Cruising with the Blakemores Read online

  Davonshire House Publishing

  PO Box 9716

  Augusta, GA 30916

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, are entirely a coincidence.

  © 2014 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

  Editor: Rachel Bishop

  Cover: koougraphics.net

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

  ASIN: B00QZD9JDK

  Printed in the United States of America

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  First Davonshire House Publishing November 2014, The Blakemore Files

  Also by Olivia Gaines

  Modern Mail Order Brides

  On A Rainy Night in Georgia

  Buckeye and the Babe

  The Tennessee Mountain Man

  Bleu, Grass, Bourbon

  Serenity Series

  Welcome to Serenity

  Holden

  Farmer Takes A Wife

  Slice of Life

  Friends with Benefits

  Slivers of Love

  The Cost to Play

  Thursdays in Savannah

  The Blakemore Files

  Being Mrs. Blakemore

  Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore

  Dancing with Mr. Blakemore

  Cruising with the Blakemores

  Dinner with the Blakemores

  Loving the Czar

  Being Mr. Blakemore

  A Weekend with the Blakemores

  The Davonshire Series

  Courting Guinevere

  The Men of Endurance

  A Walk Through Endurance

  Intervals of Love

  The Art of Persistence

  A Return to Endurance

  A Walk Through Endurance

  The Technicians

  Blind Luck

  The Value of A Man

  My Mail Order Wife

  A Weekend with the Cromwells

  Cutting it Close

  The Zelda Diaries

  It Happened Last Wednesday

  A Frickin' Fantastic Friday

  A Tantalizing Tuesday

  Standalone

  Santa's Big Helper

  A Menu For Loving

  North to Alaska

  Turning the Page

  An Untitled Love

  Wyoming Nights

  Montana

  Blind Date

  The Christmas Quilts

  Watch for more at Olivia Gaines’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By Olivia Gaines

  Cruising with the Blakemores (The Blakemore Files, #4)

  Releasing the albatross...

  The winds of change...

  Changing course...

  Welcome to Barbados...

  Fun in the St. Lucia sun...

  A lesson in character development...

  Locked & loaded...

  Where’s my mama?

  Tina the who?

  Tina the Towel goes to work...

  Throwing in the towel...

  Home sweet home...

  Special Acknowledgements...

  DEDICATION

  For my bibliophiles.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thank you to Adventure Land 4x4 Tours of Barbados.

  To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.

  Write On!

  “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

  - Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Let us pick up from where we left off in the last episode.... Saxton and Odessa have had a very trying few days and now our power couple has to really give some thought and consideration to how they move forward with their lives and their relationship. There are also some big surprises along the way.

  Victorio Rentería

  Table of Contents

  Releasing the albatross...

  The winds of change...

  Changing course...

  Welcome to Barbados...

  Fun in the St. Lucia sun...

  A lesson in character development...

  Locked & loaded...

  Where’s my mama?

  Tina the who?

  Tina the Towel goes to work...

  Throwing in the towel...

  Home sweet home...

  Special Acknowledgements...

  Anchors aweigh......

  The world is full of dangerous characters – some can be identified right away, while others lie in wait like a rattlesnake in a pile leaves. Others float amongst the currents like driftwood waiting to be washed ashore and carried home to be made useful. Then there are the remaining characters who stick out like a sore thumb wiggling their way into every scenario either wreaking havoc or forcing one to take a new look at life. It thereby becomes something bordering on absurdity when a rattlesnake, a piece of driftwood and a sore thumb climb aboard a cruise ship to the Caribbean. Havoc can ensue unless a calming force stills the fray and forces it all to make sense.

  Kevin Trodat, Jr. was not making any sense at all. He was yammering on about Dwight’s cousin, Mary Jean, who had taken a liking to him. Considering he had only met the woman earlier in the day at his sister, Ryanne’s wedding, he was a bit taken aback at her forwardness. His initial shock, after the blow of his brother-in-law shooting him in the walnuts with a rubber paint ball, came when the woman shoved an ice pack in his lap. “To minimize the swelling,” she told him with a great deal of lust in her overly made up eyes. As the weave on her head moved left and right, she would periodically move the ice pack and try to touch Kevin’s life givers. “I’m just trying to check for swelling,” she told him.

  He was insistent that is was unnecessary. Especially now since they were aboard the cruise ship and sailing into the darkness of the deep blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. Mary Jean Dobbins was not letting up. They were on a seven day cruise and Kevin was her choice of entertainment. But she was the only one amused. She was the kind of character that lay in wait. She would chase her prey until it was worn down. Once it was tired from the chase, almost broken and forlorn, Mary Jean intended to strike. This was only night one. It was a big ship and, without a companion, the seven long days at sea could be boring.

  This entire journey was going to be the furthest thing from boring. It was almost like a floating cast party of characters from your favorite comedy. Ryanne Trodat Dobbins, a recent college graduate, a new employee of the Department of Justice, and the middle child of Big Sarge and Dora Trodat, was also a newlywed. Married earlier in the day at sunrise on Condado Beach in Puerto Rico, she and her new husband, Dwight Darryl Dobbins, were gifted with a seven-day cruise as a wedding present – a present from her big sister, Odessa Trodat Blakemore.

  It could have served as a nice getaway for all involved, but it was difficult to get away when what you were trying to get away from climbed aboard the ship with you. The Blakemores worked undercover for the CIA doing some recon work. Unfortunately, Odessa Blakemore attracts trouble like sugar draws roaches. Wherever she stood, danger, death and mayhem were not far behind. It wasn’t as if she went looking for it, it just seemed to crawl up her pant leg and hold onto her like a leech. This time the leeches were her husband’s boss, Agent Marecus Roget, and the leader of
a notorious drug cartel, the one and only Victorio Rentería. They were attached to the Blakemores and aboard the ship. These two characters thought it would be fun to get away from it all as well.

  Odessa was unsure of what they were trying to get away from. Victorio Rentería owned a yacht. Why the man was aboard a cruise ship was uncertain, but somehow he managed to secure the presidential suite on the ship and had invited everyone to his room tomorrow night to have drinks with him and his wife, a lady who would join them in the morning when they docked in St. Thomas. Rentería was a man of character who was attempting to bring his family into the new millennium by surpassing others in his family and going legit. His aim was to change the perception of Mexico by bringing the country into the limelight as a major power player in world markets. His product – Kush. The best in the world. The man grew weed so dope that users could feel the pleasant effect for hours on end. Initially, he grew the product for low end thugs who sold it on street corners and as party favors. Over the years he managed, courtesy of his fancy American education, to partner with pharmaceutical companies who sold it to cancer patients. The passage of legislation of marijuana sales in Colorado changed his life. He was easily selling a million in product per quarter. But the man was a snake – a deadly snake that had somehow made a connection with Odessa’s sister, and they were on a first name basis.

  This was something that also did not go unnoticed by Ryanne’s husband, Dwight. Initially, Odessa believed the man to be a piece of driftwood until she caught something resonating in his eyes. It was so subtle, so quick, that had she not been looking directly at him the instant it flashed, she would have sworn she was seeing things. Dwight was the worst kind of character. He was a sea snake masquerading as a piece of driftwood. Almost camouflaged, an innocent collector would pick it up, stick it in a bag and carry it home. Ryanne had picked up a snake and Odessa was on high alert. Waiting. Watching for him to strike.

  Saxton Blakemore was watching his wife. When his wife picked up on something, she was normally right. Her instincts had saved his life more than once, and when Odessa said move, he had learned in the past two years of marriage to get to stepping. The past two days, however, had worn him thin. He felt like a soldier with the thousand-yard stare. He was on edge like a rattler in the leaves. If you didn’t bother it, it would not bother you, but reach for it and you would have more than just a sore thumb. Saxton Blakemore was the kind of snake that would take off your whole hand, simply because it was in his way and had offended him. Right now, he was offended by the whole sick scenario.

  His wife, Odessa, conned his boss into funding a cruise for her sister so they could investigate an underground ring of flesh peddlers who used the old Caribbean rum runner lines to smuggle the most profitable contraband in the world – human body parts. Sometimes the parts were still attached to the human owner. He was tired. It had been a long day, an even longer week and to be aboard a ship with his wife’s parents, her family, his boss, and a cartel leader has been just too much.

  He threw back the drink and slipped his arm around his wife’s waist. A waist he had every intention of expanding with his son. And now was as good a time as any to start practicing. He nibbled at her lobe as he whispered erotic words in her ear about what, how and where he wanted to do naughty things to her. This distracted her from Dwight as she turned to face her husband. “Saxton, what are you asking me?”

  He pulled her into his arms. “I am asking you to tell your family Goodnight. We have love to go and make.”

  He planted small kisses down her neck and along her collarbone as he felt the tension leave her body. She tried to stifle her laughter as she watched her brother leave the conga line, only to be followed by Mary Jean. Agent Roget was chatting up her cousin, Hilda, whom he had already labeled as “cute.” Her parents had already begged off the cast off party and were in their cabins. Saxton was right. There was love to be made and she was feeling extra festive. She returned his kiss, pressing her body close to his.

  Saxton picked up their room key. I should have shot myself when I had the chance. He looked at Odessa. “Say good night, Mrs. Blakemore.”

  She looked at Agent Roget, “Goodnight.”

  Releasing the albatross...

  The ship docked at 8 am, right on schedule in St. Thomas. Odessa was excited to get out and see the sights, but Saxton was pretty nonchalant about the whole beautiful beach idea. “Baby, it’s an island that is 32 miles wide. What is that, a little bit smaller than Boston?”

  “You are not going to sour this beautiful day, Saxton. We are going to get out and enjoy some sunshine... and I was thinking of doing some shopping,” Odessa told him as she grabbed her sun dress from the closet. It was a good thing she turned her back or she would have seen him use his fingers to simulate shooting himself in the head with a very large gun.

  “Wow, shopping. You and the girls planning to get out and about?” he asked, hoping saying the words aloud would make them come to fruition.

  “No,” she said as she peered around the closet door. “I am hoping to take in a few sights with you, then maybe shop a little.”

  In the past nine months, they had visited four islands and each time she only bought two trinkets and two towels. Items that were purchased for their side business, Blakemore Imports and Collectibles, she ordered wholesale online. Rarely, if ever, on the trips did she make large purchases, with the exception of Panama. It was on that trip that the two realized their undercover personas could actually be a lucrative side business and make some money. It was Saxton’s hope that they could make enough for his wife to want to quit the spy business, or rather at least he could. Odessa was still employed full time as an actuary for an insurance company. She was good at her job. Honestly, the only things she was not good at were cooking and shopping.

  “Okay, lazy bones. I know we are supposed to be on vacation, but the early bird catches the worm,” she told him as she winked at him.

  Saxton threw back the covers on the bed. “I have a worm you can catch, little birdie.” He told her as he rocked his hips back and forth and wiggled his worm at her.

  “You know you need some professional help, don’t you?”

  “Professional, amateur, neophyte, whatever you want to call it, I don’t care, just as long as you get over here and help me. I am totally addicted to you, Odessa, I can never seem to get my fill.” His eyes were full of hunger as he lowered the octaves in his voice. “Daddy needs some breakfast,” he told her as he sat up on the bed, looking at her with passion in his eyes.

  “We are supposed to meet my parents for breakfast,” she told him as she reluctantly walked over to the bed.

  His mouth covered hers as he pulled her down to him. “Well, we’d better make this one quick.”

  Big Sarge was up, making a fuss by being his normal cantankerous self. “I tell you, Dora, I am not going to go and graze at some all you can eat food trough. That’s why people come home with the poopies! All these little dirty chillun’ running around, jumping in the pool, playing with their butts and then sticking those little taddy fingers in the food,” he told his wife.

  As he spoke, an eight year old walked by, digging her swim suit from in between her diminutive butt cheeks, then went to grab some cheese wedges from the food line. Big Sarge pointed at her. “See? Just nasty!”

  “Well, what would you like to do for breakfast, Big Sarge?” Dora asked him with a twinkle in her eye.

  “What I wanted to do, you told me we didn’t have time for,” he winked at her and pulled her into his arms. At the same time his younger namesake and nephew walked up.

  “Before either of you say anything, I would like to say Ewww! And good morning,” Kevin, Jr. told his parents.

  Big Sarge still managed to get in his kiss. “What do you mean ewww? How do you think your worrisome ass got here? Making you was hard work. That’s part of the reason they have to replace my hip...”

  Kevin, Jr. began to make barfing sounds, which caused seve
ral people to turn and gawk at them. Dora had a hand towel hanging from her bag that she extracted and popped her son on the butt with, “Cut that out!”

  “No! You two need to cut it out,” Kevin, Jr. said with a grimace.

  “Let’s find this dining room,” Big Sarge told them. “As much as I paid for this trip for the four of us, I am going to be served every damned meal on this floating hotel of bacteria.”

  With those words said, he, Dora, his nephew, Rashad, who had come along to share a room with Kevin, and his son, headed to the dining room for breakfast.

  The island of St. Thomas is, for the most part, a US province, but like most of the islands in the Caribbean, it relies on tourism for commerce. If the early bird truly is allowed to savor the delicacy of the worm, then many of the islanders have learned the true meaning of gluttony. As the cruise ships dock, peddlers of wares of all sorts flood the marketplace with hopes of selling a bead or a trinket to a passerby. On this particular day, some of the marketers were nice, others a bit too aggressive, and one or two came into contact with an immovable force called Saxton Blakemore.

  Breakfast had been very quick as both Saxton and Odessa struggled to finish so they could meet her parents on the dock. Odessa’s father started to haggled with the cab driver who politely explained that it was a flat rate to head into Charlotte Amalie. The driver was not changing his mind and for some reason, neither was Big Sarge, who was convinced he knew how these things worked. Saxton had to step in between Big Sarge and the cabbie, who was getting frustrated and Big Sarge was about to cuss the man out. Saxton told his father in law with a stern voice, “It’s only $4 to take the bus and it goes straight to the market.”

  This worked well as Saxton paid the driver of the bus and the family climbed aboard, ready to do some shopping and sightseeing. What they were not ready for was the swarm of locals that surrounded the vehicle once it came to a stop. One unfortunate gentleman reached out and touched Odessa’s arm. Before a word was said, Saxton had the man by the throat and up in the air. Dora’s mouth hung wide as Kevin, Jr. tried to coax his brother-in-law by saying, “Put the nice man down, Saxton. That’s it. Down, big guy.”