Way Too Deep (Love Overboard Book 1) Read online

  Book Description

  Captain Lindsay Fisher has committed the unthinkable in the tight little world of superyachting. She's lost not one but two ships under her command. She takes chances, she’s a little too abrasive, and, oh yeah, she’s taken swearing like a sailor to a whole new level. Celebrity Chef Alton Maura earned the acclaimed “Kitchen God” title and basked in the international limelight for years until his affairs with his kitchen staff landed him twice in a poisonous stew. When Lindsay and Alton are thrown together on an uneasy cruise through the Grenadines, sparks fly. She doesn’t like his shoes or his attitude. He can’t believe a woman who looks that good in a captain’s uniform can be such a hard ass. This is their last chance to prove themselves, but the worst thing you can do when trying to save your career is to fall in love…WAY TOO DEEP.

  Andrea K. Stein & Sawyer Stone

  Digital Edition - 2017

  WAY TOO DEEP

  Copyright © 2017 by Andrea K. Stein and Black Arrow Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in an form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of copyright owner.

  Cover Design by Natasha Brown

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Published by Muirgen® Publishing, LLC

  Contents

  Book Description

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  The Adventure Continues…

  Love Overboard Series

  About Andrea K. Stein

  About Sawyer Stone

  Potato Chip Cookies

  Chapter One

  48°37’17”N, 20°12’20”W

  Aboard the Boadicea

  One Day Southwest of Falmouth

  Captain Lindsay Fisher jolted awake to thundering pain centered over a golfball-sized knot on the right side of her forehead. Hot, sticky blood trickled from a gash on her scalp.

  The cabin lights were out, but in the gloom she could hear the roar of seawater cascading along the floor of her starboard aft cabin. She’d fallen into her bunk a few hours before encased in foul weather gear -- and a life jacket.

  The ship was in a severe list. Dazed and still barefooted, she used handholds to make her way to the main saloon. The dim glow from the overhead deck bevels illuminated water pouring through the galley from the forward cabin. Shit. The custom glass top over the owner’s cabin had shattered.

  The sixty-four-foot Hallberg-Rassy must have done a full roll. Lindsay had been asleep on the floor of her cabin and had probably smacked her head sometime during the spin.

  They were sinking. Fast. And her first mate, her uncle Tommy, had been on watch at the helm.

  She ignored the stuttering of her heart and snatched the ditch bag carabineer, clipped to the galley counter rail. She nearly collided with her second crewman in a race to the top deck.

  “Jim, deploy the life raft. Now.” she shouted, shoving the bag at him.

  “Got it,” he yelled, and pounded up the companionway ahead of her.

  She hauled herself up, two steps at a time, and called out, “Tommy.” She didn’t wait for an answer but hit the top deck running.

  The wreckage above sickened her. Anything not tied down was gone. The rigging still stood, but the sails were soaked, twisted and ripped. The top quarter of the mast had broken off.

  A late, fierce storm, at least Force 11, was kicking up monster size waves, and sixty-knot winds whipped the surface water into a roiling mist. Airborne spray and foam narrowed visibility to nearly zero.

  The earlier weather faxes she’d checked had shown the storm passing west of them. Mother Ocean must have changed her mind.

  Tommy. I have to get to him.

  Lindsay exhaled hard at the sight of the lifeboat valise still lashed to the safety rail. Her third crewman Jim worked at the straps to free the big rubber inflatable, the only thing between them and the frigid North Atlantic waters.

  When the huge raft was prepped, he would splash the lifeboat into the savage waves battering the broken yacht. He’d already attached the raft’s painter to the ship to keep it from blowing overboard. When the ship sank, the emergency tether would break free.

  The steep tilt of the deck meant she had only minutes to call for help and find her first mate before the yacht plummeted to the bottom of the sea.

  She punched the DSC button on the waterproof radio strapped on her chest to broadcast their GPS coordinates. Then she pushed transmit and spoke calmly.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Captain Lindsay Fisher on the Boadicea, Boadicea, Boadicea. We’re a day southwest of Falmouth at 48°37’17”N, 20°12’20”W, and sinking. The ship has rolled with three passengers aboard. One crew member possibly overboard. We are deploying the lifeboat and EPIRB beacon.”

  She waited a minute and repeated the plea while crossing to the wheel where Tommy should be.

  They were still less than two hundred miles out of the English Channel. If she didn’t get a response soon from the Brits, she hoped another nearby ship listening to Channel 16 would relay her call for help.

  When she reached the stern behind the wheel, the only sign of Tommy was a taut portion of his six-foot safety tether. Lindsay squinted through the spray peppering her face like needles. The strap wound down the backside of the wallowing yacht and disappeared into the black waves.

  There was still tension on the line. She heaved up on the tether, but the weight on the other end wouldn’t budge. She didn’t dare divert Jim from getting the life raft ready.

  Lindsay heaved again on the strap, this time using her whole body weight but lost her grip when her bare feet slipped on the wave-soaked deck. No dice.

  She stood for a moment, scanned the waves around the ship, and then plunged into the cold seawater. The towering waves pounded her senseless like a mass of ice mallets pelting her back. Breathe. Focus.

  The roll had knocked out their running lights, and the water below the surface was as black as an oil slick. She clutched her lifeline, still clipped to the ship’s jack line, with one hand while groping along the hull beneath the waves searching for Tommy. She swept a 180-degree arc before realizing
his tether was stuck on a piece of the swim ladder twisted during the yacht’s violent revolution. Dammit.

  The tension on the end of the line wasn’t Tommy.

  She unclipped her safety line and left her life jacket on the ladder to begin a frantic free swim along the keel beneath the hull. The creaks and whines of the straining ship shrieked in her ears. Not much time left.

  Lindsay resurfaced, gasped in a few breaths, and dived again to the bottom of the keel. Huge thrashing waves exacerbated the wallowing motion of the ship, and the black water threatened to suck her into the claustrophobic darkness.

  Her hands and feet were numb, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and let the frigid water take her.

  No. She wouldn’t give in to the cold, but she was out of options. One more dive was all her body had left.

  She was all in, no backup plan. In a flash, something brushed against her hand. A fish? Not bloody likely this close to the surface in a storm.

  She made a wild grab and grasped a sleeve of her uncle’s foul weather gear. His life vest must have hooked onto a protruding piece of a sensor on the keel during the roll.

  She pulled with her last surge of strength, and his body broke free. Kicking them both to the surface, she hung on to his life vest and gave silent thanks for her barefoot state. Sea boots would have filled and pulled her down.

  The doomed yacht’s loud groans and creaks filled the air when she came up, gulping breaths. They were out of time.

  But there, the big yellow raft bobbed in the water, surrounded by the wake of the sinking ship.

  Jim’s face in the low light was grim, the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. He’d found them with the battery-operated spotlight. The EPIRB’s beacon flashed behind him as he thrashed through the waves. He grasped Tommy by his jacket and pulled him aboard, then extended a hand to Lindsay.

  Once inside the small canopied raft, she rolled her uncle to his back and leaned over his chest, listening for breathing. The screaming winds and rain pelting the raft’s rubber top made hearing next to impossible.

  Her frozen fingers were useless. She couldn’t use them to detect a pulse, so instead she looked for a rise in his chest. Nothing. She started compressions and after only two or three, Tommy jerked to life and slapped her hands away.

  “You tryin’ to kill me or what?” He took the bucket Jim shoved toward him, and in a matter of seconds, puked up seawater. “Son of a--.”

  “He’s back,” Lindsay said, her voice ragged with relief and exhaustion. Painful needles of feeling returned to her fingers and toes. She collapsed onto the inflated rubber floor and stared at the peaked roof.

  Her career was over.

  * * *

  Hours later, waves and wind still pummeled the lifeboat, but not with the earlier force. Lindsay leaned against the curved wall of the raft and conjured up memories of happier days on dry land.

  Like that vacation years ago in Utah’s Canyonlands. Heat, dust, endless sandy trails, and oh, yeah, the heat.

  “This is all your fault.” Tommy leaned toward her, his tone accusing.

  Her uncle had returned to his usual form. He was awake again after a long nap following his freezing water rescue.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, old man.”

  “Yeah—‘we can deliver in October - no problem.’ I told you that was a bad idea.” He slumped next to her, cranky as a wet tomcat.

  She’d made him take off his waterlogged jacket and had wrapped him in one of the space blankets from the ditch bag.

  “Stow it, okay? There was going to be a huge bonus,” she protested.

  “Ya think we’ll ever get to spend that now? Besides, you didn’t do it for the money. You did it out of foolhardiness and pride.”

  That last barb stung. “All right—I know you’re sore, but things will look better after a hot shower.”

  “And when d’y’all think that’ll happen? On a freighter headed to Monrovia maybe?”

  “That’s enough.” Lindsay pulled down the hood on her damp, clammy insulated top and got up on her knees, teetering on the rubber bottom of the raft. She pointed to her chin. “Here—give me your best shot.” She closed her eyes.

  Tommy balled up a fist and rose to his knees in front of her. “I should. But my Matilda taught me never to hit a woman unless she hits me first.” Instead, he planted a kiss on her forehead before enveloping her in a lung-crushing bear hug. “Jimbo said you saved my life, Linds. Diving into the goddamn North Atlantic was a ballsy move. You coulda left me there.”

  “Yeah—maybe I should have, you big lug.”

  “Well, then I would’ve gotten to see Matilda again.”

  Lindsay’s aunt had died five years before, and Tommy still pined for her when he wasn’t yelling or grumbling. Like now.

  “Thanks to your goddamn pride, we lost everything.” He sat back on his heels.

  “Not my sense of humor, I hope.” She pulled down the zipper on her insulated top and scratched her neck. She could go for a hot shower too.

  “Now that you’ve stopped bitching,” she said, “I have some good news. While you were asleep, I got a response. The Brits are on their way. When they get here, I’ll call CI. Maybe they can help.”

  Jim slept curled up on his side, facing away from them, in spite of their bickering. He was used to his crewmates’ loud disagreements.

  “You are the last person Crew International would help. How far away is the cavalry?” Tommy rolled back to the wall of the raft and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  “A hundred miles yet. They’re helping another yacht way up north. And be grateful they’re coming to save our hides. Be nice.”

  “You know I will. Those boys are guardian angels, complete with wings. Where are they taking us?”

  “Um.” Lindsay studied her radio and fiddled with the knob, keeping her head down.

  “Where?” The tone of Tommy’s voice ratcheted up a notch.

  “They gave us a choice.” She raised her eyes and gave him a defiant look. “They’re really busy tonight with this storm. We’re not the only ones in trouble out here. They have to drop us and then search for some other ships. There’s a freighter going to Valencia and one to Rotterdam. What’s your pleasure?”

  “Don’t matter.” Tommy shrugged. “Our days of moving ships for rich people are over. In Spain we can get drunk. In Holland we can get stoned. You choose our poison.”

  Lindsay couldn’t argue. She’d lost a one-of-a-kind custom ship under her command. Yachties gossiped like grannies over knitting. She’d be lucky to get a job on a fishing trawler.

  “Spain,” she whispered. “Pot gives me a headache.”

  Chapter Two

  Fortune Island Restaurant

  San Francisco Bay

  Celebrity chef Alton Maura pushed through the doors into the kitchen at the Fortune Island restaurant, and something splattered his forehead. Something red and sticky. He touched the goo and licked his finger. It was the strawberry compote for the crepes, but that wasn’t until the dessert course. Then he saw the problem.

  His sous chef Elodie was squared off against Cynthia, one of the line cooks. Both women had knives drawn. A bad scene. Worse timing.

  Getting the charity gig for San Francisco’s elite had taken Alton months of schmoozing and smiling. And promises. And legal contracts. After the fiasco of the alleged poisonings on an episode of the Kitchen Gods, Alton had almost lost his career.

  The Haute Cuisine for the Homeless Charity Dinner was Alton’s way of cooking his way back into the hearts and minds of foodies around the world. At ten thousand dollars a plate, Dame Olivia Ann Carrington wanted the best, and Alton was going to show them all he was still king of the Kitchen Gods.

  Except the wasabi-hot French brunette Elodie must have found out about the apple-pie-cute line cook Cynthia. Cynthia had a doll’s face and an onion-shaped ass. Alton loved onions.

  The two women were seconds away from a full-on knife f
ight. Sweat beaded on his forehead and mixed with the compote. He had to put an end to this, but he didn’t have much room to maneuver.

  The Fortune Island kitchen was ridiculous, cramped, illogical, negative feng shui. What would you expect from a faux island built in the seventies to be some rich guy’s shrine to himself?

  The “island” floated near Pier 39 in San Francisco Bay. A five-minute boat ride from hell. Women he could handle. But not boats. Not when they gave him such nightmares.

  “Ladies,” Alton said in a calm voice, “this isn’t the time. And it meant nothing.”

  “Meant nothing?” Both women gasped at the same time.

  All the station chefs lined up to watch. Damn voyeurs loved the drama. Sometimes Alton thought people were drawn to cooking more for the intrigue than the food.

  He was stuck. He couldn’t pour out all of his secrets in the kitchen like so much spilled duck sauce. Not with Claus standing there, scowling, six-and-a-half feet of humorless German. Alton was almost as tall, but lean. Claus was built like an NFL lineman bulked up on cheap carbs and malt liquor. Both had blond hair, but Claus kept his barbaric, while Alton didn’t go a day without Geo F. Trumper in his locks.

  “So I mean nothing?” Elodie asked. She was holding Alton’s favorite filet knife, Betty. Yes, he named his knives.

  “No, it was everything with you,” Alton said.

  “So I was nothing?” Cynthia asked.

  Claus came forward, fist balled like a mallet. A flour-sprinkled mallet. Aiming for Alton.

  Who ducked out of the way.

  “It’s not what you think.” Alton scooped up Hilda, his cleaver. “Claus, you and Cynthia broke up. And it was you who introduced her to Billy Lee.”

  Billy Lee’s eyes went wide. “Alton, you said you wouldn’t say anything!”

  Claus threw another punch, and for a moment, Alton thought about burying Hilda in the big guy’s skull, but that wouldn’t help his career. Instead, Alton dodged again, grabbed Elodie, and pulled her into the walk-in freezer.

  Outside, Claus and Billy Lee were going at it, while Cynthia screamed for them to stop.

  The soap opera among Alton’s chefs had burst open like a punctured chicken cordon bleu.