I wouldn’t let myself think about him. I wouldn’t let myself miss him. A month had passed, and running had become my new obsession. I would never step foot in that boxing room again, but there were loads of options when it came to getting outside and running as hard and as far away as I possibly could. The problem was coming back.

Rook was pretty patient in the beginning, but now he wanted me to turn it into a group fitness option. He said if I took that pain and used it, I might look up one day and find it was gone. I didn’t bother arguing with him, but that was never going to happen.

I sat at a small table opposite the juice bar working out a trail route when an older fellow entered looking for me. He was thin with sandy brown hair. It was longish, in a style that used to be fashionable, and he had grey peppered at his temples. Kind brown eyes studied me from his thin face, but I had no idea who he was.

“He said his name is Gary Burden.” Mariska spoke quietly as she stood beside the small table where I sat.

I frowned up at her. “I don’t know anybody by that name.”

“Do you know anybody named Doc?”

I was on my feet at once headed to the front where the older fellow stood. “Are you Doc?” I asked, searching his expression desperately.

It was ridiculous for me to feel this sense of urgency. Slayde had known this man in prison. He wouldn’t be here to give me good news.

His brown eyes lightened when he saw me. “You have to be Kenny. I feel like I’d know you anywhere from how he described you. Only your hair...”

The purple was gone, and now it was back to straight, dark brown. “Why are you here?”

“My number came up. I got out a few days ago, and I thought I’d visit my friend. Is he here?”

He was so cheerful, but that weight was back in my chest. I’d done my best to drown it in steam, run away from it until my lungs burned, pretend it never existed, but the reality was, it was always with me.