Smooth Sailing

Jeb’s bedroom.

A strange feeling passed through her as she stared at the bed and vividly imagined herself in it with Jeb. Oh, knock it off. She had to get into that bathroom and put some cold water on her face.

She sank against the door, clicked it locked in case anyone else wandered this way. She needed privacy until the dizziness passed. After a minute, she lurched toward the bathroom door. Heat swamped her body. Her mouth was like a desert. And those damn stilettos were anchors on her feet.

This didn’t feel right. Sure, she was a lightweight drinker, but this…this was more than being tipsy. This felt wrong.

Her vision blurred. She couldn’t think. Help!

She heard a knock on the door.

“Haley?” It was Rick.

He was the last person she wanted to see.

The door handle rattled. “Haley, are you in there?”

She might not want to see him, but she was feeling very weird and maybe he could help her. She opened her mouth to answer, but belatedly, it occurred to her that Rick might have put something in her drink. The salty dog had a funky aftertaste and he’d stirred it before he’d passed it to her.

Had she been drugged? How naive was she to have trusted him?

Her heart thundered in her chest as the truth of it hit her. Rick was a predator prowling outside, waiting to pounce. Thankfully, she’d had the presence of mind to lock the bedroom door.

The bathroom was so close and yet seemed a hundred miles away. Screw it. She was going to lie right down here on Jeb’s bed for a couple of minutes, just until the dizziness passed and Rick went away, and then she’d go find Jeb and tell him what she suspected had happened to her.

Jeb would know how to handle that lowlife Rick. A charming playboy Jeb might be, but oddly enough she trusted him. Beneath that party-hearty attitude, he was a good guy. She had to admit that.

Satisfied with her plan, Haley flopped headfirst onto the mattress and that was the last thing she remembered.

THE LAST GUEST LEFT at 3:00 a.m., as the cleaning crew Jeb had hired swept down the deck. By the time he paid the cleaners, the caterers and the parking-lot attendants, he was so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. The party had been a resounding success, but even in the midst of that knowledge, he was disappointed, because at some point during the night, Haley had slipped away without saying goodbye.

He’d been on the lookout for her, but hadn’t managed to see her again after she’d gone off with Mustache Rick. He’d found Rick, who was frantically searching for Haley, so he figured she’d given the smarmy respiratory therapist the slip, not him. Still, he would have liked one last conversation with her.

Never mind. He had other things to think about. Like getting home to Miami to see Jackie. He couldn’t believe it had been a year since they’d spoken, and he was eager to see her again and show her how much he’d changed.

He thought about his last conversation with Jackie, when she’d broken up with him. It had come as a shocker—because no woman had ever broken up with him. Jackie had been on her father’s research ship, the Sea Anemone, and he’d sailed up and tried to get her to blow off work and go sailing with him.

“Some of us work for a living, Jeb,” Jackie had said, clearly irritated with him.

“I work for a living,” he’d protested, giving her his biggest smile and an endearing wink.

“When was the last time you built something?”

Hmm, well, it had been over a year since he’d completed the Miami Beach condos, but everyone knew the Florida real-estate market was in the toilet. His strategy was simply to wait it out and have a good time while doing it. “I’ll be ready when the market turns around.”

“You have the luxury of waiting. Most people don’t, Jeb. You squander your time.”

“I don’t see things that way.”

“I do and I just don’t think this relationship is working. We’re too different.”

That comment had smacked him upside the head. “I can change.”

“Seriously? You come from money. It’s all you’ve ever known. You don’t really have to work. You’re a playboy at heart. I mean, c’mon, just look at the name of your yacht. Feelin’ Nauti. You summed yourself up quite neatly.”

“But don’t we have a lot of fun together?” he’d wheedled.

“Yes, that’s precisely the problem. All we do is have fun together.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he’d asked, puzzled.

“Nothing as long as it’s in small doses. But my life is ninety percent work, ten percent play. You, on the other hand, are completely the reverse. Ten percent work, ninety percent play. It’s not a lifestyle I desire.”

That had thrown him for a loop. All his life he’d been complimented on his ability to light up any room he walked into and now here was Jackie telling him that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “So let me get this straight. You’re breaking up with me because I’m too much fun to be around?”

“Precisely.”

“I’ll work.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“Go do something useful.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Find someone to help. Find something bigger than yourself to be a part of. Figure it out.”

“If I do that, will you give me a second chance?”

“Jeb—”

“Please,” he said, “don’t cut off all hope.”

She sighed. “All right. I’ll give you a year. If you can get involved with something meaningful and prove to me you’ve changed, we’ll see.”

“You won’t regret it,” he said, but she’d already turned back to her research materials.

The first thing he’d done was change the name of his boat to Second Chance, even though it was supposedly bad luck to change the name of a boat. The very next day, Hurricane Sylvia had churned up the Atlantic and a few days later slammed into St. Michael’s. Bad luck for St. Michael’s, but Jeb had taken it as a sign and he’d headed out to help rebuild the devastated island.

Jeb smiled smugly. Jackie had given him a much-needed wakeup call, and she was going to be so impressed at how he’d changed.

He shut off the lights, blew out the candles and stood on the deck in the moonlight. He was damned proud of what he’d done. He’d gone from thinking only of himself to putting others first, and he was so grateful to Jackie for setting him on this path. He couldn’t wait to tell her about it.

Bed. It was time to go to bed, but he didn’t have the energy to head down to his bunk on the lower deck.

He stretched, yawned, completely exhausted. His eyelids were heavy. He walked to the blue-and-white-striped bridge hammock, stretched out, cupped his head in his palms and stared up at the stars.