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No. Don’t even think about going there.
‘Can I talk to you? Are you Jenny?’
He had an accent—Spanish maybe, she thought, and seriously sexy. Uh oh. Body of a god, killer smile and a voice that was deep and lilting and gorgeous. Her knees felt wobbly. Any minute now he’d have her clutching the nearest fence for support.
Hey! She was a grown woman, she reminded herself sharply. Where was a bucket of ice when she needed one? Making do as best she could, she tilted her chin, met his gaze square on and fought for composure.
‘I’m Jenny.’ Infuriatingly, her words came out a squeak. She turned them into a cough and tried again. ‘I…sure.’
‘The lady in the café said you were interested in a job,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for help. Can we talk about it?’
He was here to offer her a job?
His eyes were doing this assessing thing while he talked. She was wearing old jeans and an ancient duffel, built for service rather than style. Was he working out where she fitted in the social scale? Was he working out whether she cared what she wore?
Suddenly she found herself wishing she had something else on. Something with a bit of…glamour?
Now that was crazy. She was heading home to put her feet up, watch the telly and go to bed. What would she do with glamour?
He was asking her about a job. Yeah, they all needed deckhands, she thought, trying to ground herself. Lots of big yachts came into harbour here. There’d be one guy in charge—someone like this. There’d also be a couple of deckies, but the guy in charge would be the only one paid reasonable wages by the owners. Deckies were to be found in most ports—kids looking for adventure, willing to work for cheap travel. They’d get to their destination and disappear to more adventure, to be replaced by others.
Did this man seriously think she might be interested in such a job?
‘My friend was having fun at my expense,’ she said, settling now she knew what he wanted. Still trying to firm up her knees, though. ‘Sorry, but I’m a bit old to drop everything and head off into the unknown.’
‘Are you ever too old to do that?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped before she could stop herself—and then caught herself. ‘Sorry. Look, I need to get on.’
‘So you’re not interested.’
‘There’s a noticeboard down at the yacht club,’ she told him. ‘There’s always a list of kids looking for work. I already have a job.’
‘You do have a job.’ His smile had faded. He’d ditched his coat, leaving only his jeans and T-shirt. They were faded and old and…nice. He was tall and broad-shouldered. He looked loose-limbed, casually at ease with himself and quietly confident. His eyes were blue as the sea, though they seemed to darken when he smiled, and the crinkles round his eyes said smiling was what he normally did. But suddenly he was serious.
‘If you made the muffins I ate this morning you’re very, very good at your job,’ he told her. ‘If you’re available as crew, a man’d be crazy not to take you on.’
‘Well, I’m not.’ He had her rattled and she’d snapped again. Why? He was a nice guy offering her a job. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But no.’
‘Do you have a passport?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m sailing for Europe just as soon as I can find some company. It’s not safe to do a solo where I’m going.’
‘Round the Horn?’ Despite herself, she was interested.
‘Round the Horn,’ he agreed. ‘It’s fastest.’
That’d be right. The boaties in charge of the expensive yachts were usually at the call of owners. She’d met enough of them to know that. An owner fancied a sailing holiday in Australia? He’d pay a guy like this to bring his boat here and have it ready for him. Maybe he’d join the boat on the interesting bits, flying in and out at will. Now the owner would be back in Europe and it’d be up to the employed skipper—this guy?—to get the boat back there as soon as he could.
With crew. But not with her.
‘Well, good luck,’ she said, and started to walk away, but he wasn’t letting her leave. He walked with her.
‘It’s a serious offer.’
‘It’s a serious rejection.’
‘I don’t take rejection kindly.’
‘That’s too bad,’ she told him. ‘The days of carting your crew on board drugged to the eyeballs is over. Press gangs are illegal.’
‘They’d make my life easier,’ he said morosely.
‘You know I’m very sure they wouldn’t.’ His presence as he fell into step beside her was making her thoroughly disconcerted. ‘Having a press-ganged crew waking up with hangovers a day out to sea surely wouldn’t make for serene sailing.’
‘I don’t look for serenity,’ he said, and it was so much an echo of her day’s thoughts that she stopped dead.
But this was ridiculous. The idea was ridiculous. ‘Serenity’s important,’ she managed, forcing her feet into moving again. ‘So thank you, but I’ve said no. Is there anything else you want?’
‘I pay well.’
‘I know what deckies earn.’
‘You don’t know what I pay. Why don’t you ask?’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘Do you really sail?’ he asked curiously.
He wasn’t going away. She was quickening her steps but he was keeping up with ease. She had the feeling if she broke into a run he’d keep striding beside her, effortlessly. ‘Once upon a time, I sailed,’ she said. ‘Before life got serious.’
‘Your life got serious? How?’ Suddenly his eyes were creasing in concern. He paused and, before she could stop him, he lifted her left hand. She knew what he was looking for.
No ring.
‘You have a partner?’ he demanded.
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Yes, but I want to know,’ he said in that gorgeous accent, excellent English but with that fabulous lilt—and there was that smile again, the smile she knew could get him anything he wanted if he tried hard enough. With these looks and that smile and that voice…Whew.
No. He couldn’t get anything from her. She was impervious.
She had to be impervious.
But he was waiting for an answer. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to tell him enough to get him off her back. ‘I’m happily single,’ she said.
‘Ah, but if you’re saying life’s serious then you’re not so happily single. Maybe sailing away on the next tide could be just what you want.’
‘Look,’ she said, tugging her hand away, exasperated. ‘I’m not a teenager looking for adventure. I have obligations here. So you’re offering me a trip to Europe? Where would that leave me? I’d get on your boat, I’d work my butt off for passage—I know you guys get your money’s worth from the kids you employ—and then I’d end up wherever it is you’re going. That’s it. I know how it works. I wouldn’t even have the fare home. I’m not a backpacker, Mr Whoever-You-Are, and I live here. I don’t know you, I don’t trust you and I’m not interested in your job.’
‘My name’s Ramón Cavellero,’ he said, sounding not in the least perturbed by her outburst. ‘I’m very trustworthy.’ And he smiled in a way that told her he wasn’t trustworthy in the least. ‘I’m sailing on the Marquita. You’ve seen her?’
Had she seen her? Every person in Seaport had seen the Marquita. The big yacht’s photograph had been on the front of their local paper when she’d come into port four days ago. With good reason. Quite simply she was the most beautiful boat Jenny had ever seen.
And probably the most expensive.
If this guy was captaining the Marquita then maybe he had the funds to pay a reasonable wage. That was an insidious little whisper in her head, but she stomped on it before it had a chance to grow. There was no way she could walk away from this place. Not for years.
She had to be sensible.
‘Look, Mr Cavellero, this has gone far enough,’ she said, and she turned back to face him directly. ‘You have the most beautiful boat in the harbour. You can have your pick of any deckie in the market—I know a dozen kids at least who would kill to be on that boat. But, as for me…My friend was making a joke but that’s all it was. Thank you and goodbye.’
She reached out and took his hand, to give it a good firm handshake, as if she was a woman who knew how to transact business, as if she should be taken seriously. He took it, she shook, but, instead of pulling away after one brief shake, she found he was holding on.
Or maybe it was that she hadn’t pulled back as she’d intended.
His hand was strong and warm and his grip as decisive as hers. Or more. Two strong wills, she thought fleetingly, but more…
But then, before she could think any further, she was aware of a car sliding to a halt beside them. She glanced sideways and almost groaned.
Charlie.
She could sense his drunkenness from here. One of these days he’d be caught for drink-driving, she thought, and half of her hoped it’d be soon, but the other half knew that’d put her boss into an even more foul mood than he normally was. Once upon a time he’d been a nice guy—but that was when he was sober, and she could barely remember when he’d been sober. So she winced and braced herself for an explosion as Charlie emerged from the car and headed towards them.
Ramón kept on holding her hand. She tugged it back and he released her but he shifted in closer. Charlie’s body language was aggressive. He was a big man; he’d become an alcoholic bully, and it showed.
But, whatever else Ramón might be, it was clear he knew how to protect his own. His own? That was a dumb thing to think. Even so, she was suddenly glad that he was here right now.
‘Hey, I want to speak to you, you stupid cow. Lose your friend,’ Charlie spat at her.
Jenny flinched. Uh oh. This could mean only one thing—that one of the patrons of the café had told Charlie of Cathy’s outburst. This was too small a town for such a joke to go unreported. Charlie had become universally disliked and the idea that one of his staff was advertising for another job would be used against him.
At her expense.
And Ramón’s presence here would make it worse. Protective or not, Charlie was right; she needed to lose him.
‘See you later,’ she said to Ramón, stepping deliberately away and turning her back on him. Expecting him to leave. ‘Hello, Charlie.’
But Charlie wasn’t into greetings. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, making personal announcements in my café, in my time?’ He was close to yelling, shoving right into her personal space so she was forced to step backward. ‘And getting another job? You walk away from me and I foreclose before the day’s end. You know what you owe me, girl. You work for me for the next three years or I’ll have you bankrupt and your friend with you. I could toss you out now. Your friend’ll lose her house. Great mess that’d leave her in. You’ll work the next four weekends with no pay to make up for this or you’re out on your ear. What do you say to that?’
She closed her eyes. Charlie was quite capable of carrying out his threats. This man was capable of anything.
Why had she ever borrowed money from him?
Because she’d been desperate, that was why. It had been right at the end of Matty’s illness. She’d sold everything, but there was this treatment…There’d been a chance. It was slim, she’d known, but she’d do anything.
She’d been sobbing, late at night, in the back room of the café. She’d been working four hours a day to pay her rent. The rest of the time she’d spent with Matty. Cathy had found her there, and Charlie came in and found them both.
He’d loan her the money, he said, and the offer was so extraordinary both women had been rendered almost speechless.
Jenny could repay it over five years, he’d told them, by working for half wages at the café. Only he needed security. ‘In case you decide to do a runner.’
‘She’d never do a runner,’ Cathy had said, incensed. ‘When Matty’s well she’ll settle down and live happily ever after.’
‘I don’t believe in happy ever after,’ Charlie had said. ‘I need security.’
‘I’ll pledge my apartment that she’ll repay you,’ Cathy had said hotly. ‘I trust her, even if you don’t.’
What a disaster. They’d been so emotional they hadn’t thought it through. All Jenny had wanted was to get back to the hospital, to get back to Matty, and she didn’t care how. Cathy’s generosity was all she could see.
So she’d hugged her and accepted and didn’t see the ties. Only ties there were. Matty died a month later and she was faced with five years bonded servitude.
Cathy’s apartment had been left to her by her mother. It was pretty and neat and looked out over the harbour. Cathy was an artist. She lived hand to mouth and her apartment was all she had.
Even Cathy hadn’t realised how real the danger of foreclosure was, Jenny thought dully. Cathy had barely glanced at the loan documents. She had total faith in her friend to repay her loan. Of course she had.
So now there was no choice. Jenny dug her hands deep into her pockets, she bit back angry words, as she’d bitten them back many times before, and she nodded.
‘Okay. I’m sorry, Charlie. Of course I’ll do the weekends.’
‘Hey!’ From behind them came Ramón’s voice, laced with surprise and the beginnings of anger. ‘What is this? Four weekends to pay for two minutes of amusement?’
‘It’s none of your business,’ Charlie said shortly. ‘Get lost.’
‘If you’re talking about what happened at the café, I was there. It was a joke.’
‘I don’t do jokes. Butt out. And she’ll do the weekends. She has no choice.’
And then he smiled, a drunken smile that made her shiver. ‘So there’s the joke,’ he jeered. ‘On you, woman, not me.’
And that was that. He stared defiance at Ramón, but Ramón, it seemed, was not interested in a fight. He gazed blankly back at him, and then watched wordlessly as Charlie swung himself unsteadily back into his car and weaved off into the distance.
Leaving silence.
How to explain what had just happened? Jenny thought, and decided she couldn’t. She took a few tentative steps away, hoping Ramón would leave her to her misery.
He didn’t. Instead, he looked thoughtfully at the receding car, then flipped open his cellphone and spoke a few sharp words. He snapped it shut and walked after Jenny, catching up and once again falling into step beside her.
‘How much do you owe him?’ he asked bluntly.
She looked across at him, startled. ‘Sorry?’
‘You heard. How much?’
‘I don’t believe that it’s…’
