“What if the guy gets fresh, and you’re out there by yourself? Dangerous, dangerous indeed.”
“He won’t. Besides, all I’d have to do is show him my egret legs, and all thoughts of seduction would go flying out of his mind.” She lifted a leg sheathed in dress pants.
“I think you’re a little hard on yourself and those legs of yours.”
Cassie knew Pam was also picturing the white bird with spindly legs and an S-shaped neck.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to approach just anyone. I’ll ask one of the officials to hook me up with someone reputable. Hook—get it?” Cassie giggled. “I am going to be so good at this. If you’re worried, come with me.”
“No can do. I promised Andy I’d help him do yard work this weekend. But I’ll go to the docks with you.”
“That’d be nice,” Cassie said as she closed up Roger’s office. Besides Marion, a neighbor in her apartment building, Pam was her closest friend. Cassie didn’t mind that they both tended to mother her a bit. She stopped in front of the chart. “Roger, you little weenie, you don’t know it yet, but I’ve just declared war.”
DAN MCDERMOTT double-checked his fishing poles, making sure each one was snug in its holder. Then he checked the cooler—enough beer to last him the weekend. Checked the rods again. Something was missing. He poked his head down into the cabin where his little dog, Thor, was studiously chewing his pig’s ear—a gruesome gift from Granny.
So it wasn’t Thor or the beer, or his poles, sunblock, shades or anything else he could think of.
Maybe he needed a bigger boat. Women were always saying size didn’t matter, but a guy could never have one that was too big. A boat, that was.
“Hey, Dan, gonna be weird you not competing this year,” Jessie said, stopping on the way to his boat.
The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, but the city dock was crowded with men who definitely had a say about bigger being better. Fish, that was.
“Yeah, it’s killing me.” But it wasn’t. And it should be. He should at least be excited about spending a whole weekend fishing. But he wasn’t. He should be pleased as punch with his life as a successful, freewheeling bachelor. The damned of it was, he wasn’t.
Jessie laughed, his brown hair blowing over his face in the breeze. “Well, gotta let some of the other guys have a chance.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. Good luck, Jess.”
Dan had a feeling the Rodeo committee would have made him retire even if he hadn’t voluntarily backed out of the official competition; he’d won the last four years in a row.
Champion. Yeah, that’s what he was. The Snook Rodeo champion. The fishing god.
“Dan, you look like an ant,” his father Hal said as he paused by the boat. Not many people remembered that Hal was Dan’s dad. Not even Hal and Dan. Hal had only been seventeen when his girlfriend took off for Las Vegas—and left their baby with him. Even when Dan was just a kid, they were more like friends than father and son. So much so that Hal preferred to be called by his name than “Dad.” “I just don’t feel like a dad,” he’d said when Dan was six. Dan had agreed. Even Hal’s mom, Granny, hadn’t been the typical grandma.
As usual, Hal looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. “You’ve checked that cooler five times. Are you brewing your own beer in there, or what? I haven’t seen you this edgy in a long time, and you ain’t even competing.”
“I’ll still catch more fish than you, even if they don’t count.” Better to divert the conversation than admit he was restless.
Hal wagged his finger and laughed that deep laugh of his. “Put your fish where your mouth is, buddy. See you on the water.”
He gave Hal a halfhearted wave, and then caught himself checking the poles again. He didn’t like this restlessness. It had started a few weeks ago, when he’d seen Cassie’s picture in the paper. His ex-wife, the woman he’d woken up next to for seven whole months, and there was her picture, as though she were a virtual stranger.
He didn’t know she’d gotten into marketing, but she’d won some kind of award for one of her campaigns. He’d started thinking about her, wondering what else she’d been doing in the last five years, like getting married, and whether she still had Sammy.
Whether she thought about him.
Her beautiful face smiled at him from the refrigerator door every morning when he fixed his egg sandwich, and every evening when he checked to see what leftovers were waiting within.
Those seven months had been crazy, full of stormy seas and lightning. Now his life was on an even keel, no waves, nice and calm just the way he liked it. Or the way he should like it. They’d had little more to their name than a marriage license, yet he’d been happy. In love for the first time. For the only time. He hadn’t realized it until he’d seen her picture. The damned of it was, he was still in love with her. And so he’d put his plan into motion….
IT WASN’T A DECENT HOUR for any human being to be up and about, and already the Southwest Florida summer heat and mugginess drenched the air. Cassie and Pam stepped out of the one status symbol in Cassie’s life, if you didn’t count its ancient age: her buttercup-yellow Mercedes-Benz. A banner over the Naples City Dock’s entrance rippled in the breeze as pink light seeped across the eastern sky like a wine stain.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pam said, taking in the men carting fishing gear and cases of beer.
“It’s the only idea I have. Besides—”
“I know, I know, you’re no quitter. I’ll bet that’s your bedtime mantra.”
“So what if it is?” Cassie lifted her chin. “It’s better than living your life on the wind.”
“Have you heard from Andromeda lately, speaking of?”
Cassie laughed. “Last I heard, she was living on a boat with some young scuba diving instructor down in the Dry Tortugas.” Her mother had legally changed her name from Bernadette to Andromeda, after the wife of Perseus. Oddly enough, she’d named her daughter after Cassiopeia, Andromeda’s mother.
Cassie tucked her curls over her ears and leaned in the car. “Come on, Sammy. Hope you’re up for a day on the boat.” She scooped her Yorkshire Terrier into her large bag. His little bell jingled pleasantly as he settled in. “I wonder if he remembers when Dan and I used to take him out on the boat.” She nudged away the annoying softness in her voice. “You liked that, didn’t you, boy?” She touched her nose to Sammy’s little wet one, then tapped him down into the bag. “Stay hidden. Don’t want to turn off any potential boaters.”
“And speaking of that, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing shorts.”
“I decided to take my chances.” She glanced down at her skinny legs. “Men, be afraid. Be very afraid,” she intoned, making Pam giggle. “All right, let’s go fishing for a fisherman.”
Once they walked through the entrance, they found the tournament sign-in area. So had fifty other men who were
