Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

— she’ll have to pass behind her. If we quick jibe in tight to the Island then jibe back close along the waterfront, we can shave the light buoy, maybe gain a few lengths on them. Let the mule go! Now! Starboard jibe!”

Jared swung the tiller and the boom swung across, crashing into the shrouds, Arrow quivering from the shock, Clarke ducking and cursing as he leaped across and tailed for Danny as Rob gathered the staysail and dumped it down into the cockpit. Spray rose up from the starboard rail as Arrow took a queer one on board and the salt blinded Jared for long seconds.

“Port jibe in twenty!” Sally screamed from her perch in front of the mast. “Fifteen! Ten! Five — jibe jibe jibe!”

Her yell was drowned out by the ferry, the big ship’s siren sounding continuously as she pounded into weather twenty feet away off their port side, a crewman shaking his fist and yelling at them on the bow. Jared swung the tiller away and Arrow rounded onto the light, everyone ducking as the main slapped across, her speed slowed momentarily by the quick jibes, then as a gust hit Arrow she staggered to leeward momentarily and then stood back up on her feet and picked up speed again.

“Port twenty,” Sally yelled, and Jared glimpsed the red marker buoy pass too tight on starboard and heard the clang of contact on Arrow’s hull and then they were through and hardening up with right-of-way for the last five hundred yards.

“Here she comes!” Rob yelled.

Kerry, a half-dozen boat lengths away and coming like a train.

“She’s going to cross our bows,” Sally said. “She’s got us.”

They watched as Kerry flew towards them and then she hit the wake from the ferry and bounced and rolled and the air spilled from her sails. She lost her speed in the last hundred feet and Sally jibed on her bow and led her to the finish line.

They’d won.

“They’re sure to protest our going inside on the ferry,” Sally said. “Never mind if they check the hull for red streaks from the buoy.”

“Nah, they won’t protest. They’ll be too embarrassed,” Rob said.

“Fuck a bunch of protests,” Clarke said, and high-fived Sally.

“She’s still not answering her phone,” Jared said. He’d been calling her steadily since the celebration began three hours earlier, and he was becoming increasingly worried.

“Give her some space,” Danny said. “Probably busy with interviews, in meetings, something like that.”

“No doubt.”

But it’s very unlike her, Jared thought. Cat always called to check in when they had something set up, no matter how informal. And this had been pretty definite. She’d planned on coming over for the sail back home on Monday morning, and here it was, seven o’clock on Sunday night, and still no word from her. It wasn’t something she would forget, and it was getting awfully damned late for meetings and such. He poured another Scotch, trying to drown his rising sense of unease.

Chapter 24

It had been a whirlwind day for Cat. James had insisted on sending a car around for her and meeting up for breakfast in the West End with one of his people. They’d obviously vetted her, and the PR rep talked knowledgeably about her recent work as well as the award-winning series she’d done on the families of the sex workers who’d been murdered on the pig farm in Port Coquitlam, and then the Highway of Tears series that had inevitably followed.

Cat was flattered and a little surprised; that had been a while ago, and much of her work since then had been what she sometimes, if she was being perfectly honest, thought of as pop culture crap. The women and their tragedies had disturbed her, and she had lost heart for heavy lifting. Cat was slightly embarrassed by her current work and had been considering getting back into something more serious for a while now. Not that she thought working with politicians was a giant step up the moral ladder. She didn’t ask herself if James Albright himself might be part of the draw of the job because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. He was selling again and she refocused.

“So what we’re looking for is a series of pictures to go alongside articles by our people, which will give the general public a more complete idea of what the day-to-day life of a politician is all about. I’m sure a lot of folks assume it’s all speeches and rallies because that’s what they see on the evening sound bites, but . . .”

“That’s only one small piece of the picture,” she finished his thought.

“Yes. There are numerous other stories that deserve attention. A hospital visit to a worker who’s been injured on site and denied compensation; factory visits to discuss shoddy working conditions; a meeting with a disgruntled caregiver who thinks the system is ignoring or abusing the elderly. It’s not the sort of thing that jumps up and grabs the headlines, but it is important work, nonetheless. We want to get more of that story out there, and we think you are exactly the right person to highlight and illustrate our message.”

He bent forward across the table, totally focused on her, his eyes almost glowing, and she was reminded again of how compelling he was. The magnetism was palpable, and she caught the amused glance of his aide and flushed. No doubt he’d seen all this before and was familiar with the swoon of adulating women around his boss. She rebuked herself and studied Albright more closely. She knew he was aware of his impact; he was an accomplished politician after all, she reminded herself. Go slow, girl.

“It sounds as if it could be interesting. I’ll have to think it over,” she said.

His eyes narrowed, and she wondered if he was unused to women who didn’t bend over backwards at his first request. Another sexual metaphor, she thought, and flushed once more. What the hell