Logan stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “I hate to ask you this. But I need some money.”
Grant looked away. He hated being right all the time. “What for?”
“I had a bad break in a poker game. I’ll get it back. I will. But it was one of Carlo’s associates who ran the game, and now Carlo is all over my ass for the cash.”
“He’s bad news, Lo. Stay away from him.”
Logan sighed, and Grant knew exactly what his brother was thinking: that Uncle Joe was once again filling Grant’s head with all sorts of rubbish about their paternal uncle Angelo and his son Carlo. “Carlo is our cousin. I can’t turn my back on him like you have. Do you even care about our family? Do you even care about Dad?”
Grant’s voice rose with indignant anger and a hint of childish wounded hurt. “Do they even care about me?”
An uncomfortable silence floated between them, the only sound the steady stream of raindrops tapping the leaves of nearby trees. Grant slid his hands into his pant pockets. “How much do you need?”
Crap. Now Logan had to come clean with the embarrassing amount. “Thirty K,” he mumbled.
Grant’s eyes bugged. “Thirty thousand dollars? How much do you think Navy ensigns earn?”
“Any amount you can help with, I’ll take. I’m in deep, man.”
Grant sensed his brother’s desperation and realized Logan had a problem: a gambling problem. Grant had maybe three thousand dollars socked away, but even if he cleaned out his savings, it wouldn’t put a dent in the debt. And who’s to say Logan wouldn’t just gamble it all away?
Grant looked down, feeling pained. “I can’t help you.”
“Great,” Logan spat. “Thanks a lot, bro.”
Stunned, Grant watched his brother turn and stride away. They hadn’t seen each other for fifteen years, and that was how they were going to leave it? Would it be another fifteen years before they spoke again?
Roger paused his commentary and muted his microphone, gesturing to the left. “Watch out for that idiot kayaker off to port,” he warned.
“Aye, sir,” Grant replied, having spotted the small watercraft seconds before, even though he’d been lost in the past.
“Dumbass, kayaking out in this weather,” Roger growled. Turning to glance at Grant, he noticed his forlorn expression. “You okay?”
Grant cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
Roger nodded, flipped the switch on the mic’s battery pack attached to his belt, and resumed his architectural tour of the city. He continued embellishing to accommodate their slow speed.
“For those of you who enjoy gambling, the closest opportunity is the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana, about twenty minutes from the city. You can try your hand at blackjack or Caribbean stud poker there.”
After Grant had adroitly docked the ship at the conclusion of the cruise, Roger put away his microphone and asked, “You ever been to that Empress Casino, Madsen?”
“Nope.”
“We should go there sometime,” Roger suggested. “Maybe meet us some chicks.”
Grant paused. He’d already met a lovely “chick.” “No thanks. I’m not much of a fan of gambling.”
“So you don’t drink, you can’t do drugs, and you don’t gamble either? You are entirely too healthy, Madsen.”
“And you are entirely too unhealthy, Rog,” Grant shot back. “How about we get you some green vegetables for dinner?”
Roger made a gagging motion. “I think my body would go into shock if I fed it veggies.” He grinned. “C’mon, let’s grab some pizza.”
Grant shook his head. Roger was hopeless. “Okay, but I’m cutting you off at two slices, boss.” He grabbed his White Sox jacket and trailed Roger off the ship into the cloudy mist. Only one more cruise left tonight, and then Sophie would be joining them tomorrow. He knew she would brighten his day. He’d be willing to bet on it.
12. InSPIREd
Sophie’s mind was full to overflowing with various alcoholic drink ingredients and menu choices.
Although she’d studied the menu for an hour before the first cruise began at one, it was tough to keep it all straight. She felt quite overwhelmed by the time the five o’clock cruise rolled around on her first day. And naturally Dan, the bartender, was out sick, so Sophie not only had to take the drink orders, but fill them too.
She could just picture her Substance Abuse Treatment professor’s disapproving look. She’d spilled a piña colada on her black skirt and could currently feel sticky tomato juice all over her hands after delivering Bloody Marys to two passengers. She was literally doused in alcohol.
In contrast to all the sitting in prison, today’s five hours of scurrying around on her feet had left her with some tired, barking dogs. And they still had one cruise to go.
She sighed with relief as the ship approached a construction site near Navy Pier and Roger began describing the Chicago Spire. She’d picked up on the routine of the cruise by the third time around, and she now knew the Spire was the last architectural marvel on the list, so they’d be docking soon. Sophie continued collecting empty cups and napkins.
Roger’s voice sounded strained as he bid farewell to the passengers over the intercom and invited them to return for another cruise at any time. While Grant was expertly docking the ship, Sophie wiped her hands on a towel and headed to the gangway to smile pleasantly at the departing passengers. She wished them a wonderful evening in downtown Chicago.
Sophie glanced up at the bridge as she’d done after the earlier cruises, but this time she did not see Grant winking down at her. The parolees-turned-sailors had not found the opportunity to talk much during the cruises, but their exchanged glances had kept her going. Grant’s dazzling blue eyes provided inspiring energy for her weary body, sparking excitement all up and down her spine.
Typically Roger and Grant had joined her and Tommy by the gangway to see the passengers off, but this time the captain and navigational officer were nowhere to be found. Sophie waited for the last passenger to disembark before taking tentative steps up to the bridge. She arrived to find Grant leaning over Roger, whose bald head was glistening with sweat. Roger’s meaty paw clutched at his chest as his red face screwed up in pain.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Rog just started having chest pains.”
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Sophie offered.
“No, don’t!” Roger feebly insisted.
Sophie appeared confused, and Grant clarified, “He’s refusing to go to the ER.”
Stepping into the small control room, Sophie knelt by her boss. “You’re having chest pain? What about pain down your left arm?”
“A little,” he grunted.
“Pain in your back?”
“Yeah, there too.”
“Is it hard to catch your breath?”
He nodded, and they could both hear him gasping for air.
“Do you feel nauseated?”
Roger continued nodding.
She frowned. “Have you ever had panic attacks before?”
Roger shook his head.
“And it’s not indigestion, either,” Grant said. “I’ve seen him with whopper indigestion, and this is different.” Studying Roger, he chided, “Although you did eat an entire foot-long sub for lunch.”
“What are you, the fucking food police?” Roger managed.
Sophie pressed her lips together. “Rog, you definitely need to go to the hospital. You’re experiencing just about every symptom in the book of a heart attack.”
“How do you know so much about them?” Grant asked.
“I did my internship in a VA hospital,” she replied. Looking away, she added, “And my mother died of a heart attack last December.”
Grant’s eyes clouded over with sympathy, showing the same mournful look as the day she’d told him Jerry Stone’s mother was dying. He reached out and held Sophie’s hand, stroking her smooth skin softly, as his eyes locked onto hers. It was the most genui
ne expression of sympathy she’d ever experienced—the most compassionate response of all the times she’d painfully informed another person of her mother’s death. She felt instantly nurtured and supported.
Wanting to avoid the fatal heart attack of yet another person in her life, Sophie turned her attention back to Roger. She sternly asked him, “How can we get you to go the hospital right away?”
“It’s sold out,” he rasped with difficulty. “The seven o’clock is sold out, and I refuse to turn paying customers away. I can’t leave.”
“Rog, surely you can miss the revenue from one cruise,” Grant said.
“No,” he panted. “I gotta pay alimony next week. I need every penny.”
“You were married?” Grant asked incredulously.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Roger growled.
“Okay, focus, people!” Sophie admonished. “Grant, you can be the docent, right? You can take Roger’s place?”
Grant’s eyes widened. “What? Me? I can’t be on the mic!”
“How hard can it be?” Sophie reasoned. “There’s got to be a written script or something, right, Rog?”
Roger tapped his temple. “It’s all up here.”
As much as the prospect of playing tour guide created sheer panic within Grant, the idea of Roger’s heart giving out was even more disturbing. Joe would certainly want his nephew to do everything in his power to take care of his friend.
“Okay!” Grant blurted. “I’ll do it. Just go to the hospital, okay, sir? We’ll take care of everything. Just go.”
Roger must have been frightened by the increasing pain in his chest because he finally agreed. Figuring a taxi would be faster than calling an ambulance at this point, Grant and Sophie carefully led Roger down the stairs and onto the dock. It was a good sign that he could still walk.
Tommy also joined them, running to the street to hail a cab, and Grant frowned as they slowly approached the waiting taxi. “This is not right. We should go with you, Rog.”
“I ain’t going to that damn hospital unless you run the cruise,” he protested.
Grant sighed and glanced at his watch: already 6:15. “Tommy, go to the ER with him and then get back here by seven, okay? I need you in the bridge if we’re going to have a chance in hell of pulling this off.”
Tommy nodded and slid to the other side of the back seat while Grant and Sophie helped Roger into the cab. Their hearts were racing, and it didn’t help that Roger looked worse and worse with every minute ticking by. Thankfully the cab soon sped off, leaving Grant with his hands on his hips.
He turned his gaze to Sophie and felt a nervous flutter in his stomach. His eyes narrowed into a glare. “What the hell did you just get me into? I can’t do this!”
She grinned. He was even cuter all angst-ridden and irritated. “C’mon, I’ll help you,” she said, locking her arm into his and leading him toward the ship. She couldn’t believe how forward she was being, and she breathed a sigh of relief when he went along with her easily, matching her stride for stride.
“How are you going to help me? You’ll be serving drinks the whole time. By the way,” he added, glancing at the stains on her shirt and skirt, “you’re supposed to pour the drinks into the glasses, not on yourself.”
“Ha ha. Pour the drinks into the glasses?” she repeated in a high-pitched voice, giving him her best dumb blonde routine. “Who needs drink glasses? I was actually doing body shots with the passengers … didn’t you see that?”
Grant’s mouth dropped open. “No wonder you’re making so many tips! Damn it, I miss all the fun stuck up there in the bridge.”
“Well, the chief navigator does need to stay up there on his throne. It wouldn’t be right for him to associate with us commoners on the poop deck.”
Grant grinned. “You’re learning the ship terminology so fast, Sophie!”
“If only I could learn cocktail ingredients as quickly. I’m running around trying to fill drink orders like a chicken with its head cut off.”
Back at the ship, his grin faded as he glanced up at the bridge, the reality of his impending duty hitting him squarely in the chest. “I’m sure you’ll do a better job as bartender than I will as docent,” he said. “This is going to be bad.”
“Oh, come on. It will be fun, a night cruise with a full house …”
“And thank you for reminding me that the cruise is sold out,” he said. “That really calmed my nerves.”
“Uh, sorry.” Watching him shake like a leaf, she advised, “How about you take a few deep breaths?”
“Deep breaths? That’s all the psychologist has to offer me?”
With a small pout, she replied, “Deep breaths would help if you tried them. But I have a better idea for how to help you chill out. Let me clean up my area a bit and I’ll meet you in the bridge.”
“Okay. I gotta stay here and collect tickets before I head up. While I wait for passengers to show up maybe I’ll try to remember what the hell Rog says in his spiel.”
“Good idea!” she called over her shoulder.
Twenty minutes later, Tommy returned from the hospital and took over the ticket collecting. Unfortunately, he had no status report on Roger because he’d had to turn around and leave the moment they arrived at the ER. But he did assure Grant that he’d left Roger in good hands at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Grant headed to the bridge and was dismayed to find his anxiety increasing as his performance approached. He glanced down at the benches on the deck, filling ominously with passengers. “Just go away,” he wished, glaring at the teeming tourists.
Having just waltzed into the control room, Sophie paused. “You want me to go away?”
“No, not you,” Grant said. “Them.” He pointed behind him to the scads of passengers. “If you knew how to navigate this watercraft, I’d love to have you up here with me.”
Then he noticed the tray in her arms, which carried a bottle of tequila, two shot glasses, lime wedges, and salt. “This is how you’re going to help me? By plying me with booze?”
“Well, I would refer you to a psychiatrist for a good benzodiazepine but that doesn’t look like an option, given that the cruise is starting in ten minutes.” She caught him glancing anxiously at the bottle. “Do you like tequila?”
He cleared his throat and bashfully admitted, “I don’t really know. I’ve never had a drink.” He’d never admitted that to anyone. Now she’d think he was a total loser.
She looked astonished. “Never? Not one?”
“People in my family have addictive personalities,” he said. “Like my brother for one.” He silently added, And my father. He was drunk that night. The night he killed that kid.
“That’s impressive self-restraint,” she said. “And I would never encourage you to do something against your will. But, Grant, one drink can’t turn you into an alcoholic. It might take the edge off if you want to try one.”
He hesitated, the wheels turning in his mind. He should be thinking about Millennium Park and Trump Tower and the old post office building and the Sears Tower and the Spire, but instead he was dreaming up ways to touch her gorgeous, intoxicating body once again.
“The body shot thing you mentioned did sound kind of interesting,” he smirked. What was he doing? He was never this suggestive with women.
“Oh?” There was a playful lilt in her voice. “You want your first drink to be a body shot?”
“Hey, you’ve been doing them all day with the passengers. The least you could do is to share one with me.”
“Hmm …” She flashed a teasing grin. “Oh, what the hell? I’m already wearing alcohol all over my body anyway. We’ll do a version of a body shot.” Sophie whipped out her notepad and pretended to scribble officiously. “May I recommend a shot of tequila, sir?”
“Sounds heavenly.”
Mesmerized by his oceanic eyes and liquid-smooth voice, Sophie absentmindedly stuffed her notepad into her pocket. Grant’s heart pounded and he decided take her pre
vious advice—a few deep breaths—as she poured golden liquid into the shot glasses. Sophie’s hand trembled slightly as she scooped up the salt shaker. She could not believe they were doing this.
“Give me your arm,” she ordered. She looked down at the lean, sinewy muscles in his left forearm and lightly grasped his long fingers, admiring their grace. His hand was warm and smooth as she gently turned his palm upward. Smiling mischievously, she leaned her head down over his arm.
Grant’s breathing hitched when he felt her warm tongue lick the baby-soft skin along the inside of his wrist. The moist spot felt cool when she lifted her head, and he watched curiously as she shook some salt onto the wet patch of skin. She maintained her light hold on his left wrist while lining up her shot and lime wedge with the other hand.
“Watch and learn how this works, ‘cause you’re going next,” she said.
She dipped her head and he felt the glorious sensation of her tongue once again. Then she knocked back the tequila and grabbed a lime wedge between her teeth. He was entranced by her pink lips massaging the lime skin, puckering from the tartness. She finished by flicking her tongue back and forth over the green slice and flashing him an alluring smile.
Grant had observed quite a few shots taken by his Navy buddies in bars all over the world, but never had he witnessed anything involving his own skin as a springboard for a beautiful woman’s tequila shot. He eagerly anticipated his turn.
Surrendering her arm to him with a twinkle in her chestnut-brown eyes, Sophie invited him closer. Self-consciously Grant grasped her delicate wrist and bent over to take a languid lick of her skin, drinking in her sophisticated perfume. He lifted his head and dumped some salt on the moist spot inside her forearm.
“And here begins my corruption, Dr. Taylor,” he said, drawing a nervous breath. She giggled as he leaned forward, closing his eyes while tasting her once again. The briny salt mixed with her sweet skin was intoxicating, and he had not even had any alcohol yet. He stood up, clutched the full shot glass in his hand, and reluctantly tipped it to his lips. The tequila burned his throat, but he was determined not to cough—he couldn’t compromise his manly image any further—and he successfully made it to suck on a lime, flashing a bright-green smile.
With Good Behavior [Conduct Series #1] Page 10