“Hell. I’m not a boy to be ordered about.”
“On this ship you are,” Laz said.
“Whatever.”
“You can cool off here or in your bunk. It’s up to you.”
“My bunk.” The other man stood and stretched. “I get itchy being out to sea for this long.”
“I thought this was your normal run,” Laz said.
“It is. I still get restless. And having women on board…”
Laz wasn’t sure what the other man was getting at. “In the old days they used to think women brought bad luck at sea.”
“That’s what I mean, man.”
Laz realized the more they talked the more Fridjtof settled down, so he leaned back against the door and thought about the other man’s point. “Some curses still are in effect.”
“Yeah, I know. Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.”
“But that’s a weather warning system.”
“Women are a distraction, Captain, which you seem to be experiencing firsthand.”
Laz didn’t bow to anyone and wasn’t about to stop talking to Daphne. “I’m not distracted.”
“We’ll see.”
Laz shrugged. He didn’t like Fridjtof’s attitude but there was little that could be done for it now. “No more fighting or else I’ll lock you in the storage closet until we get to port.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Cool off at your bunk for a few hours. I don’t want to see you until mealtime.”
Fridjtof nodded and Laz opened the door to let the other man go.
Laz watched until he disappeared down the long gray hallway. Then he started to return to the bridge.
“Savage?”
There was no sound in his earpiece, not even the crackle of an open comm. “Damn it.”
Laz walked down the hallway toward the gangway. “Savage?”
“Here, Laz, what do you need?” The signal was weak and Savage’s words faded in and out.
Laz walked farther away from the hold and the sound got better. “Damn, the hold is a blackout zone for communication.”
“Is that a problem?” Savage asked.
“It could be, if the pirates attack while we are down there. I don’t know all the scenarios but I’d prefer to be able to talk to you from the entire ship.”
“How’d we miss that?” Savage asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going to have Hamm see if he can fix this.”
“Roger that. What did you need from me?”
“Can Wenz do a background check on Fridjtof?”
“We already screened the crew,” Savage said.
“I just feel like we missed something. Last night he was on deck and this morning fighting with another crew member.”
“Not a problem. Wenz will radio if he finds anything. Any sign of trouble yet?”
“Nothing other than the tension on the ship. I think having passengers is making the crew antsy.” Laz hadn’t captained the crew of a tanker before. His small sailing yacht back home was just right for himself to crew. He had no problems giving orders, but a part of him was leery of having all these men under his command because he just didn’t know them. He trusted Hamm but beyond that he wasn’t sure of any of the other men.
“Makes sense,” Savage said. “They are used to being themselves without witnesses.”
“True.”
“You doing okay?” Savage asked.
Laz thought about it for a minute before answering. He didn’t want to admit that seeing Savage and then Mann marry had him thinking about his future and whether he’d ever find a girl to settle down with. He especially didn’t want to say that now when he was in the middle of a tense mission.
“Yes. I like being at sea and making sure the ship is in top shape. To be honest I could almost see myself doing this.”
“Uh oh, thinking of leaving our group?”
“Never. But this is a glimpse at what my life could have been.”
“I know the feeling.”
“I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll look forward to hearing from Wenz. Laz out.”
“Savage out.”
The first-aid office was really all that the medical facility was. It had a battered desk that was bolted to the floor, as was all furniture on the ship. A cabinet held rudimentary medical supplies.
“Does this kind of fighting take place often on board?” Daphne asked Hamm after Renault was patched up and had left to talk to the Captain.
Hamm was the second in command on the ship and had a friendly next-door kind of face. She realized that he had a way of moving that was completely silent.
“Sometimes. Depends on the crew. Tankers are a world of their own for the length of the cruise so we tend to just do our own thing. I’m not sure what those boys were fighting over.”
“Men can be that way,” she said, thinking of her own boys, who just got testy sometimes with each other, and needed to slug it out to get back to normal. She’d been surprised at first at that type of behavior in her boys. She’d done everything to discourage violence, but she’d noticed from a young age that their play involved more physicality.
“Boys can be that way,” Hamm said. “Men learn to control themselves.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m sorry. I was only thinking of my boys, who can be that way sometimes. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t. I just wanted to make sure you knew that men can control their tempers,” Hamm said.
“I’ve never been in a situation like this,” she said.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “Pardon me for asking but this seems about out of your milieu.”
She smiled at the way he said it. He was trying to be polite but being here wasn’t her thing. Serving on the board for Doctors Across Waters—that was her thing. Traveling across the world on a tanker…that was not like her.
But she’d changed. Been forced to realize that her life wasn’t on one set path. She had choices. And she’d made this one because she was tired of always wanting to make a difference in lives but never leaving her practice or her office.
She wanted to be an adventurous person, she thought. Part of it was because of Paul and the way her marriage had ended, but a bigger part had been when her youngest son Lucas had declined to go on a scouting trip because he didn’t want to risk being out of the city.
She realized her reluctance to face her own fears had been passed on to her boys. And she wanted—no, needed—to be a positive influence on them. They were the one thing she was proud to say came from her marriage.
“I needed a change,” she said. “This is a bit more adventurous then I originally anticipated. But being out here on sea has been interesting.”
“In what way?” he asked.
“Just seeing the way the crew and the captain interact. Have you known the captain for long?”