Catherine shook her head. "So, that's why the corn flakes references the other day?"

"Yeah, Doctor Kellogg was a big part of the beginning of the entire horrid mess."

"God, that's heavy shit. Time for lighter stuff for a while."

"Sorry to dump this on you, but it's a part of —"

"Don't be sorry, Lorne. You need to move through it — to get rid of it." She closed her MacBook, set it down and turned to lay her head on his chest and kiss his neck. "You need to do this."

"Yeah, a bit at a time, it's not so bad this way. I wasn't going to go into the whole circumcision thing. Only the stitching-up with silver wire."

"That was in the Kellogg excerpt, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. The first thing Connolly did to me."

"You want to continue?"

"No... Let's stop and enjoy each other, enjoy the sail." 

"Horseshoe Bay's the other side of that point, isn't it?"

"And we'll be in the ferry lanes shortly. The inbound from Nanaimo is in our port quarter." Lorne pointed to it, then glanced at the deck clock. "The outbound should be leaving in the next few minutes." He checked the plotter. "We're privileged to both because of the sails, but we'll fall off to starboard to keep clear anyway."

"Dad does that too. Give the big guys an easier time." Catherine pointed to the small sailboats ahead. "Want to bet they're going to force the ferries to alter?"

"Unfair bet. You need to give me ten to one on that one; better twenty to one." He laughed. "I'm always amused it's the smallest boats that most often do it."

"Dad says they're trying to show how macho they are." She laughed. "Small pricks pretending to be big pricks. He says that also about the yahoo drivers with their jacked-up pickup trucks." She reached down his thigh and giggled. "Guess you don't have to pretend."

Lorne moved into her hand, both voluntarily and involuntarily, kissed the top of her head and held her closer to his chest. "Have I told you recently I love you?"

"You haven't stopped showing me since we started this date. Do you realise we're still on our first date?"

"Never want it to end."

"Funny, thinking about it now — Cynthia. She sat us together at the La Luce dinner." She lifted her head to look at him.

"Hunh?" He stared at her with widening eyes and a growing smile. "Yeah, you're right. You think she was playing matchmaker? She's known for a long I had no interest in her."

"It'll come out at lunch on Friday, I'm sure."

"Yeah." He glanced at the chartplotter. "We need to fall off for the ferries. Let me show you how to adjust the wind vane."

Catherine gave him a little squeeze then rose to her feet. He led her to the transom. "We need to fall-off only fifteen degrees or so to parallel the ferry lane. On small changes like this, I prefer to use the vane rather than the helm."

"I've seen vane steering before, but never up close. Dad uses an electric autopilot."

"Tastevin has one of those also, but I prefer the vane. It's more organic, in tune with nature." He put his hand on the loop of line. "This is the adjusting line. Watch the vane when I pull it."

He gave the line a pull. "Each length between blocks is about three degrees."

She watched the vane swivel a few degrees. He pulled four more lengths. "The right side of the loop turns us to starboard. Now we ease the sails and fine-tune. Simple."

As the boat slowly swung to starboard, she nodded. "That's so simple. Even I could do that." She giggled, then watched him bark the main sheet around its winch drum, and do the same with the genoa sheet.

He looked up at the sails, checked the ship's head and nodded. "Good, we'll let her settle in on this for a couple of minutes, then adjust if needed. Seems pretty good now as she is."

Two minutes later, after taking a turn on the genoa sheet and easing the main outhaul a bit, they returned to the settee. "A minor trim or two should take us to Loins Bay before we need to tack. Six miles — an hour and a half. It's five to noon, we'll catch the beginning of the squamish by the time we get there."

"Squamish? I know the town and the Chief — Dad talked a lot about climbing on the Squamish Chief. How does that help us with sailing?"

"The town is named after the Squamish people who've lived there for millennia. Their legends say they come from the Mother of the Wind. Nearly every afternoon, strong winds fall down the canyon from the mountains. Cold air descends from the glaciers and snowfields of the Tantalus Range, the Garibaldi peaks and the areas around Whistler, and blow out Howe Sound to the Straits. In the winter, the winds can be violent; in the summer, they make for wonderful sailing."

"How strong are they this time of the year?"

"With these conditions..." He looked up at the sky and around the rim of mountains. "We'll see around twenty knots, maybe twenty-five. Farther up the sound, they'll see thirty and more. The windsurfers and kite surfers love that area."

"I should fix lunch for us so we can finish it while we're still on this gentle course. What would you like to eat?"

"You."

"I know that. Besides me?"

"There's lots of fresh fruit. How about a big fruit salad and yoghurt? I'm sure Molly's going to try to stuff us tonight."

"Sounds great. To drink?"

"You like rooibos?"

"Love it."

"Tin box in the cupboard above the... Wait, you take the watch. I'll go put lunch together."

Catherine smiled, then started crying, still smiling. She collapsed onto him, kissing anything of him her lips could reach. "God! You are... You're a god... My god. Nathan would never let me do anything unless it had to do with cleaning, cooking or lying there as his fuck hole."

"But you appeared happy together."

"On the outside, yes. I'm a great actress. But inside... Besides you, Nathan's the only one I've been intimate with, and I accepted him and his behaviour as reality." She shuddered and wiped her tears. "I've lived vicariously through my novels, created a fantasy perfection and tried to live it with no idea reality could be this sublime."

"We're beyond the fantasy now. Both of us." He leaned and kissed her. "Take the watch; I'll go below and fix lunch."