by Nell Stark
Thinking of Frog’s injury made her think about Quinn, of course. Corrie took a long swallow from the bottle and closed her eyes as a gentle gust of wind blew her hair back from her face. Quinn, her project. Her crew for the regatta. And the keeper of my secrets, she thought dryly.
Corrie took another sip and massaged the back of her neck with her other hand. Guilt tickled her conscience as she thought about how she was using Quinn. But on the other hand...I’m giving her what she wants, at least for a little while. And hell, maybe I can even convince her to let me be her first. That was always gratifying—not to mention fun. I wonder how Storm’s doing?
In the wake of a sudden wash of heat, Corrie lifted the bottle to her face, vainly attempting to cool down. How could Quinn not understand that she was attractive? Sure, she was no waif, but Corrie had been daydreaming about feeling those curves underneath her fingers again, ever since the day Frog had gotten hurt. She’s sensual. And sensitive. And admit it, you love that she’s an innocent. God, wouldn’t it be fun to show her what her body can do?
Suddenly agitated, Corrie downed the rest of her beer in two gulps. The illusion of fire had faded from the water giving way to swirls of deep blue and purple. In the distance, a J-boat sailed a southeastern course toward the harbor. I can’t let my attraction to her get in the way. If she doesn’t want sex, fine. Their relationship was going to be about stability. Commitment. About showing them I’m not broken, dammit. She’d indulge Quinn’s attraction and rescue her own pride. There are worse reasons to get involved with someone.
And then, of course, there was the race itself. They could be a good team; of that much, Corrie was certain. They’d be light and fast, and perhaps even better at communication than she and Drew had been. And maybe—just maybe—if they worked hard enough and got lucky, she had a chance at showing up Will and Denise.
Nodding resolutely, Corrie whistled for Frog and turned toward the house. She had dinner reservations to make, a training regimen to plan, and a few hundred extra sit-ups to do.
Close Hauled
Quinn hurried out of the boathouse, looking around for Corrie as she jogged toward the piers. For the tenth time in the past five minutes, she berated the rubber-neckers who had delayed her commute from the humane society to the waterfront. As she neared the shed, however, her steps slowed. Their 470 was parked out front on its cart, and Corrie was whiling away the time by doing pull-ups on a bar attached to the side of the building. Quinn watched in fascination as she repeatedly raised her chin above the bar. Sweat glistened between her shoulder blades and on her lower back, but her smooth rhythm never even faltered. God, she’s strong! The play of muscles beneath her skin was mesmerizing. Quinn’s eyes avidly followed the contraction of her lats as they rippled upward into the powerful muscles of her trapezius, before everything released in a slow, downward slide. Even her delts were clearly visible as she segued smoothly into yet another pull.
What would they feel like? Quinn’s fingers itched as she imagined Corrie’s muscles rippling against her palms while she loomed over her in the twilight, pressing into and against her. When a bee buzzed past her head, jolting her from the daydream, Quinn felt her entire neck go up in flames. Calm down, she berated herself. You have serious practicing to do today.
“Hey,” she called out as Corrie finally dropped to the ground, breathing hard. When the word came out as a hoarse croak, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Hey, sorry I’m late. There was an accident on Main and the traffic was awful.”
Corrie turned to her with a grin. “Hi ya. And no worries. I figured it was something like that.” Enjoying Quinn’s appreciative gaze, she swung her arms in a few vigorous circles to limber them up.
“That was impressive,” said Quinn. She gestured at the bar. “I can only do half a pull-up.” When Corrie looked confused, she clarified. “The down half.”
Corrie laughed. “Good one.” With an effort, she turned away from Quinn and toward the boat. Practice now, flirt later. “Want to get started?”
“Of course.” Quinn rocked on her feet. “It’s spinnaker day, isn’t it?” Truth be told, she was nervous about learning to sail with the chute, especially given what had happened to Corrie in her race against Will.
“Ooh, you said that with just the right amount of trepidation,” Corrie said. “And yep, today we’re flying chute. But since we need to make sure that it opens outside the other sails, we’ll set it up last.”
Quinn nodded. “Okay, so we should just rig the boat normally for now?”
Corrie’s eyes sparkled. “You should rig the boat normally, while I laze about and give you a pop quiz on the stuff we’ve talked about over the past week.”
Quinn saluted playfully. “Yes, drill sergeant!”
As she screwed in the plugs, Corrie leaned against the side of the shed and crossed her arms. “So,” she said, “tell me about the kind of race we’ll be sailing in. What’s it called, and what’s it like?”
“A triangle course,” said Quinn. She fed the foot of the mainsail into the groove along the boom, her brow furrowed in concentration. “There are three buoys: the windward mark, the leeward mark, and the...” her voice trailed off and she looked up sheepishly. “Little help here, sarge?”
“The jibe mark,” Corrie said. “Now get down and gimme twenty!”
Refusing to take the bait, Quinn returned to rigging the mainsail. “I can only do half of a pushup, too.” She fastened the tack of the sail into its pin and worked her way along the edge of the material to find the head. “So, in this race, we’ll first sail toward the windward mark, by tacking back and forth, right?”
“Right.” Corrie stepped up to begin unrolling the jib.
“What happened to ‘You rig this boat, peon?’” Quinn asked.
Corrie shrugged. “You’re too slow.” When Quinn sniffed indignantly, she grinned. “Aw, I’m just putting you on. You know that. But since you really do know how to rig up, I may as well help.”
“How charitable of you.” Quinn rolled her eyes. “Now where was I?”
“The windward mark.”
“So we round the windward mark, and then we’ll be on a broad reach—somewhere between sailing perpendicular to the wind, and completely running with it. We’ll head for the jibe mark and jibe around it, before finishing a lap by tacking around the leeward mark.”
“Right on,” Corrie said as she tied figure-eight knots in the ends of the jib sheets to prevent them from ever coming completely loose. “How many laps will one race be?”
Quinn’s brow furrowed as she concentrated on looping the main halyard through a set of pulleys at the base of the mast. “Um...three laps.”
“Yep. And how many races?”
Quinn hauled briefly on the halyard, and the main sail rose smoothly up the mast for a few feet. Satisfied, she tied it off with a cleat hitch. “Six total, but only five count.” She turned to Corrie. “Will we sail in all six?”
Corrie shrugged. “What do you think we should do?”
Quinn mulled over the question as she double-checked the outhaul and the tightness of the boom vang. “I guess we should probably sail the first five as hard as we can, obviously. And then, if we’re not happy, we should do the last one.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Corrie stepped back from the boat, looked it over, and nodded. “Rigged to perfection.” When Quinn joined her just off the port side, she indicated the small sail wrapped in multicolored line that waited on the ground. Beside it waited a thin, three-foot long pole that boasted what looked like some sort of clipping mechanism on each end.
“This,” Corrie began, bending to pick up both objects, “is the spinnaker and the spinnaker pole. Did you get a chance to read about it, at all?”
“A little,” said Quinn, reaching out to take a corner of the sail and run it between her index finger and thumb. “It’s made out of the same stuff as a parachute, right?”
“Which is why it’s also called the chute, yeah.”
<
br /> “And you only put it up when you’re on a reach or running with the wind?”
“Exactly.” Corrie began to unwind the line from around the sail. “The chute is the most finicky sail in the biz, no matter what boat you’re sailing. It’s hard to trim, but if you get it working right, your craft will just soar. This baby fills up with wind and essentially pulls us along, so fast that we’ll actually start planing over the waves.” She smiled brilliantly. “And let me tell you just what a rush that is—the bow lifts up out of the water and it’s practically like flying.”
Quinn was mesmerized. The way Corrie’s face lit up when she was completely absorbed in the joys of sailing was, well, it was beautiful. Oh, stop it, Quinn immediately chastised herself. Focus, idiot. This is important! “And it’ll be my job to keep it under control?” she asked.
Corrie ran her fingers along the edges of the sail as she focused on Quinn. “From the time we round that windward mark, up until the time we start to round the leeward mark, the only thing you’ll be thinking about is how to keep the spinnaker filled with air.”
Quinn felt her stomach drop into her aqua shoes. Can I really do this? Corrie keeps saying it’s not a big deal, and on one level she means it, but...Quinn couldn’t deny that she wanted to defeat Will and Denise out there on the water, almost as much as she knew Corrie did. For some reason, the regatta had become very important within the past week. I will not let her down.
Straightening her shoulders, Quinn stuffed her self-doubt into a dark corner of her brain and mentally slammed the door on it. She nodded sharply to Corrie. “All right, then. Show me how to set this thing up.”
For the next hour, Corrie explained and demonstrated the mechanics of flying a spinnaker. She taught Quinn to rig it properly and showed her just how bad it would be if it were to become entangled with the jib or the main. She described in careful detail the processes of raising and dousing the spinnaker, emphasizing the need for smooth, efficient movements in order to keep the boat steady and sailing as quickly as possible. And last of all, she demonstrated the art of “jibing the pole,” during which process Quinn would have to quickly detach the spinnaker from its pole, switch the pole to the opposite side of the mast, and reattach the sail while Corrie jibed the boat.
“Ready to get this thing in the water?” Corrie asked finally, as Quinn wiped the sweat out of her eyes from her efforts during their practice jibe.
“Yes!” she said, eager to feel the cooling spray of the waves. “Definitely.”
She grabbed the painter as Corrie pushed the boat down the ramp alongside the first pier and efficiently tied it off in an expert bowline knot. For a long moment, she stared at the length of line, and her lips curved in satisfaction. Guess I really have learned something. It was a good feeling. But then she remembered just how very much she still didn’t know and quickly slid into the boat to raise the mainsail and lower the centerboard.
“Here’s the plan,” said Corrie as Quinn shoved them away from the dock and took her place on the windward gunwale. “Since the wind’s out of the northeast today, we’re going to practice sailing upwind for about half an hour, fast as we can, before turning around and raising the chute. We’ll do a bunch of jibes to get you familiar with how everything works. Sound okay?”
“Yes,” Quinn called over the rush of the wind. They were sailing close-reached, and it was noisy. She hauled in on the jib until it stopped flapping and immediately hiked out as the boat began to heel. Beside her, Corrie was making adjustments to the traveler and the main sail.
“Let’s go for a close haul!” she shouted after a few seconds.
“Okay,” Quinn replied, pulling on the jib sheets once again. Corrie threw her weight out to starboard as the boat tried to tip over, and Quinn leaned back as far as she could, extending her body parallel over the water. Her stomach muscles groaned, but she ignored them. The wind was brisk against her cheeks, the salt water stung her chapped lips, and the heat of Corrie’s right arm burned against her left as they both strained to level out the boat.
“Sweet breeze today!” Corrie grinned widely. She let loose with a loud war whoop, tightened the main sheet even further, and hiked out hard.
They spent the next half hour tacking back and forth across the eye of the wind. Corrie couldn’t help but be impressed by how smoothly Quinn was moving. After only a week of serious work, she was already getting a feel for Corrie’s style of sailing. And the way her T-shirt rides up so I can see some skin once in a while doesn’t hurt, either.
In that instant of distraction, Corrie nearly lost control of the tiller and had to leap back inside the boat as it careened wildly toward starboard. Quinn pulled her body back in from the gunwale, her quad muscles working furiously to support her body weight. “What happened?” she shouted in concern. “Was that a knock that I didn’t see?”
“No,” Corrie called back. “I just fucked up. Sorry.” Focus, dammit! Once the boat was back under control, she risked another brief glance at Quinn. “You ready to bear off and raise the chute?”
Quinn took a deep breath and nodded before remembering that on a boat, every command had to be given and accepted vocally. “Ready,” she said firmly, despite the fact that her palms were sweating. You can do this. You just went through it all on shore. But, even she was experienced enough to know that drilling on land and performing on the water were like night and day.
Corrie watched the emotions flicker over Quinn’s face, faster than the wind that drove their boat. She felt an abrupt surge of protectiveness. Quinn was trying so hard, learning so earnestly, and Corrie never wanted her to feel frustrated or anxious—especially about sailing. “Here we go,” she said. “Why don’t you get that pole up first, and then we’ll raise the chute.”
“Okay.” Quinn moved as far toward the bow as she was able. Her hands fumbled as she clipped the pole into the topping lift and the mast before attaching its far end to the spinnaker guy. “Got it,” she said finally.
“I’m gonna pop it.” Corrie shifted the main sheet to her tiller hand so that she could haul back on the spinnaker halyard. As the red and white chute rose into the air beyond the jib, it began to inflate and the boat jerked forward sharply. “Trim, trim!” Corrie shouted, cleating off the line and adjusting the boat so that it turned downwind. She threw her weight hard out to port as Quinn struggled to keep the spinnaker inflated.
“How am I doing?” Quinn called over her shoulder, never taking her eyes from the sail.
“Beautiful,” Corrie said, referring as much to Quinn as to the puffy sail. “Feel how much faster we’re going?”
Quinn looked back to inspect their boat’s wake, and her eyes widened at the churning waves. But, at that very moment, the wind shifted slightly and the starboard edge of the chute began to curl down toward the mast. “Watch it!” said Corrie, and Quinn immediately pulled in on the sheet so that the sail returned to maximum power.
“Finicky is right!” she shouted over the rushing sounds of the wind and the water. Her eyes remained fixed on the chute, and Corrie watched approvingly as she played the line in and out, always testing.
Just like I showed her. Jeez, she’s a fast learner! “Let’s go for a jibe,” she said after another minute. “Remember, you pass the line back to me, jibe the pole, and then start trimming again.”
“You’ll jibe the mainsail afterward?”
“That’s right.” Corrie held the tiller extension between her legs, grasped the mainsheet tightly in her right hand, and took the line that Quinn offered in her left. Their fingers brushed fleetingly before Quinn detached both ends of the pole. She managed to clip the pole back in to the opposite side of the line, but it took several precious seconds before she managed to close the other end over the ring in the mast. In the meantime, Corrie expertly flew the chute without the pole, trimming the main all the while and making small adjustments to the rudder by shifting her legs. When Quinn finally looked up from the pole, the sight of Corrie single-handing the b
oat made her catch her breath in awe. It was one thing to watch from far away as she controlled the boat alone, but another thing entirely to be right there with her.
How is she doing that? God, she’s good, and so intense—that sheer focus, not to mention strength. Quinn suddenly realized that she was standing in the bow gaping at Corrie when she should be taking back the spinnaker sheet and getting ready for the boat to jibe. “I’ve got it,” she said, covering her hand briefly as she took over the line.
“Ready to jibe?”
“Ready.”
Quinn ducked as the boom sailed over her head, and she immediately sat down hard on the starboard gunwale. To her credit, the chute remained inflated. She tucked her feet under the hiking strap as Corrie adjusted their sail position. “That’s tough! How long does it take the Olympians to jibe the pole?”
Corrie grinned in her direction. “About five seconds.”
Quinn’s jaw dropped, and in that split second of inattention, the chute began to curl in again. “That’s incredible,” she said once she had everything back under control.
“It is. But don’t worry about speed for now. Just try to make the motion as smooth as you can.” Corrie shifted the mainsheet into her tiller hand so that she could reach forward to gently clasp Quinn’s shoulder. “You did a great job, that time. Most people have a lot more trouble than that.”
Quinn leaned out as a small puff of wind hit their sails, then hiked back in once it had passed. The spinnaker line pulled against her gloved fingers, as though the sail were a racehorse chomping at the bit. “I can do better, Skipper,” she said. “Let’s try it again.”
Corrie squeezed Quinn’s shoulder once more before settling back into the boat and returning the tiller to its position between her knees. “Aye aye, matey. Prepare to jibe!”
*