It had been good to see Adam and Audrey again, but after a couple days it was time to move on, with the two boats heading their separate ways. The older couple was working their way southeastward down the islands, while Amanda and Zack were heading to the northwest, knowing that their time together was starting to run low. Zack had to be heading back to Jacksonville and the Coast Guard. Amanda had a little more time, but now that it was getting to be early February, she had to be at least thinking about heading back to Winchester Harbor to help her father get the boats in the water and get ready for fishing season.

Over the course of the next few days, they sailed along Abaco, stopping several places before heading over to Great Abaco, spending a little time in Marsh Town. After that they wound up going up past the north end of the island and heading over to Grand Bahama Island, where they found a beautiful protected beach at the east end of the island. By now Amanda wasn’t quite as shy about wearing her micro-bikini only on the boat when they were very alone, although they were almost as alone there. It felt good to show off a little – for Zack, of course – and maybe a little to others. She still didn’t think she was ever going to be able to wear it down to the little beach by the breakwater at Winchester Harbor.

They stayed on the east end of Grand Bahama perhaps a little longer than they should have, and by the time they got to Freeport, near the west end of the island, Zack was starting to get a little tight for time. It was a good place to wait out the weather for the hop back to Fort Pierce, where Amanda would have to get busy with getting the Rag Doll put away for the winter.

By now the trip was coming to an end, in more ways than one. For months Amanda had been looking forward to spending time with Zack, having fun with him, so they could get to know each other. It had been a goal for months, and now it was achieved. For a couple weeks she had been wanting to bring up the question of “What comes next?” and she was sure he was thinking the same thing too – but somehow neither of them had dared to broach the issue.

Now, perversely, the weather that had been nice for some time turned lousy on them. It blew like mad in the fairly well protected harbor, so that really wasn’t a huge issue for them, but it was uncomfortably cold. Worse, the winds were persistently out of the north, which guaranteed them a rough ride across the Gulf Stream to Florida. Day after day they waited the weather out, but a break never seemed to come.

Freeport wasn’t a bad place to have to wait out the weather – there were things to do, places to explore – but each day that passed made a chance to get away across to Florida a much more imperative issue.

Finally, they ran out of time. Zack had only two more days to get back to the Coast Guard at Jacksonville and the weather report made it pretty clear that a break in the weather wasn’t going to come in time. “All right,” Amanda said after hearing the latest dismal forecast, “I guess the thing to do is to get you on your way whether I go or not. How about if we get you on a plane, and I can just sit here until I get a good chance to head back?”

“That would work,” he agreed. “But it would mean that you would have to head back solo. Well, you and Beffy, that is.”

“I can do that,” she said. “I mean, as long as I get a good shot at the weather, and I’ve got a couple weeks at least, maybe more if I really need it. While I need to get back home to help Dad get the boats in the water, I’ve got a month or more to do that.”

“I guess,” he sighed. “Really, it’s the only logical thing to do. I don’t like the idea of having to leave you to finish up the trip by yourself, but I don’t see any other way. But Amanda, look. I know we agreed that this trip was just going to be this trip for you and me, and that it wouldn’t necessarily mean anything about what comes afterward. But I hate like hell the thought of having to leave you here, because I don’t want to leave you at all. Damn it, Amanda, I’ve tried to keep from saying it, but I’ve gotten to where I really love you, and I don’t want to see you just sail away from me.”

“Well, actually, you’d be the one flying away from me, but I see your point. I love you too, Zack. We set out on this trip with the idea of just having a good time without it meaning anything, but I guess having that limit didn’t work very well, did it?”

“No, it didn’t. It’s been a great trip and we’ve had a great time, but . . . well, shit. I know you’ve got to go back home and work with your family. I understood that from the beginning and I can’t fault you for it. You have a good deal there, Amanda, especially for someone your age, and I can understand why you don’t want to give it up.”

“That’s true, and it really is the stumbling block, isn’t it? I guess there is next winter, I suppose.”

“Maybe, but most likely not,” he shook his head. “Look, Amanda, my enlistment runs out in June, so I suppose I could leave the Coast Guard and come be with you. But really, I don’t want to give up the Coast Guard. Although it gets to be a pain in the ass at times, I think you understand from Ron that it can be a pretty good career, and up until this trip I’d pretty well planned on making a career out of it, like Ron. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“I have to admit, while I would love to have you with me, I’m not sure asking you to give up the Coast Guard is something I really want to do.”

“I don’t want to ask myself to do it,” he sighed. “Amanda, the Coast Guard has done everything I asked of it. Granted, I didn’t ask much, just to get my butt out of Kansas and keep it there, but, well, if I reenlist there will be a promotion coming along pretty soon, which is another good reason to stay in. But if I do reenlist, I probably won’t be in Jacksonville another year. The Coast Guard could send me to a lot of different places. None of them are likely to be in Kansas, that’s true, but Ron and Cordy ought to be getting settled into place in Sitka right now, and that’s a hell of a lot farther away from Winchester Harbor than Jacksonville is.”

“I guess there’s no way you could put it off until we, well, we can work it out?”

“Not really,” he shrugged and went on. “If I reenlist, it would have to be for a minimum of three years. If I want to stay in the Coast Guard it would be better if I did it for longer, say, six years. That would give them a reason to send me to a school or two, which would mean that I wouldn’t have to spend most of my time as a deckhand on a patrol boat or something else that’s not all that interesting.”

“How soon do you have to make the decision?”

“Well, I have until June, of course, and under certain circumstances I could even let it slide past that. I suppose I could even get out then come back in after a couple months, although I’d have to talk to Chief Barnes about that. There’s a chance that if I did that, I could lose my shot at one of those schools I’d like to have, and maybe even my promotion.”

“Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, isn’t it?” she nodded unhappily. “Zack, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have you with me in Winchester Harbor, and that would mean we could get a longer period messing around on the Rag Doll next winter. After the hassle Dad went through with getting a deckhand last summer, having you around would probably mean you wouldn’t have to worry about a job, although the pay might not be as much as you’d like. I couldn’t make any promises about it until I talked to Dad, but I think he’d go for it. While Samantha did all right last summer, it was only for three months and not all the time at that. As far as I know, I understand she won’t be able to work as much this summer. It’s some sort of family thing that Dad wasn’t real clear about when we talked about it.”

“That sort of adds to the uncertainty, doesn’t it?” he shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, while I’d love to be up in Winchester Harbor and working on the fishing boats with you, I’m not sure it’s the smartest move I could make. I’d be able to be with you, but, well, maybe we need to think about a little more than just the near term.”

“It has to be your decision, Zack,” she sighed. “It’s one that I really shouldn’t make for you. It would make me very happy if you were to come join me, but I don’t want you being unhappy and thinking you made the wrong choice if for some reason things don’t work out.”

“I realize that, which is why I’ve been a little slow to bring this up. Maybe I thought that if I ignored it, it would go away. I know I thought we could have a good time, have some laughs, and when it was over, it was over. Well, Amanda, it didn’t work out that way, and now we both have a problem. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, it’s not like you have to make up your mind this instant,” she told him. “You’ve got, what? Pretty close to four months. Maybe our being apart for a while will make things a little clearer.”

“It’s possible,” he shook his head. “But then, it might not, too.”

“I’ll tell you one thing that might be worth thinking about,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Why don’t you go have a long talk with Chief Barnes after you get back? It seems to me there are several things you don’t know about, and he might be able to help you with them. Hell, he may even have some other idea. Maybe your reenlisting would give you a shot at getting assigned to Cheboygan, or maybe the Mackinac, which is home-ported there. That might give us a few years to work out some of these things.”

“It’s an idea,” he admitted. “I doubt like hell I could get that lucky, but you’re probably right that I should go talk to Chief Barnes.”

“Do it,” she smiled. “If you have to make a decision you really ought to have all the information that’s available to you. But Zack?”

“Yes?”

“Whatever you decide, make sure it’s the right decision for you. I can’t deny that your wanting to be with me has to be a factor, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you base your decision on.”

The next morning Amanda and Zack caught a ride to the local airport in Freeport for the plane ride to Miami, where Zack would get another plane to Jacksonville. Of course, with security restrictions, Amanda couldn’t exactly put him on the plane to Miami, but at least she was able to tell him goodbye outside the airport.

They lingered for a little while, just getting a few last things said. “Look,” he told her. “Let me know when you get into Ft. Pierce. If I can juggle things around to get a day or two off, I can probably get someone to come along with me to get your car down to you.”

“If I get there real soon I might just hang out for a little bit,” she said, “although it won’t be the same if you’re not with me. If it takes any real time to be able to make it over there, I may just turn to getting the Rag Doll up on the hard for the winter and head back home, even if I get there a little early. It’s going to seem pretty lonely on her without you.”

“It’s going to seem pretty lonely in Jacksonville without you, too. Look, Amanda, be careful heading back, and don’t push the weather. You have all the time you need to wait for things to be pretty near perfect.”

“I won’t,” she said. “But it’s going to be pretty boring here, too. That’s going to make me want to get out of here. But I don’t want to head back, either. I guess I can’t win either way.”

“All the more reason to take your time,” he said. “Look at it this way. Would you rather wait around here where it’s usually more or less warm, or would you rather wait around Winchester Harbor where it’s cold?”

“You have a point,” she sighed. “The last time I talked to Dad the place was still iced up, and there wasn’t much sign of it thawing.”

“Look, I’d better get going or the plane is going to leave without me. Take care, Amanda, and be careful. Take care of Beffy and the Rag Doll, too.”

“You take care yourself,” she told him. “Talk to Chief Barnes, and maybe others if you have to. Zack, I’ll go along with whatever decision you make, but what I said last night still holds: make sure it’s the right decision for you.”

“I will, Amanda, but I hope it will be one that works out best for both of us.”

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