Romance on the Edge 01 - Hooked

around the base of the reel to keep it from somersaulting out of the bow and into the water.
    “Gramps?” Sonya yelled, her heart beating a drum solo in her chest.
    “Dag nabbit!” Gramps said.
    Sonya almost cried in relief. She’d only heard Gramps swear once in her lifetime. When he’d lost his only child, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter. While Sonya would have colored the air over this, his version of an expletive reassured her and Peter.
    “Peter, throw out the anchor,” she hollered, powering down the boat once the reel was secured.
    “We still got a net out. A fish cop sees us anchored, we’ll get written up.”
    “Let ’em.”
    Peter hefted the anchor overboard, and Sonya scrambled from the pilot house to the deck. “Let me see,” she said to Gramps, reaching for his injured arm.
    “I don’t think it’s too bad,” he said. Peter flanked one side while Sonya had his other.
    “Let’s sit you down.” She pulled up the stool they kept on deck for when fishing was slow.
    “Now don’t go treating me like an old man,” Gramps bristled.
    “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She stared into his eyes, letting him know she meant business. “Let me see your arm.”
    With Peter’s help they carefully stripped him of his rain jacket and fishing gloves. His arm was already turning black and blue, but his hand had taken the worst of the blow. It was red and swollen, possibly broken. He put up a blustery front, but Sonya knew he was hurting. They needed to get him to Wanda.
    They couldn’t do that until they pulled in the net. “All right, this is what we are going to do. I’m going to wrap your arm, in case there’s something broken—”
    “I don’t have anything broken.”
    “Doesn’t matter, we’re going to take precautions anyway.” Sonya peeled off her sweatshirt—leaving her in a tank top—and used it as a sling, cradling his arm in the body of the shirt and using the sleeves to tie it around his neck. With that done, and Gramps growing paler by the minute, she and Peter helped him into the pilot house and propped him on the bunk.
    “I don’t want to lay up here like an invalid while you two do all the work,” he complained. The complaint didn’t have his normal fire behind it.
    “When you’re captain, you can order me around. Until that day happens, you’ll listen to me. Peter, let’s round-haul the net in and then you pick while I get us to the Cannery.”
    “Right, Captain.” Peter rushed to follow her orders, which spoke volumes for his worry concerning Gramps. Sonya leveled a narrow look at her grandfather. “Don’t even think of getting off that bunk.”
    “Got it, Captain.” He tried to smile, but the effort fell short.
    Sonya hurried and joined Peter. They round-hauled in silence, thinking of only speed. Once the remaining net was aboard, Peter pulled anchor and Sonya engaged the engines, motoring them to the cannery. She radioed ahead for medical assistance, and then with only a moment’s hesitation, she switched the VHF to the trooper channel and contacted Garrett.
    The steel pin that anchored the reel onto the tracks was in her pocket, sheared in two separate pieces.

    “Well, I have to say this for your grandpa, he’s a much better patient than you are,” Wanda said, joining Peter and Sonya in the waiting room of the Infirmary. “Nothing’s broken. He’d have been better off with it broken. The ligaments and tendons took the brunt of the injury, though I don’t believe anything is torn, just bruised really bad. I’ve splinted his hand—make sure he keeps it on.” She eyed Sonya. “You’re down a crewman for the remainder of the season.”
    This Sonya already figured. She shouldn’t have had him on the boat to begin with. He should be retired, playing golf somewhere warm. Not out here, fighting the waves, the cold, the screw-ups.
    Garrett entered the room like a charging bear. “How is he?” Sonya was taken aback over the height of worry reflected in his eyes. They were usually the color of glacial ice. This morning they resembled blue flames of propane.
    Wanda quickly informed Garrett of what she’d just told Sonya and Peter. “He’ll need to keep his hand elevated with cold packs, fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off. I’ll send him home with pain pills and anti-inflammatories,” Wanda instructed. “Make sure he doesn’t over do.” She turned to go, and then turned back. “Since you’re here, Sonya, I want to check your stitches.