by Laura Drewry
Bottom line, they still had empty rooms.
But as Kate pointed out—again—as they all trekked down to the dock to welcome the new guests, once word got out about Sam Ross coming up, they’d be turning people away.
“That’s right.” Liam nodded, giving Finn a pointed look. “Having Sam here is going to be exactly what we need, and if we have any hope of Hooked making us an annual stop, we can’t do anything to screw it up, so that means playing nice with him and his crew and not letting them think there’s even the slightest wrinkle with anything or anyone.”
It was on Finn’s tongue to tell him to fuck off, but when he glanced up, he saw Jess watching them through narrowed, questioning eyes, so he choked it back.
Luckily, the roar of the approaching Cessna distracted all four of them enough that she never got the chance to ask what Liam meant or why he looked at Finn that way.
“Here we go.” Like he did every time a new batch of guests arrived, Liam rolled his shoulders and led them down to the end of the dock.
Since he was still recovering from what SportsCenter called a “spectacularly devastating pitch” that ended his career, Liam’s job was to greet the passengers and direct them to the lodge, while Finn, Jess, and Kate unloaded and distributed the luggage to the appropriate room or cabin.
By the time Finn made it into the great room, everyone had been served the drink of their choice and was gathered to hear Liam’s welcome.
With one of her small soft smiles, Jess handed Finn a pint and they both tucked in along the side wall.
“Welcome to the Buoys,” Liam said, lifting his glass in a toast. “First things first, let’s do the introductions so you all know who you’re dealing with here. Over there against the wall is Jessie; she’s pretty much run this place for most of the last dozen years or so, so if there’s anything you need or if you have any questions, don’t be shy to ask her.”
One of the three Green-cabin women tugged her friends in closer and whispered something that made them all do a double take in Jess and Finn’s direction, but, unlike on some weeks, not a single guy in the room whistled or asked something stupid like if Jess was single.
Good. Finn hated shit like that.
Once Jess had given the crowd her standard hello wave, Liam moved on.
“Next to her is Finn—”
“Him.” One of the guys from Orange cabin nudged his buddy’s arm and nodded in Finn’s direction. “He’s the fish whisperer.”
Fighting a scowl, Finn gave the same wave Jess did. It was stupid, that nickname; it wasn’t as if he had some magical power that lured fish in, it was just that he knew how to be patient, when to reel, and when to let the drag do its job.
It was like Da used to say: “Good things come to those who wait.”
“This here’s Kate.” Liam slid his hand around her waist and grinned the stupid grin he always wore around her. “She and Finn will be your guides, and you’ll each have the opportunity to go out with both of them. Schedules are in your rooms.
“You all met Olivia, our chef, when you came in. She’s going to blow your socks off this week, so I hope you brought your appetites. And she can adapt anything on the menu to fit those of you with allergies or food restrictions, so if we don’t already have your requests on file, just let us know.”
Olivia gave a quick wave from the kitchen doorway before disappearing back into her sanctuary.
“I’m Liam, and I’m the designated gofer for now.” Using his left hand, he pointed at his right shoulder. “But once this heals, I’ll be back out on the boats, and then Kate and Finn’ll be the ones cleaning the rooms and mopping the floors.”
“Nice try, Sporto.” Smiling sweetly, Kate leaned up and planted a quick kiss on Liam’s mouth. “But that’s so not gonna happen.”
As usual, it took Liam a couple of seconds to catch his breath when she did that, but then he continued on with his speech, going over safety issues, being bear-aware, and the importance of respecting the land and water. On and off as he spoke, the Green-cabin women continued to whisper and cast quick glances in Finn and Jess’s direction.
Jess cleared her throat quietly, then covered her mouth with her hand and spoke so softly Finn almost didn’t hear her.
“Seems like you’ve got some admirers.”
Finn turned forty-five degrees so that instead of facing the whole room, he was peering straight over Jess’s head toward the front where Liam was.
“They’re not looking at me,” he murmured. “They’re looking at you.”
“Yeah.” Jess’s laugh was muffled behind her hand. “Only because they’re waiting to see if I’m going to kiss you the same way Kate kissed Liam.”
It took more control than Finn even knew he had to keep his knees from buckling right there, especially after she lowered her hand, giving him a clear line of sight to her mouth just as her tongue darted out to moisten her bottom lip. God, he’d about kill to have her kiss him like—
No! Don’t look at her; look at Liam.
“So that’s it, folks. Your bags have been delivered to your rooms; make yourselves comfortable, get settled, do some exploring, and whenever you’re ready for dinner, the restaurant’s right through that door. The boats leave at seven tomorrow morning, so if you need a wake-up call, just let Jessie know.”
Not one of the guests got out of their chairs, which wasn’t unusual. Not only was the great room full of incredibly comfortable furniture, but the lack of rhyme or reason to the layout led to easy conversations between the guests, even if they’d never met before. More often than not, the whole layout of the room would change over the course of an hour as guests shifted their chairs to join in on other conversations.
It was like a giant family room, complete with a huge rock fireplace, bookcases filled with paperbacks, movies, and old CDs, and a flat-screen TV that hooked into the Wi-Fi so they could run the MLB app on it.
There was no cell service to be had at the Buoys, but that didn’t stop guests from pulling out their phones and tapping into the Wi-Fi—even as they talked to the people around them.
Finn would never understand that. What could possibly be so important that a person had to be online every waking minute? Hell, even Liam and Kate packed their phones around with them.
“Come on,” Jess murmured, nudging his elbow. “Time to mingle.”
While Jess wandered over to talk to the two Orange-cabin men, Finn headed straight across the room to talk to Art Fraser.
“Mr. Fraser—it’s been a long time.”
“Call me Art.”
The old fellow made like he was going to stand up, but Finn waved him back, then pulled up a footstool so he wasn’t towering over the chair.
“This kid here,” Art said, speaking to the group around him but thumbing toward Finn, “was our guide the first time I came up here with Walt—what—almost fifteen years ago? I didn’t think he’d know diddly squat about jigging or trolling, but he sure showed me.”
“That’s not quite how I remember it,” Finn chuckled. “I seem to recall you showing me a thing or two that week.”
With a slow smile, Art lifted his glass and tapped it against Finn’s.
“This your family?” Finn asked, nodding toward the group.
“Yuh.” He pointed toward the two men nearest him. “These are my boys, Doug and Hank, and that one there is Doug’s boy, Connor.”
Art’s “boys” were at least ten years older than Finn, and the kid, Connor, looked to be about eighteen or nineteen.
“It’s great to have you all here,” Finn said to the group. “I think you’re with Kate in the morning, and then we’ll swap out and I’ll get you the next day.”
“Just like your old man used to do,” Art said. “He always wanted to make sure all his guests got time out on the boat with you.”
“I don’t know about that,” Finn laughed. “I always thought it was because he didn’t want to saddle any of his guests with the same punk kid all week.”
“Nop
e.” Art’s steady gaze followed Finn as he pushed up from the stool. “He knew you had something special.”
They could probably argue that all night, but instead, Finn gave Art’s shoulder a quick squeeze.
“I have to go make the rounds, but I’ll catch up with you later.”
—
Like Kate, Liam, and Finn, Jessie made her way around the room, getting to know a little bit about each of the guests.
There were the Frasers in the corner; the two Orange-cabin guys, middle-aged brothers from Washington State, who tried to get to at least one lodge on the coast every year; the three Green-cabin women, from Edmonton, who all looked to be in their early twenties and who’d only ever fished from shore; and then there were the other two women, best friends from southern Saskatchewan, who’d been saving for two years to get out to the coast.
“We’ve never seen the ocean,” Marlene told Jessie. “So we probably won’t be inside the lodge much.”
“Why didn’t you rent one of the cabins instead?” Jess asked. “They’re twenty feet from the cove; you’d be right at the ocean the whole time.”
Marlene had only shrugged, but Jess figured it had to be because the cabins were more expensive than the lodge. Finn, who’d been talking to the Orange-cabin guys, immediately excused himself and walked straight over.
“Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t help overhearing. You’ve never seen the ocean? You mean the Pacific or any ocean in general?”
“We’ve never seen any ocean,” Marlene said. “Never even been off the prairies.”
Jess loved watching Finn’s face when he met people like this. The idea that a person could live her whole life without seeing the ocean—that was just too much for him. Shocked the hell out of him every time.
“Wow. Okay, so what’s the biggest body of water you’ve ever seen?”
They didn’t even have to think about it.
“We went trout fishing on Lake Diefenbaker a couple years ago. That was kind of cool.”
“Diefen—” Finn choked over a laugh, which made everyone laugh with him. Or at him. “I guess as lakes go out there on the prairies, it’s not a bad size, but…holy hell.”
By that time, some of the other guests had joined in the conversation, each sharing bits about the different places they’d fished, what types of rods they preferred, and who had the best halibut recipe.
The only thing Finn loved almost as much as fishing was talking about fishing, so Jessie was a little surprised when he excused himself a short while later and headed out of the room.
But she knew exactly where he was going, and she also knew if she didn’t get to him soon, he’d no doubt do something Finn-like and she’d be left with a virus-eaten computer again. As quickly and discreetly as she could, she worked her way out of the room and headed straight to the office.
Leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest, she couldn’t help but smile at him, hunched over the keyboard the way he was, staring intently at the screen.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t touch the big bright electronic items anymore unless you had supervision.”
His frown of concentration faded to a slow guilty smile.
“They’ve only got four days,” he whispered. “We need to get them as close to the ocean as we can.”
Of course that’s what he was doing. Laughing quietly, she rolled her eyes and shuffled into the room until she was right up next to him, angling her head so she could see the screen through the late-afternoon sun glaring through the window.
“Good God, Finn. Steve Jobs spins in his grave every time you get near this thing, you know that, right?”
“Whatever,” he said, chuckling low and easy. “This is your thing, not mine. What am I doing wrong?”
He lifted his hands from the keyboard and sat back in the chair, his upper arm pressing against hers. It was nothing; it was just his arm against hers, something that had happened dozens, maybe hundreds, of times over the years.
So why did it feel different? And why did it make her swallow so hard and blink so fast?
“Did you…? Oh jeez.” Moving the cursor over the screen, she shook her head slowly. “Please tell me you didn’t cancel the original reservation.”
She didn’t even wait for him to answer, just nudged him out of the chair and took his place, inhaling the faint scent of lemon he left behind.
Jess didn’t mind the smell of fish that came off the boats with Finn; she kind of liked it, actually. But she loved that he used Olivia’s leftover lemon halves to try to scrub the smell off.
It was—no, it wasn’t! The scent of lemon mixed with the salt air was many things, but sexy wasn’t one of them.
Not on anyone else, maybe, but on Finn O’Donnell it’s sexy as hell.
Since when? God, what was wrong with her? The fastest way to freak out Finn—or any of the O’Donnells—would be to let them know that she thought anything about Finn was sexy, especially something as completely insane as the smell of his hands.
Jessie blinked hard and long, only opening her eyes when she was sure she’d be able to focus on the registration program in front of her.
As she worked the trackpad with her right hand, she rolled her ChapStick idly in her left.
“See,” she said, waving the tube between Finn and the screen. “You just have to click on this and then—”
“Sorry, what do I click on?” Stepping closer, he leaned over to get a better look just as she turned to him. The resulting crack of their foreheads made them both curse and laugh at the same time.
“You okay?” He reached toward her, as if he was going to touch her forehead, but she pressed her fingers over the injured spot and turned back to the computer.
God, it was hot in that room all of a sudden.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “But before we concuss each other, maybe you should back up a few steps and I’ll finish this myself.”
“Good idea.” The relief in his voice was almost palpable.
The more space between her and Finn, the better. Especially when he smiled like that, awkward like…like…how he’d smiled earlier in the great room when she’d made that stupid comment about kissing him.
Jessie didn’t know what had made her say it, and then once she did, she couldn’t even move. She couldn’t look at him, or away from him, so she kept her gaze locked on the room full of guests. The whole time she could feel him staring at her, just as he was doing again here in the office.
After a second he backed up as far as he could and turned to study the laminated map of the coastline that had hung on that wall for as long as Jessie could remember. There wasn’t a centimeter on that map Finn didn’t already know, yet still he ran his finger slowly over each grid, studying it all over again.
Clearing her throat, Jessie made a few more adjustments to the reservation and hit save.
“There,” she said. “Now all we need to do is move their bags down to the White cabin. You coming?”
“What?”
She was already at the door when Finn finally clued in to what she’d said.
“I mean, yeah. Let’s go.”
Clearly, fresh air would do them both good.
Chapter 6
“Here, fishy fishy fishy.”
Jessie had been right; that little bit of fresh air had done them both good. By the time they’d delivered the luggage to the White cabin, she was back to her normal self and Finn no longer had that dazed look on his face.
Marlene and Norma were thrilled with the change and ran straight down to the cabin to check it out before dinner. And for the rest of the evening, everything was just as it should be.
Dinner with the guests was always loud and busy, and Jessie wouldn’t have it any other way. She loved the noise and the laughter and the way a good meal could bring complete strangers together. It was a far cry from what she’d grown up with, sitting across the table from Tracy’s empty chair night after night.
One of the
things she loved most about the guests was that once they settled in, they tended to let their guards down, as if they were living by the what-happens-there-stays-there rule.
Maybe that was why Charlotte, one of the Green-cabin women, felt comfortable telling everyone that her friends had all but kidnapped her and flown her up to the Buoys to get her away from her fiancé for a few days.
“That boy does not deserve her.” Jacqui shook her head so fast it sent her wildly fun Afro swaying. “Nuh-uh.”
The other friend, Patsy, couldn’t agree faster. Whoever this fiancé guy was, apparently he was a stifling bore who thought a good time included things like dinner theater and foreign films with subtitles.
“Look at her,” Jacqui said. “She’s a gorgeous, vibrant, adventurous woman. She could have any man she wanted, so why, I ask you, should she settle for a guy who thinks Drumheller is a good place to go for a honeymoon?”
“Drumheller?” Jessie croaked. “You mean the dinosaur place?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Oh boy.” Jessie tried to stifle her laugh, but it choked out anyway. “I’m…well, I’ve never been there myself, so I can’t…I’m sure it’s, uh…great.”
“Yeah.” Patsy snorted, then pushed her glasses up on her nose. “If you’re a twelve-year-old boy, I bet it’s amazing.”
“Charlotte needs a man who’ll show her some fun,” Jacqui said. “You know—someone like him.”
Every head in the room turned to see where she was pointing—every head except Jessie’s. She already knew.
“Me?” Finn’s shocked cry was drowned out by the guffaws coming from Liam and Kate. “I’m not fun!”
“He’s really not,” Liam said, but the women completely ignored him.
“Do you only go to movies with subtitles?”
“I don’t actually go to—”
“And do you avoid the outdoors to the point of seeming vampire-ish?”
“Well, that’s a little hard to do in this business.”
“And where do you think a couple should go for their honeymoon?”
“I’m not…I mean, I don’t…” He looked over at Jessie, clearly desperate for someone to bail him out on this.