Chapter 10
JORDAN
The guests had retired an hour ago and the foredeck was empty. Jordan came up here sometimes, late at night, when she needed to think.
They were anchored in the lee of a small cay just south of Staniel, close enough to see the lights of the harbor across the water but far enough for quiet.
The evening was warm and still. Above her was the kind of star-filled sky you only got when the nearest city was a hundred miles away, and the water lapped against the hull in a soothing rhythm.
She sat on the sunpad and pulled her knees up, wondering if Dani was asleep yet. Sure, she was avoiding her. She knew that was silly, but she didn't know what else to do.
The problem was that every time she saw Dani now, she was aware of her in a way she hadn't been three days ago. Or rather, in a way she'd spent years pretending she wasn't. And she suspected Dani knew. Worse, she was pretty sure it was mutual.
Dani's presence made her feel unmoored, and the last time she'd felt anything close to this, it had cost her everything.
She pushed that thought away, but not before the familiar sting landed.
Some lessons you only needed to learn once, and she'd learned hers.
By the time she'd found her feet again, years had passed.
And then she'd bought the Maiden Voyage.
Her vessel, her rules. She had a crew she trusted and she'd built something she was proud of.
It was a life of calm and she didn't like that calm being threatened by messy feelings.
Feelings that had been perfectly manageable when Dani was two decks below her, and were considerably less manageable now that Dani was three feet away every night.
Dani was the reason their charters worked.
She was the reason guests came back, the reason Jordan could stay on the bridge and do her job without worrying about what was happening below deck.
She managed the staff and the freelancers, handled the complaints, smoothed over the disasters.
She was the buffer between Jordan and the part of this job she was worst at.
If something started between them and then fell apart, Jordan wouldn't just lose her.
She'd lose the thing that held this entire operation together.
She stayed until her back was stiff and the breeze off the water had turned cool, thoughts coming and going. Then she headed inside, walking quietly through the corridor, hoping Dani would be asleep.
Dani was standing in the room in her underwear and a tank top, blow-drying her hair. She saw Jordan and froze.
"Sorry—" Jordan pulled the door shut and stood in the corridor, staring at the opposite wall.
The blow-dryer stopped, the door opened, and Dani stuck her head out.
"Jordan, please don't stand out there avoiding your own cabin. I'm done." She opened the door wider. "I can put more clothes on if you need me to—"
"No." Jordan stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Her eyes dropped to Dani's chest. The tank top was thin and the air conditioning wasn't helping. She looked away fast but not fast enough. "It's fine. You're right. We should at least try to be normal around each other."
"Yeah. Why is that so hard?" Dani put the hairdryer away, pulled on a pair of shorts and sat cross-legged on the pull-out bed. "Any ideas on how to make this less awkward?"
"I don't know," Jordan said. A beat. Then she cleared her throat. "I think I need a nightcap. Want one?"
Dani nodded, and Jordan poured them both a tumbler. She handed her one and sat down on her berth.
"I swear I don't usually drink much."
"I know. I find a used tumbler in here maybe once a week. If that." Dani took a sip and winced. "Sorry if sharing a cabin with me has driven you to hard liquor."
"It's not you, it's me," Jordan said dryly.
Dani snorted. "God, I've heard that one before."
Jordan laughed too. "Have you?"
"More times than I can count," Dani said. "Dating's not easy when you live on a boat for long stretches at a time and spend your days off recovering from the last charter. Nobody wants to compete with a yacht for your attention." She shrugged. "But I love my job. Wouldn't trade it."
"So you don't date much?" Jordan asked.
"I go on dates, the dating app kind. But I go into them knowing it's probably not going anywhere.
For now, the job comes first. I haven't figured out how to do both.
" Dani regarded her. "What about you?" She frowned.
"It's mad, isn't it—four years of working together and I barely know anything about you. I'm assuming you're single?"
"Very single," Jordan said. "Have been for a long time."
"By choice?"
The question was direct, and Jordan appreciated that about Dani. She didn't tiptoe, but it landed somewhere tender.
"I suppose it's habit." Jordan took a sip. "I had someone, years ago. After that I stopped looking."
Dani waited, giving her space to say more. She didn't.
"I'm sorry," Dani said. "I didn't mean to pry."
"It's fine. I hook up with women I meet in bars from time to time, but it's never more than that.
" Jordan heard herself and winced. That was more than she'd intended to give away.
It was too late to back out now though, because Dani's gaze had drifted to the shelf above the desk, where the two framed photographs sat propped against the bulkhead.
"Go on," Jordan said. "I know you're dying to ask."
Dani hesitated. "I've dusted those frames so many times. I've always wondered who they were, but it never felt like my place."
Maybe it was the scotch. Or maybe Jordan was just tired of keeping everything behind the wall she'd built. If she and Dani were going to survive this charter without driving each other—and themselves—mad, they needed to find some kind of footing that wasn't just awkwardness and avoidance.
"The one on the left is me and my dad," Jordan said.
"Taken before he died of cancer, five years ago.
He was a captain too—merchant navy. Spent thirty years on cruise ships, the big transatlantic liners.
When he retired, he bought a forty-foot sailboat and ran small charters out of Key West." She smiled at the memory.
"He used to say that big ships paid the bills but small boats fed the soul. "
"I'm sorry," Dani said. "He must have been proud of you."
"He was. He'd been in the Navy himself when he was younger—we were cut from the same cloth. Couldn't stay away from the water. He left me enough to buy the Maiden Voyage. That's how my charter business started."
"And your mom?" Dani asked.
"My mother's the opposite. Doesn't even like swimming.
She spent my entire Navy career convinced every phone call was going to be bad news.
She worries less now, but if there's a storm warning anywhere in the Caribbean, my phone lights up.
She still lives in the same house I grew up in.
She's actually started seeing someone recently—a retired dentist she met at her book club.
She's being very coy about it, which means it's serious. "
Dani smiled. "That's sweet." Her eyes drifted back to the second frame and Jordan braced herself. Now that she'd started, she might as well get it over with.
"And that's Sam."
Her name felt foreign in Jordan's mouth. It had been years since she'd said it out loud. She talked to the picture all the time but she never said the name.
Dani didn't speak. She just looked at Jordan, then back at the photograph, waiting.
"We met in the Navy."
"She’s pretty. You look happy."
"We were." Jordan turned the glass in her hand. "But being in the Navy, we had to keep it hidden. And when someone found out, it became a problem. They gave us a choice. One of us had to go."
"What did you do?"
"We were furious. So we decided to resign together. Make a statement." A small, dry sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "At least, that was the plan."
Dani caught the shift in tone immediately. "What happened?"
"I was the only one who went through with it. Sam sat there with the papers in front of her and froze. The Navy was her whole identity, and she couldn't let it go." Jordan kept her eyes on the glass. "Not even for me."
"Jesus."
"Yeah."
Dani didn't fill the silence with sympathy. She just shifted and let Jordan take her time.
"We tried to talk after that," Jordan went on. "But it was pointless. I'd chosen her. She'd chosen the Navy. So that was that."
"And she’s still in the Navy?"
"No.” Jordan sighed. “Six months later, there was an accident during a training exercise off the coast of Virginia. A friend from our old unit called to tell me." Jordan met Dani's eyes for the first time since she'd started talking. "Sam was gone."
"Fuck."
Dani’s reply was exactly right. No platitude. No I'm sorry. Just the only word that fit.
Jordan looked back at the picture. "After we split, I shoved that frame in a drawer because I couldn't stand to look at her. And then she was dead and the anger didn't make sense anymore. All that was left was the person I'd loved." She set the glass down. "So I put her back on the shelf."
She leaned back against the bulkhead and let out a breath. "Right. So now you know more about me than the rest of the crew combined. That feels dangerously uneven. I'm going to need something in return."
Dani's face softened into a smile. "Fair enough. Ask me anything."