Ten Good Reasons

by Lauren Christopher

  Her first four calls went to Drew’s voice mail.

  That was odd, that he wasn’t calling her back. But she tamped down her worry and worked on other projects—the new website for Mr. Brimmer, and a YouTube contest for one of Elle’s clients.

  She answered the door for the postman, who was dropping off the first two pairs of many shoes she’d ordered for the weddings, in every shade of blue imaginable. These first two were a pump and a heeled Mary Jane—she didn’t like either—so she stacked them against the wall. Around noon, she punched in Drew’s number a fifth and sixth time.

  By her seventh call, at two, panic was setting in.

  She started to leave a message, grabbing her jeans out of the neat piles of laundry folded on the purple velvet chair in her bedroom. “Drew? Sorry I keep calling. I just need to talk to you, as you know. I think I’ll just swing by your house, actually. I called a few East Coast marinas, but I’m having trouble. Call me.”

  The jeans still in her hand, her pajamas halfway off, the phone rang back. Drew’s number displayed.

  “Drew, buddy, I’ve been trying to reach you, I—”

  “Lia, this is Sharon.”

  “Oh, Sharon! Hi! Is Drew okay? I’m sorry I keep calling, but—”

  “Yeah, the thing is, he’s not okay, Lia,” Sharon snapped.

  Lia’s heart began to hammer. Sharon had been dating Drew for about six months now, but Sharon and she had gotten off to a rocky start as friends—Sharon had felt, right from the start, that Drew spent too much time with Lia, and too much time working, and she accused Lia of exacerbating both.

  “I took him back to the hospital this morning,” Sharon said in a whisper that sounded accusatory. “He was having some trouble breathing, and the doctor wanted to keep him overnight and check for blood clots and deep-vein thrombosis.”

  “Oh my God.” Lia yanked her jeans on faster. She didn’t know what deep-vein thrombosis was, but it sounded dire. “Is he at Sandy Cove Hospital? I’ll be right there. I just have to—”

  “Lia, no. Stop. He’s comfortable. I’m going back in an hour. He’ll be fine. But really—you have to stop calling him. And talking to him about work. The stress is getting to him.”

  Lia halted. “Oh, Sharon, I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to cause him stress. I just want to help.” She moved more shoe boxes aside and dropped into the purple chair. “He needs a captain for the next several weeks, and—”

  “Let’s just let him recover, okay?” The snap in Sharon’s voice felt like a slap across her face. “Can you just handle this for the next few days without involving him? Maybe cancel the first day or two, and then we can reconvene and come up with a plan? His health is more important than work right now.”

  “Of course!” Lia said when she got her breath back. “Of course. I know that. But this business is everything to him right now, and—”

  “It’s not everything. Deep-vein thrombosis could stop his heart. There’s more to life than work, Lia.”

  Backhand slap.

  “Please,” Sharon continued in Lia’s stunned silence. “Give him a few days of rest. You can call on Wednesday.” And she hung up.

  Lia stared at the dead phone in her hand. It shook as she steadied herself back to her desk, tears pricking her eyes. She stared at her laptop screen, which began blurring.

  How could Sharon say such a thing? Of course she knew there was more to life than work, and of course she cared about Drew’s life. She poked at several screens, shutting them down, feeling sick. She wasn’t a workaholic or anything. Or maybe she was. A little. She just knew that financial security was everything. Growing up the way she had, she knew that to be all too true. And these people in Sandy Cove, or even her own mom and sisters, didn’t seem to realize that, to be a success, you had to think bigger. You had to be “on” all the time, like they were in L.A.

  She slammed her laptop closed. She was worried for Drew, but she knew Sharon would take good care of him. Sharon was a nurse herself, and he couldn’t be in better hands health-wise.

  But to handle Drew’s business herself? With Sharon hijacking his phone and holding her at arm’s length? And the investors showing up—unbeknownst to Drew—throughout the first week? And the Vampiress’s client Kyle Stevens showing up on Monday morning to check out the boat for the charter?

  Lia studied the Eiffel Tower lamp, letting the clean lines blur into muddy ones, but she knew what she had to do.

  She needed to pay another visit to Drew’s brother.

  * * *

  The guest slips looked less intimidating in the day. Lia’s hopes lifted as she skittered down the marina stairs and made her way past Sandy Cove’s gleaming white boat masts that stood as tall as the palm trees around the harbor, all profiled against a bright blue sky.

  She was better dressed for the boats now: white Keds and blue jeans. She’d wondered how much time to invest in her appearance for this particular encounter—usually marketing herself was half the job, the Vampiress always said (usually while eyeing Lia’s sometimes-messy topknot with disdain). But Lia wasn’t dealing with a Fortune 500 business owner here. She knew it wouldn’t matter. She’d wrestled her slithery hair into a simple ponytail, took two swipes with a mascara wand, tugged a light sweater over her jeans, and called it a day.

  “Hello?” she called. “Mr. Betancourt?”

  The boat looked much the same as she’d left it last night—still closed up, with the bucket sitting on the bench and the same rope clinking quietly against the mast. The late-afternoon sunshine glinted off the teak floors and well-worn captain’s wheel, the wood faded where the owner’s hands must rest. The boats on either side had vacated their slips for the day, leaving Drew’s brother’s boat to look even more isolated and quiet. She didn’t know if he’d slept aboard—she assumed he had. And, in doing so, he was breaking the rules. She glanced around and hoped she wouldn’t see the harbormaster anywhere nearby.

  “Hello?” she called again in her most cheerful voice.

  The cabin door swung open with a bang, and Lia flinched.

  Drew’s brother stepped out much the same way as he had last night: looking too big for the door frame and none too happy to be called through it.

  In the light of day, she could see him better, although it didn’t improve matters. He had the same scowl, the same hard lines around his jaw, the same bad manners. He squinted angrily at the sun, and tried to look up at her as the sunlight streamed over her shoulder.

  “Hello, there!” She gave him her warmest smile.

  “You’re back,” he said in the same tone of voice you’d use to describe the return of the measles.

  “I am! I thought we could talk again. I was going to bring you coffee but I didn’t know what you liked. Can I buy you one at the marina shops?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I can buy you a tea? A soda? A beer?”

  “No.” He grabbed the rope that had been clanging against the pole and tightened it.

  “I hoped we could discuss how we can help Drew, Mr. Betancourt.”

  He gave the rope a violent tug that caused Lia to want to step back. “I told you to send him,” he mumbled without looking at her.

  “He ended up back in the hospital this morning and couldn’t make it.”

  She thought she saw a flash of some kind of emotion in his face—not exactly worry, but perhaps some kind of surprise—but then he turned away before she could tell. He mumbled something and moved toward the helm.

  Lia sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. She followed him along the dock and shaded her eyes from the sun. The light was cold and bright in February in Southern California—an abrasive white. The brief rain last night and today’s wind had cleared the air into a crispness, but it left the sun to shine in a fierce, unfiltered way.

  “Since his accident, you know, he’s in a lot of pain,”
she went on, “and I really want to handle this for him. Can’t we talk, just you and I?”

  He bent behind the helm at the back of his boat and started the motor. He had on cargo shorts today and a long-sleeved white shirt, cuffed at the forearms. The ocean breeze whipped the fabric around his menacing frame. She wondered, again, how old he was. Drew was twenty-nine like she was, but his brother looked a little older. His trim waist and muscled back made him look young—possibly in his early thirties. But something about the way he moved—like he was dragging himself through life’s motions—made him look older.

  “I won’t take much of your time,” she said. “I can explain everything quickly.”

  He snapped his hair out of his eyes and headed back in her direction. Hope soared in her chest. He bent a muscled leg onto the dock near her and hauled himself off the boat in a strangely lithe move. She hadn’t realized how tall he was. But instead of looking at her, or inviting her down, he barreled past her and began undoing the stern line at the last cleat.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can’t we talk?”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  He shot her a look of exasperation. “No.”

  A stab of panic set in as Lia watched him toss the line into the boat, then amble down the dock to untie the others. Three more lines, one swift turn out of the harbor, and her chance would be gone.

  “When are you coming back?” she yelled.

  His hand went into the air as if to dismiss the question.

  Frantically, Lia scanned the side of the boat. Could she jump in from here? She’d certainly been known to resort to desperate measures before. One didn’t keep the Vampiress happy without being bold, that was for sure.

  She watched him step into the boat at the bow, following the last line he’d tossed. The sailboat tottered under his weight as he turned, coiling the line around his arm. Lia flipped her purse strap over her head and shuffled toward that end of the boat, which was still hugging the dock. She had only seconds to think. While his back was still to her, she took a flying leap—of faith and on air—and plunged to the deck behind him.

  “Ooof.” The sound escaped from deep in her belly as she found herself against the cabin windows, a hand breaking the crack of her head. She didn’t know what had hit her. But, when her eyes flew open, Drew’s brother’s body ran the length of hers, his thick forearm against her neck, her chin forced upward. He weighed about a million pounds. She squeezed a breath through her windpipe, but he spun away within half a second and lifted his hands in surrender fashion. “What the hell?” he growled out.

  Her heart continued to hammer. She closed her eyes and tried to suck in as much air as possible. The “ex-military” and “former Coast Guard” part of Drew’s description came back to her in a rush, and she felt the heat of embarrassment creep across her cheeks.

  “Don’t ever, ever, do that again!” he spat.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Betancourt,” she whispered, still trying to draw some air into her lungs. “I’m—”

  “And stop calling me that!”

  “Wh-what should I call you?”

  “Call me Evan.” He turned away, snatched his dropped coil off the deck, and glanced back at her, clearly unsure what to do with his anger. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”

  “I’m—I’m just really desperate, Evan. I need your help. Drew needs your help. I really need to talk to you.” She was still plastered against the slanted cabin windows, her hands still raised, still trying to catch her breath.

  He motioned her toward him. “Get off there. Stop looking like that. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trained to react that way.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry.” She stood on shaky legs and straightened her sweater. Her purse strap had practically cut off her breathing, and she loosened it against her collarbone. She couldn’t get her heart to stop thundering. The gentle roll of the boat wasn’t helping her shaking, and she grabbed a pole next to her and leaned forward, hoping she wouldn’t throw up, trying to clear her head, clear her lungs. “I forgot you were Coast Guard before,” she said on a few deep breaths.

  He looked at her suspiciously. “How did you know that?”

  “Drew told me.”

  Maybe he really hadn’t been sure she knew Drew. He kept glancing at her while he shifted his weight and finally threw the line back at the metal cleat on the dock. “Never get on an occupied boat without asking permission to board. I’m surprised Drew didn’t teach you that.”

  “We’re . . . we’re really not that formal.”

  He glanced at her again but didn’t say anything. After wrapping the line around the cleat a few times, he put his hands on his hips and took another deep breath. “Who are you to him?”

  “A friend.”

  “A good friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “He must be doing okay, then, if you’re here and not at the hospital.”

  “Yes, he’ll be okay. They’re checking for deep-vein thrombosis.”

  He looked away, as if processing that bit of information. “Does he know you’re here, asking me this?”

  Lia considered lying. It seemed a lie could get a “yes” much sooner. But her intuition kicked in and told her that a lie with these two brothers could come with a host of other problems.

  “No,” she admitted.

  Evan took another survey of the ocean’s horizon. “What else are you to him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anything more than a friend?”

  Lia nodded. She’d have to come clean. “I do some marketing for him. For free.”

  That didn’t seem to surprise him as much as she thought it would. “Anything more?” he finally asked.

  Lia didn’t know what he meant by that—like, romantically? But she shook her head. “That seemed like enough.”

  The line of his mouth quirked up in the slightest way—it might have been a smile on a normal human being—but before she could tell, he turned and started tugging at the line to secure it further. His irritable movements made her think she’d hallucinated it.

  “Well, I’m not taking you with me.” He gave another angry yank. “I’m going to have to ask you to disembark.”

  The boat obeyed him, the bumpers rubbing up against the dock as if pointing the way for Lia.

  “Listen, Mr. Betan—er, Evan—I know we got off to a bad start here. I’m very sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. That was a stupid move. I just feel very, very desperate. Drew really needs your help. He can’t take care of the Duke alone.”

  Evan whipped around at that. “What?”

  She took a step back. For such a huge man, he sure moved fast.

  “What did you say?” He took a step toward her.

  What did she say? Did she say something wrong again? “I said . . . uh, that he couldn’t take care of the Duke alone.”

  Evan’s lips parted—she’d finally caught him off guard. Although she didn’t know why.

  “His boat,” she offered. “The Duke is his whale-watching boat, and—”

  “I gathered. When did he name it?”

  Lia couldn’t imagine why this mattered, but she searched her memory. “It was . . . I believe it was . . . let’s see, it wasn’t last January, but the one before. . . . Two years ago?”

  Evan’s gaze slid to the deck floor. He hung his hands on his hips again, but his ferocity was gone. His shoulders slumped, his forehead lines disappeared, his hair fell over his eyes like a dark curtain. He stared at the shiny deck tape for a long time, sparkling in the sun. Finally, he reached for the line again. The only sounds around them for a full minute were a lone seagull squawking overhead and the water slapping against the dock pillars.

  “I’m only here for a w
eek,” he mumbled.

  Lia wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. It sounded like a reluctant agreement, but maybe she’d hit her head in the scuffle. She was too hopeful to ask him to repeat himself, so she just held her breath.

  “Okay,” she said. “We could find someone else after that.” She waited for him to correct her. When he simply walked away, back toward the stern line, she went for the assumptive close: “If you could help for just the first week then, that’d be great.” Although she was bursting with relief, she tried to keep her voice calm. She had the sense of talking down a tiger who hadn’t decided if he were going to pounce or run. “I’ll have Drew write out a script for you.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  Didn’t want to talk? How was he going to give the whale-watching narration? “Okay . . .” She was determined to think of a way around this. “Um . . . We can work something out.”

  “You can do it,” he said, leaning forward to grab the stern line. “Have Drew write it out for you.”

  “Well, I don’t usually come aboard for these things. He has a deckhand named Douglas. Maybe he can—”

  “The deckhand’s fine.” He tugged on the tie. “So we’re done here?”

  “Um . . . yes.” This seemed too easy. Could she trust him to show? The Vampiress’s client was too important to take any chances. If the client arrived with his entourage on Monday, and no one was there . . . “So you know how to sail?”

  He threw her a quelling glance and finished tying the line.

  “A cat, I mean?”

  “It has a motor, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a cruise cat, then. I think I’ll manage.”

  The sarcasm in his voice let her know that was probably an insulting question, but she didn’t mean to insult him. She just needed this to go off without a single hitch.

  “So you’ll be at Drew’s boat? At nine? Do you know which one it is? Here, let me give you a business card.”

  “I know where the commercial vessels are. And you just told me the name. And the time. I’m good.”