Chapter One
I can’t believe I ever subscribed to the idea that a disaster meant I could choose who I wanted to be.
My life has been a disaster for a year, and the last person I’d choose to be is the one chugging north on the Oceans to Peaks Highway, one eye on the gas gauge, one hand on the dashboard to encourage my ancient Honda.
“Honey. We’re getting killed out here. I think those cyclists are going to pass us.” Honey’s almost as old as I am—thirty-three—and very close to exceeding my repair skills, unless I take up welding in my nonexistent spare time. She needs an emotional support person on the hills. Unfortunately, she got me, and the only emotion I have anymore is anger.
Burnout, my therapist called it, before I ran out of money and stopped seeing her. If that’s what we’re calling simultaneously losing your profession, your reputation, and your ability to make a living in one of Canada’s most expensive places, then sure.
Half an hour from Grey Tusk, the luxe mountain playground beloved by the world’s wealthiest people, the Pendleton Valley unrolls like green shag carpet, the fertile farmland hemmed in by mountains in every direction. A few minutes north of Pendleton, I spot the landmarks Liz gave me: two big gray rocks on the left, then a tree that looks like a moose on the right. I slow down—not by much; poor Honey—and turn onto a dirt track nearly grown over with rainforest understory: maidenhair ferns, skunk cabbage, moss in every shade from emerald to deep gold.
These abandoned logging roads crisscross the foothills everywhere, mostly maintained by locals who use them for hiking, hunting, and access to the Pendle River system. This one’s old; cedar and birch trees have grown into a dense canopy that nearly closes out the sky. Leafy arms reach into the one-lane track to squeak across Honey’s panels. Behind me, a plume of pale dust swirls, a reminder that everything in this valley comes from the river: the fine, silty soil, the rich agricultural land, the abundance of life blossoming in our little microclimate.
We’ve got the mountain animals Canada’s famous for, like grizzlies, cougars, and wolverines—the forty-pound weasel type, not the Hugh Jackman type, but they sound impressive. Tourists like the big, flashy fauna, but when I used to spend time in the wilderness, I preferred the small things. You can find a dozen rare types of salamander and even a tiny species of boa constrictor, if you don’t think size means everything.
After ten minutes of bumping over rocks and edging past sawn-up windfall trees, I reach a tidy clearing marked with logs to indicate the parking spaces. I pat the dash. “Screw the haters, Honey. We made it in one pi—Ahhh!”
I stomp the brakes reflexively, and Honey’s wheels skid a little on the loose gravel.
McHuge. Or at least McHuge in vehicular form.
I mean, I knew he’d be here. I’m interviewing for a job with him. It’s just unsettling to be confronted with a van that couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else, unless the Scooby-Doo gang works here.
Okay, it’s not an exact replica of the Mystery Machine. But what else can you call a multipassenger van painted the glossy summer cream of vanilla soft serve, accented with a vintage surf-style red-orange-yellow stripe? There’s a stylized sunset on the rear doors, captioned with loopy brown script: KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON. It looks like it was designed by a gray-ponytailed boomer who had one too many light beers while marinating in a Beach Boys megamix.
A round logo in the aggressively plain style you’d see at crunchy, expensive natural food stores decorates the rear sliding door.
THE LOVE BOAT.
This is what my life has come to.
But I still have two things in this world I love: my friend Liz and this beautiful, wild part of Canada. After losing everything else I used to care about, I’d do anything to keep them.
Even this.
I wait for the road dust to settle, then roll down my window, open the door using the still-functional outside handle, and step into the parking lot. I’m heading to work after this and I need to stay clean—Grey Tusk tourists don’t tip when your clothes aren’t spotless. I’ve tried a lot of different outfits in a year of working gig jobs, and this one sends me home with the most cash in hand: a fitted short-sleeved black button-down, slim black pants cut an inch above my ankle bone, and vegan leather oxfords in black and white. Black suspenders make a nice triangular gap between my waist and my padded bra. My undercut is freshly touched up with my secondhand trimmers, my hair sprayed into a pouf that filters any smile into a wicked smirk.
I look like the last person who should be working at a whitewater-canoeing-slash-relationship-therapy start-up. Then again, McHuge doesn’t check a lot of boxes on the “stereotypical doctor of psychology” list, with his braided beard and California yoga teacher vocabulary.
No one’s here to greet me except an enormous king shepherd dog who pops her head out of the van’s open sliding door. She’s big enough to bite me in half, and I respect that. God knows I’d like to bite a few people from time to time.
The dog looks me up and down, decides I’m not worth the effort, and curls back up on a towel spread across one of the vinyl bench seats.
It’s fine. Animals don’t like Katniss Everdeen, either.
I head along a path toward the river, stopping when I reach a clearing with a panoramic view of what Liz’s husband, Tobin—also McHuge’s business partner—called “base camp.” It used to be part of a rustic family compound, but fewer people care to go without electricity and running water on their vacation these days, so Tobin and McHuge were able to secure prime waterfront for their don’t-get-divorced summer camp.
I shouldn’t make fun of it, I suppose. Last year McHuge published a self-help book that allegedly saved Liz and Tobin’s marriage and made a few bestseller lists. Mostly the Canadian ones, but it’s not nothing. Liz has been on me to read it, but I’m not interested in learning to get along with the people who’ve disappointed me.
To my left, there’s an old cabin, planks silvered by age and rain, with a staircase of bright new cedar and a sign reading COOKHOUSE: STAFF ONLY. Not far away, on the edge of a wide sandy path leading to the river, is a smaller shed, its barn-style doors thrown open to reveal a pair of weathered sawhorses and a shelf crowded with marine maintenance products. A modest lawn surrounds a screened-in pavilion labeled DINING HALL / STUDIO; up the hillside is an open-air wash station next to a broad-planked outdoor shower stall. Beside that is a low, square wooden building with a bright aluminum chimney. A sauna, unless I miss my guess.
The far end of the clearing obviously used to be a volleyball or badminton area, with those two tall poles that beg for a net. The nearer end features a river-stone firepit surrounded by a dozen thick, round log stools.
If there are sing-alongs, I’m calling in sick.
Fronting the calm expanse of the river, five white canvas castles, practically big tops, rise on airy platforms of the same red cedar as the cookhouse stairs. Smart: clients want the river view, but not the groundwater seeping through the floor.
And there, at the river’s edge, a tall, broad figure looks out over the water toward the tree-lined mountains and decommissioned railway tracks on the opposite shore. On closer inspection, he’s standing in the river, quick-dry cargo pants rolled up to midshin.
It’s either a stirring portrait of Man in Nature or a dude who’s two horns and a helmet short of a viral Viking video series.
Or it’s my prospective boss and the man I’ve been dodging ever since the best, worst hookup of our times. The memory brings a sick flush to my cheeks. We were so goddamn good together, and so catastrophically bad. I’ve spoken to him twice since then—once at an improv show, once serving on a volunteer search crew. Both times, I vowed not to come near him ever again. A year later the first sip of morning tea still tastes like him.
I want to turn around, put Honey’s pedal to the floor, and run back to the delivery job that pays almost enough to keep me in ramen noodles and out of student loan bankruptcy. Keep my head in the sand till the car I can’t afford to replace breaks down for the last time. Then I’ll finally have no viable job prospects in Grey Tusk’s bizarre economy, where the middle class is officially missing.
I’ll have to leave Grey Tusk and Liz. Lose the only two things I’ve managed to hold on to during the total implosion of my life.
I’m angry even thinking about it, but better fuming than frightened. When I worked in the emergency department of Grey Tusk General Hospital, getting mad made me smarter and stronger. There’s nothing like a burst of furious last-ditch CPR interspersed with yelling to revive a stubbornly arrested heart, or a heartfelt curse to finally pop an IV into an elusive vein. Anger makes you want to throw things, and problems need you to throw things at them, so they pair well.
But there are no solutions to throw at my finances, except one. It means a whole summer next to McHuge, who I usually try not to come within talking distance of. Ten weeks of being a camp doctor, which puts a stethoscope-shaped rock in my stomach.
I assess the soft deep sand leading to the shore, then pull off one oxford at a time and balance them on a log with my socks tucked inside. McHuge is already a piece of grit in my metaphorical shoe, rubbing me wrong with every step. No need to add real sand to the equation, too.
He turns around before he could possibly have heard my foot- steps over the rush of water.
Still using his psychic powers for evil, I see.
I stagger awkwardly across thirty feet of loose sand while the two of us don’t speak to each other, as usual.
An olive-green T-shirt with a gooftastic cartoon of a bear portaging a canoe—carrying the boat over his head, in canoe-speak—stretches across his generous pecs, barely hugging the little bit of softness at his stomach.
“Stellar.”
“McHuge.”
This is our first conversation in a year, so obviously I war-gamed it on the drive here. I plan to give back exactly what he gives me. One-name greeting? Check.
“Thanks for coming out. Kind of an unconventional spot for a job interview, but I like it.” He scrunches his bare toes into the riverbed. “Join me?”
Argh. He walked into the water; now I have to, too. He defeated my give-what-I-get strategy on his second move. Forget canoes; McHuge should take up chess.
“Love to.” I roll up my pants as far as I can. Creases are better than splashes or mud.
The water’s ankle deep, pale aqua, and freezing. In the tender late-afternoon light, his eyes are the color of a sunbeam hitting the waters of the North Pacific, every hue of green touched with drops of gold identical to the freckles dusted over his cheeks, arms, and knees, perfectly clear until suddenly a trick of the light hides what’s underneath. His ginger hair flames extravagantly next to the darker shade of his beard.
I don’t like his face. I especially resent the one deep auburn lock that’s escaped the elastic to curl across his temple, ugh. And I hate how my body softens when I step closer, as if he’s not the most dangerous mistake I could make. Or remake, technically.
Busy disliking everything about him, I forget to watch my step. My left heel hits a flat, slippery rock and shoots out in front of me. I pitch sideways toward McHuge and a million gallons of pure, clean, icy meltwater.
I’m closing my eyes against the cold that’s about to shock my face when my suspenders tighten against my chest. Gravity ceases to exist.
After a careful breath, I open one eye. McHuge does indeed have the back straps of my suspenders and a generous handful of my shirt gripped in one gigantic fist, like I’m a toddler intent on running into the street.
“You good?” he asks evenly, setting me on my feet.
“I’m fine.” I consider throwing myself into the river. “Thanks for the lift. You may want to move that rock at some point.” I turn away to tug my shirt into place, closing the string of gaps that popped into existence between the buttons. I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.
“You sure? Your aura is very dark right now.” He bobbles his head side to side. “Darker than usual, anyway.”
“I look good in black,” I say flatly, turning to face the opposite bank. We can talk without staring into each other’s eyes.
He nods. “Did Liz explain what we’re looking for, or do you want me to go over it?”
“She showed me the article.” It was a long-form think piece in Beeswax, a major online magazine, arguing the dangers of the “pop psychology gold rush”—the scramble to stake out a niche in the rapidly growing self-help industry, consumer safety be damned. “The Love Boat,” the article claimed, “is one such example.”
Lyle McHugh developed a legitimate piece of psychology scholarship—which was published as last year’s trendiest do-it-yourself marriage counseling manual, The Second Chances Handbook, under the guidance of Dr. Alan Fisher, his PhD supervisor and coauthor.
Now McHugh, a never-married proponent of “free love,” hopes to capitalize on his success by launching an unproven relationship therapy program based in a remote wilderness camp without access to medical care for miles around. It’s based on tandem whitewater canoeing—a sport so difficult it’s unofficially known as “divorce boat.”
Dr. Fisher chose his words carefully when approached for comment. “I do wish Mr. McHugh had persisted with his PhD studies for an extra year or two, instead of leaving against my recommendations. His radical ideas need tempering and underpinning with rigorous methodology, for safety reasons. Of course, I wish him every success.”
“What did you think?” McHuge shifts his feet; a school of tiny brown fish dart into deeper water. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was talking to them before I got here.
I purse my lips. “It’s a hit piece. The never-married thing is a total straw man. And out here, a doctor can’t do much more than someone with industrial first aid training. You’re not that far from the urgent care clinic in Pendleton, or even Grey Tusk General.” I swallow the taste of my former workplace out of my mouth, then add, “Plus, your prof called you ‘Mister,’ like you didn’t finish your PhD. And the writer didn’t correct him.”
The arcane traditions of medicine used to be one of my favorite things. I loved it when my doctor friends called me “Doctor” to convey anything from “I’m happy to see you” to “you just said something astonishingly smart.” I flinched at panel discussions when one speaker unleashed an icy “I disagree, Doctor,” before publicly scoring devastating points on the archrival seated next to them.
But if another doctor calls you “Mister,” it means they want you dead. I caught a stinging “good luck in your future endeavors, Ms. Byrd,” as I was escorted out of Grey Tusk General, and I knew my department chief wanted me to understand he’d scooped out the best part of me.
“The writer was misinformed,” McHuge says mildly. “Brent and I connected. We cleared up a few misconceptions.”
“Brent’s article made one of your employees quit a week before launch. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, Lyle.”
At the sound of his given name, our heads do a move that feels choreographed, like a pop and lock—turning to face each other, holding for a tense moment, then turning away. I know how he likes being called by that name, which is why I had planned never to use it. But it flew out of my mouth like it was waiting for him.
He clears his throat. “I generally find it’s better to be kind than right.”
Touché. He was the kind one after I sneaked out of his bed in the middle of the night. He sent me exactly three texts: I didn’t hear you go! Everything all good? progressing to Stellar J ♥ I would be very open to seeing where this goes if that’s the vibe you’re feeling, and ending with I think you want me to back off, and I’m doing it with peace in my heart. Take care.
He was kind. But I was right. And the two of us couldn’t be more wrong for each other.
“The problem is,” McHuge goes on, “Renee Garner is considering a partnership with us, and she feels we need to address the criticisms wherever possible. She’s at a vulnerable moment, reputation-wise.”
Everybody’s heard of Renee Garner. Even me, who swore off wellness culture after realizing “resilience” is code for how toxic a workplace can get before employers have to deal with it. Renee’s research on bad bosses led her to the speaking circuit, then to a media career with an Oprahesque stable of bright young collaborators. She must still be stinging over having to fire an addiction specialist whose degree came from the University of Photoshop.
“Which is where I come in,” I say.
“Which is where you come in. We need a medical professional with whitewater experience.”
“I haven’t guided whitewater since medical school.” It was good money, but the culture could be shitty and sexist at times. Tour operators prefer younger guides, who are less likely to have unhealthy adrenaline-rush habits or chronic injuries. Fun people, who can make the tourists laugh.
“I’d do the instruction. As long as your whitewater rescue certification is still good and you’re strong enough to do a solo rescue, that’s all we need.”
“Oh, I’m strong enough,” I snap back. I run. I lift. Granted, it’s with a set of flaking free weights I scrounged from the free bin at the Pendleton triathlon club’s annual gear swap, but my arm definition doesn’t lie.
“I don’t doubt it,” he says evenly. “You’d be doing site prep from now until next Monday’s launch. The sessions are ten days on, four days off, with an extra week between the first and second sessions to make changes if Renee asks for them. Payday every Friday.” He names a weekly salary triple what I pull down as a delivery driver.
“That’s … competitive,” I choke out. Jesus. With summer earnings like that, I could take time off in the fall, figure out what to do with my life. Take a course in real estate or something else I could tolerate but never love. “What about the medical thing? The, um, clinic?”
A clinic. Calm, I am calm, I am—fuck, I’m flashing back.
It was a few months after I got Ms. Byrd-ed at Grey Tusk General, not long after the doomed hookup with McHuge. I was alone in my tiny office in Brittle Rock, seeing a fit-in first thing in the morning. There was the patient, tall and burly, his florid face turning purple from yelling, like my dad’s had the night he told my mom to get in the car, then reamed me out on the sidewalk for being a selfish little shit who only thought of myself. And me, writing prescription after prescription to de-escalate the situation, praying for the clinic nurse to arrive early and help me, heart galloping so fast I couldn’t breathe.
When it was over, I knew I couldn’t give any more if this was what I got in return. A year later I’m still so angry I can’t catch my breath, tucking my fingers into my armpits to hide their trembling.
“You’d cover emergencies only,” McHuge says. “Maybe treat minor cuts and scrapes. If that works for you?” He strokes one hand over his beard, scanning my posture like he can read every tightened angle.
“Sounds doable.” I unclench my teeth, not wanting my secrets to be legible. My dentist will be pleased.
“And there’s one more thing.” His tone pulls from its usual slack Owen Wilson drawl into something with a firm pencil point. “Distraction can be dangerous out here. To keep my focus on the clients, I need strong, low-maintenance relationships with my employees. It goes without saying that nothing beyond a collegial friendship could happen between us.”
Copyright © 2025 by Maggie North
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