Page 23 of No One Aboard
Rylan raised his hand. “How long until we get to Florida, exactly?”
Tia looked at Francis, but it was MJ who answered.
“It’s the twenty-sixth. We should make port in West Palm around June first or second.”
Francis clicked his tongue. “Well, we will be stopping to dive, so it could take a bit longer...”
MJ stared right through him. “June third at the latest. I hear there’s an eighteenth birthday party worth getting to.”
Tia nodded, even though she was pretty sure the party Lila was planning was more for Lila’s sake than Tia’s or Rylan’s.My last birthday at home.She looked to see if Rylan was thinking the same thing, but he had lowered his head.
“Well, then. That’s all I’ve got. Fair winds, everyone! Thisis an adventure that none of us will forget.” Francis glanced at his Rolex. “MJ, you have watch in thirty.”
MJ grunted and turned to the twins. “Let’s raise the fisherman’s jib.” She didn’t wait for their response as she headed toward the bow.
Tia fell in step with her brother, nudging him to look at her. “Seven days till Florida,” she murmured.
“Eleven till our birthday,” he replied.
“And then the world.” She bumped their shoulders and stopped in front of MJ before he could answer.
MJ handed Tia a line she called thehalyard. Tia didn’t quite understand how sail-raising worked, but she had figured out over the years that the halyard pulled the sail up. There was another line that needed to be eased out as the sail rose. That same line would be pulled tight (orsweated, as MJ said) when the sail was lowered.
“Ready to sweat, Taliea?” MJ barked, dark eyes fixed above them.
“Ready!” Tia wound her fingers around the line and pulled on MJ’s command. It was exhilarating. Her biceps ached, and the skin on her palms threatened to rip. The little triangle of a sail—the fisherman’s jib—unfurled and flapped noisily in the wind. The pulling became too much for Tia far faster than she would have liked, and MJ came to help. With both of them together, the sail was up in seconds.
“Make that off,” MJ ordered.
“Uh...”
“Here.” MJ’s huge, strong hands closed over Tia’s and showed her how to make the right knot.
Tia committed every movement to memory. Someday she would be as strong as MJ.
“Good,” MJ told them when she had shown Rylan the same knot. She rested a hand on each twin’s shoulder.
It was enough to make Tia burst with pride. The wind whipped her face, bright and warm and wild. Sunlight threaded between the sails as the whole ship flew and fell, and the salt-sweet scent of the ocean flooded her nostrils. The smell of adventure.
Then MJ’s grip tightened. The movement was so sharp, so sudden, that Tia’s breath left her all at once, her mind whirring back to what happened last summer.
Tia was kneeling on the blinding deck. Bloody teacup shards fanned out like morning glories. The hand on her shoulder was big and strong and digging into her bones. Threatening her.
Tia knew without looking that Rylan was remembering the same.
But then MJ released her grasp, and the memory was gone as soon as it had come. “He’s whistling,” she muttered, her eyes on the other side of the ship.
Tia swallowed as she turned in that direction. Nico was filling out a boat check sheet on a clipboard. Her mother and Alejandro had vanished belowdecks. And her father was in the cockpit, whistling merrily.
MJ patted their shoulders, then headed toward the cockpit. As she went, she put a hand over her heart and massaged as if the whistling was enough to physically pain her. “It’s bad luck,” she said under her breath so that Tia barely heard.
Tia rotated her shoulder to prove to herself that nothing was wrong. She wasn’t hurt. Of course MJ wasn’t angry at them. She was stronger than she realized, that was all.
But the memory she’d been trying to forget had been stirred all the same, and as Tia took her brother’s hand, she knew it was something they would not easily escape.
Chapter 11
Rylan Cameron
