Lured In (24 page)

“Welcome home, Ro. We've missed you.”

“Speak for yourself,” Finn grunted, dodging Ro's backhand. “I kinda liked the peace and quiet.”

“Aaaand they're back,” Kate laughed. “Come on, we need to get up there.”

As soon as Liam finished the introductions to the standing-room-only crowd, Jessie ducked out to the kitchen, helping Olivia and double-checking everything she'd already double-checked last night.

A couple of times Olivia asked her why she was smiling, but Jessie just shook her head. How was she supposed to explain that it was the noise level she loved so much, especially when Finn, Liam, and Ro ramped it up more with their jokes at one another's expense.

She couldn't think of a single place she'd rather be or another group of people she'd rather work with, so that little twinge of anxiety in her brain could piss off. There was no reason to think she'd ever not be there, right?

Right
.

Things between her and Finn would work out just fine, right?

Right
. It was PMS causing that twinge, nothing else.

“Right,” she muttered, then immediately shoved that twinge as far back as she could, because it was suppertime and things were about to get busier.

Jessie hustled around the room, taking orders and quietly noting guests' preferences: who liked to drink their beer out of the bottle instead of a glass, who liked the nuclear-powered hot sauce, who liked to be hovered over, and who wanted their food delivered and then to be left alone.

As Ashley had requested, the
Hooked
people were seated smack in the middle of the room, surrounded by, but not eating with, the guests. There was room at the table for at least two more chairs—every other table had five or six—but Ashley had insisted it be only the four of them, so any guest without room at a table had to sit at the bar.

No one complained, but still, it stuck in Jessie's craw a little. Sam Ross might be a celebrity in the fishing world, but at the end of the day he was just another guy drinking Guinness and wolfing down his beef tenderloin. And for some reason, neither Ashley nor the camera guys seemed the least bit bothered watching him chew like that.

Finn, Liam, Ro, and Kate didn't sit to eat; they snuck bites behind the bar as they moved from table to table, chatting up the guests and helping Jessie get orders out.

Between appetizers, meals, and drinks, the place was hopping like crazy, so Jessie hardly noticed that Finn barely made eye contact or that he seemed to be giving her a wide berth every time he walked by her.

Nope. Hardly at all.

Finn loved watching Jess do her thing. With efficiency and ease, she made each guest feel as if they were part of the Buoys' family, even those guests who preferred to tuck into the corners, away from the commotion.

He loved the way she kept the place running smooth as silk no matter how many people were crammed into their pub-style restaurant. He loved how fast she picked up on guests' tics; he loved the way she moved between the tables, her tray up high, her hips swaying, and her mouth—sweet Lord, that mouth—always smiling; and he loved that he knew she had a tube of ChapStick tucked in her apron pocket next to her pencil and notepad.

It wasn't that she even used it most of the time; it was more of a habit. Some girls twirled their hair, some bit their nails, and Jess rolled her ChapStick around in her hand.

What he didn't love was the way Sam kept watching her with that smug little smile of his, but Finn knew if he outwardly reacted to it, things would go sideways right quick like.

No, Jess could handle herself, so the best thing Finn could do was keep his head down and stop stewing about it before Ro noticed. Come to that, it'd be best if he stopped eyeballing Jess, too, because every time he looked at her he wanted to kiss her.

A couple of days, that's all he'd have to wait. Then the
Hooked
people would be gone, and he could finally clue Ronan in on the Jess situation. There was no doubt Ro was going to blow a freakin' gasket over it and no doubt there'd be a few more fists in the air before it was finished, but Finn could deal with that.

As the night wore on, Finn had to keep reminding himself that it would only be a couple of days, because not only was there no chance of getting a minute alone with Jess in the great room tonight, but they weren't going to have time to get out to the lake and they sure as hell weren't going to be sharing a bed.

Even if he could have snuck out on Ronan, there was no way he could get into Jess's bed without tripping over or around Ashley. Just thinking about it sent a string of curses threatening to escape, but Da's voice reverberated in his head, drowning them out.

Good things come to those who wait.

Right. Okay. It was a couple of days; that's it. After that, Finn wouldn't give a shit what happened or how loud and long Ro yelled and carried on. All that mattered was getting to kiss Jess whenever the hell he liked and spending every night until forever snoring in her ear.

One hour at a time, that's how he'd get through it, and starting right after supper he was going to stay so busy he wouldn't have time to miss Jess.

Yeah, right.

While Liam hooked the laptop to the TV so they could stream the A's game, Kate set out dishes of cookies and brownies around the great room and made sure everyone had what they needed, while Ro and Finn helped Jessie clear the tables in the restaurant.

“Call me crazy,” Ro said, keeping his voice down, “but I'd bet my left nut Sam's still got a hard-on for Jessie. He's hardly looked at anyone else.”

“Yeah,” Finn muttered. “I noticed.”

“She ever say why they broke up?”

“Yeah, she said there wasn't that ‘thing' between them.”

Ro added another plate to the stack he was already carrying. “What thing?”

“You know; that
thing
. The spark or whatever.”

“Spark?” Ro snorted so hard he almost dropped the dishes. “Chicks; they come up with some weird shit, don't they?”

“I guess.”

“You don't hear dudes talking about sparks, do you? No, 'cause we keep it simple. You love someone or you don't.”

“Hate to break it to you, Ro, but you're like a poster child for how wrong that statement is.”

“What do you mean? I loved Mandy and then I didn't. Simple.”

They pushed into the kitchen with the dishes, then went back for more, and not once did Finn make eye contact with Jess. If he could have reached, he would have patted himself on the back.

“You don't think it's simple?” Ro asked. “You think Jessie's right about all that spark shit?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?” Ro tucked an empty bottle under his arm and chuckled. “So what, are you going to tell me now that you've actually felt that thing, that spark, for some chick?
You?
”

Finn bumped his hip against one of the tables for the sole purpose of knocking something—anything—off it. Two forks—perfect; that gave him reason to keep his face averted for a second.

“Did I say I had?” he grunted from under the table. “You asked what happened with Jess and Sam and I told you.”

Ro didn't get a chance to say anything else, because a couple of guests came wandering in, wanting to get closer looks at the framed pictures hanging on the walls. Finn rarely paid them any attention, but both he and Ro followed the men from one to the next, explaining a bit about each one.

There were a few of Finn and his brothers over the years, a couple of Jimmy, a few former employees, one of Kate and Liam watching the ball game in the great room, and one of Olivia in full chef gear, holding a flaming dish of Baked Alaska.

Mingled between them were the ones Finn had taken for Jess over the last ten years or so. He always figured if she wouldn't go to the ocean, he'd bring the ocean to her, so there were pictures of everything from huge breaching whales to swooping eagles to the one he'd taken of Art Fraser a few weeks ago, standing on the stern of
Fishin' Impossible,
struggling to hold up his catch.

They usually only hung pictures like that when a guest broke the record for biggest catch, but it wasn't every day they had a guest as old as Art haul in a fish that big.

All those pictures and not a single one of Jess. How had they let that happen?

When they'd walked through the whole restaurant and answered all the questions the two men had, one of them, Dan, took a step back and looked around to see if he'd missed any.

“There's no picture of her,” he said.

“Who?” Ro frowned, but Finn knew that wasn't just because Ro didn't know who Dan was talking about; it was also because Ro was bracing himself for Dan to ask about Maggie. Everyone else was on the wall; why wasn't their mother?

“The girl with the brown hair,” he said. “Jenny?”

Ro's shoulders instantly loosened, but Finn's didn't. His got tighter.

“You mean Jessie?” Ro asked.

“Yeah,” Dan said, nodding around the room. “No picture of her.”

“Huh, how 'bout that? Must be because she's the one who picks the pictures to hang, and no one really likes pictures of themselves, do they?”

“No, I guess not.” With a slow shrug, Dan tipped his head in a short up-nod and started following his buddy back toward the door. “The ball player said she's been working here for a long time, so you'd think someone else woulda put her picture up at some point.”

“Didn't we used to have one of her up there, Finn?”

Yeah, about ten years ago Da had hung one of Jess standing between Ro and Mandy at their wedding, but when word came in that they were getting a divorce, Da had destroyed every picture that reminded him of “that dumb bitch.”

Finn knew it wasn't a big deal, that Jess probably didn't care, but he did. The entire family was up there; she should be there, too.

He was sure he had some of her on his camera, so all he'd have to do was get Kate to upload them to her laptop and send them off to the photo place in Port Hardy. If he had a cellphone, like everyone else, he could have taken the pictures with that and sent them off himself.

Nah, it was probably better to have Kate do it, because she could help pick the right one. The last thing Finn wanted to do was pick one Jess would hate.

“Hey, Finn.” With her hands wrapped around the doorframe, Kate half-swung into the room and tipped her head back toward the great room. “Some of the guests have questions about where we'll be taking them this week, and apparently some of the—
ahem
—old-school guys in the group don't think a pretty young thing such as myself knows what she's talking about.”

Puffing out his chest, Finn grinned as he walked past her.

“Let the fish whisperer show you how it's done,” he said, chuckling as she tried and failed to hip-check him into the other side of the doorframe.

They made their way back through the great room, past the group watching the game with Liam, past the group crowding around Sam, to where half a dozen men were gathered around the huge map of the coast on the wall.

Using his finger as a pointer, Finn started where the Buoys was situated, tucked into Strip Cove on Welch Island, then drew a circle around Calvert Island, going as far north as Bella Bella and as far south as Winter Harbour on the west side of Vancouver Island.

“Time restrictions sometimes keep us from going past Bella Bella,” he said. “But there's lots of good fishing around King Island. And depending on weather and what the fish are doing, we might not even make it as far as Namu.”

As he spoke, he caught sight of Sam heading out of the room toward the restaurant. Normally Finn wouldn't have cared, but the restaurant led to the kitchen, where Jess was still washing dishes.

Without so much as a word, Kate pressed her hand against his arm, excused herself, and headed out behind Sam.

“Great job,” one of the guys was muttering to another. “You went and made all of us look like idiots.”

“No, I didn't, I just wanted to make sure.”

“Well, I hope you're happy, Frank, because Finn here didn't say anything different than she did. If I was her, I'd shove your ass off the boat tomorrow.”

Finn lifted his hand a little and chuckled. “There's two things you should know about Kate. The first is that she's probably strong enough to toss you all off her boat if she wanted to, and the second is that she's a hell of a good guide, and I'm not just saying that 'cause she's one of us. She really is that good.”

It took a couple of seconds, but eventually Frank shrugged and bobbed his head back and forth. “Okay, I'm sorry.”

“Kate has a real knack for the inlets,” Finn said, pulling out an enlarged map of the area he'd just circled. “See all these along the coast here? She can get you right in there by the cliffs, where the fish like to hang out.”

The whole time he talked, Finn kept glancing over his shoulder, until finally Kate came back into the great room with Sam right beside her.

And if the last four months of working side by side with her hadn't confirmed it already, that moment right there proved she was good people.

“What happens on the boat stays on the boat.”

By about one o'clock, Jessie gave up trying to sleep. Snoring she could sleep through—hell, she'd even slept through a couple of earthquakes—but there was no way she was going to get a lick of sleep with Ashley making those noises in the same room.

Maybe if she made them in some kind of pattern, but, no, with the exception of the end, every time was a variation of the same noises, and it sounded as if she was about to go again.

Mumble mumble mumble, grunt, laugh, snort, mumble, and then, yup, a fart.

Pretty little Ashley was a night farter—it was no bloody wonder she didn't want to sleep in the same room as Sam.

Grabbing a pair of socks and her old red sweatshirt, Jessie crept out of the room and headed upstairs. Maybe she'd sleep in the great room….Nope.

Frank was already crashed on one couch, and Chuck was just tucking himself in on the other.

“You okay?” she whispered.

“Yeah—but remind me to keep Ryan off the Guinness tomorrow, will ya? That's a whole different kind of rank!”

It was on Jessie's tongue to suggest they put Ashley in with Ryan, but of course she didn't. Instead, she wished Chuck a good night and tiptoed out. Now what? Did it even matter? She was wide awake, so it really made no difference if she had a place to lie down or not.

Snatching Jimmy's big sweater off the hook, she pulled on some boots, grabbed a flashlight and one of the mini air horns, and headed outside. She hadn't seen a bear since that night at the lake, but a girl could never be too careful. And while the air horn wouldn't do much for her if a bear attacked, it might scare him off before he got a swipe at her.

The night was as perfectly clear and still as it could be, with the waxing moon giving off enough light for her to see her way down to the dock, not that she needed a light for that; she could probably make that walk in her sleep.

As she made her way down the path, she inhaled a deep lungful of the freshest air a body could hope to get and willed it to breeze through her mind, too, to clear out some of the clouds that had been lingering around since yesterday.

With the amount of ice cream she'd snarfed back earlier and the whopping piece of chocolate cheesecake she had before bed, she should have been downright blissful.

Instead, there she was standing down at the very end of the dock, staring out into the inky blackness of the water, trying to quiet the worry in her head. It was more than Finn barely mumbling a good night to her before racing off to his room, and it was more than him barely looking at her all night.

If it had just been those things, she would have chalked it up to him trying to keep things under wraps around Ro and the
Hooked
people. But there was something else.

On the scant two times she'd made eye contact with Finn, his right eye twitched so badly that he'd pressed his hand against it to quell it. It hadn't happened when he looked at anyone else, only at her.

What the hell did that mean? Was she just being—

“Little late for a swim, isn't it?” Sam's voice, coming from the start of the dock, made her jump.

“Oh! Judas priest, Sam—you scared me.”

“Sorry. You okay?”

“Y-yeah, I'm fine,” she said, biting off the part where she wanted to tell him she'd be a hell of a lot better if he'd turn around and go back to the lodge. “Is everything okay? Did you need anything?”

“Nah. I've never been much of a sleeper. Thought I'd come out and get some air, and look what I found.”

Considering she was cold standing there wrapped up in the big wool sweater, she couldn't imagine he was near warm enough in nothing but his shorts and T-shirt, but to each his own.

“It was kind of crazy in there tonight, wasn't it?” He didn't look at her, just assumed her position so they were both staring out over the water. “Is it always like that?”

“Don't I wish,” Jessie said, laughing lightly and wishing he'd say whatever he had to say. And then wishing he wouldn't.

“I'm glad I got to see this tonight,” he said. “It showed me both sides of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there's the Jess I already knew, the part of you that's a little nervous, insecure maybe, when you're the center of someone's attention. And then there's this other side to you, the part that seems to love and thrive on being surrounded by all these noisy strangers and making yourself indispensable to them.”

“No one's indispensable, Sam.”

“Hmm. I hope you mean that.” He folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels a bit. “I've been waiting to talk to you about this until I had everything in place, and I wanted to do it in person because I needed you to see my face so you'd know I'm being honest. And sometimes things get lost in translation through emails, you know?”

Oh God.

“It's really late, Sam; do you think this could wait until we've both had some sleep?”

“Maybe, but if we don't talk about it now, I don't know when we'll get another chance, because if tonight was any indication, you're not going to have five minutes to yourself for the next two days, and I'm sort of on a time crunch, so…”

He was right, and it was better to get whatever it was out of the way sooner rather than later, right?

“Of course,” she murmured. “So what's on your mind?”

“You.”

The abruptness of his answer caught her so off guard that she didn't know how to respond, which gave him the opening to keep going.

“We were good together, weren't we?” he asked, his quiet voice still loud against the stillness. “I mean, we like each other and we had some good times, didn't we?”

“Uh, yeah, but, Sam—”

“Just let me finish.”

“No.” Shaking her head, Jessie turned so she could look straight at him. “Before you say anything, I need you to understand that I don't…I mean, you're right, we did have some good times together and I really like you, but I'm not…you and I…I don't—”

Sam suddenly reached for her hands, but when Jessie tried to pull away, he held them tighter.

“What are you—”

“Exactly! That's exactly what I hoped you'd say.”

“Wait.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then shook her head hard. “What?”

“You and I,” he said. “I think we tried, but we never really had that ‘thing,' you know?”

“No. I mean yeah,” she said, hoping she hadn't said it too fast or with too much gusto.

“I'm not saying parts of it weren't great,” he said, grinning until she blushed. “But sex is just sex, right?”

That's what she used to think, too.

Sam released her hands and nodded slowly. “And, uh, well, Ashley and I…It's only been a week or so, but…”

“You and Ashley?” Jessie's surprise morphed into a knowing nod.
Of course
. One more reason for Ashley to choose Jessie's room: It was way too early in the relationship for Sam to find out about her night noises. “Wow—that's great! Really.”

“Yeah, it is.” He blushed a little, smiling the smile of a man in love. “But how many people do you know who get together, break up, and still like each other?”

“Aside from Liam and Kate?” Jessie laughed. “No one.”

“And you and I. That's why you're perfect for this.”

“For what?”

He didn't answer. Instead, he took a step toward her, his hand outstretched. “You're shivering. Should we go inside?”

Absolutely not. Until Sam finally spat out whatever it was he wanted to say, she'd rather stay as far away from everyone else as possible. But before she could answer, he started steering her toward Finn's boat.

“I saw that Finn had a portable heater; we can go sit in there while you warm up.”

“No!” Jessie jerked back and held up both her hands. “Sorry, I don't…I mean, I've never…”

She couldn't finish, not because she was worried what he'd think, but because she'd just heard herself. Two months ago she wouldn't even have considered climbing onto Finn's boat—hell, two days ago she wouldn't do it—but now…now she could feel Finn's hands wrapped around hers, gently coaxing her to believe, to trust that he'd keep her safe.

The boat was tied up to the dock, it wasn't going anywhere, and God forbid it suddenly sprang a leak or something (it could happen!), she was pretty sure she could get onto the dock without seizing up in panic.

Pretty sure was better than nothing, and Finn would be so proud of her for doing this on her own.

“Fine,” she said, then focused her mind on Finn and the way he always had her breathe when she started to freak out.

Slowly in through the nose, slowly out through the mouth.
Again and again, until she'd made it into Finn's seat in the cabin of the boat. It seemed to take Sam forever to finally get himself onto the other seat, so the stupid boat stopped listing back and forth.

“Okay, Sam, listen,” she said, trying not to let it sound as if each word was as much work as it really was. “I'm wholly uncomfortable right now, so please just say whatever it is you want to say.”

“Right.” His brow puckered a little, but he blinked a few times and it was gone. “Bottom line: My contract with
Hooked
is up at the end of this season and I'm not renewing. You guys are actually my last show, so…the thing is…I bought the Hewett place over on Langara, and I want you to come run it for me.”

If Jessie hadn't been sitting, she would have fallen flat on her ass.

“I'm sorry,
what
?”

“The Hewett place,” he repeated. “Nobody knows yet. I mean, the staff knows these are my last few days with the show, but they don't know I bought the lodge yet. It's been for sale for a while now.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jessie's mind scrambled to wrap itself around what he was saying. “But why?”

“Why what? Why did I buy it or why do I want you to run it?”

Jessie blinked back at him a couple of times, licked her lips, and nodded. “Yeah.”

Sam's laughter filled the small space. “Easy. I'm tired of living out of a suitcase, I've got the money, and you'd be perfect up there.”

“But…I work here.”

“And you're damn good at what you do,” he said. “But I've asked around, Jess, and I know what's going on here. You're not getting paid, are you?”

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation or maybe it was that she was sitting on a boat for the first time in her entire life, but something was messing with her head and she was having a hell of a time making sense of any of this.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But my wages are none of your business.”

“I know, but if you come to work with me, you'll not only get paid, but you won't be stuck doing half the work you do here, because there are already people lined up to work in the restaurant, to do the housekeeping and the grounds work and all that other stuff. And on top of that, I'll fly you out on a regular basis—say, every other weekend—so you're not stuck out there all the time. And we'll use a Helijet so you don't have to take off or land on water.”

“But—”

“I know it's sudden and you probably think I'm crazy—”

“Cha!”

“But please, Jess, think about it. You said yourself, no one's indispensable, and with Ronan coming back here one day, how much longer do you think they'll be able to keep you? I mean, let's do the math here.”

No. She didn't want to do the math. She hated math.

“Olivia's the only one pulling in a paycheck, and from what I saw come out of that kitchen tonight, I'd be willing to bet she's not getting paid nearly what she should be. No one else here is getting any money out of this place, so in the off-season, when Olivia and all the guests are gone, there's going to be at least four of you here, five when Ronan moves back.”

“So?”

“So how is this place going to afford that?”

“We have money saved, Sam. It's not like we're going to be living on rice and pintos all winter.”

“And that's good, but let me finish.” He tucked one of his knees up against his chest and rested his elbow on it. “This week you guys are full to overflowing, but how often does that happen?”

Jessie didn't answer, and apparently Sam didn't need her to.

“Exactly,” he said. “Not including Olivia, because she's the only one who only has one specific job here, there are four of you working this place, two on the boats and two in the lodge. Once Liam's arm is healed, you're going to have three guides rotating between running a boat and helping here, am I right?”

“I suppose.” Of course he was right.

“And then when Ronan moves back, whether that's this week or next year, there's going to be five of you here full-time; four of them are guides, and then there's you.”

He held up his hand to cut off her objection.

“I'm not trying to be a prick here, Jess, I just want you to look at it objectively. You've all proven that you can run this place quite well with only four people, so let's return to the fact there'll be five when Ronan comes back. Of those five, three are O'Donnells and one's pretty much married to an O'Donnell, so when the day comes—and it will come, Jess—that this place needs to trim some fat to stay above water, who do you think is going to be the first one to go?”

He was kidding, right? He
had
to be kidding. But when she started to shake her head, he nodded.

“It's not like they can let Olivia go. This place doesn't offer the same things as other lodges; there's no spa, there's no hot tub—hell, there's not even a gift shop—but what this place does have is Olivia in that kitchen, and she's a gold mine in there.