Chapter 8

Dec

I'd been to this boat club on more than one occasion with Maeve over the years, but there was a new level of respect to the handshakes this time around. Kenna and I were the new owners now that Kenna had decided to stick around.

"So, that about does it for the office tour, folks," Irene wheezed, flopping down in her dilapidated chair behind her desk. I could barely see the woman over the stacks of paperwork.

Irene had shown us everything there was to see in the rental office and it was mostly a laundry list of updates that needed to happen in the next year or the whole building might collapse on our heads. I shook my head, guilt wracking me. I should have been watching out for Maeve more, checking in on her house and business. She'd been sidetracked with the cancer diagnosis the last few years, yet insisted all was well. I should have known better.

Kenna spun in a circle, her new hair fanning out like she stepped out of a fashion magazine, but her outfit screamed preteen tourist. I wasn't sure if the teeth she was showing were from a smile or a grimace. Maybe a bit of both. "Okay, well, it looks like the weather has cleared up. We'll get out of your way."

"You can come back anytime, handsome." Irene lit up a cigarette and clamped down on it between red painted lips before sending me a wink.

Kenna stepped outside and I gave Irene a quick head nod before exiting. Now I remembered why I didn't stop by often. Last time Irene had made an ass grab. The storm clouds had indeed moved on, painting the air with enough moisture to have you dripping sweat in seconds.

Kenna gave me side eye. "Handsome, huh?"

"Hey, Dec!" Johnny, one of the deckhands, called from a tritoon tied to the dock, saving me from that thread of conversation. "Want to see it from the water?"

Kenna looked at me to answer. I wasn't sure she was ready to go out on a boat, but there was no time like the present. She needed to know what she was getting into if she decided to stay.

"That sounds great," I called back.

I put my hand on Kenna's back, steering her down the narrow dock and then the steps leading to where Johnny had the boat idling. "This is a pontoon boat with a third hull. The easiest of the boats to handle and one of the most popular rentals for how many people it can fit."

Kenna stepped easily into the boat and I followed, communicating with Johnny as I untied the vessel and he backed us out of the slip. To her credit, Kenna watched everything I did, as if she was memorizing it for a future test. She sat in the front of the boat, watching the Keys get smaller as we pulled further away from the coast. Her hair was pulled back in her hand to keep it from whipping her face. It left her slender neck exposed. I'd never considered that necks could be pretty, but Kenna's certainly was.

"How about getting behind the wheel, Ms. Kenna?" Johnny asked when he pulled back on the throttle. He gave her a toothy grin even when she shot him a look of terror.

"Might be a good idea. Sometimes Maeve would come down here and help out," I added.

That wasn't exactly the truth. Maeve left the handling of the boats to the dockhands she hired, but I had seen her take a boat out at least once years ago, so I knew she had the skills. If Kenna wanted to live in the Keys for a year, she needed to know how to safely commandeer a boat.

"Sure," she said reluctantly, switching spots with Johnny. She looked out of place in the captain's chair.

I leaned forward, crouching next to her with my hands braced on the back of her seat. "Just keep your eyes on the horizon and make sure you don't cross in front of a boat. Put your right hand on the throttle and push it forward when you're ready to go."

Kenna nodded, then swiveled all the way around to check out her surroundings. There were few boats out already after the storm, so it should be smooth sailing. Finally, she looked up at me.

"Sit down and put your seat belt on, Mr. Boggs."

She was taking this captain thing a bit too far, if you asked me. I smirked and followed orders though, sitting back down. I'd tell her later boats didn't come with seat belts.

There was a high-pitched noise from the back of the boat. I swung my head that direction in time to see the prop rising. I opened my mouth to warn her that she'd hit the button on the side of the throttle, but she beat me to it, jamming the throttle all the way forward with a loud "yeehaw" that would have made a hardened cowboy wince.

Of course, with the prop in the air, all she did was fling gallons of salty ocean water up into the air. When it rained down on us and we still hadn't gone anywhere, she gasped. As a nice side benefit, the water-soaked clothes instantly cooled me down. Kenna pulled the throttle back and spun around to see that all of us were soaked. All that pretty blow-dried hair was plastered to her head again.

Johnny tossed his head back, lost his hat in the ocean, and let out a belly laugh that made the sides of my mouth tip up. It was pretty funny, I had to admit.

"My hair!" Kenna yelped, swiping at her face to get the water out of her eyes. The unintended shower had plastered her white T-shirt to her body, highlighting her slight curves and showing me she preferred light pink bras.

I stood and forcibly removed her from the captain's chair. "You gotta keep the prop in the water, sunshine."

She narrowed her eyes at me, but let me move her into the aisle of the boat. I sat in the captain's chair and then pulled her into my lap. She flopped down with a surprised squeak. Hell, I was just as surprised.

"I think you need some better supervision," I muttered, ignoring how nice it felt to have a warm-blooded woman in my lap. I grabbed her hand and put it on the throttle. "See this button on the side? Press it down."

She did, swiveling to see the prop lower back into the water. All the swiveling on my lap was highly distracting.

"Now we can press the throttle. Maybe just a little bit until you're used to the way she moves, huh?"

With my hand over hers, we pushed the throttle forward and the boat responded, gliding cleanly through the water. I showed her how to turn without capsizing us, and then got her up to a decent speed returning to the dock. Her eyes got big when she saw the slips we'd have to pull into.

"I'm definitely not ready for that." She scrambled off my lap and let me do the docking, which was for the best. I noticed she also used one of the hair ties on her wrist to wrangle her wet hair into submission. What was with her obsession with buns?

Johnny gave me a few curious looks, but I ignored him. No one in Sunshine Key had ever seen me with a woman, which was by design. I was sure having Kenna in my lap came as a shock, but he was reading too much into it. I was just helping Kenna adjust to life in Florida, exactly as Maeve would have wanted me to.

Kenna was the first off the boat, one foot on the dock and the other still inside the boat when it shifted away from the dock. She panicked, freezing when she should have just pulled her foot back in the boat. Now she was doing a rendition of the splits with her eyes bulging out of her head. Johnny snickered, covering himself with a sneeze so fake it made me embarrassed for his acting skills.

I ran over to Kenna and grabbed her by the arms. Johnny pulled on the line and the boat floated back to the dock. Kenna scrambled onto the dock like she almost considered getting on her knees and kissing dry land. I bit back a smile and helped Johnny get the boat stowed away for the afternoon. When I was done, I joined her on the dock, putting a hand on her back, not as a gentleman, but because I genuinely thought I might have to grab her at some point to keep her on her feet.

"How about we get you somewhere safe?"

She eyed me warily as we walked back to the rental office. "Does such a place exist?"

Kenna Ryan had a sense of humor I was coming to admire. "Yep. It's called The Dirty Hooker."

"Oh thank God. I did not want to go to a strip club," Kenna said as the young woman seated us at a table in the sand. We had a lovely view of the ocean and had at least three fans blowing in our direction. The heat didn't bother me, but I knew Kenna wasn't used to it yet.

I moved the plastic menu out of my way. I knew the offerings by heart. "Mind out of the gutter, sunshine."

Kenna gave me a look. "Why are you calling me sunshine?"

I took a long sip of the ice water on the table. When I set the glass down, I answered her. "Every time you walk away from me, it's written on your ass."

Her face went as red as the sun beginning to dip into the ocean. She nodded and sat back in her chair, picking up the menu to give her something to do besides spar with me. She took an incredibly long time perusing the options. It was basically fish or seafood. Blackened or fried.

The waiter came over and took our orders, returning with a beer for me and a fancy drink for Kenna. She made little noises over the umbrella in the frothy liquid and the colors of the alcohol in the glass. Her first sip had her closing her eyes and rocking back and forth in her chair.

"Need a moment alone with your drink?" I drawled.

Kenna's eyes shot open. "I haven't had a decent drink in years. Let me enjoy it."

For how much personal information she'd dumped on me when she had her breakdown, she was still a stranger. "They don't sell alcohol in California?"

Kenna twisted in her chair to stare at the sunset. The dying rays of the sun highlighted the natural red tones Char had put back in Kenna's hair. She kicked her feet out to stretch out her legs and looked like she was finally relaxing. The Dirty Hooker could do that to you with the straw palapas lending shade from the sun, the sand between your toes, and the reggae music softly playing in the background. It was impossible to be stressed here.

"My soon-to-be ex-husband wasn't a fan of me drinking."

This guy sounded like an absolute tool. "Are you a messy drunk?" I needed to know these things, considering I was the one responsible for driving her home tonight.

Kenna turned to me, her soft smile making her look younger than when she'd first arrived on the key. "No. He just had very specific rules about things."

I opened my mouth to explore what kind of rules he had, but quite frankly, I didn't give a fuck about that man. It sounded like Kenna would be better off without him, so why drag the past into our conversation? The waiter arrived with our food, the steaming plates making my mouth water. I'd forgotten lunch today.

We both tucked into our food, but I finally put my fork down to watch Kenna. I'd never seen a woman attack a plate of shrimp tacos quite like her. She let out little moans here and there, licking her fingers and scraping the tines of her fork against the plate to get the last little bit of refried beans. She looked up at some point, realizing I was watching her. She froze.

"Making up for lost time?" I asked, wondering if her ex had some sort of rule about eating too.

Kenna swallowed her bite of food and sat up straight, as if she was trying confidence on for size for the first time. "Actually, yes. I didn't eat much married to Justin. He liked me thin."

Something about the way her voice trembled made my gut churn with anger. I'd never met the guy but I'd be willing to punch him in the face if he showed up in Sunshine Key.

"Fuck that," I snapped. "I prefer women exactly as nature intended. Men who feel the need to change a woman make me wonder about their fragile manhood."

Kenna's face went from shocked to a blinding smile. "Can't say I disagree with that."

I tilted my head to the side. "Are we actually agreeing on something, Kenna?"

She guffawed and tucked back into the side of rice on her plate. I ordered us another round of drinks just to see Kenna sway side to side in food bliss. When the sun had completely set and our plates were officially scraped clean, we headed back home, chatting about nothing in particular like we were actually friends.

Harley: Let's take Kenna out on the boat. I want to meet this woman who's monopolizing my best friend's time.

Me: You sound like a jealous girlfriend.

Harley: And you sound like you're trying to change the subject.

Me: Good night, Harlan.

Harley: Watch your tone. Don't make me use your real name, young man.