“Yes, sir.”
“Ladies, the lines on the other side of the boat are active. Keep your eyes on them and let’s catch some fish.”
Emma handed her rod to Preston, then fixed her gaze on the set lines. Shoulders tight, but steady.
Since the ladies had caught a couple of fish, their interest in fishing peaked. Just like any other customer. Once you catch one, you want to catch more.
Cap climbed back up into the wheelhouse.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Jonathan exclaimed.
He supposed that resulted from his first mate pushing the sharp hook through the man’s flesh so he could snip the barbed end and then pull it back out. Unfortunately for Jonathan, that was the best way to release the hook from him. Pulling the barb backwards would cause more pain and damage. This wasn’t the first hook he or Preston pulled from a person, but usually, if someone got hooked, it was in the hand, not the ass. This ass-hooking seemed appropriate, though.
Cap didn’t bother to look in the direction of the whining. Instead, he focused ahead. There were other fishing vessels off in the distance, but none obstructing his pathway.
“Emma, where’s my bag?” Jonathan asked.
Cap had forgotten about the bag the drenched man mentioned. The one that caused all this chaos and was important enough for the man to jump into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan.
“I don’t have it,” she replied.
“I know you do, and I need it.”
“Well, I don’t have it.”
Morgan snorted.
“Morgan, what do you know? This isn’t funny. Where is it?” Jonathan asked.
The raised octave of Jonathan’s voice caused Cap to focus on him from up in the wheelhouse.
Jonathan’s arm flung out and latched onto Emma’s bicep. He yanked her to him. Instinctively, Cap leaped down onto the deck.
“Release her, now!”
Emma’s eyes were wide. Jonathan’s nostrils flared.
What the hell was with this bag that it was so important?
Cap closed in on Jonathan. “I said release her.”
After a bit of a stare-down, he released Emma, and she stepped away from him.
“I need the bag,” Jonathan stated firmly.
“She told you she doesn’t have it.”
Jonathan refocused on Emma. “Where is it?”
Cap risked moving his gaze from the angry man to Emma, whose attention was fixed on the deck.
Cap felt it like a punch. Lie. Lying was the one thing he detested most.
The taste of it dragged him backward—five years, a wedding canceled, his fiancé and best friend’s deception. Lie. They made him a laughingstock of the town when their affair was revealed. Women. All liars. Except maybe for Hannah, his brother’s new wife. He liked her. If only she had a sister.
What the hell am I thinking? Women—bad.
Cap raked his hand over his face. Seeing what his brother Hunter and Hannah shared made him rethink his attitude. He would be thirty-seven soon and was thinking about the lonely future ahead of him. It would probably help if his mother didn’t remind him of that regularly. He could hear her now. “Capricornus, you don’t want to grow old alone, do you? I can’t imagine how lonely I’d be without your father and you children. You need to let go of the anger you harbor. It’s not healthy. Blythe was…let’s just say she wasn’t the right woman for you, anyway.”
