It seemed a lot lonelier for Amanda in Winchester Harbor with Ron, Cordy, and Zack all back in Jacksonville. There wasn’t much she could do about it but get ready to head south just about as soon as the season was over with and the boats were out of the water.

Oh, she had plenty to do – the fishing season continued and the weather was mostly nice, so she was out almost every day. Once in a while the weather was so crappy that a cancellation was in order, but for the rest of July and most of August those days didn’t come along very often. When she did get a day off, she spent much of it catching up on things like rest and personal things, but also on collecting things to take south to put on the Rag Doll.

Rather than restoring the boat, which had been the main focus of last winter, this winter was going to concentrate more on fitting the boat out, getting it ready to cruise. That involved things like clothes, of course, but those were easy; she had to get some things to live aboard the boat, and some specifically to let her do it a lot less primitively than she had done last winter, when she’d mostly been camping out in the cabin, not really living there.

There were other things the boat needed, big things like electronics, little things like tools, and those tools would mostly not be the same ones she’d had with her to work on the boat last winter. She spent no little time in thinking about what she wanted to have on the boat, and then, when necessary, collecting them.

She was making good money this summer – her parents paid her more since she was acting as a captain, rather than as a deckhand – so as the summer progressed her boat fund got into better and better shape. It was now more her cruising fund, and while she didn’t want to be lavish, there ought to be enough in it for her to be able to get out and go once the boat was ready.

There was a room down in the boat shed where she was storing some of the things she bought that she’d need for the Rag Doll. Little by little, items were added to the collection, and at that not everything she would need was there. She’d decided to put off getting food until she was in Jacksonville, mostly because she wanted to load up on enough to do most of her cruising this winter, except for fresh things, and buying it at home would make that much more she’d have to haul down there. On top of that, she wanted a Bimini top and dodger combination much like Adam had bought for the Moonshadow. She had a feeling that was going to be big enough and cumbersome enough that she decided to put off buying it until later, when prices would be down for the season a little, and then have it shipped directly to Cordy at Sims Boat Yard.

To the extent that she had a schedule for her summer list of things to do for the Rag Doll, she was falling behind it as August drew to a close – there had been too many days of fishing, and not enough days off. But summer turns to fall, and sometimes on the Great Lakes that means more than just a gradual change of seasons. It got cold a little faster than normal once Labor Day was past and they got into September, and the weather got stormier. They lost several days of fishing as a result, but they were days that she could spend playing catch-up.

A sewing project that took up a little time and material involved making a very tiny thong bikini for herself – tinier than even Cordy’s had been. Amanda wasn’t bad with a sewing machine, but she was not exceptionally good, either. It would have been possible to ask her mother for help on this project, but somehow she just couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

A related project had to wait until partway through October, when on a stormy day Amanda took a trip to see the family doctor and had her birth control protection renewed. She’d let it lapse for over a year since there had been no obvious need for it. Now that wasn’t exactly a sure thing; it wasn’t as if she planned on going to bed with Zack, but neither was she planning not to go to bed with him. It seemed wise to be prepared, just in case.

October continued rather cold and stormy, although there were good days, and as always later in the year, when a good day came along the fishing was almost always good. They tried to get out as much as they could since there were plenty of customers who knew that the fishing was often good in the fall as well. It was a pain in the neck with no regular deckhand; Samantha was back in school, and apparently chafing at it, so she wasn’t available during the week although ready to go on the weekends. It put Amanda in mind of what she’d been like a few years before, being caught in school when the fishing was good. It remained to be seen whether Samantha was going to stay with working on the boats, since she, or at least her parents, had plans for her to go to college.

Samantha was also planning on coming to Florida over her Christmas break from school, along with Amanda’s parents; quite a bit of juggling had been done to get one of her mother’s old friends to come in and run the snack bar for its limited hours over the holidays. The plan was that Jake, Rachel, and Samantha would be with Amanda on the Rag Doll for a few days, then the folks would spend some time on the Winter Haven with Greg and Lisa. At this distance it was hard to be sure, but if Amanda could get the Rag Doll ready to go quickly enough, they all might well meet up in the Keys.

Amanda thought it was possible to get the Rag Doll ready in time. She figured that a month ought to be plenty and hoped to do it in less, although that month would probably involve some shakedown day sails. Then, it looked like Cordy and Ron would join her for the inside run down the Intracoastal from Jacksonville to the Keys, or at least until they met up with Jake, Rachel, and Samantha – much was dependent on how much leave time her brother could get. Still, Amanda didn’t see any major problem in running the Rag Doll down the Intracoastal by herself if she had to.

Sometime after the holiday meeting, Samantha would fly back north with Greg and Lisa to go back to school – hopefully with a tan but doubtlessly wanting to stay in the warmth – Amanda’s parents would take off by themselves on the Winter Haven, and Amanda would be meeting up with Zack. That was a little open-ended, but depending on how much time he could get off, it could be for up to six weeks. After that, Ron and/or Cordy might join her again for a while.

By the time Amanda got it all added up, it didn’t look as if she were going to be alone on the Rag Doll very much at all. However, Zack bore the brunt of that, and if things worked out she didn’t think she was going to mind.

As October continued, Amanda managed to pull ahead of her “to-do” list. All in all it had been a good summer, in spite of the unseasonable heat, but she was glad to see that the fishing season was coming to an end, and not just because of the Rag Doll or the desire to see Zack. It had been wearying, with only a few days off and much she had to do when the opportunity arose. It had been a busy and hectic winter followed by a busier and even more hectic summer, and it was going to be good to finish up the project with the Rag Doll and relax a bit.

October ended with a storm that kept them from fishing, but with it storming there wasn’t much they could do about getting the boats off the water. While the storm raged, there wasn’t much to do but sit in the snack bar and drink extra coffee; Amanda had given some thought to starting to load up her car but decided it was pointless to do it in the wet. While they were sitting there anxious to get going, they got a phone call from Adam.

They knew that Adam had left Newfoundland as planned early in August; in the middle of the month they had a call from him in Halifax. Then, they heard nothing from him for the next month, when he called from Montauk, Long Island. He reported that he was getting along fine in the Moonshadow and was having a wonderful time, and didn’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be in Florida for the winter like he’d planned. That had been almost six weeks before.

“How’s the weather where you’re at?” Jake asked him while Amanda listened in on the phone line from the kitchen.

“Shitty,” he replied. “I’m tied up in a little hole of a marina outside Norfolk, not far from the Dismal Swamp Canal. As soon as the weather lets up a little I’m going to be heading south. How’s the weather where you are?”

“Shitty and blowing like hell,” Jake told him. “We’re going to be getting the boats on the hard in a couple days, as soon as it lets up a little and we can get the crane in here. So I take it you had a good trip.”

“Mostly. Actually, I’ve been taking my time since the insurance company doesn’t want me to go south of here until after the first of the month. I’ve been able to take it easy the last month or six weeks or so, which is all right since there are some interesting places to stop. Considering the weather, though, I think I’m going to try to pick up the pace as soon as I get going again.”

“Adam,” Amanda broke into the conversation, “I’m going to be leaving soon for Jacksonville. I don’t know for sure considering the weather, but it ought to be within a week. I may not still be there by the time you get there.”

“No great problem,” he said. “While I’d like to see you and the Rag Doll, I don’t figure there’s a huge rush about it. We’ll probably meet up at some point. Let’s try to work it out when you get closer. I have your cell number, and you should have mine. I know you have e-mail, even if you don’t check it very often. We may be able to work it out through your folks.”

“I sure would like to see you,” she told him. “I’m sure you must have some stories to tell.”

“Oh, one or two. This cruising is proving to be just as much fun as I thought it would be.”

Jake picked back up, “Any idea what you’re going to do after this winter?”

“Not really,” Adam told him. “I take it you haven’t sold the Knick-Knack yet.”

“No, there have been a couple people snooping around it, but they seem to want to spend about a third of the price you have on it. I figured they were just lookie-loos anyway.”

“Why don’t you take the sign off it for now?” he replied. “Nothing is worked out yet, but there’s a chance I might want to take it to Georgian Bay next summer. I’m not looking forward to having to spend a long time on it as comfortable as the Moonshadow is, but one thing this boat doesn’t have is air conditioning, and it could get uncomfortable at the height of summer down south.”

“I can do that,” Jake told him. “It’s not likely anyone is going to be looking for a boat and willing to pay a high dollar this time of year anyway.”

They talked for a few more minutes, agreeing it would be nice to get together sometime, and soon the call was over. “When you get down to it, he still didn’t tell us much,” Amanda said as she hung up the phone in the kitchen.

“That’s like Adam,” Jake grinned. “He’ll tell us what he wants to, when he wants to, and if I had to bet, I still think there’s something he hasn’t been telling us.”

“You’re probably right,” she agreed. “Oh, well, I suspect we’ll find out sooner or later. It sure would be nice to get together with him, though. He’d probably tell us more than he would over the phone.”

“Again, that’s like Adam,” Jake laughed. “I don’t know how it’s going to work out, but it could be that he’ll be down in the Keys about the same time you’re there with the Rag Doll and we’re there with the Winter Haven. We might be able to rig it around so we could get together.”

“That would be worth going out of the way for,” she smiled, a nice vision of what could be happening in a couple months coming to her. “But I have to get down there first, and that involves the weather letting up enough to get the crane in here.”

“Oh, it will sooner or later,” he smiled. “You should still be out of here in a few days.”

The weather moderated after a couple days, although it was still damp and cold. It was mostly Amanda and her father getting the Chinook, the Coho, and the Pixie ready for the lift, and they missed Adam’s and Nate’s extra pairs of hands this year. Nate and Barb had been last heard from in the motor home in Arizona, although there was a chance they’d be finding a way to Florida before the winter was over.

At least the lousy weather meant that the crane was available on call, not like had sometimes happened in the past when they’d had weeks to wait for it to be able to spend a couple of hours lifting the boats and moving them to the cradles. A few days into November they were finally able to get the three boats out of the water and onto their cradles for the winter. It was simpler than the year before since there was one less boat to be lifted, and no masts to be taken down. Amanda and Jake spent several hours getting the tarps on the boats and tied down for the winter, and that was the end of the season for them.

“We’ve still got a little daylight left,” Jake said as they finished up. “What would you say to my helping you get your car loaded so you can head south in the morning?”

“I’d say it would suit me just fine,” Amanda replied. “You don’t know how badly I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”

The car was packed pretty full by the time they were done. It didn’t seem like a lot of stuff to look at it, but it added up and the boat cushions almost put it over the top. But there was still going to be room for Amanda to drive it and for Beffy’s kitty carrier, and that meant there was room enough.

After a last breakfast at the Channel Stop snack bar early the next morning, Amanda was finally on the road. There was unfinished business to be dealt with in Florida, and she meant to deal with it head on.

The drive south was long and tiring, as always; Amanda spent much of the drive thinking about how to go about finishing up the Rag Doll the most efficiently, not that she hadn’t been thinking about that virtually every other day for months.

Late in the day of the second day out she pulled into Sims Boat Yard, not even bothering to stop at the motel where she’d made reservations. Although she’d had regular reports from both Cordy and Ron, she wasn’t convinced that the Rag Doll was all right until she’d laid her own eyes on it, but it sat there, still covered in tarps, the way she’d left it months before.

No one appeared to be around at the moment, but Cordy soon showed up with the push boat – a phone call had warned her that Amanda was on the way. “Hey, Amanda!” Cordy called. “I told you it was all right.”

“I just had to see for myself,” Amanda replied. “There have been times in the past few months I thought it was a dream. So how have you been?”

“Getting along,” Cordy told her. “About the same, and all that good stuff. I figure it’s too late in the day for you to get started on her, and Ron is going to be over in a bit. Why don’t we get together in an hour or so for dinner someplace?”

“Sure, I’ve been missing Ron, too,” she said. “I wonder if he could bring Zack with him?”

“It could be, since I know that was what they were planning,” Cordy smiled. “Have you been missing him about like you’ve been missing the Rag Doll?”

“Pretty close. It’s not quite the same thing, but pretty close.”

Cordy glanced at her watch. “If they’re running about like normal it’s going to be at least an hour before they can get here, maybe a little more. Why don’t you go check into your motel and unload your car, then we can meet at Jimbo’s about six-thirty?”

“I can do that,” Amanda told her, knowing that Jimbo’s was a restaurant where they’d often eaten the year before. “But I don’t think I’ll bother unloading the car until I can unload it into the Rag Doll on the water. It’s too much stuff to have to move more than I need to.”

“Well, you might be right on that,” Cordy told her. “We’ve got a few things to talk about, but now isn’t the time and this isn’t the place.”

“About you and Ron?”

“That’s part of it, but not all of it. Go get your clothes unloaded, take a shower, get a load off. I need to get cleaned up, too, and at least this day is about shot in the ass. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Something sounded a little troubling to Amanda from the way Cordy was talking, but she had no idea what it could be. In any case, she figured she had nothing better to do, so went over to the motel, checked in, and unloaded some of her personal baggage into the room, along with Beffy and her kitty carrier. The rest, as planned, could stay in the car.

She took a shower and changed her clothes – not necessarily into dress clothes or anything, but at least something clean and neat. After all, she hadn’t seen Zack since July. They’d talked on the phone every week or so, and had exchanged e-mails back and forth fairly often. Amanda wasn’t like a lot of people her age, who more or less lived on the computer, but she checked it every few days for e-mails, and had used it to hunt down some of the items she needed for the Rag Doll.

E-mails and phone calls were all right, but they weren’t the real thing. She and Zack weren’t ones to get all mushy and gushy with each other, but she was always glad to hear his voice or get an e-mail from him, and she had the impression that he felt pretty much the same way. It would be good to see him in person again, to spend time together, and see what all had happened. She still had the long-term issue about him, but maybe it didn’t mean quite what it once had, even though there was no answer she could see to it.

She was waiting in the parking lot at Jimbo’s before six-thirty, when Ron, Cordy, and Zack showed up, all in Ron’s car. While it was good to see her brother again, she and Zack went right for each other, fell into each other’s arms, and picked up where they left off on the kiss they’d shared back in July. The only difference was that now it was even more intense, a hello kiss, rather than a goodbye one.

“Good to see you again, Amanda,” he mumbled after they broke the kiss and had their arms around each other.

“It’s good to see you too,” she told him. “I missed you a lot.”

“I missed you too. I’m glad you finally made it down here.”

There was some more cuddling and kissing before they went inside and got a booth in the back of the place. It was quiet back there, and they knew they could talk. They spent a few minutes talking about what had happened in the three and a half months since they’d seen each other, just catching up.

The waitress came and took their drink orders; considering the length of the day and the need to unwind from the drive, Amanda ordered a beer, like Ron and Cordy, but she noticed that Zack ordered a cola; he obviously was still avoiding drinking, maybe even more than before. She suspected that Ron and Cordy still didn’t know any of the secrets that Zack had revealed that day on the beach out by the breakwaters, so she resolved to stay away from any possible discussion of it.

Finally, things settled down a little. “Cordy,” Amanda said, “when I saw you this afternoon, I got the impression that there was some trouble you didn’t want to talk about around the boat yard.”

“There is,” she replied. “Ron and Zack know about part of this but we figured it would be best if you didn’t know since there wasn’t anything you could do about it from up north anyway. Things are under control for now, but it would probably be best if you could have the Rag Doll out of the boatyard by the end of the month. And I suppose you’re planning on keeping it down here next winter, but you’d better not plan on leaving it at the boatyard.”

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