‘Is this a small craft?’ Pam asked.
‘Technically it is, but you can relax. I know what I’m doing. I used to be a chief bosun’s mate.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A sailor. In the Navy, that is. Besides, this is a pretty big boat. The ride might get a little bumpy, is all. If you’re worried, there are life jackets under the seat you’re on.’
‘Are you worried?’ Pam asked. Kelly smiled and shook his head. ‘Okay.’ She resumed her previous position, her chest against his arm, her head on his shoulder, a dreamy expression in her eyes, as though anticipating something that was to be, storm or no storm.
Kelly wasn’t worried – at least not about the storm – but he wasn’t casual about things either. Passing Bodkin Point, he continued east across the shipping channel. He didn’t turn south until he was in water he knew to be too shallow for anything large enough to run him down. Every few minutes he turned to keep an eye on the storm, which was charging right in at twenty knots or so. It had already blotted out the sun. A fast-moving storm most often meant a violent one, and his new southerly course meant that he wasn’t outrunning it any longer. Kelly finished off his beer and decided against another. Visibility would drop fast. He pulled out a plastic-coated chart and fixed it in place on the table to the right of the instrument panel, marked his position with a grease pencil, and then checked, to make sure that his course didn’t take him into shallows – Springer drew four and a half feet of water, and for Kelly anything less than eight feet constituted shallow water. Satisfied, he set his compass course and relaxed again. His training was his buffer against both danger and complacency.
‘Won’t be long now,’ Pam observed, just a trace of unease in her voice as she held on to him.
‘You can head below if you want,’ Kelly said. ‘It’s gonna get rainy and windy. And bumpy.’
‘But not dangerous.’
‘No, unless I do something really dumb. I’ll try not to,’ he promised.
‘Can I stay here and see what it’s like?’ she asked, dearly unwilling to leave his side, though Kelly did not know why.
‘It’s going to get wet,’ he warned her again.
‘That’s okay.’ She smiled brightly, fixing even more tightly to his arm.
??ll? throttled back some, taking the boat down off plane. There was no reason to hurry. With the throttles eased back, there was no longer a need for two hands on the controls either. He wrapped his arm around the girl, her head came automatically down on his shoulder again, and despite the approaching storm everything was suddenly right with the world. Or that’s what Kelly’s emotions told him. His reason said something else, and the two views would not reconcile themselves. His reason reminded him that the girl at his side was – what? He didn’t know. His emotions told him that it didn’t matter a damn. She was what he needed. But Kelly was not a man ruled by emotions, and the conflict made him glower at the horizon.
‘Something wrong?’ Pam asked.
Kelly started to say something, then stopped, and reminded himself that he was alone on his yacht with a pretty girl. He let emotion win this round for a change.
‘I’m a little confused, but, no, nothing is wrong that I know about.’
‘I can tell that you -‘
Kelly shook his head. ‘Don’t bother. Whatever it is, it can wait. Just relax and enjoy the ride.’
The first gust of wind arrived a moment later, heeling the boat a few degrees to port. Kelly adjusted his rudder to compensate. The rain arrived quickly. The first few warning sprinkles were rapidly followed by solid sheets that marched like curtains across the surface of the Chesapeake Bay. Within a minute visibility was down to only a few hundred yards, and the sky was as dark as late twilight. Kelly made sure his running lights were on. The waves started kicking up in earnest, driven by what felt like thirty knots of wind. Weather and seas were directly on the beam. He decided that he could keep going, but he was in a good anchoring place now, and wouldn’t be in another for five hours. Kelly took another look at the chart, then switched on his radar to verify his position. Ten feet of water, a sand bottom that the chart called HRD and was therefore good holding ground. He brought Springer into the wind and eased the throttles until the propellers were providing just enough thrust to overcome the driving force of the wind.
‘Take the wheel,’ he told Pam.
‘But I don’t know what to do!’
‘It’s all right. Just hold her steady and steer the way I tell you to. I have to go forward to set the anchors. ‘Kay?’
‘You be careful!’ she shouted over the gusting wind. The waves were about five feet now, and the bow of the boat was leaping up and down. Kelly gave her shoulder a squeeze and went forward.
He had to watch himself, of course, but his shoes had no-skid soles, and Kelly knew his business. He kept his hands on the grab rail all the way around the superstructure, and in a minute he was on the foredeck. Two anchors were clipped to the deck, a Danforth and a CQR plow-type, both slightly oversized. He tossed the Danforth over first, then signaled for Pam to ease the wheel to port. When the boat had moved perhaps fifty feet south, he dropped the CQR over the side as well. Both ropes were already set to the proper lengths, and after checking that all was secure, Kelly made his way back to the flying bridge.
Pam looked nervous until the moment that he sat back down on the vinyl bench – everything was covered with water now, and their clothes were soaked through. Kelly eased the throttles to idle, allowing the wind to push Springer back nearly a hundred feet. By that time both anchors had dug into the bottom. Kelly frowned at their placement. He ought to have set them farther apart. But only one anchor was really necessary. The second was just insurance. Satisfied, he switched off the diesels.
‘I could fight the storm all the way down, but I’d prefer not to,’ he explained.
‘So we park here for the night?’
‘That’s right. You can go down to your cabin and -‘
‘You want me to go away?’
‘No -I mean, if you don’t like it here -‘ Her hand came up to his face. He barely caught her words through the wind and rain.
‘I like it here.’ Somehow it didn’t seem like a contradiction at all.
A moment later Kelly asked himself why it had taken so long. All the signals had been there. There was another brief discussion between emotion and reason, and reason lost again. There was nothing to be afraid of here, just a person as lonely as he. It was so easy to forget. Loneliness didn’t tell you what you had lost, only that something was missing. It took something like this to define that emptiness. Her skin was soft, dripping with rain, but warm. It was so different from the rented passion that he’d tried twice in the past month, each time coming away disgusted with himself.
But this was something else. This was real. Reason cried out one last time that it couldn’t be, that he’d picked her up at the side of the road and had known her for only a brief span of hours. Emotion said that it didn’t matter. As though observing the conflict in his mind, Pam pulled the halter over her head. Emotion won.
‘They look just fine to me,’ Kelly said. His hand moved to them, touching delicately. They felt just fine, too. Pam hung the halter on the steering wheel and pressed her face against his, her hands pulling him forward, taking charge in a very feminine way. Somehow her passion wasn’t animalistic. Something made it different. Kelly didn’t know what it was, but didn’t search for the reason, not now.
Both rose to their feet. Pam nearly slipped, but Kelly caught her, dropping to his knees to help remove her shorts. Then it was her turn to unbutton his shirt after placing his hands on her breasts. His shirt remained in place for a long moment because neither wanted his hands to move, but then it was done, one arm at a time, and his jeans went next. Kelly slipped out of his shoes as the rest came off. Both stood for the next embrace, weaving as the boat pitched and rocked beneath them, the rain and wind pelting them. Pam took his hand and led him just aft of the driver’s console, guiding him down to a supine position on the deck. She mounted him at once. Kelly tried to sit up, but she didn’t let him, instead leaning forward while her hips moved with gentle violence. Kelly was as unready for that as he’d been for everything else this afternoon, and his shout seemed to outscream the thunder. When his eyes opened, her face was inches from him, and the smile was like that on a stone angel in a church.