Virginia McCullough - Something To Treasure

Jerrod knew many facts about the Franklin Stone but hadn’t seen her yet. Few people had, since what was left of her sat on the bottom of the lake sixty feet below the surface. This legendary wreck would soon be the primary site of his diving excursions in his new location. What better way to introduce the site than to have a poster showing what destroyed the ship mounted on the office wall?

A pile of old books about shipping on the Great Lakes sat next to his open laptop, but he picked them up and moved them to a box on the floor. If he kept them in his sight he’d be tempted to lose the day to marine history. Lose another day was more like it. Much as he wanted to keep reading about grain and iron ore tonnage transported on the Great Lakes in the early 1900s, he had a more pressing task.

He rolled his office chair a few feet to his right and spread out the dive site map and navigation chart. He needed to double-check the accuracy of the distances and location of the site map against the course he laid out on the chart showing a section of Lake Michigan surrounding the Door Peninsula. He’d chosen the Franklin Stone because it had all the elements he needed. First, it was well-known by historians and shipwreck divers alike. Resting in only sixty feet of water, newly certified divers could gain a little experience without committing a lot of time. Finally, it was the right distance from the shore of the popular tourist town, Two Moon Bay, to take divers for short day trips. Later, if this new arm of his adventure business panned out, he could add sites at greater depths and distances from shore. Even weekend trips could be part of his future in Wisconsin, but he didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself.

Jerrod had also settled on a second shipwreck, the eighty-foot schooner Alice Swann, not as exciting, but closer to shore in about eighteen feet of water. Some divers bypassed the boat trip and visited the site from the shore, walking in fins until they were able to swim and snorkel the rest of the way. That was certainly possible, but not how he chose to lead his diving excursions.

He eyed the reference book he’d been using to write the script for the day tours he’d run on a converted ferry. If he were a guy prone to easy laughter, he’d certainly laugh at himself. The outside world thought of the physical demands of diving, never the quiet preparation. Looking at him, they’d see an adventurer who’d traveled the world and had trained others to explore reefs and wrecks. But Jerrod liked to think of himself as an amateur archeologist. The site map grids were almost like those used to explore ruins of lost cities. The ships that fascinated him most were indeed like lost cities in miniature.

For sure, his academic interest in the history and lore of commercial shipping on the Great Lakes wasn’t what had built his reputation or his business. He was known for big-sea diving in Key West and the Virgin Islands—and for a time, Thailand. Now, in a matter of weeks, he’d begin taking people down to visit these bones of ships at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

New location, new start. That was the plan.

Although difficult to admit, neglect had led to a shrinking business. At one point, he’d faced the crossroads. He either had to reverse the downward trend of his business or give it up altogether. He’d chosen to stick with what he knew and loved and had launched an aggressive plan to breathe new life into his Key West location. Then he’d added his Two Moon Bay plan to satisfy his own need for a new direction.

As he studied the site map, Jerrod’s thoughts drifted back to the days when diving had dominated everything, including his family life. Adventure Dives & Water Tours had offered both diving trips and sightseeing tours and was more successful than he’d ever imagined. But in a flash, that had all changed, and for a couple of years, he’d let much of the business he’d built crumble around him. It was kept alive only because he had such an able crew. But with renewed resolve, he was approaching his scattered life as if it were a jigsaw puzzle, and it was time to make the pieces fit together again.

Pushing away from the table, Jerrod stood and grabbed a thick envelope off the nightstand. It contained the handful of listing sheets for rental houses. The cramped hotel suite in Chicago he currently called home motivated him to find two summer rental houses in Two Moon Bay. He needed one house for himself, his little girl, Carrie, and her nanny, Melody, and a second for his crew, Wyatt and Rob.

Maybe being settled in a real home would do the trick and wipe out the lingering anxiety over his new direction. In his rational mind he was certain he’d made the right decisions, but on some days, he had trouble making his heart understand.

His buzzing phone signaled a text from Melody. He read it quickly, to be sure it was just a routine check-in and nothing urgent. Melody and Carrie had left the zoo and would stop for lunch at their new favorite hole-in-the-wall to get a couple of Chicago’s famous hot dogs before coming back to the hotel.

Jerrod smiled to himself. When the rain had stopped, Carrie, who’d celebrated her fifth birthday only last month with a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo, had wanted to go visit her animal friends. She couldn’t get enough of the zoo families—giraffes, chimpanzees, even lions—that lived in the zoo less than a mile away from the hotel.

Fortunately, the rain and bluster had left them with a cloudy but dry late Saturday afternoon that made it possible for the zoo trip. Jerrod shook his head sadly. In order to give Carrie a real home again, rather than this residential hotel, he’d need to uproot her once more. He hoped she wouldn’t mind, not as long as she still had Melody, who, lucky for him, was willing to make the move with him and Carrie.

In spite of losses and changes no child should have to endure, Carrie was a lively little girl, about as well-adjusted as Jerrod could imagine. That was great, but he was still finding his way to healing from the past. Carrie was the most important part of his present. More than anything he had left in the world, she was his heart.

His phone alerted him to a new email. Nice surprise, he thought when he saw the name, Kym Nation, his old friend. In his mind’s eye, he could see Kym’s welcoming face as she greeted tourists and encouraged them to explore Key West. She and her husband had worked side by side in a kiosk and promoted every Hemingway tour and shrimp shack the iconic little city offered. But they’d eventually gone home to landlocked Kansas City.

Kym’s message delivered exactly what he wanted to hear:

Ran into a PR consultant today—lives in that 2 moon town you told me about. How ’bout that? Heard her speak on a panel this morning. Impressive, experienced, familiar with diving. She won an award for her work, too. A dazzler. Call her.

Kym had included this award-winning dazzler’s name, Dawn Larsen, her email address and a phone number.

The message immediately lifted his mood. She no doubt had her reasons for throwing in that bit about Dawn Larsen being a dazzler. She’d known Augusta, Jerrod’s wife, and Dabny, his older daughter, long before Jerrod had lost them both. He’d stayed in touch with Kym and Guy, who regularly expressed their concerns about how he was recovering—or not—from the tragedy that left him to raise Carrie alone.

Jerrod could read between the lines. Kym believed this dazzler was a woman he just might like. No matter how hard they tried, his friends couldn’t perform the miracle it would take for him to open his heart to another woman. Ever. On the other hand, he was a man of action, and he needed public relations help...now. He called the number Kym provided. Irrationally, his energy dropped a notch when he reached Dawn Larsen’s voice mail, but he followed through and left a message asking her to return his call.