The Last Birthday Riddle — Mark Hanson

He's the average millionaire in his mid-forties - a Good Samaritan who rescues hurting people and places them as crew aboard his yacht. They'd do anything for him; but he has everything he could ever want - except a woman to make his heart sing.

Hearing his comments about a beautiful actress, the crew gets her aboard to become his annual birthday riddle and sail with them for a week to Hawaii. She hears about his many acts of kindness and falls in love with him on day one of the voyage. It all seems so perfect. What could possibly go wrong?

The millionaire discovers that the actress isn't quite what he thought, and the crew discovers that they made a big mistake getting her aboard. The actress discovers some things, too, like:

-Captain Chauvinist thinks that man-overboard is terrible, but woman-overboard is no big deal.
-The first mate collects rubber duckies he finds on the oceans of the world.
-The ship's administrator has the first job she's held longer than one year.
-The chef has the largest nose on all seven continents and the surrounding oceans.
-The engineer was a knife-wielding car thief, and can charm a lady with his smile.
-One of the young crew girls was a gun-totin' gang member.
-The other crew girl was named after a cheese and she tends to faint a lot.
-The millionaire loves raw meat sandwiches and pours ice water on the crew for fun.

Don't worry... there's a happy ending in there somewhere, I think. Hey, guys! We included the happy ending, right? Oh, good, they're nodding their heads to say yes. Whew!

The Last Birthday Riddle - a G-rated story of fun and romance on the high seas.