The Whiskey Sea by Ann Howard Creel Read Free Book Online

her lap. Drawing them into fists, she turned to look at him. The idea had been forming over the past two weeks, but she had not yet committed it to words. “I want you to teach me about boat engines.”
    He gazed at her with an eager but baffled expression. “Boat engines?”
    She pulled in a deep breath. “Why, when you were making a good living working on engines, did you have to go and buy Silver’s boat?” She clamped her mouth shut. She had to get the irritable edge out of her voice. Desperation had made her shrill.
    He seemed to ponder her question. “I don’t want to work on other people’s boats my whole life. I want to work on my own. I want to have my own. I’d rather be on the water than on the docks all day long.”
    She could’ve said she’d wished for the same thing, but that he and Silver had squashed her plans. Truth was Silver would’ve found someone to buy the boat no matter what, though. Once he’d set his mind to something, there was no changing it.
    Hicks said, “I’m still going to work on engines, too. Especially in the winter.”
    A gust of sudden wind leaned all the sailboat masts in the same direction. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, her mouth dry.
    Slowly he said, “OK.”
    Swallowing, she held up her chin. “I want to learn how to work on all these boats. I want to become the best mechanic out here, second only to you.” Frieda admired her idea more and more every day since it had first sparked to mind. She’d always been manually inclined, she liked to figure out how things fit together and functioned, and working on boats would keep her down on the docks. She could make money within reach of the waters.
    “Why do you want to work on engines?”
    “They’re boat engines. And I love boats. It’s a good skill to have, plus it’ll keep me down here near the water, where I belong. I’ve always liked to figure out how things work, especially powerful things. Why not boat engines?”
    Hicks rubbed his chin, his day-old stubble beginning to show. “I don’t know how the men out here would take to a lady mechanic.”
    “If I know what I’m doing, they won’t care if I’m a monkey.”
    He smiled. He had the smile of someone who didn’t take anything people said to him too seriously, as if life and everything he expected from it were close to cheerful.
    Frieda found it frustrating. “You got my boat. The way I see it, you owe me something in return.”
    “I bought the boat fair and square.”
    “Let’s not get into what else you thought you were buying.”
    Hicks looked down, and she could swear he was blushing. Good. He should feel ashamed about that part of the deal. She was not and had never been for sale. Even the idea of that made her cringe, because her mother had sold herself. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall and listened to the conversation between Hicks and Silver. Based on the kind of men they were, Frieda figured that the arrangement had probably never been said aloud, only inferred, and yet fully understood.
    Hicks composed himself a moment later and asked, “What do you want me to do?”
    Frieda’s hands clenched. “Give me your knowledge, give me lessons. Let me be your apprentice.”
    He waited a few moments, as if letting the idea roll around inside his head. “You’d be working with all these watermen down here. I didn’t think you cared for them.”
    Truth was she sometimes worried each one around or over the age of forty could be her father or Bea’s, but she always brushed those thoughts aside. She didn’t want to know. “I don’t like them. But I’ll deal with it. I’ll take their money for honest work.”
    “It’s dirty work,” Hicks said.
    She laughed. Everything down here could be considered dirty work, and yet she loved it. Even the smell of dead fish, the heat in summer, the freezes in winter, the shabby old boats. The place had character. Where else did she belong? She had not liked school, had never