“She’d be marvelous.” Mary imagined yards of snowy canvas snapping above her, sailors climbing the rigging and calling to each other. “It’s sad to see her sails trussed up to her masts, isn’t it? She can’t fly.”
“All she can do is float with the current.” Jim’s eyebrows bunched together. “She can’t let the wind move her. She can’t set her own course.”
Mary laid her hand on the polished oak railing surrounding the mast. What a contrast to the painting in her apartment. In her painting, the tiny sailboat charged ahead, sails full, charting new territory. Yet here this grand old ship sat stagnant.
She let a sigh join the sea breeze. Her sails were bound up tight. She might not capsize, but she didn’t go anywhere either.
Jim frowned up at the swooping lines. “My sails are trussed too.”
“You?”
His gaze turned to her, a bit bleary and unfocused, and he made a wavy motion with one hand. “I float wherever the current takes me. I don’t make waves, don’t push, and no one gets hurt. So far the current’s taken me exactly where I wanted to go.”
That did fit his easygoing personality.
He jutted his hand out. “But I don’t control the direction. The current chooses. Not me. Not the Lord.”
She studied his intent face. “Your sails are trussed for a different reason than mine.”
He grasped one of the lines hanging limp alongside the mast. “We have to hoist our sails. We have to let the Lord fill them. Then we have to resist the current if necessary to stay the course.”
A sense of peace, of rightness, of exhilaration filled her lungs. “Then we can fly with the wind.”
Jim looked deep into her eyes, his own awash with emotion.
Mary caught her breath, capturing the peace and rightness and exhilaration and sealing it with the joy of shared experience. She’d never felt such an intense connection with another human being.
In the cloud-filtered sunshine, his eyes gleamed green as spring, full of hope and promise. “Hoist your sails high, young lady. Let’s see how fast you can go.”
Affection for him swelled inside, burst her restraints, and flowed into her smile. “And let’s see where your course lies.”
10
Sunday, June 1, 1941
Jim stepped out the door from the bridge superstructure to the main deck, and a cool mist tickled his face. Boy, did it feel good to get out to sea.
Well, out to harbor at least. Under an overcast sky, theAtwoodchugged past the islands in Boston Harbor, with the neat white tower of the Long Island Head lighthouse rising to starboard.
Finally theAtwoodwas out for her shakedown cruise, to see what she and her crew could do. For a month, the men would perform drills and drills and more drills, until they functioned as one. He couldn’t wait.
And yet...
Jim gazed past the destroyer’s two funnels, where he could barely make out the piers of the Boston Navy Yard. Right after theAtwoodhad shoved off, Mary had come, waving a handkerchief, looking small and pretty in her light brown coat.
Made him feel good to know she’d be there when he returned.
Jim stepped down through a hatch, his hands guiding his descent down the ladder as his feet glanced over the steps. Like an old sea salt.
He ducked his head at the bottom, but not in time. The top of the doorway scraped his scalp. After a quick glance to make sure no one had seen, he snatched up his cover and shoved it back on his head. Old sea salt indeed.
More like a giant puppy, bounding around with his tongue hanging out. No wonder Mary wasn’t interested in him. A quiet soul like her would prefer a man of suave sophistication.
Did he want her to be interested in him anyway? Sometimes when she smiled up at him, he wanted to draw her close. Her gentle ways soothed him, intrigued him, balanced him.
He’d never imagined himself with anyone but a perky blonde, but now he longed for Mary’s company. Strange. He’d have to wait and see what happened.
Jim entered the forward boiler room and shed his navy blue jacket. Heat pressed in, and the roar of the machinery assaulted his ears. At some point he’d have to do his turn down here with the “black gang” in the engine and boiler rooms, but he wouldn’t volunteer.
