It hadn’t helped when Mason had reconnected with an old colleague—Everlee—falling hard in love. Then Kyle had gone head over heels for the lovely stunt-woman, Rowan, which was a good thing, but…
Without his two best wing-man, Spencer had felt even more adrift. He didn’t begrudge his brothers their good fortune,orthe time they spent with their new wives. But more and more he felt like an unneeded appendage, navigating an empty life alone in an apartment he’d once shared with Kyle.
His other brothers—with the exception of Seifer who was still milking the college gravy-train—had all continued in some branch or another of the armed services, truly loving their lives. So…
Where did that leave him?
Adrift. Unsettled.
With too much time on his hands, and unbeknownst to his family, Spencer had started voraciously researching alternate careers, looking for a job outside of his family norms that might interest him.
He’d come across the Merchant Marine.
Not that he hadn’t heard about it before. Of course he had. Living in close proximity to the ocean growing up, he’d always known there was such a thing, but he hadn’t ever thought about how it all worked. Finding out it wasn’t attached to any branch of the armed services except during wartime, increased its appeal.
Spencer had always been a lover of everything to do with the sea; sailing and boating from an early age, diving for scallops and spear fishing with his siblings, hot summers boogie boarding in the waves. So, once he latched on to the idea of the Merchant Marines, he began to get excited. The job felt like a decent fit for him, working at sea for a private company where he might just discover—with the plethora of ocean-based tasks they offered—what he wanted to do with therestof his life.
At thirty-five years old, he wasn’t exactly washed up, but it was clearly time to choose a path, and stick with it.
He’d embraced this new opportunity like a lifebuoy.
Spencer had quietly taken all the training necessary to become a Mariner, doing it over the course of his off-time from the BPD. It had taken months, but finally he’d passed everything required. First, Basic Mariner Training. Forty hours of survival techniques, firefighting at sea, first aid and CPR refreshers with some personal safety and social responsibility courses thrown in.
He’d then done thirty-two hours of deck familiarization, lookout and watchkeeping skills, along with committing to memory, more safety protocols.
Sixteen hours of Engine Room familiarization and eight hours of VPDSD, or Vessel Personnel Designated Duties had rounded out his classroom time, reconfirming what Spencer already knew from his stint in the militaryandon the BPD; awareness of security measures, outside threats, and unusual crowd patterns. Crisis control, and weapons recognition as well as that of incendiary devices were also offered up.
Then there were the eight hours on a Saturday he’d spent, in person, on an educational vessel, learning what to do in a maritime crisis, such as how one went about securing crewmen’s safety when abandoning ship in different, high stress situations.
Even the thirty-two hours of Maritime Industry Career Prep, which everyone had warned was boring as fuck, didn’t deter him. Learning maritime history, educating himself about the business end of shipping, and being schooled on the types of commercial assistance that were needed at sea gave him the scope of exactly how many tasks Merchant Mariners actually performed.
The last step of his new education had been the most difficult to pull off. He’d had to make up an excuse to take two personal days during the middle of a work week.Thatunaccustomed request had his cop-brothers raising their brows.
But Spencer hadn’t caved and told them what he was up to.
He’d simply said he needed some alone time, when in fact what he’d actually done was travel to the nearest Coast Guard Station where he’d embarked on his final sixteen hours of training. RFPNW, or Rating Forming Part of a Navigational Watch, had to be USSCG certified. He’d learned the rules of the road at sea, proper ship handling, and how to hone many other practical skills while aboard ship.
The various classes hadn’t phased Spencer in the least. He’d aced them all, then applied for his TWIC, Transportation Workers ID Credentials.
He’d taken his physical, been drug tested, then gotten his MMC. The coveted Merchant Marine Credentials that he’d aspired to. The MMC had once been a Red Book. A passport looking thing that had to be carried and stamped with skills acquired. Just recently, however, the Red Book had been retired, and was now a one-page MMC document, 8.5 x 11, made from water-resistant synthetic paper that a Mariner was required to carry. It was easily updated, via computer, when new skills were added to an individual’s arsenal.
After two years at sea, Spencer’s qualifications were impressive.
But now there was a huge dilemma facing him.
Did he sign up for another two—or even five years—to put more on his resume, or did he use what knowledge he’d already acquired to start his life, afresh?
Spencer continued rounding the deck in the semi-dark, not quite as cheerfully as before, because…
He didn’t have the answer.
CHAPTER 2
Tabitha tappedher hands on the wheel, cursing loudly in the confines of her tiny car. The traffic heading out of Boston was horrendous. Not stop and go, butfull freaking stop.
Not what she had planned, but…
Her flight into Massachusetts from Tampa had been delayed on the ground after boarding, for some bullshit food-service glitch. Which meant she’d been late arriving into Boston. In turn, she’d beenverylate picking up her rental vehicle after getting turned around in the terminal and not being able to find the right kiosk. Of course, once she’d remediedthatproblem, the only choice of car left to her in the lot had been a sub-sub-compact. Something that wasn’t exactly ergonomically correct for a person who was five-ten. But what choice did she have?
