Chapter 29
Rowan Rafferty gets a visitor
“Hit the ignition again,” I shouted from the deck.
Kendra turned the ignition button, and nothing happened except clicking. “Nothing!” she shouted down at me.
I growled in frustration, my voice barely audible over the rhythmic lapping of waves against the hull.
We’d been working for over an hour under the relentless sun, beads of sweat trickling down my brow.
With each futile turn of the key, my irritation mounted.
The deck was cluttered with tools, their metallic sheen starkly contrasted with the fiberglass beneath my feet.
I silently berated myself for not checking the ignition before accepting delivery from Seeger—rookie mistake.
Every unsuccessful attempt felt like a wasted heartbeat, and I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that I failed Kendra.
“Wanna take a break?” Kendra handed me a cold bottle of water, which I graciously accepted.
“What kind of break are you talking about?” I grinned.
Suddenly, the boat pitched, and Kendra fell forward right at me. I dropped the water and caught her in my arms. She giggled and squeezed my biceps. Not going to lie. I might have flexed a little.
“Where did that rogue wave come from?” She gasped.
“Don’t care. C’mere.” I pulled her tighter and kissed those full lips that I dreamt about last night on board the pirate ship. She tried to get me to come home with her after the funeral, and I was sorely tempted, but I also needed some time to think about everything.
Kendra was quickly becoming an important part of my life, and I had no idea how to tell her.
When we came up for air, I glanced over her shoulder to discover a puzzling sight on the dock. “Is that a tortoise?”
Kendra turned and laughed. “Yeah. That’s Bertle the Turtle. We call him Bert.”
Bert’s shell was a massive mosaic dome of browns and deep greens. There were signs of cuts and sun-bleached patches. Thick, scaled skin covered his robust legs. And I swear the thing slowly winked at me with his large left eye.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
For a tortoise, Bert moved faster than I expected. He had already turned away from the catamaran and loped down the dock to where Ernest waited for him. “Is that the tuxedo cat?”
“Oh, yeah. They like to take walks together,” Kendra said. “Wait for it.”
We watched as Bert lowered himself to the ground next to the parking lot, and Ernest hopped up on the tortoise’s back like a king sitting regally in his chariot.
“This place is bonkers,” I said.
Kendra pulled me closer. “Yeah, but bonkers, in a good way. You love it.”
“That I do,” I admitted before pecking her on the lips. “Now, let’s get this boat started.”
She sighed. “I don’t understand it. This is the same problem I had with the other one. Maybe Seegers aren’t what they used to be.”
“Bite your tongue!” A familiar pissed-off voice called from the dock.
My father stood beside the boat, wearing a three thousand-dollar suit.
“Rowan,” he said.
“Judge,” I answered.
Surprise flitted across his face before he locked it down. “And you must be Kendra.”
My Goldilocks frowned at each of us. “How do you know each other?”
“We used to work together,” I answered quickly.
“Right,” Father said slowly.
“Where?” Kendra asked.
“At Seeger. I’m the founder and CEO of Seeger Shipyards. Name’s Judge Seeger.”
Kendra smiled at him and shook his hand. “Is Judge a nickname or something you do on the side?”
I snickered. “No. That’s his actual first name.”
“My father wanted me to enter the law,” Father said. “He hoped by naming me Judge, I’d have a leg up on the competition at law school.”
“Or get your ass kicked on the playground as a kid,” Kendra offered.
“That too,” Father admitted. “Kids are assholes.”
“They are!” Kendra agreed.
“What are you doing here - Judge?” I interrupted.
“Came to check on the replacement boat and see how you were doing at the—” He squinted at the pirate ship at the end of the docks. “New venture.”
“Pegleg Pete’s is packed every night,” Kendra said, tucking herself under my arm. “But the replacement boat isn’t doing so great. It has the same electrical issue that my last one had. And that one burned.”
Father’s face remained stoic as Kendra dropped the truth bomb on him. Very few people dared speak to him in the first place, but tell him the truth about one of his bad designs? Unthinkable. I covered my smile by scratching my face.
“Interesting,” Father said. “Sounds like a design flaw that my best ship designer could fix if he came back to work for me.”
“Oh yeah? Who’s that?” Kendra raised her eyebrows, and then she nodded. “Ah. I see. Rowan. Of course, he’s the best. He has that fancy degree, plus the pirate thing.”
Father rolled his eyes. “Pirate thing. That ridiculous certificate.”
“I think it’s cool. Do you know how often I’ve wanted to make someone walk the plank off my charter?” Kendra asked.
“Indeed,” Father said.
“While we’re talking designs,” Kendra said, pulling away from me. She walked toward the boat's edge, where Father stood on the dock. “I have some modifications in mind to make this more eco-friendly that I’d like to run past you.”
“Such as?”
“For starters, I’d add solar panels on the boat's top there.” Kendra pointed. “You could harvest solar power from the sun, then store that power in lithium batteries, or some other such amazeballs batteries.”
“How would you manage the power?” Father asked.
Kendra shrugged.
“What if the power was sent to a charge controller? It would manage the flow of electricity to the rechargeable batteries,” I suggested. “It would keep the batteries from being overwhelmed and be more efficient.”
Father’s eyes lit up. “That could work.”
“The solar power could run electric motors,” Kendra added. “Giving us the chance to get rid of the diesel engine. And that power also runs the other systems on board. You’d need an inverter.”
“We’d need to reconfigure the hull anyway by adding the batteries and reworking the engine,” I offered.
Father began taking notes on his phone. “What about cloudy days?”
“What if the ship recharged the batteries while operating?” I suggested.
Kendra did a little dance that resembled a seizure. “Hey, while reconfiguring the hull, could you also make some changes to the stateroom and head?”
“What changes?” Father and I asked at the same time.
“Well, for starters, the doors aren’t wide enough to accommodate anyone handicapped. And if we could widen the shower, and add grab bars, that would make boating more accessible. Maybe there’s room on the ship to add a wheelchair lift?” Kendra suggested.
Father and I both stared at her with our jaws on the ground. Him because no one ever suggested making those kinds of changes to the ships he built. And me, because I knew where this suggestion came from and knew at that moment that I had fallen in love with Kendra—hook, line, and sinker.