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“I see. I have to prove myself first.” She held up the cup. “I’m armed only with the Bean Grinder’s morning mix.”
“In that case, we’ll...” Zeke watched Teddy sniffing the woman’s sneakers. “I was going to say we’ll call off the dogs, but, too late.”
She reached down and scratched Teddy behind his ears. “No problem. I’m not afraid of a curious dog. I was out walking last night and saw this boat, but it was dark so I couldn’t see much. Something made me walk over this morning to get a better look.”
“Well, you’re only our second visitor since the boat arrived yesterday morning.” He explained that Nelson White, the owner of the marina and boatyard next door, had also wandered down to see the new arrival. Zeke nodded to the boat. “Nelson probably thinks the Dreamer is an eyesore bringing down the neighborhood.”
Zeke pulled on Teddy’s leash to stop him from circling the visitor and wrapping the leash around her legs. “What do you think?” Why had he asked that? Just to keep her from walking away?
“Right now, I’m thinking your dog is using his nose to learn all about me and where I’ve been this morning.” Her smile grew bigger as she stared at Teddy.
“That’s no doubt true.” Zeke eagerly grabbed the chance to play along. He hadn’t had this much conversation with a stranger—a female stranger—in a long time. Well, except for customers. What else had he been missing? “His name is Teddy, by the way.”
“Theodore Donovan, I presume,” she said, deadpan, as she pointed to their giant sign mounted high enough on the building to be visible from the water. “Hmm, sounds like he should run for office.”
Zeke laughed from deep in his chest. “We never got as far as Theodore. He’s plain ol’ black-and-brown Teddy. And now he has a last name. We won’t tell him, or he’ll get a big head.”
She narrowed her eyes in amusement. “If Teddy is like most dogs I know, he’s probably spoiled rotten and already has a big head.”
Her dark blue eyes glanced down at Teddy and then to the side to take in Drifting Dreamer. But, he noted, she now seemed to be studying him. “I’m Zeke, and as it happens, my real last name is Donovan.”
He offered his free hand and she switched her coffee cup so she could grasp it. “I’m Andi Sterling. And I’m new in town.”
“I figured that out,” Zeke said. Her soft hand, extra warm from the coffee cup, gripped his.
“How so?”
No good reason, he thought, but that was no answer at all. “Because you don’t look familiar. Sometimes I think I’ve met most everyone around here at least once.”
“Well, now you know me, too. I’ve only been in Two Moon Bay for a few days.” Suddenly, her expression changed from lighthearted to serious.
“Were you curious about the boat?” He gestured to the stern. “Drifting Dreamer. The name mostly wore off with the other paint.” The hull once had been glossy black with the name painted on in bronze gold.
“You own the boat?” she asked, not looking at him but at the yacht.
“We do.” Seeing it through her eyes, he quickly added, “To make a long story short, we inherited it. Uh, as is.” That should explain its sorry state.
She turned her head to look directly at him. “Are you and your wife planning to keep it...her?”
Zeke waved her off. “Oh, no, I’m not married. I should have explained. My dad and I own the boat. Well, not exactly. It really belongs to him.” Zeke shook his head, frustrated by the way he tripped over his words, sounding like a goofy teenager. “If you can believe it, a guy who owed Dad money left it to him in his will. We haven’t decided what to do with it, but the guy settled, sort of, a twenty-year-old debt.”
“Twenty years? Wow. That’s an incredible story.”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and took a sip of her coffee, showing no sign she was ready to leave.
Maybe the boat really did intrigue her. “Uh, would you like to go aboard and take a look inside?”
The bright smile was back. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Really?”
“Of course.” Her blue eyes flashed flirtatiously. “Curiosity is killing me.”
“Sorry, I’m just sort of shocked.”
She exaggerated a look of wide-eyed innocence. “You mean because the boat doesn’t look so good?”
Another laugh rose from deep inside. “No kidding.”
“Okay, confession time.” She gestured to the boat. “I don’t know the first thing about boats. But I’ve restored a house over a century old and badly maintained for at least thirty of those one-hundred-plus years. I know very well how old, neglected things can be brought back.”
She’d restored an old house? Hmm...intriguing. “Old and neglected. That about sums it up.” He stared at Drifting Dreamer for a few seconds. “You go on aboard. I’ll go get the key to open her up.”
She nodded and, after only a couple of seconds of hesitation, climbed from the dock to the deck.
Taking the dog with him, Zeke hurried back inside the store, and found his dad sealing up a carton. As he unhooked Teddy’s leash, he eyed the box with suspicion, memories of fixing yesterday’s order mix-up intruding into his otherwise pleasant thoughts. He’d have a look at the cartons later before they had a chance to go out. He opened the top desk drawer in the office and grabbed the keys. “Hey, Dad, the woman with the long hair? Her name is Andi and she’s curious about Drifting Dreamer. I thought I’d show her around.”
“That so? Maybe she wants to buy it?”
Zeke frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that, but she said she restored an old house. So, who knows? Maybe she won’t be able to resist the challenge.”
Art looked over his bifocals and frowned. “Don’t be long, son. We’ve got orders to fill.”
“Got it, Dad.” Zeke told Teddy to stay and let the screen door close. Teddy immediately started whining and Zeke stopped. “Andi’s right, buddy, you are spoiled.” Relenting, as Teddy surely knew he would, he said, “You stay close by. No running off.”
Teddy trotted to the boat, beating Zeke there. He wasted no time jumping from the dock to the deck.
“I bet Mr. Theodore follows you everywhere,” Andi joked.
“More or less,” Zeke said. “I think of him more as my dad’s dog, but we’re both responsible for keeping the little stray.”
“The dog apparently has good instincts.” She flashed a beaming smile that once again showed her pretty white teeth.
He opened the padlock to the cabin doors and went down the wooden companionway into the saloon, or what he thought of as the main cabin. Andi followed close behind.
“What do you think? First...no, second impressions.” He was aware that being aboard Drifting Dreamer wouldn’t do much to alter an initial impression. It would probably only make reality hit home harder.
“I think this boat has a past,” she said, following him into the center main saloon, “and I’d sure like to know what it is. Simple curiosity, I guess.”
A past? Had she read his mind? That question had turned over and over in his mind last night. It had kept him wide-awake and thinking hard. From the moment he’d secured the dock lines, he’d wondered what this boat had been up to during her better days. It was a mystery he wanted to solve.
“I get it. I’ve been asking myself that, too. Unfortunately, we know very little, except what the spec sheet told us. She was built in 1939 in Duluth at the Metzger Boat Works. Pretty famous builders, those Metzgers. The listed owner is C. Peterson. We think the boat has been in the Great Lakes since her launch, but we can’t say for sure. Somehow, she ended up in the hands of Terrance Smyth—he’s the guy who owed my dad money.”
Andi gestured around the all-mahogany interior. “Someone named her Drifting Dreamer for a reason.”
He’d thought of that, too. “Not that long ago, someone bought the diesel engine and new pumps and other gear, including a propane stove, so that person must have intended to do something with her. The galley is ready to go. And the boat is seaworthy. Made it up here from Kenosha, anyway.”
“Maybe the plan was to get her running and then fix her up,” Andi said. “Kind of like the way we lived in the house while I worked on it.”
We?Who did that include?
“I’m guessing the deterioration and damage started decades ago.”
Andi wrinkled her nose as she continued looking around.
“The stale smell of a closed-up boat.” He led the way to the large wheelhouse, where the engine controls, the compass set in its bronze housing, the old-fashioned depth sounder and the newer radar were in place and ready to go.
“His new frontier,” Zeke said, pointing to Teddy, who’d wasted no time in sniffing the corners and wagging his tail in excitement. “Now that the dog has discovered the boat has an inside, he’ll want to make it part of his regular rounds.”
They went back into the main cabin and she continued studying the boat with a dreamy look in her big, dark blue eyes.
“Some people still call these areas of a boat the saloon,” he said, standing in the middle of what was the boat’s equivalent of a combination kitchen-dining area and living room. “Although that term only applies to high-end yachts. So maybe main cabin is more like it.” He noted that she was deep in thought, her full lips pursed in concentration.
“This certainly was a high-end yacht,” Andi said. “You could seat eight or ten people around the table.” She moved inside the largest stateroom. “And this is almost like a regular bedroom.”
“So is the other cabin in the bow. It has two single bunks,” Zeke said. “I was surprised to find bunk cushions still packed in the canvas covers they were delivered in.”
“Whoever had this boat built must have had quite a vision,” she said, running her hand down the once smooth wood of the hanging locker. She tugged on the handle of one of the double doors and it broke free. “This is more like an antique armoire than an ordinary closet. It’s as big as some of the closets I’ve seen in older houses. All this mahogany in a house would boost the price a notch or two.”
Only yesterday, he’d seen mostly the boat’s decay, but now, watching her study the fixtures, assessing everything, possibilities started clicking through his brain. He knew a thing or two about restoring buildings, and that’s what fixing up this boat would be about. Restoration. Drifting Dreamer could be more than presentable. She could be a classic gem again.
“You’re right about the quality of workmanship, and about vision, too. I wish we had better records. I know one thing for certain. No one builds this kind of yacht on a whim—or on a shoestring. And back in the hard times of the 1930s, any boat builder would have been happy for the business.”
Andi nodded in agreement. “My grandpa talked endlessly about the Depression. Not much call for luxury yachts, I imagine, except for the very rich and very lucky. But Drifting Dreamer is a fantastic name.” Again, Andi ran her hand across the wood, this time one of the bulkheads. “Lots of black blotches in the wood under the peeling finish.”
Suddenly self-conscious about staring at her long, graceful fingers in constant motion, he cleared his throat. “We haven’t chewed over all the options yet, but my dad and I have to figure out what to do with her. We could sell off fixtures and bronze fittings. I know a woman who buys salvaged wood to make one-of-a-kind mirrors and picture frames. That would bring some money.”
Andi’s mouth dropped open. Pointing to the floor, she said, “You mean you’d dismantle this boat?”
Whoa, what a reaction. But it was one solution and he’d defend it. “Well, yes, scrapping her is one option. We have to be realistic. The pieces could be way more valuable than the whole boat intact.”
“Unbelievable.” Andi shook her head and pursed her lips in disgust.
She disapproved? This woman who didn’t know the first thing about him? He shouldn’t care, but he did. “Uh, that was our first thought. But then we figured since the hull seems sound there may be some life in her yet.”
Andi nodded. “I’ll bet there is.”
Zeke decided to throw out another option. “We could also sell her as is.” What if she was an interested buyer? He shouldn’t immediately assume she couldn’t or wouldn’t buy a yacht. Even a derelict boat. What did he know about her? He glanced at the teak cabin floor, dried out and gray, but still sturdy. “My dad would probably like that plan better.”
Silence. At the mention of his dad, his words took on an unexpected sadness and hung in the air. Meanwhile Teddy’s nails clicked on the floor as he scurried across the cabin and broke the silence. Zeke heard himself breathe.
“I have a question.” She abruptly faced him full-on. “What would you charge to rent this yacht to someone? For the summer, I mean.”
“Rent? You mean to someone who wanted to live on Drifting Dreamer?”
She extended her hand and flashed an isn’t-that-obvious? look. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
What was with the sharp tone? He supposed he’d annoyed her by not taking her question seriously, but he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Why do you ask?”
Leaning to the side, her gaze traveled up and down the largest cabin, taking it all in. “The essentials are here, Zeke. The stove has barely been used. The staterooms—cabins—could use a good cleanup.” Casting a pointed look his way, she rolled her eyes. “They clearly need more than that, but you know what I mean. People don’t build a fifty-foot boat they can’t live on for extended periods of time. As long as the plumbing and electrical systems work, she could be made livable in short order.”
Zeke leaned his weight against a bulkhead and crossed one foot over the other. Why would she ever consider moving aboard a boat that needed so much work? Or on a boat at all? Even one in tiptop shape. On the other hand, she’d said she restored an old house. At one time, restoration work was the focus of his life. That thought allowed him a little insight, maybe a hint into what made her tick. Behind those mysterious eyes. And the pretty smile. She’d sparked his curiosity before she’d spoken even one word.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Call me crazy, but what would prompt you to want to live on Drifting Dreamer?”
She stared at the floor. “It’s not so complicated, Zeke. I need a place to live.” She raised her head to look him in the eye. “Correction. My ten-year-old daughter and I need a place to live for the summer, and then when the tourist season is over, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a permanent place here in town. Right now, summer rentals are scarce in Two Moon Bay, and we’d end up moving every couple of weeks.”
A ten-year-old. A single mom and her daughter living on the boat? He was caught completely off guard. “Where are you staying now?”
She lifted her palms and let her head drop back. “I might have known you’d ask...”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” Wait...why was he apologizing for asking a question anyone would?
“No, no, it’s okay. I’m just teasing. Of course you’d want to know.” She took her sunglasses off the top of her head and rearranged the white headband that held her hair off her face. “It’s complicated. At the moment, and for the next few days, I’m staying—are you ready for this?—at my ex-husband’s new wife’s cottage on Night Beach Road.”
“Ex-husband’s new wife’s cottage.” He pointed his finger downward with each word as if connecting the dots.
“We share custody of our daughter, Brooke, and at the moment, she’s in Chicago with her dad and Lark—that’s his new wife.” She grinned. “Newish wife.”
“Brooke? Lark?” he blurted. “Then Miles is your ex-husband?”
The muscles in her face relaxed, showing visible relief. “Why, yes. Do you know him—them?”
Zeke laughed. “Lark and Miles are friends of Dawn Larsen and Jerrod Waters, the guy who runs the diving trips out of the marina—they’re friends of mine. He has the tour boat, too. And I’ve met your little girl a couple of times.”
“Do you mean Lucy Bee? It’s docked at the marina?”
He nodded. “Matter of fact, Dawn and Jerrod have been married less than a year.”
“And Miles was at their wedding,” Andi said, chuckling. “Now I’m putting all the pieces together. Jerrod has a little girl, Carrie. Brooke has mentioned her.”
“Right.” Zeke led the way back to the deck. Teddy followed Andi and immediately flopped in a sunny corner and curled up, as if tuckered out from his tough morning of sniffing and endearing himself to his new friend.
“The dog has apparently heard all this before,” Andi quipped.
“Right. He knows most of the players in our conversation, so it’s very ho-hum to the family mutt.” He hadn’t joked around this much in a long time.
Way too long.
“For a minute there, I forgot that, of course, being on the waterfront you’d know Jerrod and Dawn and the rest of the crowd.”
Zeke pointed down the waterfront to Nelson’s marina, where Jerrod’s boats were tied up at the main dock. “Jerrod keeps his boats at the marina all summer. I got to know Miles at a couple of events at the yacht club.”
He turned the other way and pointed toward the glass-and-wood building down the shore. “That’s the yacht club, but it’s more than that now. They plan to have music on some weekends and they rent it out for weddings and parties.”
Andi absently looked beyond him to the water, as if suddenly distracted. “I’ve walked down that way a couple of times since I’ve been in town. Brooke has told me lots of stories about the people you mentioned.”
Zeke told Andi about what was supposed to have been a send-off party for Jerrod and his crew at the end of the season. “They were heading back south for the winter. But Jerrod and Carrie didn’t leave. Asking Dawn to marry him led to a big change of plans for Jerrod and his crew.”
