Reluctant Partners

Chapter Fourteen

Cooper returned to the B and B feeling pretty pleased with himself. Otis Sinclair hadn’t seemed at all bothered by Cooper’s appearance, and the work on the boat was almost done. Otis had assured Cooper they could pick up the boat tomorrow morning, which would give them a day to prepare for their first charter, scheduled for Wednesday morning.

The other job he’d commissioned-the repainting of the sign that hung over the Dragonfly’s slip-was almost done, too.

He felt confident that once Allie was back on her boat, back in her comfort zone, she wouldn’t be so prickly. Her accusations against him still stung, and he hadn’t entirely forgiven her for them. But the two of them had to put their differences aside. They had customers to please, plans to implement. The new and improved Remington Charters needed to be running smoothly by the time the tourist season got into full swing.

When Cooper returned to the B and B he found Allie exactly where he’d left her, but looking more tense.

“Is there a problem?”

“Not exactly.”

“Did someone give you a hard time?”

“No, nothing like that. In fact, I got four more bookings and several people who said they’d call back after they firmed up their vacation plans.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Not a problem,” she said, jumping to her feet. “It’s just that you never mentioned your brother Derek.”

Cooper went very still. “I don’t know that I’ve talked much about my family to you. How do you know about Derek?”

“He left several messages on your phone. He’s coming to visit and he wants to go fishing.”

“Fishing?” Derek had never fished in his life.

“He said he wants to go fishing,” she said again. “I scheduled him and Sylvia-his wife?”

Cooper nodded numbly.

“I scheduled them for Wednesday afternoon and reserved a room for them here. I hope that’s okay.”

“Derek. Fishing.” Why did Cooper find that a bit hard to believe? Cooper’s older brother was the least outdoorsy person he’d ever known. Even as a kid, Derek hadn’t been interested in any sport but hockey, always at an indoor arena.

And Sylvia. He’d never seen her out of high heels. She couldn’t even sit at an outdoor café without complaining about the heat or the glare or the wind. How would she handle several hours on a boat?

He’d like to think his brother was extending the olive branch by coming to visit and supporting Cooper’s new venture. But given how he’d sneered at the idea of Cooper running a fishing business, that didn’t seem likely.

In fact, he was pretty sure he knew what was behind Derek’s sudden desire to vacation in Port Clara. Their mother’s fingerprints were all over it. She was sending Derek to check up on Cooper and find the weaknesses in this situation, so he could exploit them and convince Cooper to return home properly chastised.

If he tried to convince Derek not to come, it would only make him more determined to get on a plane.

“Did I do the wrong thing?” Allie asked. “I thought you would want me to be nice to your family.”

Of course Allie wouldn’t know of the rivalry between him and his brother because he’d never mentioned it. “I really would have preferred that my brother visit another time,” he said carefully as he made his way to a Victorian love seat and sank into it. “My family was against the idea of me moving down here to run Remington Charters. They thought we should sell the Dragonfly and be done with it.”

Allie sat on the other end of the love seat. “So you didn’t leave New York on the best of terms with them?”

“They’d have done just about anything to stop me,” he admitted. “My father believes there’s strength in numbers. He thinks of the Remington family as some modern-day dynasty, and if I’m not a hundred percent with him, I’m against him.”

“Don’t tell me-he’s a lawyer, too.”

Cooper nodded. “So is my brother.”

“I could call Derek back and tell him I made a mistake, that I don’t have any openings. I could suggest he reschedule for another day-sometime after our court date.”

Cooper was frankly surprised Allie would make such a concession. “Who did you say you were when you talked to him?”

“I just said I was with Remington Charters. I didn’t say I was your partner or co-owner, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

The tightness in his stomach eased. That was exactly what he’d worried about. How would he explain a partner to Derek?

“Will the Dragonfly be ready by Wednesday?”

“Otis said tomorrow at noon.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, Allie, I know you don’t owe me, but I need to ask you a favor. When Derek and Sylvia get here, could you…could you maybe not mention Johnny’s other will?”

“How will you explain my presence?” She wanted to know. Clearly she wasn’t prepared to disappear for two days. Not that he could ask her to do that. He wasn’t ready to run the boat by himself yet.

He didn’t suppose she would pretend to be his girlfriend. “You could be my navigator.”

She laughed at that. “Navigator?”

“Derek knows nothing about fishing. We could tell him you’re my official fish-finder, and he probably wouldn’t question it.”

Cooper held his breath. If Allie was looking for a weakness she could exploit, this was it. One word to his brother about the Dragonfly’s disputed ownership, and Derek would probably throw every resource he had toward helping Allie win. Not that the elderly lawyer she’d hired wasn’t doing a decent job, but neither he nor Allie had the resources of the Remingtons.

“You’re asking me to lie,” she said.

He could have tried to sugarcoat it, but with Allie it was no use. “Yes.” He resisted adding that he could make it worth her while. His tendency to break everything down to dollars and cents was one reason Allie mistrusted him.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll decide after I meet him how much he ought to know.”

“Fair enough.” Cooper felt a sliver of optimism. He could predict with ninety-nine percent certainty that Allie would dislike and distrust Derek on sight. He was arrogant, controlling, and wore a sense of entitlement like a crown prince wore ermine-all of which were qualities Cooper shared, though Cooper liked to think his were balanced by a sense of humor and a shred of compassion for his fellow human beings.

Seeing that Allie had softened her angry stance toward him-and he’d mellowed a bit, too-he almost tried to talk to her again about their weekend together. If he could convince her he hadn’t cooked up some plot to defraud her, would she let him get close again?

Fortunately, the timely arrival of the UPS man prevented him from opening his mouth and doing something stupid.

“Two packages for Cooper Remington,” the deliveryman said.

“That’s me.” Cooper signed for the packages, one small, one very large. As he brought them inside, he saw Allie watching him with undisguised curiosity. “What’s that?”

“Find a box cutter, and you can open it yourself,” he said with a hint of teasing in his voice. He couldn’t wait to see what she thought.

Allie disappeared, but a few moments later she came back with a butcher knife.

Cooper took a step back from the box and held up his hands. “I’ll do better, I promise. Just don’t hurt me with the knife.”

“Ha ha. I couldn’t find a box cutter.” She sliced into the carton. Piles of packing peanuts overflowed onto the carpet as she pulled back the lid, and she yanked more of the messy stuff out by the handful until she saw the contents. “A telescope?”

“For the Champagne Stargazer cruises.”

“Stargazer?”

“I got a brainstorm, and Max changed it on the brochure at the last minute.”

“Ah. No wonder so many families have been interested. I’ve never seen a telescope this big before.” She struggled to lift it out of the box.

He grabbed on to it and she pulled the box and the rest of the clinging foam peanuts off the gleaming black instrument. It was a thing of beauty.

“Will it work on a boat?” she asked. “I mean, it’s not like we can hold the boat still, even in calm water.”

“It’s equipped with an image stabilizer,” Cooper explained. “But I’ve also ordered some smaller, handheld telescopes-since only one person at a time can look through the big one. And check these out.” He used the knife to open the smaller package, extracting the contents and holding them out for Allie’s inspection.

“Glow-in-the-dark star charts. Cool. I think I had one of these when I was a kid.”

“I’ve still got mine.” The thing was in tatters, he’d used it so much. Not that he could see all that much from the roof of the apartment building where he’d grown up in Manhattan. The stars were a lot more visible here in Port Clara, away from air and light pollution.

“You like stargazing?” she asked cautiously.

“I did when I was younger,” he answered just as cautiously. “I majored in astronomy my first semester in college, but my father convinced me it wasn’t that practical so I switched to prelaw.”

“That’s sad.”

“It is?”

“If astronomy was your passion, you should have been encouraged to pursue it. Like me and fishing,” she added pointedly.

He shrugged. “I had lots of passions-don’t most kids? I don’t regret going into law. It was a good, solid career and it provided a comfortable income for a lot of years.”

“That sounds like your father talking to me.”

Cooper hated that she was right.

“Do you know enough about the night sky to be our resident expert?” she asked. “If you’ve been advertising a stargazer cruise, people are going to want a knowledgeable guide.”

“With a little bit of study, sure.”

A yelp caused them both to turn toward the doorway, where Sara stood looking horrified. “I just vacuumed that carpet an hour ago, and guests are due to arrive any minute.”

“We’ll clean it up,” Allie said hastily as she dropped to her knees and scooped up the debris, stuffing it into the now-empty box.

Cooper knelt down beside her to help. “Sorry, Sara.”

Their hands brushed as they both reached for the same pile of peanuts, and they both pulled back self-consciously.

“Hey, Cooper,” Allie said.

“Yes?”

“Can we try the telescope out tonight? Miss Greer’s patio has a pretty good view of the sky.”

Cooper’s chest ached looking at her face, flushed and excited, reminding him of the way she’d looked when they’d made love.

“Sure. We can make a party of it, and I can try out my tour-guide-to-the-galaxy skills.” He wasn’t sure why Allie was acting more friendly, but he wanted to encourage it. Not that he dared take it any further than friends; they’d already proved that romance and business formed a volatile mixture. But he didn’t want her as an enemy.

His cell phone rang, breaking the spell that had briefly descended over them. He broke eye contact with Allie and went to answer it.

At almost the same moment, Allie’s phone, lying next to his, sang out that she had a call. With a mutual shrug, they picked up at the same time.

“Cooper Remington.”

“Remington Charters, Allie Bateman.”

“This is Agnes Simms,” a woman’s voice spoke into Cooper’s ear, “Clerk of District Court 3. You requested that we schedule your hearing as soon as possible, and we’ve had an unexpected opening in Judge Isaacs’s schedule on Friday at two p.m. Will that work?”

Cooper’s heart lurched. In New York it took weeks, sometimes months, to get anything scheduled in court. He’d had no idea matters could move so swiftly. Still, he saw no real reason to delay.

“Yes,” he said, his voice only slightly ragged. “That works for me.”

As he disconnected, Allie concluded her call and looked up at him. The look in her eyes startled him-part fear, part resignation, and a little bit of sadness.

“You agreed to Friday?” she asked.

He nodded. “But if you need more time-”

“No. It’s a simple enough case. Let’s just get it over with. The uncertainty is killing me.”

AFTER HER DUTIES WERE FINISHED for the day, Allie walked down to the marina for an early dinner of fish and chips. She sat on a bench on the short boardwalk and stared out at the ocean. Usually the sight of the waves, ceaselessly chasing each other and washing up on the beach with a roar, soothed her and allowed her to gather her thoughts.

But today, nothing was going to soothe her.

Part of Allie wished she’d dragged her legal problem out another couple of weeks, just to see where this thing with Cooper could go. When they’d been unpacking the telescope, she’d almost forgotten the rift between them as she’d envisioned those stargazing cruises.

In her mind’s eye the tableau had unfolded: their guests reclining on deck chairs, maybe bundled up in sweaters if it was a cool evening, kids busily studying their star charts and peering into the sky, Cooper showing them how to use the telescope and finding planets and nebulas for them to look at, excited exclamations as they recognized constellations and planets or looked at the moon’s craters for the first time.

But with the judge’s decision coming on Friday, she and Cooper wouldn’t be doing the cruises together. If Cooper lost, he would take his telescopes with him. She could probably get Sara to help her do the evening charter, but it wouldn’t be the same.

And if she lost…Oh, God, she didn’t want to think about it. She hadn’t even let herself consider the possibility of actually losing everything she’d built up over the past ten years.

A battered old seagull landed on a post, eyeing her lunch with interest. Normally she didn’t feed the gulls: if you did, they just became worse pests than they already were. But something about this scarred veteran, who’d obviously survived many a storm and maybe a predator or two, tugged at her heart, and she tossed him her last two French fries.

“Maybe that’s a farewell gift,” she said before he flew away, instinctively knowing she had nothing else to offer.

LATER THAT NIGHT, COOPER set up his new telescope on the patio and everyone wanted to check it out. Even Miss Greer, who’d been spending a lot of time in her private sitting room due to an arthritic hip bothering her, came out to see what all the chatter was about.

Cooper had invited all of the B and B’s guests to join in, which included his cousins, Sara, and a fifty-something pharmaceutical saleswoman from San Antonio named Martie. Sara made up a batch of sangria, which transformed their gathering into a true party.

Not that Allie was in much of a partying mood. She sat off to the side, sipping the potent punch and watching as Cooper reacquainted himself with the night sky, consulting some books he’d checked out of the library.

He was a bit subdued as well, she noticed. But she could tell he really did enjoy astronomy and knew more about it than the average joe. In fact, he had a lot of interests she wouldn’t expect a lawyer to have. Once when she’d gone for a walk on the beach at dawn, she’d seen him there, too, not running to get his morning exercise but strolling at a leisurely pace, pausing often to look out at the sea, and picking up the occasional seashell or bit of ocean glass.

She had to admit he was really nothing like what her first impressions had led her to believe.

Allie let herself envision, for one brief, dangerous moment, how different things would be if she’d accepted Cooper’s partnership offer, if she hadn’t been so suspicious and paranoid.

Sara came and sat next to her. “Hey, you okay? You’re awfully quiet. Is Cooper giving you trouble?”

Allie shook her head. “Actually, he’s been pretty decent given how I acted yesterday. But the hearing’s been set. Friday.”

“So soon?”

“It’s better to get it over with.”

“Yeah, but I was hoping if you two spent more time together, you’d realize you were meant for each other.”

Allie smiled. “Sara, you are such a dreamer.”

“But it’s true. Cooper’s been making cow eyes at you all night. I think he’s fallen in love with you, and who could blame him? Why don’t you just tell him you made a mistake?”

She’d considered it. “If I change my position so drastically, he’ll assume it’s because I’m about to lose my business.”

“Only if he’s as suspicious as you are.”

“He is.” It was something else they had in common. Maybe not their nicest shared trait.

“Maybe when it’s all said and done, then,” Sara said. “You won’t have anything to lose by trying.”

But Allie was afraid Cooper wouldn’t be a good sport about losing. He was clearly used to being on the winning side. Even if he tried not to be a sore loser, how could he avoid resenting her for stealing his inheritance?

Resentment would poison their future dealings so that any relationship, even friendship, would be out of the question.

“Allie, come look at Saturn,” Cooper said suddenly, startling her.

“O-okay.” She stood, set down her glass, and walked across the patio to the telescope. She bent down to peer through the eyepiece.

“It’s beautiful,” she barely breathed. The planet’s rings were clearly visible. She’d never seen anything like this outside of a book.

“Yeah, it sure is.”

She straightened to find Cooper staring at her, not the sky.