The Whiskey Tide (62 page)

     
And everything he had to gain.

     
He saw Kate appear on the beach stairs. His heart pressed into his ribs and he breathed with effort. Maybe it had been the way that Rita said. Maybe she liked him, cared for him, even. Just not enough to marry him. He had to know.

     
In the end, he couldn't stand the thought of her sailing off for four days, maybe more, with a man like Travis Gallagher. Clovis and Billy would try to protect her, of course, but....

     
At the foot of the dock, in the shades of gray that preceded dawn, she recognized his shape and stopped stock-still.

     
"Travis Gallagher couldn't make it," Joe said. "He's in jail. Blind drunk. Don't know what he told you, but he's never been north of Bar Harbor anyway. And he can't keep his hands off women, drunk or sober."

     
She took two steps forward. "You—. Damn you!"

     
He wasn't sure what part she was damning him for. There'd been a catch in her voice.

     
"It's me or nothing."

     
He held his breath. She might order him off her boat. If they sailed and were caught with booze, he'd probably lose Odyssey Engines. He’d lose any chance of the kind of orders from businesses he needed to keep it going, at least. If taking that risk won him a second chance with Kate, it didn't matter.

     
Into the moment which held his future came the lap of oars as Clovis arrived. Mrs. Cole said something about weren't they fortunate that Mr. Santayna could help them out? Kate stepped woodenly aboard. She crossed the deck and gripped the rope rail, looking to sea.

     
"We'll leave whenever you're ready," she said at length.

Forty-five

     
For most of the first day out, Kate managed to avoid the man she'd never expected to see again in such close confines. When maneuvering the boat required them to speak to each other, she did so with strained politeness. Mrs. Cole's enthusiasm for the details of navigation and sailing, and her exclamations at the things they saw, almost masked the stiffness. Clovis and Billy recognized something amiss, however. Throughout the day Kate caught the glances they stole at her and Joe. She couldn't have been more on edge if they'd been hauling dynamite.

     
"I shall sleep like a baby," Mrs. Cole said happily when she finally retired to the cabin they shared after dinner.

     
"Good." Kate attempted a smile. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. I'll try not to wake you when I come in."

     
Squaring her shoulders she went above to take her watch at the wheel. It would be the first time all day she and Joe had been alone. Why had he made this trip when he had a business to see to now? Did he think he owed her something? She wondered how he'd learned about the trip, and how the man she'd hired had happened to land in jail.

     
"I'll take my watch now," she said briskly.

     
Joe nodded. He stepped aside and her fingers closed over the smooth wood of the
Folly's
wheel. The motor was off for the night. Dark rhomboids of sail melted into the sky around them.

     
"Kate, I know you're sore at me for turning up like this. If we could just talk for a minute—"

     
"We've said all there is to say." Somewhere on the bow Clovis and Billy most likely strained to hear their lowered voices. "I'm grateful to you for making this trip. I'd never have asked it of you. Please. Don't make it harder. I... appeal to your decency."

     
Though she hadn't intended it, the word struck home like an arrow. Joe drew himself erect, gave a curt nod and with a single, lingering look jammed his hands in his pockets and walked toward the bow.

     
They spoke not a word when he relieved her in the small hours of morning. When daylight came they avoided each other. Mrs. Cole chatted with each of them, seemingly unaware of the absence of conversation between them. Toward evening, as Joe pointed out a scuffy rum boat, Mrs. Cole asked some question that made him laugh. The familiar sound squeezed Kate's heart until it ached.

     
What if she had been wrong, she wondered that night as she stood alone at the wheel? What if Joe's family were more able to accept things — and people — necessary to his happiness than she had believed? An indifferent night sky gave her no answers.

     
Mrs. Cole looked a bit untidy their third day out. She was unaccustomed to doing her own hair, Kate suspected, for whisps of it escaped and several pins which should have held it stuck out at odd angles. She proved an intrepid sailor, however, marveling at her first sight of puffins lined up like soldiers on the cliffs of Grand Manan and showing no hint of seasickness when they hit the surging, heaving waters of the Bay of Fundy.

     
"It's rather like an extended ride on the Flying Horses, isn't it?" she exclaimed holding the crown of her broad-brimmed hat even though she'd tied it in place with a scarf.

     
"Funny, that's almost how Miss Hinshaw described it the first time," Joe said.

     
"Did I really?" Kate asked in surprise.

     
He nodded absently, his eyes on the waters ahead as he held the wheel. His face had forgotten its tight set for a moment. Memory curved his lip.

     
They reached Saint John before nightfall and Joe escorted the two women to a hotel near the center of town. He collected them first thing in the morning.

     
"I'll go to the warehouse alone," Kate told them as they started back. "I don't want anyone seen with me in case there are questions later. There may be, since this trip isn't so much a rum-run as a personal vendetta."

     
Joe gave her a long look. "You're sure?"

     
"Yes."

     
Her courage faltered as she entered the bonded warehouse with its huge square posts and buzzing activity. This part of her plan was its linchpin. She wore a skirt today and a flower trimmed hat which covered her hair as well as making her look quite unlike her usual self. As she waited in line she was conscious of looks from the men around her. She was the only unaccompanied woman in the building. The only woman, period.

     
When she reached the long wooden counter she placed her order in clear tones. The man on the other side, with the merest second of hesitation, slid the forms toward her. She knew the information required, had seen it completed in Joe's neat penmanship. Vessel:
Pa's Folly
. Purchase: 1,000 cases Scotch whiskey. Destination: Havana, Cuba. She held her breath as the counterman took her money order and prepared a numbered receipt, which she would relinquish the bottom half of when the liquor arrived at the schooner.

     
"And could you put my uncle's name on it, please?" She gave her best smile. "He makes a terrible fuss if it's not on. He has a hotel, you see, and it's something to do with his records."

     
For a terrible instant she thought he would refuse. Then he picked up his pen and as she spelled wrote bold, black letters: P-h-i-n-n-e-a-s T-a-y-l-o-r.

     
She burned with victory as she stepped outside. She wanted to dance. Scooping off her ridiculous hat she hailed a passing wagon and wangled a ride to the wharf, uneager to fend off amorous sailors. To her surprise Joe had hired an extra man from the docks to help with the loading and gone off with Mrs. Cole on what Billy termed ‘an excursion’. She and Billy supervised the loading, trying hard to sound as firm as Joe, but somewhere near the end of things she was distracted from her count and thought she might end up a few cases short. No matter. The number of cases on board didn't matter, she reminded herself. So long as there were plenty of them, which there were.

     
She was tucking the top half of the receipt in her pocket when Joe and Mrs. Cole returned in a taxi.

     
"Kate, you can't imagine!" she gasped, face glowing. "We've seen a spot where the water reverses itself! The tide comes in and pushes the river back. Makes it flow upstream! It — it
boils
! It's the most splendid thing I've ever seen!"

     
Joe wore a smile at her enthusiasm. It slipped away as his eyes met Kate's. He began to make things ready for their departure. He hated her now. And he had every right.

***

     
Joe never had realized how little privacy there was on a boat. Every time he gathered courage enough to speak to Kate, she was with Mrs. Cole. At night, when she took her shift at the wheel and when he returned to relieve her, the coolness of her manner told him trying to speak to her would be pointless. Arliss had been wrong. Whatever Kate might have felt for him that night in the cave, she had thought better of it.

     
Not that he believed she'd been as blunt about it as Rita claimed. Kate was too kind for that. Still, it all came down to the same thing. Finally, when he no longer wanted her to, she'd acknowledged the vast difference in their backgrounds. That was why, when he'd attempted to talk to her at the start of this voyage, she'd asked him raggedly not to.

     
It came to him, as he waited for her to take her nine o'clock watch their last full night out, that he didn't want their last recollections of each other to be bitter ones. He felt her presence, stepped aside to give her the wheel, then stood with his hands in his pockets memorizing her face.

     
"I guess Billy's told you he's joining the navy," he said.

     
"The navy!" She looked up, startled into amusement.

     
"Yeah." He chuckled though it hurt his throat. "I'm wondering if he plans on listing these trips as experience."

     
She laughed before she could stop herself. He turned away holding the sound of it in his head.

     
The next day strained politeness festered between them again. Near Portsmouth it finally came to a head. They were seven hours or less out of Salem on as bright and blue a day as had ever been seen.

     
"I'll need to go ashore at Portsmouth," Kate announced coming up to him where he stood by the rail. "For about fifteen minutes."

     
Joe wondered if he was hearing right. "In broad daylight? Sashay into port with a load of booze?"

     
"I'll row in in the stern boat. Billy can help me."

     
While the
Folly
made herself obvious hovering outside the three-mile limit, Joe thought. His mouth set.

     
"Why?"

     
"It doesn't matter why," Kate said crossly.

     
"Like hell it doesn't! I've risked my neck for you! I've brought you through storms and fought off men who would've sunk you — and now you want to pull some damn fool stunt—"

     
"Well, you needn't risk your neck any more! You can row in with me and hitch a ride back to Salem. I'll captain the
Folly
the rest of the way. I don't need any favors from you. Go back to your sweetheart—"

     
"What sweetheart? The only woman I ever loved turned me down because I wasn't good enough for her."

     
"I didn't — that's not why she turned you down."

     
"Why, then?" Joe demanded, his eyes fixed intently on hers. He thought of Billy at the wheel; Clovis napping in a patch of shade, or maybe not napping; Mrs. Cole in her deck chair. Any one of them could be listening. He didn't care.