Christmas at Steel Beach Read online

  Chapter 7

  It took five days of exhausting work to turn around the galley to the point where she didn’t want to cringe each time she walked into it.

  Gail had recruited any able-bodied seaman who wasn’t fast enough to duck and cover. Mechanics had replaced leaky lines and questionable power outlets. The overhead piping and hoods had been scraped of old grease, scrubbed, and repainted—plenty of gray paint aboard. The galley was spit-shine bright by the time they were done with it.

  The ship’s stores weren’t as miserable as she’d first thought, they’d simply been pillaged at random and not restowed properly. A long day in the tropics wearing Arctic survival gear put everything to rights.

  A vast jumble of produce had turned into a sensible set of supplies once organized. The meat locker—almost void of ground chuck, clearly the former chef’s perennial go-to meal—flowed with roasts and chops and all the finer cuts that the chef had disdained as being “too much trouble.” The dairy, other than where the chef had clearly dropped a case of eggs then kicked them under a shelf, came through in good shape as well.

  When Gail had scrubbed her kitchen, she’d also scrubbed his name from her mind. She granted him “chef” in her thoughts, a title he definitely didn’t deserve, simply to save herself from far more foul references.

  The staff were another matter. Her master baker and butcher were good, it simply took them a while to come to their senses and realize they had the freedom to do decent work.

  The main trait of her galley staff was that they were young, overeager, and undertrained. The “chef” had chased away anyone who cared about food except for the few who were too green to know better—or get a transfer out.

  Third Class Petty Officer Jimmy Roltz, a thin black kid from Oklahoma with the unexpected nickname of “Tanker,” had been within days of his transfer coming through. Once she saw how good he was, she’d talked him out of it and made him her sous chef.

  For a couple days she held them to the one-hour break between meals, until they dug out the galley. The first day she gave them a two-hour break, she stayed on alone, finally able to plan a menu rather than simply react to the clock with whatever she could lay her hands on.

  After an hour, Tanker drifted in, glanced over her shoulder, and moved over to fire up one of the big griddles. By fifteen minutes later the whole crew was back. Frying bacon filtered into the air from Tanker’s cook top.

  Gail did her best to keep her composure, but she wanted to go around and hug every one of them.

  Someone put on Christmas music, an a cappella group she didn’t know. They were good. She’d have to tell Mama.

  Tanker began working up a carbonara sauce in between tending the bacon.

  “Who here knows how to make fresh pasta?”

  Tanker was the only one.

  “Tanker, no pepper in your sauce. I’ve got an idea. Okay everyone, gather around.”

  Teaching was her favorite part of cooking. The only daughter of two university professors, was it any wonder.

  # # #

  “Oh my god!” Sly closed his eyes to appreciate the mouthful he’d just taken.

  The flavors unfolded on him, cream, garlic, and bacon with an underlying accent of pepper. Wine, parmesan…the layers just kept appearing.

  “What’s with the pasta?” Dave was poking it with his fork like it was going to jump out of the bowl and attack him.

  Sly savored it just a moment longer as Tom answered him.

  “That’s fresh spaghetti, you goon.”

  “Fettuccini,” Sly corrected him.

  “Fresh? Like fresh-made. How do you even make fet-tu-chi-ni?” he harassed Sly. “And why’s it all speckly?”

  “It’s fresh-made pepper pasta and the way you make it this good, I’ll be damned if I know.”

  “Hey, Sly,” Tom pointed at his own bowl of pasta. “You gotta try this.”

  Dave looked over, “Why’s it all green? That can’t be right.”

  “It’s made with vegetables and shit,” Tom told him.

  Sly dug out a forkful of bright green spinach pasta and made a point of stabbing up a tomato and a Kalamata olive while he was at it. Garlic and olive exploded across his palate.

  “Damn, you could power our boat on this stuff it’s so good.”

  Sly scanned the mess. Navy swabbies liked their chow, but there was something different going on here—it was rippling across the crowded mess. People were trying each other’s meals, actually talking about their food instead of the latest assignment or the latest babe. A lot of sailors going back for seconds. There’d been consistently better food in the five days since Gail Miller showed up, but this was incredible. Something had happened in the kitchen and he had no idea what.

  Which was making him more than a little crazy.

  She’d kissed him like…he didn’t know what. Like a woman didn’t kiss a man she’d just met. Especially not one who had just claimed she was a good girl she was. And then she’d evaporated like a keg of beer at a barbeque, there and then gone.

  He’d gone looking for her a couple times—more than a couple if the truth be told.

  One time he’d caught up with her in the galley, and spent two hours scrubbing the outsides of the steam kettles.

  He tried the galley again, after the heavy work was done—which had included he, Dave and Tom emptying a walk-in cooler and resealing all of the galvanized sheet metal seams—except that time she’d gone aft and down to ship’s stores. When he’d arrived down there, it was to learn that she’d gone to the baker to port, the butcher to starboard, the potato peeling room amidships, and then forward and back up two decks to the galley once more.

  Woman was a whirlwind.

  Word was she was even working with the midrats crew in the middle of her sleep shift to make sure the Navy off-watch crew was well taken care off.

  Well, she wasn’t getting away with it this time. Being in the Navy had taught him patience, but there had to be some limits.

  He took his tray back the moment he was done, resisted grabbing another piece of fresh-baked garlic bread, with the garlic roasted first until it was so sweet it tasted like honey for crying out loud, and went for a piece of apple pie that was—he took a forkful—still warm from being baked. Not just some frozen thing thawed under a heat lamp, Damn! He ate on the move as he headed for the galley before the service ended.

  His arrival was perfectly timed for the end of his pie and the end of the meal service.

  Gail was still moving full tilt about the kitchen, but the difference from five days ago was that her crew was moving just as fast. There was an energy here, an excitement that he hadn’t seen around the Peleliu galley in a long time.

  He stood in the doorway and watched.

  They were talking about tomorrow’s service and chasing around ideas.

  He waited them out.

  It wasn’t a short wait. They were twenty minutes off shift before the group broke up.

  As it did, he moved quickly, dropping his plate and fork in the scullery sink on his way. It was already immaculate from the meal service cleanup. A pretty little Asian Seaman scowled at him, as if he was being a heathen, and paused long enough to rinse and load his offending dinnerware into an otherwise empty dishwasher tray before she hung her apron and departed.

  Chief Steward Gail Miller sat at the shining expanse of the stainless steel prep table that filled the center of the galley. The down-lights made her shine—her bright face, her immaculate white coat. She looked as marvelous as her food.

  He leaned on the side opposite her as she concentrated on some list.

  Sly could watch her for hours.

  Her long fingers were neat and her writing fast. A shopping list, ingredients for tomorrow’s meals by the date across the top. The part in her hair tempted him to reach out and run a finger down it.

  He resisted.

  Her hair hung down to either side of her face.

  “Good evening, Chief.”

/>   # # #

  Gail looked at her watch—five a.m. Oh, right. It was evening by the Peleliu’s operational cycle. She still didn’t have the hang of that.

  Then she looked up at Chief Stowell leaning on the table as if he’d been there a while. Watching her.

  “Evening,” she managed. Not seeing Sly for five days—except when she’d been begging him for help and about a hundred times out of the corner of her eye—always gone when she turned to really look—she’d managed forget how perfect he looked.

  Blisteringly handsome? No. Too many men boasted that and it was often their only good attribute. But Sly was awfully good-looking.

  Strong. Tonight he wore khakis and a Navy blue t-shirt that clung to his upper body. She’d been able to feel his strength when they’d kissed. Couldn’t seem to stop thinking about that actually. But to see it on display was breathtaking. Again, not bodybuilder, just powerful.

  If myths were to be believed, he’d personally bested all of the Rangers aboard in a wrestling match. And some of those guys made Sly look small.

  Word was he’d even taken on the head Delta operator; that was too much of stretch.

  But looking at him, she could almost believe it.

  He looked exactly like he was, a totally stand-up guy. He drove one of the Navy’s strangest transports with a mixture of grace and panache. Her staff lived in the galley, yet they still mentioned him from time to time and always with a tone of respect.

  Gail had spent five days trying to pigeonhole Sly Stowell in her head, with little luck. Her attempts to brush off their one kiss as an aberration were equally successful—as in not at all.

  She wasn’t used to stand-up guys. Other chefs, well, they worked hard and drank hard. Even the Navy ones, who mostly kept their drunkenness ashore because ships were dry. But there were a lot of hung-over culinary specialists working the line at the landside bases. And the civilian restaurant world made the Navy sots look sober and clean by comparison.

  “Do you drink beer?” Just how straight was this man leaning against the far side of her steel worktable?

  “You offering?” his smile noted how unusual that would be aboard ship.

  “Asking.” Nitpicker.

  “On occasion.”

  “When?” Why was she even asking? Why was she even interested?

  “Depends.”

  “On what?” On how exasperating he could be?

  “On what the meal is. Barbeque is always beer food. That dinner you made tonight, that wants a wine—a good one. And I’m not a wine sort of guy.”

  “I’ll assume that’s a compliment.”

  “No,” he dragged it out just to tick her off, so she refused to buy in. “Compliment is too simple a word for that meal. Been aboard nineteen years and haven’t had a whole lot of dinners that tasted as good as that one.”

  “Nineteen years? I was in high school, a freshman.”

  “I went in on the day I graduated.”

  “I enlisted a month out of college.”

  “Why?”

  Gail clambered to her feet and popped open one of the fridges. The prior “chef” had left behind a large collection of pint-sized bottles of orange juice. She’d wager that was to hide the vodka in his screwdriver; time to work her way through his juice stash, she hadn’t found the alcohol stash yet, hoped she never did. She offered a juice to Sly, who nodded, and she came back with two.

  She sat back down and kicked a stool out from under the counter, and apparently caught him sharply on the shin.

  “Oops! Sorry. That was supposed to be a friendly gesture.”

  “Right, thanks,” he settled on the stool and toasted her with his now open juice.

  She returned the gesture, “Mama and Daddy teach at The Citadel. Made military seem like a natural choice after I went to the Art Institute’s culinary program.” Which was about a quarter of the truth. The rest? That was for her alone.

  “Charleston, thought so.”

  Man was too sure of himself. His accent was harder to place, it was mostly Navy.

  Something about the way he’d said barbeque.

  “Oh no. Lexington, North Carolina.”

  “Got a good ear there, Chief.”

  “Got two of them, Chief. Just like I’ve got two eyes. Healthy human female. And don’t you dare mention what else I have two of. But that’s not real barbeque that you cook up north. That’s pork in tomato sauce. You’re killing the poor pig. Twice! What did it do to deserve that?”

  His grin was wicked and ready for battle, “Mustard, vinegar, chicken bouillon? You gotta be kidding me. We’re in the South, not Germany for crying out loud.”

  “Actually, we’re off the Ivory Coast, Africa, Chief.”

  “No, we’re headed west. Don’t know where, no one is talking to me yet. We’re not in a big hurry or you’d hear the engines even in here. Maybe we’re just going to visit the local carrier group.”

  Gail considered, but it didn’t affect her. Still, carrier group. They’d probably have a resupply ship along. Some fresh produce and real spices would be a good thing. And she probably should get some more ground chuck.

  “You’re changing the topic, Chief,” she accused him. “Trying to distract me with the lame excuse of some hometown barbeque you’ve eaten.”

  “Not just eaten. Cooked. And yeah, I’m trying to distract you, but not from that.”

  Gail eyed him more carefully. “Cooked? On your backyard barbie?”

  “Cooked!” he made it a challenge. “I worked my first festival tent when I was ten years old.”

  She had to admit that the Lexington Barbeque Festival was notorious. She might have made it there a time or two herself, not that she’d be admitting it anytime soon.

  “I’ve only missed two years since. Last year we did over twenty thousand pounds out of three festival tents.” He thumped a fist on the table. “That is god damn barbeque.”

  The real joke here was he might well have served her a pulled pork sandwich in some year past. He was so cute about defending his home turf that she couldn’t help herself. She leaned across the table, managed to snag his collar, and pulled him in.

  His kiss tasted of her carbonara sauce and apple pie.

  She let it grow and build there in the middle of her kitchen until she wondered that the fire suppression system didn’t kick on. Thinking about having kissed Chief Stowell once and kissing him again now were a whole world apart.

  “You gotta get me somewhere better than this kitchen, Chief,” she mumbled it against his lips.

  “Uh—”

  If he put her off or hedged, she was going dump her orange juice on his head. After a kiss like that, he’d better not be playing around. That wasn’t just some kiss, that one was a game changer.

  “I know just the place.” He brushed his lips over hers and went to drag her out of the galley.

  She barely managed to douse the lights as she followed.

  # # #

  “Here?” Gail looked at him.

  “Been thinking about you here, since—” Sly tried desperately to get control of his libido, but that didn’t work so well, his mental gauges were running at overload. The woman kissed like a wonder and tasted like a crime just waiting to happen. “Since the first time you came aboard.”

  “You mean since the first time you decided I wasn’t an idiot bimbo. ‘Oh, what a beautiful Christmas tree!’,” she mimicked herself in a ridiculous tone. Did a good job of it too as her voice echoed off the sides of the Well Deck.

  “Okay,” he slid that sideways smile into place. “After that.”

  The Well Deck was lit by only a few dim worklights. The rear gate was up and sealed, the wood-plank deck itself was dry. It was still night in the gap above the top of the gate. His LCAC rested at the foot of the garage slope with both front and rear ramps folded down.

  Finally out of the public spaces, he took her hand once more. The shock was electric and he could tell that she felt it as well.

  �
��Too fast,” he knew it was true the moment he said it.

  And hated himself. Sly never took things fast, but he wanted to with Gail Miller. He wanted to tease her until that laugh burst forth and showered over the both of them.

  “I’m sorry. It’s too fast. I shouldn’t—”

  She kissed him. Not hot and heavy like in the galley. Just enough to stop his words rather than his heart.

  “Let’s walk,” she kept a hold of his hand. “Let’s just go for a walk.”

  And they did. They walked the hundred meters of the Well Deck as if it were a pier at the Norfolk Navy Yard. They walked together in slow silence until he could see that the starlight showing above the top of the rear gate had started to fade.

  She was the first to break the quiet, asking him about his early days on the Peleliu.

  He in turn asked her how in the hell she’d made that amazing pasta.

  As they strolled back and forth over the heavy wooden planking, the stars faded and the sky shifted from black to darkest blue in the gap above the rear gate.

  It was going orange when she led him aboard the LCAC and up to the control room. There she turned on the tiny Christmas tree and they undressed each other by its light.

  He got over the embarrassment of having brought protection quickly enough. He sat in the observer’s chair and she straddled over him.

  Sly had many fine moments in his life worth remembering. He’d delivered thousands of Marines over the years, rescued hundreds, maybe thousands more of near-panicked civilians from hostile shores. He’d held many fine women kind enough to share their body with him.

  Never had he held a woman like the one who made silent love by the light of a foot-tall Christmas tree.

  Where he’d expected laughter, he elicited soft moans. Instead of the deep wildness that burst forth in her kisses, she was like one of her sauces—so smooth and perfect that he could spend ages investigating and tasting. Creamy skin. Rich flavors. Strong reactions that left a man hungry for more no matter how much he took.

  Still facing him, she leaned back in his arms until her elbows rested on the backs of his and Tom’s control chairs. He leaned down to drink her in, to feast upon her. He felt like a child before her and, in the same moment, like a powerful man welcomed to a lover’s arms.