Читать книгу Stella, Get Your Man - Nancy Bartholomew - Страница 11

Jake led us right past the boardwalk, down the steps and onto the beach. It was clear he wasn’t planning to discuss anything with me until he’d planted himself along the surf’s edge and had that stupid silver bauble immersed in saltwater. He wasn’t the only idiot on the beach, either. I counted at least four others, spaced maybe ten feet apart, all watching the surf for signs of action. What kind of shared craziness brought them out on a frigid night to stand waiting patiently for the hit of a lifetime?

Probably the same strain of insanity made women believe in Prince Charming.

I waited on Jake, stewing with the timeless frustration that had gone on for generations before me and would continue long after Jake and I were distant, past memories. Men fish. They fish for no reason, for endless amounts of time, and often return with whopping lies about their missed opportunities. Women know this; I just don’t see why they persist in putting up with it. It had to tie in with that Prince Charming thing somewhere.

Jake brought his arm up over his head, rod in hand, and cast his line far out into the surf. With slow precision, he reeled the line back in and repeated the process, over and over again. Five minutes passed without a word while I slowly became an ice cube. When I couldn’t feel my toes any longer, I lost my patience.

“Listen, if you don’t have anything important to say, Lloyd and I are leaving.” I turned away and started walking. Lloyd, the disloyal, raced off in the opposite direction, trotting up to investigate the other fishermen, leaving me to make my last stand alone.

“Stella, damn it! Wait!”

Jake shoved the butt of his rod down into the sand and caught my arm.

“Come on, honey, I was just trying the thing out!”

“Honey? Jake Carpenter, I am not ‘honey’ to you! I am your business partner and that is all. Got it?”

He nodded, but I thought I saw the sides of his mouth twitching with a suppressed grin.

“What was so important we had to walk all the way out here to talk about it?” I demanded.

“I got a call from one of my contacts at the P.D. before we left,” he said. “The guys that chased us out of Joey Smack’s didn’t make it.”

I thought back to the vision I’d had in my rearview mirror of the car exploding into a fireball as it hit a tree, and shuddered.

“That’s not all,” Jake added. “I read over the report Mia’s private investigator sent her and…” His voice drifted off, his attention caught by something behind me.

“And?”

Jake wasn’t listening. His rod suddenly jumped, flying out of its sand pocket and skittering across the beach. Jake ran after it, dived and came up with it in his hands, pulling hard as something on the other end fought him.