Dana Mentink - Sailing In Style

A throb of pain cut into her. Had he changed because of what she’d done? It would be unforgivable if her betrayal had blasted the innocence from his soul. She ground her teeth. She’d done what she had to do to protect herself and Cy. “Fine. Go find your own Twinkie, Cy, and stay out of my way.”

“I’ll try to keep to my assigned area, but I’m always a little loosey-goosey with the rules.”

She leveled what she hoped was a look brimming with indignation, but it might have been ruined by the water dripping from her hair.

“All right, then. Keep to your side of the boat and everything will be fine.” She sailed by, leaving a trail of water in her wake.

“Which side is mine, by the way?”

She lifted her chin and gave him her back.

* * *

CY’S HEART THUNDERED as he watched Piper disappear into the hallway. It killed him to see her. Drove him crazy that she let him have the last word. No fiery retort? No stinging barb? He needed to find out what had happened to the Piper Brindle he’d known. Or thought he’d known. As he followed her, he bumped into the uniformed young man. He could now see the black braid twining down the man’s back and his slightly crooked bow tie, an earring sparkling in one lobe. He regarded Cy with amusement as he removed one earbud.

“Did you need a towel, too?”

Right now, he needed to catch up with Piper.

“No, thanks. I’m in a hurry.”

The young man arched an eyebrow. “Not gonna get through that way. Floor’s being mopped.”

Cy heaved out a breath. He felt like swearing except that every profanity he’d ever voiced brought back the taste of the green soap Aunt Bitsy had used to cleanse the sin from his tongue. He settled for a drawn out sigh.

The kid offered a hand. “Hollister Luis. I’m the purser.”

“Cy Franco. I wish some sort of secret passageway would turn up about now.”

Hollister’s eyes widened. “No passageways.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But I could show you secret places in the River King that would blow your mind. You’re the decorator, right?”

He nodded.

“And you tossed Mr. Spooley into the river, didn’t you?” He grinned, showing a perfect smile except for the one smaller, crooked tooth next to the two big front ones. “I didn’t think a decorator would have the guts.”

“I’m not your everyday decorator, and actually, it was an accident.”

“Spectacular.”

Cy only wanted to escape, but Hollister’s frank smile made him try another tack. “So you know everyone on this boat? The employees, I mean?”

He nodded.

“You know Piper Brindle well?”

His smile faltered just a little. “She’s an actress. Been on board rehearsing for a couple of months now. She’s excellent. Spooley seems to think so, too.”

“Does she stay on board? I mean, does she have a room here?”

He smoothed his uniform coat, tugging it over his skinny chest. “That stuff’s private.”

Was he for real? Cy reached for his wallet. “How about if...”

Hollister held up his palm. “Uh-uh. She’s entitled to her privacy, and I don’t even know you.”

Hollister Luis stood with his chin in the air, somehow managing to look down his nose at a man who was taller by a foot and older by almost a decade. Cy didn’t know whether to laugh or punch the kid.

“Anyway, I gotta go. My shift’s over and I have some homework to do.”

“College?”

“Trying. Mostly online. Sometimes I doze off during the lectures.” He shrugged. “I always do things the hard way.”

Cy stepped aside to allow the purser to pass.

“Hollister?”

“Uh-huh?”

Cy shook his hand. “Thank you for protecting Piper’s privacy. You are a man of honor.”

“Glad you see it that way, Mr. Franco.”

There really was no chance of Cy catching up to her. Cy pictured a wet and angry Piper, robed in a ruined wedding dress and looking as though she’d be happy to send him to the bottom of the river. His sister’s advice rang in his ears again.

If you see Piper Brindle, run in the other direction .

Now, it seemed they would be sharing deck space, at least until his job was finished. Ignoring the lancing pain in his chest, Cy headed to the tiny room he’d been assigned.

How far could he possibly run on a boat, anyway?

CHAPTER FOUR

PIPER WALKED THE ten blocks from the dock to their apartment. She still felt cold from her dive into the ocean, but perhaps it was not only that. Cy was the same handsome, athletic, sensitive man she’d abandoned. Yet he wasn’t. Hurt had changed him. She had changed him.

She kept up a brisk pace, insisting to herself that she’d probably done Cy a favor. He needed to grow up and see the truth about life.

It was hard. It was unfair. It was no place for innocents.

Stomach knotted, she hurried the last stretch, resisting the urge to stop and take in the spangle of stars like she’d done so often with the only man she’d loved desperately in a time that seemed an eternity ago.

At the apartment complex, a sixty-something woman was sweeping the walk. The late hour did not seem to matter to Mrs. Rapapeet. Piper had never seen her without a broom in her hands. The twists in her elaborate coiffure gleamed in the moonlight.

“Hi, Mrs. Rapapeet.”

The woman tightened her grip on the broom, turned her back on Piper and retreated in angry sweeps down the walkway.

Odd. Piper let herself into their studio apartment. The smell of mac and cheese greeted her.

“Studio” seemed a grand label for one room, a run-down bathroom and a single burner stove, but for eight-hundred dollars a month, beggars could not be choosers. Uncle Bo had not been able to find a job that stuck, his prior gig as a hot dog vendor lasting only three weeks. She hoped the shuttle driver stint would serve a bit longer. They’d put up a curtain to create two minirooms, and it was enough since Piper stayed on the boat most of the time.

Uncle Boris was swathed in a “kiss the cook” apron. He wielded a spoon. “Just in time. The feast is served.”

The yellow glop could have been caviar and lobster and she wouldn’t have relished it any more as she grabbed a paper plate and sat. “Why is Mrs. Rapapeet angry?”

He joined her at the crooked table and tucked his napkin into his collar. “‘They do not love that do not show their love.’”

“ Two Gentlemen of Verona ,” she said automatically, “and Mrs. Rapapeet liked you when I left this morning, so what happened?”

“Women,” he shrugged. “Speaking of, I visited your mother. It’s meat loaf day—her favorite.”

Instead of wasting away in prison, Piper’s mother, SueBeth Brindle, had gained fifteen pounds. She maintained that she deserved the extra weight, but not the prison time. During Piper’s visits she would often lament that her downfall was not that she’d broken into the lawyer’s condo to steal his stamp collection, but that she’d panicked when she’d found him at home and smacked him with a fireplace poker. Purely out of instinct, and it left only a small bruise, but the California penal system did not concur. She was sentenced to two years in prison for first-degree burglary.

Piper patted her uncle’s hand. The guilt shimmered in his eyes as it always did after a prison visit with his sister.

“Only twelve months to go.”

He put down his fork and rubbed a plump hand over his face. “I blame myself.”

“She doesn’t.”

“She should.”

Uncle Boris had used the bits of conversational flotsam he’d acquired in his airport shuttle job the year before to glean that the man with the expensive stamp collection would be out of town. An easy job, or it would have been, if the guy hadn’t eaten a bad clam and gone home sick instead of catching his flight to Cincinnati. Boris had been home with a twisted ankle and unaware that his sister had assigned the job to herself. When SueBeth was arrested, Boris had been ready to take full responsibility for planning the heist, but SueBeth begged her brother to stay clear.