Second Mate MELANIE RICKER has set her container ship, El Barco de Oro, on a fateful course to outrun Hurricane Hilda.
CIA agent JACK PIERCE, after assassinating Russia's hand-picked Mayor of Sebastopol in the Crimea, is paid by the Ukrainian oligarchs to blow up the El Barco. Once on board, he sees Melanie-she was his first love in high school, when she was too young and naïve to respond to him. Melanie owes Jack for changing her life-overweight and depressed, she was bullied at school until Jack made her a runner. Jack's always been obsessed with Melanie, who's now ready and willing-she invites Jack to her cabin, unaware he's an assassin. Just as the ship hits the eyewall, Melanie learns Jack is dangerous.
The ship's hatches are blown, and the El Barco is sinking. Melanie dons a survival suit and pitches herself into the raging sea. She catches a glimpse of a lifeboat on the crest of a towering wave.
Melanie and Jack regain consciousness in a hospital, each unaware the other survived. Jack, about to disappear, sees Melanie in a TV interview. He pursues her to Maine. When he finds her, she escapes to the North Maine Woods, where she finds new friends. Jack tracks her down.
Melanie wears a wire and makes Jack the target. Caught in her trap, he's arrested and agrees to deprogramming at Langley. Melanie visits Eastern Maine Maritime Academy where she's cheered by cadets, but she's shaken by survivor's guilt-she's been plagued by dreams of drowning since witnessing her little brother Charlie drown. She sees a psychiatrist to get help for her dead captain's autistic son, but she's the one who needs therapy to banish her underwater dreams.
In northern Maine, Melanie falls for the unlikely JUD, a local reporter and former big-city TV reality show writer. Jack's been deprogrammed and Melanie must convince him they have no future together. Jack's enraged at her engagement to Jud. Melanie, torn between a fiancée who loves his job, and the dashing but dangerous Jack Pierce, goes on an outing-a climb up Mt. Katahdin. Jack kidnaps her on the mountain. But the Russians have sent their GRU agent to kill Jack as payback for assassinating their Crimean mayor. The climax takes place on Katahdin's Knife Edge, where Jack and Melanie fight for their lives.
Melanie wants to save Jack, but how can she love a killer and kidnapper. She chooses her freedom. Melanie goes for Jack's gun, but can't shoot him. Rejected by Melanie, Jack draws his gun on a Maine game warden, who shoots him-"suicide by cop." Melanie is suspected for the murder of the Russian agent, but the feds make a deal-Melanie goes free for recanting her story that Jack was CIA. She's saddened to hear Jack died from his wounds.
Melanie's no longer haunted by underwater dreams. She testifies before the Coast Guard Board of Inquiry about the El Barco. It's Jud's wedding ceremony, but the bride's not Melanie. Melanie's the second mate on a container ship sailing from Portland, Maine to Iceland. When she returns from her first voyage, she has the surprise of her life . . . and a new future.
