Santa and the Pirate Queen, page 1
SANTA AND THE PIRATE QUEEN
A SAILING ROMANCE STORY
M. L. BUCHMAN
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ABOUT THIS BOOK
Against all bounds of common sense, Janine lands herself in charge of her yacht club’s annual Christmas Potluck. Sailing the tricky course between a clean finish and a complete wreck, she desperately needs a rescue. Or perhaps it’s time to set her own course.
Howie loves to sail but saving to buy his own boat takes time. He volunteers as crew when he can. And for the annual whirl of yacht club parties, he gate crashes as Santa.
When he sees one club has declared a pirate theme, he can’t resist and goes in with full sails set.
But neither of them expect to find love in Santa’s gift bag.
1
The wind gusted past sixty knots out of the west-northwest. Not an issue from any other point of the compass, but WNW winds slid past the marina’s breakwater, took a stroll down the lane between T and U docks, and hammered into slip T19.
Her slip.
Anything over forty-seven knots made her boat bob and weave like a drunk penguin.
“November storms suck!” Janine yelled at the boat. Ship’s Captain Master Howl opened one eye, rolled onto his back and began to purr, forcing Janine to rub his furry black belly. Not as if she could do anything else. Her forty-one-foot Cheoy Lee sailboat, Tārā, twisted badly enough that she was far more likely to type Gwko~ than Help! or Sthj@ than ARGH! as the laptop slid one way and her fingers went the other.
Giving it up, she slapped the cover closed and tucked it into the drawer under the chart table. Scooping up Master Howl in her arms, Janine staggered forward—banging a shoulder against the starboard door to the head, almost dropping Master Howl as she crashed her hip against the cooktop in the portside galley, and finally shuffled fast enough to plummet into the starboard-most seat of C-shaped settee rather than plunging into the closet.
The settee was the oddest feature of the Cheoy Lee’s design, but one she’d come to love. Most boats would have two sofa seats with some awkward arrangement to raise a table in the middle of the aisle when guests and meals were happening. Her boat had a circular sofa that could seat eight. The mouth of the C-shape opened to the stern to either side of where the mast punched through on its way to the keel. A fold-up table hung from the back of the mast.
She shuffled around the seat until the two of them were ensconced in the backmost position. This part of the seat could be folded aside to access the forward cabin, which she rarely used except for sail storage. Once seated on the centerline of the boat, the action felt much less violent, now no more than a gentle rocking. Books flopped side-to-side on the shelf with a gentle slap. Spice bottles rattled against each other in the galley. Miscellaneous gear clanked to one side then another in the various storage cubbies. And though she couldn’t hear the water sloshing about in the bilge, she could hear the pump engage and shut down as it was alternately submerged and exposed with the rolling of the boat.
All the sounds of home. Then a blast of rain and hail pounded on the deck over her head, drumming like an all-percussion marching band.
“Gonna be a long night, Master Howl.”
He answered with an orca-sized yawn as befit his black coat and white chest patch. Though his hair fell more into the shaggy category than the sleek and dangerous one.
He had been a howler as a kitten but age had mellowed him. It was now far easier to picture him snoozing in a rope coil, sipping a White Russian (without the vodka or Kahlúa diluting the cream, of course), and occasionally rousing himself to batter his catnip toy crew into submission. It made him the perfect ship’s captain. Though he still did occasionally give full voice to his discontent—especially if his dinner was more than three seconds late. He considered her ignoring that while navigating tricky archipelago passages to be grounds for mutiny. She had taught him quickly enough that batting her with his claws out counted as a gross breach of the ship’s articles under which she served.
Of course it was better than being saddled with a dog. She’d trust Joshua Slocum on that point. On sailing the first solo circumnavigation of the globe in the 1890s, he’d considered taking on a local to help him pass through the Strait of Magellan. But the man had insisted that no one in their right mind would attempt that passage without a doog on board. Per his book Sailing Alone Around the World, Slocum drew the line at dogs. Janine had cleaved to that advice and never regretted her decision to do so.
Here, at the centerline with a warm cat in her arms, and the boat rocking side-to-side like the perfect cradle for a grown woman, she wanted to fall asleep. She really did. She tried.
Master Howl succeeded easily enough.
But her? Oh no! Tomorrow was her day and it wouldn’t stop churning up a turbulent wake in her head.
With kind words and the hints of how much fun it would be, the secretary-general of the local yacht club had suckered her into organizing the annual Christmas Sailor’s Potluck. A crime for which she’d never forgive him.
The reality had no relation to the purported ease and fun.
The other volunteers’ expectations were that they could have everything exactly their way, that it was fully under their control, and that the louder they protested the more likely they would succeed.
However, Janine had been sailing far too long to be fooled. Everyone who had ever skippered a boat, even an eight-foot rubber dinghy, would gladly don a t-shirt declaring I’m the Captain so, of course, I’m right! She tried not to wince at the one in her own collection stating I’m the Captain. Rule #1: The Captain is always right. Rule #2: Any questions? See Rule #1.
Organizing a potluck should be merely sending out a few fun invites and reminders. A little bit of dish coordination so that not everyone brings a package of QFC chocolate chip cookies, and make up a few fun door prizes.
Except Georgina Anne wanted there to be fixed seating and a size limit.
Michael wanted to turn it into a fifty-dollar-a-head fundraiser (that Janine was sure was actually to keep the riff-raff like herself out but that Georgina Anne took personally).
Bethany had organized a decorating committee with her two BFFs, and they’d wanted a committed budget several times the yacht club’s annual membership fee.
This wasn’t the Seattle Yacht Club costing tens of thousands of dollars with thirty-six-month payment plans (for those in need). Nor was it the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club with a ninety-dollar fee, which also registered your boat for all of their races. She’d chosen one that cost in the hundreds—after having broken up with the head barman at the Sloop, which had definitely cancelled her prior membership there. Danny had been cool about it, but not the patrons.
The Lakefront Yacht Club landed in the casual zone between the two. A little upscale from the guys chugging pints at the start of a race no matter what the hour. It made for a nice change. Except the LYC also gathered all of the wannabes who the Seattle Yacht Club would never allow on their clubhouse verandah much less as members. And the worst of the lot had harangued her hourly on every social media platform known to womankind.
Finally sick of them all, she’d issued the invite to the full membership for the Annual Christmas Pirate’s Potluck, set a suggested door price of a wrapped present for a homeless kid, and called it done. Once out, no one had the balls to take it back. When Bethany and her BFFs had attempted to vote her out, she’d invoked the I’m-the-Captain rule. Finally, the club’s secretary-general had backed her up over Bethany’s protests with a simple e-mail: Janine’s the organizer. Three whole words from a man who typically communicated in story-length volumes.
Tomorrow would either be immense fun. Or—
“Worst they can do is keelhaul me, right, Master Howl?”
On a particularly rough buck of the boat, her cat rolled out of her arms to plop into her lap, more like a beanbag than a cat with an actual skeleton somewhere beneath all that fur.
Janine sighed and began beating the back of her head against the partition that separated the settee from the forward stateroom. Not hard enough to knock herself out, though the thought did come to mind.
2
Howie Liebermann loved Christmas. Or at least the Christmas season. Mom loved having the annual Hanukkah bush in the living room. Dad always turned surly for a week or so after its arrival before caving in. It was hard to blame him. Each year he caught hell from Grandma when she visited, which seemed unfair as Jews didn’t go in for the whole Hell thing—more of a Limbo-like retraining center for souls destined to enter the Garden of Eden on high.
Howie and his two sisters could always count on the worst presents under the Menorah. How many wooden dreidels and cheap milk chocolate wrapped in gold foil did three kids need after all? Grandma’s Fifth Night gelt always eased the pain a little. The five-dollar fortune they’d received as little kids had never crossed twenty even in the lean college years. She paid their tuitions—her and Grandpa’s sewing machine business had been very successful—but never more than a twenty on Fifth Night. The best presents always landed under the Hanukkah bush—which they had trimmed with twinkle lights and eclectic ornaments. Presents that just happened to be opened on December 25th, though nothing from Grandma, of course.
&nb
sp; That wasn’t why he loved Christmas.
His passion for the holiday season had sprung into being when he’d escaped Brooklyn under the impetus of a cool job and cruised into Seattle’s land of year-round sailing.
And the best part about Christmas here was definitely the great sailing parties and races. The Seattle Yacht Club Championships close before Halloween, typically coincident with the Sloop Tavern’s Great Pumpkin Race at the other end of the spectrum. The Turkey Bowl race that the Corinthian Yacht Club on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Again, the Sloop’s Dark & Stormy Christmas Light Cruise (and inevitable after-party). All the nights with parades of Christmas boats along different sections of Seattle’s vast waterfronts were illumination spectacles.
And every club had an annual Christmas potluck.
Howie had never joined any of the clubs, though he’d enjoyed the round of Introduction dinners every club offered as they sought new members. Instead, he’d made a small name for himself on the local race circuits as on-call crew when a boat came up a person short.
He learned that it was a thing two years ago while hanging out at Fremont Brewing’s Urban Beer Garden after a long day cutting code at Adobe. Their offices commanded the waterfront by the Fremont drawbridge.
At the next table, a couple were fighting about whose turn it was to helm the boat in that night’s race. Watching the summertime Tuesday Duck Dodge evening races out on Lake Union in the heart of Seattle was fun. But he’d never given any thought to being aboard, until the guy had stormed off and the woman looked around the bar like a lost soul. Short, cute, and curvy, they’d dated long enough for him to learn the basics of sailing and have a good laugh together. She let him and other volunteers crew every position, except the helm—that was hers alone now that she’d canned the fiancé.
Howie had quickly learned to read the local racing calendars and started making a few educated guesses. The Fremont Brewery or Duke’s on Tuesday afternoons led to Duck Dodge slots. The bar at Ray’s Boathouse the night before a race out of Shilshole turned out to be a great place to be picked up as last-minute crew. Laurelhurst had too much money to ever consider wanting crew like him, but Anthony’s Homeport along the Kirkland waterfront was a consistent winner.
There were now a score of boat skippers with his number on speed dial. Two, even three races a week came his way almost year round. He’d never spent a dollar past his bar tab, one pint and an appetizer limit unless some winning captain was buying for the crew. There’d been no need to join any of the yacht clubs.
Except for missing the Christmas parties.
Despite his initial introduction, sailing women were in a special class all their own—rare. Men dominated the sport. Howie soon learned, however, that grown-daughters-of came out of the woodwork at special moments…like Christmas parties.
But he had to adhere to his policy of minimal expense. He was only about halfway to affording his own boat big enough to live aboard but fast enough to be fun. Or maybe even rigged for the ultimate: going deep sea. Circumnavigating. Hard to imagine but it sounded very cool. Until then? He’d stay focused on hitting those great holiday parties.
He’d built enough connections to enough different boats that he always heard about the various parties. This being the self-proclaimed sailing capital of the US of A, there were a lot of them. Between Halloween and the end of the Christmas boat parades on December 23rd was in many ways the peak of the sailing season—or at least the social sailing season.
But finding a date, even on a one-evening basis to attend a party, was tricky because the sailing women were so rare.
Then the great idea came. Who could turn away a gate-crashing Santa, even one with a Brooklyn-Jew accent?
3
Janine surveyed the yacht club decorations. Thank God last night’s storm had played itself out, which would be a boon for attendance. She so didn’t want to be the person who organized a party and no one came. From the crackling fire at one end of the hall to the giant Christmas tree at the other, it was beautiful.
“This is amazing! Great job!” Janine had to give credit where credit was due.
Bethany and her pair of BFFs offered her thankful smiles that didn’t reach their steel-like eyes, but they had done well. And it had cost the club only fifty dollars.
In keeping with her Pirate’s Christmas theme, the Queen Bethany Trio scrounged among the membership for old manila lines, wooden block-and-tackle, battered wooden chests, and the like. The tables, that Janine had insisted be set up in long communal-style rows over Georgina Anne’s protests, were scattered with well-worn seafaring paraphernalia. The QBT had also raided various long-grown-children’s toy boxes; rubber swords and daggers had been strewn about as well. Bethany had found nautical-chart paper tablecloths to spread along the tables, which had cost the fifty dollars and were sure to be conversation starters with any sailor.
Janine’s personal playlist—of mixed sea shanties by the Cornish Fisherman’s Friends group and Christmas carols—lent a cheery background.
Georgina Anne and Michael had eschewed festive wear beyond very conservative Christmas sweaters.
But not to be outdone by Janine’s chosen theme, the QBT wore matching pirate maiden costumes that included high leather boots, alarmingly short skirts, and seriously low-cut bodices. Bandanas side-knotted as headbands allowed their latest hair styles to be on display while adding to the piratical air.
Courtesy of a brief fling several years ago that had overlapped Halloween, Janine possessed full Elizabeth Swann attire. Keira Knightley had rocked it in Pirates of the Caribbean, and their builds were similar enough that Janine had gone all in when putting it together—right down to the sheathed long sword dangling from a well-worn broad leather strap. Unsure why she could never throw it out, especially when space was always such a premium on a sailboat, she now knew. Without a word, simply by standing beside them, it changed the Queen Bethany Trio from sexy pirate maidens to cheap working girls in a pirate bar.
The fact was not lost on the BFFs, though Bethany pretended not to care. Of course, rumor said that Bethany was searching for a new captain for her personal boat, having divorced the second (or perhaps third) one two months ago. She appeared fully prepared to leverage all that the costume implied at the least hint of a major checking account.
Oddly, this was something relatively easy to assess in the boating community. Finding out the size and make of a person’s sailboat, a natural conversation starter in a yachting club, quickly separated the pretenders and the wannabes from the truly affluent. A C&C 27 earned a scoff at best, though a J24 might command a little respect as it was a racer rather than a wallowing daysailer. Anything over fifty feet commanded attention. Her 41-foot boat floated in the murky middle ground, though it being a Cheoy Lee did earn her more attention than a longer Gulfstar or Cal might.
By the time of the official start of the potluck, the hall was already half full—a good turnout. About half had taken her challenge with costumes ranging from a simple bandana to a few other kits better than the QBT. Too bad she was judging the best costume competition, as so far she would be an easy win.
Her top choice so far was a family who had dressed as space pirates with obviously recycled astronaut Halloween costumes. They weren’t incredible but the family absolutely owned it, especially the five-year-old girl brandishing her kid-sized red light saber.
Steaming pots and great platters of food soon had the buffet table groaning under the weight. Three sets of Swedish meatballs, several lasagnas, salads in every variety from Asian noodle to orange-cranberry. Two whole sides of salmon were sufficiently massive that even a concerted attack didn’t kill them off until past the first hour. Not a single Jell-O salad—a staple of her Iowan youth—reared its ugly head.
The dessert table was like a light show: blueberry cobbler, a great sheet of golden baklava, the round eyes of orange pumpkin and lemon-yellow meringue pies were interspersed with M&M oatmeal cookies larger than her hand with the fingers spread.
