Stormwatch - The Love Boat

"I love it," said Josh. "If you come out in the summer we have several cabins in the woods for you to stay in. It's glorious in the summer, you can bring your sister Tam, her husband and her three boys, they'll love it."

"And we have a huge six-bedroom farmhouse," said Lanh. "You can stay in the master bedroom if you want."

The three chattered for a long time making plans for the future until Kim-ly rose up and said, "It's post time, let's go racing people," and she dragged a laughing Veronica off to the Tiki hut.

In the Tiki hut the white board showed the outline of the island with the pier on the west side of the island. Gerrard smiled and said, "We're going to start just like we did this morning, when we call "go" you paddle out, set your centerboard, rudder, and sails then turn north and we'll go clockwise around the island. You can go out as far as you want, but do not go closer to the island than the spectator's boat. There are shoals that will tear open the hull, also on the east side of the island you may have to go further out from shore to find your wind. Parker and I will be there for safety so let's get those life vests on and go have fun!"

They walked down to the shore and saw that there was a large boat with the Atherton's along with Paul, Andi, Yi, and Kenny waiting for them. Don kissed Kim-ly and Lanh good luck then joined Gerrard as he and Parker launched their Zodiacs. Once the Zodiacs were away from shore Parker raised an air horn and blew a long note to start the race.

Josh was sure that he and Veronica could paddle the boat out farther and faster than Kim-ly and Lanh because they were bigger and stronger than the Asian sisters, but the two surprised him and paddled quite strong and were ahead before Josh realized it. Gerrard wanted them to paddle out farther than the spectator boat which was farther than they expected. Josh looked over to Campbell's boat and the girls looked exhausted. "Are you guys ok?" he asked. He was seriously worried for them.

"This is nothing," gasped Kim-ly.

"You should try waiting tables for my mother," gasped Lanh.

"This looks far enough," said Veronica. With exhausted, shaking arms they started preparing the boat. Don raised the foresail while Veronica put the rudder in place. He had the sail up when Veronica squawked for help.

"What's wrong?" he gasped as he moved aft in the small boat.

"I dropped it!"

Reaching the stern Josh found that Veronica had dropped the rudder while putting it in place and barely had a grip on it. He reached over and helped Veronica lift it up onto the stern gunnel and clamp it in place, but by now Kim-ly and Lanh were underway. "I'm so sorry!" Veronica cried, she looked terrified that he was going to hit her.

"It's ok," he said softly, and he gave her a tender kiss. "Shit happens."

"We're going to lose!" she almost wailed.

"There's worse things on earth than going to Minnesota," said Don as he set the centerboard and began hoisting the main sail. By now the wind had caught the foresail and had them pointed the wrong way, they were pointing straight at the island. "Gibe ho!" he called letting the jib swing straight out to the right. It caught the wind, and the boat began to move. "Ok bring her to port... doing good... annnnddd we're moving!" Soon they were heading north and several boat lengths behind Lanh and Kim-ly but they were moving faster than they had moved in practice.

Don settled in the stern next to Veronica and relaxed. The sun beamed down on them, the sail above them caught the breeze and the splash of the ocean against their hull was hypnotic. "This is what summer is all about!" he sighed.

"So, what did you mean when you mentioned Minnesota?" asked Veronica.

"I made a bet with Don and Lanh; loser has to travel to visit the winner later this year."

"Lanh is planning to be pregnant; she shouldn't travel."

Josh was confused, "I thought they said she couldn't conceive."

"Kim-ly is donating some eggs, they're going to fertilize them in vitro and plant them in Lanh. Her doc says it should work."

"Another test tube baby," said Josh.

"If I can't conceive, would you have a test tube baby with me?" asked Veronica. She was sure he would say yes, but it would be nice to hear it.

"Of course, I would. If that's what we have to do, it's what we'll do."

They remained a few boat lengths behind Lanh and Kim-ly and spent their time laughing and trading good natured barbs with the girls from Minnesota and from the spectator boat that followed on the landward side. The coach/rescue boats continued to follow and take photographs and video of the event.

As they turned around the south end of the island they had to zig-zag because they were tacking into the wind. Josh and Veronica learned a lot about working together, this leg kept them busy setting the jib and the foresail and trying not to collide into the other boat. Coming out of the final turn, they found themselves heading north on the windward side of the island and neck and neck with Kim-ly and Lanh. Coming up to the pier, which was the finish line, Don let the jib swing dumping the wind and losing speed, which let Lanh and Kim-ly surge ahead and win by half a boat length.

"Why did you do that?" demanded Veronica who was clearly the most competitive of the two.

"I did that so a pregnant Lanh wouldn't have to fly to Buffalo."

"Aww," said Veronica, her eyes tearing up.

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Like all vacations this one moved too quickly. The days were filled with fun in the sun and surf, a lot of volleyball and cutthroat games of wiffleball in the sand. The nights filled with laughter and togetherness. The group would gather at the house for dinner, then as the fire dwindled they wandered off to their rooms or a starlit beach.

Josh and Veronica spent an entire afternoon speaking about their datacenter back in Orchard Park NY and everything that Andalon could do for Atherton's air freight business. Josh spoke for length on secured virtual private networks and virtual desktops allowing an employee to log into the system from anywhere and have all the capabilities of the companies home network. They were in the most tropical conference room that they had ever seen, the sides were wide open allowing a breeze to flow through with only a window screen between them and the tropical paradise outside.

"I need to remind you that we're not salesmen," said Veronica as a disclaimer. "I can guess on pricing, but my forte is the executive operations of company, Josh can explain the hardware wizardry."

Nicoletta said, "I know darling, and I specifically told Anthony not to send any salesmen. Do you realize how many companies fail to comply with that simple request?"

"I can't speak for them and I don't want to speculate, I just hope you consider what we offer and if we sound like a fit then we'll send the salesmen."

All too soon it was time to leave Nici Arcadia, there was a big barbeque on the north beach, several members of the Atherton family joined as well as a few executives of Atherton Air Freight. The party went on all day long and beach volleyball was the primary attraction because many of the women that played were topless. Still, Veronica and Lanh held out taking their tops off. As it came close to dinner Veronica realized that she hadn't seen Josh for a long time. "I haven't seen Don either," said Lanh.

They weren't far away; they found a secluded cypress grove where creatures that Don had never seen before haunted. They had set a couple of folding chairs in the shallow water at the edge of the grove and talked. "How do you deal with it?" Josh asked when the hunting stories petered out.

"Deal with what?" said Don after a sip of brandy.

"Don't do that, you know what I mean. You got seriously fucked up and you lost a troop also. What do you do when the demons start clawing at your brain?"

Don looked down the neck of the bottle to see if anything was going to climb out, like one of those land crabs he's seen skittering around. "I call a student."

"What?" laughed Josh. "A student?" Josh knew that Don was running for school board supervisor, but this was too funny. "Like eighth grade? High school? What?"

Don started laughing, "You really are weapons aren't you?"

"What do you mean?" said Josh snatching the bottle from Don.

Don grinned and said, "there I was, Aviano Italy, walking into town with a bunch of weapons guys, and they're ignoring all these beautiful Italian women, but the pregnant women and the ones with children they're hitting on, I asked why they were hitting on the pregnant girls, and they said, "We know they put out!"

"Them's my guys," grinned Josh as he puffed his cigar. "God loves weapons troops."

Don grabbed the bottle back. "I used to call Royce. He would always say "Son, and I'm abbreviating when I say that you gotta get help, real help." Don puffed his own cigar and said, "I have a VA shrink but you know how that goes."

Josh nodded in agreement. Over worked, under paid, VA shrinks are the Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. There's just too many broken GIs in the system for them to handle.

Don continued, "My sister-in-law Tam, Kim-ly and Lanh's oldest sister. She's the head shrink at the local university, chair of the Psychology department. When she finds a student who says they're interested in treating PTSD she assigns them to me. We talk until I wear them down or make them cry or something. A few last." He looked at Josh sadly, "I have to get my shit together, no one is going to vote for a man who wakes up crying in the night."

"I have a shrink too, Andi's sister-in-law hooked me up with her, Helen Lennox," Josh puffed on his cigar and continued, "she's ok, she doesn't understand, but she listens. I call Ellie too, we call each other actually, she spent about 20 minutes on a safety line being dragged around classified airspace by a shot up AC130 and had a front row seat when I fell out trying to pull her in." He grabbed Don's phone off his lap and started to enter his contact information.

"What are you doing?" asked Don as he grabbed Josh's phone.

"Looking for naked pictures of Kim-ly." And he handed Don's phone back. "I put my contact info in there, call me when you wear out your student.

"Here, I'll send you a picture, and I put my contact info on your phone. Call me if Ellie gets busy."

"I really can't wait to come out to Minnesota and visit, it's been too long since I've been out that way."

"Maybe Christmas," said Don. "It's crazy, and it's hectic and Lanh and I love it. We consider it our real anniversary."

Just then voices called from behind them.

"Ephraim Joshua Gravely!"

"Donovon Aloysius Campbell!"

"Middle names," groaned Josh.

"We're in trouble now," sighed Don.

Lanh slid into Don's lap as Veronica came up behind Josh, put her arms around him and took a puff on his cigar. "Dinner is ready," said Lanh, "then we should get packed up to go.

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They all spent the night on Andi's dream and were underway by sunrise, the trip back continued the party atmosphere. Don, Josh, and Kenny generally hung out in the flying bridge with Paul while the girls all gathered around Yi in the galley enjoying the last moments of their short summer on the warm Caribbean.

After turning Andi's dream over to Yi's dad Stan Carlson who would be taking it out on several fishing charters, the gang piled into a small but luxurious bus to the airport. "How many charters do you get on that boat?" Don asked Paul.

"Quite a few, if Andi and I want to go for a ride in her boat we have to reserve in advance. Stan has a great crew, and we get a lot of repeat business."

"It's a fishing machine!" said Yi, who took great delight in showing them all the amenities including the fish cleaning station in the cockpit next to the electric grill. "With a seabass we can go from the hook to the plate in ten minutes."

They flew from Jupiter to Atlanta where the weather was quite cool, but worst of all, they had to say goodbye to the Campbell family. "I'm really going to miss you," said Veronica as she gave Kim-ly a hug.

"I'm coming to see those cabins of yours," said Kim-ly, "I'm tired of tent camping." Josh and Andi said their goodbyes to Don and Lanh begging for information on Operation Sue Lynn as soon as it becomes available, then the families parted ways, the Campbells heading for Minneapolis St. Paul, everyone else for Buffalo.

"God I hate goodbyes," said Josh softly. "That's all you do in the military was say goodbye, you get too good at it."

"Then why did you join?" asked Yi.

"To say goodbye to my family."

At least Josh had an uneventful flight home. The Space A flight to Atlanta was a continuation of the cruise home, then from Atlanta to Buffalo he and Veronica went back to working on their idea for the video, which kept his mind occupied.

Stepping out of the terminal at Buffalo International was an utter shock. Forty-Eight hours ago, they were playing in the Caribbean sun, an oasis of summer, but in Buffalo it was twenty degrees with two feet of snow on the ground and six inches expected overnight. No matter how many times something like this happened in her modeling career, going from the sun and warmth to the dreary and frigid always shocked Veronica's system. Their drive home was quiet, mostly soft conversation about their new friends and their hopes that Lanh can carry a baby to term.

As they drove past Andi and Paul's house they noticed that Paul's car was in the driveway and the house was lit up as they reunited with their children. "How did they get home so fast?" was the question they both asked. That will be saved for a later date.

Their own home was quiet, Audrey was asleep and Big Mike was feeding Little Mike, as Mike and Josh chit-chatted softly, Veronica's phone rang, it was Kim-ly telling her that they landed in Minneapolis.

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The video was actually finished in mid-March, but Anthony hated the whole thing, he said it was too cold, so they re-shot it several times until it was "Customer Friendly" enough for Ant's approval and Josh announced his retirement from acting. He said he broke his jaw from smiling too much. "You can't quit now," said Veronica.

"Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my retirement," chided Paul refusing to look up from his spreadsheet.

"I've already agreed to a ten minute video for Marge. She wants a video that highlights their successful record." Marge runs an adoption assistance agency and is quite successful. "She's willing to help Lanh if her procedure isn't successful."

Josh sagged in defeat, "for Lanh and Don I'll do it, but after that it's over. I'll take my Oscar and peacefully and humbly retire."

The weather was getting colder and the snow piled higher as March went out like a lion and the trip to Nisi Arcadia and their tans became fond memories. Josh and Veronica sat in Anthony's office speaking with him and his wife Marj at the close of business in early April and Anthony was trying to convince them to do another video because the customers loved the first one. Between Josh's rejections of Anthonies offers Veronica's phone rang. "Gotta take this, it's my friend Kim-ly."

"Their procedure was today," said Josh. "Put it on speaker."

She put the phone on speaker and said, "Hey sweetheart, how did the procedure go?"

"It didn't," said Kim-ly. From the noise in the background, it was clear that Kim-ly was on speaker too.

"Oh no, what happened?" Marj was saddened too, Veronica had informed her about Lanh and Don's fifteen year struggle to have a baby and this was their last hope.

"They can't take eggs from me because... I'm pregnant."

"NO!" Veronica gasped.

"Yep. Don got me there on Nisi Arcadia. Potent little fucker. Oh! Tam is pregnant too, but Don wasn't anywhere around for that, and Lanh can't get an ovum from her either.

"Oh... I mean..." Veronica was at a loss for words. Poor Tam! Middle age professional woman with three boys and a blind husband and she's pregnant? The poor woman! "How is Tam doing?"

"She's loving it," then Kim-ly whispered in the phone, "Don and Lanh are paying for a nurse to help out Tam and Jake around the house."

"How is Lanh taking it?"

"Even if I wasn't pregnant we couldn't do it. Here, I'll let her explain it," then Lanh came on the phone saying, "Hi Ronnie?"

"How are you holding up girlfriend?"

Suddenly Lanh screeched at the top of her lungs, "I'm going to have a baby!"