The Rocky Road to Romance (12 page)

He was soaking wet when he came around.
He blinked his eyes and sputtered. “I'm sorry, Mom,” he said. “I promise not to swim out so far next time.”

“I'm not your mom,” Daisy said. “I'm Daisy.”

“Oh yeah. Why am I all wet?”

“You fainted, and I poured water on you. That's what they do in the movies.”

“Are we really going to have a baby?”

“Yup. That's why I've been sick and tired and weepy. My hormones haven't got their act together yet.”

“But you were crying over it. You were
sobbing.
”

“Because I was so happy. Pregnant women cry a lot.” She sat beside him and pulled a grocery sack onto her lap. “Look, I stopped at the store and got some sparkling cider so we can celebrate. And wait'll you see what else I bought!” She removed a little jar and held it in the palm of her hand. “Baby applesauce,” she said, bursting into tears again. “Isn't it the cutest little jar you've ever seen?”

He pulled her onto his lap and wiped the tears away with his thumb. A baby! He'd been
excited about having puppies, and now he was going to have a baby, too! “You're going to marry me, aren't you?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Not just because of the baby?”

“Because I love you.” She opened the applesauce and tasted it on the tip of her finger. Then she fed some to Steve for practice. “And I think I'm going to take a job at the nursing home. I might not stay there for the rest of my life, but I'm going to try it for a while. I'd lost perspective on life as part of a continuum. There's nothing wrong with aging. It's natural and inevitable…like the birth of a baby.”

Steve popped the cork on the cider and they drank straight from the bottle. “To us,” Steve said.

“To the baby.”

“To family life.”

“To strained peas.” She reached into her purse for a tissue because she felt emotional again. “One other thing,” she said. “If it's all right with you, I'd really like to get rid of the black car. I'm tired of removing men's underwear from the antenna.”

Steve took a deep breath. “While we're on the subject of cars I have a confession to make. I was the one who stole your old klunker. I've been hiding it in my garage. That's why I've had to keep the garage locked and the windows blacked out. I did it because I didn't want you to get stuck on the road anymore.”

“Sneaky but noble,” she said. “While we're confessing, I may as well tell you Elsie and I got curious and broke into your garage one day last month while you were at work. We took the car and sold it. I needed the money to pay school fees.”

He stared at her in shock for thirty seconds before his mouth curved into an appreciative smile. “Daisy Adams, you're sneakier than I am!”

She grinned back at him. “Don't you ever forget it.”

If you loved
The Rocky Road to Romance
check out this sneak preview of
Love Overboard
by Janet Evanovich
Coming soon from HarperTorch

Ivan Rasmussen swirled the last of his coffee around the bottom of his mug, looked past the prow of his ship to the sloping green lawn of Camden Harbor Park, and wondered for the hundredth time in the past two hours what the devil had happened to his cook, Lucy. She was
never
late. Until now. Now she was beyond late, and because she was his friend as well as his cook, he was worried.

He squinted at a flash of color and movement toward the top of the hill, and unconsciously let his mouth fall open at the sight of a young woman rolling down the grass embankment. She came to a spread-eagled stop when she reached the cement footpath at the bottom and she uttered an expletive that carried across
the short span of shoreline, bringing the first smile of the day to Ivan's lips.

Stephanie Lowe, the woman Ivan had been watching, struggled to her feet, adjusted her battered backpack, and scowled at the grass stains on her knees. She was looking ahead to a whole week of cooking for Ivan the Terrible in exchange for free plumbing repairs to her bathroom. And if that wasn't awful enough, she was the one who had to bring Ivan the good news that his usual cook was taking an impromptu vacation.

“Lord, I'm such a
dope!
” Stephanie muttered, smacking herself on the forehead, broadcasting her thoughts to all watching. Nothing like making a memorable entrance. If one more thing went wrong, she was going home.
The heck with it all,
she thought. She wasn't crazy about this deal anyway. She'd seen Ivan only once, but he'd made a lasting impression on her. He was over six feet with gray-green eyes and strawberry-blond hair. And at the time of their meeting he'd been all packaged up in a custom-tailored, navy pin-striped suit that had made him look more like
a chairman of the board than the captain of a schooner.

Stephanie searched the crowded harbor for the
Josiah T. Savage,
gasping when she realized it was directly in front of her, tied to a floating dock at the end of the cement path. It would be the last of the windjammers to leave the harbor, she thought with an inward groan—late to leave Camden because it was waiting for its cook. Unfortunately, its cook had suddenly decided to get married. Double unfortunately, its cook was her cousin Lucy.

Lucy had provided her with a few vital statistics on the
Savage.
It was a windship. A tall ship. A hundred-year-old, two-masted, coasting schooner with seventy feet of deck length, carrying twenty-two passengers and four crew members on six-day cruises along the island-strewn coast of Maine. Lucy's description of her captain had been equally brief. Ivan Rasmussen, she'd said, was better known as Ivan the Terrible because he was terribly handsome, terribly eligible, and terribly slippery. Stephanie had her own reasons for believing he was terribly rotten.

She took a quick survey of the ship and spotted Ivan standing on deck, coffee mug in hand, looking at her as if she'd just dropped off the planet Mars.

Get it together, Stephanie,
she told herself. Life was filled with trade-offs. If you packed away a whole bag of cookies, then you had to wash them down with diet root beer. This was just another of life's cans of diet root beer. Cousin Lucy worked as a cook on Ivan's windjammer. That morning cousin Lucy had decided to run off and marry Stanley Shelton. Stanley Shelton was a plumber. Stephanie desperately needed a plumber. Simple, right? Cousin Lucy got a honeymoon, and Stephanie got a toilet. Okay, no problem. Piece of cake. There was no reason to be nervous. Ivan should be happy to have her aboard, she reasoned. Where else would he get a cook on such short notice? She was actually doing him a favor.

Besides, after what he'd done to her, he deserved to eat her cooking for a week. Anyway, how hard could it be? She'd just whip up forty or fifty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and send all the passengers off to an island in the
dinghy. It might even be fun—a week on the high seas with the wind at her back and the salt spray in her face. It was going to be an adventure. A new experience.

She approached the boarding ramp and looked up into Ivan's eyes, deciding they seemed only mildly predatory, more curious than anything else, narrowed against the glare, shaded by thick curly blond lashes. His hair was longer and lighter than Stephanie had remembered it, curling over his ears and along the nape of his neck. He'd grown a beard since she'd seen him—very close-cropped, oddly dark compared to his hair, and overwhelmingly masculine. He wore faded, frayed cutoff jeans that Stephanie admitted were perfectly proper but seemed sinfully erotic, molded to Ivan's male contours.

She bridged the short span between wharf and ship, automatically taking inventory of her surroundings, and plastered a hopeful smile on her lips. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he responded, contained amusement clear in his voice.

There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes,
but Stephanie knew he hadn't placed her. She wasn't surprised. He probably swindled women all the time. He probably couldn't keep track of all the people he'd stuck it to. “Stephanie Lowe,” she said. “We met two months ago when I bought your house.” The very same house that had been falling apart piece by piece ever since she'd moved in, she silently added.

Ivan's brows drew together. Stephanie Lowe, his cook's cousin, the woman who'd bought Haben. How could he have forgotten Stephanie Lowe? Early Alzheimer's disease, he decided. He was suffering from premature senile dementia. He'd seen Stephanie Lowe only briefly at the Realtor's office, but he should have remembered. She'd worn a Billie and the Boingers T-shirt, and she'd been disappointed to find he didn't own a parrot.

She was just as outrageous now as before, he thought. Her hair was short and shiny brown with wispy bangs. It would have been pretty if it hadn't been sticking out in all directions. He supposed she was one of those punk people. He did a mental calculation and put her at five-foot-seven,
noticing she was slim and long-legged, wearing chunky silver, green, and white high-tops, bright pink socks scrunched down around her ankles, a pair of rumpled khaki walking shorts, and an orange tank top that was bright enough to get them through the best fogbank Maine could muster. She was probably there to complain about the house. Just what he needed to round out his morning. “Lucy tells me you've been having some problems with the house…”

“Problems?” Stephanie felt her control slipping. It wasn't her strong suit to begin with. “Two weeks after I moved in, the front porch rotted out from under me. Then the water heater blew up and flooded the cellar. None of the windows will open, and it's hotter than heck in—” She stopped when she saw the smile spread across his face. “Something funny about a water heater exploding?”

Ivan didn't think there was anything funny about a water heater exploding, and he couldn't understand how so many things could go wrong with his house. He'd left it in perfect condition. He loved Haben. It had belonged
to his family for generations, and he would never have sold it if it hadn't been absolutely necessary. He was smiling despite everything because Stephanie Lowe was a sight that inspired smiles.

“I think you're cute when you get all steamed up,” he admitted, and playfully patted her cowlick. “Why is your hair sticking up? Is this a new style?”

Stephanie felt the top of her head. “When the upstairs toilet broke, it leaked onto the floor and collapsed the ceiling in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. When the ceiling fell down in the bathroom, it took the mirrored door off the medicine chest and smashed it on the sink. Since that was the only mirror in the house, I had to comb my hair in front of the toaster.”

Ivan stared at her. Maybe she was wacko and was making all this up. No, chances were good that she was wacko, but she wasn't making it up. Lucy had told him about the porch and the water heater, and Stephanie's hair
did
look as though it had been combed in front of a toaster.

“I'm really sorry,” he said. “I honestly thought the house was in good shape when I sold it.”

Stephanie bit back a rude word. It wouldn't pay to get vulgar. If she wanted her toilet fixed, she was going to have to spend a week with this rip-off Romeo.

“Actually, the condition of the house sort of explains why I'm here. You see, I hadn't planned on all these disasters. I'd intended to turn the house into a bed-and-breakfast inn, and the plain truth is that until I get some paying customers, I'm going to have a cash flow problem. So when Lucy showed up this morning and told me she was getting married…”

Ivan looked pained. “Lucy, my cook, is getting married? Does this have something to do with her being late?”

“Bingo.”

Pieces of the puzzle fell together in his mind. “And does this have something to do with your being here wearing a backpack?”

“Right again. You see, Lucy's marrying a plumber…”

Ivan groaned. “I've got it figured out. Can you cook?”

“Of course I can cook.”

“For twenty-six people?”

“No sweat. Just point me to the microwave.”

The grin returned to Ivan's mouth, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. At least Lucy had sent him someone with a sense of humor.

Stephanie's pack slipped, and Ivan reached to get it, his hand momentarily trapped between the padded strap and the smooth, warm skin of her bare shoulder. He took a moment to enjoy the feeling and wondered what it would be like to kiss her. She had a very kissable mouth, he decided. Soft and feminine, perfectly shaped. Her eyes were blue and wary, shaded by a fringe of black lash and topped with eyebrows that looked like bird wings. The flush on her cheeks told him she was also feeling some attraction, and the set to her chin told him she had no intention of succumbing to it.

Just as well, he thought, hefting the pack onto his own shoulder. She was sort of an employee, and he made it a rule never to mix business
and pleasure. Of course, he was the direct descendant of a famous pirate, and as such he was supposed to break a few rules now and then. He motioned toward the forward hatch. “I'll show you to your quarters. Watch your head and always go down the ladder backward.”

Stephanie followed him belowdecks and found herself in a fairly large room that held the shape of the prow of the ship. Polished oak banquettes lined the walls and were spanned by a massive triangular table. Brass lanterns swung from the ceiling just as they must have a hundred years ago. A copper jug filled with wildflowers sat in the middle of the table, and red-and-
white-checkered curtains fluttered from open windows.

“Breakfast and supper are usually eaten here,” Ivan said. “Weather permitting, we eat lunch topside.” He pointed to the back corner of the room. “This is the galley.”

Stephanie nodded, taking in the small sink, oak counter, black iron woodstove across from the sink, the spice racks lining the wall, pots, pans, utensils, and sprays of dried herbs hanging
overhead. “Very cozy,” she said. “Where's the kitchen?”

“The galley
is
the kitchen.”

Stephanie felt her heart stop. He had to be kidding. “Yes, but where's the stove? Where's the refrigerator? Where's the food processor?”

Ivan's mouth tightened a fraction of an inch. “
This
is the stove,” he said, pulling Stephanie into the tiny galley. “This is all we've got. Have you ever cooked on a woodstove?”

Who did she look like, Annie Oakley? Of course she'd never cooked on a woodstove. Until two months ago she'd lived in Jersey City. People didn't cook on woodstoves in Jersey City. At least, not the people she knew. Most of the people she knew didn't cook at all. She guessed that wasn't the answer he wanted to hear, so she decided to lie. “Don't worry,” she said, “woodstove is my middle name.”

Dollars to doughnuts she can't boil water,
Ivan thought. At least she had the guts to lie. He was thankful for that. It was a start.

“I have to go up to cast off. We're already late getting out of the harbor.” He gestured to a short red curtain over one of the banquettes.
“That's your bunk. You can get settled in, and I'll be back as soon as I can get free. Keep the coffee going, and you'll probably want to take inventory of the food Lucy's stored in for the week.”

What she really wanted to do was put her hands around Lucy's neck and squeeze. “Don't worry about me. I'll be fine down here…taking inventory.”

She took the backpack from Ivan and went over to check out the red curtain. Behind the curtain was a narrow bunk built into the wooden wall of the ship. It was nicely made up in crisp white sheets and a red plaid woolen blanket. Lucy's belongings were neatly packed away in a small storage area over the bunk. Fortunately, she and Lucy were the same size, and it would be possible to supplement her meager wardrobe with Lucy's meager wardrobe.

Stephanie went back to the stove and peered into the two blue enamel coffeepots. They were full to the brim and steaming hot, and the combined aroma of woodstove and fresh coffee almost knocked her to her knees.

She didn't know what she'd expected, but it wasn't this. She'd expected the Love Boat, maybe. Something slick and touristy. This was slick in a good way, she decided. There was a feeling of solid reality to it. It was immaculately clean, carefully restored, and everywhere she looked there was quality. It was impossible not to get caught up in the magic of the ship. Not only did she feel transported back in time, but she was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of warmth and well-being that filled every space of the forward cabin.

She took a wad of folded papers from her pocket and smoothed them out on the counter. While she'd been packing and Stanley had been checking out the toilet, Lucy had frantically prepared a detailed six-day schedule.