Оуэн Локканен - Gale Force

By the time they’d returned to the deck, more of the crew had arrived.

AL PARENT, the first mate and relief skipper, was a big, barrel-chested man with two shocks of red hair on his temples and none in between. He was a longtime sailor and an experienced towboater, and he would run the Gale Force while McKenna oversaw the salvage operation.

Al had stuck around, too, after Randall Rhodes’s death. He was quieter than Nelson Ridley, and more laid-back than McKenna, but McKenna knew he was as fiercely loyal as she and her engineer were when it came to the Gale Force and maintaining her father’s good name. As he came down the dock, she could tell he was excited by the way he barely glanced back at his grandson, who was following in his daughter-in-law’s arms.

Al’s son, Jason, trailed his father, walking down the wharf with his young wife, Angel, and their infant son, Ben. Your typical wharf rat, Jason was twenty-five or so, slimmer than his father, with a little more hair. He’d been raised on the water, grew up around boats, and there’d never been any question he would wind up at sea, though he’d barely started with the Gale Force when Randall Rhodes died.

Jason hadn’t seen much of the salvage business, not yet, but he would soon enough, McKenna figured. He’d be the de facto deckhand on the tug; aside from tending to the lines and helping with the grunt work, he’d cook meals for the crew in the tugboat’s small galley.

McKenna shook hands with both men, waved hello to Angel and to Ben, who gave her a big smile and looked around at the boats, as if he were already planning his own trip to sea.

The kid was adorable, McKenna thought, with rosy cherub cheeks and a patch of blond hair, that big beaming smile.

“I don’t know how you’re going to say good-bye to him,” she told Jason. “He’s such a handsome devil.”

Jason looked back at his son and wife. He blushed a little bit, scuffed his boot on the wharf.

“Hoping we’ll hit a big score on this, skipper,” he said. “Set aside a little something for the kid’s education, his future, you know?”

“Looks like he’s pretty happy around boats,” she said, grinning. “We might have to save a job on this tug.”

She smiled at little Ben again, then looked past him just in time to see a black flash hurdle the bulwarks and careen across the deck. “Cat came back, huh?” she said, grimacing.

Al grinned. “Ship’s cat, skipper. Don’t leave port without him; you know that.”

The ship’s cat, Spike, was as grouchy as ever, and McKenna figured she wouldn’t mind so much if the Gale Force did leave him behind. Three years into her command of the tug and the cat still hadn’t warmed to the new regime; he barely paused to give McKenna a petulant once-over before darting over the bulkhead and into the tug—headed, no doubt, to stake a claim on the wheelhouse.

“I’ll know I’ve made it when that cat deigns to let me sit in my own captain’s chair,” McKenna told the crew. “That’s when I’ll know I’m a real tugboat skipper.”

Matt and Stacey laughed, and Jason smiled, too. But Al wasn’t paying attention. He was looking around the afterdeck and the dock, frowning. “I guess Ridley’s in the engine room,” he said. “But where’s the whiz kid?”

Court.

McKenna felt every one of her crew’s eyes turn toward her. Knew they were flashing back, too, to her dad’s sloppy memorial.

“The whiz kid’s not coming.” She sighed. “We’re going to have to make do without him.”

She watched Al Parent’s expression as she relayed the story of Court and the World Series of Poker, watched Matt and Stacey share another look and felt herself going red.

“Job needs an architect, doesn’t it?” Al asked.

“Definitely,” Stacey said. “I saw the pictures of that ship. We need to get her upright somehow.”

“Are you sure you can’t convince Court to come along?” Matt said. “Heck, I’ll chip in a part of my share, if it helps.”

McKenna closed her eyes. Tried to chase the feeling that she wasn’t cut out for this game, just an amateur, playing pretend.

“We’re going to have to do this without Court,” she told them. “I’ll get us another architect, don’t worry.”

There was no more time to worry about Court Harrington, not with a voyage to prepare for. Matt Jonas and the Parents helped McKenna stow the groceries in the tug’s hold as Stacey stocked the lockers inside the house. By the time the crew had McKenna’s truck unloaded, the pumps and generators had arrived, and Jason Parent worked the crane to offload them from the dock to the afterdeck: heavy, boxy things, a hundred pounds apiece. Jason stowed them behind the wheelhouse, affording them as much protection as possible from the elements. They’d be indispensible for moving water out of the Lion , and McKenna knew she’d need every one of those pumps in working order when she arrived on the scene.

McKenna was checking over her deckhand’s work when Ridley emerged from the engine room, wiping his brow. “Turbo’s a go,” he told the captain. “Let me do an oil change on the auxiliary and we’re all set.”

“Perfect,” McKenna replied. “We should be all squared away here by the time you’re finished.”

“Fine.” Ridley glanced at Jason Parent, then leaned closer to McKenna. “Can I talk to you in private for a minute?”

McKenna followed his eyes, frowned. “Sure.” She walked with Ridley to the stern of the tug, where a pair of chocks stuck up from the bulwarks to guide the towline over the rail.

“I went to the shop this morning,” Ridley said. “Had to pick up the parts for the turbo, like I said.”

“Yeah,” McKenna said. “I remember. So?”

“So, they wouldn’t give me credit.” Ridley scratched his head. “Skip, they say we’re used up. I had to put the parts on my wife’s credit card.”

McKenna closed her eyes. “Damn it. I’m sorry, Nelson.”

“It’s no big deal. I’ll pay off the card before Carly even sees it, but, I mean—” He studied McKenna’s face. “Are we really in it that bad, lass?”

McKenna looked back at the wheelhouse. Jason was hosing off the deck, the rest of the crew inside the tug somewhere. She said nothing.

“I knew we were right on the edge, but—” Ridley shook his head. “How are we going to put diesel in this boat? Are we that dry?”

McKenna hesitated, just a beat. “We’re going to be fine. I called the bank this morning, soon as they opened. Took out another equity loan on my dad’s old house, a hundred grand. It’ll give us enough operating capital to get up to the Lion and see what we can do.”

Ridley looked dubious. “Yeah,” he said. “All right, skipper.”

Just don’t ask me how we’re going to get home, Nelson, McKenna thought. Or what I’m going to do if I can’t find us an architect.

BY NOON, the Gale Force was ready to go.

McKenna fired up the mains, feeling the big tug rumble and shudder to life beneath her. The engine room was insulated with about a mile of soundproofing, but still, the big 20-710s sounded like a freight train when they came to life.

Spike jumped up onto the dashboard, picking his way along the instrument panel, shying just out of McKenna’s reach. He stopped and sat and studied the skipper while he cleaned one black paw with his tongue, his yellow eyes wide and inscrutable.

The cat leaped away when McKenna tried to pet him, jumping down off the dash and padding out of the wheelhouse. McKenna watched him go, trying to ignore the sting of rejection, feeling stupid for even feeling it.