Risky Business (7 page)

Her words made his skin prickle. She had no idea how close to home she'd hit with that declaration—on multiple levels. Determination was only a positive attribute in mothers if what they wanted for their children wasn't toxic, or if it wasn't so overwhelming that the child didn't self-destruct from the pressure.

“If you're so determined, then walk down the damn stairs and let me show you around the boats.”

He'd called her bluff and, by the look on her face, she knew it. “I'll be inside looking through the files and the computer programs. If you won't help me like I need you to, then I'm going to figure out this business on my own. That's a promise you can take to the bank.”

He muttered a prayer for patience, then before he could second-guess himself, he hooked his hand around her knees and swung her into his arms.

She shrieked. Trembling, she lassoed his neck so tightly, she nearly choked him. “Don't throw me in.”

Man, she was terrified of water. Beyond normal fear. He almost asked her what happened to make her that way, but he already felt too much sympathy for her with the whole Lowell and Shawna affair.

He started down the stairs, concentrating on keeping his steps deliberate, ignoring the way she felt clinging to him, the way her supple body felt in his hands. “I wasn't planning to, but I also wasn't going to stand there anymore. I wasn't lying about how much I have to do today. I've got an engine to fix on one of the day-rental boats, then I promised Duke I'd help him with an electrical issue at the ice rink later this afternoon.”

“Take me back to the office. Right now. I'm serious. You can't handle me like this.”

“Fine. I'm stopping.” He was a “no means no” kind of man, so even though they were right in the middle of the floating dock, only a few feet from the boat he'd intended on setting her down on, he stopped and released her legs to the dock.

She sagged into him, refusing to relinquish her hold on his neck. “I didn't mean you should set me down here.”

He knew she didn't, but he wasn't going to scurry around doing her bidding or stand around waiting for her to put up or shut up.

“You have two choices right now. You can trust me or you can trust yourself.”

With her arm still around his neck and her other hand twisting his shirt with a death grip, she backed her face up from where it'd been burrowed against his chest and looked in his eyes. “You haven't given me a reason to trust you. All you've done is make my life more difficult.”

“
Je pourrais dire la même chose à propos de toi.
” He winced, then repeated it in English. “I could say the same about you.”

Which didn't explain why he had his arms around her or why his heart was pounding so loudly that he couldn't hear anything save for the rush of blood in his ears. It didn't explain why he kept accidentally speaking in French to her without meaning to. Was that some kind of new nervous tic? He certainly hadn't counted on nerves or embraces when he'd indulged in this half-baked plan to teach her a lesson.

His gaze dipped to her lips, but only for a second because he got a grip, fast, and settled his attention on the water beyond the boats. “You have to get over this irrational fear of water.”

“It's not irrational and I don't need to get over it. Fear is as natural as breathing. There's a reason fear has survived with evolution.”

He wasn't going to stand on the dock embracing his boss while they had a philosophical discussion on the Darwinian importance of fear. He'd proven his point that she was completely unqualified to work at a boat rental company, much less run it. Bending into her, he gathered her in his arms again. She gave a little whimper and mashed her face into his cheek.

“I think I hate you.”

The movement of her lips against his skin gave him goose bumps. “Then I'll consider this little field trip a success, as long as that doesn't mean we have to have a discussion about the evolution of repulsion.”

As soon as he'd crested the stairs, he set her down, careful to do so out of view of the office. The last thing he needed were his hockey teammates seeing him carry Allison around like she was some damn princess.

She retained her grip on his shirt and stared up at him, as angry as she'd been earlier, complete with the flushed cheeks and fiery eyes, and the same trembling body. “That wasn't very nice.”

“Yes, well, I'm not a very nice man.”

He expected her enthusiastic agreement on that point, but all she did was stare at him. The fire in her eyes changed, as though his declaration had reminded her of a secret she was determined to keep. Dropping her focus to his chest, she released her hold on his shirt and smoothed out the material.

“I'm going to go check on Katie.”

She slid past him, toward the office. It wasn't until they were no longer touching that he realized how right she'd felt in his arms—and how close he'd been to kissing her.

He spun away from her, disgusted with himself. “I'm going to go fix that engine.”

Without looking back, he stopped by the garage for his tools, then headed to the boat in need of repair. Rather than go straight to the engine, he walked through the boat and got a glass of water from its kitchenette, rattled by the confrontation with Allison and his own haywire emotions.

He took stock of the boat's bare walls and brown carpet. It did look drab, as Allison had said. Shawna had read the same complaint of Cloud Nine on Internet business review sites, but what was he supposed to do? Hire a decorator on the paltry budget Whitley had allotted Cloud Nine? He was sick and tired of being an employee, at the mercy of the owner's whims.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Oscar, his attorney.

“Yes, hello, Oscar. This is Theoren Lacroix. You know that sale of ownership proposal you drew up for me for Cloud Nine Boat Rentals? Unfortunately, the previous owner passed it to his ex-wife instead, and . . .”

His stomach lurched. He thought about Allison, soaking wet, naked, and freezing on his couch, her baby in her arms, absolutely livid at him for saving her life. He thought about her in his arms, trembling, paralyzed with fear of the water. He thought about how badly he'd wanted to kiss her, how right she felt with her face pressed to his cheek.

This is for the best. For you, and for her, too, even though she can't see it yet.

He looked through the kitchenette window at the landing office. He could just make out Allison's silhouette, bouncing her baby on her hip. He turned away from the view. He'd warned her that he wasn't a nice man. She hadn't believed him, but she sure as hell would now.

“I have a notarized written statement from Lowell Whitley declaring his intention to sell Cloud Nine Boat Rentals to me, and I'm interested in contesting his ex-wife's right to ownership. How soon can you meet?”

The ring of the phone on Cloud Nine's reception desk cut through the album of nursery-rhyme songs Allison was singing along to for Katie's entertainment. The caller ID said the call was coming from Virginia. A customer. With a mild curse, she fumbled to mute the music's volume, lowered Katie into her activity station, and grabbed the receiver.

“Cloud Nine Boat Rentals, this is Allison.” Not bad. She'd sounded like she knew what she was doing. Maybe.

“Yes, hello,” a male voice said on the line. “I'm interested in reserving a houseboat for Independence Day weekend, and your website said to call for rates and availability.”

Crap. Allison had no idea where to begin looking for such information other than going to find Theo. “Sure. Thank you for your interest. That's one of our busiest weekends,” she guessed. “Let me check the availability. Would you mind holding?”

With another, more stringent curse, she dug up the only calendar she'd found in the office from the middle desk drawer. It had not a single word written on it, but only lines of different colored highlighters and shape stamps. A quick search around the office yielded nothing that her last half-dozen searches had. Shaking her head in frustration, she pressed the
HOLD
button again.

“Yes, I'm sorry about that. Our computer system seems to be down. May I take your information and call you right back?”

This was what she'd been dreading. Flailing in front of customers. This was her first one and she was determined not to let the sale slip past her. There were a lot of boat rental companies along the canal, and she was sure they needed every customer they could get, especially since it was the first inquiry since she'd arrived at Cloud Nine.

She was left with no other choices than to pursue the least savory option, so she stuffed the phone in her pocket, picked up Katie, the calendar, and the customer's callback information and went looking for Theo. They'd had relatively peaceful days spent ignoring the other's existence, but she could see now that wasn't going to work.

He wasn't on any boats that she could see. She circled the building. The roll-up door to the garage was open. In the past few days, she'd barely seen him except through windows—from her bedroom, from the office, and once, while she was driving, she saw him on his motorcycle.

In the garage, he was lying on his back on a towel, tinkering with his motorcycle.

“We have a potential customer on the line.”

He lifted his head and regarded her for a brief moment, then got back to work. “Congratulations.”

“I need to know about the boat availability for July Fourth weekend and all I found was this calendar in the desk. Is this for reservations? What do the colors mean? And what about the shapes? Is there a calendar on the computer that I'm not seeing?”

He sat, wiped his hands on a rag, then stood and strolled toward her.

“Can you pick up the pace? I told the customer I'd call right back.”

Ignoring the pad of paper with the customer's callback information that she held, he plucked the calendar from her hands, then the phone from her pocket, and retreated to the workbench. He pressed a button on the receiver, probably the redial button, and turned his back to her.

By calling the potential customer back himself and refusing to guide her so she could respond competently to customer calls, he was once again actively standing in the way of her learning the business, and just as soon as she'd gleaned all the knowledge she could from his phone call, she was going to get properly pissed off.

Resolved to figure out his system once and for all, she walked right up next to him and leaned her elbow on the workbench, waiting for him to enlighten her on his process. It looked like each color was a boat, and that each symbol meant something different, though she couldn't figure out what.

“Yes, hello, I'm with Cloud Nine Boat Rentals. My secretary said you were interested in renting a boat over July Fourth weekend. We only have two openings left, both for our houseboat rentals.” He paused. “No, sir. We rent by the week during our peak season.”

She counted the number of colors blocking out the dates. Sure enough, there were six. He answered a few questions about the process, then told the person on the phone that as soon as their check arrived and was processed at the bank, their reservation would be confirmed. He didn't write anything down. By the time he ended the call, Allison couldn't decide which question of the multitude swirling around in her head she should ask first.

“We don't take credit cards?”

“No.”

What an archaic way of doing business. That, she'd be changing as soon as possible. “On this calendar, which boats are which color? Would you at least tell me that?”

He rattled off the boat names and colors, but there was no way she could remember them all by simply hearing them once.

“Would you write that down for me, or is that asking too much?”

He tossed the phone on top of the calendar. “This is my system. Deal with it.”

“
Deal with it?
How about I change it to something that actually makes sense, like joining the twenty-first century by putting a calendar on the computer or—just a wild idea—adding notes about the customers. You added a pink line to the Fourth of July week, but you didn't take down any of that customer's information. When his check arrives, how will we know what it's for? And what if he calls back? How will we know which boat he rented or whether he paid?”

He pointed to a star stamp in one of the calendar squares. “Paid. And when the check arrives, I take it to the bank.” He tossed the highlighter on top of the calendar. “I don't have time for this.”

“When will you have time to go over all this?”

He had the audacity to smile. “Right after I give you a tour of the boats.”

Her face heated, and not just because her temper was boiling. Her fear of water had been a constant source of embarrassment throughout her life, but there wasn't much she could do about it, even to prove a bull-headed, arrogant jerk that he was wrong about her.

Affecting an air of tranquility, or at least a reasonable facsimile, she gathered the calendar and the phone in her free arm and walked away before she said something she'd regret.

Back in the office, she studied the mess she'd created with that fire. The downside of Duke and his team working on the landing was that they'd had a regular job to complete that week, remodeling a room in a residential home. They promised to return on Friday and work through the weekend, but for now, the flooring had been stripped, as had the drywall on the walls and ceiling near the fireplace. Two huge fans had been brought in, drying everything off.

After working all day on Saturday and part of Sunday, Duke had explained that there wasn't anything more they could do until the water damage dried, but he promised she could turn the fans off after a couple days, then his crew would be back the following Saturday. That corresponded with Allison's moving day, but she didn't mention it. She, Janie, and Grant would just have to work around Duke's crew, because getting Cloud Nine put back together before the start of the tourist season was her top priority—even more important than reuniting with her coffeemaker.

Later, while Katie was fast asleep, thanks to the loud whir of the fans, Allison sat at the desk and sifted through paperwork, looking for any kind of clues about the business. The only thing of interest she found was a scrap of paper in the top middle drawer with the name of an email account and a password. Curious, she pulled it up and found months' worth of unanswered email queries from prospective customers. She had to hope that Theo had contacted them in some other way, by phone or another email address that she wasn't privy to, but there wasn't much she could do about it at the moment. She couldn't even figure out which boats were available for rental and when.

Just thinking about the term
profit and loss statement
gave her a sinking feeling, so she navigated the Internet to the closest community college's continuing education page with the idea that she should probably take a business class. The indoor pool at the college was offering “Baby and Me” water acclimation classes, year round. With Theo's acerbic judgments of her fresh in her mind, she clicked on the link for the water class and stared at the photograph of the gleaming, blue pool and the happy babies and mothers.

More than Katie, Allison was the one who needed a water acclimation class. She didn't want Katie to be afraid of water. Her parents had never made learning to swim a priority, despite how close they lived to lakes and pools, and the near drowning she'd suffered at age seven when her dad had taken their family out on one of his tour boats had gripped her with a crippling fear of the stuff. She'd been the kid unable to attend pool parties, unwilling to set foot in the water at the beach or lake. She'd missed out on a lot.

The trouble with her fear was about far more than missing out on fun. Her fear, along with the panic that came with it, only increased her risk of drowning again, as it had the other night when Theo pushed her in.

She didn't want that for Katie, but she was the only parent Katie had, so how could Katie learn to think about water in a healthy way when Allison couldn't? It wasn't like Lowell could or would take her swimming. She had no idea how she was going to keep from passing along her fear; she only knew that she had to find a way.

Maybe one of her sisters could take Katie to a water acclimation class. She wished it could be otherwise, but just the thought of getting into a pool, even if it was shallow enough to stand in all the way across, made her light-headed.

According to the community college website, classes were midway through the spring semester. Maybe she could afford the money and time to take a summer Intro to Business class. On a whim, she navigated to the informational page on associate degrees. That might be one too many things to put on her plate right now, but by the fall, maybe she'd be ready.

While still daydreaming about college, she hauled onto the desk a stack of paperwork that Lowell's accountant had handed her, along with a flash drive and a letter of resignation after Lowell's verdict had been read. He was washing his hands of the Whitleys because it had been far too long since he'd been paid. She'd skimmed through the papers before, but she was hoping that on one of her readings, she'd come across something of interest. Today, she did. She found a tax addendum inventory page listing Cloud Nine's boats and names. Lanette was on the list, which meant that as of last year, Theo didn't own her.

She looked up, shocked. That couldn't be right. Lanette was his home. Before she did anything else, or thought more deeply on how she could use Lanette as leverage to get him to stay on at the company, she needed more proof.

She was on a mission now. A half hour later, she was sitting on the floor behind the reception desk elbow deep in a lower file cabinet looking for Lanette's deed of ownership when she heard the back door open. She popped her head up, expected to see Theo, but it was Harper who came into view, holding a reusable grocery bag. Whatever was inside the bag smelled delicious.

“Hi. I hope you're hungry because I brought lunch. I would've been here earlier in the week, but I figured you were too busy to sit and chat.”

Allison stood and brushed off her legs. “You thought right, but now's a perfect time. I'm starving.”

In the kitchen, Allison poured them both iced tea while Harper took out three to-go boxes and set one in front of Allison. She opened it to find a buffalo chicken salad.

“I hope you don't mind a little spice on your chicken.”

“Not at all. One of my resolutions in coming to Destiny Falls was to add some spice to my life.” She gestured to the third container with her fork. “What's in there?”

She was hoping Harper answered, “Dessert,” but instead she said, “Hot wings. I thought you might want to offer those to Theo as a peace offering after I leave.”

“I guess it's been pretty obvious that he and I haven't been getting along.”

“Yes, I've seen the two of you talking outside.”

She could tell Harper was choosing her words carefully, tiptoeing around the obvious. “You mean shouting bloody murder at each other?”

Harper's eyes twinkled. “Well, now that you mention it. I've heard a bit of shouting, and, um, I saw him carrying you down the dock stairs the other day
while
you were shouting at each other.”

“Oh, that.” Her cheeks heated. “That was Theo's attempt to prove that I'm not fit to run this company because I'm too afraid of water to get on the boats.”

“He has a point, but that seems excessively rude, even for Theo.”

Allison sipped her tea. “I must bring it out in him.”

“He's not the easiest person to get along with, so don't feel like it's only you. He keeps just about everyone at arm's length. How's everything else going here?”

“Honestly? I'm off to a rocky start, and it's not all because of Theo. I have no idea how to run a business, and while it's infuriating that my sole employee keeps pointing out my flaws, it doesn't change the truth. And the truth is that until Lowell was arrested, I'd never so much as paid a bill or balanced a checkbook.”

“Ouch.”

“I know. I honestly never thought I'd need to. So stupid, I know.” It had been a shamefully immature way to think, but she was determined to be the kind of person who owned up to her shortcomings.

Harper patted her hand. “Not stupid. Naive. But you're in luck because you happen to be one grassy commons away from a business expert—who also delivers lunch.”

“You would help me?”

“We women business owners have to stick together.”

“Thank you. I've decided to take some college level business classes in the fall, but life is too chaotic right now for me to add to it by piling more work onto myself. I still need to find a bookkeeper because Lowell's accountant quit when he was convicted.”