K9 Life Book One
K9 Life Book One
Kira Lee Scott
Well, for Pete’s sake, how did I get myself into this? I thought .
Of course, what I should be asking is how did I get this into myself?
Milo tugged rearward again, testing our connection to see how stuck we were, as if that wasn’t glaringly obvious.
I had to admit, though, that last pull wasn’t bad at all.
On the contrary…
Maybe I should start at the beginning, well, at least to the part that started me down the road to this predicament.
Months earlier…
“So things are going pretty good with us, right?” he asked.
The sweat had yet to dry, and already he was starting with the questions.
“No, Milo,” I said, already edging towards exasperation. “I’m sorry, but I’ve grown well and truly bored with you, and this was just a goodbye fuck.”
I didn’t really mind the questions, since they did, as a rule, generally lead somewhere.
Eventually...
But sometimes I couldn’t resist using them against him.
“Don’t forget to leave the extra key to the dock gate on your way out, and would you be a dear and take the bag of garbage in the cockpit to the dumpster?”
“Dammit, Ki!” he grumped back, “Would you be serious for a minute? I’m trying to ask you an important question here.”
Raising on one elbow, he showed me he was very serious with an exaggerated scowl.
“Well, this is obviously more important than I thought it was if you’re willing to lie there making faces at me.” Rolling back toward him, I reached out and tweaked his nipple to show he had my attention.
Later, after a series of brutal attacks, counter-attacks, truces, peace negotiations, and war reparations, we came back to the subject that was currently foremost on his mind.
“I think we should move in together.”
“Oh, you do, huh?” Here I thought the war was over, and now he drops a bomb on me?
“Milo, that’s sweet, but I’ll be sailing off into the sunset any week now. I have a hard time imagining you leaving all this behind and coming with me since you’ve lived here all your life.”
“I want to see the world with you, Ki. You’ve made Savannah seem very small now.”
“It would be much easier to just pay for the travel channel, Milo. Seriously, sweetheart, you don’t know what you’re asking.”
I could see I needed to exercise caution here. I had run aground on the old romance reef twice before in other relationships, and both times it hadn’t worked out well for me.
At twenty-nine, I needed to think a little more about my needs.
“Besides, you have rental properties to take care of here.”
“I’ll hire a property manager. Hell, I’ll sell one of the rental units and that would fund us cruising for at least a couple of years and maybe buy us a bigger boat.” He countered.
He actually looked like he was getting kind of excited at the thought. Better cut him off at the knees now.
He’d thank me later.
“Easy there, cowboy! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. I happen to love Jezebelle, and if we end up making a life together or killing each other, I don’t think a few more feet of boat is going to make a real difference!”
What I wasn’t saying was that if somewhere down the road we parted company, I was not going to be the one buying a bus ticket back home.
I had to admit, though, Milo had a lot of pluses going for him in this discussion.
On the upside, he was reasonably intelligent, well-mannered when required, delightfully raunchy when we were alone, financially solvent, and would go down on me at the drop of a hat. He was so into his oral sorcery that if I got in a hurry to get right to the ol’ in and out, it would throw him off his “A” game. And once I’d woken up a few times to find him happily camped out between my thighs, well… A gal could get addicted to those wakeup calls.
Lastly, there’s the matter of his package or tackle or whatever the hell you want to call the damn thing.
Wait a minute, maybe we need to go a little further back so you have a better idea of who I was, or at least who I wanted to be.
My name is Kira and I live on a sailboat named Jezebelle.
Six months ago, I’d left Dania Beach heading north on the Atlantic ICW.
Look it up, I’ll wait…
Back already?
Okay, continuing right along. I had my boat full of provisions, fuel, and water, a $4ooo cruise kitty, and a dream of doing what is referred to in the boat community as 'The Great Loop'.
Fifty-five hundred miles of interconnected inland waterway cruising through the cities, swamps, and peaceful backwaters of Americana.
I could go on and on about how difficult it had been to provision for the first section of the journey, or prepping Jez to ensure she made it without hiccups, or the days of route planning, but to be honest, the hardest part of leaving was saying goodbye to my youngest sister, Harriet.
She stood at the end of the dock in cutoff shorts and one of my old college hoodies, arms wrapped around herself like she was cold even though it was eighty-five degrees and humid. Eight years younger than me and still looked sixteen when she smiled. Too curious. Too trusting. Too much like me at that age, which scared the hell out of me.
In fact, she was the only person who knew all my darkest secrets and still loved me. Even Shells, our middle sister, and a fellow sailor was unaware of some of the mischief I’d gotten up to over the years, as was Pete, the first born and a recalcitrant troglodyte, only had suspicions, as far as I know.
"You sure you don't want me to come with you for the first leg?" Harriet asked for the third time.
I hugged her so hard I felt her ribs. "You'd get seasick five miles out and spend the rest of the trip puking over the rail while I try to explain to Billy why his girlfriend smells like bilge water."
She laughed, but it was thin, forced.
"Promise you'll call. Every week. And send pictures of sunsets. And don't fuck any creepy dockhands unless they have references."
I pulled back, thumbed the tear off her cheek. "I promise. And you stay out of trouble. Let Billy be the hero if you need saving. Don't go looking for dragons to slay on your own."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm not you, Kira. Besides, Stanley will protect me…" Her grin at the mention of her giant pet tortoise was infectious.
"Yeah," I said softly. "That's what worries me."
SanSan, her best friend since third grade, stood beside her, waving like this was just another weekend trip. I hugged them both, climbed aboard, started the engine, and motored out of the slip without looking back because if I looked back I'd cry like a child.
The first three days were magic. Clear water, steady breeze, dolphins riding the bow wave. I sang off-key to the radio, ate peanut butter straight from the jar, slept under the stars in the cockpit when the cabin felt too small for all the joy inside me.
Then Jezebelle started falling apart.
By the time I’d reached Savannah, Jezebelle had blown out her mainsail like an overstressed weightlifter’s shorts, and her diesel engine had suddenly decided it needed an unexpected and damn expensive vacation.
I got lucky and found a second-hand sail for less than an arm and leg, but the local engine necromancer hit me with a bill that literally made me feel lightheaded.
He must have thought he had me on the ropes because he then offered to cut the bill by twenty percent in exchange for a couple of hours together in the V-berth. I was considering it, but figured no one sold a body wash that would ever make me feel clean afterwards.
Three minutes later, I had him paid with the bulk of my stash and gave him the bum rush off my boat. My adventure was now on hold till I could find gainful employment to rebuild the cruising kitty.
Enter Milo Buchanan.
I’d just stepped off of Jez and was heading up the dock to find temporary work when I noticed a great hulking bear of a man wandering slowly up the dock I was tied up on. He had just come onto B pier and was taking his time checking out the boats as he came towards me. Soon enough, it became ...