“Wh…?” Ryan’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t grow hair?”
Lace laughed, because thatwasa funny thing to say. Like she was one of those hairless cats or something.
Her mind started to drift into a picture of herself as a jaunty, skin-only feline, but she nipped it in the bud. There was no time for daydreaming right now.
“No. I actually have cancer,” she told them bluntly. “Breast cancer to be exact. And I’m undergoing chemotherapy treatments once a week.”
“Wow.” Zach’s entire frame seemed to collapse, then he got really quiet.
Ryan, however, looked a little freaked as he edged away from her a few inches.
Yup.She got that sometimes; people moving as if cancer was catching.
“Yeah. Wow,” Lace agreed, ignoring Ryan’s inappropriate reaction. “And my infusion schedule has now changed from Fridays to Tuesdays, so it’s not like I can do anything about it.”
She wasn’t going to tell them the real reason for the shift in timing. It was none of their business.
“Shit, Lace. We didn’t know. Why don’t you just tell the captain?” Ryan queried, stepping back up to engage.
She scoffed. “And have him find a way to complain that I’m not capable of doing my job? No thanks.”
Both young men huffed, nodded, and stared intently at their feet.
Yeah.Something was going on.
Lace was going to have to keep her eyes open.
The morning ran smoothly after that.
Lace didn’t have much interaction with Captain Jerk-face, for which she was extremely grateful.
Another bonus? Today’s longlines hadn’t brought in much of anything concerning. A normal amount of undersized tuna that had to get thrown back, but at least the turtle catch had calmed down. That’s probably because they’d laid their lines out in a spot that was a few miles north of where they’d set their hooks two days previous. It was smart thinking for the stubborn captain, but he’d probably tallied up the time, labor, and bait lost with the extraneous catch, and had changed positions due to his pocketbook.
The day’s luck didn’t last long, however.
Rain and wind moved in at noon, with a vengeance. It was completely unexpected, but that didn’t slow down their operations. It was simply harder going, but they all knew the ropes.
It wasn’t until just after one that the captain announced gale warnings up to fifty knots were being posted for the afternoon, and they’d have to pack things in.
High winds were always a deal killer.
They swiftly finished baiting and setting the current line they’d be soaking, then headed back to port.
Of course, Captain Nasty-nads wasn’t happy about that. Grumbling and swearing for the entire trip in, he told everyone to be prepared to weigh anchor an hour early the following morning.
But even that couldn’t stifle Lace’s joy. Having a rare afternoon off when she wasn’t recovering from her infusions? That was a huge bonus.
She wondered if Vincent…?
Yup.She was going to text him as soon as she was within range of a cell phone tower.
The ride back in was rough, but nothing Lace wasn’t used to. She’d grown up with the sea in her blood, and seasickness wasn’t something she’d ever experienced. When she’d first started chemo, she’d worried that the drugs might change that, but luckily, they hadn’t.
Lace left her seat below where the crew hunkered, taking her leave to make her way up the stairway and to the forward deck where she braced herself in the wind, tipping her head to the cloud-darkened sky. She really enjoyed standing at the forecastle in the rain, even knowing she’d be one soggy dog when all was said and done. But the strident weather made her feel alive, and that was something that had been sorely lacking since her diagnosis.
Well… At least until the advent of Vincent.
Had it only been a little more than a week ago when he’d first run into her in the hospital?
