6
Jack
For lack of anything else to do, I’m on page one hundred twenty-seven of theHawk’s fish finder manual when Harper comes marching out of the lodge and directly to where I’m tied off.
“You had a guest this morning,” she says, hands on her hips. She’s out of breath like she’s run part of the way or is controlling the urge to scream. “Playing barista, are you?”
“I wasn’t supposed to serve him coffee?”
“You didn’t tell me.”
It’s after seven o’clock. The lodge is only now gearing up for the day, and I’m still the only one down here by the water. Was I supposed to run to Harper’s room and wake her up the second David left the boat?
When I don’t reply, Harper glares at me. “They want to go out today.”
I blink. “Both of them?” David seems like a good guy, but I still can’t imagine his boss really wanting to go fishing.
She doesn’t acknowledge my response. “I’ll tell Mr. Morgan you’ll be ready to go by eight o’clock.” Then she spins on the heel of her still-unblemished boot and marches away again.
Shortly after her departure, there’s a flurry of activity as the kitchen staff shows up with enough hampers of food to feed an army of people for a week—though somehow all of it disappears neatly into the cupboards and cold locker in the galley. Then Luis, who is head of recreation services, insists on going over some kind of safety checklist that includes everything from what I would do in the event of an onboard fire to a medical emergency to getting lost at sea, even though the forecast is clear today and I don’t imagine we’ll go anywhere offshore.
After that’s settled, there’s a brief pause where I go through all the food and double-check my bait and gear. I’m closing the dry locker when shouting comes from the dock. I stick my head outside, and David is walking toward me, once again in his parka. The shouting is coming from his boss behind him, who is back on his phone, staring off into the distance from behind a pair of weird, green-tinted glasses.
“Yes,” he says. “I told you that is unacceptable. We won’t consider anything less than seventeen million. No. No. You listen to me, jackass—” His point is cut off abruptly by whoever is on the phone. I’m impressed he even has cell service out here.
“Good morning again.” David’s voice is friendly, and his smile soft as he grins over the stovepipe collar of his coat.
“Hi.” I step forward and lift a hand. “Welcome aboard.”
David takes it as he steps down, but there’s no tension in his grip. He must be pretty fit if he doesn’t need any support off the dock.
His boss, however, is a different story. He’s still on his phone as he approaches theWinter Hawk. I start, half expecting him to walk off the dock and drop the three feet of open space onto the deck, but it seems David is prepared for this sort of thing. The way he catches the smaller man under his arms and sets him gently down speaks of a lot of practice.
Maybe being a bodyguard isn’t just protecting a client from bad guys with guns like on TV? Maybe it also means keeping your client from killing himself when he isn’t watching where he’s going while taking important phone calls.
“No. No, that is not what we agreed to.” Despite his near accident, he’s still speaking without missing a beat. “It is nineteen thousand hectares. Do you know what the Greenpeace freaks would do to me if they found out I was speaking to you?”
“Everything all right?” David asks behind me, making me jump. For such a big man, he moves softly, even on a metal boat.
I straighten. “Harper says you want to go fishing.”
David smiles, bigger this time. He has the whitest teeth I have ever seen in my life. “This is a fishing boat, isn’t it?”
It sure is. The nicest one I’ve been on. And getting better for the company that has joined me.
I squash that thought because David is working, and I’m supposed to be too. “Got a preference?” I ask, glancing quickly at the man on the phone. Technically, he’s the guest, right? I should be asking him these questions.
“A preference for what?” David asks with an arched eyebrow that makes me heat under my fleece. I haven’t flirted with anyone in a while, and that one question, coupled with David’s smile, squeezes something in my gut that hasn’t been touched for what feels like years. I dig my nails into my palms to ignore the shiver of interest that ripples up my body. I’m not so hard up that I’m going to jump on top of an innocent question asked by a man I’ve just met who I’m supposed to be taking care of.
Instead, I clear my throat. “For fishing.”
David runs a hand over the back of his neck, almost like he was also caught off guard. “I used to fish walleye as a kid.”
“And your boss? Should we ask him?”
David glances at his boss, who is still yelling into his phone. “Mr. Morgan will be busy for a while. Let’s get going. Wherever you want to take us is fine.”
“You won’t find much walleye up here,” I say. “Mostly salmon, halibut, or rockfish if you know where to look.”
