Amanda woke the next morning to the strange but wonderful sensation of Zack sleeping next to her, up close in the narrow bed. It felt wonderful – strange, for it was the first time something like that had ever happened to her, but wonderful nonetheless. She lay there feeling a warm glow all over her, a feeling of accomplishment, of moving on, of something she didn’t have words to describe.

She had been pretty sure it was going to happen sooner or later, had been pretty sure of it clear back up to when she’d kissed him goodbye back at Winchester Harbor, but expecting it and doing it hadn’t been the same thing.

It was a while before they both managed to get up and get dressed; they took their time and enjoyed it although it was a little cool in the Rag Doll’s cabin. Once Beffy had her nose and her attention on the cat food dish, Amanda said, “I think we need some breakfast, but I’m not real anxious to have to make it here, and I don’t think there’s much on the boat anyway. What do you say we go over to Earlene’s Kitchen?”

“Might as well,” he smiled. “Although I sort of hope that Cordy isn’t there. I wouldn’t really want her to see me with this smile plastered all over my face.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind it if she is there,” Amanda giggled. “I mean, she wouldn’t say anything, just like I haven’t said anything about all the fun I know she’s been having with Ron. But that is one of those deals where what goes unsaid says more than what’s actually said.”

Once they got out on deck, leaving Beffy in the cabin, of course, they discovered that it was going to be a nice day, although high thin clouds in the west told Amanda’s weather eye that things were going to get worse before they got better again. It would be hard to top a day like the one before had been, but she still had to get on with things.

As they walked to the car, she could feel that a lot of things had changed in the last day. With the Rag Doll, of course, but with Zack, as well. He was starting to loom larger in the future, and she realized she was going to have to make sure she maintained her perspective and remembered what her priorities really were.

As it turned out they missed Cordy – she didn’t go to Earlene’s every day – and maybe, this once, Amanda was just as glad. They found a seat near the window, about as private as could be had in the place, and Roseanna brought them coffee and took their orders. “So,” Zack said as she departed, “what’s on the list for today?”

“Oh, we’ve got work to do,” Amanda told him. “But Zack, there’s something that needs to be said before we go much further. Look, I really enjoyed last night. It was wonderful, and I hope we can do it again, and maybe a lot.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

“You do,” she nodded. “It’s nothing that hasn’t been said before, but I think I need to say it again just so we don’t let memories of last night overwhelm us. We can have a good time, Zack. We can have a lot of good times. But I also have to stick with what I said, which is that I’m not in a position to make long-term promises right now. Maybe I will be able to when we get done with our cruise after the first of the year, and maybe not. Just because we had a great time last night and will have more in the future doesn’t mean I’m ready to make a permanent commitment.”

“That’s a ‘but’ I guess I can handle,” he replied softly. “You have to do these things in your own way, and I understand that. You have things you have to do, just like I have other things I have to do.”

“That’s it exactly, and why I don’t feel I’m in a position to make a permanent commitment. But we might as well have some fun while we can because it may not last forever.”

“I have to accept that fact, too,” he sighed. “However much I may or may not like it. But Amanda, last night was wonderful. In fact, all of yesterday was wonderful, and maybe it’ll leave us something to build on in the long run.”

“We can hope,” she said. “Like I said, I may be able to tell you more in a few months. All we can do between now and then is to take it like it comes and see what happens.”

“I guess we have a deal on that,” he smiled. “Now, I suppose we’re going to work on the Rag Doll some more today, instead of what I think we’d both really rather be doing.”

“Let’s just say there are other things I really wouldn’t mind doing besides working on the boat, but there are things that need to get done and I think it would be best to do what we can while we can still do it at the boatyard,” she told him. “Just the way everybody else’s schedule is working out I’m probably going to have to be tied up at the marina over on the other side of the river for a couple weeks. I don’t know how well I’ll be able to work on the boat there, since I probably won’t be able to have my car close to the boat. Besides, at least until we get the problem with the antenna fixed, it might be just as well that we have Cordy and the crane close at hand.”

Shortly after they finished their breakfasts they headed back to the boatyard and got to work. Amanda made a quick check of the weather radio, to discover that some bad weather was moving in – it would be stormy, and rain was expected, along with cooler weather. “I guess that means we’d better get to work on the outside stuff while we can,” she said.

One of the things near the top of the list was the inoperable antenna for the marine band radio. It seemed likely that it was a cable connection to the antenna at the top of the mast, and with the weather moving in it might be a while before Cordy could get to it. “Well, hell,” Amanda told Zack. “I guess the best thing to do is to rig a bosun’s chair, hook it to the mainsheet, and have you haul me up there with one of the winches.”

“Do you really want to do it that way? We could wait until we have Cordy here.”

“Yeah, and then the weather will probably have turned to shit, too. I suppose there’s nothing to do but to do it. I’ve had to work at a masthead in a bosun’s chair before. I don’t like it much, but it’s probably better than the alternative.”

It wound up taking them all day to deal with the problem. As far as Amanda could tell from her first trip to the masthead’s dizzying height the connection to the antenna was all right – it wasn’t loose and there didn’t seem to be any sign of corrosion. The odds were, she thought, that the problem was in the cable, so after Zack cranked her back down a quick trip to a marine store was called for to get a new cable.

It took them much of the day and considerable cussing to get the new cable down through the mast – the place where they’d taped the old cable and the new one together to haul it down kept getting hung up inside the mast. Finally they got the new cable run, hooked up the radio, and tried it out – and got no response.

“Well, hell,” Amanda said. “It must be in the antenna after all.”

That meant another trip back to the marine store, and then another trip up the mast. The bolt pattern for the new antenna was different than the old one, and that meant holes to drill, and old holes to be filled up. Finally, everything was in place, and they could hear radio traffic out on the river, and got a response when they made a test call.

By then the afternoon was getting late, they were both tired and frustrated, even though the problem had been fixed. “I guess that shoots the afternoon in the butt,” she told him. “It’s too late to start anything else now, and besides, both Ron and Cordy ought to be showing up before too much longer.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“Actually, what I want to do and what we really ought to do are two different things,” she smirked. “And we might not have enough time to do what I really want to do before they show up anyway. What we should do is to get a deck bath while the weather is still warm, since it’s going to be pretty uncomfortable to be out there in bare skin for the next few days.”

After the night before Amanda had few problems with changing into her bikini in front of Zack. Taking a shower with the hose in the cockpit was bracing, to say the least, but at least it made her feel cleaner. Zack said he felt much the same way, although it felt good to get on some warm clothes afterwards.

Cordy and Ron turned up not long afterwards; the four of them wound up going out to dinner, where Amanda and Zack gave a long, detailed account of their frustrations with the antenna. Once again, it didn’t go late, Ron and Cordy soon left, while Amanda and Zack went back to the Rag Doll and without further discussion rigged the settee berth out to the same wide setup it had had the night before. After a long day, it was good to pick up where they’d left off the night before, and once again they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The next day they turned to the batteries. There had been only one in the Rag Doll up to that point, and it had been an old one Cordy had turned up from around the yard somewhere; it didn’t hold much of a charge, although that hadn’t mattered much while they were hooked up to shore power. Getting the new batteries on board now was one of those things that had to be done while the boat was at Sims Boatyard, since Amanda could back the car within a few feet of the boat. If she didn’t do it here it seemed pretty clear that the marina where she would be going with the boat would involve a long walk with several very heavy batteries.

The batteries were easy to buy, although they made a significant load in the back of the Chevy, and they were a while wrestling them into place and getting them strapped down and hooked up. Once that was done, Amanda turned them to charging from the solar cells on the cabin top, just to make sure the solar array did in fact work. It did; on the overcast day the meter showed a small trickle of amps going into the battery, enough to satisfy her under the circumstances, but once that was proved she went ahead and topped the batteries up on shore power.

“You know,” Zack said as they took a break, “I can’t help but wonder how the solar panels are going to be able to charge the batteries with the dinghy riding on top of them.”

“They’re not,” she sighed. “That was one of the limitations I knew I had to face. It’s going to come down to having to charge the batteries from the engine or from shore power if I have the dinghy riding up there. If we head out someplace where we have to use the solar panels, the dinghy is either going to have to be towed, or it’ll have to be deflated at least partway and hauled on the foredeck.”

“That seems like a pain in the butt.”

“It’s going to be,” she replied. “But there isn’t much other way to do it. When I was with Matt and Mary on the Mary Sue, they’d haul the dinghy on the cabin top if they were in harbor or protected waters like a canal, but when they went offshore they’d have to deflate it. All I can say is that they learned to live with it.”

“I know you’ve told me before about traveling on those European canals with them,” he said. “It sounds like it must have been quite an adventure.”

“Oh, it was,” she smiled. “I already knew I wanted to have a nice cruising sailboat by that time, but going with them sealed it for me. It was really something to arrive in Paris on the deck of the Mary Sue with them. Of course, when I got back to school everyone thought I was full of shit for saying I’d done it.”

“Would you like to take after them, sail the Atlantic, and screw around in Europe the way they did?”

“Oh, hell, I’d love to,” she laughed. “In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d much rather do. But I have to accept the fact that I’m probably not going to be able to do it unless I hit the lottery or something. Unless something unforeseen happens, I’m going to have to spend the summer cruising weather up at Winchester Harbor on the Chinook or the Coho. That puts other limits on what I can do, too, and let’s face facts, that also figures into what’s going to happen with us.”

“That’s pretty important to you, isn’t it?”

“It is. It’s what I want to do, and even better, it leaves me the free time in the winter to get out and go cruising in warm climates, and gives me the money to do it with. While I’d love to sail to Europe or do other things in the summer, I have to accept that fact.”

They managed to stay busy the rest of the time of Zack’s leave, and while they were at it they made a pretty good dent in the remaining list of things that needed to be done on the Rag Doll. That included stocking up groceries that would have to be used off and on for the next three months; that was something that could have been put off for a while, but once again, being able to get the car within feet of the boat made doing it convenient. There were more trips to the marine supply store, but nothing like the headache that the antenna had been. More and more, Amanda could feel that she was getting ready to do the next thing.

One evening toward the end of Zack’s leave Cordy came to them and said, “If you’re ready you might want to think about getting out of here tomorrow.”

“I suppose we could,” Amanda replied. “I suppose you’re concerned about Ike. I thought he was supposed to be in jail for another few days.”

“That was the plan,” Cordy told them. “But I saw in the paper this noon that they’re talking an early release due to overcrowding. I don’t know if he’d be involved with that, or what, but you might as well not take the risk.”

“All right,” Amanda said. “You’re not going to be able to go with us, are you?”

“Shit no, I’ve still got the guts of that crane barge engine scattered all over hell. Look, high tide tomorrow is at nine or somewhere in there, so you won’t have any problem getting over the bar if you stay in the channel. If you guys like, you can drive your cars over there tonight, get settled up for the dock space, and I can bring you back here.”

After no more discussion than that, they decided to go ahead with it, even though the weather the next day promised to be less than totally thrilling. They drove over to the marina across the river, and Amanda paid ahead for three weeks’ worth of slippage, starting the next day. As expected, the slip was out toward the end of a long pier, and she was glad they’d gone ahead and gotten the heavy hauling out of the way while the Rag Doll was still at Sims.

They started back, riding in Cordy’s old clunker of a car, and on the way stopped at a chain restaurant for dinner. “This is going to be a little longer than I’d planned to hang around at the marina,” Amanda told them. “But I suppose it’ll work out. Cordy, I’ve still got a few things to do until you and Ron come with me to go down the coast.”

“Don’t think I’m not looking forward to it,” Cordy shook her head. “With any kind of luck I should have that damn crane barge engine back together in the next few days. There’s some piddly stuff to do after that but right now it doesn’t look like I’m going to have much trouble getting away.”

“I hope this isn’t going to mess things up with your dad too much.”

“If it does, it does,” she shrugged. “He’s going to have to learn how to get along without me pretty damn soon, even though he doesn’t know it yet. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing what he does when I’m gone.”

“You think he might actually hire Ike?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. It would be the easy thing to do, but it would be the dumb one. I told him after we found out about that trouble with your boat that I wasn’t going to be around if Ike was. Maybe that’ll give me the excuse to get out of there, although the timing could be a little better. I mean, Ron and I have like five weeks after we get off that trip down the coast with you before we’re going to have to be heading to Sitka. It’ll work out somehow.”

After dinner Cordy took them back to the Rag Doll, then left to go home. “You know,” Zack said after she left, “that’s not a nice position she has herself in.”

“No, it’s not,” Amanda agreed. “It’s one of those things where she has to make a choice between what she wants to do and what she thinks she really should do. It’s going to be hard on her dad either way.”

“It’s just going to be harder if her dad winds up hiring a jerk like this Ike is supposed to be.”

“True, but it’ll give her all the excuse she needs to get out of here,” Amanda agreed. “It might be harder for her if her dad doesn’t hire that Ike character. But that’s something she’s going to have to work out, and I guess I’m going to be just as glad that I’m not going to be around here to be in the middle of it. But I’m not going to worry about it. Why don’t we fold out the settee berth, blow out the candles, and enjoy ourselves for a while?”

They woke up the next morning, had some breakfast on the boat for once, and got the Rag Doll ready to take out. The tide was getting close to full when they decided to get on their way. Amanda warmed up the engine for a bit, then told Zack to bring in the dock lines; in a few minutes they were heading out of the boatyard for the last time.

It felt sad to leave, in a way. The place was a dump in many regards, but until the business with Ike had blown up it had been a friendly and relatively safe one except maybe for the alligators. It was where the Rag Doll had been restored from being a tattered eyesore to a proud and pretty boat once again, and it was a little hard to put it behind them.

They crossed the bar without any problems; as the channel widened out, Amanda had Zack take the helm while she got the sails up. Soon they were full and drawing, and they could shut the engine off and glory in being under sail. “You know,” Amanda told him, “the Coast Guard has taught you to be pretty good around boats, but I think the time has come to teach you how to really sail one.”

“I’m ready,” he said. “I’m really not interested in sitting around like a bump on a log while you do the work.”

It wasn’t that far by water over to the marina where the Rag Doll would be staying for a while, and they could probably have made it in two or three hours. But even though it was a less than ideal day for sailing, Amanda spent some time teaching Zack the basics as they messed around in the lower river. Since they had the time, they sailed past Mayport and the Coast Guard station, and out into the ocean just a little, to say they’d been there. It was a relatively calm day out there since the breeze was coming from onshore, but at least the Rag Doll was able to taste true salt water for the first time since Amanda had owned her. She had long since resolved that it wouldn’t be the last time.

But all too soon they had to head back so they could be into the new marina by dark. Since the wind was now coming from more or less in front of them, they had to sail close-hauled, with all the extra wind speed and small waves crashing on the bow. It wasn’t a real good test of the new dodger arrangement, but from what little splashed up it looked like it would work as much as it needed to. Still, it was a bumpy ride, but Amanda could feel the boat glorying in the conditions it was built for.

The day was dying down, and with it the wind, as they got into the marina. Amanda had Zack drop the sails and started the motor for the final run into the slip. It was clearly not going to be as comfortable as the well-protected hole back at the boatyard, but it would work for a while.

“It’ll do for now,” Amanda said as they got the lines set to keep them in the slip.

“At least it’s a lot closer to the station,” Zack told her. “It’s going to be a lot easier to get over here and see you in the evenings, although with the way my schedule is, I may not be able to get over here very often.”

“I guess we’ll make it work out,” she replied. “I’ve still got a few things to do, and on days when the weather is halfway decent I may get out, make a few trial runs, and maybe do a little bit of exploring. You know, for as much time as I’ve been here, I really haven’t seen much on the water around here.”

“I’ve seen more of it than I really want to,” he told her. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed being in the Coast Guard here and I’ve learned a lot. But you’ll be seeing it with fresh eyes.”

“Are you going to be spending the night here with me?”

“I’d love to, but I’d better not. I have to sign in by midnight or it will cost me a leave day. But don’t worry, Amanda. We’ll have plenty of chances in the future.”

“I guess we will,” she smiled. “I’ll just have to make do until then.”

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