Reluctant Partners

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