Up Too Close

by Stein, Andrea K.

  René squinted. “Yes, I suppose you could say I’m a player, but I’m honest about it. How is that wrong?”

  “Not wrong,” CeCe said. “Just not for me.”

  “We’ve established that. What else did Margot do for us?”

  CeCe grinned. “If I didn’t love the Tourbillon before she left in a huff, well, I do now. Show me the ship, every inch.”

  “Every inch,” René said, echoing her words with a wink. He basked in his own childish joke for a moment, until he realized CeCe wasn’t amused.

  In a flash, he saw himself through her eyes, and though only for a second, what he saw troubled him. But he was only thirty-five. He had time later to be the careful, courteous man. For now, he wanted to be wild and reckless. And Margot had willingly joined him in bed. She had been just as eager to sail to England with him. Until she changed her mind.

  The earring incident was just bad timing.

  CeCe ignored his lame attempt at innuendo and simply waved her arm toward the companionway. “Lead on,” she said, and then added a pirate-like “Arrhh.”

  Chapter Three

  12.0550ºN, 61.7488ºW

  Day One, Evening

  Aboard Tourbillon, Secret Harbour Marina

  Lights winked on at the marina and around the harbor in the glow of the setting sun when René led CeCe down the companionway into a narrow corridor. Crew bunks lined the wall. The ragged, matted mattresses smelled like too many whiskeys and not enough laundry days—such an embarrassment. He motioned for her to follow him.

  Above, the lingering sun shined through the overhead beveled prisms set into the deck and revealed the filth and drab of the galley and the saloon. The stove hood had a permanent layer of grime over rusted burners. The grease on the chopping blocks and cupboards swirled in patterns like Picasso paintings.

  “Still in love?” René asked.

  “Dirt doesn’t scare me as much as you do.” Her shoe sank into a spongy floorboard, and she let out a little squeak.

  He led the way to the engine room. Grease, leak, and more rust.

  “And now I will show you the master cabin, but notice, no jokes.” Yes, he could this. Six-foot-four hairy Turk.

  He slid past her, and she followed him back through the galley to the stern-most starboard cabin, largest of the passenger cabins. Moisture cracks like hieroglyphics spread across the bulkhead separating the cabin from the rest of the ship. The wainscoting, like the rest of the neglected wood, was gray. The original had probably been a richly stained brown.

  He’d tossed the hopelessly rotted bunk mattress into the marina dumpster. He slept in a sleeping bag, atop a camp mat and used his backpack as a pillow. Clothes spilled out, thanks to Margot.

  “Where were the earrings?” CeCe asked.

  René pointed to a bare bookshelf above, sagging at a forty-five degree angle. “I put them up there. Would you like to see the head?”

  “I can smell it,” CeCe murmured. “Don’t need to see it.”

  René watched her, and if she bolted like Margot, well, he’d just have to scout the bars for another first mate, maybe a guy, who could handle the horribleness of the Tourbillon.

  To think, he’d spent the last few years at the helm of yachts that sparkled, better homes than most people would ever see. Not just homes, but palaces, floating palaces, everything hard work and more money than God could buy.

  Now, he was reduced to a derelict tub, all because of the mysterious owner and Devin’s insistence. René was determined to overlook most of Tourbillon’s shortcomings, because he simply liked working for Manning. The wannabe spy spent a great deal of time and money to ensure their lives were never dull.

  René prayed CeCe wouldn’t change her mind. Another surprise. Why should he care?

  She seemed so sure she knew exactly the kind of man he was. CeCe made him want to prove he could be more than a shallow player on the prowl for a one-night stand. He wasn’t sure why, but he did love a challenge.

  She shrugged. “Well, I’ll sleep up top as long as I can. I’m assuming you have an extra sleeping bag and hammock?”

  René nodded.

  “She’s not so bad.”

  He grimaced, like he’d swallowed something sour. “Really?”

  “You don’t know how I grew up, René. You don’t know a thing about me. A little dirt and stink aren’t going to send me running.”

  René let out a breath, strangely relieved. “A little stink? That’s a lot of stink.”

  She slammed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll empty and clean the holding tank, and get supplies for you to clean the head.”

  René nearly retched at the thought, but he would show her. René Baudoin would prove there was more to him than parties and meaningless sex.

  “No innuendo?” CeCe leaned forward. “No jokes?”

  “No jokes,” René said without even a twitch of his lips. “Strictly business.”

  “Good. I’ll go grab my gear and move in tonight.”

  * * *

  After years of moving from one massage gig to another, one yacht to another, CeCe had become the queen of traveling light. She returned to her dinky room at Secret Harbour Marina’s hotel and scooped up a bright, yellow dry bag containing everything essential to daily survival. Thankfully, Carrothers’s wife, Becca, had taken pity on her and put the room on her credit card.

  When CeCe needed to stretch her wardrobe, she relied on upscale second-hand shops around the world, wherever her jobs took her. Most of the time on yachts, her uniforms were provided by the owners. She couldn’t imagine René would provide uniforms on poor, leaky Tourbillon. If she asked, he would just leer and suggest she wear nothing. So, she’d stop by the marina boutique shop for a couple of items to fill in.

  She still had two shorts-and-shirt sets from working on Carrothers’s yacht, the Bonnie Blue, and she knew Captain Lindsay wouldn’t care if she kept the uniforms. Uniforms were the last thing on her friend’s mind, since she was busy repairing damages to the one-hundred-plus-foot Swan sailing yacht with her hunky chef boyfriend Alton. Lindsay was given the Swan after they stopped Carrothers from blowing her up in his ill-fated scheme to disappear.

  CeCe laid out her other belongings: Two serviceable sundresses; two barely there bikinis she vowed René would not lay eyes on; a billowy swim coverup; and a knee-skimming stretch skirt. She left her one prized possession rolled up in the bottom of the bag - a bright yellow set of Henri Lloyd foul weather gear with safety clip-on strap and her inflatable life jacket.

  Her stomach lurched when she saw the box of unused Tampons tucked near the bottom. Her period had always been a random event, but she’d had that same, unopened box for a couple of months now.

  CeCe’s earnings were top-notch, and she saved as much as she could, since there were times, like now, when she found herself between jobs.

  But currently, she had another, gnawing financial concern. She might have to use her savings to support herself for a long stretch, depending on what happened over the next few weeks. She couldn’t afford to waste several thousand dollars on a one-way ticket to Portugal.

  She re-packed the waterproof duffel and then headed out to the marina office to finish off her wardrobe from the boutique’s bargain bin.

  * * *

  René banged away with a hammer on a stubborn, encrusted seacock in the head. The shut-off fitting was not opening as far as it should, which might explain the smell, which he did not even want to contemplate. All the “effluent” apparently was not draining fully, and combined with the minimal intake of seawater spelled seagoing plumbing disaster. And then there were the hairline cracks oozing stuff … He stifled a little “erp” starting at the back of his throat. Would not do to add to the foul odors already filling the small space.

  He heard a soft footfall on the companionway steps and then spied a pair of perfectly tanned legs that could belong to only one woman. He stood up so fast, he smacked his head on a protruding pipe.

  The familiar le
gs ended in a form-fitting skirt of which he whole-heartedly approved, but the rest of CeCe was encased in a floppy, garish pink T-shirt proclaiming “Whirled Peas” in a bright green script.

  René rubbed at the lump forming on the back of his head and pondered the meaningless phrase. “What does your shirt mean?” He stared at the words and tried to find a trace of nipples poking through the fabric, but the top was far too loose.

  “You know, don’t you get it? Whirled Peas? World PEACE? But don’t strain your eyes too hard staring at my chest, Frenchie. You see before you the new CeCe. And there are two more of these shirts. From now on, I am your first mate, not food for gawking.” She planted her fists on her hips and toed her duffel out of the way. “After I stow this in the forward cabin, you can point me toward the cleaning supplies. I’ll get an early start in the morning.”

  * * *

  The next day CeCe knelt and scraped at something dark and gummy in a corner of the galley floor. In desperation, she’d finally snagged a battered old butter knife from one of the cabinet drawers and sawed away at the ancient, goopy mess with both gloved hands on the handle.

  She’d be damned if she’d die of food poisoning after surviving Carrothers’s draconian attempts to do her in.

  “Merde! CeCe! Help!” René roared from the dark bowels of the marine plumbing beneath the sink on the other side of the galley.

  She stopped and glanced over at where he’d been banging around for an hour. He was stretched prone in front of the sink, only the bottom half of his legs and feet showing, kicking wildly in what appeared to be an attempt to gain some purchase with his feet.

  She moved nearer and sprays of seawater soaked her legs, ending the mystery of what had happened. She dropped to her knees and poked her head beneath the sink. “What do you need?” She had to raise her voice above René’s shouts.

  “Wood plugs,” he said, “in the toolbox in the engine room.”

  Not a good sign. And they hadn’t even left the dock yet. If Tourbillon sank in forty feet of water in the pristine harbor, they would piss off everyone from the marina owners to the island authorities.

  CeCe ran to the engine room aft of the galley and rummaged through the wild assortment of parts until she came to a set of tapered wood plugs in a variety of sizes and depths. Grabbing as many as she could carry, she raced back to René. She hoped they would expand enough when wet to seal the leak.

  “Merde!” issued again from beneath the sink, and by then, the cabin floor had a couple inches of water sloshing back and forth with every movement of the boat.

  CeCe realized he probably was using his hands to stem the upward flow of water into the galley, so she lay flat on the floor alongside him and crawled as far as she could with the plugs until she reached the source of the flood.

  René let go of the temporary rag plug long enough to grab one of the wooden seals and slam it into the hole. The rapid influx of water stopped, and they sat up in the small lake in the galley shivering and glaring at each other.

  CeCe was glad she couldn’t understand the rapid flow of French issuing from his mouth.

  When he stopped for a breath, she poked him hard in the chest. “Quit complaining. We have to bail out the water and clean up this mess, or we’ll never leave the dock.”

  He was silent for a few moments, sitting back on his knees and eyeing his first mate in her now-soaked T-shirt and skirt. A slow smile cracked his lips, and she looked down to see her stiff nipples poking through the wet fabric. She grabbed the mop floating within arm’s reach and slapped him on the head with the handle.

  “That’s enough, Frogman.” She stood up, dripping, and pointed toward the engine room. “Get your Gallic behind in gear and go start the auxiliary bilge pump before this stuff takes us down like a rock.” Walking away, she added, “I think I’ll go borrow a second pump from the marina.”

  “Dressed like that?” René asked a little too sharply.

  “Yes,” she said, as if explaining something to a small child. “The men who work here will react just as you do to a woman in wet clothes, and they will give me whatever I want.” With that, she stomped away to the upper deck and off the ship.

  Chapter Four

  12.0561ºN, 61.7488ºW

  Day Three, Early Morning

  St. George’s, Grenada

  René followed CeCe through the cramped shelves of the nameless supermarket, part island commissary, part convenience store, with a little pharmacy thrown in for good measure. Fruits and vegetables lay piled next to bins full of ice and various fish and other seafood.

  They’d taken a cab from Secret Harbour to the city of St. George’s to gather supplies before leaving for the shipyard at Forte de France on Martinique. The riggers and carpenters there would do a thorough check of the Tourbillon to make sure she could survive the sail up the Atlantic. René half hoped they’d shake their heads and laugh at him for even considering such madness. If they didn’t give him clearance, he’d be done with the old ship. Manning and the mysterious owner couldn’t blame him for refusing to move a ship that wasn’t seaworthy.

  But how would CeCe get to Portugal? He was surprised at the thought. He should have been trying to scheme his way into her pants, but for some reason, he wanted to prove he was more than just a party boy.

  At that moment, he spied a chill case full of what Americans refer to as bacon. Bacon. He didn’t know what the future held, but he knew he wouldn’t go anywhere hungry. The French might have perfected food, but there were gaps in their cuisine, which the American version of bacon, or poitrine fumée, filled quite nicely. Bacon, cheeseburgers, onion rings, and pomme frites, which Americans called French Fries. They weren’t French, but Belgian. Oh well.

  René tossed six packages of bacon, one after another, into the little rusted buggy they’d snagged from the front.

  “What are you doing?” CeCe asked.

  René tipped his Cartier shades down. “Buying food. That is why we are here.”

  “I don’t eat meat,” she said.

  All the jokes he could make about her eating meat crept to the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them.

  She watched him, a crinkle of curiosity on her face. Then she took the packages of bacon and set them on the shelf above the fish. She sifted through the piles of vegetables and fruit and tossed in peppers, onions, squash, kale, swiss chard, tomatoes, and far too many lemons and limes.

  “You know,” René said, “those will go bad before too long. The refrigerator on the Tourbillon is sometimes good, sometimes not so good.”

  “They’ll be fine, once I make a wonderful veggie chili. You will like it, I know you will.” She paused. “And what about the bacon? Won’t it go bad?”

  “Preservatives.” René said. He took the six packages and put them back in the buggy.

  CeCe took them out. “No bacon. No sausage. I can’t stand the smell, and besides, so much meat isn’t good for you.”

  “No sausage?” René asked.

  “Oh, here you go,” CeCe sighed. She mimicked what he might say in a bad French accent. “A mademoiselle like you must love the big sausage, non?”

  René snatched the packages out of the buggy and wanted to fling them at the woman. Instead, he breathed deep, put five back, and casually tossed only one into the cart. “I would never say something like that, no, not the new René. You say you are the new CeCe? I am the new René. And I will eat whatever you cook, but I would like a little bacon. I’ve grown used to it over the years. Would that be okay, mademoiselle?”

  She considered him and nodded. “A little, but cleaning up after separate vegetable and meat dishes is going to require a lot of washing. And the galley sink is off limits until we can fix the plumbing. So we’ll have to get fresh water directly from the holding tank with buckets for our washing and then dump it overboard. That’s a lot of work. The nice thing about being a vegetarian is food poisoning is less likely.”

  “I will do the washing,” René said. He said it
without a grumble, but he wanted to grumble, loudly. “Do you eat fish? Cheese? Eggs?”

  “No fish, only a little cheese. I don’t like eggs.”

  René squeezed his eyes shut behind the sunglasses. This woman. Mon Dieu. “What do you eat, then?”

  “Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries.” She tugged him away from the produce, and they filled up the cart with a bag of quinoa, macadamia nuts, dried fruits, and some sort of vegetable chip. They were deep fried, at least, so they wouldn’t be completely healthy and horrible.

  He added a carton of several dozen eggs. In the little cheese section, he found his favorites, pepper jack and a creamy French Camembert. He added corn flakes.

  CeCe frowned. “You do know those cereals are very processed? You might as well eat the box they come in.”

  “Very well, Mademoiselle,” he said with a strained smile. “I will eat both the cereal and the box. That will make me very, very happy.”

  “I’ll bet.” CeCe turned and pushed the loaded cart toward the bored islander at the checkout counters.

  He watched her hips sway, her strong shoulders, and the long blonde hair against her golden skin.

  His breath hitched. The old René was still alive.

  In a magnanimous gesture, he purchased two new marine mattresses for Tourbillon’s bunks when they stopped at the marina store. Now CeCe wouldn’t to have sleep on a sodden, old one. And maybe he could entice her … Stop! Six-foot-four hairy Turk!

  He was trying so hard to be a good guy, it hurt.

  * * *

  The Tourbillon’s engines growled, sputtered, and then heaved a sigh before choking out completely. A cloud of black smoke puffed into the early afternoon air. When sailors on another yacht pointed and laughed, CeCe waved and smiled from the forward deck.

  “She is very old, so it takes a moment,” she called to them.

  More laughter. She could laugh along with them, but poor René seemed to shrink behind his Cartiers. “Try again,” CeCe said. “Really give it to her.”

  René’s lips quirked into a grin.