The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

“Twenty years. You?”

“Eight, sir.”

It sounds funny to hear Logan say “sir.” I know he’s just being respectful of someone who is clearly a senior sailor, but it still makes me twitch a little.

“You advanced fast. Where were you stationed, son?”

“Pacific Rim for the first four. Gulf of Aden for the last.”

Chief Licence grunts. “You saw some action, then?”

Logan’s dark eyes cut towards me. “Some. And you, sir?”

“Action? Not for the last decade. I got desk jockeyed after the nine-eleven attacks. The curse of being an efficient paper-pusher. Don’t ever learn how to write a good report, Logan, it’ll be the end of you,” the chief warns sternly.

Logan laughs. “Never, Chief.”

“Do you live in L.A. now?”

“New York. Emily’s from Syracuse.”

The chief seems to realize he’s been ignoring me. “Upstate New York? Gorgeous place in the fall.”

I nod, wanting to participate in the conversation since Logan’s specifically made an opening for me. “Have you seen the fall colors, sir?”

“I have, missy. Quite the display. But I’ll make the case for the Mexican sunsets being even more spectacular. You be sure to give me your opinion at the end of the trip. We’ll see if we can’t lure you out to the West Coast.”

“It’s beautiful here, but I’d miss the snow.”

“We have snow. On the mountains.” The chief grins at his own joke.

“Best of both worlds,” Captain Lopez offers, rejoining the conversation after greeting some other passengers. “Are you close to Onondaga Lake, Emily?”

I nod. “Yes, ma’am, but I haven’t been boating on it. This is my first time on a boat that’s not the Staten Island Ferry.”

There are chuckles all around me, and I realize what a minority I am: a landlubber among these people who have spent big chunks of their lives living on the water.

“Have you done any research on ships for your novels, Emily?” Logan asks me.

I smile up at him. He’s doing it again. “Yes, Sir. There was a ghost ship in The Laird’s Winter Lady. I loved doing the research for that.”

“Like the Mary Celeste?” Captain Lopez asks. “That’s a strange one, isn’t it? Abandoned under sail with her cargo intact. What did you make of that, Emily?”

“Aliens,” I say, recounting the most absurd of the theories I read, which gets me a laugh all around, including from Dr. Lehmann and his wife, who have joined us.

“Ah, but then there’s the SS Baychimo,” the chief says. “She really was a ghost ship. Did you read about her?”

I nod, remembering the story of the ship that sailed for nearly forty years around the Beaufort Sea without a crew. “I never understood how she didn’t sink, sir. I mean, I read that, in ice, vessels get holed and need repairs all the time.”

The chief nods. “They do, but they built those old steamers to last. I don’t remember if she was double-hulled or not, but if she was, as long as the inner hull wasn’t breached, she’d stay afloat. Just like this good old girl.” He pats a wooden rail that circles the captain’s table affectionately. “You don’t have to worry about any Titanic-style drama on the Pink Pearl’s Pride.”

“New girl,” Captain Lopez says, smiling. “The Pride’s only eight years old.”

“Really? She looks like she was commissioned yesterday,” Logan says.

“She was just refitted in March. Doesn’t she shine?” Captain Lopez asks, her love for her ship clear in her warm tone, even though her stern expression doesn’t alter.

I nod. The ship’s gorgeous.

The warm, firm weight of Logan’s hand settles in the small of my back and he murmurs to me, “Now that the hand-shaking’s over, Emily, hands behind your back.”

I immediately tuck my hands behind my back, and he circles my wrists with his thumb and first and second fingers. I relax my shoulders and settle into his hold. I’m not sure if this is for the demerits, or if he’s always going to pin my wrists when we’re in public together.

Either way, I really like it.

Logan endears himself to Captain Lopez by asking her questions about the ship’s specifications, which I can’t follow. Tonnage and displacement are a language I don’t speak. During a lull in the tech-talk, Dr. Lehmann introduces his wife to us. Logan releases my wrists so I can shake hands with a woman who looks like an Italian doll my mother had: dark hair coiled in braids on top of her head, olive skin, dark eyes and rosy-pink cheeks. I put my hands back in place as soon as we’re done, and Logan pins my wrists again. A dreamy tranquility settles over me at his restraining touch. A calm I can never achieve day-to-day, even on those rare occasions when I meditate.

I sink into it gratefully. Blissfully.

I float through the rest of the cocktail hour. Logan notices. After he puts a question to me that I’m too glazed to answer, he looks into my eyes, grins, and tucks me into his side, still pinning my wrists. He stops trying to draw me into the conversation and just holds me that way, occasionally giving me sips of his iced water, until a soft gong rings for the seven o’clock dinner seating.

Dr. Lehmann gestures to the captain’s table.

Logan says, “We’ll be just a moment.”

Dr. Lehmann nods and escorts his wife to the table. Still pinning my wrists, Logan takes my shoulder and turns me to face him.

“Look at me, Emily,” he says, his voice deep and gentle.

I look up at him through my haze and meet his eyes.

He looks all the way into me. No one ever has or should look so deeply into me. I cringe. What will he see in there? It can’t be anything good. But he catches my chin in his hand and holds me firmly.

“Come back to me, baby.”

“Daddy,” I whisper.

“That’s right. Daddy’s here. I’m going to count backwards from ten. At one, I’m going to release your wrists so we can eat. You’re going to come up nice and slow, sweetheart. When you do, you’ll blink twice at me, and