His mouth thinned to a tight crease. “Can we look at the books? Reece is a CPA. Maybe he can help.”
“I’ve given my lawyer copies of everything pertinent, and I’m sure he’ll send you copies.”
“Everything pertinent?”
“Well, not every single page of the ledger, but receipts and copies of bills and what-not.”
“Reece will want to see it all.”
“The only thing that will help the finances is lots of paying customers-which we should have in the normal course of business. I expect I’ll get caught up in a few weeks. But you’re welcome to inspect the books-on the premises.”
“Only one problem with that. Reece gets seasick.”
“They make wonderful medicine for that these days.” She took a long sip of her cold coffee. Blech. “We better go give the bad news to Pete that we aren’t hiring him.”
She could tell Cooper didn’t like it that she’d made the decision. But hers was the name on the
At least for a while longer.
Chapter Five
Allie got her second surprise when she stepped into the galley to prepare snacks for their 10:00 a.m. charter. A case of upscale beer now occupied the entire lower two shelves of her refrigerator. Either Cooper had a powerful thirst, or he planned on serving their guests alcohol.
She climbed the steps to the deck, where Cooper was wiping everything down with a sponge and a bucket of soapy water. He wasn’t afraid of hard work, she’d give him that. Once he got a glimmering of how much work there was to do in preparation for each excursion, he’d jumped right in.
“Cooper!”
He looked up with a grin. “Yes, Allie?”
“Have you ever dealt with a bunch of drunks on a boat, armed with fishhooks? It’s not pretty.”
“I seem to remember Uncle Johnny serving drinks to the guests.”
Yeah, Allie remembered that, too-and a few cruises where the captain was drunker than the passengers. At least she’d learned how to pilot the boat by then.
“It’s too much for me to handle alone,” she argued.
“My cousins and I have been doing some research. If we make high-quality cocktails available, we can charge a lot more. We can hire a college kid to tend bar-in fact, I talked to the bartender at Old Salt last night and she’d be willing to do it for a few bucks.”
“Sara?” Allie would have a few words to say to her friend. “I don’t want drunk passengers.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. You want to make a profit, don’t you?”
She started to argue that she did make a profit. But with the current state of her finances, she couldn’t make a good argument. “Fine. You handle it, though. And if somebody gets drunk and falls overboard, it’s on your head.”
Once they got that argument out of the way, the morning went more smoothly. Their passengers included two couples and their preteen kids. Children always made Allie a bit nervous, especially when their parents didn’t control them. They usually required a great deal of one-on-one instruction. But this group was well-behaved. And to her surprise, Cooper handled the instruction part just fine.
Apparently he did know something about fishing.
When she brought out the platters of cold cuts for lunch, she saw that Cooper was patiently coaching the youngest member of their party, a ten-year-old girl, to pull in her first fish. It was a beautiful red snapper, quite a large one, and Allie held her breath as the girl struggled valiantly to get it into the boat.
A lot of men would simply have taken over for the small girl, but Cooper cheered on her efforts and offered advice when needed, stepping in only when the fish was out of the water.
“Nicely done, Brenna.” Cooper had the fish safely in a net.
The little girl beamed, but then her smile faded. “Do I have to eat him? Or can I put him back in the ocean?”
Cooper looked at the fish thoughtfully. “He’d be good eating. But if you’d like to let him go, that’s okay.”
“Can I, Daddy?” she asked her father.
The girl’s father looked pained-his mouth was probably already watering at the thought of grilled snapper for dinner tonight. But he nodded.
Allie couldn’t help smiling as Cooper took the fish off the hook and wistfully threw it back in the water. But her smile fled as he stepped away from the family and peeled off his golf shirt, which had apparently gotten wet.
She nearly dropped her platter.
Holy cow, muscles like that ought to be outlawed. Maybe he’d built himself up at some pricey health club rather than with hard physical labor, but her hormones sure didn’t know the difference. He had a bit of a farmer’s tan-or rather, a golfer’s tan. But a few more days on the boat with his shirt off, and he’d be smooth, golden brown all over.
She shivered at the thought.
Maybe she should get out more. The fact the thought of touching Cooper even crossed her mind felt like a betrayal to Johnny.
She passed a container of moist towelettes so everyone could wipe their hands before eating.
“What can I get everyone to drink?” Cooper asked. “We have all kinds of soft drinks, water and Sam Adams beer.”
One of the men grinned. “Now you’re talking. Bring all the adults a beer.”
Hmm. She hated to admit it, but maybe Cooper was right.
They’d scarcely gotten the families disembarked when their afternoon passengers arrived, a group of young, testosterone-laden men. They were probably close to her age, and all of them as handsome as good breeding and lots of money could make them, but not a one of them flipped her switch, even when they flirted with her mercilessly.
“Heck, Allie,” one of the men said when she turned him down for a date later that night. “One of the main reasons we picked your boat was because your picture’s on the Web site.”
But Cooper gave him a hard stare and he backed down.
By the time they were heading back to the harbor, the weather had turned. Threatening thunderheads had pushed in from the south, and the ocean was a bit rougher than it had been. It took all of Allie’s concentration to keep the boat from bucking.
Cooper appeared at the bridge. “One of the passengers is seasick. Do we have some medicine we could give him?”
“Yes, but I can’t hunt it down right now.”
“I can take the bridge.”
Allie’s first instinct was to say
Then again, Cooper had so far proved himself perfectly capable. He’d watched her navigate in and out of the harbor three times now; he was probably up to it, and the seas were smoothing out as they got into more protected water.
“Yeah, okay. Just be careful. The rocks we passed on our way out are hidden by high tide now.”
“I remember.”
She scampered down the ladder and below, where one of the men was indeed looking a bit green around the gills. She might regret serving the guys beer after all.
The instructions she gave all passengers with their reservation confirmation included a list of things they should bring with them, and that included seasick medicine, though she always kept some on hand. But she had to rummage around in a couple of cabinets before she found it.
She gave some to the green man, then headed back toward the bridge. She checked their position just before
