Audrey’s place proved to be a furnished apartment with no view of anything in particular. It was a cheap place to winter over, that was all, and except for a number of paintings sitting around it showed nothing of her eclectic character. “I don’t like it,” she said. “But the price is right and it’s warmer here than it in is Toronto, so I’ve always felt I could survive it for a couple months.”

It had some things that Adam appreciated about the place right then – an apartment-sized washer and dryer, and a shower were all welcome. It did not take Audrey long to pack, and, except for the paintings, there didn’t seem to be much of her influence left in the apartment when she was done. Over the course of the evening she called her son and daughter-in-law and told them that she was going to be traveling with a friend for a few days, but didn’t get anymore specific than that. “I’m afraid they might be a bit scandalized if they were to find out I was traveling with a man,” she explained later. “But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Adam wound up spending the night on the couch; there was no other room for him, and it was adequate, about as comfortable as the bunks in the Knick-Knack, which he’d at least gotten used to.

It took a bit of shuffling in the morning to get her gear – what there was of it – down to the boat and get her car back to the apartment, but in the cool of the morning they were on their way. It was another nice day for sailing, and they had reason to enjoy it. At the end of the day they found a marina with transient slips near Stuart, and a restaurant a short distance away, where they could enjoy a dinner together.

After some discussion during the day, they agreed that she’d take the bunk up in the V-berth in the front of the boat, while Adam took the dinette made down into a bunk, which is where he preferred to sleep anyway. Giving each other a little privacy to change clothes and the like took some doing, but they were able to work things out. “We are mature adults, after all,” she commented at one point. “We do not exactly have to be slaves to our sexuality.”

Adam offered to make breakfast the next morning, but she said there would be plenty of times when they might not have the alternative, so they went back to the restaurant for the meal. While they were there Adam again went over the choice they had to make there: across the state, or down the coast. “I don’t have any feelings about it either way,” she said. “All I want to do is go somewhere. However, I might point out that the wind could be pretty much on our nose most of the way, but since we’ll be in canals a lot of it, we’ll have to be motoring much of the time.”

In the end they wound up flipping a coin, like Adam had expected he would have done anyway; it came up for the canal route across the state through Lake Okeechobee. Twenty minutes later they were backing the Knick-Knack out of the slip and heading for the canal.

It took them two days of running on the Honda to make it to the lake – it could have taken them less time if they’d just been on the flat, but there were several locks on the route, something Adam had never had to deal with. Fortunately, Audrey had; she told the story of how years before she and Bert had gone with some friends on a power cruiser through the many locks of the Trent and Severn Canal in Ontario, and while it had been a while, she hadn’t forgotten the drill. She had the Knick-Knack set up for locking long before they reached the first lock, and she was able to explain how to do it with a minimum of fuss.

Motoring in the canal wasn’t that big a problem, since there wasn’t a lot of wind anyway. They gassed up at Port Mayaca on the east side of the lake and spent the night there, and the next morning set off across it. What wind there was, was still coming from more or less ahead of them, so they wound up running the whole distance across the lake on the Honda. They got off the huge, shallow lake at Clewiston, topped off the gas tanks, and ran the canal to Moore Haven where they tied up for the night.

Being in no great hurry, it took them three more days to reach the sea southwest of Fort Myers. Two of the nights were spent at anchor to one side of the channel; only on the last half of the last day were they able to sail instead of letting the Honda do the work. They celebrated crossing the state by finding a motel and a restaurant, giving them a chance for a good cleaning up, and to do their laundry.

By now they were pretty comfortable with each other – a lot of awkward points had been worked out, and they’d settled into a team with little need to discuss what they wanted to do on the boat. Audrey was thoroughly as good a sailor as he was, if not better, and they switched back and forth sailing and doing some of the maintenance chores that needed to be done.

They grew closer and more comfortable with each other in the process. While they managed to talk a lot, and interesting talk at that, at times Audrey would get the hankering to paint or sketch, and Adam learned to just sit back, deal with the boat and let her do it without kibitzing; he knew what his opinion of art was worth. And at times he’d just sit back with his e-book reader and let her do the sailing

Since they had plenty of time, they turned north after leaving Ft. Myers to explore Charlotte Bay and Punta Gorda. The west coast of the state was a little different from what Adam had gotten used to on the east coast. Both agreed that it was a lot of the same thing to the point where the chart plotter was sometimes needed to figure out where they were, and that Georgian Bay was a lot more interesting to them. But Georgian Bay was probably cold and gray and covered with ice right now, so this made an adequate alternative.

One night they were sitting at anchor a ways offshore in a small bay near Punta Gorda. It had been a good and comfortable day, and they’d broken a couple of beers out of the cooler while they watched the sunset. Out of nowhere, Audrey spoke up: “Adam, I’ve really enjoyed this trip and being with you. It’s something I thought I’d never be able to do again, after Bert died. Now, I’m finding I enjoy it more than I imagined.”

“You’re not thinking of giving it up and going back to your apartment, are you?”

“Hardly that. This has been so much more rewarding and interesting than wasting away the hours there, and I’m perfectly willing to stay with you as long as you’ll have me. This has been a vast change from the rather dull way I’ve lived since Bert passed. I’m afraid I went into a bit of a shell as a result, and I’ve missed many things we used to do.”

“I realize that,” he said. “You may not have come right out and said it, but you’re always referring to the good times you had with him. I envy you that. When I was married, I never had very many good times, and it was as much my fault as anything. I’m trying to come out of that, and this trip, well, it makes me feel a little bit of what I’ve missed.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” she smiled. “but I think you’re starting to make up for it. But Adam, I wasn’t talking about that, at least not directly. There are other things that Bert and I used to do that I’ve missed dearly. We, uh, actively enjoyed being with each other, and I’ve missed it a lot. I’ve shied away from pursuing other relationships in the years since he’s died, I think out of respect for the memory of him, as much as anything else. And I have to add that Bertie and Josette would feel uncomfortable were they to know I’d taken up with a man other than Bertie’s father, although my daughter Christine keeps telling me to put the past behind me. I’ve been, well, unwilling to do that.” She let out a huge sigh, and added, “At least until now.”

Adam pretty well got the message of what she was saying, or at least was trying to say; it had to be hard for her. But there was no point in being blunt about it; he had to let her get it out in her own way. “Sometimes it takes a while to make a change,” he replied neutrally.

“Oh, my, yes,” she smiled. “I’ve been wrestling with this, well, for most of the trip. Adam, I like you a great deal, and I wouldn’t mind taking our relationship to the next level, at least for a while. As I said, I’m not sure how Bertie and Josette would deal with it, but they are far away. Adam, I feel too much time has passed, and if you’d be interested in a fling, I most certainly am.”

That pretty well was what Adam thought she was trying to say. “Audrey, yes, I’d be interested in a fling, as you put it. And I have to say that if you’re interested in going a little further than that I’d still be interested. I think you know that I never really liked Brittany, but I felt it was my duty to stick it out with her until I couldn’t take it anymore. That point didn’t come until after Matt died. For years, I’ve dreamed of having a relationship with a woman whom I could enjoy being with, and who enjoyed doing the things I like to do. You are the closest person I’ve ever met to fitting that description.”

“I don’t think I’m quite ready to go that far, at least just yet,” she smiled. “I’m not ruling it out, but even though I think I know you fairly well and like what I see of you a good deal, going farther than a casual physical relationship is something I’m not quite prepared to do, at least not yet. But there is a chance it could change, and if it does, Bertie and Josette are just going to have to live with it whether they like it or not. But for now, I don’t feel I can agree to anything permanent, or at least anything that extends past the limit of this trip.”

“If you can live with it, I can live with it,” Adam replied, a little disappointed but willing to accept the inevitable; after all, he’d had to do much the same thing with Carolyn. “But I hope that by the end of the trip you’ll change your mind. After all, I’m planning on doing something a little different than poking around in Florida swamps in the Moonshadow next summer.”

“Yes, and there is a definite appeal to that,” she said. “And there is a part of me that would dearly enjoy going with you on your trip to Blanche Tickle. But Adam, I have to think about more than just myself in this, and Bertie and Josette are part of that decision. If I decide I can’t go with you on the whole trip, perhaps I can manage to join you for a few days.”

“I think you’d like being on the Moonshadow with me. It’s going to be a considerably more comfortable boat than this, and I’m having it rigged to live on virtually permanently. While I haven’t given up on the plan to go to Georgian Bay with it, the more I think about it the more I’m leaning toward going to Newfoundland in it.”

“Oh, that sounds like such a delightful adventure,” she said, not for the first time. “I would most enjoy sailing into Blanche Tickle in the way we did in the Mary Sue. But whether it happens, Adam, will depend on more than my feelings. In any case we are putting the cart far before the horse. Let’s not think that far ahead just yet. We have, what, a month before we’ll be back near my apartment?”

“Something like that,” he said. “It really doesn’t matter. If we’re not near your apartment when the time comes for you to go, I’ll get you back one way or another. I don’t absolutely have to go back to Jacksonville in the boat myself. I can always leave this boat somewhere, get a ride to the truck somehow and then drive back to get it with the trailer. We can work it out.”

“Good. I do need to be back in my apartment by early March so I can move out and go back to Toronto, but let’s plan on staying together until then. And Adam?”

“Yes?”

“Not in the V-berth any longer. It’s crowded and cramped in there, and it’s also lonely.”

“It’s not going to be much less crowded and cramped in the dinette berth, but at least it won’t be lonely.”

Even as comfortable as they had become with each other, it felt a little strange and awkward to go to bed together in the dinette berth, but a lot of the awkwardness passed in the next hour or so. Audrey proved to be at least as good a companion in bed as Carolyn had been, and in some respects better. In any case, it was a long, long way from the lackluster times he’d had with Brittany before he’d given up trying altogether. Certainly any barriers he and Audrey had built between them were torn down that night.

Even more so than with Carolyn, Adam was satisfied. This, he thought, was what he had been looking for all along, the way it really was supposed to be.

In the days to come, they became even more comfortable with each other, almost like a long-married couple. It may have helped that they turned south after that evening, sailing toward warmer weather and warmer water. Audrey discarded the rather dowdy one-piece swimsuit she’d occasionally worn, and replaced it with a bikini – and she looked good in it, even for a woman of her age. She was a little more rounded than Carolyn had been, certainly more rounded than Brittany’s bony thinness, and he came to appreciate that, too.

Sometimes, not often, when they were anchored at a quiet, out-of-the-way place on salt water, they’d even do away with the swimsuits entirely and swim nude off the Knick-Knack. They wouldn’t try it in fresh water because of the frequent presence of alligators, although some of the other people they met who were living on their boats said that they were probably being a little over-cautious.

Though they often spent evenings by themselves at anchor in some lonely spot, they were more often in the presence of other boats, sometimes just people hiding from the winter like they were, and others more or less permanently afloat, like Adam planned on being beginning in the spring. They were almost always interesting people to meet, to talk with about one thing or another, or to sit around and talk boats with. Adam picked up so many good ideas he wanted to apply to the Moonshadow that he decided to start a notebook. Most of the modifications seemed fairly simple, and it seemed likely that most of them could be easily and quickly done to his bigger boat next spring before he started out on whatever trip he wound up doing first.

They often did more than just sit around in their boats or on the dock with their new-found friends; occasionally they joined them for dinner, or went to a nearby waterfront bar for a few drinks. Sometimes there was music; some of it was good, and some of it was bad. One time, toward the end of the trip, they ran across the same bad Jimmy Buffet imitator in different places, with different acquaintances, three nights in a row. Adam and Audrey wound up learning the words to such songs as Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in Paradise so well that Adam often found himself singing them to himself as he steered the Knick-Knack to wherever it was going next.

Adam and Audrey rarely had reason to have words with each other, and were never angry; they got along too well. Slowly Audrey took over the cooking duties on the Knick-Knack, at least the heavy ones; while Adam still did some of the cooking, she took on the majority of it. One evening while they were at anchor at a lonely spot in the Everglades, he had a suggestion or two about the meal she was making. “I can handle it,” she smiled at him. “After all, who wears the panties on this boat?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” he giggled. “Right now, it looks like neither of us does.”

“Adam, you know what I mean.”

“All right, you’re the better cook and I know it. I’ll leave you alone and just enjoy the results.”

As the weeks passed they turned the corner and started heading back up the East Coast. By now they knew they had a deadline; Audrey had to be out of her apartment at the end of the month. It was going to be a long haul to get there in time to have a couple days left so she could pack up to leave and do some of the other things she needed to do to get back to Toronto. So they decided to quit lollygagging along and push a little harder up through the Miami area. They passed through the crowded but interesting places, with big and very expensive buildings sitting on the waterfront, and boats so big and expensive that it seemed that the little Knick-Knack was something of an intruder. There was little anchoring out here, for there were few places to do it; they had to find transient slips at marinas, and some of the most expensive ones of the trip, even if the facilities didn’t exactly measure up to some they’d seen elsewhere.

The heavily populated area only started to thin out a little as they continued north. They spent their last night together on the Knick-Knack in Stuart, close to where they’d spent their first night together, and as far as Adam was concerned the fun part of the trip was about over with, since they both knew that Audrey would be leaving the next day. The little boat was going to seem lonely without her presence.

That evening they ate dinner in the same restaurant where they’d eaten on their first night out together; their loop around the southern part of the state was now complete. “Audrey,” Adam said as they sipped glasses of wine while they waited for their order to arrive, “This has been a great trip, and I wouldn’t have had anything like as much fun if you hadn’t been with me.”

“I agree,” she said. “It has indeed been a wonderful trip, and I’ve been able to enjoy many things that I’ve missed for a long time, and that I sometimes thought I’d never do again. I’m glad you happened by, Adam. It turned what would have been a very dull winter indeed into a wonderful joy, and I’m sorry it’s coming to an end. I’m dreading having to go back to Toronto and having to lie and dissimilate to Bertie and Josette about what I’ve really been doing, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“Is that going to be a major problem?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I am torn between covering it up, letting all the horses out of the barn, or perhaps something in between. I know that even though I’ve called them from time to time, they’ve probably called me several times and had cause to wonder where I was and what I’ve been doing. I doubt it’s going to be any less than awkward at times.”

For several days Adam had been kicking something around in his mind. Now was the time to say it, if there was ever a time. “Audrey,” he said. “I know you have to be getting back home, and that you have things to do there. But I’ve enjoyed being with you a good deal, and, well, although we talked about the fact that it can’t be permanent, I’d sure like it if you could see your way clear to be with me for an extended period on the Moonshadow. Perhaps all summer, and perhaps longer than that when I bring the boat down here in the fall. And after that, too.”

“It is tempting, Adam,” she replied. “You have no idea how tempting it is. I have enjoyed our time together a good deal, including the intimate times. I haven’t had as much fun doing things I like to do since Bert died. But as you know there are complications, most of them caused by Bertie and Josette, especially her. She has a very narrow view of propriety, and if she finds out the depth of what we’ve done she’s going to feel very scandalized about me. Adam, while I would very much like to sail for Blanche Tickle with you in the Moonshadow, it’s probably not going to happen. At least, it can’t happen until I put some family fires out, or at least throw some gasoline on them to make them burn brighter. I’m not sure what I’m going to do or how I’m going to do it, but I think I can say I see some troublesome times ahead.”

“Well, let’s just say the offer remains open. If it works out that I’m going to Blanche Tickle, I should be coming close to Toronto along in the middle of May. It wouldn’t be any trouble to sail over and pick you up.”

“It is a very tempting thought, Adam, but I’m going to have to tell you no, at least for right now. Things might change, but if I were to do it I would be causing a great deal of trouble with my children. Don’t get me wrong. I feel Christine would say, ‘Mom, go for it,’ but I fear the complaints from Bertie and Josette would drown her out. They might be a little less negative if I were contemplating a permanent relationship, but they would still be very leery of it.”

“That could be arranged,” he told her, surprising himself to say it. “As you know, I’m very gun-shy about marriage, and I’m sure you know why. But if it takes that to get you to come with me, I’m up for it. My advice to you is ‘Listen to Christine.’”'

“I will bear that in mind, Adam,” she smiled. “But I dare not make any promises, or hold out any hope to you. Things in my family are not as simple as they seem, and I fear I’ve only given you the outline. While I should like to go with you in the Moonshadow, I’m afraid there’s a good chance it won’t happen, except for perhaps a few days, and then it’ll have to be done such that Bertie and Josette don’t know about it. But I shall give it some thought and perhaps some fighting, but Adam, don’t get your hopes up.”

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