like a lot of cash.”
“I’ll get there eventually.”
“You could take out a loan to get her in shape right away,” he said as he rounded the Chevy’s blunt nose to stand next to her.
“Using what as collateral? I don’t own anything. Besides, I don’t like being in debt.” Sure, she’d saved a lot of money living at her grandfather’s, which she’d done mostly to please Natalie, but she’d used much of those savings to overhaul the engines and get Obsession truly seaworthy. She was living off the rest until she was ready to launch her charter business.
Dave nodded, then squinted at the sky glowing yellow, tingeing into orange. “Will you be okay living aboard in the yard another few days?”
“Yeah. I’ve got box fans.”
“If you get hot,” and he winked, “you know where I live.”
She smiled as she shrugged her bag onto her shoulder. Dave waved and strode off to the shabby apartments adjacent to the marina. A moment later, only seagull cries and the occasional metallic clang of a loose sailboat halyard slapping its mast pierced the air. Early evening, the sun was just thinking about dropping behind the western shed housing the covered boat slips. Seagulls arced overhead, headed home.
Chris walked past the line of small boats propped on jack stands in dry dock. At the yard’s end, Obsession loomed over them. The yacht’s deep-V hull gave her a beefy, broad-shouldered attitude. In the water, she was a large boat. Out of it, she was a behemoth.
Dave had been right. The fresh coat of black bottom paint made her look good, at least from the bottom down, kind of like a nice pair of heels on a bag lady. But it was a start. Beneath the bent railings and chalky fiberglass, the cracked windows and dubious plumbing, a grande dame waited to emerge. Chris ran her hand along the yacht’s side as she walked toward the tall ladder that led up to the aft deck.
Home.
Chris knew in her bones the old man had intended the yacht to be an insult but he didn’t know Chris. And he certainly hadn’t known she’d love the boat at first sight. The yacht was fundamentally sound—solid hull, reliable engines, no severe water damage—despite being neglected for the better part of two decades. For Chris, abandoning her offshore rig mechanical engineering job to get her captain’s license had merely traded one hands-on skill for another.
The old man had hoped to leave her a money pit but she’d turn his insult into a gift if it killed her.
After living aboard since her grandfather passed away, she could tell which bilge pump was running by sound, when the water tanks needed freshening by smell, and when the engine oil needed changing by feel. She’d crawled all over the yacht—into every bilge area, into every nasty, stinking little hole—to see for herself what needed to be done. Now if only she had a lot more cash, she’d be able to do almost all of the restoration work herself.
Just over seventy feet from bowsprit to swim platform, Obsession had been built along the lines of the old classic motor yachts. From the bow, the pilothouse, which contained the lower helm station, swept back to the main living area. The living area had a facing dinette and galley, and behind them a salon—a living room, as Chris explained to landlubber friends—that stretched the width of the boat’s interior. Further aft, the salon’s rear sliding door opened onto a spacious covered deck. Atop the pilothouse and salon was the bridge deck, where Chris planned to steer at the upper helm during nice weather. Down in Galveston, that was ten months out of the year. Most of the sleeping quarters were below, deep in the hull: two large cabins and two crew cabins.
She swung up the ladder to the aft deck and dropped her bag on the teak table she’d recently coaxed from weathered and stained back into golden glory. Her first varnish attempt, and it looked pretty darn good. Now if only the rest of her “little projects” would go as well.
Her heirloom quilt drooped across a pair of deck chairs in the shade, drying after a careful hand wash early that morning. She tested the material between her thumb and forefinger. Yes, nearly dry, the fabric just as fine and solid as the day she and her mother had pulled it from the quilting frame after months of hand stitching. Chris traced the intricate mariner’s compass that emblazoned the exact center like a bull’s-eye. Funny how all things come together, she thought. Never in a million years would she have imagined at the age of eight that she’d live on a boat or drape the mariner’s compass across her stateroom bed or have earned her captain’s license.
Snagging a bottled water from the minifridge, she settled into a third deck chair and tried not to see visions of her destroyed life jacket, its yellow-white stuffing sticking out like a half-popped kernel of corn. At least her hands had stopped shaking.
Her cell trilled and she fished it out of her bag with a sigh. The screen flashed UNKNOWN. Probably Natalie, calling from overseas on the never-ending, globe-hopping honeymoon.
Natalie, perfect granddaughter that she was, had followed their grandfather’s wishes and married a rich businessman. It was like Natalie to do it a mere two months after meeting the guy at the old man’s funeral. There’d been plenty of business acquaintances, but Natalie had latched onto the blond bodybuilder type’s arm and held on with a bulldog persistence that somehow managed to be both feminine and suitably mournful. Predictably, she had failed to introduce him to her sister.
It was like Natalie to get everything she wanted at the drop of a hat, Chris thought. And she had impeccable timing, too, always knowing when Chris would be home and available to talk.
“Chris?” echoed hollowly over the connection when she picked up.
“Hey, Natalie. Where are you this time?”
Natalie gave a slightly breathless laugh. “Rome! I never thought I’d be here. It’s gorgeous. You’d love it!”
“Last week France, this week Italy,” Chris said, feeling the accident’s presence fade from the edges of her mind at Natalie’s energetic voice. “Where to next?”
“Who knows? Jerome always surprises me. Greece, I’m hoping. They’ve got some great bazaars there.”
“Shoes and designer dresses, right? Scarves and figurines and upholstery fabric? Not that you need to upholster anything,” Chris teased. “You don’t stay in one place long enough. At least you’re out of the Far East.”
“Hey, we’ll make it back to the States. Eventually. But wait till you see the clothes I’m shipping to you. Don’t you dare wear them to work on that awful boat.”
Chris grimaced. “Frilly girlie-girl wear.”
“A more feminine style, yeah.” Natalie laughed again. “Something that shows off your legs, proves you have a waist, attracts men. You know.”
Chris let her groan signal the end of that bit of conversation. “Tell me about Rome.”
“You’d love it. Crammed full of smelly little cars and everyone driving too fast. Jerome says he’s never seen chaos on the road like this.”
“Sounds like Houston,” Chris remarked dryly. “Except the cars are SUVs here. How is Jerome? Still treating you like a queen?”
“You know how it goes.” Natalie’s voice dropped. “Sometimes the honeymoon’s over even when it’s not.”
Chris
