Loner James Malloy is a ferry captain-or used to be, until he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by a girl named Courtney Farris. Now, instead of piloting Brenton Island's daily lifeline to the glitzy docks of Newport, Rhode Island, James spends his days beached, bitter, and bored.

When he discovers a private golf course staked out across wilderness sacred to his dying best friend, a Narragansett Indian, James is determined to stop such improvements. But despite Brenton's nickname as Cooperation Island, he's used to working solo. To keep rocky bluffs, historic trees, and ocean shoreline open to all, he'll have to learn to cooperate with other islanders-including Captain Courtney, who might just morph from irritant to irresistible once James learns a secret that's been kept from him for years.

This salt-sprayed fourth novel by 2004 Olympic Sailor Carol Newman Cronin celebrates wilderness and water, open space and open-mindedness, and the redemptive power of neighborly cooperation.