Must Love Otters (19 page)

We’re traveling south, away from the Cove, but I don’t ask why. I like the idea of not having to go back yet, to face Roger and his perfect family or the knowing looks of Miss Betty and other staff who will shake their heads and click their tongues because I’m the stupid girl who thought running away via rowboat just before a storm was smart.

Ryan does radio in to the resort that he’s found me—alive—and that we’ll be out for the day. Pretty sure it’s Miss Betty on the other side. She sounds relieved that Ryan isn’t bringing back my corpse. That wouldn’t have been good for business.

We travel south for about an hour, past the occasional cottage and moored boats and empty docks and even a few campsites with waving kayakers, before Ryan slows and lets the engine idle. The sun is so warm, unusual for a mid-May day, but you won’t hear me complaining, especially after last night’s performance wherein I pretended to be an iceberg. Ryan pulls the heavy wool blanket from the back of the couch, opens the middle front window, and climbs through to the front deck atop the sleeping cabin.

“Hollie … you need sun. You look pale,” he says, spreading the blanket and helping me outside. I shed the fleece sweatshirt and attempt to roll up my pant legs, but I don’t want to mess with Ryan’s boot-cast. Shoes stay on.

“Wonder if we’ll see your orcas today.” He smiles, returning behind the wheel. The boat is at a slow crawl, the engine a low hum.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course. People swim with the orcas around here all the time, especially at night. In a thunderstorm.”

“It was before the thunder, smart-ass. And it was terrifying and fantastic and
real
. You think you know an orca from seeing the wildlife shows or at Sea World, but this … these babies were the real thing. They’re so big. Oh, and their baby …”

“They travel up and down through here, having their babies in the summer, chasing the salmon runs a little later. And where there are salmon, there are seals and sea lions, so it’s a smorgasbord, depending on the time of year.”

“Do you know how many pods are in these waters?”

“I’m not very good with that, but I do know the southern whales are considered part of J, K, and L pods—the northern orcas are usually A, G, and Rs, but again, I don’t know enough about them to know who’s who. My brother, Tanner—he’s spent a lot of time studying their fins and flukes. He probably would’ve known who your whales were last night.”

“That’s nuts.”

“Tan will love to hear about your experiences. You be sure to tell him when he’s flying you back into town.”

Town. City. Home. I don’t want to think about that right now. It’s Friday, the sun’s out, I lived through the night, and at last check, I am still on vacation.

“Be right back,” Ryan says, disappearing onto the back deck. When he returns, he has two round baskets in hand.

“Crab pots?”

“You a crabber?” He turns off the engine.

“You kidding? I’m a champion pot puller. My dad and I used to crab off the docks in Charleston and Coos Bay, Oregon.”

“Oregon’s coast is gorgeous.”

“I love it so much. I’m going to retire there someday, I swear.”

“I can see it now—Hollie sitting on the dock in her motorized old-lady scooter, hair gray, face wrinkled from too much time in the sun and saltwater, arms huge from crab-pot pulling, selling her fresh Dungeness right off the dock.”

“Uncanny, Nostradamus. You forgot my anchor tattoo along my bulging forearm,” I say. “And how’d you know I want an old-lady scooter?”

“Well, you’re going to have to prove that you can pull these pots,” he says, unfastening the wires to expand the baskets. “Unless you’re too injured to play.” He curves his lips downward, his exaggerated sad face patronizing.

“I’ll show you and your broken nose and maimed knee how bad-ass I am.” I flex my biceps and hope they don’t look as puny as they feel.

“Always with the nose, Ms. Porter?”

I pinch it between my fingers as I climb off the deck. He doesn’t let me get away with it, though, and scoops me around the middle like a bag of flour, just as he did last night when plunging through the icy water to save my pathetic ass.

When he sets me down on the back deck, he smiles. Pauses. Looks down at me for a beat.

Wow. Those eyes are really green today. Like he ate algae and now they’re all green and … green.

He musses the top of my head like you would an eight-year-old wanting an autograph.

We’re flirting, aren’t we. That’s what this is?

It’s fun.

From a steel freezer box, he pulls a chunk of dead, frozen fish. Flirty moment over.

“Eww, don’t make me bait ’em. I hate fish guts.”

“And you call yourself a crabber.”

“It’s just that I feel so bad shoving a wire through a dead fish’s eyeball.”

“Fish is dead. He can’t feel it.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “No shit. But I feel bad … poor fish.”

“Poor fish, until he’s filleted under your broiler, slathered in lemon.”

“Or baked on cedar. Ever done that? My dad makes a mean cedar-shake salmon. Uses a honey-mustard glaze.”

“He and Miss Betty should exchange recipes. She uses a homemade maple glaze—” Ryan smacks his lips together. “Like candy.”

Ryan does the dirty work of baiting the pots. I stand by to tie on the orange number buoys to mark our spot. He maneuvers the boat to where he says is a prime crab hangout and we drop the first pot. Across the inlet, we drop the second.

Thing with crabbing? You gotta wait. The hobbyist doesn’t have endless amounts of time to let pots soak like the pros do, so we agree that a couple hours will do the trick. “Whatever we don’t want, we can stop at a general store a few miles down and leave some with Smitty. He’ll either eat it or sell it.”

“You have a friend named Smitty? Who runs a general store?”

“His real name is Gerald—he’s a retired investment banker—I think he just wanted to sound like a pirate.”

“That’s what I want to do. Retire and become a pirate.”

“Spend your days drinking rum and chasing women?” Ryan says.

“Yes, Concierge Ryan, exactly that.” I throw a small chunk of ice at him from the fish box.

“No need for violence, ma’am,” he smiles. I like it when he smiles. It’s easy and warm and this foreign feeling of happy bubbles in organs that have more mundane functions. Like digestion and circulation and respiration.

Keith never made those organs tingle. My stomach and heart and lungs never paid attention when Keith smiled. When Keith did anything, for that matter.

Stop. No more comparisons.

“Hey, you wanna go over to that beach?” He opens one of the deck benches and pulls out two small shovels. “We could clam.”

“Chewing clams is like chewing bubble gum. Without the fruity goodness.”

“You’ve not had them cooked right, then.”

“And geoducks. Giant penises.”

Ryan laughs loudly, slapping his forehead. “How can you have lived in Oregon your whole life and not know that it’s not the clam’s penis?”

“It’s a foot. But it looks like a penis. A big, scary one.”

“Oh, man,” he says, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, “I think you just like saying the word
penis
.”

“It’s such a weird word. And such a weird organ. And you male types, you like it way too much.”

“I beg to differ,” he says, leaning atop the boat’s side. “And judging by your antics these past few days, I’m guessing that it’s one of your favorite playthings too.”

“I did not sleep with him!”

“Hey,” he says, hands aloft, “none of my business.”

“How did we get back to talking about Hollie’s bad choices? I thought we were talking about clamming.”

“You mentioned penises.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So do you wanna?”

I stare at him for a second, my breathing a little shallow. Did he just ask me if I want …

“Go clamming, Porter. Sheesh. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“We could, but I don’t really wanna eat ’em.”

“If it makes you feel any better, they’re not the penis clams. They’re butter clams. No penises involved.”

“I still don’t know if I wanna eat ’em.”

“How ’bout this? We dig up a few clams, and then I can take you to a spot where we could give them to someone I know would eat them.”

“Smitty again?”

“You’ll see.” Ryan stands and offers his hand for a high five before ducking back into the main cabin to drive us to shore.

If you’re fussy about dirt, especially under your fingernails, clamming isn’t for you. The trick is to wait for the tide to ebb, watch for bubbles in the sand, and then dig as fast as you can before the little buggers get too deep. It’s hard work, burns the arm muscles, and covers you in muck.

But watching Ryan sweat and laugh as he digs like a maniac after a burrowing clam? Totally worth it. Especially when he sheds his sweatshirt and I get to watch the muscles in his arms flex and contract.

I’ve never been with a muscled guy. Unless you count table muscle.

I have to resist the urge to find a reason to reach out and touch him, to put my hand on his muscly muscles, to know what that feels like to touch ridged and solid rather than squishy and a little like failure.

We don’t make too much sport of the clamming. A small bucketful and we’re done. I’m facing the opposite direction, washing my hands in the lapping waves, digging grit from under my thumbnails, when a shadow appears over me. A quick glance over my shoulder, and I lose my already impaired one-legged balance, falling up to my elbows into the water.

“What? What are you staring at?” Ryan is standing over me. With a geoduck, its thick, fibrous, powerful neck protruding from … Ryan’s fly. “Should we go?”

And I lose it. “You … are … so … mature!”

“But you’re laughing, aren’t you? And now you’re wet again.” He reaches in and pulls the massive clam from inside his Levi’s. I can’t stop laughing, and yes, the subtle waves have now soaked my right side, but it’s so worth it. My breath comes in fits and starts and I start with that ugly laugh-squeal thing when I can’t catch my breath.

Goddamn, that feels good.

Ryan, his fly rebuttoned, geoduck in our bucket, helps me from the sand and on board our vessel. “I may be immature, but you’re laughing. You dirty girl. Laughing at my geoduck. Sit in the sun for a few minutes. You’ll dry off,” Ryan says, disappearing inside only to come back with two sort-of cold beers. “Shall we pull some pots?”

“Has it been long enough?”

“Yeah, probably. We only need a few keepers.”

“How are we going to cook these?”

“Well, we can take them back to the Cove …”

I start to shake my head. “I don’t wanna. I like it out here.”

“Roger’s probably leaving today, if you’re worried about running into him again. His wife came in on their yacht. With staff.”

I take a healthy swig of the beer. “That makes me feel so much better.”

“Sorry.”

“Ya know, it’s not just Roger … I feel stupid. Tabby in the spa told me that everyone saw my naked sprint through the lodge the other night, and then the sprained ankle, and then Miss Betty bringing the crutches and seeing Roger shirtless in my room. She probably thinks I’m a total slut.”

“Miss Betty thinks no such thing,” Ryan says, smiling.

“How do you know?”

“She’s not like that.”

“All women are like that. We look at each other with the harshest eyes.” I drink again. “Hell, I’d think I was a slut if I’d come across the same scene.”

“Then you have some serious issues about what a slut is.”

“I suppose you’re an expert on this topic?”

“No, I just think it’s harsh to call a woman a slut if she’s simply doing what men have done without judgment for centuries.”

“So progressive of you, Concierge Ryan.”

“Nah, I just don’t think that a woman expressing herself sexually makes her a slut.”

“But I didn’t
sleep
with him—I mean, I
did
sleep with him, but all we did was sleep. We didn’t—”

“Hollie, it’s none of my business.”

“I know … but I just want you to know … I don’t want you to think I’m a hussy.”

“You don’t strike me as the type.” He secures our bucket of clams in the fish box. “And even if you did get naked with Roger Dodger, you wouldn’t be a hussy.”

“But I didn’t. I stayed clothed the whole night.”

“This is really bugging you, isn’t it …”

I don’t know how to answer. Because it is bothering me. I should’ve known better that a man of Roger’s wealth and importance would want to spend time with me. His wife is exquisite, and then there’s me. Yeah, I’m all right, but I’m too unpracticed, too unpolished to be anything other than a … fling.

“Your face looks like a storm’s moving in. Come on. Let’s keep the party going. You can drive the boat,” Ryan says, grabbing my hand and leading my limping self into the main cabin.

He stands behind me and demonstrates how to throttle the engine, points out the depth finder and GPS that shows where we are and where we’re going. He’s so close to me, I can smell the hint of faded aftershave or cologne on his skin. I purposely take an almost imperceptible step backward so I can feel the warmth of his body radiating toward mine. I’m slightly cold from my second impromptu dip in the inlet, my clothes still damp, and his body heat shimmers like a hot desert highway.

He drapes his hand over mine where it rests on the throttle, nudging the stick upward ever so slightly and increasing the boat’s speed. His long fingers and broad palm dwarfs my hand underneath, which says much about his overall size—I have big hands for a girl.

He doesn’t move for a whole minute.

It is a delicious minute.

So delicious, I almost drive us into some rocks when I realize my eyes are closed.

When he reaches down to take the wheel, he brushes my boob. Crimson travels from the bottom of his T-shirt collar to his ears and he clears his throat.

I made him blush!

“I … why don’t you go out and get the hook. I’ll pull alongside the first pot and idle, and we’ll see just how fast Champion Pot Puller Porter can do this.”

“Say that five times fast.”

Ryan laughs as I hobble out back to position myself for the big show. I haven’t pulled a pot since I was fifteen and Dad and I spent one of our last solo weekends at the Oregon Coast. Just before he met Aurora. Before she moved into our house and rearranged our lives with her outlandish ideas and weird pet collection.

I can do this. I’m strong. I’m mighty. I have to show Concierge Ryan that I’m a real Oregonian, a real West Coast girl, and we don’t muck around with being wimpy. I’ve done enough wimpy stuff in the last few days.

Time to shine.

Except I miss the pot on the first go-round.

“You missed it?” he laughs from inside.

“Shut up and go around again.”

He does, and SNAG! I grab the pot on the second try. “Got it!” The boat slows to a near stop, and the race is on. Pull, pull,
pull
. Hand over hand, gripping tight on the freezing nylon rope, not paying mind to the slimy strips of sea plants clinging to the length.

Goddamn, when did this get so hard?

My arms have weakened in the years spent sitting on my dispatcher’s ass.

Feel the burn, Hol. Feel the burn!

I’m panting, not because it’s tiring, but because the searing pain running through my upper half will not defeat me! I will have these crabs.

“Faster! Faster! Faster! Go, Porter, go!” Ryan cheers me on, curling my exhumed line into a circle, the glistening numbered buoy at its center. “You’re doing awesome!”

I cannot control the grunts coming from my throat, and then that final “ahhhhhhh” as the burn threatens to take over and loosen my grip.

“Damn! Look at that!” Ryan says excitedly, reaching for the top rope on the pot and hoisting it along the boat’s side edge. “Well done! Lotsa keepers in there!”

I plop back onto the bench, proud of myself but breathing deeply to suffuse my screaming muscles with fresh oxygen.

“Hey, grab the gloves and the crab ruler, would you?” he says. My fingers are stiff but I manage to get him the thick, plasticized gloves and watch as he drops the pot to the boat’s deck, opens the wire trap door, and reaches in to start checking sex and size of our haul. “Woo! These are beauts!”

Remembering protocol, I grab an empty bucket, fill it with seawater, and limp it next to Ryan so he can drop our keepers inside.

“Damn, girl, I’m impressed,” he says, plunking a giant male into the bucket. A few babies go back into the inlet, along with any females, quickly distinguishable by the shape of their abdomens. “We’ll keep these three big healthy males. There’s a limit on these waters, but we’ll get ’em over to Smitty so we don’t get caught with too many on board.”

I feel invigorated. “That was awesome. I still got it. My dad would be so proud.”

“You got your phone? I can snap a photo so you can send it to him.”

“It died. In the boat last night. Too much water.”

Ryan hands me his gloves and sneaks back inside, returning with his phone in hand. “Glove up and grab a crab. I’ll email this to you.”

I do exactly that, not caring that I have no makeup and crazy hair and still-wet clothes and ugly boots. I have a huge Dungeness crab in my hand, the sun on my face, and a day that is turning out way better than I could’ve dreamed.

“Cheese!”

“Perfect.” He shows me the photo. I look … radiant. “You clean the remaining bait off the hook and I’ll move us to the other pot. You ready to go again?”

The muscles of my arms and torso cringe, but my mind’s ready. “Bring it, cowboy!”

We repeat the process for the second pot, though I catch its line on the first pass. By the time Ryan’s pulling crabs from the wire basket, I’m feeling like I could bench press an orca. Well, if I had ten minutes to drink another beer and let my arms settle their quaking.

We end up with six keepers—we could’ve kept ten, but Ryan didn’t want to push it, in case the fisheries guys are lurking around.

“Nice work, Porter. You surprised me,” Ryan says, winking.

He winked at me.

And then ducked back inside to move the boat to our next destination.

Which can be wherever he wants to take us, as long as he’s behind the wheel and I can sit here in this glorious sunshine and watch his taut, muscled backside as he stands at the helm of this mighty craft.

Uh-oh.