And the Sea Will Tell Read Online Free

wrinkle slightly. Her liquid brown eyes reflected happiness, love, hurt, or fear with vivid clarity. As a child, Muff found she could never get away with fibbing—her mother always read the truth in her eyes. More reserved than Mac, she didn’t take to strangers right away. Muff felt comfortable with people only after she came to know and trust them.
    Now forty-one, Muff was worried about the extra ten to fifteen pounds she carried around her hips these days. Mac had told her again and again to forget it—“I love every curve and every ounce”—but still she was always signing on for the latest fad diet to promise a svelter stern.
    Muff liked watching her husband putter around the boat, as he’d been doing for the better part of this Saturday morning. Those tasks made him a contented man. “Sounds a lot better,” she offered over the purring of the generator engine.
    “The valves were loaded with carbon and the bushings were shot.”
    He shut down the engine and began putting away his tools, carefully wiping each one with a clean cloth, then putting it in its proper place in his toolbox.
    “I’m going shopping,” she said, reaching for her handbag and rummaging inside. She pulled out a stack of coupons she’d clipped from the newspaper. “A market in Chula Vista is advertising green beans at twenty-five cents a can.”
    Muff’s job was to stock the Sea Wind ’s pantry in preparation for their upcoming voyage to the tropics. It was no easy assignment, since Mac wanted to be gone for two years. Some goods she’d already purchased—canned vegetables, fruits, juices, and meats—were stored in the garage of her widowed mother’s home in an older section of San Diego. Also in the garage—kept in a chest freezer—were frozen roasts, chickens, and hams, to be moved to the Sea Wind ’s own freezer just prior to departure. Items taken for granted at home could be impossible to find or outrageously expensive in remote parts of the world.
    Mac took another sip of beer and grinned teasingly. “You’re going to drive thirty miles round-trip to save a few bucks on green beans? You’ll almost burn that much in gas.”
    “We do have a Volkswagen.” Though she smiled back, there was an edge to her words.
    “You all right?”
    “I guess so.” She looked at him with heavy sadness.
    He sat down next to her on a bench seat in the cockpit of the boat.
    “You still don’t want to go.” It was a statement, not a question.
    Muff didn’t respond. Her silence—and those revealing eyes—said it all.
    He placed a consoling hand on her leg. “My offer stands. I mean that.”
    “I don’t want you to go without me.” She rested her head on his broad shoulder, warm from the sun. She was unable to look him in the face.
    “Muff, if you want to stay home, you should.”
    She smiled and shook her head. She knew she could not stay behind. Her place was to be with him.
    “I’d better go before they raise the price on the green beans.” She looked up perkily and planted a kiss on his cheek.
    Mac was not fooled. “Are you coming tonight?” he asked.
    “Where?”
    “Remember? With Marie and Jamie to Hal Horton’s house. He’s the guy who knows all about that island in the Pacific.”
    She tried not to let her disappointment show. She loved their good friends the Jamiesons. Marie was a real character, and Jamie was a sweetheart. They had met back in 1966 when they docked next to each other at Underwood’s Marina. The four of them always had so much fun together. Right now, though, the last thing Muff wanted to do was spend a night hearing about some deserted island Mac had ideas about visiting.
    “We have to leave by six.”
    “Okay. I’ll be back by then.” It would at least be fun to see Marie and Jamie, she had decided.
    Leaving the Sea Wind , Muff walked past boats being readied to shove off for an afternoon sail, the kind of recreational boating she secretly wished would satisfy her husband.
    When she reached