Page 52 of The Seven Rings
“No.”
“There’s your answer.”
He walked back to the wheel, but didn’t take it. Instead, he turned on music.
Sonya took out her phone, tapped the camera for a shot of Cleo, white sundress billowing, at the wheel.
He let her handle the wheel for an hour. When he took it back, she headed to the cooler.
“That was a thrill. If I wanted a sloop, I sure as hell know where to go.” She pulled out a bottle of water. “This boat is A1.” She sat, lifted her face to the wind. “Now I need to talk Owen into sailing down to New Orleans sometime.”
“How long would that take?” Sonya wondered.
“Oh, a week or so. He said the two of you sailed down to New York a couple years back, Trey, to visit his brother.”
“Good times—and that’s only a day or two at sea.”
“We could start with that. He said he’s going to head to somewhere called Pirate’s Cove in a bit.”
Trey laughed. “We named it that when we were kids. It’s a nice spot, some out of the way. We lobbied—and hard—for permission to build a small dock. He must be ready to eat something, and to give the animals a pit stop.”
He took his time, and when Sonya saw the cove—a small scoop out of water and land near the lighthouse—she stood.
“That’s so charming. Cleo, you have to paint it.”
“Right there with you.”
“Hold that thought,” Owen called out. “Drop sails.”
Since Cleo already had her sketchbook out, Trey rose.
“I got it.”
As she watched Trey and Owen work together, Sonya took another picture. She thought she might try her hand at doing it in chalk, and frame it for Trey’s office or apartment.
When Trey secured the lines to the dock, Sonya started belowdecks.
“I need a few minutes to finish this,” Cleo told her.
“Take your time. I’ll get the food. Looks like a picnic on a little rocky beach.”
More rocks than beach, she noted, but that added to the charm and the sense of isolation.
She could see boats sailing on the bay, a couple of water-skiers, a paddleboard or two. She decided that added to it all as well.
Freed of the PFDs, the dogs leaped from boat to dock and onto the beach. Leading the way, Jones strutted toward the line of gnarled and wind-twisted trees.
“He and Mooks know their way around,” Trey assured her. “Yoda will stick with them.”
“Yeah, he will. Cleo?” she called down from the dock. “What about Pye?”
“She won’t wander from her boys, or me. And absolutely not from her boyfriend.”
“What can I say?” Owen put a selection of cold drinks in an insulated pack. “I’m a female magnet.”
“Female felines anyway. Ten more minutes.”
Owen angled to look at the sketch, at the tumbled rocks where the water lapped, the narrow crescent of sand, the twisty trees climbing the base of the cliff.
