Chapter 5

Stephanie braced herself against the counter and took a firm hold on her bread dough. According to Lucy, Wednesday was turkey dinner with all the trimmings. But Lucy didn’t know about the storm that was off the coast of Atlantic City and moving north. Lucy didn’t know the stowaway, Melody, would refuse to set foot in the yawl and would insist on helping out in the galley. Lucy didn’t know any of those things because Lucy had run off to get married. Stephanie shoved her fist into the dough. This was going to cost Lucy. This was not just a toilet. This was a whole new kitchen.

“Jeez,” Melody said, “that’s a lot of dough. And you put your hands in it. Gnarly.”

“It’s for crescent rolls. All we have to do is follow Lucy’s recipe.”

Melody studied the directions. “Looks like origami.”

“You know how to do origami?”

“No.”

Stephanie blew a wisp of hair from her forehead and grabbed the rolling pin. “I’ll do the first batch, and then once we get it figured out, you can take over.”

“Cool.”

The ship plowed through heavy seas, and Stephanie took time to wedge the coffeepots behind an iron bar to keep them from jiggling across the stove.

Mrs. Pease looked up from her solitaire game. “What was that creaking? The boat isn’t falling apart, is it? Do you think we’re going too fast? Is there a speed limit out here?”

Mr. Pease sipped his coffee and grinned. “Now this is what I call sailing.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said, returning to the dough, “it looks like we roll a lump of this flat, and then cut it into strips, then triangles.” She took one of the freshly cut triangles and made an attempt at shaping it into a rolled crescent. She looked at Melody. “What do you think?”

“It doesn’t look like the picture.”

Stephanie stared at it. “It sort of does. You have to use your imagination.” She wiped her hands on her jeans. “It’s all yours.”

Ivan ambled down the stairs and took a clean mug from a hook on the ceiling. “What a terrific day,” he said. “Fantastic wind.”

Stephanie glared at him. Easy for him to say, she thought. He was up there with his nose in the salt spray pretending to be a Viking. She was down here getting seasick, trying to keep Melody from slipping banned substances into the turkey dressing.

Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and looked over Stephanie’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen you all day. You’re not avoiding me, are you?”

“I’ve been cooking!” The ship lurched, lanterns swung on their hinges, and coffee splattered and hissed on the hot stove. “I don’t know how much you’re paying Lucy, but it’s not enough.” She bit her lip against the wave of nausea and decided she’d smelled enough brewing coffee to last a lifetime.

“You look a little pale,” Ivan said. “Maybe you should get some air.”

Mr. Pease smiled at them. “I think it’s real nice that you two are getting married. Love on the high seas. That’s romantic.”

Ivan’s left eyebrow cocked a fraction of an inch. “Getting married?”

Mr. Pease blinked. “Aren’t you getting married? I heard you were getting married.”

Mrs. Pease rolled her eyes at her husband. “You always jump to conclusions. You didn’t hear they were getting married. You heard they were-” She stopped and flushed. “You heard they were very close friends.”

Mr. Pease winked at Ivan. “Must be something to have pirate blood in you, huh?”

Ivan forced a tight grin. “Mmmm.”

Melody looked up from her rolls. “So are you two sleeping together, or what?”

“We’re just ‘or what,’ ” Stephanie told her. She took a deep breath. “I really do need air.”

Ivan followed her up and put a steadying arm around her while she hung on the ropes. When the color had returned to her face, and he could see she was taking some interest in the whitecaps skidding past them, he kissed the back of her neck.

“That’s how rumors are started,” Stephanie said.

“No one saw. I was very careful. And besides, rumors are started by Ace. I accidentally pulled your panties out of my pocket while I was giving him a lecture on morals last night.”

Her first reaction was surprise. She’d forgotten about the panties. And then her sense of the ridiculous took over. She tipped her head back and whooped with laughter.

Ivan pretended to look serious. “This is no laughing matter. My honor has been compromised.”

“Nonsense. Pirates are supposed to carry panties in their pockets.”

“How about your honor?”

Good question. She thought about it for a moment and decided her panties had a legitimate reason for being in his pocket, so her honor was untarnished. The only possible repercussion might be that her image was prematurely improved. And a new image was pretty much inevitable. She’d been contemplating a shift in outlook. Her attitudes about permissive sex hadn’t changed, but her qualifications for a partner had become more flexible. She had very special feelings for Ivan and wanted to explore those feelings further. She wasn’t ready to make a decision yet, but she felt certain she’d know when the time was right to sleep with a man, and it wouldn’t necessarily be the result of a marriage certificate.

She leaned back against the ropes and flashed him a brazen smile. “I’ll just look at this as a trial run to see if I like being a fallen woman.”

Ivan rested his head against hers and talked into her hair in the soft, rumbling voice that Stephanie had come to love. “Let me know what you decide.”

Stephanie felt her mind go slack for a moment, then pull back. He wasn’t just carelessly flirting anymore. He was making a serious overture at moving the boundaries of their relationship. And it was scary. She turned from him to give herself some space and studied the horizon.

Ivan pointed to a stretch of land dead ahead in the distance. “That’s Holbrook Island. Castine is almost due north on the mainland. I’m taking a more inland route for the rest of the trip so we can see the autumn foliage and have some protection from the storm.”

“Do you think the storm will be bad?”

“No. It’s veering out to sea, but it will make the water choppy for a few days.” He leaned back against the roof. “My great-great-grandfather sailed these waters in a schooner very much like the Savage. He transported lumber down the Penobscot River and throughout the bay. He’s one of my favorite ancestors. He was a little boring compared to some others, but I think he must have led a quality life. I know from his diary that he took the time to see the sun set, and he enjoyed his family, and he built Haben.”

Stephanie sat beside him, drawing her knees close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Would you rather be hauling lumber than human cargo?”

He grinned. “Hauling lumber sounds like a job, and I’m a bum at heart. This is like being on a continuous vacation.”

“What do you do in the winter?”

“Make repairs and improvements. Last winter I built the yawl.” And last spring I worked twelve hours a day in a shoe factory, he thought. Not a memory he cherished. He wasn’t a man who felt comfortable in large brick buildings. He hated ties, shaving, telephones, and pretty secretaries who called him Mr. Rasmussen.

A loud crash came from the galley. Stephanie and Ivan exchanged grimaces. A headful of blue-and-green hair popped out of the galley hatch, and Melody waved at Stephanie. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine,” Melody called. “I think we can still eat the turkey.”

Stephanie waved back. “Keep up the good work.”

Ivan smiled at Stephanie. “Melody makes you look like Betty Crocker.”

“I feel as if I’m back doing police work.”

“Does it bother you to have Melody on board? I can make more of an effort to get rid of her-”

“No. She really wants to finish the cruise. She lied to Ace about her age. She’s only eighteen. Graduated from high school in June. But she was telling the truth about the band. She’s from Scranton, and I don’t think she saw too many options open to her. Her dad works in the mines, and her mother works as a grocery clerk. Several conservatories offered her a partial scholarship, but being on the road with a rock band sounded a lot more glamorous. From the way she’s clinging to this ship, I’d guess she was relieved when the bus broke.”

“You mean under all that blue-and-green hair we’ve got Julie Andrews?”

“Not exactly. Maybe Cher with a touch of Bette Midler and Shirley Temple.”

“So you think we should keep her, huh?”

Stephanie sighed. “I’m a real sucker, I know. She’s driving me nuts in the kitchen, but there’s this little-kid vulnerability to her. I’ve seen so many teenagers just like her. They get hurt and feel helpless, and they rebel. They go out looking for easy answers to hard problems.”

Ivan watched her, hoping she’d go on. He knew she was thinking about herself and her life as a cop. As a kid she’d probably taken in stray cats and rescued baby birds that had fallen from their nests. She was one of those people who stopped to remove turtles from the middle of the road and gave money to street people. And now she had another foundling, and it had to remind her of the life she’d tried to escape. “You’re not thinking of adopting her, are you?”

Stephanie laughed. “She’s too old to adopt, but I think I could share my fresh air with her for a while. Three months ago I couldn’t have managed it. It’s a little like looking in the rearview mirror and seeing where I’ve been-and deciding it wasn’t such an awful place. Not necessarily a place I’d want to return to, but a place I’m glad to have seen. And I’m a little shocked at how remote that previous life has become. I still have some bad dreams, and I haven’t entirely lost the wary attitude I developed after years of undercover work, but I’ve discovered the top layer of disgust and burnout has all peeled away.”