Maybe. But wasn’t he also just a few days out of prison? Wasn’t he, in many ways, still learning how the world worked after fifteen years inside? She couldn’t shake the sense that she’d dragged him into this mess, that she was responsible for him now, and that, inevitably, she would fail in that responsibility.

She felt guilty that she was glad he was here.

So Jess tried not to be happy that Burke stayed awake with her, standing by the controls with his coffee in his hand, staring out at the night ahead, his legs braced against the swell rolling up the strait from the open ocean. She tried not to fixate on Burke’s proximity to her in the small cabin, the scent of soap and his sweat, the bulge of his muscles through his shirt. She tried to think about what happened next, what needed to be done—gaining access to Dixie, then finding Ty’s stash, then what? Returning it to Kirby? Calling the Feds?

She would think about that. She would think it through, instead of thinking about Afghanistan, watching Afia die. About how it could all happen again.

Beside her, Burke shifted. “You want to talk about it?” he asked her.

He must have caught the expression on her face, because he was frowning, his eyes soft, like he was trying to look gentle. And for a moment she considered being honest with him, unloading everything on him, just to see how he took it.

I’m going to hurt you, Burke. Worse than you’ve ever been hurt in your life.

But then she thought better of it.

She shook her head. Sipped her coffee. “No,” she told him. “I don’t.”

The sun rose behind them as they continued west, just a dim glow at first behind the clouds on the far eastern horizon, and then, suddenly, a burst of dazzling light, casting warmth over the water and turning the troller’s foamy wash golden. In her peripheral vision Jess watched as Burke walked to the Dutch door at the rear of the wheelhouse, opened the top half, and peered out across the stern, watching the sun climb over the clouds and the faint hint of land that lay many miles behind them.

“Might actually be a pretty good day,” he told Jess as he came back to the controls, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “Still cold as heck, though.”

“It’s always cold on the open water,” she replied. “Even in the middle of summer, it’s cold. But we’ll be turning back inland soon enough.”

She felt deadened by lack of sleep, clumsy and numb. Far from rejuvenating her, the sun’s return only served to make her more tired, as if inviting her to join Lucy on the settee, curl up and cuddle, take a nap for a while and let her worries slip away.