Stormwatch - The Love Boat

"It was Ellie texting me; she was worried about me which set her off."

"Well now you can tell her that you flew all the way to Jupiter without a problem," said Veronica as they climbed off the airplane and walked across the ramp. She whirled and threw her arms around him and squealed as they hugged, "I'm so happy for you!" then peppered his face with kisses.

"I just texted her," he said with a grin as he pocketed his phone. "Oh, this is NICE! I miss t-shirt weather!"

"See? This is one of the things you miss from turning down every business trip Ant offers you."

"We do this video and Anthony will have to send us together, we'll be a team, like Bogie and Becall."

"Tracy and Hepburn," added Veronica and she realized that she just unleashed a monster.

"J-Lo and Batman! Spidey and MJ!"

"J-Lo and Batman?" laughed Veronica as they found their bags at the little utility trailer. "Jennifer Lawrence and Ben Affleck? They don't make any movies together... that we know of."

"Nobody works together with anyone else anymore," said Josh. "There's no electricity in the movies, in fact they don't make movies, they make comic books. There's no loving couples in the movies anymore."

"Like who?

"Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, Humphery Bogart and Lauren Becall, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard," insisted Josh. "When she died, he joined the Army Air Corps as a gunner hoping to be shot down so he could join her. There's no one like that anywhere anymore."

"There's us, we'll set an example with our podcast."

Josh snapped his fingers, "I got it! we'll set up our shots in all the places in the data center where we made love."

Luckily Veronica found a middle-aged couple holding up a sign that said "Effi and Nica" which is Josh and Veronica's private nicknames for each other, causing Veronica to wonder what was going on, only Paul and Andi know of those nicknames. The couple was a white middle-aged man in business casual, and a middle-aged Asian woman wearing hospital scrubs and behind them hid a young girl. "Hey Josh!" the Asian woman in the couple said.

"Ronnie, this is Stan and Sung-mi Carlson. Stan, Sunny, this is the woman that stole my heart."

"He finally let you land him," Sunny said with a huge smile as she shook hands with Veronica.

"That's an interesting way of putting it," said Ronnie. "How do you guys know each other?"

"Stan and Sunny usually come up and stay with Paul and Andi or over at my place during the summer. We haven't seen much of them since Andi hired their daughter, Ye-Jin," said Josh.

"What about the little girl?" asked Veronica.

"What little girl? There's no little girl," said Josh which brought out giggles from behind Stan. "There's no little girl here, Stan's little girl works for Paul and Andi...Ow!" A little Asian girl popped out from behind Stan and swatted Josh's butt as he lifted a suitcase into the back of a waiting SUV. He whirled around and caught the giggling girl and scooped her up saying, "Sunny! You bought a pet monkey!"

"Not a monkey!" pouted the girl and she looked incredibly angry until Josh started tickling her tummy.

"Ronnie, this is Nit-noi, Ye's little sister."

"I'm Bit-NA!" she replied in that shriek that only young girls can create. Then she hugged Josh around the neck and sighed. "I wish I could come camping."

"I wish you could come too, Little Bit. You could come play with Paul's twin girls."

Veronica watched on in wonder as her new husband hugged the little girl. He's so good with kids, all summer long he played with their bosses' kids, he taught Andi and Paul's twin girls to swim, and he's even giving their one-year-old lessons. The thought got her mind spinning, they're going to have to talk about kids pretty soon.

As they left the airport and they soon drove along streets lined with beautiful houses, Stan said "here's the plan for tonight. They're running just a bit late. While they're having dinner, Sunny and I will help Yi and Kenny prep the boat, load it up with fuel and potable water, food, drink, clear the bilges, do the linen, and update the nav equipment. All the fun part of owning a boat. Bitty is going to help her big sister, you guys get one night alone in Paul's Jupiter house, and we are going to finally meet this Kenny guy."

"You haven't met Kenny yet?" said Veronica. "Those two are so perfect together, it's like they can read each other's minds!"

"I swear that they can," said Josh. He turned around to Bitty who was sitting in the third-row seating of the big SUV and said, "You ask your sister if she can read Kenny's mind, ok?"

"K!"

As they pulled into a beautiful house on a street where the houses meet a canal Stan said, "you guys get some rest, Paul and Andi will be ready to go before sunrise."

"This is the "little" house that Paul has been talking about?" gasped Veronica. It was a sprawling single-story house at the end of a canal facing cul-de-sac.

"There's a car in the garage," said Sunny, "You can use it if you want to go out to get something to eat, but if you get lost they're leaving without you at sunrise."

"There's a list of restaurants that deliver on the table," added Stan.

"Where do we get on the boat?" asked Veronica.

"I'll show you," groaned Bit-na as if this was so obvious and grown-ups were so oblivious. She led them through the house with all the skill a world weary seven-year-old can muster, "There's the tv, down there is the bedrooms, don't use mine! Here's the kitchen, you go out back, there's the pool, rinse your feet off before you jump in, NO RUNNING!, and there's the dock."

The back yard was simple yet elegant, like the rest of the house, the pool was a freeform design with natural rock and a garden at one end, the dock was quite big with a sailboat tied to one side and the end of the dock had a four piece garden furniture set around a central table covered by a pavilion. "This is awesome bitty! Do you play out here?" asked Josh.

"I think we lost our tour guide," said Veronica, and she was right, Bit-na was nowhere to be seen. Returning to the kitchen they saw that Stan and Sunny were loading back up in the SUV and Bit-na was already buckling herself in. Sunny came back to the house and handed Veronica a large bottle of sunscreen.

"The Florida tourism commission should hand this out at every airport," said Sunny. "Use it generously."

"Thank you so much!" said Veronica, "I completely forgot about this."

"Everyone does," said Sunny as she shook hands with the couple. "If you have never been to a place like Nisi Arcadia and you're uncomfortable, let Justice Atherton know. Otherwise, just relax and have fun."

As they waved goodbye both Ronnie and Josh wondered what Sunny meant by that.

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"Oh four hundred, rise and shine," said Carl as he tapped on Josh and Veronica's bedroom door.

"We're already up," said Josh as he opened the door. They had already stripped the bed and their suitcase was ready to go. "Where do we put the linen?"

"Leave it on the bed, we'll get it later. Sunny, Bitty, and I are taking a little vacation ourselves and we will be staying here until you get back." Then as an afterthought he said, "You can leave any jacket or hoodie you brought with you here. You won't be needing them."

"I like the sound of that!" said Veronica and she hung her jacket up in the closet. She nearly had to wrestle the leather bomber jacket out of Josh's hands.

"That's my prized possession!" Josh saw Bit-na peeking through the doorway, "If it's not here when I get back, there won't be any camping this summer." Hearing that, Bitty gasped and ran off, the sound of her bare feet slapping the tile floor caused the three adults to laugh.

As they passed through the kitchen, they saw Sunny standing at the kitchen counter, coffee in one hand, sweet roll in the other, and as always she was wearing her scrubs, she's got a full day ahead of her at the local pediatric hospital. "Thank you for everything," Josh said.

"You're welcome," Sunny gestured to the door with her coffee cup. "Now git going, they want to get underway."

"Yes ma'am!"

"I love this house," sighed Veronica. "We need one like it."

"I like that boat!" said Josh as he finally saw Andi's Dream through the pre-dawn gloom. "What a beauty!" Andi's Dream was a gorgeous Australian made Riviera 72 Sports Motor yacht. Three decks high with a large stern area for fishing and entertaining, it even had a swimming deck that extended from the stern. Kenny Johnson met them at the stern, and they stepped onto the deck of Andi's Dream.

"Welcome aboard!" whispered Paul Jarecki as he stepped down the small staircase from the mezzanine to the rear deck. That's when Veronica noticed Andi peering at them from the upper most deck. She smiled and waved at their friends as they stepped aboard, then Paul closed the gunnel door that they stepped through onto the aft deck and he and Kenny released the two lines that were holding Andi's Dream secure to the dock.

Paul patted Josh on the shoulder and said, "I'm going to go upstairs to the flying bridge to give Andi a hand moving through these waters, the canals can be a bit tight. Kenny will be your guide, we just ask that you be quiet, Don, Lanh, and Kim-ly are asleep."

"Who is Don, Lanh, and Kim something?" asked Josh as Paul dashed upstairs.

"They're the folks from Minnesota, Don was Andi's patient and they helped each other through some tough times before she moved to New York," said Kenny. "This whole section down here is called the cockpit; this is where we do our fishing and swimming. There are some reclining deck chairs if you want to lay out in the sun, we don't use the foredeck when we're under way, it's way too windy."

Just then the powerful MAN diesels revved up and the boat began to gently move sideways away from the dock then slowly it edged forward into the narrow canal. Once into the center of the canal the seventy-two-foot-long boat blocked the canal completely, but it began to rotate counterclockwise in the canal until it was pointing in the right direction and began to edge forward.

"We're doing most of our movements using thrusters because we have manatees in the canal. He led them up the stairway to an open-air dining area, a table with bench seats on either side of the central walkway. "This is the mezzanine; a lot of passengers love to rest here when underway on a warm day." Through an open doorway they found Yi in the galley cleaning shrimp.

"Shrimp and grits?" asked Josh hopefully.

"Yes sir," answered Yi as she continued to dehead and shell the prawns.

"Can I get a copy of your recipe?"

"No sir," she said without looking up.

"You're never going to give me that recipe, are you?"

"Not in this lifetime."

"Leave Yi alone," said Veronica as she tugged Josh away from the neat and orderly galley.

"Oh, hi Ronnie!" gushed Yi happily looking up from her work, "I'm so happy you're on board!"

"Oh, she's happy you're on board," grumbled Josh. "Me she doesn't even say hi."

"I'm just nicer than you," Veronica stuck her tongue out at Josh who put his open mouth over her tongue starting one of the silliest passionate kisses they ever shared.

"Go, before your tour guide gets bored," said Yi who returned to preparing the huge shrimp.

"This area forward of the galley is called the saloon by the Aussies, we call it the salon." It was like a large living room with sectional seating around the perimeter. There were tables in front of the couches where dinners could be served, and lowering the tables down and pulling the cushions onto the table tops the couches could become a bed. The salon was surrounded by large, tinted windows so the passage of the narrow canals could be observed.

Kenny turned to Yi and they looked at each other seeming to bathe in each other's eyes, then Yi went back to work and Kenny said, "Leave your bags here, we have folks sleeping below. Let's go up to the flying bridge."

Kenny led them up a stairway that was behind the galley and they found themselves up high on the most elegant bridge one could imagine. Like the rest of the boat the flying bridge was surrounded by large, tinted windows. The woodwork was all highly polished walnut trimmed with chrome metalwork. They came up behind the captain's seat, which was now empty, but the three seventeen-inch monitors built into the dashboard showed all kinds of information. There were two chairs at the helm, the captain's chair which was centerline of the boat, and a seat just to the left of that. The right side of the bridge was lined with cushioned bench seats which could be converted to beds. The aft third of the bridge was open to the elements. On the port side was a small captain's helm with wheel, throttles, and thruster joy sticks.

Andi was standing at the Captain's position driving the boat while Paul acted as Pilot and gave Andi instructions on navigating through the canals. "Last turn honey, ninety degrees to the right coming up in two boat lengths.

"I'm going to bring her to a full stop," said Andi. They were talking to each other on cellphone and earbud so that Paul could move around the boat checking clearance. He dashed down the stairs to go out on the side decks and watch and make sure they don't tap a boat or dock. Andi stopped the boat in the canal intersection then slowly rotated the boat 90° starboard then brought the screws online and slowly headed out to sea.

"That was beyond cool!" said Josh.

"It took me forever to learn that" grinned the little doctor. Andi is Veronica's "mini me," they currently have the same hair color and hair style, and the same bust line, the main difference is their height. Andi is four foot eleven inches (1.5 meters) tall, and Veronica stands five foot ten inches (1.8 meters) tall with a slim build despite her breast size. Andi was blessed with a perfect hourglass figure with narrow waist and rounded hips and most of the clothes she wears hides that fact, but here on Andi's dream she shows it off as much as possible. The woman that Josh has known since Paul found her stuck in a snowdrift was standing at the standup helm wearing a bikini top and sarong that rode quite low.

"Take a look to our left," Andi said as they headed toward the Jupiter Inlet. There to the left of them as they slowly drifted by was the 108 foot tall (33 meters) brick red Jupiter light house. It was beautiful but in this dim pre-dawn sunlight it was a startling sight. Veronica and Josh took picture after picture as they drifted past the lighthouse. "Ok, let's head inside and sit down, this part gets rough," said Andi.

They stepped inside the enclosed portion of the flying bridge and Paul was in the captain's chair. "You want to try it? You're doing pretty well this morning."

Andi looked like she was struggling with the answer, then finally said, "Yeah, I'll do it."

"Ok, mister Jarecki, the helm is yours." Paul stood up and Andi slipped into the captain's seat.

"Everybody take a seat, this is where the fun begins," and she checked all of her screens and picked up the microphone from the control panel, keyed the mike and said, "Prepare for rough seas."

A moment later they heard Yi's voice saying, "Galley is ready!" followed by "Engineering is ready!" from Kenny. Andi lined Andi's Dream up with the Jupiter Inlet - 1500 feet long (460 M) 400 feet wide (122 M) of nothing but rough seas and gripped the wheel tight. Andi's dream rose and fell like a ping pong ball in a mason jar, but Andi's Dream was made to haul crazy Ozzie's from one adventure to another and shot through the Jupiter Inlet like a hot knife through warm butter.

Andi looked totally shook but her husband was congratulating her. "You did it perfectly!" said Paul, "You hit those brakers dead on and let the bow slice through them. You didn't fight, you did it perfectly. You're going to pass that test for sure."

"Test?" asked Josh.

"She wants to upgrade her license, right now she's licensed for 50 tons," said Paul.

"This monster is under 50 tons?" asked Josh, what he's seen of it is very impressive, he thought it would be heavier than that.

"Dry weight is 60 tons. The license is to haul paying customers. When we take fishers and others out Yi's folks master the boat for us. I've got my 100-ton ticket, Andi needs quite a few more hours to get 100 tons and we can do the tourist hauling ourselves."

"Let's do that!" said Josh. "Then we don't have to make that video for Ant."

"Video?" Andi was intrigued. "What is this all about?"

Josh pulled Veronica close and said "Ant wants a video made so we're going to do it. We were putting the script together on the plane ride down here."

"What kind of video is it?" asked Andi.

"We're still working on the script but I was thinking she could be the business owner looking for a data storage solution and I could be the pizza delivery guy and...OW!"

Paul was laughing so hard he could barely stand. "You had me going with that, I didn't see that coming."

"Neither did I," groaned Josh clutching his crotch.

"I think I need coffee," said Andi. "Care to join me?"

"I think I will," said Veronica, "Are you coming Guido?"

"Not for a very long time," groaned Josh. He's got to keep an eye out for that left hand. She's catching on to his raunchy jokes and is getting quicker. He slowly righted himself and followed Andi and Veronica down the stairs as Paul sat down and opened up the throttle and Andi's Dream leapt forward on a calm ocean.

As they turned the corner they saw Kenny and Yi working together in the gally and beyond them was a couple in their early to mid-thirties. He was a short, sandy brown haired young man and she was a tiny porcelain doll, a heart breaking cute Asian who, like her man, was wearing thick glasses. "Looks like team Minnesota is up," said Andi. "Good morning sleepyheads!"

"She said yes doc! We're going to get married!" Looking up the Asian girl saw Josh and Veronica and immediately closed up. She blushed bright read and curled up like a dying leaf.

"Don and Lanh Campbell, this is Josh and Veronica Gravely. Josh and Veronica are my neighbors and they got married a few months ago,"

"We got married on Halloween," said Veronica as she extended her hand to shake.

"Don and Lanh have been married a bit longer," said Andi.

"We got married three days after we graduated high school," said Lanh as she shook hands with the statuesque fashion model. "This ride is like our second honeymoon."

"This is our first chance to get away," said Veronica, "so this makes it our honeymoon."

"Don is an Air Force veteran like you Josh," said Andi.

"What was your AFSC?" asked Josh.

"Two Alpha Three, fighter comm/nav," said Don, "but I tended to do a lot of off the wall things."

"Same here," said Josh. "Two whiskey one, aircraft weapons, but I spent a lot of time on gunships."

Don suddenly looked sad, and he muttered, "Royce was a gunner." Lanh heard him and she put her arms around her man who looked like he needed somebody to lean on.

"Royce..." said Josh who searched his memory. "Do you mean Royce Brown?"

"Yeah, Chief Brown, did you know him?" asked Don. "He was my maintenance supervisor at Spangdahlem."

"I knew of him only by reputation," said Josh, "much of what we did on gunships was developed by Royce. He's a legend."

"He passed away a few weeks ago," muttered Don sadly. "He was my mentor when I was an ay-one-see." Then he looked at Josh and said, "You look familiar, were you ever at Spangdahlem?"

"No, were you at Minot?" asked Josh.

"Nope, I was at El Forko Grande."

Josh chuckled at the disparaging nickname for Grand Forks. "Egland?" he asked but he knew the answer was probably no, Egland was special forces, not a lot of people went there.