Reluctant Partners

by Kara Lennox

  “The passengers seemed to like it.”

  “Hello, Allie,” Reece said politely.

  Allie was busy emptying the trash barrel, and she barely looked up. “Hello…Reece, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Let me help you with that. This was my job when I used to visit Uncle Johnny.”

  “The only thing Johnny would trust him to do,” Cooper added.

  “Oh…thank you.”

  “Allie, this is your night off, remember?” Cooper said. “We’ll handle all the cleanup and restock provisions.” He would also have to take the boat to be refueled and to clean out the holding tank. He felt a little jittery at the idea, though it was just around the corner. “What’s on the schedule for tomorrow?”

  “Nothing, unfortunately,” Allie replied, “but we should still stock up in case there’s a last-minute booking.”

  “Do you often have idle days?” Reece asked.

  Allie immediately went on the defensive. “It’s still the off-season, and I’m only now getting the business back up to full speed. Johnny couldn’t work the last few weeks of his illness.”

  Cooper felt a pang of loss and guilt. Though Allie would never believe him, he’d have been here to take care of Uncle Johnny if he’d known the man was dying.

  He’d always thought there would be time.

  “We’re still well-stocked with soft drinks,” Allie said, pulling them back to business. “But we need cold cuts and fruit. Bread we can buy tomorrow morning at Romanelli’s Bakery, when it’s freshest.”

  “Don’t worry,” Cooper told her. “We’ll handle everything. You just go out and have a good time. But before you leave, can you show Reece your financial records? He’s here to go over the books.” He tensed, expecting her to balk.

  “Of course,” she said smoothly. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll fix myself some dinner and read in my bunk.”

  That seemed a strange choice to Cooper. She’d been on the boat all day. Didn’t she want to get out? Maybe she wanted to keep an eye on things, in case he and Reece had in mind to walk off with the silverware or something.

  Allie led them downstairs and to the rear of the boat. She unlocked the hatch that led to the captain’s quarters.

  Johnny’s presence was still strong here, and a wave of nostalgia washed over Cooper. The cabin looked exactly the same as he remembered, right down to the picture of St. Brendan the Navigator, patron saint of sailors, bolted to the wall. Even his pipe smoke lingered.

  The finality of Uncle Johnny’s passing hit him hard in the gut. The old man wouldn’t emerge from some hatch, whistling a jaunty tune, pipe clenched in his teeth and a glass of Scotch in his hand. He’d always been a drinking man, but before Aunt Pat’s death, spirits were strictly for after the boat was in port.

  And Aunt Pat. Cooper had been focusing so much on Johnny he hadn’t given much thought to her, because she’d died so many years ago, but memories of her lurked at the edges of his mind. She’d been a hard-living, wiry woman with a sense of adventure every bit as strong as her husband’s. She’d had a tattoo of a sailboat on her shoulder long before tattoos were stylish.

  She’d been a heckuva cook and she taught her nephews to play poker like pros.

  “Something wrong?” Allie asked.

  He realized he’d just been standing in the doorway, frozen. He shook himself. “Just remembering.”

  Allie went to a small desk in the corner of the cabin, opened a drawer, and pulled out an old-fashioned ledger book as well as four checkbooks and a cash box.

  She laid out the checkbooks on the desktop. “Business account, Johnny’s personal account-which has been closed, and my two personal accounts-savings and checking. You’re welcome to work in here, but you’d have more room in the salon,” she said.

  “Won’t we be in your way in here?” Reece asked.

  “I don’t use this room except to do bookkeeping. I sleep in the V-berth. Will you need anything else?”

  Reece had opened the cover of the ledger book and was looking at it with a strange expression on his face. “You don’t have your records on computer?”

  Allie shrugged. “Never felt the need. Remington Charters’ accounting is pretty simple, and as you can see I don’t have room for a computer. The salt air eats them up pretty bad, anyway.”

  How did anyone survive in this day and age without a computer? Cooper wondered.

  “We might want to wait until tomorrow to get fueled up,” Allie said on her way out of the cabin. “The storms will pass by then.”

  “Okay.” Cooper couldn’t deny he was relieved.

  He knew he should get to the grocery store before it closed. He’d quickly discovered that during the off-season Port Clara rolled up the sidewalks at night. Only the bars and the Quicky Mart stayed open past seven o’clock.

  But he was curious to know what was in the ledger. If they could find evidence that Allie mismanaged funds, it would help their case.

  After spending a couple of days with Allie, he couldn’t picture her siphoning off funds and socking them away in a Swiss bank account. And what would she spend it on here? She clearly didn’t have a lot of expensive clothes or jewelry, and he’d seen her car, an ancient Isuzu Rodeo.

  They took Allie’s suggestion and moved to the salon where they could spread out a bit. Cooper helped himself to a beer and settled into a comfortable chair while Reece began studying the ledger in earnest, making notations on a legal pad every so often.

  But watching Reece frown and scribble and punch numbers into his calculator got pretty boring after a minute or so, and Cooper found his gaze straying toward the galley, where Allie was fixing herself some dinner. One of the passengers-a guy who’d flirted with Allie at every opportunity-had gifted her with a small snapper fillet on his departure, and it appeared she was marinating it in some concoction.

  She fixed herself a salad-spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers-then tossed the fish on an indoor grill, adding spices from a well-stocked rack.

  “Allie apparently knows how to cook,” Cooper observed quietly.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I want to offer our passengers a gourmet meal. Maybe Allie could be our cook.”

  Reece looked up. “Are you insane? If we win this lawsuit, she won’t want to work for us, she’ll want to kill us.”

  Cooper sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He’d just needed someone to confirm the conclusion he’d already drawn.

  He resumed his study of Allie, fully appreciating the length and shapeliness of her tanned legs. She’d abandoned her deck shoes, and Cooper saw that her toenails were painted bright red. That little feminine detail intrigued him. She didn’t wear makeup-not that she needed any-and her idea of a hairstyle was to pull her long red hair into a clip on top of her head. She obviously saw no need for designer clothes, preferring those ancient cut-off jeans and tank shirts. Her nails were short and utilitarian and her hands work-roughened.

  But the toenails said she hadn’t forgotten she was a woman.

  Cooper wished he could forget she was a woman. Every time he looked at her he got distracted, and that was a bad thing.

  Heather had distracted him, though in a different way. She was nearly six feet tall with a model’s body and a slick, magazine cover look about her. When she entered a room, all heads turned, and she had used that power, along with her wide-eyed innocent act, to divert attention from her nefarious activities.

  She had started out stealing knickknacks and baubles from his house, and then the considerably more valuable stuff from his parents’ home. His parents had actually fired a hapless housekeeper over the missing items.

  Emboldened by her success with minor thefts, she had progressed to stealing credit card numbers and shopping on the Internet.

  Cooper admitted it-he never looked over his bill that carefully. He used it for everything, so the list of charges went on for pages. So long as the total didn’t seem out of line, he just paid it.

  He’d finally caugh
t on when an eight-hundred-dollar charge from a designer shoe store caught his eye. He started looking closer at his bill and was horrified to find a half-dozen charges for purchases he knew nothing about.

  He knew immediately who’d done it. At first he was inclined to believe he’d somehow given her implicit permission to use his Visa. They were, after all, engaged.

  He spoke to her about it, and if she’d just simply admitted she’d done it, apologized, and promised not to do it again, she would have gotten away with it.

  But she denied any knowledge of the mystery purchases and tried to blame it on his parents’ cleaning lady, who had become a convenient scapegoat.

  After launching a full investigation, the depth of her thievery came to light. She’d siphoned off thousands and thousands of dollars-not just from his credit card, but his bank accounts and those of his parents. She wasn’t just a greedy woman with a shopping addiction, she was a skilled con artist.

  Turned out her name wasn’t even Heather.

  She’d disappeared before Cooper could gather together enough facts to have her arrested, probably living high in the Cayman Islands on his money.

  When he turned his attention back to Reece, Cooper saw that his cousin was no longer studying the ledger. He had his eyes closed and his hands extended beside him, as if to hold himself upright.

  “Reece?”

  “This wasn’t a good idea,” he said without opening his eyes. “It’s like reading in a car. These records will require several hours of study, and I can’t do it on this moving boat.”

  “You can’t take all my financial stuff off the boat,” Allie called from the galley where she sat at a fold-down table, eating her dinner. Apparently she’d been listening. “I might never see it again.”

  “We’ll take it and have it photocopied,” Cooper said. “We’ll bring it right back.”

  She looked at her watch, an ancient windup Timex. “Copy shop’s closed.”

  “We’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

  Reece stood and staggered toward the hatch. “You guys work it out. I need fresh air.”

  Allie stood and came into the salon. “You can’t take all my financial stuff away,” she said again. “That’s ludicrous.”

  “Allie. I wouldn’t destroy your property. I don’t need to cheat.”

  “Cheating’s the only way you’ll win.”

  They stood staring at each other, both of them breathing hard, and Cooper felt an insane urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her into agreeing with him.

  He couldn’t take her records without her permission, so he backed down a fraction. “We’ll make a list of everything I remove from the premises, and we’ll both sign it. When I return everything, we’ll tear up the list.”

  She thought about his offer for a few moments, and finally she relaxed a bit. “I guess that’s fair.”

  Allie could think of no graceful way to refuse Cooper’s request without sounding like she had something to hide. But as she signed her name to the list of items he was removing, she felt like she was signing a bargain with the devil.

  Would she ever see her carefully maintained financial history again? Yes, she’d made copies, but that didn’t completely lay her mind at ease. Cooper could trip on his way up the dock and send all that paperwork flying into the water. He could have a wreck on the way home and the papers could burn up.

  He could orchestrate any number of ways to destroy the records once he realized they proved she’d sunk her life savings into this boat. She’d been Johnny’s partner, which gave him clear and reasonable motivation for leaving her the boat in his will.

  That was something Cooper Remington did not want a judge to see.

  WHEN ALLIE WOKE UP THE NEXT morning, she knew immediately something was wrong.

  The storm that had blown in had kept her awake much of the night. The boat had pitched and the wind had howled and whistled through the cracks in the windows. Some of the seals were broken, and she’d had to place rolled-up towels around a few windows to keep the rain from coming in.

  But all was quiet now. The dawn sky looked clear.

  Still, something was definitely wrong, and it wasn’t until Allie came more fully awake that she realized what it was.

  The boat sat too low in the water, even accounting for low tide, and it listed to one side.

  Allie flew out of her berth in her pajamas and went directly to the hatch in the galley that led down to the engines. When she opened it, she nearly fainted.

  The Dragonfly was taking on water.

  When they’d hit that rock, they must have done more damage than she’d thought. She’d checked last night and hadn’t seen any water coming in, but it had been too dark and the water too choppy for her to get in the water and inspect the hull. She ran to put on her waders, then vaulted down into the engine compartment and switched on the pump. But that was just a stopgap measure; she had to get the boat into dry dock immediately.

  She quickly changed clothes, then dialed Cooper’s cell phone as she clamored up to the deck to cast off. It wasn’t that she felt any obligation to notify him; nor did she have any desire to rub his nose in the fact he’d wrecked her boat. But she was keenly aware of the agreement she had made not to sail without a Remington on board until their case had been decided. Cooper would use any excuse he could come up with to give her trouble or argue that she was defying a court order.

  Unfortunately, she got his voice mail. “Cooper, it’s Allie. The Dragonfly has sprung a leak and I’m taking her to Sinclair Marine, about three miles east. I have to do it now or she’ll sink.”

  Allie didn’t have any of the other Remingtons’ numbers. She tried the B and B-she would have Miss Greer drag Cooper out of bed if necessary. But Miss Greer turned the ringer down on her phone at night because people called at strange hours. So Allie got no answer there, either. She left another message, then made one more phone call to Otis Sinclair, letting him know she was coming and to get ready for her.

  At least the engines started.

  She eased the Dragonfly out of her slip and turned east for her slow trip up the coast, limping along and praying the boat didn’t sink.

  Chapter Six

  Cooper hadn’t slept well. Memories of hitting that rock mingled with restless dreams about Allie and her gorgeous legs, and the mistrust he’d seen in those green eyes.

  He was up before light and was glad to find Reece awake, too. They gathered up Remington Charters’ financial records, chucked them into Cooper’s briefcase, and left the B and B before their restlessness awakened any of the other guests or Miss Greer, who was a little bit scary first thing in the morning before she’d had her coffee.

  Of course, the copy shop wasn’t open yet.

  “Let’s go get some breakfast at the Old Salt,” Cooper suggested. “By the time we’re done, the copy shop will be open and we can return Allie’s records to her.”

  “Miss Greer will be offended if we don’t eat her breakfast,” Reece pointed out as they climbed into Cooper’s rented BMW. Cooper had hired a neighbor kid to drive his car from New York to Texas, but it wouldn’t arrive for a few days.

  “I don’t know about you, but Miss Greer has a strange idea of what constitutes a good breakfast.”

  “Oh, I always go out and get something else after I eat her itty-bitty pastries,” Reece said. “I just wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s awfully proud of those cream puffs, or whatever they are.”

  Whatever was right. Cooper found them nearly inedible. “Miss Greer will survive. We can’t be the first guests to turn down breakfast.” Leave it to Reece to worry about offending someone they hardly knew. He’d once dated a woman for six months when he saw no future in it because he hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings by breaking up with her. “She’s not anybody’s grandmother, she’s someone we do business with.”

  “She’s probably someone’s grandmother,” Reece pointed out.

  “She’s never been married, and you�
�re too nice.”

  “You’ve got a heart like a rock.”

  “At least no one can stomp on it.”

  It was a familiar argument, and Reece just rolled his eyes.

  Even at this early hour the Old Salt was packed because they served the best breakfast in town. But Cooper and Reece managed to find a table on the deck. They ordered another decadent breakfast for Cooper and oatmeal for Reece.

  Cooper took a long, satisfying sip of his coffee, leaned back in his chair, and cast his eyes toward the marina, wondering if he would catch any glimpses of Allie this morning. Did she sleep late when she didn’t have an outing scheduled, or was she an early riser like him?

  “You sure know how to pick ’em,” Reece said.

  “What?”

  “Women. Your last girlfriend was a con artist, and now you’ve got the hots for a woman who hates your guts.”

  “She doesn’t hate me. I mean, I don’t have the hots for her, as you so charmingly put it. And she doesn’t hate me.”

  “You’re trying to take away her livelihood. You think she’ll put you on her Christmas card list? And if you don’t have a thing for her, why are you always staring at her? You’re looking for her right this second.”

  “No, actually, what I’m looking for is our boat. And I don’t see it.”

  That got Reece’s attention. He swiveled his chair around and peered off toward the marina.

  “Am I crazy,” Cooper said, “or is the Dragonfly’s slip empty?”

  “My God. You’re right.”

  They stared at each other.

  “She stole our boat.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Reece, always the voice of reason. “Maybe she just went to get gas and maintenance.”

  Cooper was already reaching for his phone, intending to call 9-1-1 or the Coast Guard, or whoever it was you called to report a stolen boat. But he stopped before actually dialing. Allie had said something about getting fuel this morning. “Let’s go check at the marina.”