Swept Up In You

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The buzzer sounded, and Samantha Garner looked over her monitor just in time to see her favourites, Larry and Dave, walk through the door. Both in their eighties, they’d known Sam since she was still getting shoulder rides around the marine shop from her dad. When the old duo weren’t down on the marina tinkering with their boats, they’d often pop in for a chat and a browse through the second-hand section.

“Morning!” she greeted them. “What are you both doing in so early today? I thought you’d still be down at the café having coffee?”

“I wish,” Larry said, leaning on the counter. “But no , Dave wanted to come and get a ball valve to replace his after the whole ‘Benny almost sunk his boat at Twilights last week’ fiasco.”

Ah. They were the sixth customers this week to pop in for the same thing. Nothing like a small emergency to have all the boaties running to Garner Marine. Her dad would be happy with the extra sales at least.

“The race had barely started! And I don’t want that happening to me any time soon,” Dave declared as he walked off toward the valves at the back of the shop.

“And how are you Sam-I-Am?” Larry asked.

“I thought we agreed I’d get a new nickname once I turned thirty?” Sam fixed him with a stare, a smile tugging at her lips. “And that was two years ago!”

“I made no such promises, Samantha ,” Larry replied, feigning innocence.

Ugh. Her full name was even worse.

They played this game every time. She loved the banter and relationships she had with all the locals. Sometimes it felt like her days were more of a social catch-up than actual work. She’d grown up around her family’s boat shop—“It’s a chandlery shop!” her dad would say—and had worked there officially since she was sixteen.

Garner Marine sat right at the edge of Karkalla Beach, squeezed between marinas and pristine white sandy beaches. You wouldn’t find any tourists here, though; Adelaide was a quieter city than Melbourne or Sydney, the outer suburbs quieter still.

“ Anyway ,” she dragged out the word, changing the subject. “You’re lucky the shop’s quiet at the moment. It’s been a busy week with everyone’s last-minute bits and pieces for the Port Mackrell race next weekend. We’ve already run out of offshore flares twice this month!”

Larry let out a low whistle as Dave came up alongside him, plonking the ball valve on the counter with a heavy thud.

“I’ll take two offshore flares as well, please Sam.”

Larry gave him a side-eye.

“What?”

“I thought you already replaced your flares last year?” Larry quizzed.

“ No , that was the inshore flares,” Dave snapped back.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. It was the day you almost fell overboard trying to clean my damn solar panels for me—the ones those bloody seagulls love to sh—” He looked at Sam. “Er, poop all over.”

“I’m not a child anymore Dave. You can say ‘shit’ in front of me,” Sam chided.

Larry chuckled as Dave held up his hands in placation.

“Oh yes! Now I remember.” Larry’s eyes lit up as he snapped his fingers. “It was my boat we replaced the offshore on.”

With a shake of her head at their squabbling, Sam popped the parachute flares on the counter, tallying up the items up in her head. It was a necessary skill she’d acquired from working at the shop over the years. Her dad, Matt, still ran the shop old school—you either added everything up in your head or wrote it down on paper with a calculator, no POS system in sight. Just the way her dad liked it.

She rang up the amount on the cash register, bagged up Dave’s items and waved the old men out of the shop. She smiled to herself as she watched them out of the window—exclaiming wildly with their hands, no doubt still discussing who had what flares up to date on which boat.

“Sammy, have you ordered more flares? There’s only one pack left, again.” Sam’s dad walked around the bench, standing at the computer behind hers. Pen in mouth, his eyes scanned the pad paper in front of him as he prepared to start sending orders off for the week.

“Yes, Dad. Already sent it off this morning.”

With a short nod, he crossed it off the list. “Good.”

The intercom buzzer sounded between them. Sam got to it first and pressed the button to speak. “Garner Marine, how can I help?”

“Just here to fill up our boat with diesel,” came the gruff voice over the intercom.

“No worries,” Sam looked over at her dad, “Matt will be down in just a minute.”

Her dad nodded, threw the pen and paper on the desk and took off toward the back door, heading down to their fuel berth to assist the customer.

Everyone knew her dad. Matt was a down-to-earth kinda guy, with scruffy short brown hair tamed with a Garner Marine baseball cap, a five o’clock shadow and deep blue eyes. It was the eyes that most people commented on. She’d know—Sam took after her dad in that regard. “Blues as deep as the ocean,” her mum would say.

Unlike her dad, Sam had her mum’s dirty blonde hair, which she usually tied up in a ponytail. While there was no uniform at Garner’s, Sam and her dad still wore their version of one—jeans, sneakers and some form of T-shirt. Comfortable and easy to work in around the shop.

Sam sat down and lent back in her chair. Finally she had a few minutes to herself with no one else in the shop, aside from Radio Paradise belting out its latest quirky tune.

“—and now let’s hear it for the 1974 classic - When Shrimps Learn To Whistle. ”

Sam and her dad would often crack up at the weird and wonderful songs the radio played during their work days, singing along dreadfully out of tune, huge grins on their faces. She smiled at the thought, then sighed. While she still loved being at the shop, she knew she didn’t want to stay here forever. Even if it was her dad’s lifelong dream for her to take over and run everything one day.

Truth be told, she’d already been at the shop way longer than she’d originally thought she would. It was Manny’s fault, taking longer than she’d planned and needing more money than she’d had.

He was the love of her life.

All 37 feet of him.

Manny was her 1979 Duncanson sailboat. Moored at the local yacht club’s marina, it was her project boat and home away from home. It also lived up to the old saying, “ You know what B.O.A.T stands for? Bring Out Another Thousand! ” but Sam didn’t mind. Building the boat back to life and up to spec was such a joy, watching each transformation come to life?—

BANG!

The back door of the shop slammed shut as someone rushed inside, completely breaking Sam out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a flash of a person rushing up to the counter.

“Excuse me?” a voice called out. “Is there a toilet in here?”

A woman with boyishly short brown hair came into view, frantically looking around, her hazel eyes wild.

“Oh, hi,” she said, relief on her face once she spotted Sam. “Hoping you can help?”

She winced, gesturing to her front.

Sam stood up to look over the counter, her eyes rounding once she saw the woman’s front dripping with what she assumed was coffee.

“Oh gosh, right, yep. Um, straight down that aisle, into the little kitchen and through the door on the right.”

Sam moved to come around the counter and help, but the woman shot off without another word, shutting the toilet door with a loud thump .

What a whirlwind.

She took a few steps, then stood staring down the aisle, when the door opened again suddenly, making Sam jump. The woman popped her head around the corner.

“Uh, hey, can I get your help?” she said in a loud whisper.

Sam walked the rest of the way down. “There’s no one else in here at the moment, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Oh thank god,” she said, relieved. There was toilet paper bunched in her hand from where it looked like she’d been trying to dab at her top. She was wearing a white polo top, the large brown stain on it making the outline of her sports bra very obvious. Sam swallowed and kept her eyes moving, clocking the khaki cargo pants and yellow safety boots next. Maybe she was some sort of boat worker?

“This is so embarrassing, but do you have a top I could borrow? Or buy from your shop? This coffee has soaked through way more than I thought.”

“Of course. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

The woman smiled with relief. “I’m certainly not going anywhere looking like this,” she quipped and shut the door.

Now Sam was in a conundrum. Give the stranger a new shirt off the rack (sailing shirts were expensive, even at cost price) or quickly run next door and grab one of her own, leaving the stranger alone in her shop? Sam paused. The woman looked to be around the same size and age as her…

Without thinking any more, she ran out of the back door and legged it over to her unit. She still had washing on the line by the front door, so she yanked off the closest one and was back to the shop in under a minute—one of the perks of living right next door to your workplace.

Breathless, she lightly knocked on the toilet door. It opened a crack and Sam shoved the T-shirt in.

“Here you go, it’s an old one of mine you can borrow.”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh, you didn’t have to do that.”

“Happy to help, uhhh…”

“Taylor,” she supplied.

“Happy to help, Taylor. I’m Sam,” she said with a smile, leaning against the doorframe. “I actually live next door, so no biggie.”

“Sam. Cool. Great to meet you. I’m just gonna…” Taylor gestured back toward the toilet.

“Oh, right, yeah, sorry! I’ll be at the counter if you need me.”

A couple of minutes later, Taylor made an appearance. Dirty top in hand and a look she couldn’t quite deciph—Oh. Shit . Sam looked down at her favourite graphic T-shirt with the large letters “ Feeling Nauti ’’ scrawled over the top of a sailing boat. Her cheeks burned.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry! I didn’t even think about what top I was grabbing,” Sam said, running her hands over her face. “Let me go and get you another one.”

Taylor laughed and waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. This shirt is dry and that’s all I care about. Clearly, someone is a fan of boats.”

“Yachts in particular. And a good pun,” Sam replied with a grin.

“Nice. I never realised this boat shop even existed, so maybe I should be thankful I spilled that coffee all over me.” She smiled, pausing for a moment to take in the shop she’d barrelled through. “I’d really love to go through everything you’ve got in this place, but I need to run and get back to work, I’m already super behind. Another time.”

Taylor started off toward the back of the shop and shouted over her shoulder, “Thanks again! I promise I’ll return your shirt as soon as I can.”

The back door slammed again, making Sam wince. She really did need to fix that automatic door closer before the door rattled itself off its hinges.

She puffed out a breath. She’d barely lifted her hand to wave goodbye before Taylor had already rounded the corner out of sight. Her hand dropped back down, and she collapsed into her office chair.

Well that was more excitement than Sam usually had on a Tuesday morning. It was a nice change to have someone come in that was her age for once—and female too. The boating scene was still very much male dominated, not that she minded, as some were definitely not too bad on the eyes. Not that she was looking for a boyfriend right now. Who had time for relationships? Between work, fixing up Manny, and helping the odd customer tinker on his boat, she was exhausted by the time she got back to her place. At least she didn’t have any commuting time, which is why she loved living next door. As soon as her dad had floated the idea that she could live behind the shop, she’d jumped at the chance. It was an old sales office with a mezzanine floor overlooking the storage yard and marina below. They’d used the place as extra storage for years—concrete floors downstairs, open beams on the ceiling and a raked roof that gave it a real industrial vibe.

It had taken her three months to renovate with her dad. They’d put in a new white galley kitchen along the back, a small bathroom-and-laundry combo sectioned off to the right and left everything else open for a dining area and lounge. Upstairs, the mezzanine was now her bedroom, with marina views most people would pay a mint for. Not a bad thing to wake up to each morning.

Sam flicked back to the sailing forum she’d had open on her computer, wistfully reading about the adventures of others and their boats—one guy currently sailing around Tasmania, another family giving him tips from their boat as they headed towards Perth.

One day.

She closed out of the screen and got back to helping her dad out with the orders for the week. She was already counting down the hours until she could do more tinkering on Manny tonight.