He paused at the top because one of the promises he’d made to himself was to take time to appreciate being alive. Of all the places he’d traveled in his life he considered Penobscot Bay, Maine, to be the most beautiful. Forty miles long and ten miles wide, it stretched from Rockland on the western shore up around the Blue Hill peninsula to Mount Desert. The scenery ranged from wave-soaked rocky islands to lush national park. To a waterman it was heaven, to an outdoorsman a playground. To him, it was home.

On a day like today he wondered why it had taken him so long to come back. Why he’d had to hit the bottom before making that decision. He’d stared into the mouth of hell and might have fallen, had it not been for this place.

He’d swapped stress for sandy shores and rocky tidal pools, the smells and sounds of foreign cities for the crash of the sea and the call of the gulls, food he couldn’t identify and didn’t have time to eat for lobster bakes and hand-cranked ice cream. Instead of chasing the truth, he chased the wind and the tides.

He was smart enough to appreciate the irony of the situation. As a teenager he’d been so desperate to escape he’d fantasized about swimming the bay in the dead of night to get the hell off this island. He’d been trapped, imprisoned by circumstances, his cell mate the heavy burden of responsibility that had clung to him since the death of his parents. To keep himself sane, he’d dreamed about other places and other lands. Most of all he’d dreamed about being anonymous, of living in a place where the only thing people knew about you was what you chose to show them.

Taking a mouthful of water from the bottle in his hand, he watched a schooner glide across the bay, its sails plump with the wind.

On impulse, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Brittany. By his calculations it should be afternoon in Greece.

She answered immediately. “You’re calling to tell me you messed with my friend?”

“I offered the hand of friendship as requested.” He waited a beat. “You didn’t tell me there was a child.”

“It slipped my memory.”

Knowing that nothing slipped her memory, Ryan wondered why she’d chosen not to tell him. “I was starting to think you’d done me a favor. I might have known there would be a catch.”

“A kid isn’t a catch. You treat children like viruses, Ryan. Man up.”

He smiled. “So what’s the story? You said she was in trouble. Am I to expect a visit from an abusive ex-husband?”

“Why does it matter? You’d handle him with one hand behind your back.”

“I like to know what I’m dealing with, that’s all.”