Choppy Water Read Free Page A

floor. Those guys have binoculars, and I don’t want them to spot you.”
    Holly tossed up some cushions, then came up the companionway steps and crawled aft, making herself a comfortable perch in the cockpit.
    Stone hoisted the main and the genoa, switched off the engine, and let the boat reach along in the light winds. Soon they turned the point and were in the bay proper, the house and the yacht club now out of sight.
    “What a day for it!” Holly yelled. “I feel free again. I haven’t felt that way since the campaign started!”
    “We’re not going to see a lot of traffic out here in November, but if we spot somebody, resume your seat on the cockpit floor,” Stone said.
    The breeze picked up a little, and their speed increased.

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    They had been out for a good two hours when Stone felt a gust for the first time. He looked aft and saw low, dark clouds on the horizon. “Uh-oh,” he said.
    “You didn’t get a forecast?” Holly asked. “Bad Stone!”
    “I was too busy smuggling your ass onto the boat!” Stone came back. “Stand by to luff up!” He turned into the wind and the boat slowed. “Let’s get these big sails down, and put up a small jib. Find me one up forward.”
    Holly sprang to it.
    Stone cranked the main down and into the reefing boom and secured it, then freed the genoa halyard, while Holly came out the forward hatch with a jib and started pulling the genoa into the forepeak. Shortly, she had the small jib clipped onto the forestay and the halyard affixed to the sail, and Stone hauled on the halyard, which led aft to thecockpit for shorthanded sailing. He pulled in the jib sheet and winched it to the proper angle, then bore away toward home.
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    —
    An hour later the sky had darkened, and big drops of scattered rain were falling on them. Stone sent Holly below for foul weather gear, and they suited up before the rain became steady.
    “That’s the right sail for this,” Holly said.
    “Yes, I think we can ride it all the way in.”
    The wind was increasing, and whitecaps appeared on the dark water. “Twenty knots, by the Beaufort scale,” Stone said. Lightning flashed. Then they got a big gust, and the yacht heeled. “That’s thirty knots,” he said. The sea was choppy now, with waves of three or four feet. They pressed on, in rain and increasing fog.
    “There!” Stone said, pointing at a boat. “That motor yacht is the outermost one on the mooring line.” Other boats and a lot of empty moorings began appearing. They were running down a sort of alley between the rows. “We’re right on course for my dock,” he said. “Tell me when you spot it.”
    Holly went below, then her head popped up through the forward hatch. “Nothing yet!” she yelled. Then, a moment later: “Dock ho! Come five degrees to port.”
    Stone made the slight turn, then saw the dock. He started the engine, then dropped the jib, and Holly climbed on deck, a mooring line in her hands.
    Stone eased alongside the dock and stepped ashore withthe stern line and made it fast, then he went back aboard and cut the engine.
    Holly stuffed the jib into the forepeak, then went below and emerged into the cockpit. It was raining hard now, and the wind was up even more.
    “I don’t think we’ll bother smuggling you into the house,” Stone said. “Nobody can see us in all this, anyway.” He got the cockpit a little neater, then locked the hatch and took Holly’s hand while she climbed onto the dock. He followed, and they began staggering toward the house, against the wind. Finally, its shape emerged from the gloom.
    “Where’s our agent on the back door?” Holly asked.
    “He’s taken shelter. Drowning isn’t one of their duties, is it?”
    “Quite right.”
    They shed their foul weather gear on the back porch and stuffed it into a locker to keep it from blowing away, while Stone unlocked the back door.
    It was warmer inside, but the fire had died. Stone rebuilt it. Shortly, they were comforting themselves