Prologue
Eddie Maine was a great musician but Elizabeth once again rolled her eyes when his mother and grandfather once again interrupted a performance. Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth looked at her cameraman, Milo, and gave a sharp tilt of her head to the left indicating she was headed to the Winnebago. She didn't need to tell Milo to keep filming. He knew what he was supposed to do.
Once in their traveling office and home, Elizabeth hit speed dial and flopped down with a huff into one of the leather captains chairs. Peeling off her four inch heels, she lifted one foot and started massaging it as the other slid up the dashboard to rest on top of it.
"Hey Lulu," Elizabeth said as soon as she heard the perky assistant to the production company's CEO. "Is Jax in? I really need to talk with him."
"Elizabeth, of course Jax is in. He's ALWAYS in which means I'm ALWAYS in."
Elizabeth laughed as she lifted her leg to cross her feet at the ankles and lean back into the chair. "So, no Dante lately I take it."
"No, and it's rather frustrating." The younger woman complained.
"Well, I'm sorry I suggested you for the job then." Elizabeth countered as she looked out the windshield only to see Milo quickly following Eddie Maine and his crazy, eccentric relatives.
"OH NO! Elizabeth, I love this job. I thank you and God every day for giving me this opportunity. I just…well it seems like now that Dante and I have…" she clears her throat "it seems like that is when Jax wants to work more."
Giggling at the scenes outside as well as her friend who was like a little sister to her, she turned and walked back to the table where her laptop sat open.
"Honey, it just seems that way now because you want to spend twenty-four-seven with Dante. Jax has always pulled long hours and you've always been able to juggle that and dating. You are just…frustrated right now because you want to be in two places at once." Looking off she smiled "I remember those days."
"I still don't see why you and my brother didn't work out." Elizabeth could literally hear Lulu's pout. "You two were so perfect together."
"Lulu, people change. People grow apart. Once we both graduated from college, Lucky and I were…different."
"But you were high school sweethearts. You…"
Interrupting she tersely said "Is Jax in? I'm in a time crunch."
She didn't need to hear from yet another person who watched Elizabeth and Lucky grow up how perfect they were. She didn't need to hear how she broke his heart when she turned down his proposal. Her grandmother, her brother, his parents – everyone felt the need on a weekly basis to remind her how she'd ruined her life breaking up with Lucky.
Then, of course, there was Lucky Spencer himself. The guy was relentless. A glutton. And she couldn't escape him. Why he had to get a job at Jasper Productions six months after they graduated from Colorado University and she turned down his Graduation Dinner proposal in front of their whole family was beyond her.
Well his whole family. As expected, her parents could not be bothered with something as trivial as their youngest child graduating from college. Her Grams and her brother were so proud of her. Even her older sister called from Johns Hopkins to tell her how excited she was to have a little sister who was going to work with famous people and be a big time producer. But good ole Jeff and Carolyn Webber were a no show. Ever since she was little they weren't around but, once she announced her major in Cinematography, they hadn't spoken to her since.
Oh, they paid the tuition. No child of theirs was going to be a college drop out. However, the fact that she didn't go into the family business of medicine was a black mark on the Webber and Hardy names and since the day she told them on a rare visit home from the African jungles, she was outcast as the black sheep.
It hurt her more than she would ever admit but Elizabeth had dreams and asking an old smelly man to turn his head and cough or making a little girl cry from a needle was not her idea of living the dream.
"Elizabeth, how's it going down in the Bayou?" Jasper Jacks accent brought her out of her thoughts and caused her to sit up straighter.
"Uh…I found the angle we needed." She puffed her chest out proudly. "It's not about Eddie Maine and his music and the New Orleans music scene. It's his whole life. His family. That's where the story is. With focus on him and his family, we still have the musical aspect since his wife and her best friend own L&B Records. But he's really Ned Ashton. Son of Tracy Quartermaine. He's part of one of the oldest and richest families in New Orleans. ELQ is a huge conglomerate and the story is how this family staying here and pumping life back into the city as well as its culture is reviving the most devastated city after Katrina."
"Eddie Maine is Ned Ashton?" Jax said in astonishment. "Ned Ashton, the Vice President of ELQ?"
"Yep" she retorted.
"How in the hell did Scotty miss that?" Jax was starting to sound angry.
Never one to hold her tongue, Elizabeth replied honestly, "Scott Baldwin is a has been Jax. He's like a hundred years old in this industry."
"Elizabeth, he's only about twenty years older than me." Her boss warned.
"I don't mean actual age. This guy is old as in Old School. He's The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet and your company is…well…Deadliest Encounters. He doesn't look past what's on the page. Your idea was The Music Scene in New Orleans and that's all he focused on. Shoot, I could give you more. Actually…" she hit the send button with a tap of her finger "My proposal for this show should be hitting…your…in…box…now"
Jasper Jacks sat up and squinted at his computer monitor and smiled when the telltale jingle sounded and a new email popped up from .
The mention of what is considered the very first Reality TV show from the nineteen fifties and his most successful show about crab fishermen in the Bearing Sea was like comparing American football to synchronized swimming. They might both be considered sports but not one thing about them were similar. The humor wasn't lost on Jax that this illustration was a metaphor to comparing Scott Baldwin himself to his new up and coming "star" producer, Elizabeth Webber.
Hiring her was the best decision he'd made since moving into the booming market of reality television. Although he and Scotty were great friends and he valued and trusted Scotty's input, it was time to bring the older producer in to work in the corporate offices with him. He just didn't have what it took anymore to create quality TV. It was time to force him into the business side of his company. Kind of like putting your racehorse out to pasture. He can no longer race but he's not necessarily glue yet.
"Okay, I'll look over this and get back to you. If I like it, which I'm sure I will…"
"You always do." She said self assuredly with a shake of her head.
She was still held by his leash. Her boss always liked her ideas but never gave her free reign to simply put her ideas into effect without him running her through her paces first. She didn't mind. She knew she was still so young. At twenty-five she knew she had a lot to prove. Yet each and every time, he liked her ideas, half the time put someone else in charge of the changes and patted her on the back for a job well done.
But she was ready to take on seeing something like this from start to finish. She wanted her own project. Not someone else's failing project. She was ready to spread her wings. But getting Jasper Jacks to let her fly was still an unrealized dream.
"I know you're ready Elizabeth." Jax sounded aggravated by her disruption.
"I'm sorry Mr. Jacks. I can't believe I said that out loud. I didn't mean any disrespect." Elizabeth sputtered. She had never been so callous with her boss. "I…"
"Elizabeth" Jax's tone hushed her. "I know you are frustrated. You are ready for a project of your own. I keep asking you to sweep up after others and you're right. I just…You're so young Elizabeth. If you fail, they'll eat you alive."
"I know"
"Listen, I've…I've been kicking something around with Diane, Alexis and Patrick. Stay there, keep working and…I'll look over this and get back with you today."
"Yes sir, Mr. Jacks. Don't worry about Milo and me. We've got this. And again, I'm sorry for what I said."
"Elizabeth, never apologize for your ability or your drive. You know those are your best qualities. You're talented and it shows in everything you do. Just…let me catch up with you. I might know what I'm doing too."
Elizabeth smiled at that. Jasper Jacks was the best boss. She knew he was grooming her to become a name that everyone revered. She was just impatient.
"And how many times have I told you to call me Jax. When you call me Mr. Jacks I feel like…like…I'm a hundred years old." He laughed and she laughed with him. "Now, why don't you send me about thirty-eight minutes with Mac's narration. Show me the transition show we're about to make since I always like what you do."
"You want me to go ahead and edit and shoot?"
"Yep, put it in the can Elizabeth. By the time you're done, I'll have something else for you."
"Yes SIR. Thank you sir! You won't be sorry. I'll make you proud. This show is going to be a hit by Christmas. You'll have everyone in the country on their couch every Thursday night watching just like you have everyone doing so on Tuesdays."
"That's what I like to hear. I'll talk to you soon."
Elizabeth hung up the phone just as Milo came in red faced and a little disheveled.
"MILO!" Elizabeth shouted as she leapt at her friend and longtime cameraman.
Milo Giambeti caught her easily in his arms and spun her around. He didn't know why she was so excited but when Elizabeth Webber was happy like this, the whole world around her couldn't help but smile and Milo was no exception. She was the little sister he and his brother Max never had. In the four years he'd worked with her at Jasper Productions, she had always been his favorite. And because they worked so well together, Jax let him work solely with her for the past two and a half years.
It helped that his brother Max was shtupping Jax's favorite executive.
Diane Miller was Jax's right arm and Alexis Davis was his left. Both were hot shot attorneys who kept Jasper Jacks in the green and out of jail and litigation. And Milo's big brother, Max, was head of security. Diane and Max had been dating for nearly five years now so Milo got his job, then pretty much got his dream producer the old fashioned way. Nepotism.
He could not be happier.
"So why are we so happy Lizzie?" Milo asked as he set her down and held onto her arms in case she was dizzy.
Elizabeth punched him in the arm and he feigned injury. "Stop calling me Lizzie you jackass."
"Oh, excuse me Miss Webber." He dramatized with a formal bow.
"Cut it out doofus. You know I hate it when you call me Lizzie."
"Well usually when you are jumping in my arms like that or acting all crazy you ARE Lizzie"
She brushed past him to get him a Gatorade from the refrigerator. "Good grief. I'll never live that down."
"Well…no…I mean, we've got video of it and everything."
"It's not every day you get into a barroom brawl with your cameraman, his brother and a whole bar full of bikers."
"And win" Milo smiled remembering her standing there with him and Max realizing that they'd either knocked everyone out or they ran. They'd all three gotten into a bar fight with about eight bikers because one pinched her ass and she landed a right hook to his jaw.
"And win…" she smiled as she removed the cap and handed her cameraman a midday drink. "And speaking of a win. We just got our first full show. It's all ours. We get to film and produce a whole episode for Born on the Bayou . Milo…we've made it!"
Jason stared at the contract. Ever since his younger siblings, AJ and Emily, lost their father, he knew it would come down to this. He remembered sitting in the hospital waiting room. Emily was asleep on the uncomfortable couch beside him as he ran his fingers soothingly through her long auburn hair. She used his leg as a makeshift pillow and his signature black leather jacket as a blanket. AJ kept talking about the Susan Moore. Who was going to run the Susan Moore? It was his Dad's legacy. The family boat. And AJ wasn't ready to run it.
Two weeks earlier while Jason was hauling his own Opilio crab into Dutch Harbor, his step-brother called his ship, The Enforcer, to tell him that his stepfather had a massive heart attack. He knew the old man wasn't doing well but he had been estranged from him so long that he didn't realize how little time he and Alan had left to make things right.
Jason was eighteen when his mother, Susan Moore, divorced his step-father. At that point, Jason and Alan were nearly inseparable. He was working as a deck hand on the Susan Moore and was already learning the engine room. He idolized Alan and everyone in the fleet just knew that Jason would follow Alan's footsteps.
When his mother died, Alan and Susan had been divorced for quite some time. In fact, Alan had remarried and divorced AJ and Emily's mother, Monica, AGAIN. It was one of the reasons why he and Alan didn't get along.
The old man was a wonderful man and Jason had a great respect for him. Especially as a top notch fisherman. However, he had no respect for how he ping-ponged back and forth between his mother and AJ and Emily's mother for years. Married to Monica twice and Susan in between, finally both women had their fill of the womanizer so that when he died, he was alone.
Although Jason knew he wasn't lonely.
This new reality show had made Alan famous and again he had women dripping off of him like the stories he told Jason in the wheelhouse about before he met his mother. The show became a massive success over the last three years. Four years ago everyone in the small fishing community thought the show would be a bust. His boss and close friend, Sonny Corinthos, thought it was ridiculous and would only result in even more loss of lives to the Bering Sea.
The Corinthos Organization was the first fleet to be approached. With Sonny, Johnny O'Brien, and Jason Morgan as three of the six Captains, Patrick Drake realized the female viewers would flock to the show in droves while the premise of the show would still have a much larger male population tuning in on a weekly basis. Patrick pulled out all the stops. He offered to refurbish living quarters and wheelhouses of Sonny's boats and repaint them just to sign on the dotted line.
Sonny wanted no part of it. Jason was glad because as far as he was concerned, two more people on his boat was two more people he'd have to deal with. And Jason liked his solitude. He finally found a crew that understood that.
Since his own divorce, he'd focused on fishing. He made it to Captain his own boat by the age of twenty seven and now, six years later, he was one of the most successful and well respected in the industry. He was untouchable.
He was well liked by other captains and crews. He kept his head down, had a good work ethic and had a nose for crab. He was always there to help, whether it was bait, training a crew member, giving a line on hot areas, loaning a crew member money or giving someone a ride in his Cessna Citation Encore Jet. Everyone got along with Jason but also knew that Jason, for the most part, preferred his solitude.
Only a handful actually knew where he lived. Most around Dutch Harbor just knew that when he was in port for more than a day or two, he took off on his jet for his home somewhere in the mountains of the Northwest. He almost never took anyone with him and only hung out at one bar when in town, Jakes.
He kept a room above Jake's year round so that when too many of the fishermen were in the bar, especially his most hated rival, he could simply go upstairs to crash. He hated sleeping on the boat like the other captains and their crew. When the boat was docked, he wanted a real bed, even if only for one night. Besides, sometimes he'd come down once the bar closed and invite the waitress, Courtney, for a romp in his bed.
She wanted more, and God knew that if Sonny knew what he was doing to his little sister, he'd have to marry her for sure but he didn't want anything to do with a relationship. He'd learned his lesson. No more relationships. They weren't fair to the woman and he sure as hell wasn't going to have his heart stomped into a million pieces again because they couldn't handle the loneliness and danger of his career.
Which was why he wasn't thrilled to be signing this contract.
But he had to.
He owed it to his brother.
AJ was four years younger than him and Emily was eight. They didn't share blood but he couldn't love them anymore if they did. Their mom was a doctor so she had nearly as unconventional of hours as his step-dad Alan did. So when Alan was in for the off season, AJ and Emily would come live with them.
He loved having a little brother and little sister. He took that position of Big Brother seriously. He taught AJ everything he felt he needed to know that Alan had missed through the years on the boat. Then when Jason went to join Alan, he kept in constant contact with his brother and sister. He even threatened a boyfriend of Emily's over the phone while he was eight hundred miles away from the kid.
And now, he needed to step up and be their big brother. Especially for AJ who was totally lost now that his father was gone. He needed to take care of the family business. He needed to take the time away from The Enforcer to train AJ to one day take over The Susan Moore.
He was leaving the Corinthos Organization temporarily.
It would be two years. He'd show him everything Alan taught him and then the things he picked up on his own. He'd eat, sleep and live The Susan Moore. He'd take extra off season jobs to get AJ his sea time. He'd put The Enforcer in dry dock for re-skinning and an overhaul.
Sonny only owned half the boat since Jason bought in to the organization. Sonny made Jason a partner two years ago giving him a third ownership share of the fleet. Jason immediately bought his boat. It was fifteen years old and the largest of the Corinthos fleet. Sonny hoped to turn the running of the fleet over to Jason within the next decade. Retirement was looming and The Don, Sonny's boat, was an old one and probably close to retiring from the fleet as well. The Michael & Morgan, The Adela and The Lily Rivera were the newer boats.
Lansing's Lot was the smallest of the fleet. Sonny found out his beloved mother had a son and took Ric Lansing in a few years back. Jason hated the man. He felt entitled to things he hadn't earned. Jason was "in the way" to what he felt was rightfully his. Never mind that the man could never keep a crew, always poached others crew members. Would do everything in his power to piss off everyone from the bar maids at the local pub because of his smarmy ways to the Port Captain of Dutch Harbor.
He wasn't qualified to operate most of the Corinthos' fleet and had wrecked his boat, run it aground and nearly capsized it umpteen times.
But he was Adela's beloved youngest child so Sonny was blind to his evil ways.
But Jason wasn't.
If there was a highlight to his leaving the Corinthos Organization for this short period of time, it was that he would be away from Ric and there would be enough time for Sonny to see, on his own, just how incapable his little brother was. AND he wouldn't have to "accidentally" run into that whore on the piers anymore. The Susan Moore was docked two miles down the pier from any of The Corinthos' fleet so there was a silver lining after all.
Besides, in the past two weeks, knowing that his step-father was gone for good, he knew he owed it to the man who brought him to the sea.
He owed Alan this debt.
As he signed his name to the six page contract, he smiled at the thought of repaying Alan.
"Well Jason, she's all yours." AJ clapped him on the back beaming in the wheelhouse behind his brother.
Jason turned and smiled at his little brother.
"So what are you feeling now? Tell us how you feel now that you've taken over for Captain Alan? Describe the feeling of being back on the boat you learned on? Tell us how you're going to run your ship? Are you bringing over any of your crew? Are you excited? Nervous? Melancholy?"
Jason sat down in the chair and looked at the equipment, re-familiarizing himself with his surroundings. He saw the pictures on the wall by the gears. Emily graduating University of Oregon, Pre-med. AJ at two years old holding a Blue King Crab. The monster crab nearly the size of the little boy. Alan and his mother somewhere. Both smiling. A family Christmas picture of Alan, Monica and a newborn Alan, Jr. Then a retaped picture of Alan standing behind Jason who was at the helm. In the very spot he was in now.
He glanced up to see the the statue of the naked lady. Exactly like the one he had on the dash of his boat. The one Alan bought him when he was twelve and he got his first trolling boat for the big pond behind their house. His mother had been livid but Alan explained that the naked lady brought calm seas and that every boatsman should have one either on the bow of their boat or at the helm.
Jason drifted off in thought as the cameraman continued hounding him with questions. He couldn't believe he was back on The Susan Moore. He couldn't believe he was right where he started. Where he learned so much. Where he lost so much.
His eyes darkened when he remembered so many years ago when he got the phone call from his mother. She had been dying with cancer and Alan had known for almost a full year and told her not to tell Jason. That it would be dangerous. That he wouldn't have his head in the game. Then when his mother asked him to skip the next season to spend her final days with him and he agreed.
Only to be four days too late.
His mood changed and he could taste the sour bile in his mouth.
"Jason, Jason, JASON!" the cameraman snapped his fingers in front of Jason's face. "Tell us how it feels to be in Captain Alan's chair."
Jason growled and roughly jumped up from the chair. He looked around noticing all the extra filming equipment he'd have to work around. Ran his hand through his spiky blond hair and headed for the stairs that led to his stateroom.
"Leave me the FUCK alone. You ask too many questions. If it's going to be like this, you can get the hell off my boat NOW!"
