The Art of My Life Read online

  The pounding ceased. He heard Vic move up the companionway and shut the hatch.

  Aly took her hands from her ears where she leaned against the counter beside the sink. She turned wide hazel eyes on him where he sat on the john lid.

  He dropped his chin to his chest. He just couldn’t catch a break. Wasn’t the business tanking and a warrant out for his arrest enough? What he wouldn’t do for a smoke right now. But he had to think about Aly—how he was going to get her out of this.

  “You wish you had a joint, right?” Aly said.

  He sat up, arched his brows. “What, you’re trying to read my mind now?”

  “I’ve been thinking about why you smoke—”

  “Can we please have this conversation when our lives aren’t in jeopardy?”

  Aly bunched her lips together like she did when she was going to fight you on something. “It’s because our lives are in jeopardy that I want to say this. Times like this we need to say the important things.” She eyed him, waiting to see if he’d argue.

  He shrugged one shoulder for her to continue.

  “It’s not like you smoke every day to de-stress like people have a beer or a glass of wine before bed. You do it when things go wrong, when you’re giving up.”

  Sometimes he did smoke everyday, but he wasn’t correcting her. “I haven’t gotten high since before we tore out Henna’s garden. Twenty-six days.”

  Aly smiled softly, her eyes saying, I knew you’d do it. “I think Starr’s done a number on you. Because you know you’ll never live up to her expectations, you’re conditioned to quit trying too soon in other areas of your life.”

  “Great. I feel so much better now that you’ve psychoanalyzed me.”

  “As if you haven’t dissected my daddy issues, decided touch is my love language—”

  “Okay, okay. Can you wrap it up so we can figure out how to get out of here?”

  “If you can find the switch to turn off trying to please your mother—”

  “Good luck with that—”

  “Maybe you can learn a business skill—”

  “Like telemarketing.” He didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.

  “No.” Aly ignored his tone. “Like problem solving. When something goes wrong, instead of quitting, look for a solution. Like we’ve done with the business. We tried every way we could think of to use the Escape to make money, but we’re not out of options. There’s always an answer out there. In our case, I think it has something to do with your art. But my point is, don’t quit too soon.”

  “Well, I’m not quitting until I get you safely on land.”

  Aly stared at him and slowly wilted as though she’d had her say and the reality of their situation finally hit her.

  He heard the sheet line strain under sail. The anchor shifted on the fore deck. The bow thwacked against a wave and jostled them.

  “I’m scared, Cal, almost as frightened as when I went overboard.”

  He stood and pulled her into his arms. “Me, too, baby.” He crushed her against his chest and buried his nose in her forest-scented hair.

  His palm rubbed circles on Aly’s back, but she shivered like she had the night of the storm. He grabbed the neon yellow towel off the rack and wrapped it around her.

  He held her tight, her cheek pressed to his heart. Whispers that they’d be alright died in his throat. He didn’t know.

  God, you saved Aly once before…. Give me an idea.

  Gradually, Aly stilled.

  He needed to think about getting her out alive, not how Aly was painted to him like a second skin. He kissed her eye lid and eased a couple of inches between them.

  She squirmed, grabbed fist holds of his shirt, and closed the distance.

  He took her face in his hands. “God, I love you.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes in the dim light from the marine battery-powered fixture. “I love you, too.”

  The words whispered across his skin and threatened to hypodermic joy into his veins. “But you need someone with disposable income, yard tools.”

  Aly’s gaze pierced him. “I need you. We can always get new jobs, start another business.”

  Wonder coursed through him, and he sealed his lips against hers. It didn’t matter that they were hurtling into the Devil’s Triangle at gunpoint. It didn’t matter that if they got out alive, they’d be ripped apart because of his stupid choices. She loved him. Really loved him.

  Everything emptied from his brain but tasting Aly, breathing her scent, molding his body to hers.

  The kiss ended. Their torsos, wedged together in the cramped space, expanded and contracted in unison.

  Aly’s eyes darted around the tiny room and landed back on him. “I thought herpes could be a deal-breaker.” Her voice went up at the end, half question, half nervousness.

  He brushed a lock of pale hair out of her eyes. “Nothing we couldn’t handle together. I’ve loved you since I met you. When I was seventeen, I sat on my board at Bethune Beach and asked God for your heart.” He gave her a wry smile. “I got a tattoo instead.”

  “Then why did you, um” –Aly stared at a button on his shirt.—“reject me after showing it to me?”

  He didn’t want to douse the joy mingling with their breath by telling her about the missed probation meetings. But reality had already slithered back into his head. “It’s a long story, one I’ll tell you once I’ve got you out of here, back on land, safe.” His eye caught on the yellow of the towel that had slipped from Aly’s shoulders—the same shade of yellow as the EPIRB distress radio beacon mounted on the stern.

  He nudged Aly away from him. “We have to get out of here. Come on, let’s put our backs against the vanity and push the door with our legs.”

  They scrambled into position and strained against the door.

  A creak filled the head, but the door didn’t budge.

  “Rest,” Cal huffed out. He positioned Aly with one foot over the other at the bottom of the opening edge of the door. He crouched over her and placed a foot above Aly’s “On three. One. Two. Three.”

  He planted his left foot above his right, sucked in air, and pushed. The rim of the vanity dug into his lower back. Come on.

  The nails squawked and released the door half an inch. The sound amplified like a bus crash in the small room.

  They froze. Cal locked on Aly’s eyes, his heart thumping, listening.

  Water swished along the hull as the Escape bounded southeast, deep into the Atlantic. Wind whistled around the head’s poorly sealed porthole, but no footfalls sounded on deck. No hatch slid open.

  Cal stood on the sink and angled his shoulder against the top of the door.

  Aly lined her palms along the edge of the door beneath him.

  “Push!”

  The nails screeched loose and freed the top half of the door.

  They shoved the bottom half the rest of the way open. Aly gripped his hand.

  They waited.

  Cal let out his breath. “I’m going to try to get out the aft hatch without Vic spotting me. I need to engage the radio beacon mounted on the transom. God only knows how old the EPIRB is and whether it will actually broadcast a distress signal and location to the Coast Guard.” The Coast Guard could probably track his arrest warrant before they ever approached the Escape, but Aly’s life was more important than anything.

  He pushed the door open and stepped into the master suite.

  Aly’s hand clamped tighter on his. “Vic could kill you,” she whispered. Her lips whitened as she pinched them together to keep from crying.

  “Even sailing by GPS and compass, he needs me if something goes wrong. We’re safe for now.”

  “He doesn’t need me.”

  “Vic’s not stupid. He has to know if he touches you, I’ll kill him before I’ll help him.” He yanked her against him, kissed her, and set her away from him. “I’ll be back.”

  Aly’s gaze bore into him—fear swirling with something much deeper that made him hope against log
ic they had a future. She collapsed to her knees, her forehead coming to rest on the short pile of the master suite carpet.

  He stepped onto the bunk and eased the hatch open in painstaking slow motion. He inched his head through the two-foot square hole and saw the glow of Franco’s cigarette, the back of his sweatshirt hood outlined in the soft light from the GPS and compass on the steering column. He glanced at the sky. A cloud covered the moon before he could form a prayer.

  He slithered up through the hatch into the night. Wind chilled the exposed skin on his face, neck, and hands. He flattened himself to the cabin-top. Why hadn’t he thought to change into dark clothing? He slid onto the aft deck, his heart racing. Breath shot in and out of his lungs in short bursts.

  He peeked over the cabin.

  Vic stretched and swiveled his head north, then south.

  The hand-held VHF marine radio sat in its holder on the steering column. If Cal could have gotten a hold of it before they lost sight of land, he could have radioed for help.

  Cal ducked. Fish’s boat likely had a radio with a twenty-plus mile range since he fished blue water everyday. If Fish had figured out something was up from Van Gogh, he’d be doing everything he could to find them. No matter how pissed Fish was, Cal knew who Fish was underneath. Cal darted another look at Vic Franco.

  Vic laid the gun on the cockpit bench and rubbed the back of his neck.

  Cal went up on his knees and fumbled with the catch on the EPIRB casing, his eyes glued to the peak of Vic’s hood. Wind whipped curls in Cal’s eyes.

  The device seemed rooted to the casing. He tugged harder.

  It slipped free, nearly toppling him against the guardrail.

  Vic stepped to the port side of the wheel. He squinted at the barely visible lights of the Florida coast, his profile facing Cal.

  A hydrant of fear shot the taste of metal into Cal’s mouth. He dropped to the aft deck, cradling the EPIRB.

  Had Franco’s peripheral vision caught his movement?

  Cal’s chilled fingers fumbled for the manual engagement button. Cold sweat broke out beneath his arms. Wind blew through his flannel shirt. His heart skittered against the inert radio beacon fused to his chest.

  Chapter 21

  January 26

  www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  Fish fired up his engine, jogged forward to cast off the bow lines, then aft to loose the stern lines.

  “What’s going on?” Missy shouted from the dock over the rumble of the engine.

  “Coast Guard broadcast the location of a vessel in distress,” he yelled back. He tossed the last coil of line at her feet and headed for the pilot’s station. Who knew how long it would take the Coast Guard to get around to Cal. When he’d called to say something was up with Cal because Van Gogh had been left behind, the dispatcher treated him like a nut job.

  He roared Zeke’s Ambition out of the slip and into the Intercoastal.

  He didn’t have a plan, but he had thirty minutes to come up with one. Cal’s boat would probably top out at seven knots in this wind, but Zeke’s Ambition had the horsepower to easily double Cal’s speed.

  The only scenario he could imagine Cal leaving Van Gogh on the dock was someone—likely the guy with the body bag—taking Cal and his boat by force. Maybe Cal had gone into business with his grandparents selling weed. He made somebody mad, shorted them…. Who knew?

  As he raced under the North Bridge, he caught movement in his peripheral vision.

  Missy plopped into the co-pilot’s seat.

  At this speed, he couldn’t give her more than a glance. His eyes swerved back to the water. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “You might need help.”

  He was beyond pissed. “You might get killed.”

  She jutted her chin. “So, take me back.”

  “You know damn well I don’t have time to take you back.”

  Missy crossed her arms, jaw set, and stared at the night ocean.

  Land slipped away behind them.

  He didn’t have time to worry about Missy. He needed a plan.

  Van Gogh butted his head against Fish’s leg. “Make yourself useful. Put the dog inside.”

  When Missy returned, he flipped on the GPS. “When we get closer to the coordinates, you can keep an eye out for the Escape. And for the record, I’m still pissed.”

  “I couldn’t tell.” Missy did sarcasm well. The girl had no clue how much danger she could be in. She stood next to his captain’s chair, eyes fixed on the GPS.

  He grabbed her chin in his fist and turned her face toward him. His eyes flitted between the sea, controls, and Missy. “If anything goes wrong, you get the hell out of here.” He pointed. “Pump the primer three times. Key. Throttle.” He pierced her eyes with his, then looked at the whitecaps ahead. “Use your cell if you’ve got coverage or the marine radio to call the Coast Guard. Don’t even think about me. I can take care of myself. I can’t afford to be distracted worrying about you. Understand?”

  Missy nodded, dislodging his hand. “Got it.” She turned back to stare through the windshield, lips pinched together like she did when she was stressed.

  He killed the running lights and they sped along in silence. Minutes marched by as the tension coiled tighter in his stomach. There was no question that he would risk his life for Cal. At times like this, you just did what your gut told you to do.

  He glanced at Missy. Her face had relaxed. She was praying, he’d put money on it. Not a bad idea for him to do the same. But it seemed pretty self-serving to call in the big guns just because you needed something. Better to chat up God when you weren’t asking for a handout.

  “There!” Missy pointed.

  He squinted at the horizon. “Too big. That’s got to be a cruise ship.” He adjusted their course to cross the ship’s wake.

  As they passed behind the ship, he eyed the light raining from the giant boat onto the ocean and a bud of an idea formed. “Grab the bull horn off the hook beside the door.”

  Missy planted the bullhorn in his hand, and he set it on the dash.

  It was a crazy idea. It would take a miracle for it to work.

  They sped along in silence.

  “How close are we to the Devil’s Triangle?” Missy shouted over the sound of the wind whipping past their ears.

  The exact boundaries of the location of numerous fabled boat and plane disappearances were hardly scientifically precise. He was about to discount Missy’s concern when the engine sputtered and died.

  Eerie silence engulfed them. Missy’s last words hung in the sudden quiet.

  His shoulder blades thumped back against the captain’s chair, and he sat stunned, his mind spinning.

  The fuel gauge read three-quarters full. He cranked the key, and the engine coughed and died.

  He jumped to his feet and glanced at Missy whose fingers clenched the edges of her chair. He gripped her shoulder on his way past, a wordless don’t worry. If he couldn’t get the boat started, they’d call the Coast Guard, but he didn’t have a good feeling in his gut about Cal’s safety.

  He shined the flashlight into the fuel tank while Missy hovered behind him. Empty. Relief flushed into him as he flipped the lever to the auxiliary tank.

  A broken gauge was a minor inconvenience, barely disrupting the tension from chasing the Escape that raced through his body as though they still flew at full throttle. He turned and bumped into Missy, annoyed all over again that she’d risked her safety.

  “Did you fix it?”

  His fingers clamped around her arms and he shoved her up against the bulkhead. “The boat’s fine. Don’t. Ever. Endanger. Yourself. Like this. Again.” He could barely see her in the dark as they bounced on the waves, If he could just squeeze sense into her.

  “You need me—”

  He cut off her words with his mouth and kissed her rougher than he should have. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He moved in closer, pinning her against the wood with his body. “Do
n’t do this to me again.” He kissed her deeper this time and felt her response match his.

  She shoved her palms against his chest breaking them apart. “I am so done with your kisses.”

  He turned away from the stab of her rejection, and primed the engine. “Yeah, you felt done in my arms.”

  “I was over you. Now, you’ve set me back six months. I will get over you, Sean. I swear I will.”

  “Why get over me?” He didn’t want to have this conversation when he was wired with tension, but it needed to happen. “We’re good together. We’ve always been good together. Go with it.”

  “You know I want marriage and you don’t. Kissing was all you had on your mind.”

  “Not all.” He wrenched the key in the ignition and the motor chugged and rumbled to life.

  “I want a guy who thinks he’s the luckiest man in the world to win me.”

  He did want to win her. He would feel like the luckiest man in the world. But things weren’t that simple.

  “I want…. Somebody who’s not you.”

  Way to slap a guy down. This was what he was talking about. Loving someone always involved rejection or betrayal. He didn’t have to get knocked around too many times—his folks and Cal were plenty—before he got it.

  They closed in on the location the distress signal had come from.

  Cal could have headed for Bermuda or the Bahamas from here.

  Fish tracked the Escape’s trajectory from New Smyrna Beach and decided Cal headed too far south for Bermuda. He set course for Grand Bahama, the closest land mass.

  Twenty minutes later Missy spotted something on the murky horizon that could be Cal.

  He throttled down to a crawl. Adrenaline skittered through his veins.

  Okay, God. I’m asking.

  He grabbed the three shrimp lights out of the port locker, clamped them to the edge of the pilot house, and hooked them up to juice. “When we get close, angle the lights to hit the Escape’s cockpit, but don’t turn them on until I start talking through the bullhorn. And for God’s sake, stay down.”

  Cal had engaged the EPIRB what felt like an hour ago. If it alerted the Coast Guard, Aly would be rescued, and he’d be arrested—a tradeoff that would be worth Aly’s safety. But he was losing hope that the device had functioned correctly. He had to come up with a back-up plan.