Ink and Ice, Erin McRae [primary phonics .txt] 📗

Ink and Ice

A Twin Cities Ice Book

Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

Published by Avian30, 2020.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

INK AND ICE

First edition. September 24, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese.

ISBN: 978-1393802563

Written by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese.

Also by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

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Ink and Ice

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Standalone Novels

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Self-Publishing for Perfectionists

You've F*cking Got This!: Daily Motivation for People Who Hate That Crap

Novellas and Short Stories

Alpha Bodyguard: A Forbidden Omega Story

The Anniversary Gift

Backstage Beginnings

The Hart and the Hound

Off-Kilter

The Omega's Reluctant Alpha

Room 1024

Sample and Hold

Second Chances

Snare

Paranormal Passions (Anthology)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

A Note on the Setting

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Also By Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

A Note on the Setting

A SIGNIFICANT PORTION of this book is set on a group of islands in Lake Erie.

While one of those islands—Whisker Island—is purely a product of our imagination, the others, including South Bass and Middle Bass, are perfectly real. South Bass, in particular, is worth a visit as it is the home of Put-In Bay, a lakeside village which has a small year-round local population and serves as a summer resort for the Ohio region. It is easily accessible by ferry in the warm season.

Several smaller islands, not all of which are accessible to the public, also dot the area. These include Mouse Island, Turtle Island, and Starve Island. Due to their small size, rocky soil, and the extreme nature of the environment in the winter months, none of these islands have a known history of permanent human settlement either by indigenous people or by colonizers and their descendants.

While seals are mostly saltwater creatures, freshwater seals do exist. The only true freshwater seal is the Baikal, which is native to Russia. Generally, what are termed freshwater seals are isolated colonies of saltwater species that became trapped inland and now persist in freshwater environments throughout Canada, Alaska, and Russia. To our knowledge there are no such colonies—or myths about such colonies—in Lake Erie.

Chapter 1

EIGHT MONTHS BEFORE the Winter Olympics in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Lake Erie Islands

AARON SHEFTALL WAS glad to be home for the summer, even if summer on the string of tiny islands in the middle of Lake Erie meant hard work, drunk people, and fish. So much fish.

Growing up, Aaron hadn’t always appreciated how strange his life was. In the summers, his parents boated to and from the biggest island to work fourteen-hour days for the tourist crowd that wanted some fried perch and bottomless margaritas before the world turned cold. Then summer ended, the tourists left, and the one hundred or so full-time residents of the islands eventually became frozen in.

Now though, at twenty-three, Aaron knew exactly how odd his life had been. His high school graduating class had contained four people, including him and his twin sister Arianne (Ari, for short). The two of them had boated or snowmobiled, as the weather dictated, to Middle Bass Island each day for classes. Whisker Island, where they and four other families lived, was much too small to have its own school.

But all of it—the isolation, the brutal winters, the intense sense of community born of both—had served Aaron well; he wouldn’t have learned to ice skate if it hadn’t been necessary to get around in those winters. And he wouldn’t have picked up figure skating as a sport or moved into elite competition if he hadn’t been so desperate sometimes not just to see, but live, in the world beyond the speck of rocks and trees from which he’d come. Sometimes Aaron wasn’t sure the place existed at all.

But in summers it did. Tourist publications called it the Key West of the Midwest, and their brief seasonal attention was enough to keep the islands going year-round. Aaron’s parents’ restaurant kept their freezers full and funded Aaron’s skating career. So in the off-season, while his fellow competitors were either on the road doing ice shows or showing off their beach bodies on social media, he was stuck here, in a place he loved and could never explain to anyone else, elbow-deep in raw fish.

Aaron’s phone rang. More accurately, it barked; his ringtone was the sound of seals.

The device rested on the shelf above the counter where he and Ari worked. In unison they both went up on their toes to look at the screen and see who it was.

Ari frowned. "Your ex-boyfriend is calling."

While it was definitely Huy calling, Aaron did need to object to that description. Their thing had been brief, and they had been friends before, during, and most importantly, after it.

“He's my friend, not just...whatever. And we train at the same rink."

“Still, he’s calling. He doesn’t call much, does he?”

“No. And I’m not answering right now, I’m covered in perch.” Not that Huy would know that, and not that Aaron was embarrassed. But mentally shifting from summer restaurant help to chatty figure skater felt hard. Especially with an ex, no matter how amicable.

After a few more rounds of barking seals—Ari shot Aaron a dire look; she had never thought the seals were a thing to make light of—the phone fell silent for a moment. Then it started barking again.

The two of them both went up on their toes to check the screen once more.

“Your ex-boyfriend is calling...again,” Ari proclaimed.

"Would you stop calling him that?” Aaron mentally paged through the summer schedules of the Twin City Ice skaters and tried to remember where Huy was this week. “I think he's on vacation, it's probably a drunk dial?"

Still, the repeated calls were odd enough that he peeled off