A Star to Steer Her By

by Beth Anne Miller

  “Something in the water, eh?” said Kevin. I could hear the “wink, wink” in his voice.

  “Shut up, Garcia. Can you come look?”

  “All good over here, Kevin?” Tristan asked.

  “Yeah, man, I’m on course. Go see what’s in the water,” he said with a laugh.

  “Not very subtle, Red,” he said when we reached the rail.

  I rolled my eyes. “I was being serious. Look!” I said, pointing at the water.

  He leaned over the rail, then looked back at me and grinned. “Sorry for doubting you. It’s a school of fish, swimming through bioluminescent plankton. Pretty cool, right? It’s too bad it’s the middle of the night, or I’d throw in a fishing line, see what’s down there. But the captain would have my head if I did that in the dark.”

  “What kind of fish do you think they are?”

  “I don’t know. We’re out in the open water, so it could be anything.”

  “Do you think the Meg glows green in the water, too?”

  “You know, I have no idea,” he replied. “I’ve never gone in the water at night while the ship is moving, though I’ve always wanted to.”

  I heard Davey’s deep voice rumbling over by the helm. He usually divided his time on watch between the chart room and hanging out on deck, and he always spent the last half hour of watch near the helm. Which meant that Tristan didn’t have to go back there. Thanks, Davey.

  A sudden gust of wind rolled over us, bringing with it a spray of cold water, and I shivered. Tristan drew me close to his side, his body heat instantly warming me. We stood at the rail together, silently gazing at the green flashes in the water until the end of watch.

  …

  “Ari! Hey, Ari, wake up!”

  Steve’s excited voice jerked me out of a fantastic dream involving me and Tristan—which slipped right out of my memory the moment Steve woke me up. I opened one eye and peered at my wristwatch. 0730. For real? I’d been asleep for just over three hours since watch ended at 0400. “Unless the ship’s under attack from alien pirates, I don’t want to know about it.”

  “You have to come up on deck!”

  “No, I don’t.” I rolled onto my side, away from him. Maybe if I fell right back asleep, I could return to that dream…

  “Yeah, you do. Come on, sleepyhead. You don’t want to miss this!”

  Footsteps pounded up above. Clearly, something was going on up there, and obviously, the curiosity would kill me if I didn’t check it out. “This better be worth it,” I muttered, hopping down from my bunk, marveling at how it no longer hurt my leg to do so.

  I ran up the ladder to the deck, where there was a great flurry of activity, considering it was barely sunrise. “Okay, you got me here. What’s going on?”

  “Go look over the rail.”

  I followed Steve to the port rail and peered over the side. There were dozens of large, silvery-blue fish swimming alongside the ship. “What are they?”

  “Mahi-mahi. There are tons of them! We’re putting lines in the water.”

  Mahi-mahi. Yum. I’d eaten them back home, but I’d never seen a live one.

  “’Tsup?” Tristan stood beside me, clad only in the shorts he slept in. His eyes were bleary, and his hair was a wild mane, tousled from sleep and blowing in the breeze. And he looked hotter than anyone had the right to after being dragged out of bed on three hours of sleep. I clenched my hands at my sides to prevent them from diving into that hair.

  He looked over the rail and immediately snapped to attention, his eyes clearing, his whole body suddenly awake. “Mahi-mahi! There’s your answer, Red. That’s what we saw glowing in the water last night.”

  “Really? But that was hours ago!”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen this before. They like to follow the boat for some reason. Which they will soon regret,” he added with a grin. “Be right back.”

  He ran off, returning a few minutes later with a fishing rod, his hair held back with a hastily-tied bandanna. He attached a shiny lure with a hook on it to the end of the line and dropped it into the water. I looked around to see nearly all the crew and a few students standing at various positions along both rails, holding fishing rods. Everyone seemed excited.

  Barely a minute after his line went into the water, Tristan’s body tensed. “Fish on!” he shouted. Already?

  He began to reel it in, the tendons in his forearms rippling as he leaned back, cranked the reel furiously, then leaned toward the rail to get more slack. This went on for at least ten minutes before he suddenly shouted, “No, you scurvy bastard! Don’t you dare, you troll-fucker! Damn it!”

  I snorted at that. He didn’t swear often, but when he did, it was colorful. “What’s wrong?”

  “The bloody fish went under the boat and now the line’s caught.” He swore in a language that wasn’t English, Spanish, or anything else I’d ever heard. Gaelic? He looked over at me, his eyes narrowing speculatively. “I need you to take the rod for me.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I need you to come hold the rod so I can free the line.”

  “Um, okay.” He held his arms up and away from his body, and I ducked underneath. He drew his arms in tight around me. “Wrap your hands around the grip below mine,” he said, his breath tickling my ear. This would have been sexy as hell had there not been twenty-something other people on deck all around us—and had Tristan not been solely focused on his fish.

  I locked my arms in tight to my body and clenched my hands around the rubber-covered grip of the fishing rod. “Okay, I’ve got it.”

  He relaxed his arms, transferring most of the weight of the fishing rod to me. He let go of the rod, but held on to my arms, his body supporting my back. “Plant your feet shoulder width apart, and bend your knees a bit.” As I did so, he eased back away from me, so that the only part of him that touched me was his hands holding my arms. “It’s going to be heavy. Brace yourself.” He let go, and I staggered slightly, but held on. “Got it?”

  I pulled my arms in even tighter against my sides. “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Good. I’m goin’ in.”

  “Going in where?” Surely he didn’t mean…

  He cocked his head. “To…the water,” he said slowly. “How else am I going to free the line?”

  What? “I thought you meant you were going to cut the line to free it.”

  His eyes widened in horror. “Have you never been fishing before?”

  “A few times, but I never really got into it.”

  “Clearly,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Red, the line is snagged under the hull. I have to go in and free it. The line, not the fish.”

  “You’re just going to jump in, while we’re moving, with all those fish around? Are you crazy?”

  He grinned, an impish smile that probably caused a ton of trouble when he was in school. It was causing trouble now, too. “Would it surprise you to know you’re not the first person to ask me that?”

  I sighed. “No, not really.”

  “Trust me, I’ll be fine. Besides, we’re hove to,” he added, referring to the positioning of the sails and helm to keep us from moving. “I probably wouldn’t jump in otherwise.”

  Probably? There was no way I was winning this one. “Fine. But hurry. Now that I know how ‘invested’ you are, I don’t want to be the one to lose your damn fish.”

  He hopped up onto the rail, took a few deep breaths, and dove in. I held the rod as steady as I could, though my arms were quickly tiring.

  All this for a fish? He really was crazy. I could see the other fish swimming back and forth, seemingly unconcerned that several of their friends and relatives were being yanked from the water by metal hooks. Guess that was why fish were not known for their intelligence. “Hey—there goes Cousin Bobby! I want to go, too! Pick me! Pick me!”

  No sign of Tristan yet. How long could he hold his breath, anyway? He’d been down at least a minute, maybe two. He hadn’t even put on a mask—how was he able to see what he was doing in th
e salty water? He didn’t have a dive knife, either. What if he got himself tangled up in the fishing line?

  Oh God, what if there were sharks? How could I have forgotten about that? Any fish that were hooked were probably bleeding into the water. Tristan, where the hell are you? I anxiously stared over the side, watching for any sign of him.

  Suddenly, the tension went out of the line. He’d done it! I started to reel in the slack, but then the line grew taut once more and the rod nearly jerked out of my hands. Crap. The fish must have taken off. Maybe it wasn’t as dumb as I’d thought. My arms trembled, my palms grew sweaty.

  Tristan’s head broke the surface. “All clear. You okay, Red?”

  I let out a relieved breath. “Yeah. Hurry up!” The line went slack, and I reeled furiously before bracing myself again.

  He scaled the side of the ship and swung his leg over the rail. He hurried around behind me, and I shrieked as his wet body pressed against me. “Sorry,” he muttered, wrapping his hands around the grip. “Okay, I’ve got it. You can let go now.”

  I let go and quickly got out of the way. He reeled it in fast, so that the fish couldn’t dodge under the ship again. This went on for several minutes before I heard a splash below.

  The fish was at the surface. Tristan reeled furiously, his body taut with strain, his eyes focused and intense. Someone came up beside me, and I turned to see Davey, holding a long pole with a hook on the end. He leaned over the rail, and as soon as the fish drew alongside the ship, he snagged it under the gills and yanked it from the water. It landed on the deck with a thwap.

  He dropped the pole and approached the flopping fish with a belaying pin in his hand.

  “Ari, you might want to close your eyes,” warned Tristan.

  I was about to ask why when Davey knelt beside the struggling fish and raised the heavy pin. I closed my eyes and quickly turned away.

  There was a dull thunk. “You can look now,” said Davey.

  I turned back as Tristan scooped up the fish and held it against his bare chest, one hand cradling its oddly big head, the other wrapped around its powerful tail. It was huge—three feet long or more—and beautiful, its scales iridescent yellow and green with touches of blue.

  He was dripping wet and streaked with blood, and looked like some kind of ancient warrior, just returned from the hunt. It was disturbingly appealing.

  I looked around. Six others were holding fish, including Kevin—whose grin was wider than Tristan’s—and Sully, whose eyes were bright with excitement. “Science class in five minutes!”

  “Really? You’re not giving it to Peggy?”

  “Of course I am, Ari. Mahi-mahi are delicious! But no reason we can’t do a biology lesson first.”

  “I hope you like to eat fish, Ari,” said Tristan, who was still cuddling his fish like it was a teddy bear.

  “I like it well enough—why are you grinning at me like that?”

  “Because you’re about to see just how creative Peggy can be, and how far she can stretch a few fish. Fish filets, fish stew, fish chowder, fish sandwiches…”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  We finally made it to San Juan almost two days later than expected, thanks to a lazy Mother Nature. But we never worried about running out of food, because we had fresh fish. For every single meal. Tristan hadn’t been kidding. By the time we docked, we were all dying for burgers—a craving we indulged the minute we were relieved from duty and permitted to go ashore.

  We spent the first day in San Juan exploring the city, including a tour of El Morro, the old fortress out on the very end of the old part of the city.

  On our second day, we had a field trip with Sully to El Yunque, a tropical rainforest about an hour’s drive from San Juan. We spent hours hiking the trails. Sully was in his glory, pointing out the different types of trees and birds we came across. We swam in a freshwater pool under a waterfall and then ate a lunch of sandwiches (not fish sandwiches) and fruit we’d brought with us.

  We got caught in a heavy rain shower, which fortunately didn’t last very long. Our reward was a spectacular rainbow that arched up over the trees and faded in and out as clouds passed over the sun. It was late afternoon when we made our way down the trail, exhausted from the day.

  It was a quiet ride back to the marina, as nearly everyone passed out the moment the vans got on the road. I was beyond exhausted, but couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep. My thigh was killing me, so I kneaded the scarred flesh, trying to massage away the ache. Kevin and Jenny were all cuddled up together on the bench seat next to me. I sighed, wishing Tristan was there. The crew had been busy doing the ship’s maintenance and provisioning for the past two days, and I’d barely even gotten a chance to speak to him.

  “You okay, Ari?” whispered Jenny, startling me.

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “Kevin is, but I’m not. Van’s too bumpy. Your leg’s really bothering you, isn’t it? I noticed you limping a bit near the end of the trail.”

  “It’s achy, but once we get back and I take some ibuprofen it should start to feel better.”

  “So…I’m glad to see that Tristan finally got his shit together and made a move,” she murmured.

  I froze. “What are you talking about?”

  She cocked her head to one side. “I know you guys have something going on. I see the way you look at each other, the way he finds an excuse to touch your hand or your back during watch.”

  Crap. “Do you think Davey knows?”

  “Hard to say. But if he did, he would probably have said something to you.”

  “I hate sneaking around.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Hey, don’t get defensive. I just mean that you’ve always been a ‘good girl,’ right? No drinking or smoking or staying out past curfew?”

  I looked down. I could feel myself blushing, though I didn’t know why. It wasn’t a bad thing to be a good person, right? Why should I be embarrassed?

  “I’m just saying that you always do the right thing, so maybe it’s time you rebelled a little.” She grinned. “Come on, admit it. It’s exciting to be a little bit bad, isn’t it?”

  I thought back to the other night, when Tristan dragged me from my bunk once again to join him on deck. I remembered the taste of his lips on mine, the feel of his hands inching up under the hem of my tank top, the bare skin of his chest, hot under my own hands. And I remembered how the fear of being caught made the whole moment that much more intense, and yes, exciting.

  Jenny wasn’t wrong.

  When we returned to the marina, I took my time showering and getting dressed, returning to the ship just as my shipmates were all getting ready to go into town for the evening, rejuvenated from napping on the bus.

  “You coming, Ari?” asked Kevin.

  “Actually, I’m really beat from that hike. I think I’ll just read for a while and then turn in early.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I noticed that MacDuff has dock watch tonight.”

  “Does he?” I asked innocently.

  “Enjoy your quiet evening, Ari,” he said with a sly grin.

  That was the plan.

  After everyone had gone and the ship was eerily quiet, I went down to the crew’s cabin. Tristan was curled on his side in his top bunk, reading. He looked up when I appeared in the doorway, his startled expression at hearing footsteps morphing into a smile when he saw it was me.

  He set aside his book and sat up, hunching slightly so as not to bang his head on the overhead beam.

  “Red? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you ashore with everyone else?”

  “Because everyone else is ashore.”

  I watched his face as the significance of that statement sank in, the flare of desire in his eyes that sent an answering rush of heat through me.

  He hopped down from his bunk, crossed the cabin in one stride, cupped my face in both hands, and kissed me. I kissed him back, cl
utching his shoulders as he walked me backward until I bumped up against the door. Without breaking the kiss, he ran his fingers down my bare arms, then in one quick move, he swept my arms up over my head, holding both my wrists in one hand against the top of the doorjamb.

  I gasped at the suddenness of it, the hunger in him that I’d only had a taste of before. He tore his mouth from mine and we stared at each other, both of us breathing hard. His eyes burning into mine, he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear with his free hand, then trailed his fingers across my jaw, down my throat, down my heaving chest. I inhaled sharply as his palm dragged over my breast, pushing down my tank top.

  He grinned suddenly, a sharp contrast to the intensity of the moment. “I thought redheads didn’t wear pink,” he said, tracing the tip of his finger over the blush-colored satin.

  “I don’t usually,” I breathed, arching into his touch. “Just some of my underwear.”

  He bent his head, pressing a kiss to the swell of my breast, then brought his lips to my ear. “Just for me, then,” he murmured.

  “Yes, just for you.”

  He let go of my hands and tugged my tank top over my head, jostling my loose bun in the process so that my hair tumbled down, nearly to my waist.

  He took a step back. “Look at you,” he said reverently. He picked up a damp lock of my hair and brought it to his face. “I love the smell of your shampoo. It’s how I knew you were there that night.”

  He was referring to the night I found him on the bowsprit playing the violin. I’d wondered how he’d known I was there, even with his eyes closed. But the breeze had picked up, and must have wafted the scent in his direction.

  I forgot all about shampoo and wind as he took that long lock of hair and dragged it over my chest, around the cups of my bra, into my cleavage, down my bare midriff, his eyes never leaving mine as he drove me crazy with my own hair.

  I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to me, tangling my fingers in his hair as I kissed him on both cheeks, then his slightly scruffy jaw, then finally his mouth. He held me tightly as my hands roved down his back and bunched in his T-shirt. I dragged it upward, then tore my mouth from his. “Off.”