Reluctant Partners

Chapter Fifteen

“I made a reservation to fly home tomorrow,” Reece announced casually as he drove Cooper and Allie to Sinclair Marine. Otis had called to let them know that work on the Dragonfly was complete.

Cooper was more distressed than he cared to admit that Reece was going home. Then again, his cousin had been acting a bit cool since learning that Cooper intended to go forward with his legal case.

In the back of his mind, Cooper had been convinced that Reece would find it so pleasant to be away from the pressures of his corporate accounting job that he would change his mind and elect to resign and move to Port Clara permanently.

But his cousin had been on the phone almost constantly, putting out fires back home or going over spreadsheets e-mailed to him. Some vacation.

“You’re not even staying for the hearing?”

Reece glanced into the backseat at Allie, who was plugged into her iPod, tuning them out. “Only if you want me to testify on Allie’s behalf. You have my written statement indicating the results of the audit.”

Cooper hadn’t realized how strongly Reece felt about this. He would have to talk to him, make sure his cousin understood he wouldn’t leave Allie high and dry. He wanted to do what was fair. Really, he did.

But he would have to save his arguments for when Allie wasn’t around.

Reece pulled Cooper’s BMW into the Sinclair Marine parking lot, where Cooper and Allie got out. Allie pulled out her earphones and stuffed her iPod into her jeans pocket without a word. She’d been quiet last night, too. He knew the possibility of losing the Dragonfly must weigh heavily on her. It did on him, too.

Otis greeted them with a big smile. “Nice to see you folks again. I got her all spiffed up and ready to go. Want to inspect her before we settle the bill?”

Cooper started to say yes, but-Allie spoke first. “I’m sure your work is perfect, Otis. Let’s get the bad news over with.”

They all crowded into Otis’s tiny office, where he rummaged around on his messy desk until he found the itemized bill. Cooper got his hands on it first, but Allie was right there peering around his shoulder.

“Oh,” she said. “Um, Otis, isn’t this a bit more than we agreed on?”

“No, ma’am,” he said confidently. “The cost for repairing the hull damage is exactly what I quoted you. The rest is for the painting Mr. Remington here ordered.”

“The what?” Allie grabbed the bill from Cooper and inspected it more closely, then she looked up at him with a thunderous expression. “You had painting done on the boat without talking to me first?”

“You’ll like it, I promise.”

Her expression said she doubted that.

He’d really wanted her to see the results before the bill. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it.” He was already handing Otis his credit card.

“That’s not the point,” she said, folding her arms. “We’re partners, at least until Friday. We’re supposed to make decisions together. And how am I going to pay you back for all the money you’ve invested in Remington Charters? I assume you’ll want some return on your investment if the judge’s decision doesn’t go your way.”

“Allie, I told you before that I don’t expect you to pay me back anything. Putting money into the business was my decision, my risk. We never put anything on paper, therefore I have no legitimate claim.”

“That’s how you would see it, I suppose,” she said stiffly, though some of the starch had gone out of her. “Others of us do business on the honor system.”

“I thought I was making an investment in myself. But maybe it wasn’t the smartest risk I ever took.” He never thought he’d be admitting that to Allie, but it was the truth.

“You think you’re going to lose?” she asked, sounding confused.

“Don’t you?” he countered, rather than answering her.

Impatience replaced her confusion. Did she think he was trying to trip her up?

With the repairs paid for-and another hit to his Visa, which could take a lot of abuse but not indefinitely-Cooper and Allie headed out to the dock to have their first look at the revamped Dragonfly.

Cooper, however, had his eyes firmly glued to Allie. Her reaction would say a lot about her.

When she gasped, he knew she’d seen it and understood the scope of the work he’d had done.

“Oh my God, Cooper, what did you do?”

“If we’re going to bill ourselves as offering luxury cruises, our boat has to look the part. The Dragonfly is a great old tub, and she deserves to look her best.”

The Dragonfly did, in fact, look the best she’d looked since she was new almost thirty years ago. She’d been painted stem to stern. Anything that hadn’t been painted had been scrubbed clean as a whistle. The canopies had been replaced with bright-blue striped canvas.

Allie climbed on board and walked around, reverently touching various parts of the boat, her face reflecting nothing short of wonder. “I wouldn’t even recognize her if I didn’t know…Lord, Cooper, you didn’t buy a new boat, did you?”

Cooper joined her on deck, laughing. “No, it’s the same old Dragonfly.”

Allie opened the hatch and went inside, where the changes were less obvious. But Cooper had replaced the carpet and the refrigerator, which had been on its last legs.

“There’s something else I want you to see,” Cooper said as he opened the hatch that led to the boat’s underbelly and gave access to the engines.

Allie stared down into the hole, where her spaghetti bowl of wires was conspicuously absent. “How did you do this?”

“Jim Jameson recommended his mechanic to me. He charges more than Mickey, I imagine, but he overhauled all the wiring-in fact the whole electrical system. We can’t have the engines refusing to start at some inconvenient time.”

Allie turned to Cooper, her eyes shiny with tears. “Oh, Cooper, thank you, thank you!” She threw her arms around him and hugged him like she never wanted to let him go.

Well, that was an abrupt U-turn.

Cooper’s arms slid around her and held her close. God, she felt so good, so right against him. Her hair smelled like something tropical and exotic, rubbing soft as a dream against his cheek.

He had to make things right between them. Somehow, he had to get her to trust him. Maybe he hadn’t yet earned that trust, but he would work to earn it, and he wouldn’t give up.

Allie pulled back just enough that she could look at him. “Thank you for doing this,” she said again. “Johnny hated to see the Dragonfly looking shabby, and he would be so pleased, so proud to see her so beautiful. Even if I have to walk away on Friday, I’ll feel better knowing you’re taking care of her the way Johnny would have wanted.”

“I have a lot to make up for where Johnny’s concerned.” He could never undo the fact that he hadn’t tried harder to mend the rift with his uncle. The only thing he could do now was try to carry on the fishing business in his memory.

“Wherever he is,” Allie said, “I bet he’s watching. And I know he’s forgiven you for anything you feel you might have done wrong.”

Cooper understood now that-Allie was none of the things he’d suspected of her. She’d loved Johnny, not as a lover and not just as a friend or employee, but as a daughter would.

Cooper was afraid of saying the wrong thing, so he settled for kissing her on the forehead and releasing her. If he could have he would’ve bundled her into the captain’s quarters and showed her just how he felt about her. But Otis had appeared in the hatch, his forehead wrinkled with worry.

“Everything okay in here?”

Allie went to him and hugged him, too, making Cooper feel just a little bit less special. “Oh, Otis, everything is beautiful. I wish Johnny was here to see it.”

“Me, too, honey. Port Clara lost a great man when Johnny Remington passed over. But I know he’d be pleased to see how you’re carrying on, so strong.”

“If I’m strong, it’s because he made me that way.”

Damn. Cooper had a lump in his throat, and he was going to start boohooing any minute if they didn’t stop talking about Johnny.

“Maybe we better get going,” he said, his voice gruff. “We have a lot of work to do before our first charter tomorrow morning.”

IT WAS ALL ALLIE COULD DO not to weep with joy as she piloted the Dragonfly back to the Port Clara Marina. The engines sounded better than they had in years, and if Allie didn’t know better, she would say the boat was riding a bit perkier in the water, almost as if she was proud of her makeover and wanted to show it off to all the other boats.

Cooper hadn’t joined her on the bridge, choosing instead to sit at the bow, his legs dangling over the side as he held on to the railing and faced into the wind.

Maybe he was giving her time alone to say goodbye.

She never should have convinced herself she was going to win. She had no legal expertise, after all, and only a small-town lawyer to help her out. Cooper, on the other hand, knew the law, and he’d been confident of his success from the very beginning. She’d been wrong to dismiss that confidence as arrogance or bravado.

Now she had only a couple of days to come to terms with the loss. But knowing how Cooper cared for the boat and for Johnny, maybe the loss would be easier to swallow.

As they eased the boat into her slip, Allie saw Jane was back, puttering around on the deck of her beautiful boat. This time Kaylee, her three-year-old daughter, had come with her. The darling blond-haired little girl stood at the railing, looking like a beacon in her bright orange life jacket.

She hopped up and down and waved frantically when she caught sight of Allie. “Allie, Allie! Mommy, look, Allie!”

Jane turned and her face registered a smile of recognition, though Allie couldn’t help noticing that she appeared strained even from a distance.

“Ahoy, you!” Jane called as she came to the railing and rested her hand on the top of Kaylee’s head. “Oh my gosh, the Dragonfly looks fantastic!”

Cooper busied himself tying off the lines, so Allie descended the ladder and hopped onto the dock. She joined Jane on the Princess II.

“Hi, there, flipper!” she said to Jane’s daughter, who was the light of Jane’s life. Allie privately thought that Kaylee was the only thing keeping Jane sane, given the oaf she was married to. Allie picked up Kaylee and held her aloft as the child squealed in delight, then gave her a hug and set her down.

“Where did you disappear to?” Allie asked Jane. “I thought you guys were down for the whole weekend, and then suddenly you were gone. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

“Actually, something’s right, or about to be,” Jane said with cautious optimism. “I haven’t wanted to talk about it, but Scott and I are getting divorced. In fact, it will be final in two weeks.”

“Oh, Jane, I’m so sorry.” Although really, Allie wasn’t sorry at all. Scott Simone was a monumental jerk. But any divorce was difficult. Separating spouses had to admit defeat and failure of their marriage, which probably had started out with great hopes and expectations. “What about Kaylee?” It would be just like Scott to fight for custody, simply to be hurtful.

“I have full custody, thank God. Scott asked for one weekend a month. Can you imagine?” She lowered her voice and whispered in Allie’s ear, so Kaylee wouldn’t hear. “That’s all he wants to see his daughter. Ten-to-one he won’t even want that, and it’ll be just as well. Kaylee will be better with no father than one who clearly doesn’t put her first.”

Allie couldn’t agree more.

Jane resumed talking in her normal voice. “We came down here last weekend for one last-ditch effort to work things out, to see if we could remember why we’d gotten married in the first place. But when Scott punched out Max Remington, that was it for me. He was insanely jealous of any male who even talked to me, no matter what the circumstances. It was only a matter of time before he started hitting me instead of the supposedly flirting men.”

“So Max wasn’t flirting?”

Jane looked embarrassed. “Well, he was flirting a little. I suspect a man like Max Remington simply can’t help himself. When he’s near anything female, he flirts. It oozes from his pores.”

Jane’s gaze flickered to behind Allie, where Cooper still puttered around. “I’m dying to know what’s going on. Can you stay for lunch? The Princess II is all mine now, to do with as I please. It’s the sum total of my settlement.”

Allie was appalled. Scott Simone had been worth millions.

Jane laid a hand on Allie’s arm. “No, it’s what I wanted. Full custody of Kaylee is the only thing that mattered to me. I don’t want Scott’s money.”

“But how will you live?” Allie asked. “You aren’t going to sell the boat, are you?”

“I’ll keep it if I can. At least it’s a roof over our heads, and I have a little cash to tide me over until I can find a job. I’m fine, really.”

“All right,” Allie said. “But if you need anything, I’m right next door.” At least for three more days.

Allie returned to the Dragonfly, where Cooper had found himself a deck chair and was looking pretty satisfied with himself.

“I thought you said we have a lot of work to do.” She nudged his Top-Sider with her foot. “We at least need to lay in some provisions for tomorrow. I assume you want something a little fancier than cold cuts for your brother.”

“Can we do fancy?” he asked. “I’ve made a lot of bold promises, but quite honestly I’ve been planning to hire someone to do the food and drink.”

“I got it covered,” she said with a grin. “If Miss Greer can spare Sara, I’ll ask her to help. We’ll knock your brother’s socks off.”

Cooper returned her smile, but suddenly his face froze as something caught his eye behind her.

“What?” Allie asked, whirling around, and that was when she saw him. The very brother in question, as if she’d conjured him up by mentioning him.

Allie could have picked him out of a lineup-even a lineup of corporate lawyers-because he looked just like Cooper. A bit taller and rangier, perhaps, but he had the same blue eyes, the same prominent nose, same yuppie weekend-casual wardrobe.

As he strode purposefully toward the Dragonfly, his eyes took in every detail as his brain processed them-evaluating, assessing. His mouth firmed, as if he didn’t like what he saw.

“Cooper.” He gave a stiff wave.

“Oh, God,” Cooper said under his breath. “Here we go.” He looked briefly at Allie, silently begging her not to spill the beans.

She’d already made the decision that she wouldn’t tell Derek the real story of how she and Cooper had come to be working together on the boat. In fact, she would let him be captain-for-a-day. She would handle food-and-beverage duty, and let his brother see for himself that Cooper had made a wise decision, that he was living the good life.

Cooper met his brother on the dock while Allie hung back, doing her own assessment. “Derek.” The two men shook hands. Not very warm and cuddly. But then, not all families were raised to be huggers. She cautioned herself not to make any snap decisions about Derek Remington, as she’d done with Cooper.

“Where’s Sylvia?” Cooper asked his brother.

“Unpacking at the B and B. She’ll join us later.” Derek’s gaze roved over the Dragonfly. “So, this is what dragged you away from your home, your family and a six-figure income. The way you described it, I thought it would be bigger.” He glanced up and down the dock, taking in the other boats, probably comparing the Dragonfly to her neighbors. His gaze settled briefly on the Princess II. Probably the pleasure craft was more to his taste.

Allie silently vowed that by the time Derek returned to New York, he would be ready to turn in his resignation at Remington Industries and sign on as a deckhand working for Cooper.

“This is the Dragonfly,” Cooper said proudly. “Isn’t she the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen?”

Obviously not, as he made no reply.

“Come on board,” Cooper said with a tad less enthusiasm. “I’ll show you around.”

As Derek stepped aboard, his critical gaze fell on Allie, who waited politely to be introduced. He eyed her with interest, probably trying to guess who the hell she was.

“Derek, this is Allie Bateman, my…” He stopped, clearly not wanting to lie outright.

Allie decided to do it for him. “I work for Cooper.”

“In what capacity?” Derek asked, shaking her hand, his smile distant.

“I’m his fish-finder,” she said, and Cooper slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle what she hoped was laughter. “Best in the business. I’m also a gourmet chef, and I prepare all the meals for our passengers.”

“Ah. You can get me a cold beer, then.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.” Gawd, he did everything but snap his fingers at her and say, “Chop chop.” And she’d thought Cooper was arrogant.

Fortunately, Otis had moved what little food and drink had been in the old fridge to the new one, so she was able to lay her hands on a cold beer.

“So, who is she really?” Derek asked, his body language reeking with disapproval.

Allie stopped when she realized they were discussing her. She stood there, frozen, not sure whether she should retreat, interrupt them, or eavesdrop.

She decided to eavesdrop.

“She is, in fact, the best fish-finder on the Texas coast,” Cooper said. “And she works miracles in the galley.”

“So she’s not your little playmate?” Derek asked. “Mom wondered if there wasn’t a woman involved, given your history of turning stupid around a pretty girl. Heather wasn’t the first woman to take advantage of you.”

Oh? This was interesting. What awful thing had Heather done? Was that what made Cooper so suspicious?

“No, we’re not involved,” Cooper said.

Not anymore, Allie added silently.

“But I’ll agree she’s pretty.”

“If you like that earthy, tomboy look. You didn’t, last time I checked.”

Allie gasped. How rude. Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be listening. She stepped through the hatch and rejoined the men, handing Derek his beer.

“There you go, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said without looking at her.

“Captain Remington,” she said to Cooper, “I was just on my way to buy provisions for tomorrow’s outings, so I’ll leave you and your brother to visit.”

Cooper bit his lip. “See you later, then.”

As she disembarked, he mouthed a silent thank you.

COOPER HAD BEEN HOPING FOR more time to prepare for his brother’s visit, but at least Allie was playing along. He wasn’t sure why it even mattered. So what if Derek thought he was insane for wanting to fish for a living? But all his life he’d been competing with his brother-partly thanks to the fact their father always pitted them against each other-and he couldn’t bear the thought of Derek returning to Manhattan with tales of how deluded Cooper was and what a mess he was making of his life.

“So this is for real?” Derek asked. “I figured you’d play around on the boat for a week, then put it up for sale and come home.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Cooper assured him. As he did, something tight uncoiled inside him. He didn’t have to worry anymore whether Derek approved. Derek had no power over him-none. The resentment he’d felt for his brother vanished like the morning mist and with it had gone any need for subterfuge.

Cooper took a deep breath. “Allie isn’t really my fish-finder, although she’s damn good at finding fish. She’s my partner.” Man, it felt good to say that. “Johnny wrote a new will, awarding her the Dragonfly. She has a legitimate claim, and she’s sunk her life savings into this tub. It’s all being sorted out in court Friday, but until then we’re working together to keep the charter business going.”

Derek looked at him as if he’d just announced he ate small children for breakfast. “I knew you’d come down here and gotten yourself into trouble. What time is the hearing? I’ll have to rearrange my schedule-”

“No, Derek. I don’t want you there.”

“Do you want to keep the boat or not?” Derek asked, utterly baffled.

“I do. But I want to keep the girl, too.”

ALLIE WAS QUITE PLEASED with their morning charter the following day. She’d spent the previous evening preparing ingredients for a slightly more upscale breakfast for the two men and one fourteen-year-old boy who were their passengers. Everyone, including Cooper, devoured the sausage-and-egg wraps, which bore no resemblance to the fast-food version of the same dish. Allie’s exploded with the taste of fresh herbs and real aged cheddar cheese.

They were fishing for barracuda, and the fish were being elusive, but the men didn’t seem to care. And when the boy caught the one and only fish of the day, he came unglued he was so excited, and the two men coached him on how to bring in the big fish. So all in all it was a good trip.

As soon as the passengers were gone, she and Cooper got to work cleaning and straightening and preparing for Derek and Sylvia’s visit. But Cooper seemed relaxed about the whole thing.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, “I told Derek everything. He knows about the two wills, and the fact we’re partners.”

“Really. What was his reaction?”

“He thinks I’ve gone ’round the bend. Which maybe I have. Allie, tell me honestly. When I first got here, was I like him?”

“I’m afraid so.” When she saw the disappointment on his face, she gave him a break. “Okay, you were only somewhat like him.”

“By moving down here, I might have saved myself just in time.”

After all the build-up, the cruise with Derek and Sylvia was anticlimactic. Sylvia was about what you’d expect a corporate lawyer’s wife to be-beautiful and polished and well-spoken, polite to the extreme but reserved.

The couple wasn’t terribly interested in fish, but Cooper baited their hooks and put their lines in the water, anyway. And when Sylvia’s line went taught, the haughty look disappeared from her face and she squealed with excitement.

Allie watched from the bridge as Cooper coached her on how to bring it in. She fought it for nearly two hours, and by the time she brought it in-a good-sized sailfish, of all unexpected things-she was sweaty and sore and sunburned, and she declared it was the most fun she’d ever had in her life.

As Cooper piloted the boat toward home, Derek and Sylvia ate the chicken tarragon salad on croissants and steamed asparagus Allie and Sara served, raving about it the whole time.

The two of them left Port Clara totally sold on fishing and promised they would return in the fall for a longer visit.

Allie wondered which one of them, her or Cooper, they would find running Remington Charters.