Coincidence - Alan May [60]
“Well now—maybe I’ll just have to bunk in with you,” he said.
Yeah, maybe they could turn this into a pleasure cruise, he thought. He could do with some of that, all right.
Anika saw the man’s big teeth smirking down at her. She saw his hard eyes appraising her body. She saw his big hand reaching out and noticed the grime under the fingernails as the hand came forward and lightly, teasingly, tugged at the neck of her T-shirt.
And then she saw her own hand, as if disconnected from the rest of her, leaving the clipboard and striking the side of his face with more force than she knew she possessed.
Dear God, what had she done?
Phillip rubbed the side of his face as he waited for Dave to pass the end of the hawser to him. Not only was the little blonde plucky, she packed a mean wallop. He’d been so taken aback by the swiftness and strength of her slap that he’d very nearly returned it with one of his own.
But then he’d stepped back and shrugged, holding up his hands in a gesture of resignation.
“Hey, simmer down,” he had told her, keeping his tone light and bantering. “It was only a thought.”
A thought that might grow on her, too, with any luck at all. She’d come around; he’d bet on it. A lot of them did, after the first display of protecting their honor. Unless maybe she was sleeping with somebody onboard already. The captain? Good career move, Phillip thought. That could be it, even though he was a lot older. Or what about this guy with the hawser, one of the teachers, right? Yeah, he was closer to Anika’s age, and the kind of guy a woman might find attractive.
Dave threw the end of the rope down to the Coincidence, then hopped onboard to help Phillip tie it off. All the while he kept up a steady stream of conversation as if his life depended on it.
Which it very well might.
As they tied off the hawser to the Sampson post, Dave could, if he looked very carefully at just the right spot, and squinted slightly, just make out Mac’s dim outline in the water, peeking around the bow of the Inspiration. Naturally, Dave was not squinting at this spot, in fact was looking at it as little as possible, and was trying for all he was worth to make sure no one else was looking at it either.
“So,” he shouted to Phillip, “will a boat this big tow all right behind the Inspiration?”
“Sure. Your captain says there might be some reduction in speed, maybe a half knot, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Mac could hear Dave with no difficulty, but Phillip, unaware of the purpose of the conversation, was not so audible. Mac swam as close to edge of the bow as he could and listened for all he was worth.
The “plan” was now in operation, yet barely more gelled than before. Dave had come to fetch the hawser from the bosun’s locker and the two had had a hurried conference, only two or three minutes, before a couple of Floaties had come down to help carry the heavy rope. Mac had secreted himself behind the sails again; if no one saw him, no one would be able to let anything slip. He knew only that he was to try, somehow, to get himself aboard the Coincidence before they started towing. Once onboard … well, he’d think of something. He had to.
“If you’re not leaving anyone onboard to steer,” Dave was inquiring at the top of his lungs, “will you use the automatic helm?”
“Nah, we won’t need the Autohelm. We’ll just lock the wheel amidships and it should tow pretty easily.”
“How far back will it be?”
“We’ll pay out about two hundred feet of line. That should do.”
“Do you think we should put a secondary line on just in case something happens to the hawser?”
Man, this guy was a talker, Phillip thought. He was just like so many of the sailing guys he had met over the years. Couldn’t get enough of the boats and had to hash out all of the technical aspects of every move they made. Well, that’s probably why he’d signed on for the floating schoolhouse gig. It was the closest