"Where is she?" Clancey stormed up and down the deck as his men readied the Seamus to set sail with the tide. "Where the devil is she?"

      Jason searched the docks for any sign of Kate. Normally Clancey would have been in a more accommodating mood, but the two of them had returned to the ship drunker than they had been in a very long time. Neither one of them remembered where they had gone or how they managed to get back to the ship.

     "She's no where in sight, Clancey." Jason reported. "Can't you wait for the next tide?"

     "Are you daft man? I have schedules to keep! We're leavin' now. She can take the stage to Seattle," he growled.

     Dan Sullivan strolled up to the pier. "Good morning, gentlemen. Is Katie aboard?"

      Clancey glared at him as if he were a lunatic. "If she were aboard, sir, I'd be three sails to the wind right now."

      The crusty seaman turned on his heel and headed for the wheelhouse cursing women, reporters and telegrams all the way there.

      "Ten minutes," he yelled. "I give her ten minutes then we hoist anchor."

     Jason and Dan smiled at one another. Clancey's bark didn't fool anyone. He'd wait for Kate as long as he had to, but he'd make certain everyone was as miserable as he was while he did.

      "Maybe I should head for the telegraph office to meet her. Our story came out this morning and if anyone...." Dan suggested.

      "That's a good idea. I'd go with you, but if she returned while I was out there looking, Clancey would set sail without me."

      Jason looked up at that moment and caught sight of Kate flying down the street at top speed with her skirts held high and a telegram clutched tightly in her left hand.

     "Well, what's the news?" Jason called to her. "Are you coming, going or staying?"

     Kate stopped short before Dan and tried to catch her breath. "I'm coming."

     "Good," both men cheered.

     "I have as much time as I need for the story on the brides," she gasped.

     Dan smiled but seemed confused. "As much time as you need? You don't have a deadline?"

     Kate laughed with a shrug. "They're too cheap to waste money on more words. I'll get a deadline out of them as soon as I can, don't worry. If I have to return to Chicago any time soon, you'll be the first to know."

     "Promise?" he asked, stroking a stray hair from her forehead.

     "Promise."

     Clancey appeared on deck at that moment. "It's about time you got here, Missy!"

     He turned to his first mate. "Shove off, you bilge rat."

     The bell clanged as Kate raced up the gangplank. Jason gave her a hand on board. One of the sailors lifted away the plank and lowered the railing. The ship creaked away from the pier and out toward the open sea.

     "Don't forget me." Dan called to her.

     "I'll wire you when I get to Seattle." A worried look crossed her face and she turned to Jason. "Can I do that?"

     "Of course, at Ben Perkin's General Store."

     "You have a store in town?" She asked, delighted at the news.

     "We're a booming metropolis," he bragged.

     Kate waved to Dan as long as she could still see him on the dock. When the morning mist finally enveloped his form, she stepped away from the rail.

     Jason handed Kate a mug of coffee, which he had brought up from the galley for her.

      "Now if you ask me, I'd say there was a little more between you and Dan Sullivan than a headline."

     "Jason Bolt, I think we should get one thing straight before I set foot on Seattle soil." The sternness in her voice amused the man but he gave her his full attention.

     "And what is that?"

     "I no longer need an older brother to manage my private life. I'm not a little girl anymore. I should think the events of the past week have convinced you of that."

     "Oh, they have." Jason agreed. "But tell me one thing."

     "Yes?"

     "Whatever happened to that little girl I knew so well?" He leaned up against the rail.

     Kate sat atop of a crate beside him. "Cricket Macready finished high school, worked her way through college, earned a position on a major newspaper by taking assignments no one wanted and buried her father. She turned twenty-three this year but has seen so much of the dark side of life that she feels fifty."

      Kate turned her attention back to the sea. "Somewhere along the way a part of herself has been lost. Now she's returning home with one of her dearest friends to see if she can find that missing piece before many more years go by."

     Jason hadn't expected to receive such an honest revelation. He placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him.

     "Do you want know what I see when I look at you?"

     "What do you see, Jason?"

     " I see a young woman, as full of life, courage, curiosity and high spirits as she ever was. You might be a little tired and bruised by life, but you're the same girl I knew and loved."

     Kate sighed, "So what you're telling me is that when I arrive in Seattle, I'm going to have a big brother hovering around me like before."

     "Oh, I'm much too busy nowadays to hover," he assured her. "I'll probably just tag along a little."

      Kate shook her head resigning herself to the idea that all of her experiences in the world of journalism would not change the Bolt's opinion of her. She would be "Cricket" and "Brat" to them until she could make them see her as the woman she really was.

     "It's getting cold out here. Let's go down below and see what we can scrounge up for breakfast," Jason suggested.

     "Not just yet, Jason. I've never sailed before. I'd like to stay up here a while and take a look around."

     "Suit yourself." He turned back to her before heading below. "Just don't try leaving the ship without telling us. You won't get very far."

     "Ha, ha. Very funny."

     Kate covered every inch of the ship that afternoon. She engaged each crewmember in a friendly conversation, even those who grudgingly accepted her presence on board. They soon realized that she had an honest respect for their abilities and an appreciation for the difficult life of a sailor.

      Kate was so lost in the excitement of discovering a new way of life that she forgot all about breakfast and the noon meal. Jason and Clancey both caught a few hours of sleep once they were under way so they never noticed her absence until lunch.

     "I'll go find her." Jason offered.

     "Good, I'm not waitin' for her this time." Clancey dug into a big bowl of stew.

     Jason scoured the deck but couldn't find Kate anywhere. He'd begun to think that she had abandoned the ship when he heard her laugh high above his head.

     "Kaitlyn Margaret Macready!" Jason exclaimed. There she sat, on the crossbeam of the mizzenmast dressed in her newsboy knickers, shirt and cap. She was engaged in a lively conversation with a crewman who dangled below her repairing the mainsail. At the sound of her name, Kate waved down at him.

     "Hello, Jason!" Kate was happier than he had seen her all week.

     "What do you think you're doing up there?" he demanded.

     " Mr. McShane is teaching me how sailors predict the weather from up here. It's fascinating!" she called, swinging her legs to and fro.

     Jason shook his head in amazement as Clancey came stomping up the steps from below.

     "What's all the bellerin' about?"

     Jason pointed straight up

     "Is that herself?" he asked, squinting to get a better look.

     "Aye, Captain."

     Clancey watched her closely as she chattered away with the sailor. She reminded the Captain of one of the gulls, which soared above her head.

     "She's not afraid," he observed with satisfaction.

     "Not in the least," Jason returned wryly.

     Clancey chuckled, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "Three years ago we sailed into Seattle with a hundred women and not one of them ever tried anything like this. When we take on supplies at Port Angeles you'd better wire ahead to warn Seattle of the whirlwind we're bringing to town." Clancey rubbed his hands together in anticipation of riotous times to come thanks to Kate Macready. "She's just what Seattle needs."

     "What do you mean, Clancey?"

      "Most of the brides are settled with husbands and babies. You and Stempel haven't had a good squall in months. No one's around to set off sparks anymore." He peered up at Kate and cackled. "Just wait 'til Lucy, Maude and their Betterment League get a load of her! Ah yes, bucko, the good times are back!"

     Jason didn't share his friend's enthusiasm. Seattle was a small town compared to Chicago and San Francisco. It would be very important to Kate's happiness that its citizens accept her. If they didn't, she might never find the peace she was looking for.

     Clancey guessed what Jason was thinking. "Don't worry about that one, Jason. If there's any Irish in her she'll always land on her feet no matter how high she flies."

     Jason took a deep breath; "I hope so, Clancey. I really do."