Deadly Tide. Sandy Curtis
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if Sam couldn't prove her father's innocence, all the money in the world wouldn't prevent the blow to her mother's health that would come from seeing Tug go to prison. The worry of it dragged at Sam.
She listened to the gentle rhythm of Chayse's breathing. He'd taken the mattress off the focsle bunk and put it on the floor near the wheelhouse door. He'd told her it was because it was too stuffy in the focsle, but she had a feeling that he had placed himself on guard. She'd thought this would irritate her, but after the shock of the attack, she found it strangely comforting.
Gradually, as she listened to the steady pattern of his breathing, her thoughts calmed, and she finally slept.
If he'd slept in the focsle, the noise wouldn't have woken Chayse. It was soft, only a whimper, but it held a note of pain, of fear. He opened his eyes, and took a second to orientate himself before he realised that Sam was crying in her sleep.
For a few more seconds he lay there, listening to her faint moans. He could make out the words 'no' and 'don't', but the other words were lost as she tossed around. He thought she might have been having a nightmare about her assailant, and was just going to get up and wake her, when she settled into a deep, peaceful sleep.
He hoped she wouldn't recall her dreams in the morning. He knew what it was like to live with nightmares that wouldn't go away.
CHAPTER FOUR
'Don't, umm, mention to Bill what happened last night,' Sam spoke casually to Chayse as she cooked breakfast.
He arched an eyebrow at her. She switched off the stove and served sausages, eggs and spaghetti onto two plates before explaining. 'He'd feel he had to tell Dad, and Dad has enough to worry about.'
Chayse would have liked to ask her more about what was worrying Tug Bretton, but he knew how to play a waiting game. Sooner or later, he'd learn what he needed to know.
After they'd eaten, Chayse followed Sam onto the back deck. The sun was warm, dispersing the night's faint chill. It reflected off the rippling water, dappling patterns on the wheelhouse windows. Sam explained that when they'd cleared the mouth of the river they would lower the trawl arms. Once the heavy metal arms were at right angles to the boat, the weight would be more evenly distributed, making it safer to move through the open sea. At dusk they would begin to trawl. The nets would be shot away, with the trawl board on the outside and the metal sled on the inside of each net drawing them out to create three connected nets with a bag-shaped section in the middle of each called the cod-end.
'The cod end is where the prawns are swept in when the nets are dragged along the seabed.' She pointed to the ropes on the end of the net. 'We release the cod end once it's positioned over the sorting tray and the product falls onto it.'
'If you've caught any.'
'We usually have a fair idea of what we're catching,' she said, and he suppressed the grin that threatened to escape at the patience in her tone. 'I'll show you why.'
They walked to the stern where she showed him a small net attached by ropes. 'This is called the tri-gear. Ten to fifteen minutes after all the nets hit the bottom, we drag this one, then winch it back up and see what's inside, so we can get an idea if we're over a good spot.'
'What if you're not?'
'We don't turn around and go back over the same area, we keep trawling and shooting the tri-net away until it shows we're catching some decent product.'
She was so serious, and trying so hard to impart the information, that Chayse had an absurd impulse to tease her, to ask how could she tell if the prawns were indecent. The feeling astonished him. It had been a long time since he'd felt like doing anything so spontaneous, so ... juvenile. Perhaps he wasn't up to the job, after all. Perhaps his nightmares of the past two months were tipping him over the edge.
He tried harder to concentrate on what Sam was telling him. 'Why do you trawl at night?' he asked.
'Most crustaceans and molluscs are night feeders, that means they're active then and are easier to catch. Fish sleep at night. They make their way to the reef and shelter at the bottom. If we trawled in the daytime, we'd catch so many fish feeding on the prawns that we wouldn't be able to haul the nets in. Except,' she smiled, and he felt his concentration focus more on her mouth than her words, 'for banana prawns. They school up into enormous balls in the daytime and some trawlers go after them. But there don't seem to be as many of those prawns around now as there used to be. King, tiger and endeavouri are the main species caught around here.'
Chayse knew his mind was absorbing the information, but on a separate level his body was reacting to the movement of Sam's lips. Full and well-defined, they looked temptingly kissable. His resolve to ignore the attraction he felt was eroding by the minute.
Sam continued to outline the trawling procedures, and by the time Bill came on board, Chayse had a fair idea of what was expected of a new deckhand.
It took an hour to steam to the mouth of the river. A peaceful, sun-drenched hour with a light breeze blowing and the tang of salt increasing by the minute. Chayse stood on the bow, watching the scenery change from mangroves to fields of sugar cane, then deep-water wharves next to a huge sugar terminal and modern marina.
For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to relax. For once, he didn't have to watch every word he uttered, or be constantly alert. He knew Bill didn't trust him, but Sam had started to, and that was progress. When Bill came on deck and lowered the trawl arms, Chayse watched how he operated the hydraulics. The older man didn't speak to him, he just walked back inside.
Once they made the open sea, the boat began to roll from side to side as it went up and down in a forward motion, but Chayse was pleased to find he was adapting easily. He went back into the cabin for a coffee. Bill and Sam were looking at charts on the GPS screen, and he listened as they discussed the best locations to trawl. Bill was keen to start in the area he and Tug had last trawled, but Sam appeared reluctant to go there. Finally she agreed, and they steamed due east.
'Has Melbourne always been this damn cold?' Thea knew she sounded petulant, but she didn't care. She knocked the ash off her cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke, her full lips pouting. 'I'd forgotten it could get this miserable.'
Rain drizzled grey across bare poplar branches and a dark afternoon sky, sliding down the window pane in beads that joined to become rivulets. Thea watched her breath mist the glass, then turned away. Stefan was watching her. He always watched her. He watched her with pride, with love ... with possession. His eyes were black, so black they seemed to reflect the light, so that you couldn't be sure if the expression you read there really existed, or was simply a mirror of your own need. When she was younger, it used to fascinate and repel her in equal measure. Now it simply irritated her, but because she needed him, she hid her feelings.
He was an ugly man, but his personality was so compelling, so ... charismatic, she sometimes felt as though she was caught in some bizarre science fiction film where he was a black widow spider, and she a victim destined to be drawn into his web and eaten alive. She knew Stefan loved her, had always loved her, but Artie Wainwright had stolen her heart when she was only seventeen, and although Artie had used her, and abused her, he had loved her in his own way. Or so she had believed. In the past few months, she had begun to wonder if it was her fate to always be under the control of powerful older men.
Stefan placed another log on the fire. It tilted, fell a little, spitting sparks onto the tiled surround. He moved the grate back in place and walked across the thick carpet towards her. Flames burnished the room's antique furniture in flickering amber, and highlighted the richness of the maroon velvet curtains.
She watched the easy arrogance in his stride, the cream cashmere sweater and silk trousers moulding around his stout but powerful body. The clothes gave the appearance of urbanity, but she knew it was only a facade, knew the man within could kill without altering the smile on his face by a millimetre.
'Perhaps you need a change of scenery, my sweet.' His voice flowed over her, a siren's song from a well-tuned cello, its richness incongruous