Sail Away by Jen Talty

1

Darcie Bowie curled her mic over her ear and tucked the white dress shirt of her uniform into her black slacks. She did a quick check of her hair and makeup in the tiny mirror that hung on the back side of her cabin door. She had to protect her hair from getting tangled up in the lines as they approached the dock, and she needed to make sure she still looked like a lady in hopes of getting the big tip.

A fine line she walked in her industry—one that she resented.

She squeezed the mic. “All deck crew, all deck crew. Prepare yacht for docking maneuvers. Man your stations.” She secured her cabin—which should be called a closet and barely even that it was so tiny—and hightailed it to the aft deck of the vessel. The end of a charter was never bittersweet.

It was always just fucking sweet.

Only, thanks to one very rich asshole she’d prefer never to lay eyes on again wanting a last-minute vacation, she only had one night off. That didn’t make her happy. Not one bit.

“Darcie, can I make swing to port?” Captain Jim’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. Jim had been the reason she’d agreed to work on this yacht for the summer season.

Two big mistakes wrapped up in one massive dick. She should have known better.

She shivered.

Darcie held her fist in the air as she watched a group of young sailors in Sunfishes learning the finer points of being out in the Sound. The first job she’d ever had was teaching sailing when she was sixteen, and it had been the best. To this day, she helped out in the marina, giving lessons and whatever else was needed during her downtime and whenever she came home to visit.

Of course, if she had a dollar for every time she’d been offered a job to manage the marina, she’d be able to retire.

“Ready to clear in five, four, three, two… ready to swing to port, Captain.” This particular marina was pretty easy to navigate, especially considering they had secured the end of the pier for docking. Her crew could do it with their eyes closed.

For the most part, her team this season had been top-notch. They were a little immature, and she’d had to break them of a few bad habits, one of which her captain constantly perpetuated, but with only two charters left in the season, and the fact their relationship had ended, she had it under control.

She thought.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Captain Jim said.

Or not.

She rolled her eyes.

She hadn’t liked being called that when she was his friend with benefits—in no way was she ever his girlfriend, not in the true sense of the word—so what made him think she’d like it now that they’d called it quits?

Fucking jerk.

As soon as the stern cleared the point, she dropped her hand. “One hundred meters from the dock,” she said into the mic. “You are free to swing.”

“Swinging to port,” Jim said. “Prepare the bumpers.”

“You’re lined up perfect,” she said. “Sixty meters stern to dock.” She paced from port to starboard and back to port on the upper aft deck of the vessel. “You are clear five meters on each side.” She waited until they were at the twenty-meter mark before giving the signal to toss the lines and secure the vessel. “Fifteen meters, Captain Jim.”

“Taking docking engine to idle,” Captain Jim said.

“Ten meters.” She held her mic.

“Tapping reverse,” Jim said.

“And we’re tied off, Captain Jim.”

“Perfect. Thank you, everyone. Let’s get these guests off the boat. We’ve got one night to turn this bad girl around before our next charter. And just a reminder, I won’t be staying aboard this evening.”

Fuck. He had to remind the world that he would be getting laid. She should be happy he was no longer climbing on top of her. And she was, considering she’d planned on calling it quits at the end of the charter season anyway. But it still irked her how this entire fucking thing had played out.

“Deck crew, deck crew, this is Darcie. Meet me in the main salon for guest luggage disembarkment,” she said over the radio, mentally slapping Jim across the face. Though she should be beating herself up. She knew his reputation. She’d seen it firsthand. Even suffered through being the shoulder a few of his conquests had cried on when he broke their hearts. If she should be upset with anyone, it should be herself because she’d known sleeping with Jim would only lead to being betrayed.

Again.

Not that it mattered. She’d only been looking for a distraction, and it wasn’t as if she really cared for Jim.

She didn’t.

Not in that way, at least.

Unfortunately, she still carried a torch for Reid, one of the primary charter guests coming on board tomorrow, and a man she’d spent the last year desperately trying to forget.

Craig, one of the deck crew, was the first to appear with two suitcases in his hands as he headed off the side deck. “For the record, what Captain Jim just did was a dick move.” Craig set the bags on the cart and jogged back up the plank, passing his co-workers. “He shouldn’t be rubbing it in like that.” Of all the guys on her team, Craig had to be the most sensitive and empathetic. For the most part, it was a great quality, but Craig tended to take everyone’s side and couldn’t be trusted to have your back in general. He meant well, but he was going to take the side of whoever he was talking to in the moment.

Which meant he changed his mind all the time, and when confronted, raised palms to the heavens, saying that all he wanted to do was help.

“He’s excited to see his latest notch in his bedpost,” Darcie said. Of course, she could have had Jim fired, but that meant she would have been canned as well because she would have had to come forward for sleeping with her captain. Having his ability to lead the crew called into question because she’d gotten her feelings hurt was a pretty stupid thing to do.

Besides, she was better off without Slimy Jim and his shallow compliments filled with sweet nothings.

“Can’t blame the guy for wanting to spend time with the love of his life,” she said with a hint of sarcasm, disguised as a dollop of support.

Craig handed her a couple more suitcases from the plank and gave her the evil stink eye, which looked more like a child trying to do a pirate impersonation, but it went horribly wrong. “Ever since he dumped you for Kim, you have made excuses for him. Why?”

“None of you even knew I was going out with him until the shit hit the fan, so why does it matter?”

“Because he’s a dick.”

“Well, we all have to work under him,” she said.

“You could have quit,” Craig said.

“Of course I could have, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. And oddly, I enjoy watching him squirm. And besides, since no one knows I had a thing with Jim, technically, I did nothing wrong.”

Craig raised a brow.

“Okay. The bottom line is Captain Jim is much easier to get along with when he’s happy, not when he’s got a stick up his ass. That’s why I’m defending him. So, let’s go say goodbye to these guests, start this flip, and smile our asses off during the tip meeting.”

“Are we allowed off boat tonight?” Bradley asked. “I’m asking for a friend. Not.”

Darcie laughed. “We’re rotating. But I’m asking that you don’t get drunk. This is a short turnaround, and our new guests are going to be a pain in the ass. However, I worked it out so that you can at least have a meal in town, and I didn’t want Haley to have to cook for you.” Darcie adjusted her stripes as she made her way toward the receiving and unloading area. “Once you have the outside hosed down and dried, you can go to dinner, but you have to be back aboard by eight p.m. The interior will be going ashore for a few hours after that. For the record, I won’t be staying on board tonight. I have family obligations, so Kirk will be in charge. Don’t give him a hard time and make sure everything is done right. I don’t want to get any flak from Captain Jim tomorrow. Got it?”

“Sure thing. But if I didn’t know better,” Craig said, “I’d think there was a threesome going on with you, the captain, and our former chief steward.”

“Bite your fucking tongue, Craig,” Darcie said. “If you must know, it’s my parents’ wedding anniversary, and we managed to get my brother home on leave. The whole family is here, and I had permission to leave the vessel before Captain Snake decided to stick his slithering, nasty body into that backstabbing bitch—”

“Why don’t you tell us how you really feel about our ex-crewmember?” Kirk, another one of her team members, said as he loaded up the suitcases. He was the oldest on the team and the hardest-working deckhand she’d ever had.

He was also one of the most laid-back people she’d ever met. Not much got to Kirk. He didn’t let the drama of the ship affect his work, and his mellow attitude was a breath of fresh air. She and Kirk saw eye to eye on many topics, and of all her crew, if she had to be stuck with anyone on a desert island, it would be Kirk.

“I wouldn’t want to shock those poor sweet innocent ears of yours,” she said, shooting him a sarcastic smile. Kirk had her back, and she trusted him. “I’m just glad she did the right thing and gave her resignation, because her life would have been hell if she stayed on this boat. I would have made sure of it.”

“Even our chief stew would have turned on her eventually, and we know she’s not your biggest fan,” Craig said.

“Why do you say that?” Darcie shouldn’t have asked the question, but she absolutely wanted to know, but only because Milia, the chief stew, was a stickler for the rules and sleeping with the captain was a big fat no-no, but Milia had been close to Kim. They spent a lot of time together and they rarely had any conflict.

“Because that’s Milia’s modus operandi, her MO. She always sides with the boson. Or the captain, because they are the highest rank on the ship. It would have been difficult for Milia, considering everything that went down, but in the end, she would have had to side with you because Kim quit. If she hadn’t, she would have gotten fired.”

“So would have Jim. And I just don’t think Milia would have turned on Kim, ever. She has always sided with Jim on any issue when it came to me. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Besides, there are only two charters left, so can we just forget all that shit.”

“I’m down with that. Do we know how long this next charter is? I’m just asking because my mum is going to be flying in from Sydney, and I want to let her know what the best dates would be so I can actually pick her up at the airport. And how much time off do we have before the last charter?” Craig asked.

“This charter is three days and two nights, starting tomorrow at noon. Unfortunately, it cuts your vacation from four days to three,” she said. “But Jim told me the owners of the vessel plan on making it worth our while.”

“That sounds good, and if it’s a good tip, all the better. I can use the money. Any idea who the primary guests are? It wasn’t on the books when we left a week ago.” Kirk ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair. She’d worked with Kirk on two other vessels. One out of Florida, and the other out of Greece. Both times, she was a deckhand and not a boson. Kirk hadn’t liked working under her at first since he had more experience and had applied for the job of boson, but he’d come around quickly and had become her second. She would hire him in a heartbeat.

If she were to continue in the yachting business.

Something she was seriously considering leaving behind altogether in a couple of years. She’d actually contemplated quitting when Jim humiliated her a few charters ago, when he decided it was okay to sleep with someone else, but then she would have had to explain her rash exodus to her parents, something she couldn’t do—but only because her family would have a weird sense of pride if she failed.

She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Not to mention that no matter what happened, she wanted her captain’s license, and she wouldn’t stop until she had the chance to be at the helm.

She swallowed. While Craig knew nothing of the new charter guests, she knew a little too much. “Two business partners with four of their employees. They are celebrating some big milestone with their company.” Reid’s company developed safety products for extreme sporting enthusiasts as well as similar products for companies that took people on excursions such as white water rafting.

It was rare that anyone was injured, much less died during these excursions—but it happened. Which was why Reid was so passionate in his endeavor to make products that protected people.

Darcie had to wonder if Reid knew that she was a crewmember on the vessel he’d just chartered. If he did, she was shocked he had signed on the dotted line. The last time they’d seen each other had gone about as well as the last time she’d seen Captain Jim naked.

Pretty fucking horribly.

“Actually, you might have heard of their company,” Darcie said. She couldn’t remember if the television show that Reid and his partner had been on asking for investors had aired yet or not. She’d only seen the previews and had no intention of watching it. But if it had, Bradley, one of her deckhands and fellow sports enthusiast wannabe, would have seen it. He loved that show, and it was about all he’d talked about on the charter. That and what it was like to come eyeball to eyeball with a great white shark. “The Extremist Squad.”

“Yeah. I know those dudes. They just got signed on to do some movie thing with some new technology they are developing. They are trying to get it approved for firefighter use. It has a bunch of tests it has to go through, but damn, that would be cool. And they are going to be on our boat, tomorrow?” Bradley snapped to attention as Captain Jim, along with the interior crew, made their way to the aft salon. The guests would only be a few paces away.

“Looks that way.” Darcie rolled her eyes. “Why do you salute him?” she whispered. “It’s so not necessary.”

Bradley shrugged.

This last charter had been an easy one. Nothing bad had happened. No drama. Well, at least not with the guests. She couldn’t say the same for her and the chief stew and the captain. Milia always had to take Jim’s side on everything, and it made Darcie nuts. Of course, Milia had been Kim’s best friend on the boat, so when Jim decided to sleep with the second stew while still in a relationship with the boson, things got really ugly, and it made sense that Milia would stick with her bestie.

However, it didn’t help that Milia knew about Jim’s extracurricular activities long before the rest of the world knew and decided to keep that piece of information to herself. Darcie also refused to acknowledge that she and Jim did their best to keep their relationship a secret. The only person who had any idea was Kim.

Oh, the irony.

She plastered a big smile on her face and shook hands with the guests as they went through the crew line like they would at a wedding reception. Right now, she hated her job and contemplated walking off the yacht when the guests did.

When she first started on this crazy career path, it had been exciting and wild. She traveled the globe, worked on various vessels, learned from some amazing captains, bosons, and other deck crew. She’d begun her career at sixteen, and her family thought she was nuts. Her father actually used the word certifiable. Her parents tried to bribe her into staying in college with a car and an apartment, all paid for in full.

But stability wasn’t what Darcie craved. Adventure and not knowing what would happen next is what she’d yearned for back in the day. Of course, having a boyfriend who liked to jump out of perfectly good airplanes just for shits and giggles didn’t help tame the beast inside Darcie, and Reid Carson helped fuel her passions in ways she’d never dreamed. He’d filled her sails and her heart with a warmth she hadn’t known she’d been missing.

And then he took it away, leaving her to drift in the middle of the open water all alone.

In the beginning of their relationship, he’d encouraged her to do whatever it took to captain her own ship one day. He’d told her there was nothing she couldn’t do, and she’d believed him.

She still did.

Only, she’d lost faith in his ability to be a decent human being.

She let out a long breath. She was a week away from taking her captain’s test.

Only asshole Jim could put an end to that if he wanted to—another reason she’d kiss his ass these last few charters. If Jim didn’t give her a glowing report, it wouldn’t matter how great she did on the test; no one would hire her to captain their vessel.

At least not one that would bring on the kind of guests that would command a salary she could live off of, and one that would finally get her family to shut the fuck up about what a real job was all about.

The primary guest handed Captain Jim a thick envelope before turning and heading down the long pier with his friends.

“Let’s meet in fifteen for our tip meeting, and then I will be off the boat until nine tomorrow morning.” Jim smacked the wad of cash with his hand and double-timed it toward his cabin, waving over his right shoulder.

Don’t look. Don’t do it.

Darcie glanced toward the dock, and there stood Kim in a cute little strapless floral sundress and polarized clear shades. She smiled and gave a little waggle of her fingers as if they were old friends.

Which, they were.

Sort of.

She’d known Kim on and off for years. She’d actually recommended Kim for this crew when, about two weeks before the start of the season, they were still looking for someone to round out the interior, and Kim had just finished working on a vessel in Southern California. They weren’t best friends, but they were colleagues and they got along well enough. And Kim had known how Darcie felt about Jim and her concerns about his wandering eye.

Well, it wandered right to Kim.

“She’d like to talk to you but says you won’t respond to her texts.” Milia stood by the stairs leading down to the main salon.

“I have nothing left to say to her.”

“She has things she’d like you to hear.” Milia fiddled with her ponytail.

“I’ve heard them all,” Darcie said, taking a step to the right.

Milia followed. “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not this lame excuse for why his dick just happened to fall out of his pants and land inside her crotch.

“It’s not like she wanted this to happen. She actually tried to stop it. She asked him to back off more than once.”

Darcie inhaled through her nose and let the breath out slowly through her mouth. She’d learned this little anger management trick from her sister-in-law. “Since you enjoy being in the middle of shit, why don’t you go run down there and remind Kim that Jim, her boyfriend, the man she proclaims to love, was slipping between my sheets and hers for at least a good two weeks. And I’m sure Jim said he wasn’t doing the nasty with me anymore, but I bet if we pulled out our calendars, we’d find some crossover fucking going on.” Darcie leaned in. “How do you think Kim is going to take that juicy little piece of information?”

“Why do you have to be so hurtful?”

“I don’t want to be. That’s the point. But if you keep this up, she’s bound to figure out that Jim’s lying about the fact he and I were still fooling around when he started doing it with your bestie.”

“I don’t know that to be true. You said so yourself you and Jim were on the way out.”

Darcie really didn’t want to hear another word of this utter bullshit.

“She just wants to clear the air. And not for nothing, the rest of us have to work with you. Maybe it would make it all a little easier if you had a sit-down with Kim and Jim. Like fucking adults,” Milia said.

“Jesus. Kim and Jim. They sound like a damn candy bar or something,” Darcie said, shaking her head. “No. I’m not doing a sit-down with the cute couple. You forget. Kim knew about me and Jim and she chose to sleep with him anyway. That’s a pretty low thing to do.”

“Darcie, Darcie, Captain Jim. Can you meet me in the bridge before our tip meeting?”

She tapped her earpiece. “On my way,” she said. “You can tell Kim I’ll talk to her once I’m done with Jim. But just her. I’m not talking with the two of them, got it?” She’d lost her fucking mind. Shaking out her hands, she tried to calm her pulse as she made her way to the boat’s cockpit. “You wanted to see me?” She set her radio down on the counter. She’d done her best to ignore Jim for the last month, and he’d done the same with her, but she had to admit the tension on the boat had become unbearable.

“I wanted to talk to you privately about two things. One personal and one about our next charter. Which do you want first?”

“You do like to shoot straight from the hip.” She chuckled. “Let’s get the personal shit out of the way.”

He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back in the captain’s chair. “I’d like to say I’m sorry. However, me apologizing for acting like a child at this point wouldn’t do any of us any good.”

“Oh my. Were you actually considering it?” She blinked a few hundred times and lowered her chin. She could handle working with Jim on a professional level, no problem. But being in the same space with him and shooting the shit?

That would just give her diarrhea of the mouth, which would lead her to saying something stupid, and that might piss him off enough to fire her.

“Why do you have to be like that?” he asked. “It’s not like you and I were having some great big love affair. We were just having some fun. That’s what we both said.”

“I agree, but you should have been a decent human being and—oh, why am I even bothering? Let’s just put this crap aside. I know I can.”

“But you haven’t.”

“Well, neither have you. Or do you want me to give you a laundry list of how you’ve treated me the last month since you and Kim became the king and queen of the Sound?”

“No. I’m perfectly aware. But I could do the same to you and this sarcastic attitude of yours has to be left on the dock. I feed off it, and it’s just bad.”

Darcie hated to admit that he was right, and she was going to have to find a way to be less of a bitch around Jim. “I’ll work on it. I promise.”

“Good.”

“Now, you mentioned you have some business stuff?”

“I’m not done with the personal shit.” He shifted in his chair, adjusting his slacks. “I’m in uncharted waters when it comes to Kim and I’m a little flustered.”

“I’m not even sure what any of that means. Or why I should care.” She cleared her throat, doing her best to squelch the desire to voice the comments she really wanted to make.

He covered his face with his long fingers, bringing them together to a point at his chin. “I’ve always liked you.”

“Jim, you’re not making this don’t-be-sarcasticconcept easy for me. Can we get to the point, please?”

“When you told me that you scheduled your captain’s license, I realized I wanted more out of my life. Only, it wasn’t with you that I wanted it.”

“Wow. Do you hear yourself? Why are you having this conversation with the woman you dumped for someone else?”

He had the audacity to smile. “I’m actually trying to thank you.”

“For what?” This should be good.

“I’m in love with Kim, and I’ve never felt that way before. Because of you, I was able to open myself up.”

Oh, for the love of all things fucking holy. She had to have her ex-boyfriend tell her that he was in love with the woman he was fucking when he was still dating her? And that it was all thanks to her? “Do you think I really fucking care, Jim?”

“Well, I’m going to ask her to marry me, and I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else. I wanted you to know that I was scared about everything and that I have no good excuse for the way I treated you—”

She covered his mouth with the palm of her hand. She’d heard all she needed to know, and she knew him well enough to know that he couldn’t help himself. He was a shallow man who thought only of himself. “You’re right. Nothing you can say or do will make up for what you did. Just don’t go being an asshole to Kim. She deserves better.”

“So did you.”

Well, wasn’t that a surprise wrapped in a pretzel? “I know,” Darcie said, nearly choking.

“You and I need to be able to work this out through the rest of this season. I don’t want us to be at each other’s throats or have you acting like this.”

Oh, but he made it so damn easy. “I can put a pin in it.” She nodded. “Are we done with the personal shit?”

“Yes.” Jim scratched the back of his head. “But if you didn’t like that, you’re really not going to like this.” Jim leaned over, pulled open a drawer, and handed her a piece of paper. He arched his brow. “When was the last time you spoke to Reid?”

“Reid Carson? My other ex-boyfriend? Our next charter guest?”

“That would be the one.” Jim gave her a sideways glance.

Yeah. She really needed to let the sarcasm sail away. “About eight months ago,” she admitted. “I ran into him in New Orleans when I was there visiting a friend with my brother and a buddy of his, Albert Morning, who also happens to be a detective.”

“And would your friend in New Orleans happen to be a cop, as well?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Justin Thomas. He used to work pretty closely with my brother. Why?”

“Actually, it doesn’t matter, unless he can get a night permit for bungee jumping off Deception Pass here in Washington State and help me keep it quiet as hell.” Jim leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.

That would be a tall order. “What other excursions do Reid and Preston want to do?”

“I suggested a kayak trip through the rapids. That’s no biggie and easily arranged, but this night bungee thing I can’t get approved. At least not the way they want it.”

She held all the rejections he’d gotten from the town and those responsible for such thrill-seeking adventures. “If you’re thinking my brother can do something about this, I’d think again.”

“I know. And if you ask him, and he can’t make it happen, and our guests do it anyway…”

“Fuck,” she mumbled. “I can’t believe Reid would put anyone in that kind of a position. He knows you’d lose your captain’s license.”

“I don’t think he cares. He never liked me.”

“Reid is a lot of things, but he wouldn’t do that.” Or at least the Reid she’d fallen in love with wouldn’t.

“Does he know you’re the boson on this yacht?” Jim asked.

“I don’t see how. He doesn’t even know I’m living in Seattle,” Darcie said. “When I told him I was buying a sailboat for a home, he thought I was joking.”

“He doesn’t know you very well, then,” Jim said with a slight smile, though it turned serious quickly. “My communication has all been with Preston, Reid’s partner. At one point, I wasn’t even sure Reid would be on this charter. Anyway, Preston has made it clear the bungee jumping is happening whether or not it’s sanctioned, and he also made a huge point of saying he doesn’t want media coverage. This isn’t a stunt to draw attention. This is a celebratory jump just for them.”

“We can’t let them do it,” she said. “And in theory, it should be easy to stop them. But Preston doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Preston will be at the docks shortly to confirm and give me an advance on a cash tip. If I say I can’t deliver, he’s going to charter with a different private company, and he says he’s got someone in line.”

“He’s bluffing.”

“I don’t know. I heard chatter today that Gill’s got a potential client.”

“Gill’s a dick and all talk,” Darcie said. But Gill didn’t boast, not unless he had something to back it up, which meant he was being used as a pawn to twist Jim’s arm. Preston was good at manipulating any given situation to get what he wanted. He was a master at the game. A true artist.

But Reid? Not his style. Besides, she thought he’d given up all that adrenaline-junkie crap for the most part.

“What are you planning on doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to tell them it’s all set, and then you and I need to figure it out because I’m not losing this charter, nor am I losing my license.”

“You’re seriously going to leave this all on my shoulders?”

“You are the boson. It is your job.”

The next couple of days were bound to be the longest of her life.

She wasn’t sure what would be worse.

Seeing Reid again.

Or seeing Reid right after she’d had her heart handed to her on a silver platter.

Although she had to admit she wasn’t all that crushed about losing Jim. Her real issue had been the humiliation, not that Jim had dumped her. Because at the end of the day, she hadn’t loved him.

“You do know we can’t let them do it,” she said.

“No. I don’t know that because I’ve got the best boson in the business, and she’s going to make it work.”

“Yes, sir.” Motherfucker. Her ex-boyfriends were going to get her fired.

Or killed.

Or both.