Jack LaFlamme returned to his office after his last class of the day and found a note on his desk from the department secretary, Lisa.

A woman from Fortune’s Bay called wanting to know about a shipwreck from the 1800s off Agre Island, somewhere on the Gulf Coast.

The woman’s name and phone number followed, carefully written in Lisa’s neat handwriting.

He held the piece of paper in front of him with both hands, brushing his thumb against the edges as he considered the message. People often contacted him to find out more about historical shipwreck sites, but although out of character for her, Lisa must have misheard this woman. There were several shipwrecks off the Florida coast, miles away from Agre Island in each direction, but none actually near the island. He should know.

He’d been searching for the remains of the Livingston, an English cargo ship, for the last fifteen years. Historians had noted that it had gone down in a hurricane about twenty miles north of Agre Island, but its remains had never washed up on the shores. Rumor was that, along with provisions for the early settlers in Florida, it had contained a shipment of gold coins.

Threads of hope twisted in his gut. The chance that this was the Livingston was slim to none. So many people had searched fruitlessly for the ship in the past and hadn’t been successful. Most likely the woman who’d called was mistaken and it was a more recent wreck. Still, it was worth following up on.

He dialed the woman’s phone number and let it ring until it went to voicemail. Why did people leave messages and then not bother to answer when you called back? He hung up without leaving a message. Sitting down at his desk, he leaned back, folding his arms behind his head and staring out the window.

Through the leafy green fronds of a palm tree, planted to shade the building, the sun shone brightly, beating down on the pavement below. With his workload, he hadn’t spent much time outside recently. But it was the Friday before Spring Break, and he intended to rectify that by relaxing beside his condo’s pool, drinking beer and blissfully avoiding anything productive. After office hours today, he was free for over a week.

Knock, knock.

“Come in.” Jack eyed the door. His office hours ran later than most of the other professors in the department and he’d thought no one else was still around, but maybe some over eager student had a question for him.

“It’s just me.” Lisa poked her head around the door, allowing the unpleasant odor of someone’s burnt popcorn to waft through the doorway. “I’m leaving now and wanted to wish you a nice week off. I hope you have more exciting things to do than hanging out in the library researching.”

“I do have big plans.” Sitting by the pool was big, right?

“Uh, huh. Right. You need to get out more. It’s been over a year since you broke up with Nina.”

He mock glared at her. “We can’t all be happily married with two-point-five kids.” He nodded his head toward her very pregnant belly.

Lisa’s cheeks glowed. “But you won’t know if you can unless you get out there and experience life.”

He cleared his throat. She wasn’t going to give up easily. Time to change the subject. “Anyway, I found the message you left me.” He held up the small slip of paper. “Did the woman who called say anything else? Maybe the name of the ship she was asking about?” His voice caught, thinking about the possibility that this could be the Livingston.

“No, she didn’t say much else. Did you try calling her back?”

“I did. No answer. I’ll ring her again later.” He glanced outside. “You should go home. Everyone else has already left.”

She nodded. “I’m heading out. Have a nice week off.” She waggled her finger at him. “And have some fun!”

“You too.” He smiled as she walked away. Her husband was a lucky man. Jack had been at the university for a few years now, and Lisa had always been there for him, helping out wherever needed. He shook his head and stared at the college degrees he’d proudly affixed to a wall in his office. He’d spent so much time working toward becoming a subject-matter expert in his field. Odds were that he’d never be a happily married man, at least at the rate he was going. But his career was progressing and he was generally happy. That was enough, right?

He spun back around in his chair, ready to get everything cleared away before the school break. The message from Lisa stared up at him. Laney Lindstrom. He hadn’t heard her name before, so she wasn’t an expert in the field. How had she heard about a shipwreck? More and more signs pointed to this being a false alarm, but what if she was onto something and it was the wreck of the Livingston? He’d never forgive himself if he lost this opportunity.

Jack glanced at the clock on his computer. Office hours were almost up and he’d soon be a free man. The Gulf Coast would be a chaotic mess during Spring Break, but Fortune’s Bay was only a few hours away. Maybe by the time he got there, this Laney woman would deign to answer her phone and he could touch base with her. If he was lucky, he might be able to snag a room somewhere in town to spend the night. If all else failed, he could head home after she confirmed his suspicions that the shipwreck off Agre Island was of no importance.

Before leaving his office, Jack pulled a thick hardbound book off one of the bookshelves that lined a full side of his office. He flipped it open and smoothed out the page. A photo of a British cargo ship stared back at him. The Livingston. His white whale.

He’d written his graduate thesis on the missing ships of Southern Florida’s Gulf Coast, and there was something about that particular ship that had always intrigued him. However, after years of research, he’d come to believe that it was only a legend that the ship had wrecked along that stretch of coastline. After all these years, was he finally going to find out the truth?

He clapped the book shut and slipped it into his leather satchel, along with his laptop computer, before turning off the light and locking the door to his office. It might be crazy, but he was going to Fortune’s Bay.

* * *

Later that night, Jack found himself walking down the main street of Fortune’s Bay. He’d finagled a room at a local B&B, one of the last remaining accommodations in town. Luckily for him, the owner was reluctant to rent to the college students on Spring Break and was happy to have a professor staying in one of his rooms instead.

He’d made it to the beach in time to see the sun sink like a ball of fire into the Gulf of Mexico, turning the water to flames as it burned low in the sky. The beach had been relatively deserted as the students slept through the early evening in preparation for a fun night out, but now the streets bustled with the noise and energy of Spring Break.

He had to grin. He’d come out to the coast for his share of Spring Breaks, but fifteen years later, he’d be hard pressed to pull an all-nighter, no matter how thrilling it may seem. The most exciting thing he had planned for the night was a quiet meal at the pub across the street.

A blur of white whizzed past him, breaking him away from his memories. What was that? He could have sworn a mop had run past and he spun around to figure out what he’d seen.

The mop had stopped on the sidewalk near an old-fashioned street lamp. When it turned and barked at him, Jack did a double take. The mop was a fluffy white dog with two small black eyes and a leathery nose, set in a mound of fur. It wore a blue collar, but no leash. This was not the kind of dog you usually saw running loose.

Jack looked around, but didn’t see its owner. He hadn’t had a dog since he was a kid, but that one had been a runner. With any luck, his dog-catching skills weren’t too rusty.

“Hey, little doggy.” He approached the dog, bent down, and held his hand out in front of the animal’s nose to gain its trust.

No dice. The dog took one look at his hand and bounced off down the street toward the park. Jack grabbed for his collar, but only succeeded in catching a handful of air before crashing to the ground. A gaggle of teenagers nearby laughed at the dog’s antics and Jack’s embarrassing fall.

He swore under his breath as he stood and brushed the dirt from his khakis. His pride was bruised, but otherwise he was fine. However, he couldn’t let the dog run loose, at the mercy of Spring Break kids tearing through town at twenty miles-per-hour over the speed limit. The mop-dog wouldn’t last more than a couple of blocks.

“Hey, come back here.” He jogged toward the dog, who pretended not to hear him. A squirrel scampered across the grass and climbed a tall oak tree in the park. The dog took off after it, yipping from the base of the tree at the squirrel, who taunted him from a branch high above the ground. Jack crept up to the tree and used the distraction to his advantage to nab the dog.

Safely in his arms, the animal stared up at him in surprise. Jack smiled triumphantly and pulled it closer to get a look at the heart-shaped blue tag hanging from its collar. The tag had been inscribed with the dog’s name and the owner’s phone number, but the number was too scuffed to read. The name however, was there.

Marshmallow? Seriously? The dog’s name was Marshmallow. Who would name their dog that? He eyed the dog and tried it out.

“Hey Marshmallow.” As he’d expected, Jack felt silly saying it out loud, but the ball of fluff’s ears perked up and it yipped a few times before giving him kisses on his cheek. Jack stood, keeping a tight hold on the squirming dog. He hoped for the dog’s sake that the owner was nearby. They were probably an inconsiderate person that let their pet run leash-free in the park. But how was he going to find them? He sighed again. He didn’t have much of a choice.

“Marshmallow? Marshmallow?” he called out loudly, hoping the owner was close by. A few people passing by on the sidewalk grinned at him and he felt his face grow hot. Of all the things someone could have named their dog, the one he found had to be Marshmallow. He turned to the dog.

“I would have named you something more dignified.” The dog barked again and he could swear it smiled at him.

Jack shouted out the dog’s name again and began walking with Marshmallow in the direction he’d come from. As they rounded the far corner of the park, a woman in a tank top, jeans, and sandals raced up to them, her hair flying out of what must have once been a neat bun. Even with her hair mussed and the worried expression on her face, she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Marshmallow strained against his arms, trying to get to his owner.

The woman rushed toward him, nuzzling her face in the dog’s neck while he still held it in his arms. The faint scent of roses drifted up from her hair as she leaned forward in front of his chest. “I was so worried about you.”

Marshmallow licked her face and, as if just realizing she was pressed up against a strange man, the woman plucked the dog from his arms and backed away.

Jack stood there awkwardly as she hugged her dog, waiting for her to acknowledge him. Finally, she looked at him.

“Thanks for catching him.”

“No problem. But next time, maybe you should have him on a leash.” She had a strange effect on him and it made his words came out in a much more scolding tone than he’d intended.

“I did,” she said in a steely voice as she pulled a retractable leash out of the pocket of her jeans and hooked it onto the metal ring attached to the collar. “I don’t know what happened. I’d stopped to untangle the leash and unclipped him for a moment while I held him by the collar. He must have seen a squirrel or something because he twisted out of my grasp and disappeared before I could catch him. He doesn’t usually act like that.” She set Marshmallow on the ground, this time with the leash firmly attached.

Jack stared at the dog dubiously as it pranced around on the sidewalk. In the brief time he’d known Marshmallow, he’d been led on a merry chase down the street. He wasn’t as convinced of the dog’s normal exemplary behavior as the woman seemed to be.

“I’m sure. I do have to ask though—how did he get his name?”

She glanced at the dog and then assessed Jack for a moment before answering, “When I got him as a puppy from the Humane Society, I couldn’t figure out what to name him. Then, the first night he spent at my house, I came into the kitchen to find that he’d wrestled a bag of mini marshmallows out of the cupboard. Luckily, I was able to stop him before he chowed down on them.” She shrugged. “It seemed like fate that his name should be Marshmallow because he’s such a little ball of fluff.”

He nodded and said in what he thought was a joking manner, “I felt a little silly calling his name. I’m sure people thought I was nuts.”

She stiffened. “Yeah, well, thanks for catching him.” Tugging on Marshmallow’s leash, she said to the dog, “Let’s get back home.”

He wasn’t sure what came over him, but he called out to her, “Hey, I was wondering if you’d like to grab a drink with me? I think that pub back there on Main Street has outdoor seating and water bowls for dogs. I need someone to come with me so I’m not bowled over on my own by college students. Please? I did rescue your dog.” He grinned in what he hoped was a charming manner.

She stared at him as though he’d grown wings. What had he been thinking? Why on earth had he asked her out? It had been a while since his last date, but this invitation had just popped out of his mouth, seemingly of its own accord.

The woman looked like she was considering it, but then she pursed her lips and said, “No thanks. It’s been a long day and I’d like to get Marshmallow and myself home. Thank you for finding him.” She tugged on the dog’s leash.

“No problem. I’m glad I was able to help.” He watched as she walked away. When she was a speck in the distance, he felt very alone. He’d grown accustomed to eating by himself, but the idea of spending some time out with a beautiful woman had been appealing, even if the chance for it had lasted for just a brief moment. Maybe Lisa was right and it was time to rethink a lifetime of bachelorhood.