Sailing at Sunset

by Cindi Madsen

  He must’ve caught something out of the corner of his eye, because he did a double take. “Oh, uh. Your marshmallow is—”

  She jerked it away from the firepit, and the flaming marshmallow slipped off the end of the stick and flung through the air.

  “Watch out,” she yelled, but luckily, no one was behind them. The melted goo blob landed in a clump of sand and fizzled out. She and Josh both stared at it for a few seconds before they burst into laughter. Then she lightly smacked his arm. “Someone was distracting me.”

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Same.”

  Her heart gave an excited leap in her chest.

  “Now I feel extra bad for taking your perfectly toasted marshmallow,” he said.

  “I happen to know a way you could make it up to me.” She wanted to show him that she could be flexible and do something that wasn’t on the agenda. Well, semi-flexible-ish at least.

  “Take me to see the lanterns? Yesterday during the tour of the gingerbread houses you mentioned how amazing they looked all lit up at night, and I’ve been thinking about how pretty that would be ever since.” She’d just been too prideful to ask about it after their stupid squabble.

  The corners of his eyes crinkled as a smile spread across his face, and if she could bottle the heady, exhilarating feelings running amok inside of her, she would. “Deal,” he said. “As long as somewhere along the way, you also let me buy you dessert.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Evidently, the key to making Danae beyond happy was to take her for Thai ice cream. She bounced on the balls of her feet as she watched the shop’s teenage employee pour the ice cream mixture and use metal spatulas to blend it together.

  Once it was frozen, the girl rolled it into floral-looking slices. She arranged it in a cup and added the toppings Danae had chosen.

  “Extra marshmallows, please,” Josh said, winking at Danae. “I owe her.”

  Danae’s eyes widened as the employee handed over the sugary concoction. “It’s almost too pretty to eat.”

  Josh led her out of the shop so they could make the short, five-minute walk to the gingerbread houses. “Are you saying you need me to eat it?”

  Danae squealed and swung the bowl away from him as he made a halfhearted grab at her spoon. She dug into the mix and brought a scoop of the cookies and cream with fudge, whipped cream, and marshmallows to her mouth. “Mmm. Nothing against toasted marshmallows, but I definitely won the dessert game tonight. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  Several couples were out and about, strolling and enjoying the balmy weather. Josh steered Danae around the clusters of people so she could keep her attention where it should be: on her ice cream and reveling in the genial buzz that hung thick in the cool night air.

  One minute she could be so fixated on schedules and itineraries, and the next, she was rambling on and on about the cool storefronts. She followed that up by asking if he thought there was anywhere for her to do alpaca yoga back in Newport.

  “This might surprise you, but that was actually my first time doing alpaca yoga. Also, my first time doing yoga in general.”

  “I am all surprise,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm. Like she had in the ice cream shop, she bounced in place, as if someone had turned her energy knob to high. “It was so much fun, though, right?”

  He bit back a grin, and then went ahead and let it loose. “I had a lot more fun than I expected to.”

  Mostly because of her. She’d moved so effortlessly, bending and stretching and flowing through moves that had been completely foreign to him. Then there was the way she smiled and laughed as the animals had flocked to her—not that he blamed them. Everything the woman did, she did on a grand scale, and while it occasionally drove him crazy, he admired her drive as well. It couldn’t have been easy to take on so much responsibility so young.

  Which was why he had pushed her to allow herself to live in the moment more often.

  Now he’d learned his lesson, though. Danae wasn’t the kind of woman you could push. Ice cream bribery was the way to go. She licked fudge off her upper lip, and he had trouble concentrating on anything but her mouth.

  “Okay, you have to try this ice cream. It’s, like, the best ever.” She scooped some onto her spoon and extended it to him.

  Josh dipped his head and ate the offered bite. She was right. The dessert was one of the best he’d ever had, but he supposed that also had something to do with who he was sharing it with.

  Danae paused by a trash can, wiped her hands on the napkin that had been wrapped around the cardboard cup, and then dropped it and the dish inside. “Thanks again for the ice cream. I’ve never had it rolled like that before.”

  “Sure thing. I’ve found ice cream is always a win on dates.” The second the words were out of his mouth, Josh wanted to snatch them out of the air and shove them back in—talk about awkward. “Not that this is a date.”

  Wow. Not only was he rusty, he was hopeless. Possibly out of his league.

  Enjoying the journey was the motto he lived by nowadays, but he wasn’t sure how to do that on this occasion. He’d just patched things up with Danae, and he didn’t want to do anything that would put their developing friendship—or the rest of the trip—in jeopardy.

  Then again, he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea.

  He kept reminding himself that he didn’t have time for dating, much less a relationship. He was married to the sea, and while Danae was smart, funny, and amazing in so many ways, it didn’t negate the fact that their lifestyles were worlds apart, save for this one week in time.

  Which left him torn between savoring their limited time together and avoiding getting too close, so it wouldn’t be as difficult when the time came to say goodbye.

  What a roller coaster this trip had been.

  A week ago, she had stood in Mr. Barton’s office, nervous and then excited as he’d informed her she had gotten the promotion. Then nervous once again once he’d dropped the “interim” bomb. She’d been so sure this retreat would be a disaster from day one, and now here she was, out on an evening stroll with a handsome sailor.

  Not only that, the team was starting to band together. They had some great ideas to implement, and while there were still items that needed to be nailed down, she felt confident they’d get to where they needed to be.

  Now she just had to work like crazy to ensure they reached that vital place by the time they returned to Newport. We’ll get there. We have to.

  “Wow,” she said, almost tripping over her feet as they turned onto the street with the gingerbread houses. The colorful exteriors and decorative trim were almost eclipsed by the myriad of glowing lanterns. So many beacons in the dark, a kaleidoscope of colors and designs. It felt as if they’d stepped into a fairytale, and Danae sucked in an awestruck breath. “You were right. It’s beautiful at night.”

  Instead of saying “I told you so” like he could’ve done, Josh simply smiled down at her. It lit her up from the inside out, giving the multicolored lanterns a run for their money.

  They kept a casual pace as they strolled along, and Danae paused in front of a white house with scrolling pink trim and posts done up in pink-and-white candy cane stripes. “It’s like we’ve stepped into Candy Land.”

  Josh groaned, and Danae scrunched up her eyebrows.

  “Wow. I’ve never heard that kind of reaction to candy.”

  “It’s more about the game,” Josh said with a chuckle. “My sister Jane is ten years younger than I am, and she was obsessed with Candy Land. She’d demand I play with her, and naturally, if she didn’t win, she’d have a meltdown, so I went along with every weird rule she came up with. Then, around the time she was in Kindergarten, she insisted we play Candy Land for real, draped candy necklaces on me, and declared me King Candy. I’d have to sit still while she fought every stuffed an
imal in her room to save me, and she had so, so many stuffed animals.”

  Affection swirled through Danae, and her heart went pitter patter. “That’s pretty much the most adorable story I’ve ever heard.”

  Josh shook his head, but his features went soft and reminiscent. “I’d always get in trouble for eating the necklace before she”—he made air quotes—“‘saved’ me. Half the time it was just so I could breathe. Those things were tight.”

  Danae laughed, imagining a teenage Josh wearing a candy necklace and playing with his little sister. Seriously, how could she not swoon over that? “Does she live in Newport, too?”

  “Basically—my entire family relocated to the suburbs, so they’re not too far. I met with her the night before leaving for this trip, and she informed me I’m gonna be an uncle.”

  “Aww. Congratulations.”

  “As you saw with my marshmallow, patience isn’t my strong suit. Seeing the baby will be cool and all, but I’m counting down the months until he or she is old enough to go sailing. It’ll be nice to have a co-captain, so when I’m old, I can doze while they do all the work.”

  She was already psyched for how much fun that kid was going to have with their uncle. Being on this trip reminded her of the skills Dad had taught her on the boat: patience, and being able to react under pressure, and preparing for every scenario—at sea anyway—and gratitude filled her that Dad had taken her along.

  Josh shifted into tour-guide mode, telling her about the tabernacle that had been built in the mid-1800s. People would come with tents so they could immerse themselves in a week of preaching and religion. Eventually, they erected the tiny cottages.

  “A lot of these houses have been in their families for centuries,” Josh said, “and most of the lanterns are handmade. Some are a decade or two old.”

  Danae paused to study an illuminated blue umbrella with painted-on cherry blossoms. The couple on the porch greeted them from their rocking chairs, and Danae lifted her hand in a wave. “Your home and the lanterns are lovely.” She stepped a bit closer so she wouldn’t be in the way of people who wanted to continue down the sidewalk. “Do you get tired of lighting everything?”

  “It’s really just the summer and early fall,” the woman said. “I look forward to it, actually—it’s like a celebration every night. We get to connect with our neighbors and meet the tourists and newcomers to the island. It’s always been a tight-knit community, and it draws us even closer together.”

  The cheeriness in the woman’s voice transferred to Danae and settled in her soul. She wished the friendly couple a goodnight and strolled on, basking in the glow of the lights.

  As they reached the end of the loop, she couldn’t help taking one last glance. “I was thinking how nice it’d be if every community had something like this to bond them. Then it hit me that that’s exactly what Mr. Barton wanted—it was all part of his grand scheme, or whatever. He was in the Navy and he said there was nothing like being in close quarters on a ship to learn about people and how to work with them.”

  “True. Even when I charter trips that are only a few days, I always discover interesting facts about the people onboard. Once you learn more about people and what makes them tick, it becomes easier to get along with them.” He nudged her to the far edge of the sidewalk to avoid a group of boisterous college kids. “I still spend most of my days and nights alone on my own ship, though.”

  “And look how well you get along with yourself,” Danae teased, and his laugh vibrated through the air and settled squarely in her solar plexus.

  Josh ran his fingertips across his whiskered jaw. “I meant more that I’m not sure I could do it for months and months. I need my space and alone time.”

  She nodded, wondering how to take that. Was he hinting that he wasn’t interested in a relationship? If that was the case, she needed to stifle the crush she was developing on him before it got out of control.

  Logic had gone on a bit of a vacation, caught up as she was in the fairytale outing. As it reawakened, it dawned on her that she should be shutting those types of feelings down anyway. This was a business trip. Her entire marketing strategy needed tweaking and unanimous approval. She had big milestones to hit, such as keeping her job title and launching a new campaign, and that was only the tip of the iceberg as far as her goals for the year.

  As it was, she had way too much to do in the next four days, and flirting with an unavailable sailor was so not in the plans.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danae studied the half-made sailboat on the table in front of her. “Maybe if we tape a bunch of toothpicks together, it’d be enough to hold the sail?”

  Josh happened to come down the cabin stairs as she’d posed her question. “Sounds like a puny mast.”

  Over breakfast, when she’d announced they were going to stray from her reworked itinerary to put one of the original team-building activities back in, everyone else on the boat had gaped at her.

  “What?” she’d said. “I can be flexible. I figured we could use this time to do the ‘Use what you have’ challenge before our big meeting. It entails grabbing items we can find onboard to build our own sailboats. The only hard rules are that they have to have a sail, and they have to float. Oh, and naturally you can’t use actual parts of the ship, because we’d like to keep ourselves afloat, too.”

  No one had uttered a word, and she’d been so sure the moment was going to go differently that she began rethinking her rethinking all over again. “But if everyone wants to have a meeting instead, I guess I’ll grab my notebook and—”

  “The challenge,” her coworkers had yelled, practically in unison.

  From there, they’d split into two groups—boys versus girls—and the ticking timer on the table signaled that Danae and her team only had four minutes left. Not enough time to banter with Josh right now, regardless of his being correct about the toothpicks being too puny.

  Technically, she was still working out how talk to him, since last night she’d decided she should refrain from any activities that might lead to falling for him. Fun conversations were fine, but anything close to flirty was a no-go.

  “Are you spying on us for the boys?” Paige asked, blocking Josh’s view of their sailboat. Currently, their crafted-together vessel resembled something that would sink if someone looked at it the wrong way. “How’s their boat coming along?”

  Josh lifted his hands in the air. “I only came to grab a bottle of water. Since I’m the judge, I’m remaining nice and impartial.”

  Danae roused her competitive side, focusing on her desire to win until all cylinders were firing. “Come on, ladies. Surely we can find something that’d be sturdy enough to hold up a sail. Just remember, it has to float, or it won’t count.”

  The bottom had been fashioned out of paper plates since, sadly, they’d used all of the paper bowls for cereal this morning. At least they were the sturdier kind, so they had a shot at it floating for a while before it got too soggy.

  “Best of luck,” Josh said, saluting them with two fingers before heading up to the deck.

  “Where’s the cork from the wine bottle?” Paige asked, and she began shuffling through the items in the kitchen. Then she held it up with a battle cry.

  “Genius,” Vanessa said, and if they hadn’t been in a rush, Danae would have doled out stickers. So far, the two of them had been working together rather well, and a thrill went through her belly at all the camaraderie.

  My plan is working! It was why she’d thrown out the “boys versus girls” suggestion, casual in tone but a deliberate stratagem she’d developed in advance. It left her to referee Paige and Vanessa while they worked together. Better yet, she hadn’t even had to pull out her metaphorical whistle.

  Paige cut the cork into fourths and glued one to each corner of their square ship.

  For the mast, they used a plastic spoon, and for the sai
l, they chose foil. Danae found her summertime fun-pack of stickers and decorated the sail with rainbows, smiling suns, and sandcastles. The timer rang, so unfortunately, they didn’t have a chance to test it in the sink as they’d hoped to do.

  “Time,” Mark yelled down. “Bring up the boat so we can see you’re not still working on it.”

  “You think it’ll float?” Vanessa asked.

  Paige carefully lifted it, balancing it in her palm. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  As they got ready to “sail” their boats, Josh couldn’t stop glancing at Danae. Last night had been amazing, and after walking her to the doorway of her cabin, he hadn’t wanted to say goodnight.

  While he rarely slept well on his chartered trips, too much occupying his thoughts, he’d slept like a rock last night, Danae’s smile the last image on his mind.

  Water sloshed over the sides of the cooler as Mark maneuvered it to the center of the deck for their contest, a puddle forming underneath the blue plastic.

  Danae’s gaze drifted up and met Josh’s, and it felt like someone had hooked him up to battery cables. A shock of electricity, followed by the purr of a motor—in this case, his galloping heart.

  His emotions had been set to high all morning, even before she’d announced the itinerary change. The sun was brighter, the air fresher, and the sway of the ship added an extra bounce to his step. Josh had even sacrificed half his bagel to feed a flock of seagulls, and the entire time he’d hoped Danae might just happen across him—he knew she’d love watching the birds bob for crumbs.

  While his skeptical side warned it might be a bad idea to get too caught up in Danae Danvers, the fact that she was willing to bend made him think that maybe he’d give her a call after they arrived back in Newport. Maybe even ask her on an official date.

  It was the first time he’d been open to the idea since his divorce. Scary, yet exciting.