On a Starlit Ocean

by Charlotte Nash

  She’d just gone below when she heard what sounded like a man clearing his throat. Erin whirled and came back up to look, heart hammering, wondering if it somehow was Alex, who she’d been unable to shake from her thoughts since Saturday night. But the pier was empty. Then she glanced over the side of the yacht, and her heart sank.

  Tristan was sitting in a kayak, in an outfit that looked straight from a Kathmandu catalogue, the oar balanced across his lap. He held up two takeaway coffees. “I was about to knock,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s have that serious chat.”

  Erin was mildly conscious she was still in her pyjamas, her eyes full of sleep, and her hair a wild nest. She’d crewed enough boats not to be precious; people had to take it or leave it. But this was Tristan, who came with all those old guarded feelings. “You might let a girl wake up first.”

  “That’s what the coffee’s for. You going to throw me a line?”

  She tossed a rope over and left him to climb aboard while she went below to tug on a shirt and pull a brush through her hair. When she re-emerged, Tristan had settled himself on one of the cockpit benches and had put up the collapsible table, leaving plenty of room next to him for her to sit.

  “You didn’t get that coffee from Sandy’s,” Erin observed as she slipped into the seat opposite. “Don’t let her see you with those cups.”

  Tristan gave her a devilish smile. “I have a machine in the office. It’s easier than walking all the way down to the village.”

  Erin paused mid-sip. “You have an office? Where?”

  “In the old resort, of course. It’s just a part of a building we’ve cleared on the village side, near the airstrip, but I need somewhere to take meetings with the trades foreman.”

  “I didn’t realise work had actually started,” she said, thinking again about Alex’s secret spot.

  He nodded. “Survey’s putting down markers now. First contingent of heavy equipment will arrive next week to start demolition.”

  Erin’s first thought was of the peaceful rooftop, lost to the bulldozers. Her second was the memories of her childhood attached to every corner of the place – racing around the pools when they shouldn’t have been there, conducting secret scavenger hunts on school holidays. “You’re knocking it down?”

  “Well, not all of it,” Tristan said, seeing her expression. “But the accommodation wings out the back are structurally compromised. And the whole thing is dated – very eighties, very Skase – all those tacky fake gold taps and marble banisters. We need to bring it up to a suitable standard for hosting a big event here. For sophisticated people.”

  Erin swallowed her coffee – mmm, it was better than Sandy’s, too – sensing this was where she’d need to extricate herself from his plans, and actually look for a job that would keep the Fair Winds in keels and biscuits. She was hardly sophisticated. “I know you said we needed to chat, but I can see the resort is months off being ready. I’m used to jobs falling through in this business. I can still get on a crew for the Sydney to Hobart.”

  He sat back as if offended. “Erin. I promised details, and I meant it. So here it is: come on board as my Racing Director.”

  Erin blinked. “What?”

  “Races don’t organise themselves,” he said. “I have huge respect for you as a sailor, and you know the waters around Great Haven better than anyone. I have a big sponsor nearly over the line for the regatta, but he’ll need convincing to put his money in. So the success of the pilot races is critical. Those start in just a few weeks.”

  “A few weeks?”

  “We have to be able to demonstrate what we can do here, and I want you to take the lead.”

  “But that’s too much for one person, and I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “I already have a team working it. Sales, marketing, merchandise, all that. But we need someone who knows sailing. Who knows it here. I want you to set the course, and tap your contacts to see what other teams we can tempt to race. They’re all heading north after the Sydney to Gold Coast right now, ready for the capturing.”

  Erin laughed. “You can’t be serious. I mean, I have no experience doing something at that level. I’m crew or strategist, nothing like a director.”

  “A hundred-thousand a year says I’m serious,” he said, then grinned when she couldn’t speak.

  Erin jumped up to pace in the limited floor space, then grabbed her coffee to help her think. No one had ever offered her a salary like that.

  Tristan watched her with an amused expression. “I’m not saying that it will be easy, but I think you’ve got the goods, Miss Jacobs. And when you do all this for me this year, next year in the main regatta, there’s something else.”

  “God, what?” she whispered.

  “I’m putting you at the helm of a new racing yacht, as captain. Not only here at Great Haven but in all the eastern seaboard races. What do you say?”

  Erin put her coffee down on the galley bench and leaned against the hatch, her stomach tied in knots. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t sure she could do something. She looked at the flecks of salt crusted on the hatch seal. That was what she knew: the minutia of the yacht, the turns of the race out on the course. Was she really cut out to be an organiser on land? In a room dealing with sponsorship and courses?

  The Fair Winds gently rocked as she slid back in to her seat. A second later, Tristan had risen and slid in beside her. “It’s a lot to take in,” he said, gently, “but I’ve offered this to no one else. If you don’t say yes, you’ll break my heart all over again.”

  Erin met his eyes, wary. He seemed sincere, his dark gaze searching her face. He’d used that look when they were together, as if he could understand what she thought just by looking hard enough.

  “Tristan,” she said. “It’s been a long time and I’m not sure about all this yet.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’m not rushing. In the business side, yes, but not with you.” He leaned in and kissed her gently on the cheek.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, frozen, trying to gather the right words. She hadn’t wanted anything to start up with him again, romantically or otherwise. But Tristan did seem to have changed. He had always been a man with his foot to the floor. He liked everything fast – cars, boats, even sex. This gentle, patient Tristan was something new. Maybe she could work for him.

  “This isn’t some awful joke, is it?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “I have the contract in my office. Come in tomorrow and meet the team. I’ll bring them over on the morning boat.”

  Later that afternoon, Erin moved her yacht back to the jetty, intending to make a trip to the store for resupply. When she finished tying the stern rope, she looked up and started.

  Her mother was walking down the jetty, wearing a long flowing grey dress, her skin so white it was glowing in the sun under the dark cloud of her hair. She looked so like Bella in Helmut’s paintings, Erin nearly toppled over.

  “Mum,” she said. “I was going to come up this time. After I fixed the boat.” Even as she said it, Erin heard Skye in her head, saying, That’s the order of priorities in your life.

  “I looked for you at the dance, but you seemed to have things on your mind.”

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” Erin said, guiltily ducking below.

  They sat around the small table in the cabin, where just a few hours ago Tristan had made Erin such an incredible offer, milling about again in painful small-talk. Her mother’s writing project was going well, but she didn’t want to go into details while she was still drafting. Yes, the Fair Winds’ repairs were coming along. Erin could feel a hidden agenda in her mother being here, like a whale rising up beneath the boat. It was in the way she took a breath before asking a question, the way she looked around, searchingly. But Erin never wanted that whale to break the surface.

  “I remember when you were that small,” her mother said wistfully, when they’d stumbled onto how much the children had enjoyed the dance. “You’d ha
ve five kids down the beach after bedtime, digging for pirate treasure, and Skye would be there, torn between having fun and coming to tell on you.”

  Erin frowned into her tea, embarrassed, and unsettled by this talk of secrets. “I had no idea you knew about that.”

  “Of course I did. You were both so different and while we were here on Haven, I didn’t see any problem with letting you run. It would have been different in Sydney or Melbourne. I’d have been worried about you taking up train surfing, or meth, or whatever the kids are into these days.”

  “Mum!” Erin exclaimed. Her mother smiled, a cheeky edge in it, and in that smile Erin glimpsed the woman she used to know, who’d been lively and not sad. Before four years ago.

  “The worst you could do here was cut yourself on the oyster rocks. And you survived that once or twice.” Her mother turned her tea mug, as if searching for a warm place for her hands. She was yet to take a sip.

  Suddenly, she said, “Erin, I wanted to talk to you.”

  Erin’s heart stopped, like a running rope trapped in a vice. “About what?”

  Her mother glanced out the hatch, then down at the table, letting a pause run like a sucking tide. Erin wanted to fill the silence. She felt the I need to talk to you, too, gathering on her tongue.

  “About your staying here,” her mother said, stopping the tide. “I understand Tristan’s made you an offer.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “How did I ever know about anything? People talk.”

  Erin sat dumbly, wondering where this was going.

  “I know his coming in to save the resort means a lot to so many people. But is this what you want to do? Do you really want to stay here?”

  Erin took a breath, a new pain searing around where the guilt lance had already run her through. Was her mother saying that she didn’t want Erin on the island? That she couldn’t stand to look on her daughter every day and be reminded of her husband?

  Erin said, very quietly, “Do you want me to leave?”

  “I want you to do what is right for you. You’re my brave daughter, Erin. You’ve always walked into big things that you had to work out how to handle. But that doesn’t mean you have to this time. I know you and Tristan had your problems.”

  Erin had to glance away as tears stung her eyes. She hadn’t heard anything after brave. If only her mother knew, she wouldn’t say these things.

  “Mum,” she began. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Then she couldn’t continue. She couldn’t make the words leave her mouth. Her mother waited, expectant, her eyes questioning above her thin cheeks, as Erin floundered like a netted fish, caught in the bind of what she’d done and what she’d promised her father.

  She couldn’t do anything about that. But she could help the island.

  “I’m going to do it,” she managed finally, feeling an utter coward. “I’m going to take Tristan’s job.”

  Her mother drew in a long breath, and nodded once. “All right, then.”

  As her mother walked back along the jetty ten minutes later, her grey dress catching the wind, Erin knew that she’d made the decision out of guilt. And, as her mother predicted, now she had to work out how to handle it. Tristan might want her as an organiser, but she was a sailor at heart.

  She ran a critical eye over Fair Winds, an idea forming in her mind. The only problem would be having Tristan agree.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, Erin’s bravado faded with each step towards the old resort. The once-daily ferry was pulling away from the main beach, so Tristan’s people would be here now. The idea of meeting them, of doing any of the things Tristan was talking about, filled her stomach with flapping sails. He’d called this morning just after six to make sure she was coming.

  She shook the jitters from her hands as she took the left turn at the keep-out fence, heading for the airstrip at the back of the complex, where Tristan said the offices were. At the corner, beside the grassy runway, she found three shipping container modules plastered with construction notices. In the distance, a man in hi-vis and dark shades was fiddling with a surveyor’s tripod, but she didn’t see anyone else. Behind a gate in the chain-link fence, she could see the resort’s old reception building with its door open, but she wasn’t sure if she should go in there.

  “There you are.”

  Erin spun to find Tristan ducking under the low hanging branches of a tree inside the fence. He straightened, brushing the shoulders of his polo shirt, which had Drummond Enterprises stitched over the left breast.

  “Right on time,” he said, hefting a thick sheaf of papers bound with a monster bulldog clip, and opening the gate. “Let’s go meet your team.”

  Erin licked her lips. “I want to talk to you first.”

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Tristan said, and held out the papers.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your contract, as promised. Now, let’s not keep them waiting.”

  With a hand on her lower back, he guided her towards the far shipping container. Inside was a long table, the walls covered in nautical maps of the island and satellite photos of the main beach. Four people were already seated, intent on their laptops, but they all scrambled up when Tristan entered.

  “Troy, Benny, Kit, Shelly – this is Erin Jacobs, our new Racing Director.”

  Erin swallowed. All these people were wearing suit jackets, and had neat hair, make-up and—lord, were those fake eyelashes? Erin noted two of them eyeing her denim shorts and striped t-shirt. At least this was just a hi, how are you, and she could find something more formal next time. But Tristan was already pulling out a chair, and looking comfortable.

  “So, where are we, team?” he said.

  They all sank into their chairs and tapped on the laptops while Erin stood awkwardly.

  “Omega’s on board for a bronze sponsorship, so we’re over the top now and into profit on the pilot race,” said Kit, or was that Shelly?

  “Excellent,” Tristan said, smoothly pulling out the chair beside him and patting it for Erin to sit. “What about entries?”

  “Still short. It’s been hard to attract major media coverage. But if we can land a top-level team, more entries will follow.”

  “Erin’s going to help us with that,” Tristan said.

  Erin’s stomach disappeared—what had he just said? She hadn’t brought a pen, so she crammed her hands in her lap, the text of the contract swimming before her. She tried to pay attention, but everything they were saying slipped from her head.

  Then Tristan said, “We better have a course for the potential entrants soon. Where are we on that?”

  “Proposal’s right here,” said one of the men, unfurling a chart of the islands as wide as the table, with the course drawn in red. Finally, Erin felt her brain click back on. She leaned over the map, her eyes finding the familiar landmarks.

  “We’re doing an extended rum-race format,” the man went on. “A series of buoys to negotiate. Makes much more interesting television than a flat course just out of the bay. When we do the 3D fly-around, the outer islands provide reference points. It’ll be excellent.”

  “Wait, this is going to be on TV?” Erin asked. Sailing struggled to attract coverage for all but the premier events, and even she had to admit that it wasn’t exciting to watch on a screen.

  “We have some interest from cable,” Tristan said. “One of my companies is developing a next-gen sports visualisation package. We’re dangling that as a carrot – being able to show wind and tide, zoom around to where each boat is, put advertising on the water. Try out the new tech, in exchange for covering the day.”

  “Wow,” she said. She pulled the chart towards her, imagining taking the Fair Winds out on that marked red line. Another minute later, she had the whole course in her mind, and a frown on her face. “Who put this together?”

  “We did, with input from the mapping program,” Troy said, with a defensive note.

 
; “This won’t work. We need to change it,” she said, tracing the route with her finger. She looked at Tristan. “You’re thinking a midday start?”

  He nodded, his eyes glittering with interest.

  “Well, then the wind will be switching around, so you don’t want the first leg to run west like this. Run them south out of the bay, straight towards the smaller islands. And this part here? Can someone tell me the tides on the race date?”

  All four people reached for smart phones. “Low’s at three,” someone said.

  Erin punched her finger at a point on the course. “Right. So, you can’t run through here. There’s rocky outcrops, and you’re hoping for million dollar boats. They’ll never come back if you bust their keels.”

  “There’s nothing about that on the charts—”

  “Charts aren’t up to date between those two islands. Take the northern passage, and push them out into the open with a tight turn to come in—” Erin paused, visualising the whole thing in her head “—you’ll get a tight turn around the buoy, and if the winds are what I think, you’ll get them under spinnakers roaring back inside the calm water. From there, you can dog-leg them across the face of the bay, and finish under full sails so the people on the beach can see.”

  A tense silence hung over the group, until Tristan chuckled.

  “Ladies, gentleman, Erin Jacobs,” he said. “This is exactly why we needed you. Now, you’ll lock down the exact coordinates for the buoys? And give Kit any notes for writing up the course rules.”

  Erin sat back, her heart thundering in her ears, relieved she hadn’t bombed completely. Maybe she could make it through this first meeting.

  Then Tristan stood. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I have to head back to the surveyors.”

  “Wait a minute,” Erin called, bouncing out of her chair. She caught him just outside. “You’re just going to leave?” she hissed, hoping the other four weren’t listening at the windows.