Every plan they’d ever made had gone up in smoke, leaving her…adrift.
Bobbie sighed, feeling overwhelmingly melancholy after a job well done. She slowly removed her clothes and brushed her teeth.
She’d take a quick shower in the morning.
She was too tired to face anything more tonight.
CHAPTER 9
Buck stoodon the end of the dock in the bright sunlight, his rod cast. The rain predicted had failed to materialize, for which he was thankful. He loved to fish, but doing so in the rain? Not as much fun.
He’d baited his hook with a bit of squid to tease the mackerel that were biting this late afternoon. And so far he’d been successful. He already had a tidy bucketful of the twelve-to-fifteen-inch fish.
What he hadn’t yet caught sight of, was Bobbie, although the prevailing winds had been contrary all day. That told him she’d probably had a longer trip home than usual.
He knew he was in the right place.
Finding Bobbie’s port of choice had been easy.
Waiting for her was not.
He’d used his computer hacking skills to search her name at local marinas, eventually discovering that Bobbie was moored in the harbor at Searsport. It hadn’t been hard. Security on the semi-public records was less than stringent, to say the least.
Once here, the harbormaster, Lou—who was an old friend of the Sothard family—had easily been coerced into giving over thename and make of the sloop she was sailing, so now Buck knew exactly what he was looking for as he waited.
He’d also found out she’d named her thirty-foot day-sailor,Small Dream.
Very apt.
A little more jovial digging, and Buck had also discovered what time Bobbie left each week on Monday mornings, and what time she normally got in on Wednesday afternoons.
He’d arrived earlier than need be, so he’d gotten a bite to eat, then leisurely set himself up on the dock to fish, waiting to spot her.
Was he nervous?Hell, yes.
It was probably an understatement to say she’d be mad as hell that he was here. But Bobbie also wasn’t stupid. He’d warned her that they’d be having a talk, so she might have assumed he’d be waiting for her.
Shit. His heart did a quick two-step. Did that mean, in order to spite him, she’d put her boat in someplace else?
Buck hoped not.
He’d wait another hour before he’d admit that she might have outsmarted him.
If shedidshow, to mitigate any of Bobbie’s overt anger, Buck hoped to sweeten her up by giving her a hand unloading her boat before he cajoled her into granting him a chance to speak. If that didn’t work, he wasn’t above begging for the opportunity to clear the air.
Buck hooked another mackerel, and competently reeled it in. If he caught any more, Everlee would kill him. Not that he’d make her do the cleaning. He’d take care of that. But she’d still raise her brows at the size of the feast. There was more than enough here to feed the entire Sothard family, but four of them had already left to go back to their deployments and school.
However…Buck grinned.
There was still one extra couple who’d stayed to enjoy Ellen and Guy Sothard’s hospitality.
Tex and his wife.
They’d come for Spencer’s wedding—after being key to helping orchestrate the hunt for Tabitha’s sister, Sheila, when she’d gone missing—and were taking a few days off for an extended vacation.
Melody, post-wedding, had been happily dogging Ellen and Sheila at the camp where the pair worked, while Tex spent time gleefully picking Buck, Spencer’s, and Tabitha’s brains about the imminent opening of Diver Downeast.
The situationwaspretty funny. Tex had been a decorated Navy SEAL who’d been more at home in the water than he was on land. But due to logistics, Tex didn’t get to dive much these days, so he’d eagerly immersed himself in their world, doing some recreational diving, giving sage advice, and otherwise being a knowledgeable, welcome presence as they worked to open their doors.
