The Red Bikini

by Lauren Christopher

  “Oh! What about your old first mate, Colleen?”

  “Maternity leave.”

  Lia slumped back. Colleen would have been perfect.

  “There is . . .” He stared at the table, as if trying to decide whether to mention it or not, but then he turned his focus back to the box.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Maybe not. It’s too risky . . .”

  “Who?”

  Drew shook his head.

  “Look, if this person can sail and knows anything about whales—whoever this is—let’s think about it. This is thousands of dollars we’re talking about . . .”

  “My brother.”

  Lia frowned. “I didn’t know you had a brother, Drew.”

  “He just . . . showed up.”

  Behind her, Douglas took a step down into the cabin. “He just washed up on shore, is what you mean. Need anything more, boss? Want me to get you loaded up?”

  “In a minute. Here, take this.” He shoved the box across the small galley table.

  When Douglas stepped back into the sunshine, Drew glanced up at Lia. “My brother’s a wild card.”

  “Where is he? Why haven’t I heard you mention him in all these years?”

  “Well, ‘just washed up on shore’ is about right. He sailed in yesterday. He’s a little messed up. Been sailing the world.”

  “Well, that . . . that sounds fortuitous. Sounds like perfect timing.” Lia’s heart began racing. Maybe this was an easier solution than she thought.

  “Did you not hear the ‘messed up’ part?”

  “What do you mean, ‘messed up’? If he can sail the world, he can certainly sail in and out of the harbor. Does he know anything about marine life?”

  “Oh, yeah. Former U.S. Coast Guard. Naturalist. Environmentalism degree.”

  “What are you waiting for?” Lia scooted her hips out of the bench to reach into the briefcase for her cell. “He sounds perfect. Let’s call him.”

  “Lia.” Drew grabbed her wrist. He looked up at her through the bangs that fell across his forehead. “Messed up.”

  “How messed up? You mean on drugs?”

  “No, not drugs.”

  “You mean, like, crazy?”

  Drew shrugged.

  Lia sat back and leaned in toward him. He looked miserable. In addition to the scraggly hair, dark circles ringed his eyes and his normally tan skin had a strange sallow color. Beads of perspiration lined his forehead. He winced, as if in pain again. Lia lifted her hand off his forearm.

  “He went through a lot of tragedy over the years,” Drew said, low. “He’s just kind of . . . on his own. Just stays on that boat and anchors wherever the winds take him. He rarely even talks. He won’t agree to a tourist boat, no way.”

  “Can’t you ask?”

  “He won’t agree.”

  “Drew!” Lia brought her head down to try to get him to look at her again. “You need him. You don’t have many options to keep your business alive in this most important week, and I really need that charter. He’s family. He’ll do it for you. Just ask.”

  Drew looked away without answering, clearly unconvinced. He scanned the cabin, as if searching for something else he needed.

  “Drew!” Lia couldn’t believe he wouldn’t consider this. It was an easy solution to a problem they needed to solve by Monday. Family would do anything for you, right? Granted, she had purposely put miles between herself and her own mother—and even one of her sisters—but if they really needed her, she’d be there.

  Drew hollered for Douglas.

  “I think we need to come up with a plan,” she said softly.

  “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I need another painkiller. Douglas! So how’s your boyfriend, anyway?”

  “He’s fine. But Drew, let’s talk about this. I booked some really impor—”

  “Did he leave for Bora Bora?”

  “Yes, but let’s stay on task, here. I think—”

  “I thought you guys were getting serious. I can’t believe you let him go to Bora Bora without you.”

  “It’s not serious, and I don’t think ‘let’ should be a phrase in any healthy relationship . . .”

  Drew threw a grin at that—an argument they’d had time and time again—but he looked frantically for Douglas.

  “. . . but I think we need to come up with a plan, Drew, for who’s going to sail your boat Monday. It’s booked solid for the first three weeks, and my client wants to show up to inspect it before the big charter on Saturday, and—”

  “Tomorrow, Lia. Doug!” His yell had a twinge of desperation.

  “Let’s just ask your brother. It would be a simple solution, and you trust him, and—”

  “Asking my brother would not be a simple solution. In fact, the more I think about it, the more disastrous it seems. So let’s get that idea off the table. Let me think of another plan overnight, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “But we’re running out of time.”

  “Give me until tomorrow. Maybe Doug and I can handle it—he can lift me into the captain’s chair every day.” At the sight of Douglas lunging down into the cabin, Drew gave a weak smile and began maneuvering to the side of the dinette, his casts clunking along the deck floor.

  Doug lifted him with a loud grunt—about two hundred forty pounds of man lifting about a hundred and sixty—then lumbered back up the four narrow stairs, somehow managing to twist Drew’s casts and a combined four hundred pounds through the cabin door and onto the deck. Douglas staggered down the stern stairs and hoisted them both back up onto the dock. The wheelchair was waiting, set up with its brakes on, now with three boxes next to its wheels and the seagulls scared away. Douglas dropped Drew into the chair with a hiss, then straightened and wiped his brow. Both men were drenched in sweat and their faces had gone white.

  At the sight of Drew’s pain, and then the boxes, Lia felt the color drain from her own face. Drew’s pale, crumpled forehead registered his dismissal of that last idea.

  What were they going to do?

  Drew made 80 percent of his annual income in the six weeks of whale-watching season. He and his new girlfriend, Sharon, were struggling as it was, trying to launch this business, trying to make ends meet. And Sharon had a special-needs child that Drew said he didn’t pay for, but Lia knew he did. And now these new medical bills . . .

  And man, Lia hadn’t even told him the part about the first two clients she’d booked for Monday and Tuesday—she didn’t want to make him feel guiltier than he already did, or cause more worry to spike with his pain. In addition to the client she’d booked for The Vampiress, she’d found two potential investors for Drew, which he’d said he really needed. And both were showing up this week. If they showed up to a boat that was inoperable . . . well, not only would they run from investing in such a thing, but Lia’s reputation would be shot.

  She quietly gathered her shoes from the blue-cushioned bench seat and tugged her rolling briefcase against her side. Douglas lumbered back onboard to secure the cabin door.

  “Douglas, wait.” She jerked her case back toward the galley. “Let me leave this here.”

  As he unlocked the cabin door again and helped her move it inside, she moved closer to his shoulder. “What about his brother?” she whispered. “Could he operate this thing?”

  Douglas gave her a sympathetic glance, but then his allegiance shifted back toward the dock. “His brother’s trouble, sunshine.”

  “We need someone, Douglas. Full tours start Monday.”

  “Can’t you refund them?”

  “For six weeks?” Her whisper rose to a panic. “These are really important clients. And Drew’s already spent half that money, I imagine. And the other half is probably going to new bills after this accident.”

  Douglas’s silence gave her the answer
she didn’t really need.

  “Where does his brother live?”

  Douglas ushered them back out into the harsh February sunshine and fiddled with the lock. When his silence lengthened, Lia let her shoulders fall. He wasn’t going to answer. She turned away from his weathered hands.

  “Slip ninety-two,” Douglas finally mumbled under his breath.

  “What?” She turned her head slightly. Drew was staring at them intently.

  “Guest slip. Ninety-two. Far north end,” Douglas said without moving his lips.

  He turned into the sunlight, heading back toward the stern, and Lia followed. As they stepped back ashore under Drew’s watchful gaze, Drew shot them both a suspicious look.

  But Lia was going to have to betray him.

  Drew wasn’t thinking clearly, and she was going to have to make this right.

  For him.

  For her.

  For this promotion.

  And for about five other relationships she couldn’t seem to get right lately.

  • • •

  Guest slip ninety-two was nearly at the end of the marina, at the end of the dock. A lamp sputtered as she passed, and dusk fell in light purple. There were no liveaboards allowed at this end of the marina and, with a cool February night that threatened rain, there weren’t many people out, even on a Saturday. Lavender water lapped against the empty boats that lay still and quiet at day’s end, all packed together like sleeping sardines.

  Lia glanced again at the piece of paper where she’d written the number, pulling it back from the breeze that tried to curl it, then slid it into the pocket of her skirt with the dock key Douglas had slipped her. She concentrated on not getting her heels caught in the weathered wooden planks.

  When she reached ninety-two, she pushed her wind-strewn hair out of her face and peered around the deck. It was a small sailboat, about a twenty-footer, dark and closed up for the night. The sails were covered, the ties set, the cabin lights seemingly off.

  “Hello?” she called anyway.

  Nothing.

  Her footsteps sounded obnoxious in the otherwise peaceful night as she headed slowly down the side dock along the boat’s starboard side.

  “Hello?” she tried again. “Drew’s brother?”

  Dang. She didn’t even know his name. Her heels rang out as she wandered farther. The only other sound was the familiar creaking of the boat’s wood against water, and one rope hanging off a mast that thumped lightly as the boat pitched and rolled slightly. The sailboat didn’t have the gleaming OCD-ness of Drew’s catamaran, but was relatively neat, the teak floors swept, the sails snapped up firmly, the ropes in perfect twists. A jacket and an empty bucket sat on a faded deck bench.

  “Hello? Mr. Betancourt?”

  A slight shiver ran through her. Maybe she’d rushed into this too quickly. She should have asked more questions—at least his name—and maybe pressed for more information about what, exactly, “messed up” meant. As an image began to take shape in her head—ex-military, maybe post-traumatic, older, bigger, bearded, crazy, loner—the light on the dock snapped and buzzed, threatening total darkness. Her pulse picked up and she turned on her heel. She wasn’t one to scare easily, but this probably wasn’t one of her brightest moves.

  But then . . . a flicker of light in the cabin.

  She turned nervously.

  The cabin door creaked and a man’s shadow emerged, buttoning a shirt as the tails flapped in the night wind, as if trying to get away from him.

  He twisted his shoulders to clear the cabin door and stepped slowly toward her while the boat pitched, moving across the deck with all the assurance of a man who is used to the sea.

  He was bigger than Drew—nearly half a foot taller, and broader in the shoulders. He had the same dark hair, but his was much too long, and he swiped at it as he looked up at her on the dock. Although his face was in shadow, she could see that about a week’s worth of facial hair darkened his jaw. His eyes narrowed as he studied her and finished the last two buttons. “Whadoyouwant?” His voice was like gravel.

  “I’m, um . . . a friend of Drew’s.”

  His eyes made a quick sweep of her—not out of interest, seemingly, but in the way you’d assess a dirty floor, deciding how much work it was going to be to get rid of.

  While he continued to wait—probably for a better answer—Lia fumbled with her purse. “I, um . . .” For some reason, she checked the piece of paper again. Ninety-two, right? But certainly this was him. She could see a vague family similarity in the straight, narrow nose, the hard-edged jaw, the dark eyebrows. Though this man’s brows seemed much more sinister than Drew’s, pulled into a deep V beneath a lined forehead as he waited for her to say something.

  “I . . . I came for Drew. He needs . . . um . . . well, he needs a favor.”

  The boat creaked and rolled under the man’s spread legs, his knees giving way in the slightest movement to make him as sturdy as the mast.

  “Doesn’t seem like Drew would send you to tell me that.”

  Lia licked her lips. He had her there. She tried to give him one of her friendliest smiles—it worked on everyone—but he seemed unfazed. He simply narrowed his eyes even farther and waited for her to go on.

  “I, um . . . well, yes, that’s true. You’re absolutely right about that.” She laughed just a little, flashed another smile. Normally men didn’t make her nervous at all. She’d learned a long time ago that an optimistic attitude, a great smile, and a positive view on the world could do wonders and get her almost anything she wanted, with men or women. Or hide anything she wanted.

  But this man seemed too robotic to care.

  “He’s, uh . . . well, you know about the motorcycle accident, right?”

  Nothing.

  “Well, after his accident, he’s a little stuck. He’s got whale-watching season right ahead of him, and he needs to run his business. This is his season. It’s the biggest season. I mean, from February to April, it’s—”

  “I know when whale-watching season is.”

  “Yes, of course. Then you know. It’s huge. And he’s booked every single day for the next four weeks, and I could easily book the additional two, and—”

  “You’re booking him?”

  “Well, I help, yes.”

  He didn’t seem to like that for some reason, but he gave a slight shift on his leg that somehow indicated she should go on.

  “So I’m . . . I’m just so worried for him, and he needs a captain, since the accident and everything, and he just needs someone to sail his cat, and who knows about whales, and who can take on the business for him for just a few weeks, and—”

  “Sounds like this is your problem, not his.”

  “Oh, no, it’s his.”

  Well, too. But Lia’s own personal problems didn’t need to be part of this discussion. “He’s . . . the money . . . you know. This is the majority of his income. And medical expenses now. He’s . . . he’s in trouble, Mr. Betancourt.”

  He scanned her again—some kind of assessment—and blinked, the slow blink of a man unimpressed. “I’m not your guy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He turned and started back into the galley.

  Lia found herself stumbling toward him across the dock, although she didn’t know where she intended to go or what she intended to do once she got there. “Wait, Mr. Betancourt. You can’t help?” She couldn’t control the incredulousness in her voice.

  “No.” His deep voice gave the word a feeling of cement. He wandered toward the jacket and snatched it up.

  “But you . . . you have to.”

  “No.” He turned back, giving her high heels a strange glance. “I don’t.”

  He scanned the deck again, seemingly to see if anything else needed to be crushed in his fist the way the jacket was. “If Drew wants to talk t
o me about this, tell him to come tomorrow. But I have a hard time believing he sent you.”

  He lumbered across the deck, and the brass rails of the galley door glinted as the door slammed shut.

  Stunned, Lia closed her mouth, her protest swallowed.

  The dock light flickered again behind her with a loud pop, sending her into an embarrassing jump, then began an ominous hum and flutter. She glared at it, trying to figure out what to do as darkness fell. She’d thought she’d be able to simply solve this problem, but apparently she was losing her touch.

  Not that this guy was an ideal solution. Drew was right. He’d be a nightmare with the guests, especially The Vampiress’s client. He looked more like he was going to slit their throats and steal their bounty than tell them the gentle breaching habits of blue and gray whales.

  But at least he’d be a Band-Aid on the problem, and a start to a better solution.

  As the lamp began its death hum, she glanced down the long dock toward the main part of the marina. She only had about one minute left of any kind of light at all, then she’d have to find her way back in a sliver of moonlight, now shadowed by black-tinged rain clouds.

  With one last glance at the now-darkened cabin, apparently closed up to fool the harbormaster into thinking there were no liveaboards here, she headed back along the dark, narrow planks.