Aground (13 page)

“Yes. I think so. Or I mean, I did think so.”

She went on, still staring intently into the binnacle. “You bet we’re going to be sensible, Ingram. This way. When we get into Miami, I’m going back to my own environment, and take a long, slow look at it—as you suggested—while you do another of these technical jobs you never let me pay you for. I want you to put the
Dragoon
in shipyard, have her replanked in those places you said she needed it, overhauled, and repainted, and then sell her. You’ll have my power of attorney. Then you buy a forty- or forty-five-foot ketch—”

“Sure, but—”

“All right, all right, if you insist on being stuffy about it, you can pay half of it. But let me finish. You put this second boat in the shipyard and have everything done to it that has to be done to put it in absolutely perfect condition. And if you keep watching the shipyard gate, some afternoon you’re going to see a car with Texas license plates pull up in front of it and stop. Inside will be a big fading blonde with a big fading black eye, and if you happen to be close to the car door when it opens you’re going to think somebody just dynamited a log-jam of blondes somewhere upriver without warning the settlers to get out—”

He still had one knee against the wheel even after they both forgot about it, and after a long time when he had raised his lips from hers just to look at her again he became conscious at last of the rattle of slides against the tracks and the rolling slap of canvas as the
Dragoon
came up into the wind. “Mate, I think you’re off course.”

She drew a finger tip very thoughtfully along the fine of his jaw. “Don’t you believe it, Skipper. Don’t believe it for a minute.”