Falling Overboard

Chapter One Lucky

Chapter One

Lucky

“Everyone take a seat,” Captain Carl said. The entire crew was gathered in the main salon, and part of me cringed as they settled onto the luxurious couches. I fervently hoped the engineer didn’t have oil or grease on his pants, as I would be the one stuck scrubbing the stain out.

The captain cleared his throat and said, “As you may or may not already know, our chief stew left us last night. It’s not ideal, given that we pick up our first charter tomorrow, but I know Lucky can fill in for us.”

He nodded at me and I tried not to audibly gulp. I only had a year’s worth of experience working on superyachts. I’d been on the Mio Tesoro for the last five months, starting off in the Caribbean. We’d recently crossed the Atlantic Ocean to spend the season in the Mediterranean.

I thought one year wasn’t enough experience for me to be acting chief stewardess. I felt comfortable as second stew. I understood that position very well. I probably should have been flattered that Captain Carl was going to let me run things until he hired a new chief stew, but all I felt was an increasing sense of panic.

“And I know you all were worried about the yacht being bought by new owners,” the captain said, and I felt my fellow crewmembers shift and grumble under their breath. Typically, when this kind of luxury yacht was sold, the new owners wanted to redecorate the interior and would have the ship return to a dockyard for upgrades.

Which usually meant they let the crew go.

We’d all been worried about having to find new positions, but I’d tried to take the fact that we’d traveled halfway across the world as a good sign. My best friend, currently the second stew, Georgia, had told me with her Australian sassiness that I didn’t know what I was talking about, as I hadn’t been around long enough to have been fired multiple times, and we might still be in danger.

She was right—I was a newbie. She had been in the yachting industry for years and probably should have been made the interim chief stew.

“I don’t want it,” she had told me after the captain called me up to the bridge to discuss me temporarily taking over. “I’m not interested in having the responsibility. I like the perks without the migraines.”

My own head was throbbing, so I understood.

“I’ve spoken with the Cartwrights and they would like things to continue on as they are now. With one additional rule.” Making certain that he had all our attention, the captain said, “There will be no hookups or relationships of any kind among the crew.”

Emilie, the Canadian / our newest stew, gasped.

Casual hookups and noncommittal make-outs were fairly common on these kinds of yachts. Not with the guests, never with the guests. That was one of the strictest rules that existed.

But with the crew? It was always open season, even if there was a nonfraternization rule in place. Most of the crew were unreasonably attractive people in their twenties and early thirties and lived like we were in the last days of the Roman Empire.

Thomas, the British bosun, cleared his throat. “Could you explain exactly what you mean, Captain?”

“It’s self-explanatory,” Captain Carl quickly responded. “Keep your hands and lips to yourself.”

This had been the rule on one of the other boats I’d worked on but not on the Mio Tesoro . Given the glum expressions and profound silence, none of my fellow crewmembers seemed very pleased about the change.

I wondered if Marika, our former chief stew, wouldn’t be the only person to sneak off the yacht in the middle of the night.

“Lucky, you don’t understand,” she had told me last night as she’d packed her bag. “Krzysztof finally said he’s ready to get married. I have to go back to Poland before he changes his mind.”

Our former chief stew had been waiting seven years for her boyfriend to propose. While I understood her desire to return home and seal the deal before he could talk himself out of making a commitment, it left us in a bit of a lurch.

Specifically me.

I was the one who’d had to go tell Captain Carl that Marika had abandoned ship, and I was now in charge of the two stewardesses beneath me.

Captain Carl shook his head, as if annoyed with the crew’s stunned reaction. “If any of you need anything, don’t come to me. Deal with your problems by yourselves, like adults. Dismissed.”

I stood up but the captain said, “Lucky? Stay behind.”

My heart hammering in my chest, I sank back down on the couch. To distract myself, I studied his profile as he watched the crew depart the main salon.

Captain Carl was in his fifties and had dark hair shot through with silver. His face was lined and weathered from being in the sun so much, but he was still a handsome man. Georgia had often waxed poetic about him and said he was her favorite silver fox.

When the room was empty, he said, “I will need you to be chief stew for the next few months.”

This was not a responsibility I wanted. I had thought I would be filling in temporarily. “But Georgia—”

He cut me off, his expression serious. “If I wanted Georgia to be chief stew, she would be. I want you to do it. I know you can rise to the occasion. And I know that the significant salary increase will be welcome.”

My spirits lifted at his declaration. He was right. I was in yachting for one reason—I wanted to go back home and open a bakery in honor of my grandparents. This job paid a ridiculous amount of money, and I had a three-year plan to save up everything I needed to start my own business.

The captain said what my new yearly salary would be and I put a hand over my chest. My salary was going to nearly double.

This could turn my three-year plan into a two-year plan.

I could handle the stress for that kind of cash. “I thought you wanted to have four stews on the ship this season.”

“If we need to hire another junior stew, we can. But we ran just fine with three in the Caribbean.”

He was right. That was how things had been before he brought Emilie on.

As if he somehow sensed what I was thinking, he said, “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Marika. I want you to keep an eye on Emilie. I need you to take responsibility for her and help her.”

I stifled a groan. Emilie was Captain Carl’s niece. She had apparently gotten into quite a bit of trouble back in Canada and her father had shipped her out to join us in hopes that his brother could teach her the value of hard work.

Or, more accurately, so that I could straighten her out and teach her how to work.

The problem was she was the laziest person I’d ever met, and yachting was about working hard for sixteen hours a day, every day.

While Emilie had aggravated me in the past, she hadn’t been my problem.

Now she was.

My anxiety continued to mount despite my best efforts to cram it down and try to ignore it.

I nodded, to indicate that I’d heard and agreed to what he’d said even if I didn’t have any thoughts on how to manage it.

“We’re also getting a new deckhand today, Hunter Smith. He should be arriving soon. You’ll need to order him a uniform. I’d appreciate you keeping an eye on him, too.”

This was brand-new information. I had no idea why we would hire another deckhand. Who would not be in my department—so how did the captain expect me to look out for him, too? That’s what the bosun was for.

“I’ll need you to give him a tour of the boat. And I apologize—you know that I typically try to avoid coed sleeping arrangements, but you’ll be sharing a room with him. I know that I can trust you to follow the rules and not get involved with him. I’m counting on you.”

My mind buzzed with this information. It made sense—my cabin was the only one with an empty bed now that Marika had left. And there was no way to switch things around to get a female bunkmate. We had an uneven number.

I wasn’t too worried about crushing on this new deckhand. Given the nuclear fallout from my last relationship, I couldn’t imagine myself ever dating again.

Realizing that Captain Carl expected some kind of response from me, I swallowed and nodded. “I understand. I’ll take care of it.”

“Good.” He got to his feet and stared down at me. “You know what I say. There is no I in ‘team,’ but there might be a U in ‘failure.’”

He had such high expectations for the way the boat was run, how the guests were served. Marika had met them but I didn’t know if I could do the same.

That buzzing feeling intensified as he left the main salon to return to the bridge.

You can do this, I told myself. It would be okay.

Then my phone beeped. I glanced at it and saw a message from one of my younger sisters.

Short on rent money. Can you send a thousand dollars ASAP?

I let out a shaky breath. It was always something with the twins. They often needed help and cash, and I was the only person left who could help them.

With a sick feeling in my stomach, I sent her the money.

A tiny voice in my head said I was never going to be able to save up enough. There would always be some kind of emergency. Things were not going to work out for me.

I was a failure at everything I tried to do.

My hands had started trembling and I realized that I was on the verge of a panic attack.

I needed to get outside. Far away from prying eyes. I didn’t want the captain to think I couldn’t do the job. I could. I had to. Especially now. With shaking limbs I made my way to the private area on the bow where the crew would hang out on breaks. When I arrived my legs gave out and I slid down against the ship’s wall and landed with a thud on the deck.

All I could think about was all the ways this could go wrong. That I might be a terrible chief stew. That Emilie would somehow get worse and make my life even harder. That I would be so bad at this new position that the captain would have no choice but to fire me and I would ruin all my careful planning.

That I would never, ever get to open my bakery because I was a fraud and soon everyone would realize it.

It had been so long since I’d had a full-blown panic attack. Not since I’d found out that my ex-boyfriend had cheated on me. I did my best to keep the attack at bay, trying to make my breathing deep and even.

But my heart still raced, my stomach turned over, there were pains in my chest, and it kind of felt like I was going to die.

I tried to tell myself to calm down, that I was being ridiculous and overreacting, but my body did not listen.

“Are you okay?”

I shielded my eyes to look up, and a man I didn’t recognize stood there, peering down at me. The sun shaded him from my view and I couldn’t see him clearly. “Fine,” I said between clenched teeth.

He crouched down next to me and said, “Are you having a panic attack?”

“Little bit,” I managed.

“What can I do to help you?” he asked.

No one had ever asked me that before. My inclination was to tell him to go away but there actually was something he could do to help, even if it was weird. “Will you hold my hands?”

Without hesitation he offered me both of his large hands, encasing mine. His palms were warm and smooth, his fingers strong. For some reason having someone hold my hands when I was having a panic attack always made me feel grounded, and it was having that exact effect now. It was easier to catch my breath as he tethered me to the present.

I kept my gaze pointed down and gripped the man’s hands tightly. “How did you know I was having a panic attack?”

“My sister used to have them. You’ve got this. It will pass.”

His voice was calm and reassuring and just what I needed. “You’re doing a great job,” he added, and if I’d been able to, I would have laughed.

I was doing a terrible job of managing my emotions and anxiety. When I had an attack like this, I felt weak and pathetic. I shook my head to disagree with him. I again returned my attention to my breathing. I’d found that I could make the attack end sooner if I regulated the oxygen going in and out of my lungs.

His words were gentle and warm. “You’re safe and I’ll stay for as long as you need me to.”

It was precisely what I needed to hear. He didn’t think I was overreacting or making it up to get attention, like my younger twin sisters had. He accepted it and encouraged me. It was so kind.

Just as he’d predicted, after a few minutes the attack subsided. My breathing evened out, the dizziness in my head went away, my chest stopped aching.

Then I made the mistake of looking up at the man who had helped me.

He had dirty-blond hair, longer on top with sun-kissed streaks. His eyes were a piercing sapphire blue, like the ocean in Aruba. He had broad shoulders with well-defined muscles in his upper arms.

And his face? It was like an Italian Renaissance artist had sculpted it and then immediately gouged his own eyes out because he knew he would never create anything better. Total symmetrical perfection—high cheekbones, strong jawline covered in stubble, sensual lips. Despite the fact that I had just spent the last few minutes getting my body back under control, my heart began to beat a fast, unsteady rhythm. A dimple formed in his left cheek when he smiled, revealing a row of perfectly white teeth.

It was like somebody had shoved an angel out of heaven and dropped him directly onto this ship.