This poor kid has watched too many Tom Cruise movies, Stephanie thought. He had him down pretty well, too, except Ace’s nose was larger, making him seem closer to Snoopy doing Joe Cool.
“Okay, Ace, I’m going to give your hands a chance to make lunch. I think we’ll have an abbreviated menu of fish chowder and biscuits. I don’t suppose we have twenty or thirty cans of fish chowder lying around somewhere?”
“Don’t suppose we do.”
“Okay,” Stephanie said, “then we’ll go to plan two. Find a recipe for the blasted stuff.” She fumbled in the cabinet drawer for Lucy’s recipe book and tore out the chowder page. “You assemble the soup ingredients, and I’ll get started on the biscuits.” Her eyes opened wide at the biscuit recipe. “Twelve cups of flour? I’ll need a cement mixer to make this recipe.”
Ace plunked a huge earthenware bowl onto the counter and gave Stephanie’s waist a squeeze. “This is the bowl Lucy uses for biscuits,” he said, dropping a kiss on Stephanie’s shoulder.
Stephanie waved a large wooden spoon at him. “This is the spoon Stephanie uses for smacking knuckles. Kiss me again, and you’ll never play the piano.”
Ace looked insulted. “How can you resist me? I’m a cool dude.”
“Listen, Ace, I’m going to level with you. I don’t know diddly about cooking for twenty- six people, I’ve never been on a ship before, and this is the first time I’ve seen a woodstove up close. I’m doing this so my cousin Lucy can have a honeymoon, and—”
“Lucy got married? No joke?”
“She’s marrying Stanley Shelton, the plumber.”
Ace looked impressed. “It’s always nice to have a plumber in the family.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
He took a cauldron from a ceiling hook and set it on the stove. “Lucy’s a real good guy, and any cousin of Lucy’s is a cousin of mine. I’m gonna help you out here.”
An ally! Stephanie felt weak with relief, but there was one more thing she had to find out. “Can I ask you a question? Isn’t it hard to see in here with those dark glasses on? You aren’t doing drugs, are you?”
“Not me. I’m too cool to do drugs. I’d take these glasses off, but I’m getting glare from your socks.” He gave Stephanie a meaningful look. “So you think it’s going to work out between us?”
“Yup. I think we’re going to be a great kitchen team.”
“Mmm. And what about romance?” He pointed to the bunk on the opposite side of the table. “We’re roomies, you know.”
“Sorry, romance is out of the question. I’m not into romance. You’re very tempting, but I took a vow.”
He pulled some onions out of a vegetable bin behind the ladder. “This is going to ruin my image. And my self-esteem is shot to hell.”
“Life is cruel,” Stephanie said, counting out twelve cups of flour. She looked around the small galley. “Where’s the butter?”
“Ice chest’s on deck.”
She wiped her hands on her shorts and gave him a thumbs-up sign, deciding he was a good guy—a little weird, maybe, but not mean.
She went topside and discovered they were almost out of Camden Harbor. She’d watched the schooners come and go over the past two months, usually from an upstairs window or from the widow’s walk on the top of her house. The big wooden boats were eerily quiet for their size. Not having the power of an inboard motor, Ivan relied on a yawl to move them through the flotilla of pleasure craft into open sea, where the sails could be unfurled.
The rigging creaked and clanked in the breeze, and the town of Camden looked very small, hugging the waterline, the steeple of the Chestnut Street Baptist Church sparkling in the morning sun. From this distance the mountains seemed to push against the town’s back. Wisps of fog caught in the treetops on Mt. Battie, and Stephanie could see patches of yellow, orange, and red, where autumn leaves had already begun to turn. A gull rode a clanging buoy, oblivious to the noise. Passengers sat topside, watching the gull, watching Ivan at the helm, waiting for the sails to go up. And in an hour they’ll be waiting for lunch, Stephanie thought with a groan.
Ace smiled at her when she returned to the galley with the butter. “I was afraid you’d gone overboard.”
“No. Just took a minute to enjoy the scenery.” She peeked into the steaming brew on the stove. “What is this?”
“Lucy’s fish chowder. I followed her recipe, but I think she must have left something out. Do you think it smells funny?”
It had passed smelling funny, Stephanie decided. It was more in the category of frightening. “What are those little round things floating on top?”
Ace stared into the pot. “They look like fish eyes.”
“Omigod.”
“You think I should have cut off the heads before I put the fish in the hot water?”
Stephanie clapped her hand over her mouth to squelch the laughter. She composed herself as best she could. “Nah, why waste a perfectly good fish head? This will be fine. We’ll… um, strain it before we serve it.”
“We might not have to do that,” Ace said. “Most of the folks on this cruise are pretty old. They probably can’t see so good. We could tell them they’re beans or something.”
Ivan came halfway down the ladder and stopped in midstride, immediately backing up a step. “What are you cooking down here, rubber boots? It smells like the fish-processing plant in Rockland on a bad day.”
“You think you can do better?”
He was sure he couldn’t do any worse. “I’m not really an expert at this,” he said gently, “but I think if you reduced the heat somehow, so it wasn’t boiling so furiously…” He held his breath and hoped the fumes wouldn’t peel the varnish off the walls.
“I think you’re right.” Stephanie gave the pot a clonk with her wooden spoon. “We’re going to reduce the heat right away.” She looked at Ace. “How about turning down the wood?”
Ace stared at her, his eyes hidden behind the silver-black lenses. “That’s the problem. You see, the wood control dial is broken.”
Stephanie looked at Ivan. “The wood control dial is broken,” she repeated with an absolutely straight face.
Ivan nodded. “Well, that explains it.” He inched his way back up the ladder, wondering what he’d done to deserve this. He’d cheated on his U.S. history exam in seventh grade, he’d wheedled Mary Ann Kulecza out of her panties in eighth grade, and he’d padded charitable contributions on his income tax. Now it was all coming home to roost. God had sent him Stephanie Lowe.
“After you turn the wood down, you should probably try to snag some eyes,” Stephanie told Ace.
“That’s going to be tough. They’re hidden under all this scum.”
An hour later the ship was heading due east, pitching through open seas. The scum had been ladled off, and the fish eyes slopped in the broth, mercilessly bashing themselves against the side of the big metal pot while Ace hunted them down with his spoon. Sweat rolled in rivulets along Stephanie’s back and collected on her upper lip as she stood guard over her baking biscuits.
“Any problems?” Ivan called down. “Folks are getting hungry.”
“Tell them to keep their pants on. You can’t rush a gourmet feast like this,” Stephanie yelled over the sizzle of coffee splattering on the hot stove. She opened the oven door, whipped out a tray of biscuits, and dumped them in a bread basket lined with a red linen napkin. “Hardly burned at all,” she told Ace. “I don’t think we even have to scrape the black off the bottoms of this batch.”
Ace took time out of his fish-eye hunt to appreciate the biscuits.
“How many eyes have you got?” Stephanie asked.
Ace poked around in the cup sitting next to the stove. “Seven. Looks like I’m only missing one. You think we could have had a one-eyed fish?”
“You keep looking while I take the biscuits up.” She assembled a tray of chowder mugs, soup spoons, napkins, and tubs of butter, and set them on the roof of the midship cabin. She added baskets of b
iscuits and bowls of fresh fruit, and felt her lip curl involuntarily when Ace appeared with the tureen of fish stew.
“Are you going to eat this?” he asked in a whisper.
Eat it? Was he kidding? She’d inhaled enough fish stew to last her a lifetime.
Mrs. Pease got a peculiar expression on her face halfway through her lunch. She was short and round with dimpled elbows and dimpled knees and short curly white hair. She slid her glasses low on her nose and squinted into her soup. “There’s something staring at me in here.”
Her husband looked over her shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”
“Right there.” She pointed with her spoon. “It’s a little bitty eyeball.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “What would an eyeball be doing in your soup?”
Ace jumped to Mrs. Pease’s side and dipped his spoon into her mug. “Okay, where is it? Where’s this eyeball from outer space?” He held the spoon an inch from his nose and studied its contents. “That’s not an eyeball. That’s a black-eyed pea.” He fired the object off his spoon slingshot style, and a seagull caught it in midair. “Seagulls love black-eyed peas,” he told Mrs. Pease. He looked at Stephanie and mouthed the word “eight.”
Stephanie took a biscuit and avoided looking in Ivan’s direction.
“Our captain is staring,” Ace said. “You think he knows it was an eyeball?”
“Not a chance.”
“He looks intense,” Ace said. “I’ve only seen him look like that one time before. It was when Andy Newfarmer’s dog lifted his leg on Ivan’s new all-weather boots, and Ivan was in them.”
Stephanie nibbled on the biscuit. “What’s Ivan like? Have you known him long?”
“Ivan’s first-class. Comes from an old seafaring family. His grandfather and great- grandfather were captains of coasting schooners, and people tell me Ivan’s a descendant of Red Rasmussen, the pirate. Supposedly, Ivan’s house, Haben, is haunted by the ghost of Red’s widow. Lucy said Ivan sold the house this summer.”
Great, Stephanie thought, I bought a haunted house. Another point of interest the real estate lady failed to mention.
A gust of wind rattled the sails, Ivan spun the wheel, the ship leaned into the wind and surged ahead, and Stephanie found herself watching Ivan, trying to sort through a mixture of uncomfortable emotions. As much as she hated to admit it, he was awesome. He stood in calm control with a suggestion of suppressed power in his wide stance and steady hand. His beard hugged the angle of his jaw, making him look like the perfect captain for a ship named Savage. He was a man who felt comfortable with authority and inspired confidence. An hour ago she wouldn’t have trusted him to change the kitty litter, and now she was trapped on a little wooden boat, bobbing around in a huge ocean, counting on Ivan to keep her safe. And she was sure he would. Stephanie thought he looked very fierce and wondered if he could also be gentle.
Their gazes locked, and Stephanie felt her face flame. She’d been caught gawking. Actually, gawking wasn’t accurate. Drooling was closer to the truth. Cousin Lucy hadn’t been kidding when she’d said Ivan was terribly attractive.
Stephanie’s heart skipped a beat when she saw him hand the wheel over to the first mate and turn in her direction. Okay, she thought, if he criticizes the soup, I’ll apologize. And if he kissed her, she’d drag him down to the galley. The last thought produced a mental grimace. Good grief! Get a grip, she told herself.
Chapter 2
There was no doubt in Ivan’s mind that there had been a fish eye in Mrs. Pease’s chowder. He was equally sure that he didn’t want to know how the fish eye had gotten there. There were some things best left untouched. And there were some things that were mystical in nature—such as why he was so attracted to Stephanie Lowe, a woman who apparently lived side by side with catastrophe. Maybe it wasn’t attraction. Maybe it was simply gruesome fascination. The sort of grim curiosity that compels you to stare at bloody victims of auto accidents and read about serial killers in the newspaper.
Now that he knew Stephanie better, he wasn’t at all surprised her house was falling apart. And if she stayed aboard the Savage, there was no telling what would happen. The plague would strike, or they’d run aground. At the very least, she’d poison them all. Stephanie Lowe was an accident just waiting to happen.
Too bad she was going to have to go, he thought as he approached her. There was an energy about her that was entertaining, and she was terrific-looking, in an unconventional sort of way. She had a few freckles across her straight little nose, silky smooth skin, and big blue eyes that were, at the moment, turning his stomach upside down. Her body language said “back off,” but there was something about the expression in those cobalt eyes that made his jeans fit tighter than usual. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t a man who took a casual view of sex, and he wasn’t the sort of man who let the fit of his jeans influence business decisions. His intuition told him to put her off on the first island, but he knew he’d have to keep her on board until he found a replacement. A Calamity Jane cook was better than no cook at all.
He took an apple from the bowl behind Stephanie and held it in his hand, enjoying the confrontation. She was waiting for him to make the first move, and her eyes weren’t giving away anything. She wasn’t going to initiate a conversation about her cooking, and she wasn’t going to flirt with him. It was a damn shame she couldn’t cook. And it was an even worse shame she wasn’t going to flirt.
He smiled at her, hoping she’d smile back. He liked her better when she was more at ease, muttering curse words and rolling down hills. When she returned the smile, he offered her the apple. “Have you had a chance to investigate the ship?”
She shook her head. “I’ve only gone as far as the galley and the ice chest.”
“Why don’t you take a few minutes off, and I’ll give you a quick tour while Ace handles cleanup.”
He started at the midship deckhouse. “We have two heads. They have flush toilets, hot and cold running water, and they’re both above deck.” He opened a door and revealed a clean lavatory. He latched the lavatory door from the outside and pointed to the hatch just opposite it. “That leads to the midship cabin with accommodations for twelve passengers.” He motioned to the structure directly in front of him. “This is the aft deckhouse.”
Stephanie followed him around the aft deck-house and down the ship’s ladder to a small room with a scarred wooden gaming table and bench seats, big enough for four people. Three double cabins were located off the left side of the room. A small delft blue-and-white-tiled, brass-fitted fireplace had been built into the far corner, behind the table. Bookshelves lined all the available wall space, and a brass ship’s lantern hung from the ceiling. It was a room that invited you to stay for a game of checkers, and almost made you wish for a dark, drizzly day so you could huddle at the table with a mug of tea, the fire at your back, and a good book in hand.
Ivan opened the only door on the right side and motioned Stephanie in. “This is my cabin.” He had a double bunk and a window at eye level, similar to the passengers’ cabins, but his quarters also included a compact sitting room with a built-in desk, racks for maps, and a wall full of navigational equipment.
“This vessel is Coast Guard approved with radar and marine radio,” he said. “We have a small crew, and I like everyone to have at least a basic understanding of this equipment.” No matter how short their stay, he silently added.
Stephanie looked at the switches and dials and found them to be far less intimidating than the woodstove. She was momentarily diverted by the wind rattling in the sails. There was a lull, then the ship heeled to as it changed direction, knocking her off-balance in the narrow quarters, flinging her at Ivan. She heard his breath hitch in his throat as her breasts flattened against his chest, and her leg accidentally snaked between his.
“Whoops!” Stephanie said, grasping Ivan by the shirtfront. “Guess I don’t have my sea legs yet.”
His hands clasped her waist, and Stephanie f
elt as if the air had suddenly become too thick to breathe. He was warm and firm, and she had an overwhelming desire to explore the contour of his shoulder and let her fingers travel the length of his back. She watched his eyes focus on her mouth and knew he was going to kiss her.
“This probably isn’t such a good idea…” Stephanie murmured without much conviction.
“It’s a damn stupid idea,” he answered, his hands possessively tightening on her hips as he dragged her closer. His mouth moved over hers, and they clung to each other in an exchange of passion that was far too powerful, too intimate, too perfect to have happened between strangers. They paused and watched each other warily, trying to assess what had just taken place.
Sun-bleached eyebrows drew together over Ivan’s eyes as he wrestled with his sense of propriety. If he didn’t stop kissing her right then, nature would definitely follow its course. It was not the sort of initiation he ordinarily gave his new crew members and certainly not the way he preferred to start a cruise. Not to mention, cabin walls were a quarter inch thick, and this was the woman who had rolled down the hill and uttered an expletive that carried halfway across Camden Harbor. Lord knows what she’d be like in the throes of passion. She could be a screamer or a groaner!
He clenched his teeth, took her by the shoulders, and positioned her against the wall. “Stay right there! Don’t sway, don’t jiggle, don’t breathe heavy.”
Stephanie pressed herself into the paneling and struggled to gain some control, noticing that Ivan wasn’t doing too well at regulating his breathing either. “Wow,” she said.
Ivan nodded in mute agreement, keeping his gaze on the floor while he wondered just how fast he could find another cook if he really put his mind to it. He was going to have to wear a midthigh raincoat for the rest of the trip if he didn’t get rid of Stephanie Lowe.
“I don’t think this is going to work out,” he finally said. “I think it would be best if I radio around and try to find another cook.”