“I’ll do it.”
“Really, Ms. Greaves, it’s not—”
“The name is Jenna, and I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER7
Back in Miramar, Jenna’s first stop was her apartment. She donned clothes she could throw away if necessary—ancient denim shorts and a T-shirt so faded she could no longer read the name of some defunct bar. Nikes with a missing logo. Fanny pack for her keys and wallet. She filled a cooler with ice and headed out.
She drove to her favorite juice and taco stand and ordered six meals to go. She had forgotten to ask how many were in today’s crew, so she went back and ordered two extra.
Jenna told herself it was silly, how much she looked forward to returning. There was no logic to her actions, paying for meals and then heading back to help others work on a wrecked boat. One that was not hers and never would be.
But there was something about that guy, Noah Hearst. Good-natured, good-hearted, or so he seemed to her. Not to mention the fact that he looked better than fine, decked out in nothing but a pair of cutoffs. Of course, on the downside was his awful, dreadful singing. Which was why she was smiling as she passed the town’s southern limits.
As Jenna turned onto the county road, a sudden memory took hold, strong as the hills closing in to either side. She was back in Santa Barbara, reliving the final days spent in Dino’s company. She did not just remember. She was back there again, caring for an old man with weeks left to live.
Getting Dino in and out of transport was made infinitely smoother because of his money. A black Mercedes van had been fitted out with an electric ramp attached to the side doors. The rear seats had been replaced with a floor panel where Jenna could lock the wheelchair into position, allowing him to observe the world over her shoulder as she drove. Dino relished these brief forays into the outside world. She would watch via the rearview mirror as the massive bald head swung about, taking in the traffic and the people and the greenery. All the windows down, all the city’s flavors rushing in with the wind. Just loving it.
Soon as she parked, two of the harbor attendants hustled over. Early on Dino had insisted she tip generously wherever possible, ensuring people would be eager to assist her. Together with the young men, Jenna maneuvered the chair and the three medical kits and the cooler with drinks and a packed lunch down the central pier. Out to a yacht so large it dominated the harbor.
They pushed him up the ramp and locked Dino’s chair onto the rear deck. Positioning it out where the sun shone full on his mottled features. Dino loved the contrast of full sunlight and the Pacific’s frigid bite. The attendants released the lines and stowed the fenders, the cushions used to protect the gunnels when the boat was moored. They watched as Jenna maneuvered the huge yacht away from the pier, out past the harbor’s protective arms, into open waters.
The first time Jenna had taken control of Dino’s boat, she had been absolutely terrified. The flying bridge and the yacht’s main controls were tall as a four-story building. From that position, she felt high as the birds, high as the clouds. Taking responsibility for a boat large as a fiberglass mountain. One that had cost new . . .
Seven million dollars.
Of course, that was twenty years ago. And since then a lot of Dino’s high-priced extras had gone out of fashion. But the massive twin MAN diesels had less than a thousand hours on the clock. The boat’s interior was dusty, since Dino refused to allow cleaners on board. And the fact that the old man wouldn’t let the harbormaster scrape the lady’s hull . . . Dino was a fanatic about his privacy. Same as with the house. It had taken four long months before Dino had grown to trust her. Her patience with his fanatical demand for privacy, her willingness to serve as both cook and cleaner, had been one of the reasons they had finally bonded. And brought her here. Learning how to handle one of the largest yachts moored in Santa Barbara Harbor.
That day, the last she had taken the old man into open waters, Dino had been both alert and fairly strong. So she headed west by north, out toward the nearest Channel Island.
The swells were running that day, driven by a storm south of Kauai. The offshore winds lessened the coastal chop, and the waves rushed toward them like midnight-blue mountains. Great shadows, some of them fourteen, fifteen feet high, forming like stripes cast across the entire horizon. Marching silently toward them. Lifting the vessel, sending it scooting down the other side. Showing just how small her craft truly was when faced with the ocean’s vastness.
She marveled at how comfortable she felt, skippering this craft across the Pacific depths. All the myriad of controls, the three computer screens, the readings that told her about the engines and their positioning, she could read them now with the occasional glance. Occasionally she looked back and down, checking on the old man. All of it had been terrifying at first. Being in the middle of the mysterious blue world. Alone with a sick old man. Now . . .
She loved it.
Sometimes, when the gulls flew alongside the bridge and dolphins danced in the waters off her bow, when the whales rose and spouted geysers before sounding, her sister seemed intensely close. So bonded Jenna talked with her. It seemed the right thing to do. Offer a soft thanks, hoping the sensation was more than just a momentary joy. That somehow Millie had managed to bridge the divide and join them.
She held to a measured pace, crossing the twenty-two miles in about an hour and a half. For most boats, the approach that day would have been hazardous. The island’s western side was rimmed by massive crashing surf. Because of the strong offshore wind, there was also no safety to the east. Kelp beds rimmed the beaches, floating green nets that could wrap around the propeller and snap it clean off. An inflatable lighter with a ten-horse kicker was suspended from the stern winches. But the prospect of maneuvering Dino onto the tiny craft, then motoring him home in a big swell was the stuff of nightmares.
Jenna positioned the craft just north of Cave Canyon, three hundred meters off the rocky Landing Cove beach. She set the autopilot to hold them in place via the GPS—one of the last improvements Dino had fitted before starting his decline. She descended the rear steps and asked her patient, “You doing okay?”
“Never better,” Dino replied, and clearly meant it.
She opened the cooler for a couple of smoothies. Dino’s arthritic hands took hold of the oversized plastic grips. He liked feeding himself, maintaining that small bit of independence on the good days. He pulled on the long straw, then asked, “Did you ever wonder why I named my boatContraband?”
“I wonder about a lot of things,” she replied. “But since you’re probably the most private person I’ve ever met, I don’t bother asking.”
“Call it what it is,” he replied. “I’m secretive.”
She used a cloth napkin to clear his chin. “Whatever.”
“I was born in 1919. The things I’ve seen.”
Dino had made statements like that many times in the past. And then followed it up with nothing at all. Which was one of the many differences between him and other elderly patients. For them, the past was far more vivid than the present. They dwelled on moments, repeating stories, fading away in midsentence, fashioning a half-spoken litany that remained mostly behind their eyes.
For the first time ever, Dino continued. “My pop, he worked for the Mob. You ever heard of Al Capone?”
