On a Starlit Ocean

by Charlotte Nash

  Alex grunted, and reached up to steady the boom, which was twitching in the breeze. Erin fixed on his hand, the familiar way he touched the boat, the long fingers, smooth and brown. Maybe she should invite him downstairs.

  “Gus would be happy about this resort and regatta plan, then?”

  “Everyone’s happy about it,” Erin said, quickly.

  Catching her tone, Alex raised his eyebrows. “And yet, you don’t sound like one of them. You didn’t look too pleased when you were leaving the meeting the other night.”

  Erin took a breath, wrongfooted, a thousand competing thoughts in her head. Like, why had he noticed what she’d been like? And, what was she supposed to do about Tristan’s plan anyway? The resort had been a long string of broken promises, but maybe it could be different this time, if someone who really cared was involved.

  But did that person have to be Tristan?

  It gave her a terrible headache. Things were so much easier when her gut told her clearly what to do.

  “Wow, sounds complicated,” Alex said, observing her silence.

  Erin shrugged, and even with the beach she would forever think of as home right behind her, she said, “I don’t know how much it matters to me. I’m just passing through.”

  Was that disappointment in his eyes? Then he said, “Are you configured for cruising or racing below decks?”

  “Somewhere between. No fancy additions, but I still have cushions on the couch, and a mattress on the bed,” Erin said, with a small smile herself.

  He ghosted a smile. “I didn’t mean that to sound how it did.”

  “Sure.” She was familiar with this routine, all through the racing circuit, and expected events to turn sexy. But a minute later, she realised she’d misread him. Alex wanted to hear her answers.

  Sitting under the emerging stars, they discussed the boat, and which races she’d done last, and with what teams. He didn’t want to talk about his gym routine, or about himself at all. When she asked about his own sailing, he shrugged.

  “All that was years ago, now,” he said.

  Before Erin knew what had happened, she was telling him about the characters of the village, what it had been like years ago when the resort was open. The waves of people who washed in and out of the island every day, the carnival feel of the summers, and the lazy beach bonfire nights of the winters. The crazy storms that leapt up from the sea and thrashed them every few months, the backpackers and locals shoulder to shoulder under the big pavilion riding it out. Villagers going to the rescue of yachts that had snagged their keels on the reefs, and who worked in the resort as mechanics, gardeners and managers, instead of eking out an existence splitting their weeks with the mainland, as they were now.

  Time slipped like a racing hull through a glassy dawn sea as they sat together, nearly touching as the boat swayed under them.

  “You know, for just a moment up on that cliff, I thought you were a ghost,” he said finally.

  Erin turned her eyes on the distant bluff, barely visible against the night sky now, the moon not yet risen overhead.

  “You know, Dad always said—”

  She stopped herself, and as if the time-spell had broken, she remembered who he was. Who she was. What she had done. And how she was leaning in to him as if none of it mattered.

  She stood. “Better turn in. Early start tomorrow.”

  He stood, clearly confused by her abrupt change of mood. “I must have kept you from dinner.”

  She watched him step down off the deck, and find his shoes. He gave her a cautious smile before he turned down the jetty. Erin didn’t return it. Don’t go there, she thought as his footsteps faded. That man is a complication you don’t need. She sensed it in her reaction every time he turned to look back at her.

  She still had to make a decision about Tristan’s offer. If she didn’t take it, she would need another plan.

  She went back below decks to the charts spread out on the table. One was a huge coastal map, showing the state coast, the Great Haven island group a tiny speck. What were her other options, really?

  Hamilton Race Week further north was a month away, so she’d left it rather late to get on a crew, especially after being fired from her last one. Hardly a glowing endorsement for a new employer. She could probably call Ivan, who would be enjoying the summer in the Caribbean before breaking for the Block Island Race Week off Rhode Island. The billionaire was one of the best bosses she’d ever had. He’d paid reliably, and had been talking about a serious bid for Sydney to Hobart for several years. But he also liked his crew close, like family. And Erin didn’t want that right now.

  She pushed the charts away. Suddenly, the endless grind of team sailing, training, and travelling seemed exhausting. And while being home was painful, with all the eyes on her and the reminders and Tristan … the conversation with Alex had reminded her how much she did care about what happened here. Alex himself had nothing to do with it.

  She curled into the tight corner of her bunk, rocked to sleep by the gentle waves. Whether she was staying or going, she needed the Fair Winds in better shape.

  Early the next morning, Erin picked her way across the grass tufts down at the point. The sun was already baking on the dunes, but the point cabins had been built on stilts under the palm trees at the edge of the beach. They enjoyed almost year-round shade, and their out-of-the-way location made them an oddity in the village: most were owned by people who came across for the holidays, or who rented them out. Erin only had to take one look down the row to find the cabin with three wetsuits drying over the railing.

  Darren Travers opened the door in a pair of board shorts, his hair only fit for the bedroom, and his eyes scrunched up against the light. “Do you know what time it is?” he said.

  “Eight-thirty,” said Erin. “Wake up. I need to hire you for a job.”

  Travers pushed the door open and beckoned her inside. “Wait here.”

  Erin eyed the thick scar on his shoulder as he trudged into the bowels of his man-cave, before checking out the rest of the living room. Hmm, neater than your average single man. There were no empty bottles in the kitchen, no open food containers on the benches. A single plate was in the drying rack, and on the coffee table were two dive knives lying alongside their sheaths, with a bottle of lemon oil and a cleaning rag. She’d tipped enough men out of bunks over the years not to be worried about how they lived, as long as they did their job. But it was still pleasing to find someone who kept a tidy ship.

  When Travers came back, he’d pulled on an old battalion t-shirt and brushed his hair.

  “I would have picked you for an early riser,” Erin said.

  “I got up at dawn for twenty years, so now I sleep in when I want. What’s this about a job?”

  “I need my hull cleaned, the intakes too. Can you do it?”

  “Aw, man, hull cleaning? I’m a salvage and research diver.”

  “Can you do it or not?”

  Travers cracked a smile. “Yeah, I can do it. But not till next week. I’ve got a grid to finish for the university first.”

  “Can’t you just get up early and fit it in for me?”

  Travers affected a hurt expression. “Man, they could have made you a drill sergeant. You got somewhere else to be?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Look, Erin, I like your balls. But I love my job and I don’t do it half-cocked. You hire me to do something, I’ll do the best job you ever saw. So, give me till next week and I promise you that much. If you have to leave before then, that’s your call.” His smile turned coy. “Although, I’m betting with your sail still in Gus’s, you have a few days grace.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  She turned, her gaze lingering on his gear, lined up in its orderly rows. She didn’t like not being able to force her leaving options open earlier, but she also knew Travers wasn’t a man who played games.

  “Erin,” he said, as she was almost to the door.

  “Yeah, what?”
<
br />   “You okay there?”

  She looked around in surprise. He was a big man, bulky in the way of an old bodybuilder, muscle underneath a layer of hard-beer-drinking softness. She would never have picked him to ask such a question.

  “Fine,” she repeated.

  He shrugged. “Had to ask. See ya later.”

  But she wasn’t fine, not really. Last night talking with Alex may have reminded her how much she cared about this place, but also how much she no longer belonged here.

  Maybe it would be better to sail away tomorrow and not look back. But she wasn’t a coward, and that’s what it would be to leave Tristan without an answer, to leave her mother and Skye without a goodbye.

  And maybe, to leave Alex Bell the way she had last night.

  Chapter 5

  On Saturday morning, Alex took the launch back to the mainland, preparing himself for four nights of twelve-hour hospital ED shifts.

  Saturday night meant drinking, and that would lead to cases walking in the door around ten. Alex checked his watch, giving Wendy, the triage nurse, a significant glance.

  “Two stitch-ups, two head injuries and one MVA,” he said, laying down a ten dollar note.

  Wendy grinned, shaking her head. “You’re going to lose your money, Doc. Two MVAs, three stitch-ups, a broken leg and an MI. Plus something you’ve never seen before. It’s full moon. You have to allow for the crazy.”

  “That full moon stuff is rubbish,” Alex said. “I read the research.”

  Though they’d all have been happier to have a quiet night, it was bad luck to say it. Sailors weren’t the only superstitious ones. Even if Alex didn’t believe in that stuff, he had to work with people who did.

  Wendy was scoffing at him now. “I’ll give you rubbish, you young pup. I was working here before you could walk.”

  “That you were,” he said, offering her the proper respect.

  “Well, you’re a good boy. I’ll almost be sad to take your money.”

  The first case to appear was a young woman, concerned about her early pregnancy, and Alex was happy to reassure her when the Doppler showed a strong heartbeat. Next came two boys around eighteen, caps sideways, one holding his elbow and the other wearing fresh scrapes down his legs and arms. Alex sent the elbow to x-ray, but they couldn’t see a fracture. So the kid got a sling and an appointment to come back on Monday.

  Alex checked his watch – only nine-thirty. The second night shift doctor, Karen, arrived half an hour later. They stood around the triage desk with Wendy and two other nurses, drinking coffee and listening to the silence of the night.

  “Is there a town curfew we don’t know about?” Karen asked. “I mean, there’s not even any kids. Usually by this point, someone’s swallowed a button or got croup or asthma or something.”

  “This is why I have a bad feeling,” Wendy said.

  Alex grunted. He could feel it too, the gathering in the air, the wind pressure before a storm.

  The mayhem broke at a quarter to twelve. One moment, the ED was nearly empty, the next, it was a chaos of flashing lights, blood, and uniforms. A brawl had gone down at the town tavern: two men had been glassed. Another had a stab wound. Two more had facial injuries from fists.

  “How’s that evac coming?” Alex called to Wendy, as he checked the status of the stab wound man, who was conscious, his blood pressure holding. The wound was just under his ribcage, but Alex had no idea how deep it was. The man needed surgery, and better imaging than the small hospital could provide. He wondered idly if one of his more successful surgeon family members might be the one to take the case.

  “How’s the pain?” he asked, listening to the man’s chest, checking if the morphine he’d given was enough. The guy was well over six feet and built like a tanker. A short nod came in return. Alex moved on. Another of the glassing patients had damage to his eye, which would need a specialist. Another’s x-ray showed a fractured eye socket.

  It wasn’t until four am, when the orderly was mopping the floors, that Alex, Karen, Wendy and the nurses caught time for black coffee and a debrief.

  “I told you,” Wendy said. “Full moon.”

  Alex handed across the money. He was utterly wiped.

  Karen refilled his cup. “Bet you’re missing the island lifestyle now, Alex.”

  Alex smiled, but what flashed in his mind at that moment wasn’t the beaches or the palm trees, it was Erin Jacobs, leaning on her boat with those long suntanned legs. Wendy threw a sugar packet at him. “Earth to Alex? I said, how’s it going over there on Haven?”

  Alex pushed himself up in his seat. He knew better than to say anything about Erin; Wendy would be on to him in a flash. So he reached for the next closet thing.

  “Did you know a Dr Jacobs? He had the island practice a few years back, and used to work shifts here, too.”

  “Jacobs, Jacobs … can’t say that I do. But I’ve only been here three years.”

  “Name’s familiar,” Karen said. “I was at the district hospital before … I think I remember seeing that name on referrals.”

  “Any idea about what happened to him?”

  One of the nurses said, “Wasn’t he in a car crash or something?”

  Alex mulled on this. It didn’t fit. A car accident, however horrible, was a sadly common thing. People didn’t avoid talking about car crashes. They avoided talking about suicide. Or violent crime. Or maybe he was making too much of it. He was just exhausted. But the kernel of curiosity was still there as he pulled the blinds down against the sunlight in the visiting doctor’s flat. He’d seen the look on Erin’s face as she’d unwittingly mentioned her father. A look of pain and regret. He’d recognised both, because it was the same way he’d felt when he’d mentioned sailing.

  Two days later, Alex washed his face after another twelve-hour stint. The early sun streamed in the locker-room window, but his eyes felt full of fine sand that even three coffees were failing to shift. Alex knew he needed sleep, but Karen was in the middle of a case and they had to hand over before he left. He’d just pulled off his scrub shirt to change when he heard footsteps.

  “Alexander Bell? We meet at last.”

  Alex looked over, bleary-eyed, to see a man in a pinstripe suit standing in the locker-room door. His stomach flipped, wondering if this was a lawyer. But a hairline second later, he registered the familiar features, and his sleep-deprived brain switched gears. He’d seen this man before. At the town meeting.

  “You must be Tristan,” Alex said, extending his hand to his employer. “Glad we can finally meet in person.”

  “I know you were at the meeting the other night,” Tristan said. “I intended to find us some facetime, but well, there were a lot of questions. I trust everything in the island clinic is satisfactory?”

  “Looks like it,” Alex said, groping for his shirt. The first item of clothing he pulled from his bag was a pair of gym shorts. Man, he was tired. He paused, trying to remember something he knew was relevant. “Oh, Skye Jacobs mentioned something about generators being turned off at night, so we could use a back-up for the medical fridges.”

  “Of course.”

  Finally having found his shirt, Alex paused again. Tristan was waiting expectantly, as though there was an agenda for this conversation Alex had no idea about. “You didn’t come all the way over to the mainland just to ask me about the clinic?”

  “No, no. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  Alex checked his watch. “I need to do handover.”

  “I can wait.”

  Alex rubbed his forehead, his thoughts so sluggish. “Sorry, Tristan. I just finished my third night on the hop, and I’m well short of sharp. I really need to sleep. Can it wait till I’ve got some neurons to rub together?”

  “Just a few minutes. I think you’ll want to hear this. I’ll wait in the conference room.”

  Fifteen minutes later, having been left little choice, Alex found Tristan reclining in one of the boardroom-style chairs and looking out the b
ig window that faced the esplanade. Hearing Alex come in, he pushed himself up. “Nice refurb we did on this room, don’t you think? Best telemedicine system money can buy.”

  “Must admit I haven’t used it yet.”

  Tristan pushed a large takeaway cup across the table. “Only the good stuff. I guessed a double shot with two sugars,” he said.

  Alex, who never took sugar in coffee and only liked the barest grace of milk, wrapped his hands around the cup anyway. The room felt so cold; another symptom of needing sleep, he was having trouble regulating his body temperature. He wanted to go, but with his patchy professional history, he didn’t want to give his employer reason to dislike him.

  “They all speak very highly of you here,” Tristan said. “And I have a proposition, if you’ll permit me.”

  Alex raised a questioning eyebrow, wary, and harnessing all his will to concentrate on what Tristan was saying. He’d seen the man on stage at the town meeting – self-assured, friendly, and obviously used to getting his own way. If he was about to ask Alex for a favour, he’d need to be careful, especially because his temper could get the best of him when he was tired.

  “As you heard, the island’s future is taking an exciting turn. The resort is going to open again, and that means there’ll be hundreds more people there every day. Tourists of all demographics. With that scenario, it makes sense to restore the medical practice to full capacity, and to be able to support racing series when it gets going.”

  Tristan paused, tapping a finger on the table. “Would you be interested in a small changes of terms?”

  “You mean, alter our contract?”

  “For a permanent arrangement on the island. Give up the night shifts here, live by the beach, fully in control of your own practice.”

  “And be on-call?” Alex said, the reflex response of any doctor asked to run a solo practice.

  Tristan’s smile was quick. “The resort will employ a nurse, too. I can guarantee you wouldn’t be up more than one night a week.”

  Alex could feel the flash of anger inside him, his automatic response to anyone who tried to change an agreement. No one could make such a guarantee. He’d thought a long time about this job before he’d taken it. He couldn’t process what this change might mean, especially not now.