Death Echo

did. The problem was, she couldn’t tell which ones until it was too late to do much but stagger on through.
    â€œDifferent when the water is choppy,” Mac said cheerfully as he climbed up from the lower deck.
    Emma’s hands were clenched around the wheel. She stood in front of it, stiff-legged, her face tense.
    â€œA lot more motion,” she agreed curtly.
    â€œEver ride a horse with a western saddle?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMove with the boat as you would a horse,” Mac said. “Loosen your knees. Let your spine flex. Fighting against the motion just tires you out.”
    She looked at him. He was relaxed, balanced, his legs apart and his knees loose.
    He looked good. Edible, even.
    Blackbird took advantage of her lack of attention. The bow slid off the heading, pushed by the quartering waves.
    â€œYou’d better grab it,” Mac said.
    He moved closer as he took a cracker and a slice of cheese from the plate by the pilot station.
    Emma turned the wheel too hard. She knew it even before the boat’s bow went past centerline.
    â€œDamn,” she said under her breath as she swung the wheel hard the other way.
    Too far.
    Again.
    â€œGive the helm a chance to respond before you crank on the wheel again,” he suggested.
    â€œI know,” she said, remembering his instructions when she took the wheel on and off during the run to Nanaimo. “I’m just not doing it. The choppy water makes everything different.”
    â€œRelax. Have a cracker.”
    He fed one to her before she could object.
    She chewed through the cracker and cheese, forced herself to slow down, and handled the helm more gently. To her relief, the boat responded. The motion evened out.
    â€œGood,” he said. “Now, look at the compass. Try to steer a course of 340 degrees.”
    She studied the compass dial beneath its glass dome and identified the 340-degree mark. It danced slowly with each motion. She tried to make tiny corrections on the helm to keep the alignment exact.
    â€œRemember what I told you before?” he asked calmly, picking up another cracker. “Five degrees on either side is fine. It all evens out on the water. Blackbird isn’t suspended like a race car, where every little twitch from the driver results in a big change in the car’s direction.”
    Emma loosened her grip on the wheel and eased the tension from her shoulders and legs. She quickly realized that if she didn’t try to anticipate every little motion of the boat, she felt more relaxed.
    Not more in control, just less unhappy about it.
    â€œCheck the compass heading from time to time and save your real attention for watching the water ahead,” Mac said. “You can’t avoid the waves, but you can dodge rafts of seaweed and logs.”
    â€œYikes.” Emma narrowed her eyes and stared out at the water.
    â€œI’d forgotten about the logs.”
    â€œSeaweed will shut down your cooling system real quick. Hot engines freeze up. Bad luck all around.”
    â€œGod, Mac. All the sweet talk. Don’t know if I can take it.”
    Smiling, he crunched into another cracker, this time with a slice of sausage and cheese.
    As water rolled on beneath the hull, Blackbird and Emma reached a wordless understanding. She didn’t crawl all over the controls and the boat settled into doing what caused the least motion while still sticking to a route that would lead eventually to Campbell River. Like a horse trained to the western style of riding, Blackbird responded best to a light hand on the reins.
    Mac reduced the plate of food to random crumbs before he looked up. “Did you eat?”
    â€œThe cracker you fed me.”
    He stepped over to the galley, sliced, assembled, and threw in some potato chips and cookies for variety. Celery tasted fine when you’d been out on the water for a week and fresh greens had been scarce. But celery the first day of a trip? Not if he had a choice.
    Mac went back to stand next to Emma and started feeding her crackers and cheese. He told himself that there was nothing sexy about giving a woman food from his fingers. Nothing sexy about watching her tongue lick away crumbs. Nothing sexy about the accidental touch of her lips. Nothing…
    The hell with it.
    He’d never been real good at lying to himself.
    â€œMac?”
    â€œYeah?” he asked absently, watching her tongue.
    â€œThis marked-off area…” She