24. West
CHAPTER 24
WEST
By the time we got back to the port, Sydney was hanging onto the door handle and grinning at my driving. She even told me I wasn’t half-bad. I don’t know why that compliment made me feel like a million bucks, but I’m beginning to suspect it’s simply because she said it.
If there weren’t so many forklifts and trucks going back and forth, I’d risk parking the rental car on the pavement closest to the dock. But there are so many vehicles around that I don’t dare. Of course we would sail into Half Moon Bay when it’s under construction—just my luck.
We walk down the cement pad, getting closer to the docks. There are a few other people walking along the docks. One man is driving a forklift, but I can’t tell what he’s unloading. I grab Sydney’s hand and jerk her out of its path before it can plow over her. No one’s careful around here—that much is obvious.
“Good thing you’re paying attention,” she says. I shake my head and keep holding her hand.
“Come on, let’s go back to the boat. We can grab the rest of my stuff then go figure things out at a hotel.” We continue down the dock that extends out over the water leading to the boat.
Sydney stops suddenly.
I have to stop quickly because her hand is gripping mine too much for me to wiggle out of her grasp.
“Is there another forklift coming to mow us down?” I joke.
She shakes her head, and her eyes widen as she stares down the pier. I glance back to make sure there are no surprises behind us.
“What is it?”
She just shakes her head and stares.
Finally, she lifts her hand and points. I follow that slender finger to see that she’s pointing at the two sailboats at the end of the dock. I pry her other hand off of mine and move forward.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. You can stand here and stare, but I’m going to get a snack.” I look forward and stop abruptly because taking the two steps forward gives me a clear view around the pole. There is no sailboat where I left my sailboat.
There should be some nice sails tied to a beautiful mast.
There should be a chipped-paint boat waiting for me to put some love into it.
Yet there is no boat there. I glance back at Sydney. She now has a hand pressed against her mouth, and she points at where my boat had been.
I shake my head. “Someone stole my boat!”
She shakes her head again. For someone who’s usually so full of words, she doesn’t have many to say right now. She just keeps pointing at the empty spot. I march down the dock and stop in front of where my new project should be. That’s when I see it.
My boat has not been stolen. It sank.
There’s still the top of the mast sticking out with some line running down and about a good foot or two of sail.
“My boat!” It’s sitting there on the bottom of the bay. Sydney looks just as shocked as I feel.
“You took us sailing on a broken boat!” she exclaims as she stares at the wreckage. “How very rude!”
I glare at her. “I wouldn’t have left if you hadn’t been running for your life. It was a forced voyage.”
“Oh, so now the blame is on me. Bodie said I could trust you! That you were reliable.” She clicks her tongue. “Sinking a boat does not equal reliable.
“No good deed goes unpunished, I see.”
She jabs a finger toward the boat. “We could be dead! Maybe my chances with the mafia were better.”
Now, that just hurts. Not that I wanted the job of keeping Sydney alive, but I’d like someone to think I’m capable of doing it—or at least acknowledge that I went out of my way to help her. That my boat is now sunk because of her. But no, no, it’s all my fault. I turn around and march back toward her. “Why do you think I was working on this boat in the port? Just for fun? Because it was a year outdated? I was working on it because it was in serious danger of falling into the water.”
Sydney grimaces as she looks at me. “Okay. Maybe you have a tiny point. But really, you could have said, ‘Hey, we can’t take this out because it might sink.’”
I stare at her. Because I, for sure, can’t stare at the boat.
Sydney shakes her head. “Hopefully, your insurance will help take care of everything.”
“I don’t have boat insurance. Thank you very much. This is a brand-new-to-me boat, probably uninsurable because it had been caught on fire. They especially aren’t going to insure it now that it’s sitting on the bottom of the bay.”
Sydney chews on her bottom lip as she stares at the mast. “I’m sure we can fix it. We just need to pull it up.” She takes a step toward it as though she can grab that mast and pull the whole boat back up like a little kid’s bathtub toy.
“How do you suppose we should fix it?” I ask as I grab her arm and pull her back away from the water.
But before she can answer me, I see a movement behind her shoulder. A forklift is coming straight toward us. That’s strange.
These forklift drivers are a little crazy. But then the forklift starts its way down the dock. Not exactly where forklifts are supposed to drive…