Page 29 of Falling Overboard

Georgia was on lates, meaning she would stay up to finish the cleaning and be available in case one of the guests needed her. She would also need to get everything ready for breakfast the following morning.

I could have gone to bed but I felt too keyed up to return to my cabin. Especially if Hunter was there in some state of undress. I didn’t have enough control over my rebellious hormones yet. Work would help.

Georgia and I took down the decorations while Emilie carried the dishes and silverware down to the galley to be washed.

Probably by Hunter. I wondered if someone else had shown him how to wash the dishes. It was self-explanatory but I imagined that Georgia might have taken advantage of the situation and found a way to wrap her arms around him to demonstrate the exact strokes he should make when scrubbing the china.

Trying to think about something else, I noticed that my second stew seemed grumpy, which wasn’t like her. “Are you okay?”

“It is so annoying cleaning up after people so old their birth certificates are probably expired.”

“Georgia!” I said, looking around to make sure that no one had overheard her.

“What?”

“It’s bad enough that I’ve got Emilie doing that. Don’t you start.”

She frowned. “It’s not my fault Mrs. Carmine went to her prom with Abraham Lincoln.”

I tugged at a streamer and it fluttered down to the deck. “They are so nice. Stop it.”

After a moment’s hesitation she let out a deep breath and said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. They are nice. I think it’s just a defense mechanism that kicks in when I’m tired and hungry. It makes things easier if I can be angry with the charter guests. They’re usually so awful that if I make fun of them in my head it makes the work not seem so bad.”

In a way that made a strange sort of sense to me. “That’s fine but keep it in your head and not coming out of your mouth.”

“That’s never really been my strong suit,” she said. “You know that I say exactly what I’m thinking.”

“I do know,” I agreed, gathering up the streamers to put them into the trash bag she had brought up to the deck.

“And as an example of always speaking my mind, what is going on with you and Hunter?”

I hadn’t been expecting that. I froze, gripping the edges of the trash bag tightly, wishing I could disappear. For a moment I couldn’t speak, my throat closed off. Then I finally managed to sputter, “Nothing. Nothing is going on with me and Hunter. Why would you ask me that?”

Was I being that completely obvious? Did the captain know?

No, he couldn’t possibly be aware of my crush or he would have said something about it to me already.

“I saw the two of you dancing and I’ve seen love scenes in movies with less heat.”

My eyes widened, my anxiety making my heart throb. Had the rest of the crew seen us? “The Carmines requested that we dance together.” My voice was practically a whisper, I was so worried.

“Did they?” She said it like she didn’t believe me.

“Yes,” I said, forcing the word out. “Why else would I have danced with him?”

“Because he’s God’s gift to women and you would have been a fool of the highest degree to miss the chance to dance with him?”

She wasn’t wrong. He had been so strong and warm and dreamy and ... I shoved the streamers into the trash bag with more force than was necessary. “It only happened because the guests asked us to.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t believe me and I didn’t blame her because I didn’t believe me, either. “I think you’re trying to earn points.”

I had to refrain from rolling my eyes hard enough to capsize the yacht. “I’m not participating in that nonsense you and Emilie havegoing on, and I think you should take that list down and knock it off. If the captain found out ...”

“He won’t,” she interjected. “You worry too much. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“My mom, my grandparents, and every man I’ve ever dated,” I said.

“Add me to that list.”

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