Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy

by Marlow, Shaye

  Still laughing, Ed rolled to lie flat on his back. His front was dirty, especially his knees.

  But I bet his ear is clean.

  I stood over him. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “So, so sorry.” He probably thought I operated a madhouse. Threesomes on my lawn. Strap-ons and old ladies with butt plugs. Randy attack goats. If I was completely honest with myself, it was looking really frickin’ bad.

  Shrieks from the lawn drew my attention. The brothers were buck naked and up and running, my goat hot on their heels.

  Damn it.

  I sidled around, trying to block his view of the madness. “Can I help you up?” I offered, holding out a hand to him.

  He opened his eyes to look up at me, and with a backdrop of grass, reflecting the endless blue of the sky, and bright with tears of laughter, they were gorgeous. Hands-down, the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen.

  He caught my hand, and pulled.

  “Oof!” Caught off guard, I unbalanced and tumbled down across him.

  His chest started shaking, and when I pushed myself up far enough so I could see his face, I realized it was laughter again. His hands slid up my back, warm and gentle. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I keep forgetting you’re so little.” He smiled up into my eyes.

  And I was lost. All that shit that’d made me hesitate before suddenly didn’t matter. He was under me, and he was warm and firm and wonderful.

  And he had come back for me. That could be the only explanation for his sudden appearance. He was ready to see this thing through.

  I didn’t need a bed. Or even a corner of a bedroom. This little patch of dirt would do.

  I leaned down toward him, intending to pick up just exactly where we’d left off an hour ago. His eyes focused on my lips, and I knew I had him. I leaned closer. An inch away, my eyes drifted shut.

  “That’s the way, Suzy!” At the sound of Helly’s voice, my eyes flew back open. I heard shushing noises, and when I turned my head to look over my shoulder, I saw my Passion Party friends piled in the doorway, watching. They all had almost identical silly little grins on their damn fool faces.

  I groaned and saw that Ed had seen them, too. He let his head thump back down with a sigh. His fingers stroked my back, kneading the muscles there.

  My mind raced, wondering if we could just chase them all out of my house and have at it like… like goats. My imagination painted us naked and sweaty on top of a mountain of sex toys. I’d been spending too much time with Helly, obviously.

  “I have another barge trip in a couple days,” I said, somewhat desperately. “I would have asked you before dropping you off, but…” But one thing had led to another, he’d hesitated, and I’d run. I stayed on top of him, feeling like I might have more luck getting another date with him—yes, a date!—if I were physically pinning him down.

  “I’d be happy to help,” Ed said.

  “Tuesday,” I said. “I’ve got some propane tanks I’ll need to load on before we go, so if you’d be willing to meet me here…”

  “Sure. I’ll be here.” He was staring at my mouth, which made me realize I was gnawing on my lip.

  “Do you already have plans? Because I don’t want to mess those up. Just, you know, if you aren’t busy—”

  He put his fingers over my lips, and smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It sounded like a boat had stopped outside my cabin. Still sipping my morning coffee, I stepped outside to see who it was.

  I stopped dead on my little porch.

  A woman was walking up from my dock, a woman with tight white pants, ridiculously large sunglasses, sleek, coiffed black hair, and dangly earrings. I recognized the bitchy lady from the store. And behind her, that studly blond. And behind him, that big, canopied boat.

  My coffee hung forgotten in my hand as I stared at her white pants, enthralled. In my occupation, I got smeared with grease, dirt, rust, tire rubber, and picked up all manner of stains probably better left unidentified. Obviously she did not share my occupation, but still, how had she even made it here without getting dirty? Just sitting on a bench seat in a boat would get you smeared with that insidious gray stuff that continuously wiped off of aluminum. And then there was the silt, the flying grit that invaded your very pores…

  Ed’s sister, I reminded myself as she crossed my yard. I inspected her features, looking for similarities. There weren’t any, really, that I could see. They both had dark hair, but it wasn’t even the same shade.

  She pulled her sunglasses off, and I saw she was looking around. Her eyes skimmed over my cabin, my smashed garden, my incongruously new generator shack. They finally wandered up to me, and her mouth pinched, and suddenly I felt like something nasty she’d found stuck to her shoe.

  “So,” she said, “you’re Suzanne.”

  “And you’re Chastity,” I said. I didn’t correct her on my name, because we weren’t friends. I stepped down from my porch, ready and willing to confront her, and not needing a height advantage to do it.

  “The money-grubber that kept my dad warm the last couple years of his life,” she continued, speaking as if I hadn’t. She shook her head, looking at me like she just couldn’t quite believe it.

  I got over the shock quickly, because many people had thought the same thing. After all, Ralph had really gotten around. “That’s not at all what happened,” I said.

  “You must have really been something special, to rate that gold nugget,” she said, looking me over. She shook her head. “Damn, but he liked them young.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I repeated. “Your dad was an amazing man, fun to talk to, had incredible stories of how it used—”

  “He paid you for talking?” She scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

  My teeth clenched. She didn’t seem like a person I could convince otherwise, and really, what was the point? She was a bitch, and I wanted to talk to her—get to know her—as little as possible. Let her think of me what she would.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I thought I’d come by and see what’s going to be mine, if you haven’t produced my nugget by the 30th.”

  My heart raced at the thought of losing my cabin. “I don’t have it,” I said. “It was stolen.”

  She tsked. “Oh, that’s too bad. Really. It doesn’t change a thing, though. You owe me a hundred thousand dollars. And change.”

  “I don’t have a hundred thousand dollars.”

  She shrugged her shapely shoulders. “People spend a hundred grand all the time when they don’t have it. They simply take out a loan. Or, failing that, liquidate assets,” she said, her gaze flicking again to my cabin.

  Her lip curled daintily. “Your place really isn’t much to look at,” she continued. “Very… rustic. But, this is Alaska. I’m sure a dump like yours would sell for much more than I’d expect.

  “That big boat of yours, though,” she said, glancing back at my barge. “That looks like it might be worth something. A good fraction of the gold nugget, at least.”

  I didn’t have to put up with this. “Get off my land,” I said.

  She smiled, looking pleased that she’d finally gotten to me. And that smile—dammit, that smile actually did remind me of Ed. “Ten days,” she said.

  “Ten seconds,” I countered. If she wasn’t in her boat by then, I was gonna go get something to inspire her hurry.

  She gave me a long look, a disbelieving, ‘Do you realize you’re barely five feet tall?’, incredulous glance. Then she shrugged again, slid her sunglasses back over her nose, and started back along the trail toward the river.

  Her blond stepped aside to let her pass, nodded politely to me, and then turned to follow her.

  I stared after them, wondering if there’d ever been an odder couple. The blond actually seemed like sort of a nice guy, not that I could really know, because he’d never opened his mouth.

  Speaking of blonds that weren’t making much noise—where the heck were th
e brothers? I would have thought, considering their behavior at the Passion Party, that they’d at least have come out to investigate. Especially since one of my visitors was an undeniably beautiful woman.

  In fact, now that I thought of it, I hadn’t heard or seen hide nor hair of them all morning.

  I walked around back. Their tools were lying around, a skilsaw, the piles of lumber. Their tent was still over at the edge of the woods, but unzipped and empty. They weren’t anywhere in sight.

  I heard Ed’s sister roar away as I peered up at my roof. I looked in my shed, and even stuck my head back into my cabin and called them. My boats were still out front, so they hadn’t taken them.

  But they were gone.

  So, see, now I was torn. On the one hand, I wanted to get them back, wanted them to fix what they’d broken. On the other, I needed to find that nugget. If I went tromping through the woods to find them, precious nugget-finding time would be lost.

  But, there was a way for me to get them back with just one call.

  I dialed Dotty. “The brothers escaped,” I told her.

  “Oh?”

  “I can’t find them this morning; I’m thinking they made a run for it. I want them back. I was wondering if you could get the word out.”

  “Two blond males, what do you think, six foot two? Blue eyes… Any identifying marks?”

  I described what I remembered of Zack’s tattoos, and then what they’d been wearing.

  It sounded like Dotty was taking notes. “Mm-hm. And they’re on foot?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, do you want them dead or alive?” Her sweet voice was completely serious.

  I grinned. “Alive, please. I still want them to fix my cabin.”

  “No worries, dear. I’ll have everyone in the neighborhood notified within the hour. We’ll find the rotten sumbitches.”

  I stifled my snort of laughter. “Thank you, Dotty. Hey, on another topic, I have a few questions for you…”

  I was at the Gold Bar.

  I’d spent all afternoon calling around, asking questions, chatting people up. During which time, I’d learned exactly nothing. Except, maybe, that fishing guides were truly busy individuals. They were the only ones I hadn’t been able to get ahold of today, because they’d all been out working. But, most of the ones I’d talked to the other day had said they went to the bar in the evenings.

  From the look of things out front, they’d been telling the truth. The Gold Bar had a large dock, but every spot was full, and boats were pulled up along the shore for fifty feet in either direction.

  As I walked toward the ramshackle log building, I could hear multiple voices raised in what sounded like cheers. Watching their favorite team score a touchdown, probably.

  I stepped into the bar—and stumbled to a halt just inside the front door.

  The place was freaking empty.

  Well, practically. The only movement was by the gold-lacquered bar. In front of the bar, there were two men ordering drinks. And behind it, the bartender rummaged around on the back wall shelf.

  When the bartender turned, his eyes caught on me. They widened, and he froze, staring.

  My eyes narrowed, because I’d done absolutely nothing to deserve that deer-in-the-headlights look. I hadn’t forgotten my clothes—was, in fact, wearing slim jeans and a green, scoop-neck shirt. And—I checked—there was no one really scary immediately behind me.

  I heard another raucous cheer, and I looked around, completely unable to figure out where it was coming from.

  The bartender gestured, and the two guys—guides, I saw—at the bar turned to look at me.

  Besides them, the place was empty with a capital ‘E’. Nobody at the pool table. No butts in the scarred, rough-hewn booths. Nobody screaming at the TV, which wasn’t even on.

  I turned around and visually confirmed—yes, the docks were completely full of boats. There was no one in the yard, there’d been no one on the roof when I walked up, nor an unusual number at the neighbor’s. No one in the frickin’ trees.

  What. The hell?

  It was as I was turning back around that somebody pulled a bag over my head.

  The bag was burlap, and smelled strongly of coffee. The hands that grabbed me were strong, and hard with calluses. My instinct was to fight, and so I did.

  I yelled and tried to twist away, but those hands—it must have been the guys from the bar—held me firmly. When I kicked out, they just lifted me, and grabbed my legs.

  I pushed past my shock—I never thought something like this would happen to me, let alone in my own neighborhood, perpetrated by people I knew—and began writhing and clawing for all I was worth. I screamed, and made as much of a racket as I possibly could—but my sounds were lost in the roar of the phantom crowd.

  My struggling didn’t faze my captors at all. They held me between them, and I felt a bit of a breeze, heard their footsteps as they started to carry me.

  I cussed at them, called them every filthy name I could think of. It was either anger, or let myself be taken by fear.

  What the hell had I gotten myself into??

  I didn’t know where they took me, except I think it was deeper into the building. I could just make out a faint glimmer of bulbs through the loose weave of the bag, no daylight. The one holding my upper half juggled me a bit, and I heard a door squeak open.

  A few moments later, they plopped me into a cool metal chair. The air here tasted dank and chilly.

  I immediately tried to surge to my feet, but they restrained me with hands on my shoulders. Other hands grabbed my wrists, pulling them together behind my back.

  I bit at the hand on my shoulder, scoring a vicious bite even through the burlap.

  The man cussed and shook me loose. I yanked forward, but his partner had me by the wrists, and was tying them firmly together. I kicked out and got what I hoped was an ankle. There were some more vile oaths, but nobody hit me, which I found surprising.

  They finished with my wrists. “Stay,” one ordered.

  I didn’t know where I was and couldn’t see a damn thing, so for now, I followed orders. I sat still, ears prickling as I listened. It sounded like one left, while the other stayed. I heard the faint scrape of his boots as he began to shift restlessly back and forth.

  And so, we’re back to where we started. Me, in a chair, bag over my head, asking questions and not getting any answers, while trying not to freak out.

  Have you figured out whodunit? No?

  Me neither.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A door opened, and footsteps scuffed on hard flooring as someone walked in. The footsteps stopped. I heard a sigh.

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “Nobody, sir. Just us, the bartender, and now you.”

  “Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

  “Yessir.”

  “I’ll take it from here,” that someone said. It was a man’s voice, a tenor.

  I frowned as recognition tickled the back of my mind.

  “Sure thing, boss.” Boots scraped as the goons walked out.

  Leaving me alone. With their ‘boss’.

  His footsteps echoed as he approached. He stopped in front of me, and set something down on a hard surface. Then another something, this having the metal clatter-ring of a knife. I started to breathe a little faster, imagining that classic movie-torturer scene, where they unroll their set of surgical blades and tell you you’re going to talk.

  I really didn’t understand. Nobody had to cut on me to get me to talk. I loved to talk.

  I heard something—it sounded like the lid on a glass jar slowly twisting. I felt like whimpering, imagining what that might be. Acid? A jar of scorpions?

  The knife-sounding thing moved again, a soft scrape, and then there were a few moments where all I heard was my own heartbeat and harsh breathing, maybe the softest rasp of his clothing as he prepared whatever torture device he had for me.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What do yo
u want?” I asked, my voice squeaking at the end. “What are you gonna do?”

  Chair legs scraped across the floor. I heard the creak of metal and guessed he had sat.

  “My dad’s a cop, you know,” I said. “He’ll find me. He’s not gonna like that you’ve taken me.” I didn’t much care for my father, but in situations like these, you used whatever you had.

  “Your dad’s retired,” he said.

  I gasped and jerked as he touched me, but he just seemed to be grasping the bag over my head. It slid up and away, leaving my hair crackling with static electricity.

  I blinked, trying to focus in the dim light.

  He clicked on a lamp, and shined it straight into my eyes. Blinding me.

  “You’ve been asking a lot of questions,” he said. “Poking your nose into places it shouldn’t be.”

  Eyes watering, I squinted in the light, trying desperately to make out the dark shadow beyond the glare of the bulb. “I’m just trying to find my gold nugget,” I said. “I had a big gold nugget. It went missing a week ago.”

  “And so you thought you’d find it at the bar?” he asked.

  I was starting to get a bad feeling. That voice was very familiar.

  “I was at the bar,” I said, “because the guides were near the top of my list of suspects, and when I asked around, they all gave me the same lame-ass story about what they did in the evenings. I figured if they were all here, at the bar, I could come and ask around about my nugget. Imagine my surprise when I get here, and the place is empty.”

  “They were near the top of the list?” that shadowy figure asked. “Who was at the top?”

  I knew that voice. I swear to God…

  “There’s this guy in our neighborhood who’s way too nice. He’s always helping people, fixing things for them. He lets people take advantage of him, and he never asks for anything in return. He stood to inherit the nugget, but didn’t. And I, the neighborhood gossip, knew nothing about him. It was damn suspicious.”

  My eyes were finally starting to focus. I gazed past the white glare—and gasped.