Read Ghost Sea: A Novel (Dugger/Nello Series) for Free Online Page B

it slightly, baring her shoulders. “More,” I said. “Lift it more.” It came out like an order, and she obeyed. The tide was ebbing, pushing us imperceptibly out to sea.
    “Most people would give up now,” I said. “They’d get out the oars and row.”
    “We have no oars,” she said.
    “So we find the wind.”
    She concentrated.
    “Close your eyes.” An order. “Now, always thinking of the back of your neck, turn your head.” She did. “When you think you have it, turn it ever so little back and forth until you’re sure.”
    “I have it,” she said.
    I crouched past her to the mast, my leg brushing hers, pushing her dress above a knee. I hoisted the sail.
    The wind strengthened. Tossed the boom, darkened the sea. We surged ahead. I slipped to the side. “You steer,” I said.
    “Where?”
    “Wherever you want to go.”
    She held the tiller firmly and, with the wind behind us, headed out to sea. Then she said in deadly earnest, “Except China.”
    It took me a while. “Nothing wrong with China.”
    The wind and current pushed us out, but we turned into it and fought our way back, tacking and beating, tacking, beating, against the wind and sea.
     
     
    F OR THE NEXT four days we sailed; starting later each day to catch the strengthening sea breeze. She learned fast. We concentrated, as if we knew we hadn’t much time. It helped to keep my mind from wandering, my eyes from looking at her. I inundated her with sailing terms; clew, tack, luff, leach, spreader, snatch block, gooseneck, gudgeon, pintle, and when I wanted to make her laugh: baggywrinkle. She learned every one. When I couldn’t avoid it, my bare arm pressed against her naked shoulder. I felt her stiffen but she didn’t move away.
    By the third day, she was able to sense the movement of the waves. When we tacked or gybed, we moved together well, in harmony, without speaking. It was like sharing a well-kept secret; an intimacy. By then I knew. Wasn’t sure how, but I felt it from her lingering smiles, and by a brief moment, a defenseless look in her eyes. I had been explaining the need for a captain. “Sometimes you have to obey on faith,” I said without chiding. “There will be rogue waves, gusts, when you’ll have to trust me blindly.”
    “I know that,” she said softly, without her brashness, her humor—the armor that had kept her safe all her life.
    The last day it blew hard. As soon as we passed the point and headed toward the sea we took constant spray over the bow. Little by little we were soaked. She wore her hair tied up to free her neck but loose tufts were now plastered across her face. She steered flawlessly. A rogue wave burst and surged toward us and, without time to explain, I grabbed the tiller, her hand with it, and yanked it hard toward me to head us into it. I had pulled her off balance and she slid toward me, grabbed my arm, and fell against me. In all that wind I felt her warm breath on my face. We stared, her eyes deeper than ever, a shadow of doubt around them. But her voice was tender, barely a sigh. “And then what?” she said.
    I gybed the main, slacked the jib, and headed back into the bay. We didn’t speak. Where would we begin?
    I had to sail to the Gulf Islands on the dawn tide.
     
     
    W HEN I CAME back from the islands, I stayed aboard all day waiting for word from the yacht, or for her to sail up alone. But she was nowhere. By evening I hated her, hated her for not coming, hated her for not giving a sign, hated the hand she had put on mine while I held the tiller, hated her smile, her laughter that she must now be giving to someone else. She might be lying with him now, his hand on her, on her neck, in her hair, all the places where I had dreamt my hands to be. I rowed over.
    It was past midnight, and the yacht was dark except for the anchor light dangling in the bow, the ports open in the warm night. I rowed along the portside, then back on the starboard, hoping to hear her. The next day I