St. Vincent Voyage
"Cruise ship captain Clarissa has sailed the Caribbean for twenty years, but when new engineer Miguel joins her crew, she charts a course for waters she's never explored before."
Captain Clarissa Baptiste ran the tightest ship in the Caribbean. Twenty years, not one incident, not one complaint.
Then Miguel transferred to her engineering crew.
Younger. Eager. Looking at her with eyes that saw woman, not just captain.
"Eyes on yuh work, engineer," she warned.
"Yes, Captain. But after work?"
"After work is still my ship."
"And off the ship?"
She had no answer for that.
Port day in St. Vincent. Her home island. She found him on the dock.
"Why yuh here?" she demanded.
"Wanted to see where you come from." He shrugged. "Understand you better."
"Yuh understand I could have yuh transferred?"
"You could. But yuh won't."
"Why not?"
"Because yuh looking at mi the same way mi looking at yuh."
She showed him the island. Her family's land. The schools she built with her captain's salary.
"Yuh incredible," he said.
"Mi just doing mi job. Giving back."
"Yuh incredible at that too. But also..." He touched her face. "Just incredible."
She kissed him with twenty years of loneliness behind it.
That night, in a family cottage no crew ever saw, she let him captain her.
"Yes! Miguel! Right there!"
Her thick body finally surrendering command, finally being held, finally feeling pleasure beyond duty.
"Don't stop! Mi need this voyage!"
The crew never knew. The company never suspected.
But Captain Baptiste smiled more. Laughed more. Sailed differently.
"You're in love," her first mate observed.
"Mi in command," she corrected.
But yes. Love too.
Miguel made chief engineer.
Clarissa made admiral.
They married in St. Vincent, on her family's land.
The Caribbean knows them as the power couple of the seas.
What happens in the captain's quarters?
That's classified.
Voyage eternal.