Page 1 of The Spinster & the Sock

Hell & High Water

Blaze

June 2025

“Motherfuckin’ asswhistler—stay still! Dammit, I need you to stay. Fucking. Still!” I’m starting to understand why the phrase swear like a sailor exists. I have effectively used every curse word in the book, plus made up a few of my own—and no, it’s not actually helping. I’m panicking, and Carter still might die.

We’ve been nets-out at sea for four hours. He’s been on this trawler for ten seasons. So, tell me why did this son of a bitch make such a rookie mistake and is now tangled up in the rigging while we weather one of the biggest storms I’ve seen in the five years I’ve been doing this?

“Just fucking cut me out already!” Carter’s screams help the situation about as much as his flailing.

“Right, yes, thank you, dickwad. Do you understand how much line you’re fucked up in? Stop moving!” The ship rocks violently, and a new wave of frigid water bastes us each second. The dark clouds have eaten up every ray of light, and I can hardly see a damned thing. Why am I the only bastard on deck right now? My hands are cold and my fingers fumble as I try to untwist this blasted line a little more so it can slip over his boot. If I get his foot out, I can free him before the bulk of the net that’s hanging over the port quarter gunwale and submerged in the ocean rips his damn leg off—or worse, pulls him overboard.

Far beyond frustrated, I yell and pull and twist with every last ounce of energy I have, and finally, after God-only-knows how many minutes of reverse macrame, I have the man free. The second Carter realizes it, he kicks his leg and slips away.

Great.

Success.

Too bad he’s so interested in shucking his bindings that he doesn’t pay any attention to where he kicks the line. Another wave slams against the trawler, and we tip—just a little, just enough. Water hits the bow, rushes down the floor and over the port side railing, taking the rest of the net with it—which is fine. It’s still connected to the boat, and the crew can reel it back in, whenever they decide to get their asses up the ladder, that is.

Hopefully, they do it quickly, because that line? It’s around me now.

“Fuck,” is all I manage to get out before I’m ripped overboard and into the cold ass water of the Bering Sea.

I knew the water was cold because I got sprayed so often while emptying the nets. But a splash here and there is nothing compared to the sheer frigidity that encases the marrow in my bones when thirty-degree water floods my bibs. The lines jerk me around, or maybe it is the current; either way, I am spinning and twisting like I might get paid for it. For the life of me, I can’t even begin to guess which way is up.

By some stroke of dumb luck, the relentless spin cycle I’m enduring detangles the netting that, quite literally, got me into this mess in the first place. My lungs ache and my eyes burn in the salty water while I desperately search for the surface.

I finally find a light. It has to be the ship’s spotlight—surely—so, with a prayer to whoever will listen that I don’t swim right into the propeller blades, I start kicking.

You’ve had the unfortunate experience of peeling off wet jeans before, right? I would put that on the same list of shitty things I never want to do again—right below swimming with waterlogged boots.

These fucking things are heavy enough as is; add a few pounds of numbing liquid to the mix and you may as well have tied my feet to a cinder block. Naturally, I don’t have any aspirations of sleeping with the fishes, so I let my impulses win and aggressively toe my poor, expensive boots—and consequently, a single sock—off, then resume my fight with Poseidon.

Darkness is creeping in my periphery, and I swear my lungs have actually started screaming. I can hear the high-frequency squeal of every last oxygen molecule leaving my body. The light is right there and all I have to do is reach out and touch it…

Air. Sweet, blessed air hits my face, triggering the most dramatic and obnoxious, greedy gulps for oxygen to ever have been gulped in the history of gulped air. I’m not sure how long passes with me there, treading water and gasping like SpongeBob sitting inside Sandy’s dome before that little voice in the back of my head pipes up, alerting me to how unusually still the water is.

I blink.

I blink again.

And again. And again, again, again.

Then I stop treading water, because apparently confusion turns off my survival instincts, and promptly sink below the surface again. This time when I flounder back up, I don’t hesitate before heading to the shore.

Yes, the shore. I am just as confused, don’t worry.

I don’t think I hit my head when I went overboard, but the present circumstances argue otherwise. It doesn’t take long. I was at best only fifteen yards from the bank of what I now presume to be a small lake? A large pond? Right in the middle of a park teeming with people walking along a cobblestone path.

If the jarring difference between the Bering Sea and the park I’m now in isn’t enough, every single person passing me is decked out in old ass clothes—and I don’t mean old as in worn and dirty, no, I mean vintage. Like…petticoats and overcoats, breeches and suit jackets. That’s how I know I’m either unconscious or dead, and somehow on the set of the next season of Bridgerton—not that I’ve watched all three previous seasons multiple times or anything.

Standing still, wet as a dog, in the mud surrounded by geese isn’t doing me any good, so I pick a direction (opposite that of the public path) and start walking.

“God, I hope this is just some coma dream, ‘cause if I’m dead and miss Mom’s lasagna…” I gripe with a shudder. To be honest, though, I’m the one who would be the most upset about missing Mrs. Hollows’ famous lasagna dinner. It’s my favorite thing my mom makes, and she knows it—there’s always a double batch waiting for me at the end of the season.

I try not to think about what Dad said to me before I got on the plane for Washington: “You’re dancing with fire out there, son. One of these days you’ll get on that boat and never come back. I wish you would stay home and help with the corn.”