by Cap Daniels
We called a cab and headed for The Peninsula. It was still happy hour in The Peninsula bar, so it was martinis and old-fashioneds for us. Penny caught the eye of every man in the bar and the ire of every woman. It was fun to watch.
“What’s in an old-fashioned?” she asked, staring at my drink. “I’ve never had one.”
I handed her my glass.
I don’t know if there’s some school women go to when they turn twenty-one where they learn to do things that drive men crazy, but if there is, Penny graduated cum laude. She never took her eyes from mine while the golden whiskey poured from the tumbler, across her lips, and onto her waiting tongue. Pressing her lips together, she savored the taste and then swallowed with a sensual sigh that hushed the room around me.
Standing on her tiptoes, she held my arm, pressed her body against mine, and whispered, “I think our table is ready. Thanks for the drink. It was wonderful.”
I swallowed hard, not certain what to say or do.
She grazed my cheek with her nose and lips, then playfully tugged on my earlobe with her teeth. “I like that you liked watching me do that. Now let’s eat, then maybe we can see what else you like watching me do.”
Yep, magna cum laude.
I don’t know why I thought she was a simpleminded childish girl, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. She was well-spoken, well-read, and fun . . . not to mention beautiful and seductive.
Her steak was a defibrillation away from being back on the ranch grazing with the other cows. I suppose that’s a Texas thing, but I preferred mine a little closer to medium. We laughed and talked for almost two hours over a spectacular dinner. Desserts were something flaming and something chocolate, both of which were amazing. We left The Peninsula satisfied with everything about our evening.
She held my arm as we strolled down the sidewalk. “Thank you for dinner, Chase. Everything was wonderful, especially the company. You never told me what was in that old-fashioned.”
“You don’t care what’s in that drink. You wanted me to watch you drink it. Isn’t that right?” I winked at her.
“Well, shucks,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what you’re talkin’ bout, Mister Chase. I’m just a simple little East Texas girl.”
“You may be pure East Texas, Miss Penny, but there’s nothing simple nor girl about you. You’re magnificent and one hundred percent woman. Every man in that place wanted to be me tonight. Thank you for that.”
“You’re too kind,” she said. “You know there wasn’t a woman in there tonight who wouldn’t have clawed my eyes out to go home with you. You know you’re a tall, lean hunk of a man. You’re not fooling anybody.”
“Nope,” I said. “I’m just a sailor having dinner with a beautiful woman. That’s all. Oh, and it’s two ounces of extremely good rye whiskey, three dashes of bitters, a sugar cube, ice, a splash of water, and a lemon twist.”
“What?”
“That’s the recipe for the old-fashioned you pretended to want to know.”
“Oh, that,” she said sheepishly. “Actually, I wanted an excuse to make you squirm. I think it worked.”
“Yeah, you might say that,” I admitted, a little embarrassed.
She held my arm as we walked in silence down the street. After several minutes, she asked, “So, are you really married?”
I laughed. “No, I’m not married. I’ve never been married. Why would you ask a question like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that you’re handsome, well mannered, and you’ve obviously got a great job. I don’t get why you’re still single.”
I stopped walking and faced her. “I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours and you’re already asking why I’m not married?”
“Yeah, well, some guys are assholes, and . . . well, I don’t like those kinds of guys. I’m hoping you’re not one of them.”
“I suppose we all fit that description at times, but I’m not married. But . . .”
“I knew there was going to be a but.” She let go of my hand and put a foot of distance between us. “There’s always a but.”
“No, no, it’s not what you think. I’m not married, and I don’t have a girlfriend or anything like that. It’s just that . . . well, I did have a girlfriend.”
“Was it serious?” she asked innocently.
“For me it was, but not for her. It’s hard to explain. It’s pretty complicated.”
“Is or was?” she asked.
“What?”
“It is complicated or it was complicated?”
I hadn’t thought about that. Penny had a way of simplifying things. Maybe that’s a skill I should learn.
“I suppose it was complicated,” I said, somewhat uncertain.
“So, it’s over?”
“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that since she’s dead.” I had said it before I’d realized I was going to.
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“She died in an accident in Miami a few weeks ago.”
“Then of course you’re not ready for a relationship. You’re still grieving. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
I forced a smile and squeezed her hand.
After enough time had passed to avert awkwardness, she twirled around in front of me, took both of my hands in hers, and danced backward down the sidewalk. “So, we can have some fun then. Nothing serious, right?”
I shrugged.
“Besides,” she said, “it’s not like I’m looking for a real relationship anyway. I’m living on my friend’s boat and traveling constantly. I don’t have time or space for a boyfriend right now. It’s really cool to get to hang out with a sweet guy like you.”
The nonstop Penny had returned.
“Okay,” she said, “so now that we’ve settled that, are you like, a good sailor, or what?”
“What on Earth are you talking about?”
“I mean, are you a good sailor, or do you need help?”
“No, I don’t think I need any help. I’ve sailed a few thousand miles in the past couple of years, so I’m pretty comfortable at sea. Why do you ask?”
“Because we’re both going to the same place, and I thought if you needed help, we could all stay together and you wouldn’t get lost or anything, but I guess that’s silly. You won’t get lost. I mean, you haven’t gotten lost yet, I don’t guess. I mean, I don’t know, but you know what I mean.”
Wow, she’s really getting wound up.
“Relax,” I said. “No one’s getting lost. It’s a short little coastal cruise. What could possibly go wrong?”
“I don’t know. I think it’d be cool to sail in a convoy, but I don’t guess two boats makes a convoy, so maybe like an armada or whatever. Anyway, it was just an idea.”
The psychologist in me wanted to understand how she could be so calm and sophisticated at dinner, and then turn into a linguistic Tasmanian devil half an hour later.
“I like your idea. Traveling together is always a good idea as long as both boats perform similarly. Our boats are nearly identical, so we can easily sail together if Kip and Teri want to do that. It sounds fun to me.”
She clapped her hands and did a happy puppy dance like Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoon when it was suppertime. It was cute, but a bit bizarre.
“So, thank you so much for a really great dinner. I loved everything—especially the old-fashioned. Or at least the look on your face when I tried your old-fashioned. I think we should call it a night. It’s not like this is a real date or anything like that. I mean we’re just friends hanging out for now, right? And we’re going to sail together, and we can hang out when we get to North Carolina. And I can’t believe how cool you are, and I’m really really glad I met you. Thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you. Okay, let’s go home now before one of us says something dumb and makes a really great night turn sour. We don’t want that, right?”
“No,” I said as I put my hand in the air to hail the oncoming cab. “We definitely don’t want that. And I’m glad we met, too.
You’re a lot of fun, Penny . . . high-energy, but a lot of fun.”
When we stepped out of the cab back at the marina, Penny put her hand in the center of my chest. “Wait, stand right there.”
I did as she ordered. I couldn’t wait to see what craziness she would come up with next.
Some workers had cut up a tree that had been dangerously close to falling on the marina sign. They’d left the pieces of the tree trunk lying by the edge of the sidewalk, obviously planning to come back the next day to pick them up. Penny rolled one of the pieces from the pile and stood it on its end, right in front of me, then she reached for my hands and climbed carefully onto the stump. That put us face-to-face. Withdrawing her hands from mine, she threw her arms around my neck and planted an astonishing kiss squarely on my lips. She kissed with the same passion she talked, and it was breathtaking.
The stump toppled over, and she clung to me like a monkey, wrapping her legs around my waist. I held her, enjoying the kiss and the feel of her body. For the first time, I didn’t see Anya’s face when I closed my eyes. Penny wasn’t picket-fence, two-point-five-kids wife material, but I was glad she’d stumbled into my life.
She hopped down to the sidewalk. “That was spectacular. You’re a terrific kisser. Now that we’ve got that whole first real kiss thing out of the way, we can relax and have some fun, right?”
“Whatever you say, you little maniac.”
15
Mayday!
Anytime two sailboats are pointed in the same direction, it’s a race. Every sailor believes he can tweak an extra half knot more out of his boat than the guy in the other boat. Kip was no exception. Even though the boat he was skippering was two feet shorter than mine, he believed he could outsail Aegis and me, but the jockey is only as good as the horse beneath him. And I liked my horse. In fact, I liked my horse so much that I gave Team Kip a head start since he only had Teri and Penny for a crew, and I had Clark, my ace-in-the-hole.
It was one hundred three miles from the sea buoy at Fort Sumter Range outside Charleston Harbor, to the whistle buoy at the entrance to Bald Head Shoal Reach off Wilmington. The losers would buy dinner at the restaurant of the winners’ choosing.
Clark watched them motor away from the marina. “Don’t you think we should get under way?”
“I figure I’ll give them two miles before we give chase. I think we’ll overtake them in less than three hours. We’re longer, much lighter, and I have a better crew. We should be a knot faster than them once we’re under sail.”
Clark spun in a circle as if he’d lost something. “Where’s this better crew you speak of?”
“What? You’re the best crew I’ve ever had.”
“I’m the only crew you’ve ever had.”
“You’re still the best,” I said.
Crude Awakening disappeared around the bend and into the Fort Sumter Range. Considering the source of the money that bought Teri’s boat, I thought the name was perfect.
My watch said they’d been under way for almost ten minutes. If Crude Awakening was powered like Aegis, she should make ten knots under diesel power, so it was time to spur my horse. We lit the fires and pulled in our fenders at twelve minutes past eight a.m. As we entered the Fort Sumter Range, we saw our competitor’s silhouette against the morning sun. Just clear of the jetty, Kip turned Crude Awakening to port, hoisted and trimmed her sails, and set off close-hauled into twenty-two knots of wind dead out of the east. He’d already made his first mistake, and I’d make him pay dearly for it.
A rhumb line drawn from the tip of the Charleston jetty to our finish line at the whistle buoy shortened our planned route distance based on sea buoy to whistle buoy by almost thirteen nautical miles. If it were all open ocean, that would’ve been an enormous advantage, but Kip hadn’t studied the charts like I had. He hadn’t considered Cape Romain Shoal twenty-eight miles north. He’d be forced to turn east to avoid the shoals, putting him in irons with the wind on his nose for the easterly leg.
We’d agreed that the only rule in our contest would be that once we set our sails, we’d never start our engines again until we passed the finish line. That meant Kip would have to make a one hundred twenty degree turn and tack out to sea while actually losing ground toward our destination. I had him already, and he didn’t even know it.
Clark and I motored seaward into the punishing east wind. Six- to eight-foot seas pounded into our bows, sending spray thirty feet into the air, but we didn’t slow down. Aegis could take the pounding, and once we made the northward turn and set our sails, we’d never have to turn the wheel again until we’d sailed past the whistle buoy with Crude Awakening well astern.
I’d identified and tagged Teri’s boat with Aegis’s radar. The height of our radar dome gave us almost thirty miles of coverage, so we’d always know where they were, unless, of course, we pulled into a thirty-one-mile lead, which wasn’t likely. I had little doubt about who’d be buying dinner in Wilmington.
Abeam the sea buoy, thirteen miles seaward of the Charleston jetty, I brought Aegis about on a close reach and set the autopilot for a spot five hundred feet west of the whistle buoy. The diesels fell silent and my horse settled into her long, graceful stride at fourteen knots of speed through the water and upon, just over a knot of northward-flowing current. In six and a half hours, we’d come to a hover at the entrance to the Bald Head Shoals Reach, and we would wait for Crude Awakening to arrive.
As much as I’d loved the feel of my first Aegis, the monohull, it was impossible to complain about the performance and comfort of my catamaran. She was stable, fast, dependable, and luxurious.
The wind freshened to twenty-eight knots, and we were forced to reef the genoa to avoid overstressing the rigging, but we didn’t lose any speed. Everything was going perfectly, so I took the opportunity to sneak a peek at our competition. As I’d predicted, Kip had tacked east southeast before Cape Romain to avoid putting Teri’s boat hard aground. They were still technically closer to the finish line than we were, but they were heading away from the finish, while Clark and I were making over a quarter of a mile a minute and heading straight for our target.
“How’d your date with Ms. Penny-talks-a-lot go last night?”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Oh, really?” Clark said. “Well, let’s break it down. You took a ferry out to Fort Sumter for the afternoon.”
“That’s not a date,” I said. “A lot of people who aren’t on a date go to Fort Sumter.”
“You’re right, but I’m not finished.” He smiled mischievously. “You then came home, showered, shaved, put on a suit, and went to dinner at The Peninsula.”
“Yeah, well, that still doesn’t necessarily make it a date.”
“It doesn’t,” he conceded, “but it’s what you didn’t do that makes it a date.”
I tried to digest what he’d said and sort out where he could possibly be going with such a statement. “Okay, I give up. What didn’t I do that made it a date?”
“You didn’t call me after dinner to hang out like you said you were going to. That means you and the thousand-words-a-minute lady wanted to be alone after dinner. And that, my good man, is what makes it a date. You kissed her good night, didn’t you?”
I felt my face flush, and I shifted my stance away from him.
“Aha! I knew it!”
“It wasn’t like that,” I said, not knowing why I felt the need to justify kissing a beautiful woman who’d technically kissed me.
“Earl from the End is going to be jealous.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. How’d it go with Hope or Faith or Charity or Benevolence or whoever you went out with?”
“You’re a funny guy, you know that?” He threw a bottle of water toward me, and I snatched it from the air.
“Throwing things at me isn’t an effective method of attack unless you can throw faster than ninety-five-miles-per-hour.”
He didn’t hesitate. “It’s not the fastballs that get you. It’s those curv
es . . . like Penny’s.”
I flicked the bottle toward him, emptying its contents, and he made no effort to dodge the cold water.
I glanced back at the radar screen. “We’ve put them astern, and they’re still heading east southeast.”
Clark joined me at the helm and watched as the radar return for Crude Awakening fell further behind.
“How far do you think he’ll run to the east before he turns back north?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It depends on whether he tagged us up on his radar. If he didn’t, he won’t have any idea what sort of line we’re taking, but even if he did, he’ll fall in right behind us, and there’s no way he’ll ever catch up.”
“You’re one hell of a tactician, Captain. You beat ’em before they knew the race was on.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, “but sometimes one bad decision early on can screw up the rest of the race.”
That’s when it hit me. At Belmont Park in New York, I’d lied to my training officer, Dutch, about the gorgeous Russian sniper I’d seen on the water tower. That single decision led me down a road that still threatened to kill me. I hadn’t thought about Anya in almost twenty-four hours, and I’d summoned her memory by analyzing my competition in a sailboat race.
I watched the radar screen and saw Crude Awakening sail across our course line and continue eastward. She was making good speed into the wind and waves, but she was still headed away from the finish line. I almost felt sorry for Kip . . . but not quite.
As the distance between us grew and I became solidly convinced that we couldn’t lose, I brought down the mainsail to keep the race interesting.
“Getting cocky, are we?” said Clark.
“No, not cocky. I don’t want to have to wait too long for them at the finish line. We have them by over ten miles right now, and no matter what they do, that distance is going to keep increasing.”
“I like cocky Chase.”
“I told you it’s not cocky.” I scanned the radar. “Look, they’re . . .” The target I’d tagged as Crude Awakening was gone from the screen.
“Where are they?” Clark asked.
