Reluctant Partners

Chapter Thirteen

Allie had hoped that by showing up at the breakfast table as early as possible, she would miss Cooper and his cousins. But no such luck. The man hadn’t slept five hours over the weekend, yet he looked as polished and alert as always, decked out in his yuppie casual.

His cousins were with him, and their heads were bent together in whispered discussion that halted the moment she entered the dining room.

Max was the first to offer her a smile. “Morning, Allie.”

“Good morning, Allie,” Reece chimed in. “Cooper says the trade show went very well.”

Allie selected a chair as far as possible from the Remingtons. “I think so. I’ve never done a trade show before, so I have nothing to compare it to. But people seemed interested, thanks to Max’s video and brochures.”

“It was pretty basic stuff,” Max said. “I could have done better if I’d had more time. But I’m glad they went over well.”

Allie returned her attention to Reece. “So, how’s the audit going?”

“Almost done,” he said with an uneasy smile, eyes flicking to the kitchen door. “You keep very good records. Do you have any accounting experience?”

Allie laughed. “No, I never went to college or anything. I just keep the books the way my dad taught me. Johnny’s wife-your aunt Pat-had a pretty good system set up. Johnny had made a mess of it after she died, but I got it straightened out.”

Cooper looked up at her then. He’d been studiously ignoring her, but now there was no doubt where his attention lay. Nor was there any doubt as to his feelings toward her this morning. Animosity shot out of his eyes like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

“I’ll bet you did.”

So, they were back to being suspicious that Allie was some kind of gold-digger con artist. She ignored his baiting comment as Sara entered the dining room with a tray laden with all kinds of tasty goodies. She set plates down in front of each of the Remington cousins in turn.

“Denver omelet for Max, fresh fruit and oatmeal for Cooper, and a Belgian waffle for-” Somehow, the plate with the waffle managed to slip out of her hand and fall straight into Reece’s lap. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” She squealed as Reece bolted out of his chair. She grabbed a napkin and tried to wipe the syrup off him but he quickly took the napkin away from her.

“It’s okay, Sara, accidents happen.”

“I’ll make you another one. I’m so sorry. I’m not usually so clumsy.”

No, she wasn’t. Sara had served a lot of drinks and meals over the years with her frequent waitress gigs. She was one of the most graceful and self-possessed people Allie knew. So why had she just become a blithering idiot?

“Maybe you should just get me oatmeal and fruit,” Reece said as he bent to collect the waffle from the floor. Sara bent down at the exact same time and they clunked heads.

“Oh my God!” Sara bleated. “I’m not usually such a klutz!”

“It’s okay, really. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just go change clothes.” Reece made a hasty exit from the dining room, and Sara, looking utterly horrified, quickly collected the dish and the spoiled waffle and hurried back into the kitchen.

Max burst out laughing. “What was that?”

Cooper just shook his head, seeming faintly amused.

Was it possible Sara had a crush on Reece? She’d said something about him being cute and that she wanted to muss his hair, but Allie hadn’t taken much notice. Sara thought a lot of men were “cute.” Reece didn’t seem her type at all. She was much more likely to fall for some itinerant coffeehouse guitarist or a professional surfer than a CPA. In fact, out of the three cousins Allie would have picked Max as a more likely match for Sara.

Sara returned a couple of minutes later looking sheepish. “Allie, I forgot all about you. What would you like for breakfast?”

Allie gave Sara a knowing smirk. “Toast and coffee is all I need, thanks. I overindulged while I was out of town. On food.” Clearly Cooper interpreted a broader meaning. Now he was the one offering up a knowing look.

She hastily averted her gaze. Damn the man. He was six feet away, and she could still feel the effects of his eyes on her.

Allie bolted her food as quickly as she could, then wiped her mouth and prepared to make her escape.

“Just a moment, Allie.” It was Cooper.

Oh, God, what did he want now?

“Yes?”

“I have some tasks for you today,” he said. “I’ll expect you to report to work by eight-thirty.”

The nerve! She wasn’t some serf he could order around. He was angry and he was getting his revenge by acting like…like Captain Bligh. She started to tell him where he could get off-but stopped her runaway mouth just in time.

She kind of deserved his shabby treatment. She was still uncertain what had motivated him to suggest a partnership, and she wasn’t a hundred percent sure he wasn’t trying to manipulate her somehow. But she strongly suspected he hadn’t deserved the tongue-lashing she’d given him the day before.

She should probably be relieved he still wanted anything to do with her. She turned and gave him a smart salute. “Yes, sir. I’ll be right back. I just want to freshen up. Are my clothes appropriate, or do you want me to change into something else?”

“Uh, no, you look fine.”

As she left the room, she took some small satisfaction in the utter bafflement in his eyes.

“COOPER.”

What was Allie up to? Cooper wondered. Yesterday she’d been ready to tear his throat out. Today she was Little Miss Submissive.

“Cooper!”

“What, Reece? You don’t have to yell.”

“If you can tear your thoughts away from Allie for a moment, I was about to tell you the results of my audit,” Reece said, drawing Cooper back to the present. “I discovered a few interesting things.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Allie,” Cooper blustered, though of course he had been. He couldn’t go thirty seconds without thinking about her and wondering what went so terribly wrong. “So what did you find out?”

Reece had stacked Allie’s paperwork on an empty chair against the wall, and from it he retrieved a ledger book and opened it.

“First of all, Allie keeps meticulous records. This ledger goes back three years, and she’s the one who’s made most of the entries. Every once in a while Johnny made a notation, but mostly Allie’s the one keeping the books.”

“Okay, then.” Cooper rubbed his hands together. “She probably took over the bookkeeping the moment she hooked up with Johnny. That would fit with a con artist.”

Reece shook his head. “The charter service was providing a good living to both Johnny and Allie until Johnny got sick. Then more and more expenditures went toward doctors and hospitals, and less money was coming in from the charters.

“It appears Allie was socking most of her salary away in her personal account. But the last couple of years, she started to raid her own savings to pay for stuff-boat repairs and maintenance, mostly.”

Reece reached for the checkbook and opened it to the relevant entries.

“What? Are you sure?” Cooper peered at Allie’s neat, precise handwriting. Reece had flagged checks she’d written related to the business, and there were dozens of them.

“Yes. Not only has she not been embezzling or mismanaging the funds, she’s been putting her own money into the business. The financials give her ammunition, not us. And if we win, she’ll expect these investments to be returned to her somehow.”

“How much?”

“Close to fifteen thousand dollars.”

Cooper wasn’t worried about the amount. It was small, compared to the value of the boat and the business. But he wondered about Allie’s motives.

“Looks like she expected all along to inherit the Dragonfly,” he ventured.

“No, Cooper. What it looks like is a woman who genuinely cared about Johnny and his business and didn’t want it to go bankrupt. It looks like she was functioning as a full de facto partner.”

“If they didn’t have anything on paper-”

“They did. A will. We have to face it-it was Johnny’s intention to give this boat to Allie. Now you’re the legal hotshot, so we might be able to get it away from her based on legal technicalities, but if we do, that makes us thieves, no better than Heather. I, for one, recommend we drop all legal proceedings.”

Cooper shook his head. After all he’d put into this venture? The thought, the money, the legal stuff? He’d quit his job, burned his bridges and alienated his entire family for this dream. Not only that, he’d dragged Max and Reece into it with him.

He wasn’t going to just walk away.

“Why don’t we try again with the cash settlement?” Max suggested. “Knowing what we do about what she’s invested in Remington Charters, we could offer more.”

“The amount doesn’t seem to be in question,” Cooper said. “I didn’t get as far as naming a dollar figure. She shot me down within thirty seconds.”

“Everybody has their price,” Max said, polishing off the last of his hash browns. “We just have to find Allie’s.”

Cooper already knew. No amount of money was going to move Allie, at least not any amount he and his cousins could come up with, and they could come up with quite a bit.

Maybe the best thing to do was let the courts sort it out. If he and his cousins won, he would voluntarily pay Allie back her financial investment and then some, enough that she could start fresh somewhere else. If she wasn’t a con artist, or even an opportunist, he refused to take away everything she cared about and leave her destitute.

If Allie won-and he had to acknowledge the possibility, since none of his strategies for breaking the handwritten will were panning out-he would have to fall back on Plan B.

Of course, he didn’t have a Plan B, but maybe it was time to come up with one.

One thing he wouldn’t do, under any circumstances, was crawl home and beg for his job back. He would never hear the end of it. His mother still called him almost every day, pleading with him to see sense and come back home.

His older brother, Derek, would lord it over him if he ever returned to Remington Industries. His life would be a living hell.

As if on cue, his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID, winced, and let it roll over to voice mail.

“Is it your mom?” Max asked.

Cooper nodded. “Are your parents bugging you to come back?”

Max shook his head. “No way. They’re giving me the silent treatment.” He sighed. “It’s heaven.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Reece said. “Derek called.”

That got Cooper’s full attention. “Derek called you? Why?”

“He couldn’t get you to answer your phone.”

Cooper should have known he couldn’t duck his brother forever. “What did he want?”

“Beats me. He just said to tell you to call.”

This was bad news. Very bad. He and Derek had always gotten along fine-until they’d started working together. Cooper’s last promotion hadn’t sat well with Derek. He’d always assumed the vice presidency was locked up once their father retired, but with Cooper on the rise, he’d become extremely defensive and condescending.

Cooper hoped that his departure from Remington Industries would solve the problem, but he wasn’t at all sure it would.

“Listen,” Cooper said, “Derek can’t get wind of our legal snafu or he’ll start stomping around in it, trying to rescue me.” The possibility turned Cooper’s stomach. People said Cooper was ruthless, but Derek made his little brother look like a puppy by comparison.

“Then you better keep Allie away from him,” Max said. “Something tells me she won’t keep secrets on your behalf.”

THE JOB COOPER GAVE ALLIE was the most tedious thing she could imagine; she had to call back every single person who had left either of them a message regarding booking a fishing trip and try to schedule them.

She hated the phone, hated selling. She would have preferred being ordered to scrub algae from the Dragonfly’s hull. But she knew it had to be done if she wanted maximum benefits from the trade show, so she buckled down and prepared to jump into the task. She found herself a comfortable chair in the parlor, propped up her feet on a cushy footstool, and settled in to listen to the messages on Cooper’s phone first.

“What are you going to do while I’m toiling away on the phone?” she asked since he was obviously planning to go out. He had his car keys in his hand and his coffee in a travel mug.

“I thought I would check on the Dragonfly’s progress. We really need to get her back in the water.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” she cautioned him. “Otis does great work, but he’s meticulous and a bit slow. If you bug him, he’ll slow down even more. He hates to be rushed.”

“I won’t pressure him. I just want to see-”

“By showing up, you’ll pressure him.”

But as usual, he ignored her advice and went his own way. He would learn.

Allie made a list of the names and phone numbers of everyone who had called. Sprinkled among all the messages were calls from someone named Derek who insisted that Cooper return his call; the messages became more insistent.

The final message in the queue was from Derek again: “Derek. Listen, Sylvia and I have decided to come down there and see for ourselves what you’re up to. Mom’s afraid you’ve driven your car into a ditch, and that’s why you’re not answering. We’ll arrive tomorrow and stay a couple of days-you can take us fishing on that tub you inherited. If it’s everything you’ve made it out to be, I can put Mom’s mind at ease.”

Hmm. Obviously Cooper had a brother. And it sounded as if his family wasn’t gung ho about Cooper’s life taking such a radical turn. Which meant Derek was a potential ally for her.

She checked the schedule, then called Derek back. She got his voice mail, of course. He was no doubt some bigwig at Remington Industries, the type who never answered his own phone.

“Derek, this is Allie Bateman with Remington Charters. We’d be delighted to have you and Sylvia as our guests on a half-day fishing charter on Wednesday afternoon, our first available opening.”

They had a trip scheduled for that morning, but it was a short one.

“I’ll make a reservation for you at the Sunsetter Bed and Breakfast for Tuesday and Wednesday night,” she continued, “but you can extend it if you like.” She left the Sunsetter’s address and phone number and hung up, feeling a little guilty over her deviousness.

Trying to outmaneuver Cooper had become a nasty habit. If she were really a good person, she would apologize for her bad behavior yesterday even if there was no hope of restoring a friendly relationship.

On the other hand, if they were now destined to fight for the Dragonfly to the bitter end, she still intended to win. Even if winning meant she would never see Cooper again.