by Loree Lough
“Keep a close eye on those rod tips,” Parker advised. “We’ve got a whole school of fish right under us.”
Bill’s rod arched and bounced. “Got one!” he said, grabbing it.
“Hey, look!” Jody shouted. “Buffy’s got one too!”
“Remember,” Hank added, “these babies spook real easy, so—”
Squeals and shouts rose up as every rod tip bent. Holly and Hank helped the Davises reel in their fish, using the ruler on the ice box lid to determine which could go into the box and which they’d release.
Parker kept his eye on the horizon, where the low-hanging clouds had gone from burnt orange to blue gray. The wind had picked up too. Not a good sign, he knew. Not a good sign at all.
Holly didn’t rebait the hooks, telling him that she’d seen the sky too. Instead, she handed out sodas and said, “Need to ask the captain if we’re staying here or moving elsewhere.” Then she jogged into the cockpit and leaned in close to whisper, “When are you going to tell them?”
“Didn’t figure I needed to. They’ve got eyes, and they’ve been coming down here since before the twins were born. Soon as the shine of a cooler full of fish wears off, they’ll want to head in even more than we do.”
“I’ll start packing up, then,” she said, heading back onto the deck. One by one, she grabbed rods and prepped them for storage in the cabin’s overhead racks. Without a word, she rummaged through the tiny cupboards until she found his supply of clear-plastic bags and twist ties. “Which is your sharpest knife?” she asked, opening the galley’s only drawer.
“The one with the bone handle,” he said, grinning. “Does that mean you know how to fillet fish too?”
She stood at attention and said, “Yessir, Captain.”
Parker grabbed the wrist that held the knife, because, knowing her, she’d salute him next and end up gouging out an eye—or worse. “You know how to pilot a boat?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Her brow crinkled into a tiny frown. “Why?”
“Because I think Hank has scared those kids enough for one day.”
The frown intensified as she tried to figure out what he meant.
“They don’t need to see your blood all over the deck… .”
Her shoulders sagged slightly, and she gave a little nod.
He was still holding her wrist when he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that with the storm moving in and all, you might feel the need to rush, and—”
“No need to explain.” She put the knife back into the drawer. “Or apologize. After all the crazy, clumsy things you’ve seen me do in the short while I’ve been in town, you wouldn’t be much of a captain if you let me loose on deck with a sharp instrument.”
She’d punctuated the statement with a short laugh, but Parker knew her heart wasn’t in it. “You did okay with those fishhooks,” he admitted. And nodding at the drawer, he added, “Just take your time. Okay?”
Her smile lit the dim cockpit, telling Parker he’d made the right decision in trusting her to the task. At least, he hoped it was the right choice. Because it was a good half hour from here to the dock and another fifteen minutes from there to the hospital.
* * * * *
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a tidier job of packing up the day’s catch,” Hank said. He gave a final admiring nod as each Davis picked up their bagged redfish and climbed from the Sea Maverick to the dock. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Holly?”
She’d already said her good-byes to the family and was engrossed in hosing down the deck.
“I don’t think she heard you,” Parker said, laughing.
“That girl puts her whole self into things, doesn’t she?”
He remembered the way she’d handled the rods and filleted the fish. How she’d noticed the storm at almost the same moment as he had. “Yeah. She sure does.”
“Makes a man wonder what kind of wife she’d make, doesn’t it?”
He looked at Hank, fully expecting to see the usual teasing glint in his eyes.
“Woman like that,” Hank continued, “who doesn’t do anything halfway?” He gave another nod of approval. “Man would be lucky to share his life—”
“I know, I know…with a woman like that.”
Now the familiar grin lit the man’s face. “So you’ve noticed too, have you?”
Hard not to notice, Parker thought as she rolled up the hose and stowed it in the under-seat compartment. He hadn’t asked her to swab the deck, either, but she’d done it. Squeezed every drop of the water from the mop and hung it up to dry too. Then she rested both fists on her shapely hips and did a slow turn, no doubt to see if she’d missed anything. Parker read her lips: “Yep, all’s well.” And when a satisfied smile brightened her face, he thought his heart would thump clean out of his chest.
She looked up just then and blushed when she caught him staring. “Is everything shipshape?”
“Ah, yeah,” he managed. “Thanks.”
“Happy to be of service, Captain.”
This time, instead of saluting, Holly winked…and started his heart pounding like a parade drum. Again.
“Well, kids,” Hank said, giving Parker a playful elbow jab to the ribs, “I’d better head home before that monster reaches us.”
Both Holly and Parker followed his gaze to the horizon, where nearly black clouds stretched as far as the eye could see and rose high into the heavens. “We’d better make tracks too,” Parker said, locking the cabin.
From the dock, Hank said, “Yeah. Get that sweet girl someplace safe and dry. Sugar melts when it gets wet, y’know.” And, laughing, he trotted back up to the spot on the beach where they’d first seen him hunting for shells.
“Think he’ll make it home before the storm hits?” Holly asked.
“Yeah. His place is just on the other side of the dunes. He’ll be hunkered down long before we will.”
“Your place is closer,” she said, “but I’m guessing we’re going to your mom’s first?”
Nodding, he fell into step beside her. “Yeah. Once I check her bandages and make sure she has everything she’ll need to ride out the storm, we can head over to my place and see about hammering out that outline you were talking about.”
“I’m the only guest at the cottage tonight.”
He shot her a quick glance. “And your point is…?”
“We’ve put off working on the book for days. What’s one more night?”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about Maude. The woman was born and raised on the shore. Truth is, if Ma Nature knew what was good for her, she’d steer clear of Coastal Cottage.”
“Maybe. Under normal circumstances. But she can barely get around on those feet of hers.”
“All right. If it’ll ease your mind, we’ll hang around, at least until the threat of bad weather passes. I’m sure Maude will enjoy the company.”
They’d just crested the biggest dune when she said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Something personal?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Ask away…long as you’re okay knowing that I might not be able to answer it.”
“Might not want to answer it, you mean.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I suppose not.”
They walked a few more feet in silence. Then Parker said, “So what’s your question?”
“Why do you always call your mother Maude?” She let a tick in time pass before adding, “If I called my mom by her first name, she’d raise a terrible fuss!”
“I don’t always call her Maude.” He shoved his fingertips into his jacket pockets. “Do I?”
“Well, I’ve never heard you call her anything else.” Holly waved a hand in front of her face. “Never mind. It was a dumb question. And what you call her isn’t any of my business anyway.”
Parker shook his head. “You must think I’m an insensitive clod, not noticing a thing
like that.”
“Mind if I make a casual observation? One friend to another?” Is that what they were? Friends? Coworkers, he could deal with. Boss and employee, even. But friends? That’s the last word he’d used to define the way he felt about Holly.
“I’ll take your silence to mean you’d rather not hear my opinion on the subject.”
He’d been woolgathering, and she’d caught him. Doing a lot of that lately, he told himself. “No. I mean, sure. Of course I want to hear what you think.”
“This is just armchair-shrink stuff, and I’m probably way off base. But from the little I’ve seen and heard, there’s a certain…”
She frowned and bit her lower lip, as if searching that amazing mind of hers for the right term.
“…There’s a certain tension between you two. Nothing huge, mind you. But it’s as though neither of you are really comfortable with the other. Like…like something happened in the past and one or both of you hasn’t dealt with it yet.”
They were, at most, two minutes from the cottage. No way he could explain the uneasiness between him and Maude in that amount of time. How could he help Holly understand something that he hadn’t figured out himself?
It started to rain. Big, fat drops that landed inches apart, staining the sand. They fell harder, closer together, until looking through them was like trying to see through a thick fog. Within minutes, the beach was as wet as if the tide had come in, partly from the downpour and partly from the storm-stirred waves that slammed ashore.
Holly pulled up her sweatshirt’s hood and, laughing, grabbed his hand and broke into a full-out run. It surprised him to see how fast those short little legs could go. Surprised him how tightly she squeezed his hand. There was more power in this tiny woman, he acknowledged, than met the eye. And he had a feeling that her strength wasn’t purely physical.
Once they reached Maude’s back porch, Holly ducked under its protective roof and shrugged out of her hoodie. She gave it a good shake then hung it on one of the pegs beside the door. “Hopefully,” she said, whipping off her baseball cap, “the wind will dry it out a bit.” She shook water from her long curly hair too, and then held out one hand, silently inviting him to give her his jacket, and he gave it to her without a second thought. When she hung it beside hers, something happened inside him. Something wild and weird and wonderful, because the only thought in his head was, if their soggy jackets looked that good side by side, how much better would his life look, with her next to him every step of the way?
“Once the storm passes, I’ll run ’em both through the washer and dryer.” She opened the door, hesitating on the threshold. “You have another one, right?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, though he didn’t have a clue where. “A couple of ’em, as a matter of fact.”
“Good.” She stepped into the foyer and held the door for him. “Then if it takes me a couple of days to get to it—and that is the more likely scenario,” she said, laughing, “then you won’t have to go digging in your attic.”
“In the attic?”
“To haul out your winter coat.”
“Ah. I see.” Parker latched the screen door to keep it from flapping in the wind, grinning as he closed and bolted the inside door. “I’m gonna check the windows and make sure nothing is open.”
“Okay. While you do that, I’ll put on a pot of tea.” She rubbed her hands together. “That’ll warm us right up.”
Like he needed a cup of tea to warm him. Oh, you’re in trouble, Brant. Big trouble, he thought, taking the stairs two at a time. He wondered how long it would take Holly to get back to the subject of his relationship with Maude. Never, he hoped, because he had no idea how to explain it. If anyone else had brought up the subject, he’d have wasted no time in telling them to butt out. But this wasn’t anybody else. This was Holly, who’d soon become his writing partner. Who’d pitched in today as his first mate—and did a stellar job of it too—and who, as Hank so astutely pointed out, put her all into everything she did. He sensed that, if he had a mind to, she was a woman he could confide in and that she’d dish up some sane and sound advice. Why? Because, to put it simply, she was the woman who, despite his efforts to prevent it and without even trying, had stolen his heart.
Chapter Ten
The storm had raged for most of the night, and in the morning, Parker stumbled into the kitchen, sheet wrinkles lining his handsome face and his dark hair poking out in all directions.
“What time did you get up?” he asked, slumping across from Holly at the kitchen table.
“Oh, an hour or so, I guess.” She stacked the daily newspaper and stood to grab a mug from the shelf above the stove. “Coffee’s ready. Can I pour you a cup?”
Yawning, he scratched his bristly chin then grabbed the sports section. “I can get it myself.”
My, but he looked cute, all tousled and sleepy-eyed. And it was nice to know he didn’t wake up grumpy. That would certainly make early-morning meetings easier to bear. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
She placed a cup near his elbow as Parker said, “The O’s have lost six straight games. Do I know how to pick a winner or what?” He tossed the paper back onto the stack and poked his long forefinger through the mug’s handle. “What smells so good?”
“I took the liberty of rummaging around and found all the ingredients to make a sausage-egg casserole. It’s in the oven, and it’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes. How ’bout some juice while you’re waiting? If memory serves, Maude has orange, cranberry, apple, and tomato in the fridge.”
“She keeps the cranberry around for me,” he said, a lopsided grin brightening his handsome features. “Even though I’ve never been particularly fond of the stuff.”
There it was again…that peculiar edge that so often hardened his voice when speaking of his mom. Holly considered reopening the subject they’d started yesterday, before the rain had pounded down on them, but decided against it. He seemed the “elephant memory” type—which probably explained his attitude, now that she thought about it—and he no doubt remembered all too well that she asked way too many questions. If he wanted to answer them, so much the better. And if he didn’t, well, maybe she’d find out what she needed to know as they worked together.
“If there’s enough to go around, I wouldn’t mind some OJ.”
“There’s plenty—for breakfast. Maybe later I’ll hop in the car and make a run to the grocery store for your mom. I used the last of her eggs and all the sausage for the casserole.”
“I can drive you.” He sipped the juice she brought him. “Unless you’d rather go alone.”
“I’d love the company! Besides, I have no idea where the grocery store is.”
He blew a stream of air across the surface of his coffee. “Pretty tough to get lost in this town,” he told her.
Is that how he’d look, Holly wondered, if he puckered up to plant a kiss on my cheek? She might have laughed out loud at the ludicrous thought if Maude hadn’t rolled into the kitchen at that moment, smiling and sniffing the air.
“Have I died and gone to heaven? Coffee and a breakfast casserole, and I didn’t have to lift a finger?” She parked her wheelchair alongside the table and patted Parker’s forearm. “Thanks, sweetie.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said, pointing at Holly. “She’s the one who’s been up since the crack of dawn, brewing and baking.”
Maude’s eyebrows rose. “But, Holly, you’re our guest! You shouldn’t be—”
“Now, now,” Holly interrupted, “let’s not forget ‘the customer is always right’ rule.”
“Funny, but Parker used that same old cliché just a few days ago.” Squinting, Maude added, “I forget why.”
“Because Kate Sullivan has the power to stretch my patience to the breaking point,” he ground out. To Holly, he said, “She’s one of those people who makes me wish I was independently wealthy, so I could afford to tell her to take a hike when she calls to schedule a fishing trip.”
“You give her that power, son.”
“Mother knows best, I guess.” Holly turned just in time to catch the merest glare emanating from his dark eyes. To his credit, Parker recovered quickly. If Maude noticed the sarcasm, she showed no sign of it. Then, thankfully, the oven timer dinged.
She’d barely opened the oven door before Parker said, “Well, I think that must have been the longest fifteen minutes in breakfast history.” He drained his juice then got up and put his glass in the sink. He had to wait for her to move away from the stove in order to slide three plates from the cabinet. “Have a seat, Holly. Least I can do is serve up this great-smelling meal you made us.”
“Oh, but really, I don’t mind—”
“Humor me, then, okay?”
Was he smiling? Holly couldn’t tell, because he’d turned around to gather flatware, napkins, and a pot holder that he then plopped in the center of the table.
“How do you serve up this stuff?” he asked, putting the dish on the pot holder. “Spatula? Spoon? Ladle?”
She jumped up to grab a wooden spoon. “This oughta do it.”
She’d barely taken her seat when he said, “Do we just dig in? Slice it first?”
This time when she got up, it was to grab a steak knife from the cutlery drawer. “There y’go,” she said, sitting again.
He bent over the table, but the blade never made contact with the food. “One slice at a time? Cut the whole thing at once?”
Gently, she eased the knife from his hand and proceeded to cut the casserole into twelve equal squares. “There!”
“Will the first piece fall apart, like pie or brownies? ’Cause if it does, I’ll take that slice. It’s only fair, after—”
Using the wooden spoon, Holly served each of them a slab. “Since you’re closest to the fridge, you might want to grab the syrup. Some people like it sweet.”
“Maude—I mean, Mom—doesn’t keep the syrup in the fridge.” He opened a cabinet door and withdrew the bottle. “I like mine plain, but there’s different strokes, I suppose.”
Conversation was light and happy all through the meal, and when Maude pushed away from the table, Parker started collecting the plates. “I’ll do the dishes. Not the way I served up breakfast, either.”
