Chapter 27

Margot was standing over me when I opened my eyes in the morning. I jumped and she put her hand on my arm to calm me. "Sorry to wake you, Noah. There is a really odd noise up by the front, and it scared me." She pointed out towards the helm.

I was not dressed for company, and said, "Just give me a minute and I'll be right out." Margot got that and stepped out, closing the door behind her.

Abigail stirred, but didn't wake as I slipped out of bed, used the bathroom, and threw on some clothes. The noise she heard was a puzzle to me, and I opened the floor hatch and climbed down below the deck to see if I could track it down. Margot followed, squeezing in beside me on the tiny walking lane. Her breasts were casually rubbing against my back, and I thought it was intentional, but said nothing.

The noise turned out to be a loose cover on a fan, and I secured it firmly, before shooing Margot ahead of me and up the little ladder. She gave me a deliberate fanny wiggle as her bottom passed eye level, and I just caught myself before I would have kissed her right on that wiggly butt. Margot looked like she would have been happier had I been more forward with her.

This trip might turn out to be something of a contest between Abigail and Margot, as they vie for my attention, and I didn't know what I thought about that. Abigail was young, supple, and needy. Margot was older, she wasn't pretty but her body and personality made up for that, more subtle in some ways, but less reserved in others, so it was a bit of a toss-up.

Our boat trip was in its second week – with a crew of three, that is – when Margot and Abigail finally showed a desire to go home. We had tiptoed around Margot's attraction to me for several days, until both women cornered me and made it clear that they both expected my special brand of sexual healing, and Margot was about to lose her mind finding new ways to get the message across.

That night Margot came to my bed, instead of Abigail, and we made love until after four A.M. She was like a child on Christmas morning. Once she got my clothes off, it took her about twenty more minutes to completely strip down for me. When I finally got my hands on her, she was panting with desire, and wetness was pouring out of her.

Her cries of passion rocked the boat, and it was a good thing we were far from shore, because anyone hearing her tortured climaxes, would have called for the SWAT Team, thinking she was being tortured. When Margot finally reached her limit, she kissed me lightly, closed her eyes and fell promptly to sleep.

Abigail found us that way a little later, when she peeked in to see what happened to all the noise we were making. "I thought you two were going to poke a hole in the boat, it was rocking so hard."

I smiled from beneath the damp, tangled sheet. "Margot was rather overactive," is all I said.

Abigail laughed at that. "I'd say you boffed her brains out, until she came one time too many and passed out like a drunk on New Year's Eve."

"That too..." I allowed.

That day was our high water mark. All that day and night, either Margot or Abigail were naked, and sweating with me on that bed. We had to stop twice and change the sheets, because the bed got so wet, and messy.

By late afternoon, we were all too tired to maintain the pace, and Margot, fresh from the shower, joined Abigail and I in the bed, dropped her towel so we were all dressed alike, and announced that they needed to go home and take care of 'serious personal business.'

Just like that, I was left behind.

She left me once, and I was under no illusions that she wouldn't do it again when the chance presented itself. I wasn't about to beat myself up over them loving and leaving. It was just the way it was.

It didn't matter for long, anyway, because that call came from The Judge the next day.

"Noah, we have a proposition for you. You've shown an outstanding aptitude for handling difficult circumstances, and we have one that is just begging for your special gifts. It involves the owners of small manufacturing company, in the mountains of south West Virginia.

"The DeBusque Company makes special internal parts key to a variety of US weapons systems, and they are a very small, boutique company, that is staffed with family, and the very closest of friends, only. Tom DeBusque is in his seventies, and runs the operation from dawn to dusk just like he has run it since filing his first patent.

"His sons, Jordan and Robert run the manufacturing line like Roman Caesars. Their word is the gospel, and they do not allow variation to the checklist. Tom has two daughters, Elizabeth and Paula, who handle the billing and payments. Payroll is in-house, as is engineering, ordering, resourcing, and legal. The DeBusque Company does not outsource.

"Lately Paula has been plagued by a series of poor relationship choices, several of which have turned up on our watch lists. There appears to be a determined attempt to get someone deep inside The DeBusque Company, where who knows what kind of havoc they might wreak.

"That's where you come in.

"It turns out that one of your shirttail relatives is a DeBusque, and as such, you would be welcomed into their family business. The idea would be to help you find your way in, and keep you where you can watch over the DeBusque daughters, and 'dissuade' any potential troublemaker from disrupting their operation, stealing intellectual property, or damaging the finished product in any way.

"To accomplish that we would need to get you in here for some physical training, and book work to get you at least a passing handle on their work. To be any use to The DeBusque Company, relation, or no relation, you need to understand the general business and technical aspects of their products.

"We can do that for you. What you need to do is agree to spend a few weeks getting brainwashed on all the details, and data, then we can arrange for you to come to their attention as an undiscovered relation, just in time for Elizabeth and Paula to feel the urge to find a new love interest. We feel that you will be the perfect love interest for either of the women, and one of them will go out of her way to pick you up and make you her newest acquisition."

We talked about detail such as what to do with my boat while I'm off on the project, and when to be ready to go, but I was in, especially after being abandoned by Abigail – again.

The Judge had me picked up by his people at a marina in Little Washington, North Carolina. I turned around and took the BETH ANN there because I was assured it would be stored inside while I was gone.

The two people who came for me were an odd pair. One was clearly on the way out. George Cashmay was at or over retirement age, at least forty-five pounds overweight, and just hanging on till it was time to pull the plug. The other was my new/old friend, Janelle. She looked positively lovely, and by the gleam in her dark brown eyes, I could tell she was just as pleased to see me, as I was to see her.

They drove me to a plane that took me to a base far out in the hinterlands, somewhere. The Judge always could find hard to reach places. I was housed in a comfortable, if small cabin, near the center of a very tightly guarded compound. Janelle appeared to have appointed herself my personal companion, and I was rarely anywhere without her nearby. We spent every hour together, like new lovers instead of co-workers, often talking a mile a minute.