Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (11 page)

I met Zack’s gaze with a narrowed look of my own.  “I have a little problem with blood,” I said.

“Was it your first time?” Rory asked.  “Falling into the river, I mean.”

“Yes,” I said. “That was the first time I’ve fallen in.”  I was thinking about disinviting the dumbass duo from dinner.  Or beating them with a stick.

“How embarrassing,” said Zack.

What the hell was this?  If they couldn’t have me, they were going to tear me down?  I don’t think they understood who they were dealing with.  I may be small, but I’m fierce.  But before I could go Suzy Steaknifehands on them and then give them the boot, Ed spoke up.

“You live around here for any length of time, and you
will
fall in the river,” he said.  “At least once.  It’s almost a rite of passage, and it’s always embarrassing.  But it could have been worse.”

“Worse?” I asked.  It’d been pretty damn bad, me going in in front of an audience of dozens, complete with walk of shame home, shoeless.  “How?”

“Well…” Ed looked up at me, his expression sheepish.  “You could have lost your pants.”

“My
pants
?”

Rory guffawed.

“You’re saying you fell in the river and lost your pants?” asked Helly.

Ed shrugged.  He was looking at me with a soft curve to his lips.  “You want to hear what happened?” he asked.

“I’d love to,” I said.  Helly was nodding.  The brothers grumbled, but we all ignored them.

“So I was fifteen, and had just shot my first bear.  I was real proud of it—it was a big male, and I’d been stalking that sucker through wetlands for two days.  I got in a perfect shot with my rifle, and he went down next to the river, on top of one of those cut banks.  There was a thirty-foot drop down to the river—you know what I’m talking about, one of those steep slides?”

We all nodded.  The river wound back and forth, slowly eroding even tall hills, sucking the sand and soil right out from under them, making whatever was at the top slide down.  The bank at the top, held together by years of growth and roots woven together, was usually the last to go.

“Well, so I’m up there cleaning my bear, and I happened to glance down and notice two local girls in a boat very nearly under me.  They were stopped, their anchor out, maybe fishing—probably trolling for male attention, now that I look back.  They weren’t wearing much, and they were giggling, and glancing up at me all coyly, and—did I mention I was fifteen?”

I watched, captivated, as his cheeks started to turn pink.

“They started smoothing suntan lotion on each other.  They were wearing nothing but bikinis and smiles, and their skin was glistening in the sun, and… I was fifteen.”

“Instant erection?” Gary guessed.

Ed nodded.  “I shifted around so they wouldn’t see the tent in my pants, and I must have gotten too close to the edge.  The bank crumbled out from under me.  Me, my bear, and the leaning tree next to us—we all went plunging straight down into the river.”

He glanced up at me.  “It was cold.  You don’t know how cold until you actually do it yourself, until you’re in that icy water.  I came back to the surface, and heard the girls’ voices.  They were calling to me, sounding worried.  I started to flail, trying to swim away.  All I knew was I didn’t want them to see me like that.  I heard their engine start, and they pulled alongside.  They were trying to pull me up with their paddle.  I remember they were calling me ‘kid’: ‘C’mon kid!  Grab the paddle, kid!’  I swam even harder.”

Rory and Zack were chortling.

“I think they thought I was delirious.  In an effort to subdue me, they whacked me with the paddle.  I went under.  Next thing I knew, one of them was standing in the water with me—standing in the water next to the boat, because, as it turns out, I’d been swept to a spot that was only a couple feet deep.  She had me under the armpits, and was trying to lift me up.  It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, ‘cuz I was shrimpy at that age, skinny as a bean pole, probably weighed much less than either of them.  But my hip waders were full of water, and as she lifted me, the boots dragged at my belt.  I flailed, trying to yell a protest as my pants slipped, but my lungs were at least half full of water, and I’d been weakened by the cold, and there were two of them.”

Ed took a deep breath.  “By the time they got me into the boat, I wasn’t breathing.  They had to resuscitate me.  When they got me back, I realized that I’d lost my bear.  And my rifle.  And my hip waders…”

“And your pants,” whispered Rory, his eyes big.

Ed nodded.

“And your boner?” asked Zack.

Ed’s gaze flicked to me.  “Uuuuhh.”  His grin was sudden, wide, and shit-eating.  “They had to give me mouth-to-mouth, both of these mostly-naked, greased-up girls, so… no.”

I stared at the man across from me, trying to reconcile the Ed from my kitchen with awkward, pantless Ed.  “Another beer?” I asked him.  I was still trying to loosen his tongue.

“No, thank you.”

“More wine?  Vodka?  We can maybe even mix something…”  I wanted to hear more about him.  Even if it had nothing to do with a gold nugget or secrets; I didn’t care.  I was interested in Ed.

He grinned.  “No, but thank you, Suzy.  I don’t drink much anymore.”

“Anymore?” I prodded.  “So you used to?”

“Yeah.  Had a couple bad experiences in my teens.”

“Worse than losing your pants in front of a couple river hotties?” Zack asked.

Ed’s head tilted.  One shoulder shrugged.  “Yeah.”

“Tell us!” Helly called.

I smiled at him encouragingly, and it was oddly flattering that the motion seemed to make up his mind.

“Well, okay, it was actually a couple different occurrences that convinced me I should never, ever,
ever
get drunk again.  The first one was an incident that will live on in infamy…”  He took a fortifying swig of water, then sighed.  “I was a little older, seventeen maybe.  It was me and three buddies, and we got a little drunk.  And one of them, his dad had just gotten a brand new air boat.  His parents were spending the night in town, and he got the bright idea—let’s take the airboat for a test drive.  So we did.  We roared up and down the river in the dead of night—it was one a.m. I think, and us making all this noise.  Have you ever heard an airboat?  A bigger racket, I don’t think we could have made.”

Uh-oh
.  There was a sudden gleam in Gary’s eyes.

Helly must have seen it, too.  “Don’t even think it,” she warned.  Then her gaze softened, and she climbed into his lap.

“You know how there’s just that little bump of land between the river and Iron Lake?” Ed asked.

Helly and I nodded.

“Well, we throttled it full-open toward that bank, wanting to see if we could jump it.  And it worked, it was beautiful.  We sailed through the air, landed perfectly on the lake.  Motored around there a bit.  Then decided to see if we could skim around on grass.  Did some brodies around Mr. McCarty’s lawn….  I’m not proud of what we did that night,” Ed said, looking out over the river.  He shook his head.

“Anyway, a couple hours later, we headed back.  We were tired, planned on just parking the boat and going to bed.  Problem was, we pulled up to the wrong place.  And, bigger problem:  My buddy hit the gas instead of the brake.”

I covered my grin.  “Oh no.”

“Oh, yes.  We roared up to the shore, hit a ramp we hadn’t known was there, and launched the boat for the second time that night.  We landed on Tony Eihr’s roof.”

Helly gasped.  “That was you?  Tony’s Boat Repair, the airboat sticking out of his roof—
that was you
?”

“Yeah,” Ed admitted.

“Wait, you landed your boat on a
roof
?” Zack asked.  He looked stunned and admiring.  “How?”

“I have no idea,” Ed admitted.  “The throttle, the ramp, the wind, the weight.  Everything was just right, I guess.”

“What happened?  Did Ralph ground you for a month?” I asked.

Ed laughed.  “No, actually.  He thought it was kinda funny.  My other friend’s dad, the owner of the boat, did not.  He got his insurance to pay him back the price of the boat—you could see it was totaled even without getting it down—but he was livid.  He forbade his son to ever see us again.  So, I lost a friend that night.  Because we were drunk.”

Rory giggled.  “Because I was high,” he sang.  Helly reached across the table and took his wine glass away.

“You said there were a couple incidents,” I said.  “What was the second?”

Ed winced.

“It was worse?” I asked, incredulous.  “How could it possibly be worse?”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?  I don’t wanna bore y’all…”

Helly, the brothers, and I all talked over each other trying to get him to continue.  I glared around the table with eyes narrowed.  Helly was on my side, trying to get Ed to talk, so I understood that.  But the brothers?  Were they actually enjoying Ed’s exploits?  That couldn’t be a good sign.  Could it?

“Fine, but it’s a little… dirty,” he said, still hesitating.

The whole table was a chorus of ‘please’, ‘puh-lease’, ‘you’re in good company’, and ‘spill it, or so help me God…’.  That last one was Helly, and she looked like she was on the verge of climbing out of Gary’s lap to tear the words from him.

Ed heaved a sigh.  Leaned back.  Scrubbed his hands through his hair.  Then began.  “You may have noticed, I’m not the smoothest with women.”  Ed pressed on before the brothers could insert their comments.  “Well, at seventeen, I was worse.  Much, much worse.”  He looked around the table as though hoping for a lack of interest.

We were riveted.

“There’s a girls’ bible camp a half hour downriver,” he continued. “There were a couple dozen teenage girls there our age.  Me and my friends—the two that were left—got this bright idea that if we brought enough booze, we could get them all drunk, and have an orgy.  It was… aahh… mostly a plot to rid me of my virginity.”

I sat forward, gossip senses tingling.

“An orgy with bible camp girls?” Zack asked, squinting at him.

“You must have been drunk yourselves, to have planned that,” I said.

Ed grinned at me.  “Oh, we were.  And,” he said, looking at Zack, “my friends had heard that… those girls… wouldn’t have sex before marriage, but might be willing to have… alternative forms of... well…  My buddies brought a gallon of lube, along with the alcohol.”

“Ooooohhh,” said Rory.  “We gotcha.”

“For your first time?” Helly asked, squinting at him.

“Where’d you get the booze?” Gary asked.

Ed looked embarrassed.  “We
appropriated
it from my dad, from the bar.  So we get there, and we meet up with the girls—my friend knew one of them, and she brought out several with her—in an outbuilding, an old barn… and that’s where it starts to get fuzzy,” Ed said.  “I think the girls managed to get us roaring drunk, so drunk I have no real firm memory of what happened.  When we woke up—to my first real hangover, the worst of my life—” he scratched his head “—and I’m not sure about this, but I suspect….”  Ed hesitated.

Rory and Zack leaned forward.  “Yes?” they asked.

“I think we’d been baptized.  We were wearing the lacy white gowns—they’d dressed us up like dolls and taken the rest of our clothes.  I woke up damp, with a promise ring and a Jesus tattoo.  So I think I might have gotten religion; I
know
one of my friends got converted that night.  Never did see him again, either,” he muttered.

We all stared at him.  “Wait, what?” asked Gary.  “A bunch of bible camp girls gave you a tattoo?”

“Yeah.”  Ed picked up the last rib on his plate, nibbling on it like he thought it was big enough to hide behind.

“Where?” I blurted.

Ed’s eyes caught mine.  His lips curled into something suspiciously resembling a smirk.  “My right shoulder,” he said.

“Show us!” howled Rory.

I grimaced, wishing I’d cut him off an hour ago.  Then my eyes were drawn back to Ed as he set down the rib, wiped his fingers, and started to unbutton his shirt.  I watched him hungrily, feeling a tense, aching longing as he partially disrobed.

He peeled the blue shirt to the side, and pulled his undershirt sleeve up.  Sure enough, he had a sloppy rendition of a crucified Jesus on his deltoid.

“He looks like a corn dog with eyes,” Zack said.

Ed shrugged.

“But, did you guys get any?” Rory demanded, asking the important questions.

Ed shook his head.  “Nope.  And the worst part was, the camp counselors found us before we could escape, and we were still wearing those damn gowns.  And they called Suzy’s dad, who at the time was still a police officer, and he wound up escorting us to town, where we spent the night in jail,
in the gowns
.”

We all gave that the moment of silence it deserved.

“Dude,” said Zack.

Ed nodded in agreement.

Chapter
Ten

H
elly seemed to be a semi-permanent fixture in Gary’s lap.

As I watched them rub noses and whisper back and forth as they stared soulfully into each other’s eyes, I wondered how on
earth
she wasn’t pregnant yet.  I knew that, unlike me, she wasn’t on any sort of birth control.  I knew their ‘method’ consisted of a hit-and-miss collage of condoms and withdrawal.  And I knew they screwed like bunnies.

So. 
How?

Pushing my dessert bowl aside to make room for my elbow, I propped my chin on my hand and narrowed my eyes at them, trying to figure it out.

Helly laughed at something Gary said, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink.  She squirmed as his hands wandered.

Then she jumped to her feet, and dragged Gary up after her.  She smiled at me, looking drunk on love.  “We’re gonna head home,” she said.  “I’ve gotta…” she waved her hand around “…get to bed.”

Five dollars says they don’t even make it to a bed. 
I scoffed, and heard a similar disbelieving noise from across the table.  My eyes were drawn to Ed’s.  He gave me a small smile, distracting me long enough for Helly and Gary to slip through the door from the deck.

Helly and Gary were leaving.  I jumped up, gathered my dishes, and hurried after them.  As promised, my stairs now sported three new treads.

“Thank you guys for coming,” I said.

“Hey, thank you for feeding us,” Gary replied.  “Everything was excellent.”

Helly was tugging him toward the front door.  “Sorry, don’t have time to help with the dishes,” she said.  “I’ll owe you one.”

I set my dishes down on the table as they hurried out into the blue night.  I stuck my head out after them.  “Don’t forget the Passion Party,” I called.  “Sunday!”

Helly waved a hand to let me know she’d heard.  They were already halfway to their boat.

I closed my screen before any more mosquitos flew in.  I watched my friends as they made it out onto the dock.  There, with a backdrop of swirling silvery water, Gary bent Helly over backward in a sweeping kiss.

I sighed. Helly and Gary really were perfect for each other, like two pieces of a puzzle. 

So where the heck was the guy that was perfect for me,
my
other half?

When I turned around, I saw Ed setting a stack of plates next to the sink.  He glanced up to the landing, where the brothers were just starting down the stairs.  “Get the glasses, would you please?” he said.

My eyebrows shot up at his nerve, but then I realized—we still had three brothers.  “Oh crap, J.D.,” I said.  “You better go.”  Helly and Gary were certainly distracted enough to leave without him.

“We took separate boats,” J.D. said.  “I’ve got Helly’s boat, they’ve got Gary’s.”  He turned and headed back out onto the deck without argument.  After a moment’s hesitation, Zack and Rory followed after.

Ed started pulling dishes out of the sink.

I hurried over to him.  “You don’t need to,” I said.  “You already helped me make the food.”

He half-turned toward me, and smiled.  “I want to,” he said.

My mouth opened, but I couldn’t find a damn thing to say.  Not while looking up into his alpine-lake-fading-to-whiskey-chocolate eyes.

His gaze moved from mine up to my forehead.  He frowned.  “Looks like you could use a new bandage.”

My stomach was suddenly queasy.  I pressed a hand to it, hoping those awesome ribs wouldn’t make a reappearance.

Ed reached out to steady me.

The brothers clattered down the stairs with their arms full.  “This is the last of it,” Zack said.  They deposited the dishes on the table, and then edged toward the door.

I was actually kinda surprised, after their efforts to seduce me last night, that they would tap out so easily.  But they were probably just trying to avoid dish duty.  Again.  They’d left the kitchen a huge mess after the pasta and chocolate cake. 
The fuckers.

I opened my mouth to say something.

“Well, good night!” Zack said.  He turned and sprinted for the door, Rory hot on his heels.  J.D. slipped out behind them like a ninja, and the screen slammed closed.

I put my fists on my hips.

“Where do you keep the Band-Aids?” Ed asked, reminding me of my head wound.

Oh god.
  Had it reopened?  It had to be a real gusher if it had already soaked through my Band-Aid.  Head wounds bled a lot, or so I’d heard.  Was it actively seeping?  My forehead did feel a little wet…

“Medicine cabinet in the bathroom,” I said, my voice a little high.  I leaned back against the counter as he moved away.  I closed my eyes.  I hated cutting myself, hated blood, hated wounds.

I hadn’t looked at my forehead, even after I’d come home and gotten dressed.  I’d combed my hair, but I had deliberately not looked in the mirror.

Ugh,
I’d tried to flirt with Ed with a big, fat Band-Aid on my forehead.  I probably looked like the Alaskan Bush version of Frankenstein, except, of course, Alaskan Frankenstein would have been put together with duct tape and zip ties.  Maybe I should have directed Ed to my duct tape drawer.

“Suzy.”

His warm voice came from directly in front of me, and I opened my eyes to find he was back.  He was only a foot or two away, and I was struck again by how tall he was.  He was also very solid, and incredibly present.  If that made any sense.

“You look kinda pale,” he said.

He’d seen me at my most embarrassing moment—floating face-up in the river, after having fallen out of a boat.  And now he knew about my handicap: I was a damn wuss.

I straightened up, trying to will color into my face.

“Here,” he said.  His hands closed gently but firmly on my waist.  I gasped and gripped his arms as he lifted me.

He plunked me onto the counter, sliding his hands to my upper arms as he watched me closely.  “Don’t think about it,” he said.  “I’ll get you fixed right up.”  He opened the box of bandages.

My breath came faster as I clenched the edge of the counter.

“Let’s distract you,” he said.

Little did he know, he was distracting me just fine as his hip brushed my knee.  He was very close, almost between my legs.  His clean, woodsy scent wrapped around me, making me lightheaded for other reasons.

“Tell me something,” he continued.  He set a fresh pair of Band-Aids on the counter.

Oh, geez, it was a two-bandage wound?
  Would it be cheesy of me to faint into his arms?

I girded my loins.  “Something?” I rasped.

“Yeah.  Anything.  You’re up on neighborhood gossip, right?  Anything interesting going on?”

Helly and Gary are getting married! 
But I didn’t say it, because One:  He hadn’t asked her yet, and Two: I had some modicum of self-control, dammit!  Gary’d asked me not to tell.

But Ed could be trusted
.  Probably…

No!  No, Suzy, tell him something else.

“Um.”  I gritted my teeth as he reached up and started peeling at the bandages on my forehead.  “Shelly’s granddaughter made the honor roll,” I said.

His hands paused, and he peered at me from under them.  “Shelly’s got a
grand
daughter?  On the honor roll?”

I shrugged.  “She said she started early.”  He was confused because Shelly was in her late forties, and for her to have a granddaughter old enough to be on the honor roll… Well, I guess a lot of it depended on when her daughter procreated as well, but still.

“Huh.  What else?” he asked.

“The Bransons are thinking about selling,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  They’re looking at the possibility of starting a fishing charter in Mexico.  Apparently, it’s ‘too cold here for their old bones’.”

Ed chuckled, his eyes warming.  “What are they, like fifty?”

“Fifty-seven and fifty-nine, actually.”

His smile widened.  “Close your eyes,” he said.

I shivered, resisted asking why, and closed them.  I winced as the Band-Aid pulled away.

“Can you do that with everyone on the river?” he asked.

“Do what?”  I peeped one eye open.

“Tell me their exact age.”

“Most,” I admitted. 
And birthdays. 
I tilted my head.  “I don’t know yours, though.”

“Would I be giving you another tidbit to add to the rumor mill?” he asked, his fingers gentle as he applied a fresh Band-Aid.

I rolled my eyes.  “Hardly.  An underage abortion would be a tidbit.  A gambling addiction.  Your age is barely a blip on my radar.  Besides, I’ll tell you what I tell all my friends.  If you have something you don’t want repeated, just tell me that.  Say, ‘Suzy, don’t tell anybody this, but…’”

He grinned.  “Suzy…”

“Yes?”  I couldn’t get enough of the way he was looking at me.  I wanted to stay up here on this counter and bask in the warmth of that smile forever.

“…don’t tell anybody this, but…”

“Yes?”  This was it, he was gonna tell me his secret.  I sat forward, breathless.

“I’m twenty-six.”

“Oh.”

He barked a laugh.  My breath caught as he braced his knuckles on the countertop to either side of me.  His eyes were dancing.  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

I straightened, wondering how long I’d been staring at him goggle-eyed.  “Fine.”

“Good.”  He moved the couple feet over to the sink, and my propane heater kicked in as he turned on the hot water.  He glanced back over at me and smiled.  “We keep winding up in these positions…”

I wiggled toward the edge of the counter, feeling a little guilty for sitting around while he worked.

He reached out and touched my knee.  “No, stay.  I’m good here.  Just sit and talk to me.”

“Talk to you?” 
Was he for real?
  I don’t think I’d ever had a man say that to me.  Especially not while he washed my dishes.

“Yeah.  Tell me something else.”  He squirted some dish soap into the sink.  “Tell me… is anyone on the river doing anything illegal?”

“Ha!  When are they not?”

We lived in the middle of nowhere.  The nearest police station was at least thirty miles away, and we had no road access.  Basically, as long as you weren’t really blatant about it, in these parts, you could get away with murder.

Most of us didn’t go around killing each other, but minor, more civil crimes were rampant.  Cutting down a tree on state land.  Building without a permit.  Not registering your canoe with the State of Alaska.  Driving without a seatbelt.  Operating a boat while intoxicated.  Fireworks, throughout most of the state.  The list went on.

“Well… The Aemons are growing pot.”  They were selling it, too, but who cared, with marijuana now legalized in Alaska?

Ed nodded, looking unsurprised.  When had a man doing dishes gotten so sexy?  I liked the way he had to stoop a bit to reach the bottom of the sink, the crisp roll of his sleeves.  The towel on his shoulder.  His forearms plunging down through the fluffy white bubbles.

I watched his strong hands curve around a mug, trace a dish rag around it.  His touch wasn’t delicate, nor too rough, but rather strong and sure and careful.  When he slid three fingers inside, I pressed my knees together and looked back into his eyes.

“The Talliverts are poaching fish,” I offered.

He cocked a brow at me.  “Oh?”

“Yeah, their guides help their guests get several times their bag limit.  I’ve sat up on my deck on several separate occasions, watching them fill up the boat.  Sometimes they even dip them out with a net.  I actually called Fish and Game on them once,” I mused.

“You turned them in?” Ed asked, his eyes sharpening.

“Well, yeah.  Salmon numbers have been dwindling for years—there’s a reason there’s a bag limit!—and watching them blatantly break the law was pissing me off.”

Ed grunted.  “What happened?”

“Fish and Game came out to check it out, didn’t catch them doing it, and instead, gave me a ticket for my dock.”  Yet another thing Alaskans were doing illegally, most of them without even knowing it.

“A ticket for your
dock
?”

“Yeah.  Apparently, you need a
permit
to have a dock, even if it’s the size of a postage stamp, like mine.  It’s a friggin’ farce, the legal system in this state.  It’s actually the reason why I haven’t called the Troopers yet about my nugget.” 
Shit.
  I bit my tongue.

There it was, that sharp look again. “Nugget?” he asked.

Think fast!
  Ugh, my brain was drawing a blank. 
Shit, he’s still looking at me!
  “Uhhhh.  Nothing?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up, and he looked up at me through his lashes.  It was a dark-eyed, smoldering look, one designed to make me tell him my secrets.  Or at least, that’s the way it seemed.  In that moment, I really, really wanted to.