Reluctant Partners

by Kara Lennox

“You’ll be too busy,” Cooper replied. “We need to launch a massive advertising and marketing campaign for Remington Charters. Sure you’re up to it?”

  Max perked up. “Absolutely. When do we start?”

  “As soon as I can evict one redhead, we’re good to go.”

  “You’re not just going to pitch her out in the street, are you?” Reece asked. “What if she doesn’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “Not my problem.”

  Max didn’t look happy. “I thought you were tired of being a ruthless SOB. What happened to the kinder, gentler Cooper?”

  “He’s waiting for his damned boat.”

  Chapter Two

  “Your account is overdue, Miss Allie.” Dino the grocer said this pleasantly enough as he rang up her current purchases early Monday morning, but a thread of worry underlay his reminder.

  A lot of people had voiced doubts that she could continue to run the charter service by herself. When Johnny had been strong and vibrant-until as recently as a couple of years ago, in fact-Remington Charters had made plenty of money, enough that Johnny could cover his bills and pay Allie a decent salary. He’d also allowed her to sleep in the V-berth, which meant she had socked away savings instead of spending all her salary on rent.

  But as Johnny had weakened, so had the finances. Johnny had urged her to find another job where she could earn what she was worth, but she hadn’t even considered leaving him, not when he had no family to take care of him. Pat, his only love, had died many years ago. They’d never had kids, and he’d never remarried.

  So she’d stuck by him, took care of him and buried him. Once a decent interval had passed, she’d started taking on charter trips again, after spending more than she could afford to have both engines rebuilt. But business was sparse, and she couldn’t take on the large parties like before-she couldn’t coach more than four fishermen and serve snacks and captain the boat.

  Still, the busy tourist season was about to begin and she was optimistic that she could turn a financial corner soon. Once she cleared the most immediate debts and did some maintenance on the boat, she could hire an assistant, get the Web site back up, do some advertising.

  If she still had a boat.

  “I’ve got a lucrative charter this afternoon,” she told Dino as she signed her name for today’s groceries. “You’re next on my list to pay.”

  Dino smiled and didn’t question her further about the bill. She was as good as her word, and he knew it. “You’re a brave girl, running that boat all by yourself. Why don’t you get a husband to help you out?”

  She rolled her eyes. Lots of well-meaning friends and acquaintances had voiced similar suggestions. “You send me a good-looking guy who knows how to sail-or an average-looking one who can cook and clean-I’ll consider marrying him.” As if guys were standing in line.

  She wondered if Cooper Remington knew how to sail. He at least had the good-looking part down.

  Dino bagged her fruit so as not to bruise it. “I hear some of Johnny’s family showed up. They checked into Miss Greer’s place.”

  Miss Greer ran the nicest B and B in town, the Sunsetter, located in one of the few Victorians that time and hurricanes hadn’t obliterated. And, yes, Allie had heard that the trio of nephews hadn’t been at all intimidated by her brave words from Friday morning. Though she hadn’t heard another peep out of them over the weekend, it looked as if they were hunkering down, ready for a fight.

  She’d made an appointment with Arlen Caldwell, her attorney, for tomorrow morning just to be sure her legal ducks were in a row, and to shore up any possible defenses against Cooper Remington’s tricks.

  “They aren’t giving you any trouble, are they, Miss Allie? ’Cause if they are, I’ll send Robert to talk to them.” Robert was Dino’s Goliath-sized son, who usually had a job as a bouncer in one or another of the bars in Port Clara.

  “They’re definitely here to give me trouble.” She gathered up her bags of groceries. “But it’s the kind that fists and strong words won’t solve. So I appreciate the offer, but we better hold off siccing Robert on them.”

  “The offer holds. Any time.” Dino made a fist and punched the air.

  If Cooper and his gang succeeded in taking her boat away from her, maybe she’d unleash Robert. The fantasy gave her little comfort as she loaded her modest grocery purchase into the back of her Isuzu Rodeo.

  Once upon a time, she and Johnny had offered all-day cruises including a gourmet lunch with wine. Nowadays her customers got tasty snacks-fresh fruit, bagels and cream cheese, bakery cookies and soft drinks.

  She made another stop at the Quicky Mart for ice and drinks. The convenience store didn’t offer her credit, so she had to pay cash from her dwindling reserves. She tried not to worry; she had several charters scheduled over the next couple of weeks, which would pull her fanny out of the fire.

  She parked her Rodeo in her regular spot at the marina and grabbed the ice first, so she could get it to the ice chest where she would store drinks and snacks. The fishermen could help themselves that way. But as she made her way down the dock in her flip-flops toward the Dragonfly, she spotted Deputy Thom Casey leaning casually against a pylon near her slip, and her heart went into overdrive.

  This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  Thom had asked her out once. She’d turned him down-not because he wasn’t a handsome or nice enough guy, but because he didn’t sail and she couldn’t afford the distraction of an actual social life.

  She hoped he wouldn’t hold that against her.

  He saw her coming and stood up straighter, looking decidedly uncomfortable. So this wasn’t a chance encounter.

  “Hey, Thom, what’s up?” she asked, noticing that her voice quavered.

  “Hey, Allie. Sorry to greet you first thing in the morning with bad news.”

  “Bad news? Did someone die?” She didn’t have any family left, but she had a lot of friends in Port Clara.

  “A different kind of bad news. I have to deliver this injunction to you. It’s a freeze on the Dragonfly. Because it’s an asset of which the ownership is now in dispute, it’s being impounded.”

  Allie dropped her bags of ice with a thud. She’d expected something, but not something this fast or this extreme.

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “If it were a car, it would be towed to an impound lot until ownership could be determined. But that’s kind of hard to do with a boat. So this order specifies that the Dragonfly can’t leave her slip.”

  She could feel the blood draining from her face. “I have charters all week!”

  “I know, Allie. I hope you realize I had nothing to do with this. I’m just doing my job.”

  “Oh, Thom, I don’t blame you. It’s that jerk lawyer, Cooper Remington. Do I have to vacate the boat?” That was a frightening thought. A tiny berth on the Dragonfly wasn’t much, but it was the only home she had. She didn’t have enough ready assets in her personal account for even a month’s rent for an efficiency apartment.

  “No mention of that. In some cases like this, they would put a locking device on the boat’s ignition so the engines couldn’t even be started. But I don’t think Judge Isaacs was willing to go for anything like that. He knows if there’s a court order, you’ll obey it.”

  “Of course I will, but why did they do this? I understand they want to get their hands on my boat, but what would it hurt if I kept working while this gets sorted out?”

  Thom shrugged. “I haven’t met the guy, so I don’t know.” He held out the court order. She took it and shoved it into her straw tote bag without reading it.

  “I’m really sorry,” Thom said. “If there’s anything I can do…”

  “That’s really nice of you to offer.” She noticed then that the Princess II-Jane and Scott’s boat next door-looked as if it had been closed up tight. “What happened to the Simones?” she asked. “They were here Friday. I thought they were staying through this week.”

  Again,
Thom shrugged. “No idea.”

  Deflated, Allie said goodbye to Thom and boarded the Dragonfly, dragging her now useless ice. She would have to hunt down another fishing boat and captain for the party she expected in a couple of hours. She felt terrible about disappointing some of her most loyal customers. It had taken Johnny many years to build a reputation as a quality, reliable charter service. Even when they’d downsized, they’d been careful to never promise what they couldn’t deliver.

  It wouldn’t take too many canceled trips for word to get around that she was a flake and the business was down the tubes.

  Allie put away the groceries, then headed down the long dock to find an idle fishing boat, her heart heavy. But only a few footsteps later, she skidded to a stop. Maybe there was another way. She would have to swallow all the vitriol she longed to hurl at Cooper Remington and make nice, but if it meant the difference between failure and survival, she’d do it. She turned around and headed for her car.

  Normally she would just walk the seven or eight blocks to the Sunsetter B and B. But time was of the essence. So she drove through the sleepy streets of Port Clara. In another few weeks the place would be teeming with tourists. Front Street, which paralleled the beach, would be closed off to car traffic and filled curb-to-curb with pedestrians. She relished the relative quiet, when it was mostly just the locals and the snowbirds. But tourists were the lifeblood of this place, so she welcomed them, too.

  The Sunsetter B and B was a beautiful yet quirky redbrick Victorian two blocks off Front Street on Magnolia Lane. Although it did not have a view of the ocean, it was a lovely place to stay, sheltered as it was by a grove of coconut palms and surrounded by bougainvillea.

  When Allie was a little girl, she’d been scared of Miss Greer. But she’d soon learned that the stern widow had a soft spot for anybody who needed a cookie.

  Years ago, Miss Greer had offered free room and board to Sara Kaufman, one of Allie’s best friends, in return for minor repair work and painting. Sara, on her own for the first time, had jumped at the chance. She’d lived there ever since.

  But Sara wasn’t here now. She’d taken off a few weeks ago, as she was prone to do.

  Cooper Remington’s beautiful silver BMW was parked in the street in front of the B and B. Pretentious creep. Another car, a flashy red Corvette, was parked across the street. Not a lawyer car. She wondered who carried the keys to that one in his pocket.

  Realizing she was wasting time, she turned off the motor of her own car and got out. If she was lucky she would catch Cooper here, and she could plead her case. She took a deep breath and ordered herself to keep her temper firmly leashed. Flying off the handle wouldn’t serve her purposes.

  “Allie. How nice to see you,” Miss Greer said pleasantly.

  Allie folded her in a hug. At first the old woman was stiff as a plank, but Allie held on to her until she softened slightly and returned the hug, sort of. “It’s nice to see you, too, Miss Greer. How’s business?”

  “It was a little slow, with Sara gone and the last of the snowbirds checking out yesterday. But these New Yorkers are filling in and the tourists are almost upon us.”

  “Is Mr. Remington here?” she asked politely.

  “Which one?”

  “Any of them.” Maybe she wouldn’t have to talk to Cooper directly.

  “Mr. Cooper is in the dining room, working on a computer no bigger than a slice of bread. On a lovely day like this!”

  Probably drafting eviction notices to serve on women and children somewhere. Lawyers just loved paperwork. “I’ll only keep him for a minute.” A minute was all it would take to state her case and find out whether Cooper was a sensible sort or a complete jerk. She would put her money on the latter, if she’d had any money left to put.

  She saw him before he saw her. He sat at the dining-room table, which he’d covered with stacks of paper and file folders. His slim laptop was open in front of him, and he was tapping furiously on it, his brow furrowed in concentration.

  He certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes. His hair was shorter than she normally liked, but it was a beautiful, deep-brown color. He had a lean face with movie-star cheekbones, a longish but straight nose, and a mouth that suggested to her all kinds of things she shouldn’t think about in this context. His eyebrows were straight, dramatic slashes over eyes that she already knew were a deep, improbable shade of blue.

  She tried to picture him relaxed in a deck chair wearing Hawaiian shorts and holding an umbrella drink.

  Didn’t work.

  She cleared her throat. “Mr. Remington.”

  He looked up, obviously surprised. “Ms. Bateman. I didn’t expect to see you here. If this is about our dispute, it would be wiser to communicate through your attorney.”

  “I have an appointment with my lawyer tomorrow, but he’s unavailable today and there is a matter of some urgency I’d like to discuss.” Nice. Be nice.

  His gaze flickered behind her to the doorway. “Perhaps we should step outside.”

  “If you’re worried about Miss Greer, don’t be. She doesn’t eavesdrop, and she would never repeat anything she inadvertently overheard.”

  “And you know this…how?”

  “I’ve known the woman since I was in diapers, that’s how.”

  “Still, I could use the fresh air.”

  Fine by her. Cooper led the way to the front door, opening it and holding it politely for her to go first. She got a whiff of his scent as she passed through the door, something refreshing and citrusy. Hmph. Did he think good manners and designer aftershave would impress her? But she took a nice deep breath just the same.

  As soon as they were on the front porch with the door closed, she turned toward him. “Why did you request that injunction?”

  He looked taken aback by her direct approach, but she didn’t believe in mincing words.

  Apparently he didn’t, either. “You’re a flight risk. You’re about to lose a valuable asset, and you have no close ties in the area. You could-”

  “No close ties?” She couldn’t let that one pass. “I’ve lived in this town my whole life. I have dozens of close friends. Oh, but I guess friendship doesn’t hold any weight in your world. Only blood ties.” Blood ties who hadn’t shown Johnny a speck of consideration when he was alive.

  “Let’s walk.” Without waiting for her consent, he descended the porch steps to the brick walkway, giving her a nice view of his backside in those perfectly tailored khakis. What a waste, putting buns like that on a stiff-necked lawyer.

  She followed, then took up beside him, matching his long strides. The way he strode along the street, oblivious to his surroundings, didn’t surprise her. Like he wanted to clock in a few miles before lunch. Health-club mentality, typical of people whose jobs didn’t require any physical exertion.

  “Even if I could trust you,” he said with arrogant confidence she would keep up with him, “there’s always the chance something could happen to the boat while you’re out-a storm, a wreck.”

  “That’s hardly likely,” she countered. “I’m an excellent sailor and I know the currents and the hazards as well as I know every splinter on the Dragonfly’s decks. The boat is fully insured. And I’ve never tried to cheat anyone in my life.”

  But Cooper didn’t know her, so of course he would be suspicious that she would try to rip him off somehow. Lawyers believed everyone was trying to rip them off because they were trying to rip off everyone else.

  “I am fully confident justice will prevail,” she continued, “and I will keep my boat. You’ve checked by now and discovered that Johnny’s will was properly filed and probated just as I said.”

  “It was a handwritten will.”

  “Which is called a holographic will,” she retorted, “and you know as well as I do it’s perfectly legal. But in case I’m wrong…what are you planning to do with Johnny’s boat, if you get it?”

  He answered without hesitation. “My cousins and I are going to continue to run the fishi
ng charter service.”

  “Excuse me?” She laughed. She laughed until tears streamed from her eyes. Maybe her tears bordered on hysteria, but she honestly couldn’t help it. The idea of these button-down Remington cousins running a fishing boat was ludicrous.

  She had to stop and lean against a fence until she had herself under control. Cooper paused, arms folded, feet planted. Obviously he wasn’t amused.

  “Just what do you know about fishing?” she asked, wiping away her tears.

  “You might be surprised. I worked on the Dragonfly when I was a teenager. I’m sure we have a lot to learn, but-”

  “The first thing you ought to learn is that Remington Charters’ most valuable asset is its reputation. Seventy percent of my business is repeat customers. You shut down the boat, force me to cancel cruises and send customers elsewhere, it could take years to undo the damage.”

  “I didn’t think-”

  “No, you didn’t.” She was on a roll now. “The business has bills to pay. You think docking a boat at the Port Clara Marina is cheap? You think my creditors will ever do business with you if your actions force me to stiff them?”

  “Look, I have to protect my assets. But I’ve been thinking about things. In fact, I was working on a little proposition before you arrived.”

  Her hackles rose. What new trick had he come up with? “The boat is my asset, and what kind of proposition?”

  “My cousins and I have discussed it, and we’re prepared to offer you a generous cash settlement to quit your claim to the boat.”

  Oh, brother. “No.”

  He blinked a couple of times. “You haven’t even heard how much.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I would never willingly give up my boat. Johnny trusted me to take over for him and I’m not letting him down. I love fishing, I’ve been doing it since I was born and I’m good at it.”

  He stared at her until the eye contact became uncomfortable, but she refused to look away first. If he was seeking some outward sign of duplicity on her part, he wasn’t going to get it.

  “Then I’m sorry. The injunction stands.”