Frog had already mastered a few survival skills that Kurt, after years of flying search-and-rescue missions for the U.S. Coast Guard, had never even considered. Their relationship had progressed over the past two years from combativeness through wariness to a mutual respect. And perhaps something more, at least on Kurt’s part.
Frog handed over a few rumpled envelopes, and Kurt quickly scanned the return addresses. “Jones’s Hardware. That’ll be the paint.” The R&R was one of the few remaining wooden charter boats along this section of the North Carolina coast. He’d bought her for a song and spent a fortune bringing her up to standard. In a year or so, he might spend another fortune on a first-class fiberglass job.
Then again, he might not. Wood was good. Classic, you might say.
He examined another envelope but didn’t bother to open it. Pierce’s Electronic Repair. “This one’s going to bust the bank,” he muttered. It took more than a compass, a flare and a few life jackets to operate legally these days.
“We broke?” There was anxiety in the boy’s voice.
“Nah, we’re not broke, but we’re going to have to hustle if we plan to buy that house out on Oyster Point.”
“Hey, who needs a house? We got us a place to live.”
“We need a house, that’s who. Anywhere else, we wouldn’t get away with living aboard the R&R. There’s rules—”
“Ah—rules is for fools,” Frog said dismissively.
Shaking his head, Kurt quickly scanned the rest of the mail. No cancellations. Thank the Lord for small favors. The season was winding down. Barring storms, he still had five more charters on the book, but he was determined to make it through an entire season in the black before dipping into his retirement fund for a house that was in even worse shape than the boat had been when he’d bought it.
Actually, his first season as captain of his own boat had been pretty successful so far. He liked to think it was because he was damned good at what he did, but it probably had more to do with the fact that his rates were the cheapest along this section of the coast. The R&R was hardly a luxury yacht. Bottom-of-the-line carpet to cover the hatches. Ditto the plumbing fixtures. But she had a pair of dependable Detroit diesels and a hull that had been designed specifically for the waters around the Outer Banks.
“Three burgers? Who’s the third one for?” Kurt asked as Frog ripped into the sack.
“Hey, I’m a growing kid, awright?”
“I told you you need milk with your meals, not all those colas.”
“I ain’t growing all that much.” The towheaded teenager bit off a third of his first cheeseburger.
“Done your homework yet?” Kurt asked after awhile.
“Aww, man—you’re worse’n Pa ever was.”
Kurt doubted that. From what he’d been able to put together from the locals and a few of Frog’s remarks, the boy’s parents had migrated from somewhere out west doing odd jobs and knocking over the occasional convenience store. The mother had dropped out of sight several years ago. Nobody knew where she was. Frog and his old man had wound up at Swan Inlet, where that gentleman had found temporary work driving a fish truck. When he’d been sober enough. He’d been headed north with a load of gray trout when he’d tried to beat a fast freight train to a crossing. It was discovered during the cleanup of the ensuing wreckage that fish wasn’t all he’d been transporting.
Frog had already gone to earth by the time the first social worker had come sniffing around. It had been generally assumed that he’d moved on, and that was the end of that. Three weeks later, when he was caught shoplifting food at a neighborhood supermarket, one of the locals had offered him a room and a job. The boy had declined. Claimed he was seventeen, used to being on his own.
He was fourteen. His voice was still in the process of changing. He’d been bunking aboard a dry-docked commercial fishing boat and doing odd jobs around the marina when Kurt had bought the boat right out from under him, so to speak, and had more or less inherited the kid. They were a team now. A pretty good one, although Frog didn’t always agree with that assessment.
“Homework,” Kurt reminded him now.
“Hell, man, you told me yourself you never got no degree. What’s the big deal?”
“Didn’t get a degree, not never got no. Don’t swear, and we’re talking high school diploma now. A diploma is a big deal. We’ll talk about your degree later.”
“If I’m still around,” Frog muttered.
“You’ll be around.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Who else is going to keep me on course? One beer, no smokes and no fast women?” Kurt grinned. Slipping off his eye patch, he scratched his head where the tapes tied in back. “A man’s gotta have someone he can count on when the chips are down.”
Frog nodded sagely. “A guy to watch his back and see don’t nobody break no bottle over his head.”
Kurt didn’t bother to correct his grammar. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Right now he was more concerned with teaching the boy trust, responsibility and the advantages of a basic education. “You got it, kid.” He held up a palm. Frog high-fived him just as a woman emerged from the fifty-five-footer on the other side of the finger pier and sent him a speculative look.
“Captain Stryker, isn’t it? You took out that fishing party from Kinston? I heard you guys when you went out this morning. I was still in bed.”
“Sorry if we disturbed your sleep, ma’am.”
“Ma’am. That’s cute. And Captain—you can disturb my sleep any old time.” She smiled. She had a pretty smile. At least most people would call it pretty. For some reason, it made Kurt nervous.
“Shark off the port beam,” Frog mumbled under his breath. He was grinning from ear to ear. One of his chief sources of amusement since they had teamed up had been watching women’s reactions to Kurt and Kurt’s reaction to women.
“Ever do any moonlight cruises?” the woman inquired, her voice laced with all sorts of possibilities.
Frog covered a snort of laughter with a grimy hand. Ignoring him, Kurt concentrated on not staring at the woman’s sagging halter. What was inside it wasn’t sagging. Not at all.
“Er, ah…” He cleared his throat.
“I’ve heard it can be awfully nice offshore on a calm night.”
“Long’s you wear plenny o’ clothes. Them vampire skeeters’ll be all over you the minute the wind drops off,” Frog put in with a knowing snicker.
“Stow it,” Kurt growled quietly. He had no intention of taking the woman up on whatever it was she was hinting at. Nevertheless, it was the captain’s decision to make, not his mate’s.
And the captain was single, dammit. He was male. He might be an aging, one-eyed gimp with a lousy track record where women were concerned, but that didn’t mean he was out of the race. Not by a long shot. If he wanted a woman, he would damn well have one. And regardless of what he’d said earlier, he didn’t need any smart-mouth kid to run interference for him.
She kept looking at him. Kurt was used to having women look at him. His nickname in college had been Handsome. Which had embarrassed the hell out of him, even more than the stuttering that had made his life miserable all through grade school.
Which was one of the reasons he was still somewhat socially retarded. His two best friends back in high school, Gus and Alex, had teased him about being shy. Their girlfriends had thought he was cute.
Cute! Judas priest. That was even worse than being shy!
He’d