Dear Cupid (21 page)

As if on cue, the front door opened. “Jim?” someone called. Mike straightened as he recognized Kate’s voice. “Are you in here?”

“Speak of the devil,” Jim muttered to Mike before raising his voice. “In here, Kate.”

The minute she rounded the corner, Mike noticed her pale complexion. He tried to catch her eye, to give her a smile before he said hello, but she didn’t even look at him.

“I, uh.” She bit her lip. “I thought I’d come by and see how those handles look.”

“I’m putting them on now,” Jim said. “Want to see?”

Mike frowned when she stepped around him as if he weren’t there. “Oh. Yes. They look fine. Just f-fine.” Her voice broke over the last word.

“Kate?” Mike came off the bar stool. “Are you crying?”

“N-no,” she sniffed. “Of c-course not.”

“Hey ...” He settled his hands on her bare arms and turned her toward him. “What’s this? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I—” She coveted her mouth with one hand.

Mike looked to Jim, but the man held up his hands as if to say “Leave me out of it.” Not knowing what else to do, Mike led Kate to the living room and urged her to sit on the sofa. “Here, sit down.” His hands fluttered about her shoulders as he perched awkwardly beside her. “You, um, want to tell me what happened?”

“No.” She sniffed as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Okay,” he assured her. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

“I lost my job!” she wailed.

“Your job? What do you mean? With Linda?”

“Nooo!
With Gwen. I’m not Dear Cupid anymore.”

From the corner of his eye, Mike saw Jim head for the door, apparently choosing to take the high road and abandon him to deal with this on his own. He felt panicked at the thought. His usual way of dealing with a crying woman was to find another woman to figure out what was wrong, then make himself scarce.

“I can’t believe she’d do this to me,” Kate managed through sniffles. “After all the years we’ve been friends. I even helped her get started by writing most of the copy for her first magazine. And she didn’t even pay me.” She ran the back of one hand over her cheeks.

“Kate?” he asked, dreading the answer. “Is this because of the animation I loaded on your site?”

“No. At least she said it wasn’t.” She took a breath that seemed to settle her nerves. “Do you know what I think? I think she canceled me because she’s jealous. She as much as said my site was getting too popular.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. If your site was so popular, why would she cancel it?”

 “Because more people are signing on to read my column than to buy her advertisers’ lingerie. So, of course she has to eliminate the competition. She’s such a bitch.” Kate’s eyes widened at her own words. “I didn’t mean that.”

“That’s okay.” As far as Mike was concerned, any woman who made Kate cry was a bitch.

“I’m sorry.” She brushed at her cheeks, then frowned at her wet fingertips. “I can’t believe I’m being this way. Friend or not, Gwen has a right to cancel my column if she wants. Besides, she’s right about what she said.”

“What’s that?”

“That I take the column too seriously.”

“What’s wrong with taking it seriously?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, looking broken and defeated. “I can’t think straight right now.”

“Okay.” Patting her shoulder, he glanced around for something that would magically make her feel better. “Hey, I have an idea.”

“What?” She rummaged through her purse and came up with a tissue to dab at her eyes.

“I’ve been working like a dog around here all week. What do you say I take the day off so you and I can go sailing?”

“Sailing?” She frowned. “Mike, no, I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

“Hey, it’s the weekend, isn’t it? Surely I’m entitled to a weekend off every now and then.” A ridiculous statement, since he rarely took any time off in the middle of a project. “We can even take Dylan with us. What do you say?”

“Dylan’s spending the weekend with his father.”

“Oh, yeah?” He tried not to look too happy about that. “Well, in that case, how about an overnight sail?”

“Overnight?” Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. I do it all the time. In fact, there’s this great cove a few miles up the lake. We’ll drop anchor, do a little swimming, grill hot dogs, watch the sun set. It’s the perfect cure for anything that ails you.”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “It’s already nearly noon, and we’d need to pack food, and I’d have to go home to get a swimsuit.”

“Not to fear. We’ll stop at the marina and get everything we need, including a swimsuit for you.”

“I can’t afford a new swimming suit!” She looked horrified at the expense.

“I’ll pay for it.”

“You will not!”

“All right.” He held up his hands. “We’ll skinny-dip.”

She smirked at that suggestion, even though he thought it a perfectly reasonable solution.

“Come on,” he coaxed, deciding to play on her soft heart. “I could really use some downtime. You’d be doing me a favor.”

“Are you sure?”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Do I look like a man who isn’t sure of what he wants?”

“All right, then.” She put a hand on his chest before he could stand. “Just don’t get any ideas, though, that this changes things. We’re still not dating.”

“Absolutely not.” He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “You just want me for my body. I understand completely?”

She managed a teasing smile. “Well, it is a very nice body.”

“Same goes, sweetheart.” He dried her cheeks with his thumbs. “Same goes.”

HERE
, Kate, take the wheel while I untangle those mooring lines.”

Kate glanced over from the cushion in the cockpit of the thirty-four-foot Catalina where she’d been enjoying the sun on her face. Before she could tell Mike she didn’t know how to sail, he stepped away from the giant chrome wheel, leaving her no choice but to grab it.

“What do I do?” she asked, sliding into the space he’d vacated at the very back of the boat.

“Just hold her steady.” He pointed straight ahead, as he nimbly stepped over all the contraptions that cluttered the deck. “Keep the bow aimed to the left of that point there, where the shore juts out.”

That sounded easy enough, she decided, until she felt how the wind tried to turn the wheel to the right, which would send them crashing straight into the rocky shore. Gripping the wheel with both hands, she aimed for the point Mike had indicated.

The sun beat down on her back, exposed by the sapphire-blue one-piece swimsuit she’d found on sale at the marina’s store. The suit came with a colorful scarf that tied about her hips and went a long way toward slimming her generous figure.

From somewhere off to the left, a Jet Ski raced toward them, looking as if the rider meant to run right into the back of the sailboat. Instead, the Jet Ski veered off to hit the small wake left by Mike’s boat. It leapt into the air, landed with a splash and spun about to do it again.

Kate turned back to watch Mike. He possessed a sureness to his movements she couldn’t help but admire. The same wind that fed the sails buffeted his Hawaiian shirt, which he wore open over a pair of dark blue swim trunks. His hair had already grown a bit from its recent trimming, and she felt sure that by the end of the day, the blond sun-streaks would have returned full force. At least now, after watching him work the sails and unfathomable other things onboard, she knew he came by his tan naturally.

With his legs spread for balance, he bent forward to untangle some lines. The sight distracted her for a moment, long enough that when she glanced up, a large motorboat had appeared directly in their path.

“Mike?” she called nervously, but the high-pitched whine of the Jet Ski drowned her out.  “Mike,” she called louder. “There’s a boat up ahead. What do I do?”

He continued messing with the lines at the front of the boat, completely oblivious to the danger. “Mike!” she tried again with rising anxiety as the motorboat came closer, taking on the proportions of the
Titanic
. If she turned right, she’d crash straight into the shore. But turning left would take her even more into the motorboat’s path. Still, that seemed a better choice than smashing into the rocks, since she’d hopefully clear their path before they collided.

“Michael!” she shouted one last time. When he still didn’t look up she jerked the wheel left, and immediately realized she’d made a mistake. The sailboat turned sharply, dipping onto its right side. She screamed, sure they would tip over. Somewhere over the noise of the Jet Ski and the motorboat that was frantically blaring a horn and turning to go between her and the shore, she heard Mike holler as he lost his footing. He managed to grab the mast before he flew into the lake.

“Jesus, what are you doing!” he yelled. “Look out, we’re coming about! Pop the jib sheet. Release the boom!”

Now that the motorboat was passing safely to the right—with a great deal of cursing from the passengers—she tried to correct her mistake by turning the wheel back. It was too late. The large, horizontal beam swung over her head. Wind snapped the sail into place with a jarring force that threatened to flip the boat in the opposite direction.

“Let out the mainsail!” Mike yelled as he fought against the front sail that had engulfed him like a shroud. “Pop the jib sheet!”

“What’s a jib sheet!” she hollered back as he finally battled his way free of the sail and scrambled into the cockpit. With one smooth flip of his wrist, he jerked on a line, and the contraption that held it taut released its hold. The line fed out, allowing the front sail to move to the opposite side of the boat. He did the same to the line that held the big beam in place. Both sails fluttered and went slack as the boat settled neatly into an upright position, slowed, and died in the water.

Standing in the cockpit and breathing hard, he turned to face her. She cringed and waited for an explosion of male temper and string of belittling insults.

“I, um, I take it you’ve never sailed before,” he said, very calmly.

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Well, then, first lesson. Sailboats can’t maneuver as fast as a motorboat, which gives us the right of way. In other words, we’re supposed to hold steady, and let the motorboats go around us.”

“But they were about to hit us.”

“Trust me, Kate, they would have passed safely on our port side if you hadn’t tacked right into their path.”

“Oh.” She squirmed. “Sorry.”

“No, no, that’s okay.” He ran both hands through his hair, a useless gesture in the wind. “My fault. I should have asked if you knew how to sail before I turned the helm over to you.”

“Perhaps we should let you take care of the sailing part of this weekend.” She started to slide away from the wheel.

“What, and deny you all the fun? Don’t be ridiculous.” He took the seat behind the wheel. “Come on and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“No, Mike, really—” Before she could express her opinion on just how
un
fun she’d found the last few minutes, he took hold of her waist and settled her before him with her bottom wedged between his thighs.

“Now the first thing we need to do is find the wind. So, take hold of your port sheets—”

“What’s a sheet?”

“One of the lines that controls your sails,” he explained, gathering two of them in hand.

“You mean these ropes?”

“Kate.” He chuckled. “There are no ropes on a sailboat.”

“Then what the heck do you call all those?” She waved a hand at the dozens of blue-and-white nylon ropes trailing all over the deck.

“Once a rope is cut and attached to something on a sailboat, it becomes a line, which can also be called a halyard or a sheet, depending on what it’s attached to. The halyards raise and lower the sails, the sheets control their side-to-side motion.”

With surprising ease, he tightened two of the sheets. The mainsail and jib—as he called the front sail—magically filled with wind. Gracefully, the boat eased forward. He set the main sheet in a cleat, then handed her the jib sheet.

“Here,” he said near her ear. “Take this, and get a feel for the wind.”

She was about to ask what he meant, but the minute she took hold of the line, she understood. The sail tugged playfully against her hand, like a frisky mare asking for more rein.

“Now, if you ever get scared and want to slow down, simply let your lines out.”

“And what if I want to go faster?”

“Tighten the sheet and turn closer into the wind. Not all the way, just close enough so you’re riding the edge of it.”

With one hand beside hers on the wheel and his other hand guiding hers on the sheet, he helped her find the edge of the wind. The boat leaned sideways as it picked up speed.

“What do I do if we start to tip over?” she asked.

“We won’t,” he assured. “A good, sturdy vessel like this is virtually impossible to ditch.”