She listened. Sort of. She’d had a week onboard before the guests arrived, but she’d been running full tilt to get her food on and organized. She hadn’t paid a lick of attention to the safety stuff, primarily because she didn’t care. Harm, she noted, was studying his men more than he was eating, and felt a sudden frown coming on. Tarnation, maybe he didn’t like her skirt steak?

Ivan was onto the general itinerary by then. “Today, we’ll be at sea, so it’s a good afternoon to just relax, start soaking it all in. Chairs on both the fore and aft decks, with blankets and binocs. We’re starting on the west side of Admiralty Island, and the first offshore stop will be tomorrow night, Tennehee Springs. Anytime we see a run of good fish, we’ll stop, put our lines in. Any time we see whales or sea lions or bear, anything we run across, we drop anchor. You’re not in the city now. We built in time to kick back. If you don’t see a dozen eagles by this afternoon, I’ll be surprised.”

Cate took a bite of each dish. Par for the course, she wasn’t particularly hungry. Obviously, she taste-tested whatever she made, but she was fretting more how the others were responding.

Next to her, Fiske, as expected, pounced on anything sweet. Arthur devoured the potatoes, but wouldn’t have helped himself to more if Cate hadn’t unobtrusively passed the bowl again. Yale and Purdue presented no surprises; they wolfed down anything in front of them. Hans-Ivan’s uncle and first mate-refused to acknowledge that he had a hiatal hernia. She always had to watch out for him. If he didn’t eat slowly, he could suddenly start choking.

Ivan loved everything-his not being fussy was one of the few things about the captain’s character she appreciated-and at least he didn’t start with the liquor until after dinner.