© 2024 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions. All characters are original. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. This story or any part thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary.

All Aboard Andi's Dream

Chapter 4

Nightmares at Nisi Arcadia

Lucy and Gus emerged from their cabin glowing like a pair of honeymooners, and actually, so did John and Macy. They gathered around the table on the Mezzanine and Andi sat with them as Paul and Yi served breakfast. Yi was terrified of what 'cackleberries' and SOS was going to turn out to be. It was two eggs sunny side up on a bed of corned beef hash with biscuits and sausage gravy on the side. Yi was horrified to find out that it was CANNED corn beef hash, but Paul seasoned the canned hash to taste almost exactly like St. Patrick's Day leftovers (which is what it's supposed to taste like). He even showed her how to get a sunny side up egg perfect every time. His eggs were not overcooked and not undercooked. Yi liked his trick of putting a lid on the frying pan and adding a little water for steam to cook the whites of the eggs yet leave the yolk creamy.

As they purred through the early morning calm seas, Paul and Yi served breakfast. Lucy looked at the breakfast and said, "I never have sunny side up eggs."

"You weren't given a choice," said Paul. "Mangiare!" (eat!)

"I guess he told you!" whispered Gus, which earned him a playful elbow.

Paul stood at the end of the table and said, "yesterday evening we were made aware of a media circus over our rescue operation. Some stations actually blamed us for the accident. Instead of heading to Jupiter, we are now heading to Nisi Arcadia, where we're going to lay up for a couple of days until we can calm this media firestorm. Is there any problem with that?"

"I actually think it's a good idea," said Gus. "Let those vultures find their carrion somewhere else. Where is Nisi Arcadia?"

"I don't know. The only persons who seem to know are Justice Atherton and her employees. She gave directions to Stan and Sunny last night. We'll hold up on her island, enjoy the beaches, and Andi and I will make a Zoom call to a few media outlets, and hopefully, it will be over. Is anyone in a rush to go home? We can charter a flight off the island."

"We'll see how long it takes and how nice the beaches are," grinned Gus.

"You work too hard," said Andi. "You deserve some quality time off."

"I second that motion," said Lucy.

After breakfast, Paul helped Yi clean up the galley, then he and Andi went up to the flybridge to watch the docking process. Soon they were in the channel that leads through a reef and to the leeward pier on Nisi Arcadia. Andi's Dream moved up the channel like a warm knife through butter. Sixty tons cannot move through the water without leaving a wake, but Andi's Dream left a tiny shallow wake that many smaller boats couldn't match.

There was a fellow on the end of the pier showing them which side of the pier they should dock. As the bow grew even with the end of the pier, Captain Stan started a slow 180 degree rotation with thrusters and let momentum carry them. Paul and John watched carefully as Stan handled the behemoth with ease. Soon, a little forward throttle brought the yacht to a stop about 14 feet starboard of the dock.

Andi was watching too, when a motion caught her eye and she looked down to see that the twins had lined up at the rail along with Bitty, Yi, and Sunny. "Hi babies!" she called and waved. The twins turned and waved to their mother, then returned to facing the dock, just as Bitty started hanging fenders on the port side.

Stan turned the helm hard to starboard and said, "This is how we did it before thrusters became common. When I open the throttle on the starboard engine, the force of propulsion against the rudder will push the stern to the port. I put the port engine in reverse, and this will pull the bow to the port, watch..." He opened up the throttles gently and Andi's Dream slipped sideways to port and lightly pressed up to the dock. "And that, gentlemen, is called boatsmanship."

Yi and Sunny tied off the bow and stern while the twins in their adorable sailor dresses stood at the port transom, ready to salute anyone who came near. When Yi and Sunny stepped back on the yacht after tying off the lines, the twins stood by holding their salutes, Sandy with her left hand, Madeline with her right. Yi noticed and returned their salute, but Sunny didn't notice. The twins turned to Sunny like sunflowers following the sun and held their salutes until Yi said "Uh, mom?" and pointed at the girls.

"Sorry," Sunny returned their salutes. The twins snapped to and marched back to the transom, awaiting the next person to salute. Yi stepped up to the galley to get a drink, then to follow her father into the engine room for the post cruise inspection. She met Andi as the young doctor came down the stairs from the flying bridge.

"Can we talk?" asked Yi.

"Of course, anything for you," said Andi.

That shot straight to Yi's heart, 'How can I tell her of the sea - my first and best love?' she thought. Yi led Andi down to her cabin. Yi sat down on her bunk and patted the bunk next to her, and Andi sat down. She looked at Andi's innocent, expectant smile, and those eyes, those deep, deep brown eyes. She thought of everything that had happened just in the past two days, and she thought again of her first and best love.

"Damnit," she breathed.

"What?" said Andi, while putting her small hand on Yi's shoulder. "You can tell me. I'm a doctor. What's said is kept in confidence."

"Just regrets bubbling up to the surface," said Yi. She didn't look Andi in the eye, she didn't dare. "You'll think it's silly."

Andi scooted closer and took Yi's hand in both of hers. "It's ok, tell me."

Yi put her head on Andi's shoulder and Andi rested her cheek on Yi's head. "Topless sunbathing."

Andi paused for a moment. "What about it?"

"Well, I thought it would be a cool thing to do... you and Lucy, and Macy, and me, and even maybe my mom. Just soaking up rays, and talking trash, and drinking up all that wine you have stashed, and just letting our tits hang out..."

"It sounds like a good time, and we have plenty of time left and plenty of wine to drink. Let's do it."

"You sure? Are you ok with doing this kind of thing with your employees? You don't mind your governess behaving like that?"

Andi sighed and chuckled. She lifted Yi's hand and kissed it. "I encourage it."

"You'd let your nurses do that? Why are you laughing at me? What's so funny?"

"One week ago, Macy and I were relaxing in the hot tup naked with my nurse, Kat." She sighed, "it was a magical night, the Christmas lights all over the village, the gentle snow, a house FULL of people just yards away..."

Yi grinned at her. "You kinky thing... you know you're stuck with me now; I can get pretty weird."

"I encourage that too. You're going to love the room I have for you. All I ask is that we don't want a stream of men in and out of the house. A steady is one thing, a steady line-up is another." Andi was thinking of putting her in the other main bedroom... and the cabin! She can keep the kids upstairs while she and Paul recreate their wedding night by the fire over and over and over... then she remembered the twins and the mess they made with their spaghetti! "How are you with group showers?"

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The man on the dock was Nathanial Atherton, Miss Nicoletta's son. Nate smiled and shook hands, and saluted the twins, then led everyone to the main villa where Miss Nicoletta would meet them shortly. He led them via soft sand paths through the tropical foliage. Birds of startling colors flitted through the trees and the twins were sure there were monkeys on the island. "It's paradise!" gasped Andi, as she looked around her. Sunny nodded in agreement. She and her husband Stan have been around the world and nowhere has been more beautiful.

Surrounded by beautiful topiary and hedges, the patio outside of Atherton villa was covered by a pergola made of wood which blended in with the surrounding plants and offered a refreshing half shade. Flowers bloomed and citrus fruit hung on the trees surrounding the villa: orange, lime, tangerine, lemon, grapefruit. Far off in the distance, the surf could be heard crashing on the beach. Andi and Paul stood in the middle of the patio close. They were talking and holding fruit drinks, but they could have been dancing so close where they stood. Around them sat their friends, all sipping the drinks made from the fresh fruit of the island, all the while the twins and Bitty walked about them in a false wobble. They were so used to the boat's rocking that walking on firm ground was an interesting experience. They had small plastic bowls in their hands filled with orange slices and other fruit.

Finally, Miss Nicoletta swept onto the patio. She was wearing a simple flowered sarong and matching halter top. Her nipples were clearly visible through the halter, but her bearing and poise made her simple dress look elegant. "Adrianna darling!" she hugged Andi and Paul, as the twins lined up and snapped a salute. This time, both girls were saluting with their right hand.

"You remember our love bugs Sandy and Madeline," said Andi.

"Bug bug."

"Bug bug."

But they held their salutes. Miss Nicoletta looked at the girls, then looked at Paul, who mouthed the words, 'They're waiting for you.'

"Oh, yes. By all means," she returned their salute, and they snapped to and dashed off to hide behind Macy and Yi. "Adorable! And the sailor's suits are so cute!"

"I made them myself," said Andi, which brought raised eyebrows from Nicoletta and Yi.

"I hear they wanted to join your crew."

Andi smiled. "We're not sure what they were planning. They have their own language. But here is a real member of our crew, Bit-na Carlson."

"I'm Bitty!" cried the six-year-old Asian girl.

"I understand she's a miracle baby also?" asked Miss Nicoletta.

"We consider her our blessing, baby," said Sunny, "we went on vacation shortly after I was told I was cancer free, and here is our souvenir." Stan put his hand on Bitty's shoulder.

Miss Nicoletta laughed, then straightening she said in a loud clear voice, "Welcome everyone to Nisi Arcadia, Doctor Paul, Doctor Adriana, we have work to do."

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"Coming up next, an exclusive to KXFL, the story of an inspiring and heroic rescue here on the Treasure Coast and the first interview with the brave honeymooners that saved a Florida family with exclusive pictures of the daring rescue. Stay tuned..."

They could hear the live feed coming across Miss Nicoletta's laptop. "Are you ready?" asked the interviewer.

Andi sat on Paul's lap and they leaned close to each other to insure they were both picked up by the laptop's camera. "We're ready," said Andi, but she felt anything but ready.

"Thirty seconds," said a voice at the other end of the connection. Paul snuggled Andi close with a strong arm and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Don't worry about it," said the interviewer, "you're a beautiful couple, and Andi, you're cute as a button."

"I don't like being on TV," whispered Andi.

"How many times have you been on TV?" asked Paul.

"A few times, medical things." If a medical conference made the Denver news on a slow news day, they always seemed to single out Andi for an interview.

"Ten seconds..."

A beautiful Hispanic woman appeared on their laptop. In the upper corner of the screen was a preview window of what Andi and Paul would look like when the director cut to them. The beauty nodded off screen, then smiled and said, "This is Plata Rodriguez live at the Melbourne Palm Bay Marina with honeymooners, Paul and Adrianna Jarecki. Could you give us a quick rundown of what happened?"

"We were sailing south on the Indian river out of Melbourne where we picked up our friends," said Paul.

"Our wedding party," added Andi.

Paul smiled and continued. "We were heading seaward through the Sebastian inlet when we picked up a distress call of a boat breaking up fifteen miles due east. Andi and I are doctors and so is our friend Lucy, and a member of the crew is a pediatric nurse. My brother John and I have lifesaver training from the Coast Guard, so we felt compelled to respond."

The screen was filled with pictures Gus had taken. "When we got to the scene," said Andi, "Paul and his brother, and our governess Yi went in the water to pull the people out. When they were on our deck, I treated them for water aspiration, exposure, and exhaustion."

"Doctor Adrianna..."

"Please, just Andi."

"Andi, what did you think when Mrs. Garcia went into labor on your boat?"

"I wasn't horribly worried. Lucy, Dr. Kocis, and I know what to do, and a member of our boat's crew, Sung-mi, is a pediatric RN, so that baby was in good hands. The very first thing I thought was 'what a cool place to have a baby!' Can you imagine the stories that family can tell in the future? My biggest concern was their eight year old daughter. She spent a lot of time under water, and her dad wouldn't come out of the water until she was safe."

The video changed from the pictures that Gus took to video taken from the US Coast Guard helicopter as it arrived on scene. It showed Andi's Dream from the air as the helicopter circled in to assess the situation. Lucy could be clearly seen as she attended to Moyra Garcia. "This is an excellent shot," said Andi, "Dr. Kocis is directing me to attend to the Garcia daughter who was trapped under the wreckage. Dr. Kocis has a lot of emergency room experience, and she directed the entire medical response, and we think it worked out pretty well."

On the video, you could see Paul swimming as hard and as fast as he could as he pulled Stefanie onto the swimming deck, which lifted them out of the water. Andi took over treating Stefanie, and she saw Paul roll back into the water, exhausted. Andi stopped talking as she watched Paul gasping and gulping air and the pulmonologist in her rose to the surface and she began worrying.

"It is said that there were other boats closer than you when the distress call was made, yet you are the only boat that responded. What do you have to say to the boats that didn't respond?"

"We really can't address anyone else out there except us," said Paul. "If there were other boats out there, we don't know if they had their radios on. They have their own reasons for doing what they did. As doctors, as sailors, as Christians, we had to respond." A picture taken by Coast Guard Warrant Officer Dan Coats came on the screen. It showed the entire crew of Andi's Dream posing with the newborn Lucius Andrew Garcia. "It was worth it."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Andi.

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'This is the life,' thought Andi as she lounged in the sun. Overhead a few sea gulls lazily circled, occasionally their cries punctuated the gentle, rhythmic splashing of waves on the white sand beach. Behind her, palm trees swayed in the gentle breezes, and the giggle of the twins and Bitty could be heard as they raced naked up and down the beach, being chased by and chasing Yi-jin through the surf. The only other sound was the tinkling of ice in Andi's tall cool glass of "Special Lemonade" (lemonade & tequila).

This was the "Ladies Beach" on the private island of Nisi Arcadia. Men are only allowed on this stretch of sand by invitation only. Andi was flanked by Macy and Miss Nicoletta, all three propped up by reclining beach mats, all three wearing only sunglasses and suntan lotion. As for the other women, Sunny and Stan were spending some quiet time together in a cabana on the east side of the island, and Andi suspected that Gus and Lucy were holed up in a cabana out there too, probably on the west side of the island. She hadn't seen Gus and Lucy at all since they landed.

As for herself, Andi was watching Paul as he and John sailed around the island on one of Miss Nicoletta's neat Hunter Legend sloops. Larger than their own 20-foot sloop, the Hunter Legend is thirty-six feet long and a much heavier boat containing a full cabin with a head, galley, and a 44 HP diesel engine. Their twenty foot sloop, Amalthea, was tied up back in Florida at the "Jupiter house." It was a fun boat with just enough room to recline in the below deck area. Andi has yet to see the Amalthea and the Jupiter house, but right now neither Andi, nor Macy, nor Miss Nicoletta were in the mood to go anywhere, except maybe the cooler for more 'special' lemonade.

Far off in the distance both Andi and Macy could see the sailboat and whenever it leaned far to the side, they would join hands, nervously waiting for the boat to right itself and continue its way around the island.

"My goodness dears," said Miss Nicoletta, "either the two of you are lovers, or the both of you are nervous about your men out there. Which is it?"

There was a long silence.

"Well? Which is it?" asked Miss Nicoletta.

"We're thinking," responded Macy. There was another long silence, then Andi rolled off of her beach mat, laughing. Macy gave her a swat on her shapely behind, and Andi gave out a loud yelp. "Oh, come on, I hardly tapped you," sneered Macy.

"I was tapped there quite hard last night, if you don't mind," responded Andi.

"Same here, thanks to you," responded Macy.

Andi propped herself up on her elbows and grinned, her pretty sand covered breasts hanging delightfully from her chest and Macy finally understood what men saw in large-breasted women. "How did that go for you?" asked Andi with not only humor but genuine concern for her sister in her voice.

"Better than I expected," sighed Macy and she wiggled her hips.

"Lovers it is," observed Miss Nicoletta.

"Sisters actually," said Andi, sitting up and trying to brush the sand off her skin.

"A lot better than I expected," smiled Macy.

"Your beards are out of sight now," said Miss Nicoletta. "You can go wash the sand off if you'd like."

"I think I'm in love," sighed Macy as she painfully eased her way to her feet. "I can't believe how I deprived my husband and myself of that for ten years! What other painful delights do you have in store for me, sister dear?" She took Andi's chin in her hand and tilted her head up and kissed her sister on the lips.

Miss Nicoletta rose and joined the Jarecki women and pulled them in for a three-way hug. "Childbirth," said the justice. "What, you're surprised? If you do it right, childbirth can be very sensual, even erotic. Believe it or not, giving birth to Nathanial was the first time a man gave an orgasm to this old girl. There's nothing like the feeling of your child slipping from your womb into your arms. Nothing like it."

Miss Nicoletta held Andi and Macy tight for a long time. Finally, they broke the hug. "I'm sorry you missed the opportunity for natural childbirth, Andi. Let's pray that your son is delivered naturally, hmm? And you Macy! You're going to do great!" She gave the both of them a slap on the ass and they headed into the water to rinse the sand off.

Andi finally turned to Miss Nicoletta and ran a hand across her soft, slightly curved tummy. "Son? I'm a very regular girl, and a very unusual girl, by modern standards. I was chaste for five years. The first chance I had to get pregnant since I carried the girls was on my wedding night nine days ago. You must have been talking to Madeline. She has been spreading that rumor around. She wants a little brother."

The justice looked absolutely shocked. "Five years? How did you survive?"

"I fingered out a way," grinned Andi.

As they splashed about, taunting each other, Miss Nicoletta whispered in Andi's ear, "Have you told him about the videos yet?"

Andi laughed, as if Miss Nicoletta had just told her a joke. "What videos?"

Miss Nicoletta motioned Andi to follow her back to shore. "My dear, if you weren't aware of these, then you had best discuss this with Paul." She pulled a tablet out of her beach bag and started a video that was downloaded to the tablet. "That is you, isn't it? After spending the afternoon together, I'd recognize those nipples anywhere, but there is no caesarean scar, so this must be quite old..."

The video showed a curvaceous woman in her mid to late twenties wearing a pink wig and a blindfold, tied naked to a bed. There were several men and women in the room. All were silent and seated in chairs, watching a young woman finger fucking the bound woman and sucking her nipples. When the bound woman began whimpering in desire, a man got on the bed and fucked her. This was potentially a video of Andi's impregnation.

"Isn't this man here your first husband?" asked Miss Nicoletta as she pointed to a man with a big grin who was seated next to the bed. Andi recognized that shit-eating grin immediately. It was definitely Frank Rosetti. "These videos were recently dumped on to the internet. You need to discuss this with your husband, the lawyer, so he can do something about this."

Andi froze in shock, her mouth opening and closing and her eyes wide open in horror. She took her glass of "Special Lemonade" and chugged it down. With trembling hands, she poured herself another glass and drank half of it.

"Adrianna? Adrianna?" asked Justice Atherton, but Andi wasn't responding. She knew now what she had to do.

"Adrianna?"

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Lucy started singing into her microphone as she ran,

"I search myself, I want you to find me

I forget myself, I want you to remind me

I don't want anybody else

When I think about you, I touch...

"All right, enough singing," interrupted Gus, "Your blood oxygen level is down to 93."

Although Lucy didn't know it for a fact, she was sure that Gus knew what the next word was in the Divinyls tune she was singing; she was very sure that she was in love with Gus now, and the way he acted on New Year's Eve showed he was at least in lust with her, maybe in love. She was on her second lap of the island, and she was simply keeping up her edge. Lucy intends to be in shape for her cross-country bicycle run planned for July. Gus is also in training.

It's his job to monitor her vital signs, make sure she remains hydrated and, most important, to keep her awake on the road during the cross-country ride. Gus also needs to keep her bikes in top shape.

His job is to tell her stories to keep her awake during the evening parts of the ride. During the long, horribly boring ride through eastern Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, he needs to keep her entertained. Audio books from Audible.com are great, but they don't answer questions and they don't explain what they're talking about. Lucy asked Gus to pick a book to read to her, something that is not only entertaining but deep, something to keep the mind working on those late nights on the central United States' prairies. Being a huge fan of JRR Tolkien, she expected him to warm up with 'The Hobbit' and save the Lord of the Rings for the long rides, but no, for today he picked a book that he absolutely loved: Genesis.

Gus knew each of those 66 books of the bible personally, but he loved Genesis. He started out with "In the beginning..." and read it not with fake Charlton Heston drama nor with the boring monotone drone that was her introduction to the book of books during her upbringing in the Jewish religion. Gus read it like it was an adventure novel. Of course, Gus understood her dissatisfaction with religion. He was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, and once he was freed from their doctrine, he reacted differently than Lucy did once she was freed.

Lucy confused God with the anger of the old rabbis and moved as far away as possible from that church. And as for Gus, once he was freed from the Roman doctrine, he was free to dive headlong into God's word and learn what it was all about. Right now, he had gone off topic to give a lecture on the difficulties of translating ancient Hebrew into modern day languages.

"...is considered the most difficult problem with translating ancient Hebrew. Personally, I believe that when the Babylonians removed Hebrew from existence in about 300 BC, that was the biggest problem. There had been no one to translate it for twenty-three hundred years. Now when you compound the facts that there are no vowels, no spaces between words, and that repeated letters are omitted, the sentence 'Bob begs bad bread' would end up being written out drbdbsgb and..."

"Wait a minute!" interrupted Lucy. "How did you get the letter d at the beginning of the sentence?"

"Because the Hebrew language is written from right to left..." Lucy repeated 'from right to left' at the same time as Gus, and mentally kicking herself for forgetting the strange fact of writing from right to left. Why would anyone do that? Modern culture writes left to right because most people are right-handed and when writing from left to right, you don't drag your hand through wet ink.

Gus heard her say "from right to left" because, unlike CB radio, their radio system is set up in full duplex, it's exactly like a telephone conversation where you can both speak at the same time. Imagine someone reading you a story on simplex radio, like CB. If you tripped and fell, you couldn't ask for help until they stopped talking. Like now.

Lucy was jogging past the woman's beach, and Macy flagged her down. "Hold up honey, Macy wants to talk to me..." Lucy muted her radio while she spoke with Macy and there was a long pause, then Gus saw Lucy's blood oxygen level drop and her heart rate spike, it could only mean she was sprinting.

"Darling, what's up? What did Macy say?"

Between gasps of air, Lucy said, "Nicoletta said something to Andi, and then Andi just ran off."

"Do you know what Nicoletta said to Andi?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No, it's between Paul and Andi." For a while, all Gus could hear was Lucy chanting "Shit!... Shit!... Shit!..." as she ran. There had to be more.

"What can you tell me? Come on, talk to me," implored Gus.

"Macy said... Andi told her... told her to ask me to help Paul with the twins."

Gus pondered that for a moment, then his heart sank. Lucy is the twins Godmother, it would fall to her to be their mother if something happened to Andi. He didn't want to think that something bad was up, but the only thing passing through Gus' mind was 'What the hell was that skinny little bottle blond thinking?'

Gus saw John strolling nearby with a bucket containing a few iced down beers. "Yo, Sir John Sir!" John was one of those pastors that doesn't like formal addresses, so Gus goads him by using the word Sir as often as possible when addressing him.

John thought Gus was going to grab a cold cerveza out of the bucket he was carrying for his brother. Even though Paul wouldn't mind if his best friend grabbed one of his beers, John tried to protect the beer. "I've been accorded the duty to protect this amber liquid with my life! Nay I tell you!"

"I just want to know where your brother is right now."

"He and Andi took the Miss Nisi out recently. They took her out the channel then headed west." The Miss Nisi is Miss Nicoletta's second sailing yacht, identical in construction to the 36-foot Hunter Legend Bermuda rigged sloop Miss Arcadia.

Gus pondered, then asked, "Was there anything unusual when they went out?"

John shrugged, "I don't know, Andi seemed pretty anxious, Paul wanted to take out the Miss Arcadia again now that he's used to it, but she insisted she wanted to go out immediately and Miss Arcadia wasn't ready to sail, so they went out on the Miss Nisi. She had an iPad with her. If you think that's unusual, I guess."

Gus keyed up his microphone. "Paul and Andi were just through here. They headed westbound on Miss Nisi. Andi had a tablet, if that means anything."

Lucy raced through the jungle on the walking path running as hard as she's ever run, the glinting of the sun on the calm ocean could be seen through the foliage of the tropical paradise, then she could see the boat, anchored offshore, rocking gently in the waves. Then she could see the figures laying on the beach, side by side, neither moving, and as she grew closer, she saw the blood trail leading back to the ocean.

Fighting back the desire to shriek, she fought her way through the tangled vegetation and keyed the mic. "Gus honey, get Sunny over here STAT, the fastest way possible. We're on Sunset Side beach, bring bandages, lots of bandages, and med kits, and maybe an AED."

Gus was shocked at her tone of voice; it was cold and professional, meaning that she was in ER mode. "What else do you need?" he asked as he snagged the bucket of beer out of John's hand and told him, "Dude, something happened. Lucy is in full ER mode. Go get Sunny, bandages, med kits, and an Automatic Defibrillator. I'll get a boat. GO!"

Gus had one of Miss Nicoletta's zodiacs checked out and started up when Stan, Sunny, and John came running to the pier. Gus helped them load the medical equipment and asked Stan if he would pilot the boat to the Sunset Side beach.

"No problem," answered Stan as he readied to cast off.

Gus scrambled up on to the pier and held his hand out to John, "Lucy asked you and I to stay here." The realization that Paul may be injured or worse showed on John's face immediately and he didn't take Gus's hand. Things to say rattled through Gus's head, things like 'they will have enough help' or 'we'll just be in the way', instead he simply said, "John, I need my pastor."

John nodded sadly and stepped up on to the pier as Sunny cast off the lines and Stan sped the Zodiac off into the west. Even with the possibility of his brother being involved in a horrible accident, John couldn't ignore a call from help from one of his flock. So, there on the pier, Gus and John prayed to God that Lucy, Sunny, and Stan will help Paul and Andi.

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Paul tried to pry his eyes open, then he gave up on the effort. He knew he wasn't alone, but he couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. It's just not fair to expect one person to experience so much pain just for the sin of surviving seventy-five years, but it's the way God wanted it. He supposed that if just getting out of bed at 25 hurt as much as it did at 75, the human race wouldn't have survived as long as it had. "Poppa, wake up!" said an urgent voice somewhere in the room.

"You have visitors, Doctor Jarecki," the nurse said softly in his ear.

He smiled. It sounded like Vicki, a beautiful nurse of amazing intelligence. Vicki was thirty years old but looked like a seventeen-year-old and had a 200-megawatt smile. When he finally could focus, he found out he was right. The beautiful, beautiful smile that belonging to Vicki was there to greet him. "Tell them I already have enough magazine subscriptions," he groaned.

"You had best step back, nurse," said a familiar voice. "He's got a thing for Korean women."

"A big ol' thang!" said another familiar and very similar voice.

There was general laughter in the room that almost drown out Paul's response, "I apologize for my daughters lack of couth, but I was not there in their formative years which explains..." Paul's tirade on his daughters' upbringing was cut short by Vicki's fingers gently covering his mouth.

"You need to wake up, sir. It appears they have something to show you," Vicki said as the girls cheered, and the sounds of male chuckling could be heard as well. They were cheering for Nurse Vicki's silencing Paul, a task once only reserved for Dr. Andi.

Paul pried open his eyes and there were Sandy and Madeline, along with their husbands, Joshua and Aaron. Aaron had his arm around Madeline's waist, her belly huge with the child she was carrying, while Joshua was at the handles of Sandy's wheelchair with one hand on her shoulder. In her arms was the whole reason they were there, Sierra. "Can I?" asked Vicki, and when Sandy nodded, Vicki adjusted Paul's hospital bed and raised the head up. She then carefully took the swaddled infant and handed it to Paul. The 4 hour old infant made little squeals of being upset, but Paul calmed her quickly by patting her swaddled tummy while making soft little 'choo choo choo' sounds which calmed the fussy infant.

"See honey?" Sandy said to her husband, "I told you, he's a baby whisperer."

"That's amazing!" said Vicki, her beautiful almond-shaped eyes wide with surprise.

"It just takes practice," said Paul as he cuddled the tiny infant.

"Lots and lots of practice," said the twins in unison.

"Do I detect a shot being taken in my direction?" said a voice from the back corner of the room.

"Probably being taken in my direction," said another very similar and very masculine voice. Paul could see two teenage boys sitting on the couch. They looked so familiar...

"I think the two of you are just being paranoid," said Madeline.

"And who could have possibly taught them that?" said newly minted grandmother Andi as she stepped out of the hospital bathroom wearing her nightgown and bathrobe. She slipped off her bathrobe and crawled into the bed alongside of her husband, then she and Paul snuggled the tiny infant between them. "It's been a while since we did this," she said to Paul.

"I thought I was out of practice, yet it still feels right," said Paul as he and his wife of over two decades cuddled with each other as much as they cuddled with their granddaughter.

"I don't think you're getting your baby back," said Maddy to her twin sister.

"Good, I need a nap," said an exhausted Sandy.

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Paul tried to pry his eyes open, then he gave up on the effort. He knew he wasn't alone, but he couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. It's just not fair to expect one person to experience so much pain just for the sin of surviving. "Poppa, wake up!" cried a tiny familiar voice, and his dreams of ending it all disappeared at the sound of one of the twin's plaintive cries.

He finally opened his eyes and an unfamiliar ceiling swirled around over his head. The equipment he saw, the lighting, the hoists, the IV stands, the cardio-pulmonary monitors told him he was in a hospital, but the hardwood beams, the crystal lighting fixtures, the wooden panels and the bamboo louvers on the windows told him he was not in any ordinary hospital.

He tried to struggle to a sitting position, but a hand on his chest pushed him gently back down. "Relax, lay down. You've lost a lot of blood."

"Where's Andi? I want my wife..."

"She's not here right now. She wants to be left alone..."

"No! I need my wife, I just want to hold her, please..."

"That's not likely right now. Now please relax, Doctor Jarecki. We will do what we can as soon as we can. Ok?"

The sullen doctor just nodded sadly and lay back down and fought back the tears as Miss Nicoletta led Maddy out of his room.

Later, outside of his room, Miss Nicoletta was arguing with Lucy. "We can't keep doing this to him. He nearly died to save her and now she won't see him?"

"I can't help it, she doesn't want anyone at all to see her, including me." Lucy Kocis was terribly concerned over both of her trauma patients, how did her friend of these many years nearly drown, and how did her husband of just over one week, an experienced diver end up nearly drown and with a huge deep cut on his thigh?

"Auntie Lucy, can I see poppa?" Madeline was tugging on Lucy's blood-stained Hawaiian print shirt, which was now doubling as surgical scrubs.

"Of course, sweetie, just don't get him too worked up, ok?"

"K!" and the blond moppet dashed into her new daddy's room in Miss Nicoletta's palatial "cabana" on Nisi Arcadia, which in Greek means the Island of Paradise.

"This is all my fault," said the former NY State Supreme Court Justice. "That bastard husband of hers forced her to do some videos, and I had asked her if she had told Paul about them because Frank has leaked the videos onto the internet. This is sheer guesswork on my part, but it looks like she showed them to him on the boat, and I don't know what the hell happened out there."

Lucy shrugged and refused to guess. She found them both lying in the sand, in a pool of blood, Andi coughing up seawater, a huge cut in Paul's thigh, and the boat anchored offshore. Her concentration was broken by Madeline's shrieking at the top of her lungs, "POPPA! POPPA WAKE UP!"

"Oh, hell no!" cried Lucy as she dashed into the room and looked at the most horrific thing she had ever expected to see. Paul had taken his seven foot long nasal canula and tied it around his neck, tied it to the crane used to lift patients out of bed, and held the up button on the crane remote control as long as he could until losing consciousness...

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Andi tried to pry her eyes open, then she gave up on the effort. She knew she wasn't alone, but she couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. It's just not fair to expect one person to experience so much pain just for the sin of surviving. "Momma, wake up!" cried a tiny familiar voice, and her dreams of ending it all faded at the sound of one of the twin's plaintive cries.

"Momma! Daddy needs you!" cried Sandy who was next to the bed shaking Andi awake.

Andi wallowed in her own misery for a few moments, then suddenly she awoke with a gasp. Sandy didn't say Poppa. She said Daddy, that's what she called Paul, not the twins. They call him Poppa. Somehow it started swirling into place, her dream. It wasn't a dream; he was really trying to hang himself! She had no way of knowing why she thought that, but it was there in her mind.

Andi sat bolt upright and pulled off her oxygen mask and disconnected the saline solution from the IV in her arm, then ripped off the monitor leads from her chest and bolted from her room. She charged through the cluster of people in the antechamber. Lucy, Macy, Miss Nicoletta, all looked at her in shock as she dove into another room identical to hers. In there was Madeline standing next to Paul's bed with a look of terror on her face, and on the bed was Paul. He was coiling up his canula while he studied the overhead hoist.

Ignoring his monitor leads and IV lines, Andi climbed onto the bed and pushed a startled looking Paul down into the mattress. "I thought," he gasped, "I thought you didn't want to see me," he said through the kisses that rained down on his face.

"I didn't," she said, not pausing through the kisses she peppered her man with. "I didn't want to see anyone. Then I had this horrible dream that you were going to hang yourself, and I come in here and it looked like you were going to do it."

"I was going to do it. You didn't want me anymore, and a life without you is living hell, even though..." he paused for a moment and considered his next words carefully. "Even though I had a dream, too."

Ignoring the crowd that was growing in their room, and not seeing the twins high-five each other before scrambling into the already overcrowded bed, Paul said, "I dreamed I was in a hospital room, and I had a pretty Asian nurse..."

"Who is she? I'll kill her."

"... you tell me, you were there, and the girls were there, and we had an extra twenty years on all of us. The twins' husbands were there as well."

"What did they look like?"

"They looked like guys. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to them. Madeline was very pregnant. She was ready to pop, and Sandy just gave birth to a perfect baby girl named Sierra."

Andi gasped and smiled; her eyes lit up with a beautiful sparkle. Everything that transpired over the past few hours fell away. "Tell me about Sierra," she whispered.

"She was all swaddled up and so cute. I didn't get a full inventory, so I'm just guessing at all ten fingers and toes, but there were two young men in the room with us, they sounded like they were Madeline and Sandy's younger brothers, they complained about the twins teasing them a lot."

While Andi quietly pressed Paul for details he didn't have, Sunny, Lucy, Macy, and Nicoletta discussed the situation. "I truly do not understand what is going on here," said Miss Nicoletta.

"You get used to it with these two," said Macy.

"What else did you see?" Andi whispered in his ear.

"I saw you, and you are so beautiful, even more beautiful than now. It broke my heart that you were married to such an old cripple."

"You're not so old," she started.

"You're going to be so beautiful in twenty years," he suddenly choked up. "Why didn't you trust me and tell me about the videos?"

"I don't know... I was terrified that you'd leave me... I was afraid they would close your clinic... You don't know what it's like to have two children depending on you... I... I was afraid you'd show the girls..." she wept softly.

"I will never show the girls," he said forcefully so she would appreciate the truth in his words, "but..."

'Oh no,' she thought, 'here it comes...'

"...you will probably hate me for saying this..."

'I deserve it if he hits me,' that thought popped into her head without bidding, her eyes filled with tears, and she could only gasp softly, "Not in front of the children, please."

"the ones with you alone... with the toys... I kinda liked them."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I got to see my wife having a grand old time..."

"With other men!" she said, loud enough for Lucy and the surrounding others to hear. "You want to see me with other men?" she whispered softly, her eyes rolling to see if anyone had heard her.

"No, those are horrible, but the first few that you showed me where you were playing with your toys," he turned to look her straight in the eye, "those really captured my attention." He grinned at her and gave her a sly wiggle of the eyebrow. "Those will keep me company on a long, snowy night when you're at a conference somewhere."

"We should make some of those of our own," she said with a sly grin. "But let's store them on a hard drive and not the internet"

They both laughed quietly, then kissed softly. "I will always be there when you need me," said Paul as their lips parted.

"And I will always trust that you will," said Andi.

Just then, Lucy grabbed her shoulder and started saying, "Andi? You need to wake up."

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Andi awoke spitting out sand, "What...?" She was lying face down on the white sand, her hair a mess, and sand stuck to her face where the drool had run from her mouth. She looked around her blearily and realized she was on the women's beach; Andi had rolled off of her beach mat and ended up face down in the sand. She looked around and the other beach mats were empty. Sitting up, she found her head was woozy, her vision spinning, but she recognized Macy and Nicoletta with Yi at the surf line, looking at something the twins and Bitty were doing in the sand.

Just then, Lucy said into her microphone, "Hang on Gus, she's awake." She dropped to one knee next to Andi and said, "Hey buddy, are you recovering?"

"Where's Paul? I need to see Paul!" Andi's eyes were wide in panic, and she grabbed the neckline of Lucy's t-shirt.

"He went back out on the boat," Lucy explained, "you were passed out, so he decided to get a little more experience..."

"Is he ok?" Andi gasped, "his leg, he was bleeding so much!"

"His leg? What blood?"

"Paul! When he cut me free, you know, from the anchor!"

Lucy adjusted her microphone. "Gus honey, did Paul slice open his leg with an anchor?" She rolled her eyes and then laughed. She turned to Andi and said, "Gus said no, but he'll be glad to do it for you if the money is right."

Andi was angry. Paul could be dying, and they're making fun of the situation. She tried to get to her feet, but she couldn't keep her balance and fell down on her bum and started crying, "Where's Paul? Paul needs me!"

Lucy saw Andi's glass of Special Lemonade and took a sip. "Damn girl! Do you like a little lemonade in your tequila?"

"Where's Paul!"

"Andi, listen to me. How much of this have you had?"

Andi focused on the glass of Special Lemonade and reached for it. "Just two." Lucy kept the twelve ounce glass out of Andi's reach as Andi said, "Or three." Lucy spoke to Gus on the radio. "Are you still at the dock? Get Paul over here ASAP. Andi's had way too much to drink, and she's freaking out. Something about a concussion to Paul... other than drunk, she appears to be fine..."

"What's going on?" Nicoletta strolled up to see what the shouting was about.

"Any idea how much she had?" said Lucy as she handed the glass of Special Lemonade to Nicoletta.

"Oh, my goodness," groaned Nicoletta as she sniffed the lemonade, "I didn't realize she had gotten the hard stuff." She reached in the cooler and lifted out the half-gallon container marked 'Special' and found that it was three-quarters empty. "She got quite a bit."

"Where's Paul?" Andi demanded and started crying.

"He's on his way honey, he'll be here in a moment," assured Lucy.

"No! He shhhouldn't be moving in hish condishion."

"She's been lying in the sun too," said Nicoletta. "Should we move her to the shade?"

Lucy felt Andi's forehead and said, "Yea, she's warm and dry, let's get her in the shade. Come on, honey, let's get up and go find Paul."

"You're my besht friend, you know that? Let's go find my man." Lucy hauled Andi to her feet and helped her stumble toward a stand of palm trees where a small tiki hut sat. "My man!" growled Andi in a voice that Lucy had never heard before. "My man!" then in a tiny little voice, "I never had a man before. Frank was a toad; Paul is a man! Paul tried to kill himself so me an' Sandy an' Mad-line could live in peace 'cause of the videos. You didn't see the videos, did you?"

Lucy looked over at Nicoletta, perplexed, and mouthed the word "Videos?" but instead of shrugging, Nicoletta looked shocked and mouthed back, "She's not supposed to know."

"I knew it wasn't Frank because Frank has a liiiittle teeny tiny dick. These guys had real dicks. Not big and awesome like Paul. Did I tell you that Paul has a big dick? It's really big."

"I think you told me that."

"But any who... howww, anyhow... Hey! I was tied up and blindfolded and if I didn't play nice, they would beat me, so I figured what the hhhhell, ya know? I might as well play along and try to enjoy the ride. They still beat me, and the ffffawkers didn't tell me about the video, OR the girls... I don't do girls... do I?"

Lucy was both shocked and confused. She looked over at Nicoletta, who was carrying Andi's clothing, a cooler, and a beach mat. "Later!" was all Nicoletta said.

"Ok honey, let's rest here in this little house and Paul will be right along. Ok?"

"My man! Did I tell you he shaved me?" Andi's dream was still vivid in her alcohol sodden mind.

"No, you didn't."

"I was so shamed... ah-shamed... 'bout the videos I tied an anchor to my leg and jumped in the water. He jumped in and shaved me, he cut the rope on my leg... but he cut his leg... it's so weird... He has a lot of blood."

Paul showed up just as Andi passed out again. "How is she?"

"She's polluted," grinned Lucy, "maybe a touch of sunstroke, but she'll be ok, she needs to sleep it off. She got into tequila."

"Ta-killya? Yeah, she's not going to be a happy camper when she wakes up. Say, Judge Atherton, do you have any saline in that mini-hospital of yours?"

"Yeah, that'll help, and she was passed out in the sun too," agreed Lucy.

"Should I have some sent over here, or do we want to take her there? I can have a cart here in a matter of minutes."

"Let's take her there," said Paul, and he scooped her up in his arms. Lifting her roused her a little.

"My man!" she growled and patted his arm, then in a little girl's voice she said, "My daddy," and passed out.

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Paul and Andi were soon cuddling in a hospital bed in the Atherton's mansion's mini-hospital, the saline solution and vitamin shots were helping Andi recover, but as far as Andi is concerned, the real help was knowing that Paul was safe and uninjured. She told Paul the dream she had, including the dreams within the dream, often breaking down in tears. "It was so real!" she gasped. "I still can remember everything. You know how dreams fade on you? Not this one. Every moment is still there in my mind... underwater, waiting to drown and watching you swim toward me... seeing the knife slip on the rope and cut your leg... It was awful."

"Shhhh, it's ok. We're all here, we're all ok, and we're going to honeymoon here on Nisi Arcadia as long as you want to stay. Lucy and Gus and John can fly home straight from here, and the girls just love Yi. Did you know that she's trying to teach them fractions?"

"Fractions?" Andi perked up. "They're so much better at math than at reading." She was silent for a long time. "Are you mad at me?"

"No, honey, we're on vacation! I tasted that lemonade. It's really good, I can see why you got carried away." Paul gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

"I haven't been that drunk in so long... I think the last time was when I married Frank."

"That explains a lot," chuckled Paul, who received a swat for that statement. "But what you said about how he treated you... how he'd beat you... I understand so much more now... honey, there's something we need to talk about."

Andi cringed. The words "there's something we need to talk about" never have a good connotation. "Might as well say it..." she said, dreading the response.

"I don't know how you found out. Judge Atherton just told me this morning, but videos exist. Frank really did video tape how they treated you and he released them to a porn distributer. Nicoletta and I are coming down like rolling thunder on those websites that have access to the videos, and they're being very cooperative, because if they're not, we're going to be very, very rich. Denver PD has a warrant out for Frank's arrest..."

"Oh God," Andi said in a tiny voice, and buried her face in Paul's chest.

"Judge Atherton invited all of us to stay here for a few days while she and I get the legal ball rolling and take care of that ex of yours, ok baby?"

"Your clinic!" she wept. "They're going to find out and close your clinic."

"Baby, this is not going anywhere, there will be nothing to find out, and besides, it's not my clinic, it's the VA's clinic. The VA doesn't close anything. Besides, it's a pulmonology clinic. I'm not a pulmonologist, it's your clinic - you're going to be the lead."

"Lead? Me?" She looked up at Paul, her eyes brimming with tears, but a smile of determination was starting to bloom.

Looking in on the couple from the doorway, Miss Nicoletta smiled. "Well, I think my work here is done. Care to join me in a drink, doctor?" and she elbowed Lucy and gestured with her head toward a room at the end of the hall with a large teak bar.

"I think that would be an excellent idea," said Lucy.

"Good, because I think our friends Macy and Gus have beaten us to the punch."

"I'm hoping for something a little stronger than punch," said Lucy with a rueful grin.

Macy was indeed sitting at the bar, as were Stan and Sunny, while Gus stood behind the bar serving drinks. As Nicoletta and Lucy found a seat at the bar, Gus poured them something cold and frothy into margarita glasses. It tasted of citrus and vodka and whatever it was; it was exactly what Lucy needed.

A thought occurred to the ER doctor, and she set her drink down and turned to Miss Nicoletta. "You said 'my work here is done.' Are you implying that you manipulated the events of the past hours?"

The judge just smiled at Lucy and took another sip of her Gus-arita. "My dear doctor, that would imply that I have powers that verge on the divine. That would be impossible, or possibly blasphemous."

Gus watched the play of emotions dance across Lucy's face with great amusement as he topped off their glasses. Lucy thought, then after another draft of her drink, followed by a very unlady-like belch, she asked, "So there was no nudging of events as they played out?"

"Actually, I didn't have to, but I'm incredibly worried about dear Andi. I knew she was abused, but I didn't understand the extent. Could you imagine being bound, blindfolded, beaten, raped, and impregnated, then abandoned just a couple of weeks before you gave birth to the children? And then... and this part gets me, you meet the man of your dreams, and you have a fairly normal sex life? With all that guilt she's been carrying? You saw how it manifested itself today."

"Oh dear God," sighed Lucy. Being an ER surgeon, she sees every day the horrible things that people can do to themselves, but she never hears the justification they use for their actions. Now, for the first time, she has heard the thought pattern of a dearly loved friend, and now hopes she never hears it ever again. She crossed her arms on the bar and lowered her head to hide her tears.

Just then, a man wearing a pilot's uniform strolled in and walked up to the bar. "What 'cha pouring?"

"A little concoction I whipped up," said Gus. He filled a margarita glass and handed it to the flier with the reminder "Eight hours, bottle to throttle."

"Nah, we don't worry about that around here," smiled the pilot as he took a sip.

"That rocks!" exclaimed Stan. "Do you treat all your employees that way? How can I get a job here?"

"Employee?" said the pilot huffily.

"You haven't been around a lot, dear," said Miss Nicoletta. She turned to the crew and passengers of Andi's Dream. "This is Donald Atherton, my husband."

As Don shook hands with the assembled men, Macy was shocked. "He's your beard?" she asked Justice Atherton softly.

"Oh, my goodness, no! I love him dearly!"

"How long have you been married?" asked Lucy.

"Oh, um... what is this... Wednesday?" she started counting on her fingers "Thursday, Friday, Saturday..." She rolled her eyes up and counted silently... "Forty-three years come April."

Gus snorted, trying to hold back a laugh as John walked in and held up a finger, signaling Gus for a drink. "What's so funny?" the pastor asked.

"We just found out that Miss Nicoletta is straight," said an astonished Macy.

"She is?" asked Donald.

"I am?" asked Miss Nicoletta.

"But I... we thought... I..." Macy sputtered.

Miss Nicoletta laughed. "Don't worry about it. It's extremely complicated, but it works for us. I tease and tickle and maybe have an occasional dalliance, but I belong to Donald, and he belongs to me and if stories are invented, we enjoy their entertainment value."

John sipped his beer mug full of ginger ale and shrugged. "I'm not sure about the first bit, but the second part makes me happy." Donald introduced himself to John and proffered his business card. It showed Donald Atherton as the owner of A-Line Air, a cargo and short haul passenger airline. A bell went off in John's head and he showed the card to Stan and Sunny, who had the same reaction.

"Mister Atherton, my associates Sung-Mi and Stan Carlson, and I have an idea which we would like to share with you. That is, if your airline can increase their capacity," smiled John.

"If your idea is solid, then I'm sure I can find a way to increase our capacity," said Donald with a smile.

"Oh, I know that smile," grinned Miss Nicoletta. "That smile means money. I like money."

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"Jibe ho!" called Paul.

"Jibe ho!" replied the twins, and they flattened to the deck regardless of the fact that they were not near the boom of the smart little Bermuda rigged sloop. The boat turned downwind, and the mainsail filled with wind as the boat gently glided over the water. Andi lay on the foredeck below the jib looking up at the gulls wheeling overhead, the mast tracing a line back and forth across the sky like a sleepy metronome, the twins giggling and their feet slapping against the deck as they run back and forth along the deck wearing nothing but their floaties. Andi herself was wearing just the bottom of her bikini and a lot of suntan lotion, lovingly applied by her husband.

Well, it's not far back to sanity, at least it's not for me

And if the wind is right, you can sail away and find serenity

Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see.

Believe me.

How many times did she think that the canvas in that song was on a painter's easel? Now she knows what the songwriter was talking about. Sailing under canvas was the best therapy she could ever imagine. She still remembers every detail of that horrible dream, like it really happened, but relaxing with Paul and her friends, making gentle love on the beach, eating fresh caught crabs and lobsters, and now sailing around and around Nisi Arcadia, the agony of that dream is slowly fading. She was so grateful that while she had that horrible breakdown, Paul was actually out on the sea, learning to handle this beautiful boat so he could take her and their girls out like this, neither of them knowing how much she would eventually need this "canvas therapy." Once again, she wondered if God had planned this outcome just for Andi.

"What 'cha thinking of?" asked Paul as he leaned forward and called out to her.

"What makes you think I'm thinking of anything?" she boosted herself up on her elbows to look at her husband, who was manning the tiller, giving him a better view of her spectacular breasts.

"Just asking."

She got up and walked aft to the cockpit where Paul sat, fully aware of the picture she presented to him, striding the length of the boat, barefoot and bare-breasted. His eyes devoured every inch of her body as she settled down next to him. "Just thinking that I want to stay here, relaxing, not working, not wearing clothes..."

"It's tempting, but Don and Nicoletta will probably start to charge us rent."

"It's so cold back there," said Andi, remembering the wet slushy day they left Buffalo.

"I could light a fire and make us some hot chocolate. We could snuggle and wrap up in a warm blanket and watch the snow fall."

"I want to learn how to cross-country ski," said Andi, leaning in close.

"There's a doctor who could teach us in Springville," said Paul as their lips met.

"Are you guys getting kissy again!" shrieked the twins in unison.

"Don't forget, this was YOUR idea," said Paul. "Remember the Missile Toads at the cabin?"

"Missile Toast!"

"Well, we're married now," said Andi, wrapping her arm around Paul. "we get to be kissy all the time now."

"Ew," cried Sandy, but Madeline had a dreamy look in her eyes. "Do you HAVE to be married to be kissy?" she asked.

"Yes. Especially you," said Paul. As they came around the edge of an inlet, Paul pointed to the beach that opened up before them. "Look, there's Yi," he pointed out, and there she was, in her naked splendor, jumping and waving to them.

"Hi Yi!" said the twins as they waved back to their governess.

Paul suddenly shifted so his back was toward the beach. "What's the matter?" taunted Andi. "I thought you liked naked Asian women."

Paul grimaced. "I do, but Yi was with Macy."

"So?"

"So, after the trauma you've been through, the last thing you need is your husband drooling over a young Asian woman and his brother's wife. And to be honest, I'd much rather look at you and watch your nipples get hard."

Andi blushed and smiled, and his words had the desired effect on her. Her nipples began to crinkle and grow hard. "God, how your tits make me hard," groaned Paul, which made her nipples even harder. "I'd love to tie your hands behind your back and suck on your nipples as long as I want."

When he said that, a thrill shot through Andi that went straight to her clit. They both heard her gasp in lust at the thought. They were both shocked at her reaction, especially after her history of being tied and raped. But giving complete control to this man, her man, the man she chose, was not a terrifying proposition. It was desirable. It was something her body suddenly craved. Frank was a lecherous piece of scum and Andi went along with him tying her up because she was bored, but then the beatings started, and she was trapped in a cycle of violence that she couldn't avoid. But this man, her man, her daddy, has her heart and her trust and the idea of giving him free rein over her entire body was suddenly something she wanted dearly.

"Why don't you?" she finally said. She was trembling with apprehension and desire at the same time.

"Let's take it slowly. You still have your safe word, right?" Andi nodded, then Paul said, "let's ease into it before we give it a try," said Paul with a flick of an eyebrow to highlight his smile. His answer was exactly what Andi wanted to hear. "Not to break the mood, but I have two questions about Frank. Can you deal with it?"

"It depends on the questions," she said.

"Don't answer if you don't want to, but did he ever take you to Las Vegas or Tahoe or anyplace like that outside of Colorado?" Andi frowned and nodded her head. "Did he do the same thing with you there?" Again, she nodded. "Ok, that's all."

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After watching the sunrise on Sunrise beach and thanking the Lord for another day, Paul got up and turned to Andi. She was walking around the island bare breasted like all the other women were now, Sandy, Macy, Yi and Lucy. Justice Atherton started it, they claimed. "This is how it should be," sighed Paul. Both were barefoot and were wearing only shorts. "It's going to be hard to get used to swimsuits again." He draped his arm over her shoulder and gently cupped a bare breast.

"Wait until gravity sets in and they're pointing at my toes," said Andi, as she handed Paul a cup of coffee.

"I don't care, as long as they're available and they're part of you." They were walking back to Andi's Dream.

"So, what is this meeting all about?" asked Andi.

"I'm not sure. It's something John dreamed up, and that's all they'll tell me." Paul was as much in the dark about this as Andi was.

When they arrived at their boat, they stepped onto the pier and stepped aboard. On board were the usual suspects; Lucy, Gus, Macy, John, Stan, Sunny, and they were joined by Nicoletta and her husband, Donald. It was a reunion of sorts. Paul and Andi have been in seclusion for the past two days, spending their time in long discussions over their past and their future, and gentle yet passionate love making.

John came up and patted him on the back. "How ya doing, bro?"

Paul rolled his eyes at John's use of the frat boy term "bro" but smiled. "We are getting better. Took care of the C.E.S. as well." He gave Andi a little hug, then a little tickle on the ribs, making her giggle and twitch.

John grinned and held his fist up and they fist bumped. Andi gave Macy a hug and quietly asked her, "What is C.E.S.?"

Macy grinned. "Cloudy Eye Syndrome. Paul brought that term back from the Air Force and John holds it over my head occasionally."

"Ok, I don't get it. What's Cloudy Eye Syndrome?" Andi was getting confused now.

"Silly! You know - Boules bleues, blue balls." Macy could see from the blank look on Andi's face that she wasn't getting it. "Sacré bleu! You doctors can't operate in society without 18 syllables." She leaned over and whispered in Andi's ear, "Testicular vasocongestion, does that ring a bell?"

"Oh!" said Andi. The look on her face showed that the clouds parted and understanding now reigned. "What does that have to do with eyes?"

"You're going to have to talk to Paul about that," said Macy, shaking her head. "He's the cardiologist." She added that last bit, just to confuse Andi even more.

They all gathered around the dining table up on the galley deck where John put forward his proposal; "We sell this as a total package. The customers who want to fish fly to Miami, Melbourne, Orlando, Atlanta, wherever. A-Line then flies them to the Jupiter house where they spend the nights and from there, they board the Gazinta, Stan's fishing machine, or Andi's Dream, and go harvest fish. For those that want to cruise, A-Line brings them here to Nisi Arcadia where they spend the night in a cabana on either Sunset or Sunrise side, then board Andi's Dream for the cruise part, or one of Miss Nicoletta's Hunter Legend sloops."

Sunny proposed several cruise routes that would keep a honeymooning couple happy, and Stan showed his proposal for fishing cruises. Yi finished the presentation with several proposed menus. All proposals included cost estimates and price suggestions. "We will, of course, miss this year's spring breaks," Yi concluded.

"Good," responded Andi. "No drunken undergrad revelries on my boat."

"Agreed!" said Stan, who, like many Floridians, was fed up with everything to do with the spring break bacchanalia.

"Could we advertise this as a break from spring break?" asked John.

"I like it," said Miss Nicoletta, "and what shall we call our little enterprise?"

As people pondered that question, Paul opened the laptop Andi handed him and he opened up a document that contained several columns of words that either have little meaning or are long out of use. He selected one and using Microsoft Publisher; he designed a quick logo. "How about this?"

"Andelon Luxury Cruises," read Sunny, "not bad. What's an Andelon?"

"It's an old Spanish masculine name that fell out of use a few decades ago."

"That's the name of the company Veronica works for," said Andi.

"Oh damn," groaned Paul, "You're right, I thought it sounded familiar. How about Accrado Luxury Cruises?"

They looked at the list of meaningless words, and the only thing they settled on was that Accrado wouldn't do.

"Tortuga," said Yi firmly. "Everyone likes sea turtles."

"Built-in appeal, I like it," said Judge Atherton. "We could do a special tour allowing visitors to watch the babies hatch. One of my beaches is a turtle nursery."

"Tortuga... taken... taken... taken..." said Josh as he scanned the list of existing businesses on his laptop. "How about Tortuga Grand Tours?" No one in the salon looked happy with that choice. "Tortuga Executive Cruises?"

"That'll work," said John.

"Give me an hour and I'll have the LLC paperwork drawn up." With a general vote of consent, he scooped up his laptop and headed down to his cabin, where there was a work desk. About forty minutes later, the printer in the salon came to life and spit out page after page of the incarnation of Tortuga Executive Cruises.

After the business wrangling and paper signing were complete, it was time for Lucy, Gus, and John to head back to New York. They all had to go back to work. As the luggage was loaded on the A-Line Beechcraft goodbyes were said all around. Paul and Gus discussed the additional work Paul wanted on the house. His primary instruction to Gus was, "I don't care how long it takes. It needs to look like it's always been there."

"I hope to get the 'ugly' work done as quickly as possible, the railings are going to take a while to fabricate, hardly anyone does work like that anymore," said Gus flipping through the emails on his, phone, "It looks like we have all the materials, including the flooring, so we may get a start by the time you get back. Are you going to be ok?"

"Yeah, we're good. You know how it is, you have to work a few things out when you first get married," said Paul.

"Keep her away from the ta-killya!" the friends hugged then shook hands.

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Praying that the next days were quiet and trauma free, John worried and fretted the entire flight to Melbourne. Even looking forward to a reunion with Wonka and a week alone to prepare a sermon didn't lighten his mood. Then he realized that most of his worry was because this would be one of the longest separations from Macy during their entire marriage. He thought back to their last conversation and decided that she was right. A baby may be what was in store for them next.

After Donald took off in the Beechcraft to fly John, Gus, and Lucy to Melbourne for their flight home, Yi and Macy took the twins to the Sunset side beach to swim and play, while Paul and Andi staked out a quiet place for a on a tiny, secluded beach for a naked lunch on the sunrise side. The tropical forest was a solid wall behind them, and the beach was hemmed in on two sides by large rock formations, giving them a feeling of perfect isolation even though their cabana was a short walk away. The only way to the beach was a narrow, winding jungle path whose entrance was hidden and difficult to find.

After a simple lunch of fruit, cheese, and wine, the honeymooners lay side by side at the very edge of the surf, holding hands and sunning as the sound of the waves lulled them into a profound sleepiness. Finally, Paul broke the reverie. "Baby?"

"Mmmm, yes daddy?"

They rolled on their sides to face each other. They touched each other gently, reinforcing their affection. "Baby, we both came up a hard road. We both know what pain is and how much loss hurts. We shouldn't be beating ourselves up thinking that we're making life easier for each other. Maybe that's why we love each other so much, we can see the pain in each other's eyes and say, I've been there, I've done that."

Andi thought for a moment, then sighed. "Yeah, but I never had to feed my little brother out of a dumpster."

"I was never tied up and had my husband invite the Russian mafia to fuck me either," said Paul.

"And their girlfriends," groaned Andi. "I wish I hadn't seen that on the video."

"What I'm saying is that when we have problems, we should run toward each other, and not away from each other," said Paul as he brushed a lock of her hair out of her face.

"With our history, that's going to be a hard habit to break," said Andi with a rueful smile.

"You're worth the effort," said Paul as he leaned in for a kiss. One kiss led to another, and soon they were kissing gently, snuggling closer with each touch of their lips.

As they drew closer, their kisses became sweeter, their caresses more intimate. This wasn't foreplay, it was simply shared love. Finally, Andi pushed Paul on to his back and snuggled up close, using his shoulder as a pillow. It was getting later in the day and warm humid breezes from the ocean gently waft over them as the shade from the palm trees covered them. Her hand stroked up and down his side and he purred at her touch. "Daddy," she asked, "why do you love me?"

"I guess it's because of times like this," he started after a pause. "We've both had such a painful past and now here we are, warm and safe in each other's arms. When I first saw you, I knew deep in my heart that this is where we belong, close together, loving each other. I think you knew it too. You kept pushing me away, getting sterner, getting firmer with each time I'd reach out, but when you stopped pushing me away, here we are. I guess the answer to your question is I love you because you let me love you."

"Oh, that's sweet!" said Andi, as she kissed his shoulder. "Much sweeter than what I would have said."

"Ok Doctor Roberts, why do you love me?"

Andi snuggled closer and drew him tight to her. "Because you have a big dick." She straddled his waist and slid her pussy up and down his erect cock. Andi grinned down at Paul. They had already made love that day, and she was hoping for some "moonlight delight" later on, but this wasn't sex, this was love. She rose up and lined his cock up with her moist opening and lowered herself on him. Slowly she dropped, his cock filling her, spreading her open, pushing in deeper until she had the feeling that he was so deep that he was going to choke her.

Andi fell forward on her hands, holding herself up, and rocked back and forth, causing her breasts to sway. Paul delighted in watching her breasts sway in time with their lovemaking. The sensations she was generating were soon out of her control. She began to grind her clit into his pubic mound, her hips shuddering as he planted his feet and drove his cock up into her. In moments, they were coming together, her pussy grasping at his cock as he squirted his semen into her. With a cry, she collapsed on him and lay prone on her husband, shuddering as the post coital waves of passion slowly abated.

Gently they kissed, their tongues and their hearts reaching out to each other. Then Andi sat up on his spent cock and said, "You're going to have some for later, right?" With a squeal, she dashed off into the water as Paul chased her. They splashed and played in the surf, kissing and teasing until they returned to the beach.

They sat in the sand to dry off. Paul opened a bottle of wine, and Andi dug the plastic glasses from their picnic hamper. "I would still love you if you didn't have such a big dick," said Andi, as he poured the wine. "It just wouldn't be as much fun."

He kissed the top of her head, her hair still smelling a bit of the flowers she wore on it earlier. "That's so sweet, I should show you how much I..."

"Don't be getting ideas," she interrupted, "your daughters are hiding in the sea grapes over there, getting ready to spring." Sure enough, behind the rustling foliage could be heard giggling and the occasional "shhh!" which did nothing to stifle the laughter.

"You don't know how much I love hearing you say that," said Paul as he kissed his bride again.

"What, that you have a big dick?"

"I like to hear that too." he moved her hand to the appendage she had mentioned for emphasis. She gave him a playful squeeze, and he continued, "You said "your daughters'. I've always wanted to hear that." He was clearly getting misty.

"Aww," Andi released her grip and kissed the tear from his eye. "So sweet. That's a good reason to love you, too."

"Yaaaaaaaaaa!" The twins came dashing across the sand and slid to a stop next to their parents, then rolled on top of them, laughing and giggling as they showered Paul and Andi with sand. After wrestling with their parents for a moment, Sandy shouted, "You don't have no clothes!"

"We forgot our bathing suits," said Paul.

"A likely story," responded Yi as she and Macy stepped through the foliage. Macy bent over and picked up Paul and Andi's bathing suits from the sand next to them.

"We didn't want to get them wet," Paul tried again.

"Understandable," said Yi as Macy wrung water out of Paul's trunks. She tossed the trunks next to Paul, who pulled them on. The twins had already stripped off their bathing suits and were now poking through the high tide line with their buckets, looking for shells and shark's teeth.

Yi didn't waste any time. In one fluid motion, she rolled out her beach towel and dropped her bikini. She was now applying suntan lotion and preparing for a championship tan. "Gotta get my sun while I can. I hear it's cloudy four hundred days a year in Buffalo."

"That's an exaggeration," said Paul. "It's only cloudy there, maybe three hundred and seventy days a year, tops."

"So why would someone want to live there?" asked Yi, ignoring the fact that she would be living there in about a week.

"Giardino's family restaurant," said Andi, without a moment's hesitation.

"Grandma G! Grandma G!" chirped the twins, coming back from the shade of the high water line.

"What's so great about Giardino's... oh!" Andi showed Yi a picture of the twins covered in spaghetti sauce from their first dinner at Giardino's. "You girls wear your food well."

"It was so good!" said Sandy as she and Madeline dumped handfuls of shells on their parent's beach blanket before they dashed off into the surf.

"You better go after your daughters," Andi said softly to Paul, who felt the same thrill as the first time she said it. With a kiss he headed off to the water's edge to play lifeguard and Andi lay back to enjoy the tropical sun as well.

With a sigh, Macy peeled off her bikini top and sat down next to her sister-in-law and applied sun block. "Aren't you going to apply lotion belle-soeur?"

"What do you think Paul and I have been doing for the past couple of hours?"

"We were hoping you guys were doing something more creative," said Yi.

"We're just starting in with bondage," said Paul without looking up from what was keeping his and the twin's attention in the water. "I was just getting ready to go cut some vines when you showed up." They had found a small school of minnow sized fish that were taking refuge in their shadows and were entertaining the girls to no end. The fish never figured out that the closer they got to the girls, the more the twins tried to pet them.

"Bondage? Jungle vines?" Macy asked Andi, "that's very creative. He is a much better liar than you."

"Well, he is a lawyer."

Macy turned around and sat with her back toward the ocean so she could look down into Andi's eyes. "Seriously ma chère soeur, if you tell me your secret, I will tell you mine."

Andi looked up at her sister-in-law, who was more beautiful now than in her modeling days. "How can I resist, especially when you use that beautiful jargon français on me, and that pretty smile, and those really pretty breasts..."

"Jargon français... French lingo? That's all it takes to get your motor turning?" grinned Yi, "Give me a couple of hours with Google translate and it will be Paul sleeping in the spare bedroom."

"Do not forget les seins, that is part of the deal too," said Macy, shaking her shoulders, which caused her firm les seins to bobble.

"What is this video you keep talking about?" Yi finally asked.

Andi rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. "You're going to find out anyway, my ex, FuckingFrank, would take me to a casino, parade me around in a skimpy dress, then blindfold me, tie me to a bed and let those guys screw me to pay off his gambling debts..."

Yi looked horrified. "I hadn't heard that part."

"Russian mobsters," added Macy.

"Really?" squealed Yi, and she looked like she was going to throw up, especially when Andi slowly nodded her head. "Why?" cried Yi.

"He was trying to get his boat out of hock," said Andi softly, her eyes locked on the twin's pile of seashells.

"What boat?"

"The one you've been cooking on for the past week." Andi did not mind the interruptions. They were keeping her from having to repeat the part that really shamed her. "Now we have stories to tell around the fire, I guess. Anyhow, FuckingFrank wanted me to believe that it was him in bed with me when it was these other guys..."

"How...?" Yi couldn't comprehend how this was possible.

"I saw les vidéos," said Macy. "they worked very hard to remain silent, so poor Adrianna did not know they were there. The only one to talk was Frank."

"That's the video...?"

"I was tied to the bed, and they would get me so hot..." Andi took a deep breath and continued. "My personal revenge was cumming. I saw in the videos how pissed FuckingFrank would get when I came."

"They videoed your rapes?" asked an astonished Yi.

"They videoed the whole thing..." Then quietly she whispered, "In there somewhere is the girl's bio-father."

"NO!" Yi's eyes were big around as half dollars. Macy nodded sadly and Andi continued.

"Just a few days ago, FuckingFrank dumped the videos on every porn site he could find. Nicoletta found me via facial recognition software. I had to tell Paul, and I was, and I still am worried about what is going to happen to his veterans' clinic when the word gets out that one of his doctors, his wife, is a porn star..."

"Clinic...?"

"Later," whispered Macy.

"So, that's it," sighed Andi. "I'm an internet slut who hallucinates when she drinks tequila." She stood and joined Paul, sitting on his lap, and they both laughed, more from the relieved tension of the past few days. The water was only about a foot or two deep, but it was so relaxing for Andi to sit on her husband's lap with the twins nearby excitedly pointing out their "baby fish". Family time.

"We told you our secret, now tell us yours," Andi called to Macy.

Macy crawled the 4 feet to the water and knelt at the ocean's edge, watching the nearly motionless sea shimmer in the sunlight. She smiled and said, "John et moi prévoyons d'avoir un bébé dès que possible."

Paul and Andi considered the words but couldn't make heads or tails out of what Macy just said, but Yi said, "Geez, I thought you guys dug that French lingo, she said that she and John are trying to have a baby."

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Andi's Dream purred across the Caribbean like a swan crossing a calm, glassy pond. In the flying bridge, Stan and Sunny sipped coffee while planning today's fishing excursion. The plan was to show Don Atherton that a boat as big and as luxurious as Andi's Dream could fish, even with a swimming deck mounted to the stern.

Yi had come aboard early to get the breakfast started and ensure the engines were ready to perform. She was feeling smug believing she was the first one aboard, but when she came out of the engine room, she discovered Bitty and the twins playing with small bait fish in the sporting cockpit. Bitty was dipping the mullets out of the bait tank and tossing them on the deck and the twins were running around trying to catch the fish as they hopped and flopped around on the deck. The sound proofing in the engine room prevented Yi from hearing their squeals and laughter.

"Bitty, dad's going to get mad if he catches you doing this."

Yi's little sister frowned at her. "He told us to do this!" she whined.

"It teaches them how to handle fish!" Yi heard her dad call out from above. Yi looked up and saw her mother and father watching the activity with great amusement from far above on the flying bridge. "You did it too when you were a little guppy." He called down.

Yi sputtered. "Well, you're not wearing your floaties right."

"We have them on!" yelled one of the twins, probably Sandy. Yi couldn't tell in the pre-dawn light.

"They need to be inflated. Come here, you three." And one by one, Yi inflated the floatation arm bands and put them back on the little girls. "Where are your parents?" she asked the twins.

"Probably sleeping," answered one.

"Yeah, sleeping. Mom was up late last night singing," said the other.

"Yeah, singing."

Yi had to learn to tell the difference between the twins in low light conditions. They get quite upset when you misidentify them. She let the girls get back to their game with an admonishment not to let a bait fish get into her engine room. She then headed up to the galley to start breakfast. There she met Macy, who was bundled up in a blanket, cradling a cup of coffee. "Was I the only person to sleep ashore?"

"Oui, I think that is so," answered Macy.

"What was Andi singing about? The girls said they heard her singing."

"Oh, that. When their lovemaking is very good, Andi can be quite vocal. It must have been very, very good last night." Macy grinned as she took a sip of coffee. "I need to go get dressed," and she opened the blanket and flashed Yi a quick view of one exquisite chocolate brown breast, then turned and headed through the salon and below deck to dress in her cabin. Yi shook her head with a grin and got to work preparing breakfast as she dreamed of the possibility of singing a duet with Andi.

Shortly, they left Nisi Arcadia in the pre-dawn light with Don Atherton and Miss Nicoletta on board to test out her luxuries. Paul had arrived on deck shortly before Don and Miss Nicoletta arrived and welcomed them aboard. As Paul gave the Athertons a quick tour of the upper decks, Yi went below and started on the engine startup checklist. Once the big MAN diesels were purring, she transferred the electrical load from the pier power supply to the internal generators. Up on deck, her mom Sung-mi and sister Bitty had completed the casting off and collected all the fenders as soon as Stan edged the floating palace away from the pier. Miss Nicoletta and her husband Don watched in awe at the ease with which Stan handled the big craft, first edging away from the pier, then heading up the channel and out to sea, steering into what was promising to be a beautiful sunrise.

"Oh, my goodness! The bridge is phenomenal in its appointments, but this dining area here, and the docking helm controls, even a wet bar up here, it's like a luxury suite!" Miss Nicoletta gushed.

Sung-Mi grinned and swept her hand over the luxury of the bridge. "This our cabin, the couch converts to queen size bed, and if it pleasant night, this table and couch convert to bed, so we sleep outside. We only go downstairs because there's no head up here," she added to the Atherton's chuckles.

"So, when you're fishing, you control the boat from here?" Donald asked as he looked over the secondary helm out on the aft end of the flying bridge.

"One hundred percent," smiled Stan. "There's an open intercom between the bridge and the fighting cockpit. The helmsman has a better view of the fish from up here. Also, there's a set of docking controls over on the starboard side in case we have to dock to the starboard side, and there are thruster joysticks down on the mezzanine."

"Actually, the whole rescue was coordinated by Stan and Gus from up here because of the view," said Paul.

"You would, of course, allow charter passengers up here. Is that correct?" asked Miss Nicoletta.

"Not after sunset!" said Sunny as she topped off the Atherton's coffee. "This is our cabin, biggest, best cabin on the treasure coast and we not share!"

Heading back down to the mezzanine, Paul promised the Athertons a tour of the cabins after breakfast. As they entered the salon, they met Andi and Macy coming up from below deck, both wearing identical outfits, white shorts and peach tank tops. Miss Nicoletta, who has already complimented the Carlson family's uniforms, said, "Oh my, do the passengers have to wear uniforms, too?"

"No, we dress alike because we are sisters," said Macy with her 1000 watt smile. She put her arm around Andi's shoulders.

Andi was about to add to that sentiment when the twins ran up to the mezzanine, each holding a flapping mullet. "Mommy! I got a fish!"

"Me too!"

"Ok, you two, put your fish back and wash your hands, then get dressed. Your outfits are on the bed," said Andi. The girls dashed toward the stairs leading down to the cabins when Andi yelled, "Fish first!"

"Oops!" The girls turned around embarrassed and ran to the open hatch leading to the side deck and threw their fish overboard, then ran down to their cabin. "Sorry!"

Andi walked slowly to the table and sat down very gingerly. Paul served her coffee, then sat down next to her. "Rough night last night, dear?" asked Miss Nicoletta with a knowing smile.

Andi smiled and sipped her coffee. "We were up late, uh, singing."

"Yeah, that's the story. We were singing," agreed Paul.

Don, Miss Nicoletta, and Macy sat down with the Jareckis and enjoyed the morning coffee. Miss Nicoletta continued to give Andi that knowing smile which embarrassed Andi to no end. Soon the twins and Sunny appeared on deck dressed for breakfast, Sunny in her sailor outfit and the twins dressed the same as their mother. They slumped down in their chairs at their side table, looking like little zombies. Madeline leaned over and crossed her arms on the table, then lay her head down and closed her eyes.

"What's the matter, girls?" asked Miss Nicoletta, "didn't you get your sleep last night?"

Madeline just shook her head no, and Sandy continued to stare at the table and said, "Uh-uh. Mommy was singing last night."

Before Andi could squash the conversation, Miss Nicoletta asked, "Well, what was Mommy singing?"

"Church songs," moaned Madeline.

"Yeah, she said 'Oh God' a lot," added Sandy.

Andi tried to look innocent, but she blushed furiously and tried to hide behind Paul's shoulder.

Finally, Miss Nicoletta reached across the table and took Andi's hand. "Honey, I've been there. I've been right where you're at today. You had some terrible experiences and sex becomes a nightmare, then one day you meet the right man, and everything changes," she smiled and patted her husband Don on the shoulder. "So, if you're enjoying it, sing! You're on your honeymoon!"

Macy put her arm around Andi, pulled her close, and started rocking her from side to side. "I was there too ma chérie soeur." She held her hand up in a fist to remind Andi of what she had been through, and Miss Nicoletta's eyes widened in shock. "Poor John, he was so patient, but finally, after so long," she sighed and smiled, "J'aime le sexe."

"That's a good thing?"

"That's a wonderful thing," then Macy whispered in Andi's ear. "I hope you don't mind, but John and I christened your attic."

Andi's eyes flew wide open, "What?!?" and suddenly the two women were tussling and tickling each other, their squeals of laughter causing the twins to jump up and join them.

"She obviously recovers quickly," said Miss Nicoletta as she sipped her coffee.

"They both had a tough row to hoe," said Paul, "and in the end, they somehow came through it. I like to think that this past month together has helped them both tremendously."

"You know, I've never seen a doctor in a ticklefight before," said Donald.

"Then I have a true paradox for you," replied Paul.

When Paul said nothing more, both Don and Miss Nicoletta held their hands up, waiting for them to be filled with enlightenment until Don finally said, "And this paradox is...?"

"They're both doctors."

The Athertons looked at each other for a moment, then at Paul. Miss Nicoletta finally groaned and said, "aaaawwww, I see what you did there, pair a docs." Don just covered his eyes and shook his head.

Macy and Andi finally finished their tickling and leaned back on the couch, panting. Andi looked from face to face and said, "What?"

"Ok, enough horsing around!" called Yi from the galley as she started setting breakfast out. Paul got up to help serve as Macy and Andi composed themselves and the twins returned to their seats. Breakfast was delicious. Yi outdid herself with eggs caprese Italian style, lightly fried eggs placed on slices of grilled garlic ciabatta, layered with crispy prosciutto and fresh creamy mozzarella, drizzled with pesto and freshly diced tomatoes. The three young girls got scrambled eggs, toasted ciabatta with peanut butter and cups of fruit salad.

After breakfast was over and Paul was helping Sunny with dishes, Miss Nicoletta called Yi over "My dear, that was probably the finest morning meal I've ever had, and all done in such a small galley! That must be an incredible challenge."

Yi smiled. "I'm reminded of a quote. Only a poor workman blames his tools."

"Benjamin Franklin?"

"No, it's a proverb. There's probably more, but I only remember the punchline. However, Franklin said 'Handle your tools without mittens,' which is terrible advice in a kitchen sometimes."

"Let me cut to the chase," said Miss Nicoletta. "Tell me how much you're making. I'll give you a substantial increase if you come work for me."

Andi went stone cold, but Yi just smiled. "You can't afford me," she said and turned to walk away.

"Miss Carlson, I'm serious."

Yi stopped and turned back to Miss Nicoletta. "Do you see what's happening in the galley? That's my boss up to his elbows in the sink scrubbing my skillet. This isn't a onetime thing. He's been there every meal, even New Year's Eve, in a tuxedo. That's my price. I'm not asking you to match it. I'm telling you to beat it."

Miss Nicoletta thought for a bit then smiled. "I could say that I can get someone to help in the kitchen, but that's not it. Is there something else I could offer? I'm a retired justice, after all."

Yi looked a little perturbed. "And Dr. Jarecki is a cardiologist and a lawyer. He's busy trying to start a new company, and he's opening a new VA clinic. And yet he's there helping me with every meal. AND he puts up with my insubordinate sounding crap. What's your counteroffer?"

She took Yi's hand in one hand and patted it with the other. "I suppose you're right. I cannot afford you. So, thank you for an outstanding meal, but if you keep feeding me like this, I'm going to continue to try to steal you away."

"Good luck with that," and Yi returned to the galley with a smile. Miss Nicoletta turned to the table to find Andi staring at her in shock. "What?"

"You tried to steal my governess!"

"Oh pshaw, I discovered a long time ago that the best way to compliment someone who takes pride in their work is to offer them a job."

"What would you have done if she took you up on your offer?"

Miss Nicoletta gave Andi the same reassuring smile she gave Yi. "Darling, I never ask a question that I don't know the answer to. It's a rule that's given me a lot of success."

"But what if she had said yes?"

"But she wouldn't. I knew that before I asked. Look at her, she's as happy as a lark knowing she outbid a rich old woman." Miss Nicoletta leaned forward. "Look at her and how she interacts with you. There's a lot of love here. She is following you to Buffalo in a few days, and let's face it, Buffalo is not exactly a vacation spot. Your governor is a moron, the weather is a nightmare, the city is nearly bankrupt, and the county is incapable of filling a pothole. A right-thinking chef would never allow themselves to be dragged into that kind of shithole, if it weren't for love." She took Andi's hands in hers. "I'm so jealous of you."

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It took forever to get the twins to settle down and take a short morning nap. Eventually, Andi moved them into the master suite and lay down on the bed with them. Bribery worked to a point, but the twins still wouldn't settle down. "If you guys lay down and be quiet, you can watch poppa Paul and Mr. Donald go fishing this afternoon."

"Can we go swimming?"

"After poppa and Mr. Donald are done fishing, maybe poppa can get the swimming dock ready for swimming and we can go swimming after supper."

"Awww, we want to go swimming now."

Andi tickled Sandy, "You silly! You can't go swimming when poppa is fishing, he'll catch you and Yi will have to cook you."

"I will be delicious; Sandy will be yucky."

"No, I will be delicious!"

"No, I will!"

"No, I will!"

"Girls, ENOUGH! Now settle down!" Andi used her 'mom voice' to some effect, and the twins stopped their sparring and they settled down, but it didn't last. A nudge turned into a bump which turned into a shove which turned into a poke which turned into a swat. Pretend snores soon turned into giggles and shouts of "Hey! No fair!"

Andi tried to calm them, but as she tried, she wondered from where the children's anthem "No fair!" entered their vocabulary. They don't associate with other 5-year-olds yet, and she didn't hear it on any of their limited television viewing. As their tussling evolved into a tickle fight to rival Andi and Macy's recent tickle fight, order was established by the most powerful entity in the young girl's lives: Poppa.

"What's all this noise going on in here? You'll scare away the fish." Paul appeared at the cabin door and used his best 'drill instructor' voice, and the girls immediately stopped their arguing and pretended that they were asleep. He didn't shout, but he projected his words with enough force to make it sound like a shout. Paul crawled on to the bed and he and Andi snuggled the girls between them and soon, against their will, the pretend snores became soft breathing and the little girls gently fell asleep.

"How did you do that?" Andi whispered.

"It's pretty simple. They still don't know me yet, so they don't know how far they can push me. Once they figure that out, we'll both be in trouble."

"Thank you, daddy." Andi smiled and closed her eyes, safe and secure in the arms of the family she always dreamed of.

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As always, Sandy and Madeline woke at the same time. They never had to wake each other because their little bodies have the same sleep schedules. They rose to find mom and poppa missing and the boat was bouncing, so they decided to explore. First, they went to their cabin and put on their swimsuits and floaties because they knew that poppa was going to take them swimming, and of course they had to grab their stuffies. Sandy had a misshapen creature from a children's cartoon, and Madeline had a baby Kermit the Frog. Fully armed for action, they looked around.

Bitty wasn't in her cabin, so maybe she was doing laundry or getting lunch ready. In fact, all the cabins were empty, so they headed up to the salon which they found empty, as well as the galley. Yi wasn't cooking a lunch, but she set out bread, lunch meat, and condiments for sandwiches.

"Maybe they all fell off the boat," said Sandy as she attempted to craft a bologna sandwich. "We will have to drive the boat."

Madeline thought and made a cheese and Miracle Whip sandwich. "I think I can steer, but I can't reach the steering wheel. The chair is too far back."

"We're not allowed upstairs anyhow."

Getting nervous with the thought that they were alone on the boat, they took their sandwiches and juice boxes aft toward the fishing cockpit. If everyone fell overboard, who was going to put the straws in their juice boxes? When they reached the dinner table, they saw poppa and Mr. Donald sitting down in the fishing cockpit looking at a lot of papers. They were drinking something out of cans and smoking cigars. Good! There is someone here to put the straws in their juice boxes, open their soda cans, and pour their milk. They won't die of thirst. They climbed down to the fishing cockpit and wordlessly held their juice boxes up to poppa.

Poppa was delighted to see them, which was a bit of a surprise. Mommy told them that when poppa was fishing to stay away. "Good afternoon sweeties! Did you have a good nap?"

The twins nodded their heads, but to be honest; they weren't sure if they had a good nap or not. They slept through the whole thing. Poppa put the straws in their juice boxes and, handing them back, he said, "Mommy and Aunty Macy are up front. You can stay here and help fish, or you can go up to the front with them."

Daddies are handy, thought Madeline; they can open anything. Poppa Paul opens the biggest cans and jars for Miss Yi. And even though "helping fish" was fun because they got to hold bait fish, she wanted to see mommy and Aunt Macy... wait! He said AUNTY Macy!

"It's AUNT, Macy!" the girls shouted at nearly the same time.

"Aunty Lucy is aunty; Aunt Macy is aunt!" exclaimed Sandy.

Paul grinned. He knew their aunt/aunty rules; he was just trying to get a rise out of the little tykes. "Ok girls, I'll take you up front." Then to Mr. Donald, "I'll be right back Don." He had a hand full of papers that he handed to Mr. Donald, then he led the girls up to the galley. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Did you guys make your own sandwiches?" He surveyed the damage to the luncheon setup, which was quite extensive.

They nodded enthusiastically and displayed their creations. Both of their faces and hands were covered with excess Miracle Whip, but as far as Paul knew, this was the first time the twins had made their own lunches.

"Good job, but let's clean up the counter here before Yi sees the mess." Paul first wiped their smiling faces, then put the lunch meat back in the plastic bags, resealed the condiments and cleaned up the scattered lettuce, cheese, and bread, then wiped the countertop clean. "Would you like some pickles, too?"

"Yeah!" their eyes opened wide in anticipation. "But not the big yucky ones," warned Sandy.

"We want the cute baby pickles," Madeline added.

Paul grinned and put a few sweet baby gherkins in two sandwich bags. "There, now let's go find the ladies." He tapped the intercom and said, "Hey baby, the twins are up and want to come sit with you."

Andi replied, "Give us a moment to get decent..." then after a pause, "Ok, we're ready." Paul smiled. The women were tanning and probably putting their bikini tops back on. Macy had mentioned to Andi that a sunny day in a Western New York winter was as rare as chicken teeth, so they were working hard to get incredible tans to display at the up-coming Woman's Ministry meeting.

The girls weren't allowed alone on the side deck between the salon and the foredeck, where the women congregated to drink wine, talk, and tan. And with a juice box in one hand and a sandwich in the other, and a stuffie under their arm, there was no way they could safely navigate the twelve-inch-wide walkway, especially with the boat rocking. Poppa Paul gently convinced them to hand him their juice boxes and stuffies, and to hold their sandwiches in their right hand as they stepped out on to the narrow walkway. Now with their left hand free to hold the railing and with Poppa Paul gently guiding them, they made the trek forward where they found momma, Aunt Macy, and Miss Yi.

"Hi babies!" momma said, smiling. "Did you have a good nap?"

Sandy and Madeline nodded, their standard answer to that question, still unsure what constituted a good nap vs a bad nap.

"Come sit here with Aunt Macy, Miss Yi and myself. Did poppa make you lunch?"

"They made their own sandwiches," said Paul as he handed the girls their stuffies, juice boxes, and pickles.

"Really? I'm so proud of you!" Andi hugged her daughters. They nodded vigorously, but they didn't talk because their mouths were full of sandwich.

"Hey! I'm the chef on this barge," said Yi. "let me check this out..." She took Sandy's sandwich and inspected it carefully. "Good meat to cheese ratio, excellent mayo coverage, proper crust alignment... I'd say that this is a well-made sandwich. You may put me out of a job, little one!" Sandy grinned with joy as Yi handed her sandwich back.

Madeline took a bite of her sandwich and handed it to Yi for her inspection. "Cheese on white bread, a brave choice in its rustic simplicity. Let's see what we have here... American cheese, a very patriotic option by the way, Wonder Bread, the favorite of 5-year-olds across the nation, and what's this? Miracle Whip! That's a confident choice for such a young chef! My hat is off to you, Chef Madeline." She handed the sandwich back to the grinning five-year-old, who was beaming with pride.

As soon as Madeline got her sandwich back, she dashed forward to join her sister at the bow. The twins were watching over the side, hoping to see some dolphins join them in their dash across the blue Atlantic, then Sandy turned around and yelled, "Mom! You're bare naked!"

"There're no boys here," Andi defended herself.

"Yeah," said Madeline, "Miss Yi is bare naked too. You can see her pooter, and so is Aunt Macy!"

"Why?" Sandy didn't have a problem running around with no clothes on. She liked to do that after a bath, mostly to embarrass her mother. It was fun. But there was no bath or swimming here, so why?

"We're tanning," said Miss Yi as she rolled over on to her stomach, taking up most of the port side lounge.

"What's tanning?" asked Madeline.

"When you let the sun cook you a little, your skin turns dark," said momma.

"Like Aunt Macy?"

"They wish," grinned their Nubian Aunt.

"Even Aunt Macy's skin gets darker when she lays out in the sun," said Andi motioning the girls to come over to her for a coating of suntan lotion, which was hard to do as the girls were more interested in inspecting the women's tan lines.

"Why do we need that goop?" demanded Madeline, as she turned up her nose at the suntan lotion. The smell of coconut didn't appeal to her.

"So you don't get burned," said Andi as she wrestled with her slippery child.

"Aren't we supposed to get toasted?" asked Sandy.

"Tanned, you're supposed to get tanned, silly. This will keep you from getting burned," smiled Andi, as she applied lotion to Sandy's cheeks and forehead.

"Remember when Uncle John made you pizza rolls?" asked Macy as she applied lotion on Madeline.

"Yeah," said the girls in unison. Their first lunch with Uncle John was a disaster. Burned pizza rolls and weak strawberry Kool-Aide.

"This is so the sun doesn't turn you into one of Uncle John's pizza rolls," said Macy with a playful smack on Madeline's butt. "Now put your floaties back on."

Just then, Miss Nicoletta appeared wearing a sarong and carrying a small cooler which contained wine, ice, and a few juice boxes for the twins. "Look who woke up in time for the party!" she said cheerfully. The twins looked up from the remains of their sandwiches and looked around to see who Miss Nicoletta was talking about. "I'm talking about you two silly girls! Your daddy told me you made sandwiches; did you bring enough for everyone?"

Sandy shoved the crust of her sandwich into her mouth and shook her head, but Madeline said, "He's not my daddy, he's my poppa."

Miss Nicoletta tried to make sense out of that statement, but it's been a long time since a 5-year-old was part of her life and she gave up on trying to figure out Madeline's hierarchy of parenting. She let her sarong float to the deck and reclined with a practiced ease and immediately the conversation returned to the men in their lives. "What is it that you were singing last night?" she asked Andi.

Andi rolled her eyes and smiled back. "I think 'How great thou art' was one."

Macy whooped with laughter and Yi turned her head and said, "Good one, boss."

Andi got very serious. "I want to apologize for my... my uh... I'm sorry that I ruined everyone's vacation. I didn't know how to deal with those videos. I couldn't live with everyone seeing them."

Miss Nicoletta patted Andi's leg. "Poor dear. I, for one, do not need your apology. I couldn't dream of living with that kind of embarrassment. But Paul says he will correct it and I believe him."

"Chère sœur," said Macy, "Dear sister, if nothing else, now you know that Paul's love is true, that he will fight to keep you, and if he can't have you in his life, he will not live without you."

Yi rolled over onto her back. "You are a selfish jerk."

"Hey!" shouted Macy.

"Wait a minute," said Justice Atherton, "is this the right time?" she asked, pointing at the twins.

Yi reached out with a casual sweep of her arm and snagged Sandy as she danced by, jumping in rhythm with the surging of the boat. "Yeah, I can understand you're embarrassed, and I know Paul can't live without you, but did either one of you think of these munchkins?" With that, she started tickling Sandy. Madeline jumped to help tickle Sandy and ended up getting tickled as well.

"I... I didn't want to live in the world where their mother has porn videos splashed all over the internet."

"That's just it, you didn't want to live in that world, but now here you are, living in that world. But you almost sentenced them to a world where their mother got good and drunk, then committed suicide. Not a thought about these guys." There was dead silence for an endless second, then Yi began tickling Sandy again. "Right goof-ball?"

Sandy shrieked under a fresh assault of tickling, but Madeline asked, "What's a suicide?"

"It means you simply lose your head, goof-ball number two!" and Madeline was soon curled up in a ball, whooping and giggling like her sister under the tickle assault from Yi.

"Do you think that was an appropriate remark?" asked Miss Nicoletta quietly.

Andi sighed. "From the nanny of my girls, it's a perfect remark. She is absolutely right." Andi got up and walked over to where Yi, now sitting up, was still tussling with Sandy and Madeline. She sat down next to Yi and suddenly had Madeline on her lap. "Thank you, Yi, you were absolutely right to remind me of that." She tickled Madeline's ribs until the little moppet curled up in a giggling ball and slid to the deck.

"You mean I'm not fired?"

"No, of course not. You said what needed to be said."

Yi let out her breath and visually relaxed, even though Sandy was still crawling all over her. "I thought I was totally canned."

Andi put her arm around Yi's shoulder and pulled her close. "Not for telling me the truth." And she gave Yi a kiss on the top of her head, which was quite a stretch because even sitting down, Yi was still over half a foot taller than Andi. Yi closed her eyes and leaned her head against Andi, and sighed. She suddenly felt awash with a feeling of being "at home" with Andi, and Paul, and the twins. Suddenly Andi cleared her throat in a way that sounded like she was trying to get Yi's attention. Yi opened her eyes and saw the twins staring at them, their little noses wrinkled in annoyance.

"What do you two want?"

Sandy put her little fists on her hips. "Are you two going to get all kissy?"

Yi and Andi looked at the twins for a moment, then suddenly Macy snorted and started laughing, as did Miss Nicoletta. "Kissy?" demanded Andi in mock anger. "Wait until I get my hands on you. I'll tickle you until you piddle!"

As Andi lunged at the girls, they squealed and dashed toward the bow. Stopping suddenly and looking down into the Atlantic. Andi's Dream was no longer slicing through the ocean at a spirited 25 knots. The yacht was now nearly still in the water. The twins suddenly cried out, "We stopped!"

Then Madeline pointed, "Land GO!"

Sandy frowned. "It's Land YO!"

"Go!"

"Yo!"

They glared at each other for a moment and shrugged and looked over the side.

Andi stood and looked around. "I guess we did stop. The guys must be starting to fish again."

Miss Nicoletta had her pulled on her shorts and blouse. "It's my turn to land a fish. Donald and Paul have both caught nice fish this morning."

"I wanna watch."

"Me too!"

"Ok, get your swimsuits back on, and your floaties!" Andi pulled on a wrap, then helped the girls get dressed, collect their empty juice boxes and stuffies, then led them back the port side walkway to the salon. When they entered the galley, they found Bitty waiting for them.

"Hurry up! We're going to catch a sailfish!" the young Asian girl cried.

"Cool! What's a sailor fish?" Sandy asked.

"She didn't say sailor fish, she said sail-ING fish."

"SAIL fish!" cried Bitty, trying to be heard over the twin's bickering.

"Fish don't have sails!"

"Yes, they do!"

"The sail would get wet!"

Andi tried to settle the argument, but it was too hilarious, especially when Madeline demanded to know how the sail fish didn't get tangled in their sail's ropes. Having watched her poppa and Uncle John sail boats around Miss Nicoletta's island, Madeline thought she was well versed in the art of sailing. Every time Andi tried to say something, one girl would come up with another argument that made her laugh. Never try to break up these girl's arguments after 3 glasses of wine, she reminded herself.

Finally, Paul ended the squabble when he quietly stepped up behind the girls and demanded in his drill instructor voice, "Are you young ladies trying to scare all of my fish away?" The girls suddenly stopped arguing, startled by his quiet yet forceful voice. The twins actually snapped to attention for a moment. Then they broke down in giggles, seeing that it was just poppa that startled them.

"She said that fish have sails!"

"Their ropes would get all tangled!"

Paul stood straight, glaring down on them, attempting to emulate their current hero Dwayne "The Rock," Johnson with a cocked eyebrow. He held up one finger, and they went silent. "If we hook a sail fish, you can come down and see it..." The girls started to bounce and cheer until Poppa said "BUT... we will be down on the swimming dock, so get your life jackets on, and stay up here until we say you can come down. You can watch from up here or upstairs on the bridge if you don't bother Captain Stan and momma. Ok?"

"Yes, poppa." Madeline punctuated her agreement with a salute.

"Ok, let's get to it! Put your stuffies away, put your empty juice boxes in the trash compactor, and get those life vests on and maybe Mr. Donald and I will let you catch your own fish. Step lively sailors!"

As the girls scrambled to follow orders, Andi melted in Paul's arms. "Mmmmm, I love a man in uniform." She sighed as their lips parted.

"A polo shirt, Bermuda shorts, and deck shoes aren't actually a uniform."

"It's that voice, it's gets me all warm... and moist..." and she followed that with an even more passionate kiss.

"You know I'll be thinking of a way to use that voice in more interesting circumstances," he said as he opened her wrap slightly and peered at the rise of her full breasts.

"I sure hope so," she punctuated that with a quick kiss. "Now go catch me a fish, colonel."

"Tell Yi that we have a couple of eatin' fish on ice and let Miss Nicoletta know that we're starting to try for sail fish. Don said that she will want to join us. Oh, and we're moving close to shore, you girls may want to cover up a bit more."

"Aye aye sir!" Andi saluted with the wrong hand and stepped out on the port side deck to head forward and tell Yi, Macy, and Miss Nicoletta what Paul had said.

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"Fish on!" squealed Madeline, loud enough to be heard throughout the yacht. She started reeling in her catch as fast as she could crank the reel. "It's fighting me!"

Paul crouched down next to her. "Easy, or you'll shake him loose, reel him in nice and easy...."

Paul had set up the safety railings on the swimming dock and they moved in close to shore to catch some bait fish for their sail fish outing. They had netted a tank full of mullet and they let Sandy, Madeline, and Bitty try their hand at the rod and reel and they took to it marvelously.

"I'm hooked up!" called Bitty from the other side of the fishing dock and Yi bent to help her little sister. Andi and Macy watched with excitement from the fishing cockpit. They were so engrossed in watching the little girls fish that they didn't hear someone calling, "Ahoy!"

Andi turned to see a small fishing skiff had quietly pulled up alongside of them. On board the skiff was a smiling, well-tanned, blond girl along with a brunette girl and a tall, slim fellow. "Hi!" called Andi, wondering if they had bumped into her boat.

"I'm Daniella G, you know... Daniella G on the Big Blue Sea...?" she paused for recognition from Andi and Macy. Getting no glimmer of recognition, she pressed on. "I'm a professional sport fisherman and I do a series of YouTube videos. Can I come aboard and talk?" Getting an approving nod from Andi, Daniella stepped aboard.

"Foremost, I am an advocate of female anglers and I try to prove daily that fishing is for girls, too. Saying that, do you mind if I video your girls fishing and, if possible, use that footage in a YouTube video? They are so adorable! Then maybe a quick interview with the parents?"

"It's ok with me to video the twins," said Andi. "We'll want some control over what is put out there, no addresses or contact information or anything like that."

Sunny stepped down into the cockpit from up in the galley. "You still have permission to film Bit-na."

"Sunny!" Daniella and Sunny hugged like old friends, "I didn't recognize Bitty. She's grown so much!"

"Yes, she cabin girl on this cruise. She teaching the twins to catch mullet for sailfish later."

Daniella gestured to the two people on the small boat who then pulled out to video the three little girls fishing off the swimming dock. She then made sure she had everyone's name and asked if she could video them, do an interview, and she held a GoPro out at arm's length using a selfie stick. The camera was pointed back at her. "Ok, so I'm here with an old friend, Sunny Carlson. You remember the trip we shot with her and her husband, Captain Stan, a few months ago? If not, I'll link it in the remarks section below." And with that, she pointed down at the deck.

"We're here aboard the yacht Andi's Dream with owner Andi Jarecki and her sister Macy Jarecki, and their daughters are fishing off the fantail of this..." suddenly Daniella stopped, caught in mid-sentence as her mental gears engaged.

Sunny leaned over and whispered to Andi, "Watch this, she just realize where she is, who we are."

Daniella's eyes opened wide, and she cried, "This is crazeee! Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! You guys rescued the Garcia family! This is insane! This is sick!"

"Is she mad at us?" whispered Andi to Sunny.

"Oh no, this is how she talk when she is excited, sometimes she swear."

"This is a-mayyyy-zing!" panted Daniella. "Can we do an interview on the rescue?"

All three women frowned. "Stop tape for a moment," said Sunny, pointing to the go-pro camera that Daniella was holding.

Daniella turned the camera off and said, "Just to show you I'm totally legit..." she took the memory card out of the camera and put the camera in the cleaning station refrigerator there on the fishing cockpit. "Ok, we can talk now," she said, holding up the memory card.

"You didn't have to go to that extreme," said Andi. "we just need to tell you that we are all professionals, and we can't really talk about what happened. A lot has to be kept in doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Oui," agreed Macy. "Sung-Mi is a registered nurse. She did a lot of the delivery. Andi is a pulmonologist who saved a life, and I am docteur en théologie, and docteure en psychologie so everything said to me by anyone is kept in stricte confiance."

At first Daniella looked gloomy, then she brightened. "How about if I say that I met you, the rescuers, we spoke in generalities, and won't even mention what really happened, so I won't have to mention that almost everything is covered by doctor patient confidentiality?"

"I agree with that," nodded Andi.

"Je suis d'accord."

Sunny made it unanimous, "Works for me."

Daniella reassembled her camera and tried again. "This is insane! I'm here in West Palm and I saw some little girls fishing off of this beautiful yacht and the next thing I know, I'm talking with a brave bunch of sailors who pulled off that amazing Treasure Coast rescue on New Year's Eve. We're not going to talk about that because I'm here to talk about fishing. I saw these little girls fishing and, WOAH!"

Daniella was jolted by the impact of a high speed 5-year-old. Sandy had a mullet in her grasp and was sprinting to the fishing cockpit to put it in the live well, and in doing so she ran full force into Daniella. "Sorry!" she called without looking up and headed over to the live well. Just as she was going to drop the mullet into the live well, she realized that the person she ran into was a guest aboard Andi's Dream. She walked over to Daniella and held her mullet up for inspection. "I have a fish!"

"That's a really nice fish! Did you catch it?"

"No, my little sister did. I get to fish now... whoops!" in her excitement she dropped her fish and it started flopping around on the deck. "Fish down people!"

As Sandy started scrambling for the flopping mullet, she was joined by Madeline, who answered Sandy's distress call of "Fish down!"

Daniella, still laughing at the "Fish down!" call, was overjoyed to find that the fisher-girls she stopped to video were twins. This was going to be gold on YouTube. She filmed the girls chase the mullet, and when they finally got it in the live well, Bitty showed up with a plastic pail with three mullets that she caught while the twins were wrangling their one fish, then all three dashed back to the swimming deck where Paul and Yi waited with their poles.

"Hi Bitty! You're getting tall."

"Hi Danni, can't stop now, catching fish!" said Bitty as she bumped into the twins and they dashed back to the swimming deck.

"Welcome aboard Andi's Dream," said Macy. "It's been like this the whole time."

"It's like this at home too," said Andi, as she tried to suppress a laugh.

Daniella turned her camera to Andi. "Mrs. Jarecki, this is such a great family vacation! How long have you had this boat?"

"I got it for Christmas," said Andi, but she was concentrating on watching Sandy, who was reeling in another mullet.

"What a great Christmas present!" Daniella turned the camera around so it was facing her. "Santa, I am going to send you an amended wish list."

"I thought it was a wedding present," said Macy.

"That what I thought," added Sunny.

"When did you get married?"

"At six forty-five PM on Christmas eve. This is our honeymoon cruise."

Daniella was stunned. "You brought your children on your honeymoon cruise?"

"It's a whole family honeymoon. Paul and I married on Christmas eve, and his application to adopt Sandy and Madeline was approved just moments after we said 'I do.' How could I deny them this?" Andi asked as Paul helped Sandy and Madeline reel in a fish that was clearly larger than the small mullets they had been harvesting. They were both taking turns reeling in the fish while Paul held the rod for them. Even Bitty helped crank the reel while Yi leaned over and eventually netted up a large fish with vertical stripes.

"That's insane!" cried Daniella. "their first time fishing and they pull in a stud! Look at that bad boy. He's a keeper for sure."

While the three girls tried to pet the big sheepshead, Paul carried it to the ruler marked on the stern transom and laid it down to measure it, "Sixteen and a half inches!" he announced. "It's a keeper! Do you guys want to keep it and have him for dinner?" to which all three girls (and Yi) shouted "Yeah!"

"Ok, let's put him on ice!" They carried the sheepshead on to the fishing cockpit and opened up the floor panel and there were already two fish on ice in the fish bin.

"The big ugly green fish is Mister Donald's fish, the nice pointy fish is poppa's fish," Madeline explained to Daniella.

"And what do we call that pointy fish?" Daniella asked.

"WaHOO!" shouted the girls.

"And what else do we call the big green fish?" asked Daniella, pointing to the Mahi-Mahi.

Sandy grinned and shrugged up her shoulders. "Delicious?"

"And what else do we call it?"

"Dolphin!" cried Madeline, hopping up and down in excitement. "Mr. Donald caught a dolphin!"

"We also call them Mahi-Mahi," said Daniella.

"What a silly name," scolded Sandy, then she brightened. "Miss Nicoletta is going to catch a sailor fish!"

"Sailing fish!" Madeline inferred.

Bitty crossed her arms and said with authority, "My momma calls them Billy Fish and she catches them all the time, right momma?"

"I'm staying out of this." Sunny raised her hands and backed away as Daniella chuckled.

Paul and Stan, who just finished setting up the downriggers, stepped up to the conversation. Paul smiled and said, "We have deep, intellectual discussions like this all the time aboard Andi's Dream, but no matter what you call them, we're headed out to catch some sail fish. Care to join us?"

"You're going to catch sailfish from this big old aircraft carrier?"

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"This is Daniella G out on the Big Blue Sea coming to you from the fantail of HMS Andi's Dream. The owners of this seventy-two-foot-long luxury yacht tell me that this is also a fishing machine, and it's decked out nicely with live wells, fish bins below the deck to ice your catch, downriggers, and look at this cleaning station! Once you clean and fillet your catch, you raise the work surface and there's a grill underneath. You can do it all right here - catch, clean, cook!"

"Not only is this carnival cruise ship equipped with all the hardware you'll ever need, but we also have an entire squad of girl anglers ready to fight some bill fish. You've met Bitty, Sandy, and Madeline. Let's meet their moms. Sunny, we know a bit about your history as a fisherman's wife and an amazing fisher in your own right. How do you encourage Bitty in the sport?"

"She need no encouragement, since she was first able to stand on moving deck she have wanted to fish. Bitty is always there to help when she on the boat and her dad or I fishing. Very smart girl when choosing bait or lure."

"Andi, how about you? What is your history in the sport? And what do you do to encourage the twins?"

Andi shook her head. "To be honest, this morning was the first time I've even actually watched a fish being caught. I've never held a fishing rod in my hand before, so I'm here to learn. As for the girls, this is the first time for them too. They've been handling bait fish this entire trip and are loving it. But it's time to learn. We have this big old boat, and we have a pond full of fish on our farm back home."

"Well, your girls are on their way to a great start in the sport. What about you Macy? How familiar with fishing are you?"

"I grew up in a family of fishermen in the Québecois village of Sainte Anne de la Pérade, ice fishing for tomcod all winter long and fishing for Atlantic Cod all summer long. I did not like the cold or the cod, so I moved on to modeling and school. Since I married John, Paul's brother, we have been down here fishing every winter for the past 6 or 7 years. Sport fishing in Florida is so much more fun than chipping holes in the ice. I personally like fishing for cobia, but you can't beat the fight you get out of an amberjack."

"Sweet!" Clearly Daniella did not expect that answer out of the beautiful, leggy model. To be honest, Daniella expected to hear, "Ewwww, fish? Ick!" She turned to Miss Nicoletta, "And you, Judge Atherton?"

"You know what they say, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you get him out of your hair every weekend. That goes for us women, too. I wanted nothing to do with fishing, except maybe eating them. But once Donald got me hooked on snook, that's all I want to do anymore... sort of," she added with a grin.

"Ain't that the truth!" Snook being one of Daniella's favorite fish to catch.

<><><><><>

Soon they were dashing out to sea. Andi's Dream was bounding gracefully over the waves as the twins told Miss Daniella about how they "used to live in the mountains" but now they "live in the sea." Daniella watched as Stan turned the reins of Andi's Dream to Andi as they approached the fishing grounds. There were three big multi-function-displays constantly feeding the captain information on location/heading/depth to bottom, and also cameras to the engine room, salon, and anchor. Another valuable function was fish finder. Every so often Andi would slow the big motor yacht to a crawl and engage the fish finder and peer at the display until she smiled and pointed to a cluster of moving images on the screen. "There they are."

"Aye, you found 'em," agreed Stan.

Andi hopped up and resumed control at the aft helm and leaned over and called out to Yi, Don, Paul, and Miss Nicoletta, telling them they were on the sailfish. Don and Paul swung out the outriggers, then went aft to set out the lures, while Miss Nicoletta and Yi attached their rods to the outriggers. The lures that Don and Paul set out were dozens of plastic squid tethered to what looked like a mobile you would see hanging from a ceiling. They were towed behind the boat and they excited the sail fish. Far to their port side, Daniella's boat, the Danni G, filmed the fishing expedition.

"You handle this boat like a pro. How long have you been a captain?" Danielle turned her camera to Andi.

Andi glanced at her watch. "About an hour. No, seriously, before last week I had never been on a boat in my life, not even on a cruise ship. When we first took this out last Wednesday, Stan and Paul wanted to do some fishing, so Sunny was at the helm. She looked at me and said, 'It's your boat, you drive.' And I did, and it's something I really enjoy. As for fish - I'm still at the stage where I'd rather touch them with a fork."

Laughing, Daniella made her way down to the mezzanine where Bitty, Sandy, and Madeline were lined up, kneeling on the bench seat, looking aft at the fishing cockpit. "Who is going to hook up?" she asked the youngsters.

"Yi!" they all cried.

"You sound pretty sure. Are you sure it's not Miss Nicoletta?"

"No, she's too old."

"What about your mom, Bitty? She's a very good fisher."

"She's not fishing, she's in charge," said Bitty as she sipped her can of cola.

Daniella watched and sure enough, Sunny was telling Yi and Miss Nicoletta what to expect should they get a strike, so she turned to the twins, "What is your dad going to do?"

Sandy looked annoyed. "He's going to go upstairs and get all kissy with mom."

"Happens all the time," added Madeline.

"YouTube GOLD!" thought Daniella.

The wait wasn't long. "I think we have a hit," said Miss Nicoletta, as the reel connected to the starboard outrigger spun crazily.

"Ok, who want it?" asked Sunny.

"I'll take it." Miss Nicoletta stepped up and took the rod and made sure she had a good grip on it, then seating the butt end in the fighting holster she wore, she set the drag. The tension on the line caused the clip on the outrigger to release, and the fish was all hers. Paul and Don set to reeling in the lure spreads and the Danni G moved outward to give the fishers on Andi's Dream room to fight this fish.

"Oh my God, I wasn't ready for this!" exclaimed Miss Nicoletta as she settled into the fighting chair. The fish was obviously much stronger than she was expecting. Taking Sunny's advice, Judge Atherton let the fish take a lot of line in its run for freedom, but all the while she tightened up on the drag. Finally, she started reeling it in, and when she did, she felt a strong vibration coming back on the line.

"He shaking his head," explained Sunny, "he want to run!"

The Judge fought the fish for what seemed like ages, pulling and reeling, pulling and reeling, only to lose whatever victory she had when the fish tried to run and pulled out more line. At one point, she almost gave up. Even though Andi was skillfully backing the yacht toward the fish, it seemed like she would never gain some ground on the fish. Just then, the fish jumped, showing his huge sail and his beautiful blue fighting colors, and the sight gave Miss Nicoletta the willpower to go another round. But after fighting that fish nonstop for ten solid, agonizing minutes more, the retired judge was exhausted. Sweat poured off of her. Her arms were shuddering from the effort. "Get ready to take this, darling," she called to Yi.

Yi peeled off her t-shirt and shorts and stood in the tiniest black string bikini she owned. She stared out at the fish, who leaped again, spinning as it fought against the hook and line. "Alright bitch, come to mama," she muttered as she put on the fighting harness.

"Are you naked fishing?" her mother asked.

"I may not get a chance to wear this again for six months," Yi said, considering her employment in the cold, snow covered north which will start in a few days.

"You not wearing much of anything now," Sunny said, distasteful of her daughter's exhibitionism.

"Mother, please?" agonized Yi as she took the rod and reel from the exhausted judge. At that moment, as if the fish knew what was happening, it gave a mighty yank on the line and nearly pulled Yi over the transom.

"Your boss is right here..." Sunny pointed over to Paul in the starboard corner of the cockpit.

Paul threw up his hands. "I'm staying out of this," he said, shaking his head.

"A wise decision," called out Andi from the flying bridge. Andi, too, had taken off her t-shirt in the heat of the day, but her bikini top was much more modest than Yi's choice. She was standing at the aft helm and facing aft to watch the fight. Stan and Macy were seated at the flying bridge outside dinette sipping cold drinks and enjoying a spectacular view of the fight. Occasionally Stan would offer advice to Andi, but she was smart as a whip and never had to be reminded of advice given previously. She took to manning the helm like a fish to water. Daniella was moving about the boat filming from as many vantage points as she could while her boyfriend Brad and her sister Marissa filmed from alongside in the Danny G.

Yi truly got into the fight and the girls started chanting, encouraging their hero as she fought not only the fish but her mother at the same time. "Yi! Yi! Yi!"

Yi put her foot up on the transom for leverage against the sailfish and pushed back against him and truly felt for the first time the power at the other end of the line. There were a series of repeated hard yanks on the line, and she felt like her shoulders were going to become dislocated from the slamming she received by the sailfish's head shakes.

Suddenly, the sailfish flew into the air astern of the boat. To Yi the moment became suspended in time, she could see the beautiful sail of his dorsal fin fully extended, cobalt blue in the bright Florida sun, his pelvic fins hanging straight down and fully unfurled, his vertical turquoise stripes literally glowed in the brilliant daylight. For Yi, the moment was seared into her mind. She could see the drops of water hang suspended below the fish, glinting in the sunlight. The fish slowly arc downward, pointing that great bill toward a perfect reentry into the warm Atlantic. His magnificent beauty touched her heart, and she wanted to cut the line and let this magnificent creature go free.

But she also wanted to cook him.

Time resumed normal function as soon as the sailfish dove under water, even sound which had become suspended for Yi returned. Now the sound of the purring MAN diesels just below her feet returned, she heard the twins and Bitty trying to determine if the fish were boy or girl (it didn't matter because when they saw the bill they decided it was really a unicorn), and the exclamations of surprise and delight from all those around her.

And the fight resumed. Yi was determined to bring that fish in. She wanted to see him in her hands or in the oven; she did not care which. Next to her, her mom kept up a running litany of advice, keep the rod tip up, not too high, let him take line, now reel it in... Yi and Sunny have a typical mother-daughter relationship, their verbal sparring may seem argumentative to an outsider, but to Yi and Sunny it was verbal love taps. When it came to fishing, Yi always deferred to her mom. Dad may be the captain, but mom was the true angler in the family. Sunny has caught literally scores of Florida sailfish, so why not listen to the expert?

Again, the fish took to the air. This time, he was so much closer to the boat than what Yi expected. He was even more magnificent than she remembered from his previous leap, his colors so much more beautiful and striking. His sail was iridescent, and his eye was locked on to her. He knew who was mastering him. Then splash! He was back underwater.

"He must like you bikini," said Sunny, "he come back for another look."

Yi started laughing and almost lost her grip on the rod, "Yeah, typical guy," she replied, which caused her mom to laugh and Daniella to think "YouTube GOLD!"

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the great fish was easily seen from the fishing cockpit. Andi did a masterful job handling the big yacht, keeping the sailfish astern on the port side as Yi drew it closer and closer. Now Yi was feeling the ache as she leaned back and pulled the fish in closer, then lowering the rod quickly and reeling up the slack over and over, pulling and reeling, all the while marveling at the strength and majesty of the fish. Her sun bronzed skin was covered with a glistening sheen of perspiration and she continually talked to the fish; "Come on stud! Come to momma! I just want to take a picture with you!" And as she fought the great fish, Daniella recorded the entire contest from there on Andi's Dream and by her crew on the Danni G.

And as suddenly as it began, it was over. When he neared the boat, the sailfish gave one last, weary fight, then gave up. While Yi's arms shuddered from the effort and her breathing was ragged, she still could draw the sailfish up to the stern of the boat. Andi had taken the props out of gear and was using the stern thrusters to align the boat as Sunny directed. Sunny and Miss Nicoletta stepped out on the swimming deck, crouched down, and held the sailfish tight as Yi joined them. Grabbing the long fragile bill tight as Yi reached in the mouth and extracted the circle hook.

"Smile for the birdie!"

Sunny looked up and saw that the Danny G had pulled in close and the cameras were trained on them. Daniella's boyfriend 'Punkin' had her sister Marissa lined up; their hands full of camera equipment. "Ok, we lift on three, very careful," said Sunny. The three got a good yet gentle grip as Sunny counted.

On "Three!" the fish came up with a few exhausted wriggles, but he gave up as the women lifted him waist high. Yi held the fish with her left hand and hoisted his sail with her right.

"Smile!"

One photograph was perfect, it showed the fish, the three grinning fishermen, right over their heads was the twins and Bitty up in the mezzanine holding up their cans of soda as they shouted "Cheese" and above them on the flying bridge was Andi, Macy, and Daniella holding up their glasses of wine as they shouted "Penis", and right below Andi, Macy, and Daniella on the transom of the flying bridge was the name of the boat, Andi's Dream, in beautiful blue script lettering. Daniella made sure all video and still photos taken were transferred to Andi, but she also sent beautiful, framed prints of the photo to every adult in the frame.

They quickly brought the fish on to the fighting cockpit so everyone could touch the magnificent beast. The twins were ecstatic that they could finally touch a unicorn. "Honey," said Yi, "If this were a unicorn, there is no way I could touch it."

"Why?" asked Madeline almost tearfully.

Before Yi could answer, Paul called out, "Back in the water!" He had been looking at his watch and didn't want to see the beautiful sailfish out of the water for a second longer than three minutes. "Mr. Unicorn" was gently carried back to the swimming deck and lowered into the water. They maneuvered the fish along the port side of the fishing cockpit and Stan put the boat in gear and started moving forward gently. Miss Nicoletta held the bill and wagged the fish's head side to side to get the water moving across his gills. Soon he started wagging on his own. With an impatient wiggle, he broke free and swam gently alongside Andi's Dream for a few moments, then with a powerful kick of his tail, he disappeared into the blue depths.

Leaning over the transom, the twins watched the whole release. "He was really a unicorn," said Sandy.

Madeline nodded her head in agreement. "Yi was just fooling us."

<><><><><> ֎ <><><><><>

"This is Daniella G on the deep blue sea. You just saw that gnarly sailfish catch on this luxury liner. Now Brad, Marissa, and myself have been invited to dinner here on the battleship USS Andi's Dream. Normally, Brad and I will be doing the cooking."

Brad leaned into the frame. "What she means is that I'll be doing the cooking, we'll both be doing the eating."

"True enough, but tonight the top chef on this troop ship will be doing the cooking and cleaning. This is the girl that helped land that monster sailfish, Yi-jin Carlson. Yi, what are we having for dinner tonight?"

Yi opened the port fishbin and showed the day's catch. "Boss-man Dr. Paul and his buddy Don caught these monsters, and the twins and my little sister caught this nice sheepshead. The girls get the sheepshead tomorrow for dinner, the Mahi-Mahi is going home with the Athertons so..." Yi hoisted out the Wahoo and said, "I'm thinking we're going to have tacos for dinner tonight."

"TACOS!" shouted the children, and all three raced down to the cockpit to watch. Yi taught her fan club (Sandy, Madeline, Bitty, Andi, and Macy) how to clean and fillet the wahoo that Paul caught earlier in the day.

"That's my poppa's pointy fish!" Madeline informed Daniella.

Andi expected the twins to be grossed out by the process, but they were fascinated as they watched Yi make a long cut down the backbone, then slowly peal back the meat as she deftly separated the meat from the body. By the time Yi was finished with the Wahoo, the twins said that they were ready to clean their own pointy fish and they both wanted a knife set of their very own.

Once the fish was filleted and the remainders given to Mr. Unicorn for his dinner (which is what Yi told the twins as she tossed the remains of the carcass over the side) Yi made wahoo sashimi for an appetizer, with wahoo tacos and sesame seared wahoo steak with pineapple chutney for the main course.

"My Lord Yi, that was incredible," said Don Atherton after dinner, "Are you positive that you won't come to work for us?"

Yi jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward Paul, who was in the galley finishing up scrubbing a saucepan that Yi had used to prepare dinner. "Are either of you going to be doing dishes for me?"

"Oh, hell no."

"My words exactly." Yi winked and set out cups of raspberry sorbet for dessert.

After dinner, Daniella copied all the video and still pictures they shot on to Paul's 3 TB data drive, then she, her boyfriend Brad, and her sister Marissa left on the Danny G back to Florida. The sun was just below the horizon as they pulled into the channel leading to Nisi Arcadia. The twins were already asleep, and they missed watching their mom at the helm ease Andi's dream to the dock.