The Pandora Box by Lilly Maytree

rail of the boat and down onto the dock.
    She might have stumbled if he hadn’t had a firm hold on her, which he did not let up on until they were two boats away.
    “Hey!” Dee pulled her arm free and stood still. “What do you think...”
    “You have any more surprises you haven’t told me about?”
    “Listen, I didn’t sign on for one of your charters, you know,” she objected. “I signed you on for mine!”
    “Wrong. This trip was planned a long time before you got here, sweetheart, and if you were three weeks later, you’d have missed it.”
    “It’s my boat, Hawkins. Legally, I could hire someone else to run it for me.”
    “Legally, I could hold things up in court long enough to keep you from going at all, Miss Dee Parker. I’ve got papers on it, too.”
    “According to the lady up at the office, not good for three weeks!”
    “Will you two shut up?” Starr complained. “While you’re standing there arguing over something we already settled, that bar we gotta cross is kicking up like the devil out there. Partners, remember? That’s what we decided. So we got four now instead of three. So what. Just get your butts over here and get busy.”
    There was nothing but silence for a minute.
    “Welcome aboard, Marion,” Starr added and handed the last box up to her.
    “No more secrets,” Hawk said as they started back. “Got that?”
    “Oh, sure. You tell me yours…partner… then I’ll tell you mine.”
    Getting “under way” was quite a project. Which led Dee to believe that getting a fifty-six-foot yacht out of a crowded harbor was a lot more complicated than pulling a bus out of a garage. It would have been a nightmare if she and Marion tried doing it alone, in spite of their newfound sailing knowledge.
    Pandora’s classic beauty came to life in a confusion of lines and rigging, each of which had a specific purpose vital to her operation. There were ropes to untie and others to tie down, while some needed to be untied and tied all over again. The engine was turned on and rumbling so far in advance Dee had become accustomed to the rhythmic drone of the diesel and only realized they were moving when the dock seemed to slip away of its own accord.
    By that time, nearly an hour had gone by.
    After stowing all personal effects that had been unpacked back into secure status again, the Pandora finally eased out and pointed her bow toward the sea.
    Outside the sheltered harbor, there were whitecaps on the crests of waves breaking at ten to fifteen feet in a brisk wind. But the sleek, gracefully-built yacht only shook the breakers off her gleaming decks and plowed with a steady, determined effort away from land. As if she remembered and was grateful for being let loose into her element again.
    Hawk, who up until now had been preoccupied with the details of getting under way, was suddenly spellbound. “Starr, look at her! Even in this weather, she handles like an angel.”
    “Yeah, yeah. But if you don’t dump at least some of this wind, boy, I’m gonna have the pukes all the way to Frisco.”
    Dee clung to one of the support bars that the safety lines were strung through all around the rails and was glad she had given in to Marion’s promptings to take a Dramamine. The trip over the bar resembled one of those fast moving carnival rides.
    Marion sat next to her, clinging onto another support bar. She had traded her bathrobe for a sweat suit and bright orange life preserver—bought from the bait and tackle shop along with the Dramamine—and had fastened it over one of the navy blue cockpit jackets they had each been given.
    The jackets were made with a special clip at the side which attached to a safety line. The lines ran through the support bars.
    Looking at the frightening rise and churn of impending waves, Dee could see little help the clips would be, outside of being a means to haul one’s body back aboard after it was already drowned. She wished she had swallowed her pride and put on a