Smooth Sailing

by Lori Wilde

  “Hmm.” He sent a look over her that had Haley flushing.

  “The ropes,” she prompted and then cringed because it sounded as if she was too eager to know more about ropes.

  “The ropes.” The way he said it sounded so seductive. “The Cunningham is the control-line system near the tack of the sail used to adjust the luff tension.”

  The word tension hung in the air, a taut line between them.

  “I’m guessing that’s so you can tighten or loosen the sail. Speed it up or slow it down?”

  “Something like that.” He lowered his eyelids to half-mast. “This is the halyard.” He tugged on the thick rope that ran up the mast. “It’s used to pull up the sail. You’ll be doing that in just a minute.”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  “All by myself?”

  “All by yourself.”

  “What if I mess it up?”

  “We start over.

  “This rope that’s mounted on the boom—” he touched it “—is called the outhaul and it’s used to control tension on the foot of the mainsail.”

  “You need ten hands to be a sailor.”

  “Doesn’t hurt.” He went on to tell her the names of the remaining ropes and what they did, and then he introduced the equipment that adjusted the ropes, including the block, the clear and the winch. By the time he was done, she was thoroughly confused.

  “Whew,” she said. “I’m so not ready for a pop quiz.”

  “But you now know enough to hoist the mainsail.”

  “I do?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m glad one of us is confident in my abilities.”

  “The first thing you do when preparing the mainsail is to insert the battens, which I’ve already done. Then you attach the tack. C’mere and I’ll show you how.” He motioned to her and she stepped over.

  “It’s starting to sound like learning the human skeleton. The hip bone is connected to the thigh bone…”

  “An apt analogy,” he said. “Now we attach the clew with a shackle and then we feed the luff.”

  “Ropes, shackles, feeding the luff, this is a very kinky sport.” Oh, wow, why had she said that? She was officially babbling. He was going to think she was flirting with him. She wasn’t flirting with him.

  Was she?

  Stop it. Just stop saying anything remotely suggestive.

  He simply chuckled and continued with his instructions. Once everything was harnessed and in place, they double-checked the sails. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to steer us into the wind and then we’ll hoist the mainsail.”

  “I’m nervous. What if I ruin something? This is a very expensive boat.”

  “I’m right here to help you. You’re brave as hell, Haley French. I’ve seen you in action. Compared to heading up a hurricane refugee camp, sailing is a piece of cake.”

  Once he had the boat in position, he guided her over to the winch and slipped his arms on either side of her waist to show her how to wrap the halyard line in a clockwise direction around the winch drum.

  “Just enough times so you can hold the line without it slipping, but as the sail goes up, you’ll need to add another wraparound or two,” he explained.

  His breath was warm on her ear. It tickled and she almost giggled but managed to bite back the giddy sound.

  “Now what?” she asked, resisting the urge to lean back against him just so she could feel his muscled chest against her spine.

  “You get to jump.”

  “Off the board?”

  “Nope, on the halyard line. Remember what the halyard line does?”

  “Raises the sail.”

  He chucked her under the chin gently. “Good job.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “Stand at the mast where the halyard is just above your head.”

  “Let me guess, I jump up to yank the halyard downward.”

  “Exactly. I’ll be in the cockpit taking up the slack in the line by pulling on the rope that’s wrapped around the winch.”

  “I think I’m beginning to see how this works.”

  “When the sail reaches the top, the load will increase so that jumping will no longer be effective. At that point I’ll grind the winch until the sail is at the top.”

  “Ooh,” she said, “there you go with the dirty words again.”

  Holy Oreos, French. Will you stop with the flirting? The man is hung up on another woman. Just shut your gob already.

  What was really disconcerting was the fact that she never acted like this. Ever. What was it about Jeb that turned her into a silly schoolgirl? She was acting like an eleven-year-old backstage at a Justin Bieber concert.

  “Ready?” Jeb asked.

  “Ready,” Haley confirmed.

  “Pull the halyard.”

  She jumped for the halyard line, grabbed it and started tugging. Jeb had moved to the cockpit, taking up the slack. As they worked together, the mainsail began to rise.

  The sail flapped gaily. She was so relieved. This was fun. She suppressed the urge to do a little jig. But halfway to the top of the mast, the halyard hung up and no matter how hard she pulled, she could not get it to budge.

  “Er, Jeb,” she called over to him. “I think I goofed up.”

  “The luff is jammed. Common occurrence. Best way for you to learn. Just stop pulling on the halyard and I’ll show you how to clear the jam.” He crooked an index finger for her to come over to where he was standing.

  The second she was within touching distance of him, every nerve ending in her body tingled and sang. Really, Haley? This is getting pathetic.

  They got the sail back on track and Haley got her body under control, sort of. They pulled and tugged, winched and ground until the mainsail reached the top of the mast and it filled with wind. Once it was fully hoisted, Jeb showed her how to secure the halyard with the jammer and they moved on to the spinnaker.

  Once the sails were hoisted, she and Jeb cleaned up the spaghetti of rope lying about the deck. When it was over, she was perspiring and a little breathless from all the unusual exertion.

  Jeb took up his place at the helm and Haley was free to take a seat and enjoy the fruits of their labor, and oh, my goodness, it was exhilarating. She never expected sailing to feel so freeing.

  Her hair blew across her face with the wind at their backs, her bare feet rested on the slick, polished fiberglass, the sound of the sails flapping and the rigging clanging against the mast, the beer that Jeb had passed to her cool in her hand.

  It was so peaceful. The water was so utterly blue, the sun so shimmery bright it bleached everything it touched. She took a sip of the beer and it slid back sweetly bitter on her tongue. Her gaze gathered the horizon. A few cheerful white clouds played tag across the sky, and in the distance, she saw something and her heart leaped with joy.

  “Dolphins!” she cried. “Jeb, it’s a school of dolphins and they’re swimming right along with us.”

  “They’re curious creatures and they’ll often follow boats.”

  “But we’re going so fast and they’re catching up to us! It’s like they’re playing chase.” Her heart was thumping as she hung over the side of the boat, the dolphins overtaking them. “They’ve got spots on them.”

  “Atlantic Spotted Dolphins.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Not a very unique name.”

  “Jackie would call them Stenella frontalis.”

  There it was. The reminder of the reason Jeb was making this journey. A bit of joy leaked out of the moment. Good grief, Haley. Knock it off.

  She turned her gaze back to the dolphins. The lead dolphin was almost beside her. He was close to eight feet long and was speckled with swirls of white spots all over his body. A polka-dot dolphin. She laughed.

  “They’re not born with spots, but get them as they age. Sort of like the reverse of fawns. By the time they’re old, they’re covered in spots.”

  She rested her chin on her arm, stared ou
t at the blue sea and the gray speckled dolphins, and a sense of utter happiness closed over her. She shut her eyes for a moment, savoring the feeling so she could pull out the memory later when she needed cheering up.

  When she opened her eyes again, the exuberant dolphins were in a free-for-all around the ship. Like synchronized swimmers, they leaped and spun, somersaulted and cartwheeled. What graceful athletes. What gregarious creatures.

  Their zestful sense of play reminded her of someone else she knew.

  Haley peeked another glance over at Jeb.

  The wind tousled his hair. His hands were on the wheel. His grin was wide and toothy, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Wow, he was so gorgeous.

  Her heart did an aerial pirouette, rivaling the dolphins’ acrobatics.

  Back again she went to the dolphins, torn between the beauty of the sea and the handsome man at the wheel.

  The lead dolphin made eye contact with her, barked an adorable noise that she could hear above the rush of the wind, his mouth stretched in a grin as compelling as Jeb’s. As if he were saying, “Come play.”

  The creature seemed so self-aware, as if something special was going on inside its head. She was awestruck, humbled and grateful. So grateful that fate had put her on this boat to have this beautiful experience. It was worth the anxiety of being an accidental stowaway, fully made up for being drugged by Rick Armand.

  She’d never felt so connected to the sea, to the earth, to the tides, to the sky. She was part of nature, not just moving through it or reacting against it. The rhythm of the ocean was within her. She felt a part of it in a way she’d never experienced before and it was a deeply moving moment.

  Jeb chuckled. “It’s fun to see you get so excited over something as simple as dolphins.”

  “It might be simple to you,” she said, “but to me, it’s miraculous.”

  “I know you’ve seen dolphins before around St. Michael’s.”

  “Yes, but I’ve never been so close. I’ve never looked a dolphin in the eye and felt—”

  “Connected,” he finished for her.

  Ah, he understood.

  She was such a latecomer to the party. How had she not realized how incredibly special these wild creatures were? How strongly they could affect you. Immediately, she felt sorry for all the people on the land. For everyone who never got to experience this liberating high.

  A dolphin from the middle of the pack pulled closer to the sailboat. So close that if Haley leaned over she could reach out and touch the dolphin’s smooth, wet spotted back. The dolphin went down under the water, and when it appeared again, there was a sleek little surprise swimming under the scoop of its body. She was a mother!

  “Oh, look, there’s a baby!” Rapturously, Haley leaped to her feet.

  “Haley! Be careful,” Jeb called out.

  She spun around to see what he was cautioning her about.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

  The boom swung around and came right toward her, but her landlubber brain could not process the danger fast enough. By the time her muscles coiled to jump, it was too late. The boom clipped her in the midsection, knocking her to the floor of the boat.

  Ooph!

  All the air rushed from her body and Haley lay gasping like a guppy, staring up at the clear blue sky. Her ears rang and her stomach quivered.

  Then a face blotted out the sky and the only thing she could see was Jeb, his brow knitted in a concerned frown.

  “Haley, are you all right?”

  She tried to nod, but since she couldn’t yet breathe, the effort was moot.

  His arms were around her, warm and comforting, and he was dragging her to safety out of the way of the boom.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “You’re going to be all right.”

  She was a nurse. She knew that. The wind had been knocked out of her, nothing more, but it was a helpless feeling, not being able to draw in air. An edgy panic hovered, waiting to attack.

  Jeb crouched beside her, rubbed her back with an open palm. “Easy, easy.”

  The crisp cottony scent of his shirt mingled with the smell of sun and ocean and got tangled up in her nose. His chest was directly to her right. All she had to do was turn her head and her face would be buried against his chest.

  She was so unnerved by the urge that she couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. Still couldn’t manage to breathe more than two thready, inconsequential inhalations.

  “Haley.” He sank down on his knees, positioning his murmuring mouth at the level of her ear. His hand felt so good at her back.

  Without fully knowing why, she did turn toward him. His mouth was beside her lips now.

  Almost touching.

  “Jeb,” she whispered and that was all it took.

  His mouth was on hers, delicious as salted caramel. She knew that just like the moment with the dolphins, this was an experience she would never forget: the sound of the billowy sails flap-flap-flapping in the Atlantic breeze; the summer sun beaming down bright and hot, shining a million tiny fractured lanterns over the choppy caps of blue water; the smell of briny ocean spray; this handsome man, hard with muscles and pecan-colored hair, kissing a practical woman who’d forgotten what it was like to have fun.

  Haley stored this memory in the vault of her mental photo album and swore to pull it out from time to time when she needed a reminder of how utterly sweet life could be.

  Jeb had a knowing mouth. It had been places. Tasted many sophisticated things. Kissed many things: the small of a woman’s back, the nape of a neck, earlobes. She wanted him to explore all those places on her, but although hope perched like a bird on her shoulder, she knew the bird could never fly.

  Not with this man. His heart belonged to another.

  She should break off the kiss. She knew it. Her brain was yelling at her, Do something! Anything! Just stop kissing him!

  But she did none of those things.

  Instead, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her.

  Who was she? What was she doing? She felt as if she were channeling some spritely mermaid turning the tables on a handsome fisherman by catching him in her net. Oddly thrilling, that image.

  The taste of him nested in her head, created a home there. Fizzy champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries and buttered lobster and caviar. Not that she’d ever eaten caviar, but he tasted how she thought caviar might taste.

  You are in such trouble, whimpered her brain.

  Butt out, retorted her body.

  His lips sapped her energy, drained her free will like the receding tide pulling away from the shore, leaving boulders jutting up from the shoals, exposing things better left hidden, like seaweed and broken seashells and man-made refuse. Leaving her raw and vulnerable and helpless to resist his touch.

  The kiss was a thrill beyond thrills. She felt ripe and achy and ready to be plucked. Rationally, she did not want this but she hungered for it. Hungered for him.

  She tilted back her head, clung to his neck with the curve of one arm. He took the kiss deep, his tongue sliding in to do blissful damage to her self-control. Their tongues were completely bonded as she took up the play and gave back as good as she got.

  A sound welled up from deep in his throat, vibrated through him and into her, and Haley lit up. She’d delighted him!

  Before her normal rational common sense could rally, before she planted her palms against his chest and pushed him away, before her sense of shame roused from having been anesthetized by Jeb’s perfect mouth and energetic tongue, Haley lapped up every bit of his attention, reveling in the exquisiteness she would never experience again.

  It was brilliant.

  Then, as all brilliant moments must, it collapsed.

  Jeb moved away, muttered an apology, cursed softly under his breath and left a frozen slab of emptiness icing up her heart.

  7

  Lifeline—A line or wire all around the boat, held up with stanchions, to prevent falli
ng overboard

  FOR THE REMAINDER of the day, Haley avoided him.

  Jeb couldn’t fault her. He’d behaved abominably. He’d tried so hard to be good, to resist the temptations of her gorgeous body in that tiny little pink bikini. Maybe Jackie had been right all along. Maybe he was incapable of commitment.

  That saddened him.

  He really did want to change, but was redemption beyond his control? Would pleasures of the flesh always woo him? Would he ever master his body? How could he prove to Jackie that he’d changed when he couldn’t even prove it to himself?

  Disheartened, he’d stayed at the helm until dusk. Haley had disappeared belowdecks after he’d kissed her, mumbling something about the sun having given her a headache. He knew the sun wasn’t the source of her pain, but rather, his inexcusable behavior.

  He sailed until night dropped around them like a curtain and the smell of onions, garlic and cumin wafted up from the lower deck. His stomach grumbled and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since the scrambled eggs and toast that Haley had prepared for him that morning.

  He’d just dropped anchor and lowered the sails when she appeared on the deck, moonlight shining off her guileless face.

  “Dinner’s ready,” she said.

  “You didn’t have to make dinner.”

  “I needed a job to do.” She’d put his T-shirt on over the bikini—thankfully. Her feet were bare and she used the toes of her right foot to scratch the calf of her left leg. It was a simple gesture and shouldn’t have been at all sexy, but dammit, it was. “I’m not an idle person.”

  “I can eat up here if you like.”

  A slight smile flitted across her mouth. “Putting yourself in the doghouse?”

  “I deserve to be there.”

  “Cut yourself some slack,” she said. “You’re only human.”

  That surprised him. “You’re not mad at me?”

  She shrugged. “Look, it happened in a split second of weakness. I’m as much to blame as you are, but we can get past this. You’re in love with Jackie and I’m just along for the ride. It was never my intention to get in your way. We’ve got a few more days alone out here together, so let’s not make a bigger deal of this than it is.”