Heart's Passage

by Cate Swannell

  "Pick your jaw up off the deck, Skipper," Paul said softly in her ear, surprising Jo into driving the large sewing needle into her thumb.

  "Shit," she muttered, sucking the digit hard to take away the ache. She glanced up again to see Cadie, who obviously knew exactly what Jo had been gawking at and was struggling to keep her laughter silent.

  "Not going out tonight, you two?" the senator asked, taking Cadie's hand and pulling her towards the gangplank.

  "Got some repairs to do before tomorrow," Jo said shortly, wrapping her bleeding thumb in a cleaning rag she had stuffed in her pocket. "Have a good time." But Naomi hadn't waited for a response, and had already taken them ashore. Cadie gave a small wave behind the senator's back and Jo returned it with a tiny smile.

  "Y'know what, Skip?"

  "What's that, Paulie?" Jo murmured, watching the Americans walk up the hill towards the hotel.

  "The more politicians I meet, the more I wonder what kind of scumbag you have to be to become one."

  Jo turned and looked at her crewman, eyebrows raised in surprise at the usually affable man's criticism of a passenger.

  "What?" he retorted. "Come on, Skipper, don't tell me you don't agree with me. That one's got a nasty streak as wide as her backside. She treats Cadie like crap."

  Jo nodded. "No argument from me, mate," she said softly.

  There was a pause as Jo resumed sewing, head bent over her work.

  "You're really gone on her, aren't you, boss?" Paul asked quietly, realizing he'd hit the mark when Jo's hands stopped moving and a blush crept up her neck. She glanced up at him, nodding slowly.

  "Yeah," she replied. "Yeah, I am."

  He whistled softly. "Picked yourself a tough challenge there."

  Jo snorted with laughter. "I think the challenge picked me, Paulie," she said, smiling at him as they resumed work on the sail patch. "It just seemed to be there from the moment we met."

  He nudged her with his shoulder. "Ya big softie."

  "Yeah, yeah...give me a break, will you?" She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Besides, what about you? You've been spotted being more than a little starry-eyed lately yourself."

  Jenny came up from below, carrying a tray of sandwiches and cups of coffee, which she slid onto the cowling in front of Jo and Paul. She leaned her elbows on the deck and placed a hand on the crewman's knee. "There's actually a pretty good reason for that, Skipper," said the perky brunette with a grin.

  "Thought we were going to wait a while to tell people," Paul said as he put his hand over Jenny's.

  "This isn't people, hon, it's Jo. That's different," Jen replied.

  "Well somebody tell me something," interjected Jo. "Or am ! going to have to torture it out of you?"

  "What with? A sewing needle?" Paul laughed.

  Both women slapped him on a shoulder at the same time.

  "Okay, okay, okay." He threw his hands up in surrender. "Tell her, Jen."

  The brunette positively beamed at Jo. "We're going to get married, Skip," she said.

  Jo whooped in delight, scrambling forward and leaning down to give Jenny a congratulatory hug.

  "That's fantastic! I knew it!" She sat back up and poked Paul in the stomach. "You didn't need to go sneaking around, y'know." She clapped her hands together and bounced up and down on the spot with excitement. "When?"

  The couple looked at each other and shrugged.

  "As soon as this trip is done," Jenny replied. "It's not going to be a big deal, Jo-Jo. Just you and a few other friends, my parents, and Paul's dad. Just an excuse for a great big party."

  "Sounds wonderful to me," Jo said, smiling. They all relaxed into a comfortable silence for a bit. "Aw guys, I think it's great. It's really good to see you both happy."

  Jenny climbed up onto the cowling and sat down next to her fiancé, wrapping her arms around him as Paul went back to sewing the sail patch. "Thanks, boss," she said. She and Paul exchanged a look. "So... what about you and the cute blonde?"

  Jo groaned.

  "Two minutes!" Jo yelled. She watched as her five crewmembers scrambled for their stations as the 5eawoII"jockeyed for position along the start line. "Therese!" The attorney turned at the sound of her name and Jo gestured to her. "Give me a hand for a minute?"

  Therese clambered out of the cockpit and made her way aft to the portside helm station where Jo was juggling the wheel with one hand and trying to keep her unruly hair out of her face with the other.

  "Take the wheel for me for a bit?" she asked the attorney. "My hair's driving me nuts."

  "Urn, Jo. I don't know anything about this," Therese said hesitantly as she stepped in front of the skipper and tentatively put her hands on the wheel.

  "Piece of cake," Jo reassured her. She leaned forward and pointed over Therese's right shoulder. "See that flag on the bow of that big motor launch ahead of us." Therese nodded. "Okay, just keep her pointed that way. Turn the wheel a bit to get a feel of how she responds." She waited patiently as the attorney experimented, pulling the Seawolf oil course slightly. "Great. Now get her back on the right course. Perfect. Now hold her there."

  Therese nodded and Jo stepped aside, ducking down into the companionway where she had stowed a small bag of supplies under the map table. She dug out a cap and a hair band, impatiently pulling her dark locks back into a rough ponytail before securing it with the band.

  "Jo!"

  That sounded a bit panicky, Jo thought as she threw on the baseball cap, quickly threading the ponytail through the gap at the back.

  "Jo!"

  She sprinted back up the steps.

  "Okay, okay, I'm coming," she said as she passed Naomi, Sarah, Kelli, and Larissa in the cockpit. "Thanks, Therese."

  "Sorry, but it looked like they were all coming at us at once," said the somewhat flustered attorney.

  Jo laughed. "No problem," she said. "I know it looks a little daunting right now." She looked down at her watch. "One minute, people." Time to get your brain in the game, Jossandra. She looked around at the teeming waters around the Seawolf.

  There were 10 50-foot yachts, all jostling for a good run at the starting line. Any boat that crossed the mark early had to bear away and do another circuit before being allowed to start racing, so timing was crucial in the run up to the gun. Gotta get this right. Jo had opted to aim for the northern end of the line, as had three other yachts, but Bombardier and the other five had headed for the southern end.

  Immediately to starboard and ahead of Seawolf one of their competitors was in the process of getting it horribly wrong. The line loomed as the clock ticked down and the skipper could be heard yelling at the crew to bear away.

  They're gonna miss the start, Jo thought with satisfaction. One down, eight more to beat.

  "Thirty seconds," she shouted. Cadie crouched by her winch on the port side, immediately in front of Jo, amidships. Jenny was on the starboard side. Paul and Toby were further forward, trimming the foresail and organizing sail changes. Jason was down in the sail hold, ready to pull out or stow sails as needed.

  "Here we go!" Jo warned the crew, noting their heightened tension. Gently she eased the Seawolf away slightly so they were running almost parallel to the start line. "Five, four, three, two, one..." The gun fired and Jo ducked the yacht's nose over the line instantly, judging the timing perfectly.

  "Nice one, Skipper," Paul shouted from the bow.

  Jo grinned and set the yacht on the first of many tacks up the reach to the mark. S'gonna be a long day, she thought happily.

  "Wind's picking up, Skipper," Paul said. He had taken over the helm after they'd turned the first mark. The second reach was another tacking leg, but the third and final reach would be downwind, and Jo planned on a spinnaker run.

  She looked up into the rigging, scanning for any visible signs that anything was close to breaking. So far, so good. But we're not going as fast as we could. She looked back to find Bombardier.

  "We've got about a half mile on her, Paul," she said. "But I don't
think that's going to be enough once we hit the final reach."

  The crewman nodded in agreement.

  "They've got eight experienced crew on board," he said. "These guys are learning fast, and they're pretty good." He gestured towards the Seawolf's three recruits. "But learning how to get a spinnaker up is going to take some time."

  "Mhmm." Jo made a quick decision. "Five minutes till we tack again, yeah?" she asked.

  "That ought to do it, Skip," he replied.

  "Okay." She stepped up onto the rim of the cockpit. "Toby! Get Jason out of his hole and come on back here." She waited for the two men to come aft and take a seat on the cowling, then she looked around at her crew and passengers. "We're doing pretty well," she said, grinning at the smiles that generated. "We're going to need to increase our lead a bit though, because once we turn the second mark there are a couple of tricky little maneuvers we've got to do that may cost us some time. Hoisting a spinnaker for the first time is always a bit of wild ride." She spread her feet a little wider as the Seawolf bucked over a bigger than usual wave, unconsciously adjusting her centre of gravity to maintain her balance.

  Look at her, Cadie thought with a grin, more than happy she was sitting above Naomi, who couldn't see her without an effort. She's like a pirate king... born to be on a boat. Beautiful.

  "So," Jo continued, "we need to ratchet it up a couple of notches. That carries a bit of a risk though because something on the boat may break. So I need you all to be extra careful about safety. Crew, make sure you have your gloves on and everyone, please keep hands and feet away from winches, sheets, rigging cables, whatever, unless you absolutely have to. Things fly around pretty quickly when they break. Okay?"

  She waited for answering nods from everyone, feeling the warmth from Cadie's smile wash over her.

  Mmm. Race? What race? She laughed at herself and snapped her mind back into gear. "We're coming up on our next tack. Let's get that done and then we'll crank it up."

  The crew scattered to their positions again. Jo looked down at the remaining passengers.

  "Are you ladies willing to sit on the high side if we need you to, to give us a little more stability?" All but the senator nodded, even Kelli and Larissa, who normally were indifferent to the workings of the yacht.

  Nothing like the smell of impending filthy lucre to get a junkie motivated, Jo thought grimly.

  Halfway down the second reach disaster struck.

  Things had been going well after they rounded the mark. The crew had wound the Seawolf up so tight the rigging was singing, vibrating with tension as the wind ripped through it. They'd stretched their lead over Bombardier to almost a mile by Jo's reckoning and she had been quietly optimistic as they headed for the bottom mark. She had the crew lay out the spare mainsail along the deck under the boom just in case.

  She looked up at the full, straining sails, knowing they were at the limit of what they could ask of the big boat. This is the point where One Australia snapped in half, she thought, remembering the moment that particular Americas Cup campaign had come to a grinding, then sinking halt, scattering the 12m yacht's crew into the water.

  Seawolf tilted over at almost 45 degrees to port, the wind bearing in hard from the starboard side. The crew and passengers—except for the senator, who sat huddled in a corner of the cockpit—were lined up along the high side, legs dangling over the edge. All were wearing lifejackets as a precaution.

  Jo looked to her right, blinking rapidly as she recognized the telltale ruffles on the surface of the water that indicated an approaching gust of stronger than normal wind. "Paul!" she yelled. "Bullet!!"

  Paul and Jenny leapt up and dove for the winches, bleeding some tension out of the sails, but it was too little, too late and the wind gust slammed into the mainsail. The boat tilted to an even steeper angle momentarily but then the sail exploded with a sound like a gunshot, a huge rent ripping down its length. The sudden loss of momentum jerked the yacht upright with a rush, the hull slapping down on the water violently. Cadie, who had half climbed to her feet when she heard Jo's yell, was caught off-balance, toppling backwards over the edge and into the sea.

  "Paulie, get 'em down," Jo shouted, as she wrestled the wheel, pulling the still moving yacht around until it was pointing directly into the wind, the remaining sails flapping uselessly. Paul, Jenny, and the two men scrambled to pull down the ripped remnants of the mainsail, as well as the foresail, trying to stop the yacht in its tracks as soon as possible. Meanwhile Jo grabbed the nearest life-ring and threw it to Cadie who was, thankfully, fully conscious and seemingly unhurt.

  Jesus, the senator is gonna have a cow, Jo thought as she watched Cadie strike out for the floating ring, even as the yacht slipped further past the blonde. Thank Christ she didn't hit her head on the way in.

  True to form, Naomi was on her feet, screaming at the skipper. "Stop this fucking boat!" she yelled. Jo turned to try and placate the senator, but she was having none of it, brushing past the taller woman and rushing to the stern. "Don't just stand there, woman. Get in there and bring her back!"

  "Senator, we're not just standing around. Everything that can be done to stop us is being done. And as you can see," she pointed in Cadie's direction, where the blonde had reached the life-ring and was floating inside its confines, calmly waiting to be picked up. "Cadie is okay. She's not going anywhere and we're doing our best to pick her up as quickly as possible."

  "That's not good enough," Naomi shouted. "Get in there and pull her out!"

  For God's sake, thought Cadie, brushing dripping hair out of her face and treading water. "Naomi," she yelled, "would you calm down? I'm fine." I swear she thinks I'm totally helpless. I'm glad I'm getting back onboard any minute. This water is dark and deep.

  She decided not to let her mind wander too far down that track, instead focusing on Jo, who had pushed past the senator and was hauling in the line attached to the life-ring. She felt the tug and let herself be reeled in. Like a great big sunburned fish, she thought, giggling to herself incongruously. As she came in closer to the yacht, she grinned wetly up at Jo, who caught her eye and smiled back.

  Finally she was in reach of the transom and she levered herself back up onto the platform.

  "Nice catch, Captain Ahab," she said softly to Jo who suppressed a laugh.

  "You sure you're okay?" she asked.

  "Just a bit wet, but otherwise fine," the blonde replied, shaking seawater from her hair.

  "Get out of my way, Madison," the senator growled, elbowing past Jo and grabbing Cadie's arm, dragging her back into the cockpit. "I'll sue this goddamn company for all it's worth," she said, threatening Jo with a wagging finger.

  "Sue for what, Naomi?" her partner protested as she picked up a towel and began drying herself off. "Wet clothes? Forget about it."

  "Skipper!"

  Jo looked up and saw Paul standing by the boom, pointing to their port side. She turned in the direction he was looking and saw Bombardier beating down on them at full speed.

  Jo glanced around the deck of the Seawolf, taking in the expectant faces of crew and passengers.

  "Everyone else okay?" she asked. Nods all round. "Right. Let's go. Paul, Toby, Jason—get that new mainsail rigged. Jenny, you and Cadie haul the foresail back up. Let's get this show back on the road."

  Everyone exploded into movement, leaving Jo and Naomi holding each other's gaze for a few cold seconds.

  Come on you harpy, Jo thought. Give me half an excuse.

  The senator blinked first. Hissing in disgust and flouncing back to her corner of the cockpit, she grabbed another bottle of beer from the icebox on the way.

  She's all bluff, Jo realized suddenly. I wonder if Cadie has figured that out yet.

  She moved back to the helm and watched as Jenny and Cadie hauled the smaller foresail up, then set about trimming it with the forward winches. It would take a while yet for the men to have the spare mainsail ready, but in the meantime they could make at least some headway.


  "Trimmed, Skip," came the shout from Jenny.

  Jo waved her response and began the tug of war with the inertia-heavy wheel, forcing the rudder around until the wind began to catch the foresail again. Bombardier was now well ahead of them and she knew it was going to take some kind of miracle for them to win the prize.

  But I'll be damned if we're going to wimp out on the fight, she thought, feeling the competitive rush flow through her.

  We came through hoisting the spinnaker amazingly well, Jo reflected as she took in the crewmembers lying around in various poses of physical exhaustion over the deck. She couldn't see Paul or Cadie and guessed they were forward of the mast still.

  Jo looked up and watched the huge, balloon-like multi-colored spinnaker fill and billow, pulling the Sea wolf along at top speed. Ahead of them, by about half a mile, was Bombardier. They hadn't gained any on their main rivals, but they hadn't lost any more water to them either, so for now, Jo was satisfied. The other eight yachts in their class were well behind them.

  Jenny recovered enough to pull herself up and wander back to Jo, handing the skipper a beer. "I'll take it for a bit, boss," she said.

  "Thanks, Jen. Good job by the way." She grinned at her smaller crewmate and got a tired smile back.

  "We're not going to win though, are we, Skip?" Jenny asked, her disappointment showing on her face.

  Jo shrugged and drained the stubbie of beer, tossing the empty bottle back into the cooler in the corner of the cockpit. "Not unless they run into some dead air, or break something," she conceded. "But you know this is a fluky game, Jen. Anything can happen." She stepped aside and let Jenny take the wheel. "Keep Bombardier at about 10 o'clock, hon. I'll be back."

  "Aye aye, Captain."

  "Oh shut up."

  Laughing, Jo picked her way forward, stepping over bodies and greeting each of the crew and passengers as she came to them. Toby and Jason looked like they'd died and gone to heaven.

  "Having fun, fellas?" she asked, fairly certain of the answer.

  "Oh you bet, Jo!" enthused Jason. He was sporting a lump on his forehead from a close encounter with the boom, but otherwise seemed happy. "I'm just sorry we blew that mainsail out. Doesn't look like we can win it from here."