Page 18 of Falling Overboard

Given the empty machines, she wasn’t getting any laundry done now, either. Swallowing back my anger, I reached into the dryer and began pulling out linen napkins. All ruined.

The one positive was that the captain had another dress shirt and we had extra table linens. I could order replacements. I’d go up to his cabin and get his dirty one and launder it myself. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice and he’d never have to know what his niece had done.

But despite my name, luck never quite seemed to be on my side.

The captain came into the laundry room. “Is that my shirt?”

Chapter Seven

Lucky

Captain Carl reached over and took the shirt out of my hands. “What happened?”

It would be so easy to throw Emilie under the bus. She was the one responsible, after all. But when I saw the stricken look on her face, I remembered what the captain always told us—the buck stopped with me. I was her department head and it was my job to train her.

If she didn’t listen, unfortunately, that was on me as well.

“That’s my fault. I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll order you a new one.”

He gave me a disapproving look, one saying that I had let him down.

My anxiety spiked, jangling my nerves, and I started envisioning exactly what he would say when he fired me, as he was so obviously going to do now.

But all he said was, “Let me know when the new one arrives.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “I will. Thank you. And it won’t happen again.”

The captain nodded and headed toward the galley.

Emilie said, “I so owe you one.”

“Just be sure to always check the pockets from now on,” I reminded her. My adrenaline began to dissipate, causing my limbs to feel hollow but jittery. I tried to focus on some deep breathing so that I could calm down.

It didn’t work well but I still held out hope that someday I’d become a breathing expert and would be able to prevent myself from getting so wound up and upset.

“I will,” she promised. “I will always check the pockets. And I’ll get some more laundry going.”

Hopefully fear of her uncle would help get Emilie in line. It also occurred to me that I had something I could hold over her head now. While I didn’t know all the details of why she had joined theMio Tesoro, I knew she was worried her family would cut her off financially. Working for Captain Carl was her last chance.

I’d never much liked rich people but technically Emilie was poor now so I could make an exception.

I dug through the piles of clean laundry on the countertops until I found Hunter’s handkerchief. I needed to return it to him.

Even though part of me was urging me to keep it as some kind of weird souvenir.

That made it more imperative for me to give it back.

The few hours we had left flew by in a haze of cleaning and prepping. A new shirt for the captain arrived at the dock. There was going to be a hefty surcharge but I was grateful it had arrived. As soon as I gave it to him, he radioed the rest of the crew to tell everyone to change into our whites, or our formal white dress uniform shirts. The men would put on dark slacks and the women would wear black skorts.

I stopped by Emilie’s room to tell her that I needed her to prepare a tray of champagne for the Carmines and their guests. Still eager to please after this morning’s incident, she assured me she would take care of it.

When I got to my own cabin, I realized that I needed to shave my legs. My dark hair grew so quickly and was very noticeable against my fair skin. I went into the bathroom and grabbed a razor and shaving cream and put my leg into the sink.

I lathered up my left leg and had shaved about half of it when the bathroom door suddenly swung open, nearly hitting me.

Hunter stood there and his gaze quickly settled on my leg, following the line from ankle to knee.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were in here.”

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