Carolyn was tired, after the hullabaloo with Tim Seagirt and his silly manager. The musician was a sweet boy, but his minstrel act kept the kids up far beyond their sacrosanct 8:30 bedtime. Candy and especially Jonathan were grouchy the next morning. The Captain petulantly avoided her questioning looks, going out of his way to materialize only when Martha and Candy were around. When the housekeeper finally noticed her mistress' vacant stare and droopy eyes over dinner, she shooed Carolyn up to the Master Cabin.
"You're as grumpy as they are, missing sleep," Martha scolded, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "You'll end up with a bad case of writer's block. I'll take care of everything down here. You go up and rest and don't ask me to bring you any coffee, either."
Carolyn nodded automatically, knowing better than to cross the indomitable Martha. Rubbing her temples, she slogged up the stairs and lay on the sofa– "just for a minute" – then fell promptly asleep, barely aware of the spontaneous combustion on the hearth. "Thanks for the fire," she murmured as the Captain gently covered her with a blanket.
At 3 a.m., he smoothed the hair from her cheek and lifted her to the bed. At his bidding, the comforter and top sheet rolled neatly down as the pillows thoughtfully plumped themselves in anticipation of their slumbering mistress.
Only she wasn't. Carolyn's arms tightened around the Captain's neck as he lowered her onto the mattress. He rested on his forearms, burying his face happily into her neck. His seaman's garments vanishing as his hands slipped below the waterline, seeking the zipper of her dress.
"Not so fast, mister," she mumbled between kisses. "I'm not so sure I want you to touch my hand, no matter how much the sea breeze calls or emerald whatever…"
"Carolyn of the Sea," he murmured, the deep, vibrating baritone of his voice provoking its customary response. With a practiced finger, he tugged at her somewhat inconvenient bra strap to kiss the naked shoulder beneath.
"What?" She pushed him away even as her dress slipped tantalizingly to her waist and sat up, green eyes flashing in a temper squall.
"You do know that your last name means 'of the sea?'" Reluctantly, he joined her, pinching his nose as if to forestall her wrath. Carolyn frowned.
"I knew it. Just another piece of 'doggerel,' another sorry attempt to sail right back into my bed."
"Mine, if you must be precise," he sighed, cursing Neptune. "There, you've gone and ruined another heartfelt attempt at reconciliation. You limply tell me my poetic lyrics are simply beautiful, rebuffing all of my attempts to acknowledge your true place in my afterlife. Of the sea. You are my beautiful mistress now, of-the-sea yet from-the-sea, replacing the siren call of the high seas, my first and until now, only love."
"Nice try, Captain Gregg. Now you can levitate right over to the desk, sit in that chair wishing I were there then rise, to face another day, with out me, dooodooodooodooo, doodooodoo dooo."
With the last 'doo' she arose herself, and disrobed sassily in front of him before flouncing back in the bed, facing the wall, covers pulled to her neck.
"Blast it woman! Muir quite literally means of the sea. Do you expect me to believe that you, a writer, a woman of Welsh descent, truly fails, is unable to recognize, the ancient antecedents of the Muir name?"
"Blast you, Captain. Nice try at seduction. I'm a Williams, not a Muir –" She sat again, but much to the Captain's great chagrin the sheet rose with her. She stared, at nothing in particular.
"I am?" A mesmerizing smile dawned at the corner of her mouth, rising straight to her cheekbones. Once again, the Captain was amazed at her seeming ignorance of the effect this look had on every man, alive and dead. Incandescent. It made him want her all the more.
"That's delicious," she sighed at last. "Carolyn of the Sea. What a wonderful metaphor for our, what are we having? An affair? Free love? A life of daring and adventure? Coming and going with the raging tide?"
She elbowed him, and when he failed to smile, slowly dropped the sheet, truly revealing herself for the first time in weeks (two, actually, she was counting). He leant to kiss her but she rebuffed him yet again.
"Go make me some popcorn and we'll talk. If Martha catches me up there will be hell to pay in the morning. And I do need my coffee in the morning. Oh, and some of that red Kool-aid she made for the kids. I don't want to be thirsty when I kiss you fully for the first time because you have a lot to make up for, a lot to answer for and I expect full recompense for the bull-headed, chauvinistic way you treated –"
But the Captain vanished, still irritated that the line he had practiced since yesterday failed to fully stir his one true love. Popcorn. Kool-aid. "And they say the sea is a demanding mistress, a harsh mistress, a jealous mistress. I left her, just like that! Turned my back on the majesty of the Atlantic for a woman who drinks red Kool-aid!"
He reached into the refrigerator, sniffing disdainfully at the Velveeta cheese Martha liked to melt over everything, searching for the pitcher. On the stove, kernels began to explode. "Blast!"
"Why don't you just use the 'F' word, Captain? Jonathan absolutely loves it, and it's a little more modern, slightly more nuanced." Martha, rollers in hair, reached behind him, shaking the popcorn pan expertly. "By the way, Mrs. Muir doesn't really drink Kool-aid. She asked me to chill the champagne yesterday, just in case. Absolutely loved your song about shorebirds, sea birds." And with that, Martha cackled. "Dooo dooo doooo doooo, dooo dooo dooo dooo. I knew you'd find a romantic way to reconcile with Carolyn. Thank goodness that hippie got his van stuck in the sand."
He glowered, as Martha expertly tossed salt onto the popcorn, mixing in the butter Ed Peavey faithfully delivered from his mother's farm in recompense for cherry pies. Flutes, Chandon, and Jiffy Pop in hand, he stomped up the stairs.
Carolyn met him at the door. Her woolen robe wrapped tightly around her, fleece slippers protecting her from the cold wooden floors, she raised herself just high enough to kiss his cheek.
"I owe you an apology, Daniel. Your lyrics really were beautiful." A tear formed at the corner of her eye. "Now come with me, Carolyn of the Sea. My dear, dear Martha arranged for another surprise – just in case, you know."
I've been had, the Captain thought gratefully. By two of the most conniving, wonderful women ever to grace his bachelor stoop. Carolyn of the Sea led him back down the stairs and out the door, around to the stone steps and down to the beach. She shivered and he drew her towards him.
"Can't you see it? I don't want to ruin things, but I'm freezing." She pointed across the white-tipped waves, further out to sea, where a sailboat just large enough to accommodate sleepers below-deck bobbed expectantly in the waves.
"It's a twofer tonight, my pigheaded, arrogant personal ghost. You can have of-the- sea, on-the-sea, provided you don't mind materializing us both straight to the down comforters waiting way out there on the briny deck. No chairs for you tonight! Just smooth sailing."
Lovingly, he wrapped his arms around her, and she could feel the residual warmth of the popcorn bowl against her back.
"Not on my watch, Madame. I made my choice when you threw that very first book at me all those months ago. I'm ordering us both back to the Master Cabin." He paused to kiss her soundly, as-requested, and she felt the air shimmer around them, the stiff sea breeze replaced almost instantly by the crackling warmth of the fire he'd relit for her.
"A man can have only one mistress, and for present circumstances, I much prefer Carolyn of–the-sea, on-the-bed to any vessel."
That night, there was no question as to who ruled the majestic waves. Martha huffed up the stairs and closed the door to the children's room. "Enough noise to raise the dead," she mumbled to herself.