Off the Hook (31 page)

Oh yeah, Jessie knew exactly who the super-cute, super-popular host of the most watched fishing show was. She also knew there wasn’t a fishing lodge on the West Coast that didn’t drool at the thought of having him film an episode on one of their boats, so having him come to the Buoys would send next year’s bookings through the roof, but surely to God Kate must be mistaken.

Sam couldn’t be coming to the Buoys. When Jessie wrote up the list of shows that might consider filming at the Buoys, she specifically left Sam and
Hooked
off, so why would Kate even think to contact him, anyway?

Hooked
only filmed at the big fancy lodges, and the Buoys was neither big nor fancy. Sure, it had its charm, and you couldn’t beat its location, tucked into Strip Cove the way it was, but unlike all the other West Coast lodges the Buoys didn’t boast a fully equipped spa, and that’s how Sam always ended his show—stretched out on the massage table, enjoying the work of the resident masseuse.

“What?” Kate asked, her voice wary. “What’s that look mean? I know he wasn’t on the list of possibles, but you said throw a wide net, so I did, and his people were the only ones who responded.”

“But here? He can’t be coming
here
.” Licking her lips, Jessie inhaled deeply and tried to keep her voice calm. “They’re doing his show down in the Gulf this season.”

“No.” Kate’s grin widened until it was like she was nothing but teeth. “They
were
doing the show down in the Gulf, but there’s some kind of labor dispute going on, picket lines went up all along the coast where they were filming—sounds like a giant mess—so they’re back in B.C. looking for new places to shoot.”

“Who’s shooting what?” Finn O’Donnell’s smooth voice preceded him into the small office by a fraction of a second.

“Sam Ross,” Kate gushed. “We got him! He’ll be here the last weekend in August, and his people said if it all goes well it could be an annual thing for us.”

“No shit? That’s great!” Finn shot Jessie a quick look she hoped Kate wouldn’t see. She did.

“I thought so, too,” Kate said. “But going by the expressions on both your faces, I’m beginning to wonder now.”

Pointing a thumb toward Kate, Finn frowned at Jessie. “She doesn’t know?”

“Know what?” Kate asked.

“It’s nothing.” Jessie sighed quietly as she shrugged. “He and I…”

Kate’s smile faded and her eyes went round as she whipped her head around to look at Jessie. “
You?
And
Sam Ross
? Nooo!”

“It’s not—” Jessie started, but Finn talked right over top of her.

“Sam and Jess sort of have a thing.”

“They do?” It was as though Kate was watching a tennis match, the way her gaze zipped from Jessie to Finn and back. “You
do
? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because there’s not much to tell.” Jessie shoved out of her chair, lifted the half a dozen folders off her desk, then didn’t even try to file them correctly, just stuffed them all in the front of the drawer and shoved it closed. “We only went out—”

“You went out with him?”
Kate roared, then immediately lowered her voice so none of the guests could hear her. “When? How? You haven’t left the Buoys since I got here, and that was like three months ago!”

Jessie leaned back against the file cabinet, tucked her hands up inside her sleeves and shrugged. “I was actually out for dinner with him when Finn called to tell me about Jimmy.”

Finn’s blue-green eyes clouded a little as the unspoken memory of that call settled between him and Jessie. The O’Donnell boys hadn’t exactly had an easy time growing up, but no matter what, Jimmy was still their Da. And as much as it hurt Jessie to hear that Jimmy had died, what hurt more was hearing the raw ache in Finn’s voice and knowing there was nothing she could do to ease that.

“And you haven’t seen him since?” Kate’s question cut through the moment, bringing Jessie back to the present.

“Hmm? No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” In all the years she’d worked for the O’Donnells, Jessie had never once wished the place was bigger until that moment right there. The office was crowded enough when it was just her in there, but with the two of them crowding the doorway, it was almost suffocating. “He’s busy with his show, and in case you’ve forgotten, Kate, we’ve been a little busy working to get this place back up and running, so it’s not like either one of us has a lot of free time.”

Besides that, she couldn’t afford to call in a Helijet to take her to the mainland, which meant she would have had to go by boat or floatplane, and not even Sam Ross was cute enough to make her do that.

The radios on Jessie’s desk and Finn’s hip crackled to life, filling the room with Liam’s voice.

“
Stock
Options
to Finn. Be at the dock in five.”

Finn pulled the radio from its clip and had already started walking away before he responded. “On my way.”

“Want some help?” Kate called after him, wincing slightly until Finn waved her off. Then she immediately turned her focus back to Jessie. “Good, I didn’t want to go anyway. So spill it—tell me about you and Sam and why you don’t look nearly as happy about him coming here as I think you should.”

Jessie slumped down in the chair, then pulled the elastic from her wrist and tugged her hair up into a loose bun.

“What?” Kate pushed. “You don’t like him?”

Jessie half-snorted, half-laughed. “Uh, no, trust me, that’s not the problem.”

She liked him plenty. Sure, she might not have liked the way he chewed with his mouth open, but he’d said he had some sort of sinus thing going on. And she really wasn’t a fan of how often he checked his phone, but so far as she could tell, that’s what most people did these days.

Besides herself, Finn was the only other person Jessie knew who didn’t own a cellphone, or “leash,” as Finn liked to call them. In the few years between Jimmy O’Donnell shutting the Buoys down and his sons reopening it, Jessie had tried to live a normal life in the city, which included getting herself a cellphone. But more often than not she’d forget it at home anyway, and since there was no cell coverage of any kind at the Buoys, she’d been just as happy to ditch the thing when she moved back to the lodge last spring.

“Then what?” Kate prodded. As she spoke, she tugged the latch on the pocket door and slid it into place, shutting the two of them inside the room out of earshot of anyone else.

Crap
. Jessie let her head fall back against the chair for a second before blowing out a breath and sitting up again.

“Okay, here’s the thing, and I admit it’s really stupid, so don’t judge me.”

“Ha!” Kate scoffed. “You’re talking to the woman who married a guy less than a week after meeting him, so let’s try to keep ‘stupid’ in perspective here, shall we?”

Jessie couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Fair enough, but you and Liam are together again, so maybe that wasn’t so stupid after all.”

“Whatever,” Kate said, rolling her hand in circles to hurry Jessie along.

“Okay. Finn and Liam were in town in January, so we all went to the boat show because…I don’t know…it’s what we always did when Jimmy was running this place, so we kept on doing it even after he shut it down. Anyway, Sam and his crew had a booth set up at the show and that’s where I met him.”

“And?”

Jessie pressed her hands over her face then flung them away.

“And it’s shallow, I know, but he’s so cute, and he was the first guy I liked who showed any interest in me since…well…” Jessie sighed. “It had been a while, let me tell ya. I mean, crap, Kate, I worked for Jimmy from the time I was seventeen until he shut the Buoys down, so it wasn’t like I had a lot of chances to get into a relationship, you know? And then after, when I left here and moved to the city for those three years, I always felt weird and awkward around the guys I met.”

“But not Sam?”

“Well…yeah, even with Sam.” Jessie laughed as heat rushed over her cheeks. Truth be told, there was only one guy she’d never felt the least bit weird with, and he’d just walked out of the room. “You have to understand, when I worked here before, I was the only woman. Sure, we had the occasional female guest, but every other worker here was male and they all considered me one of the guys, so it was really weird when someone came along who didn’t think of me that way. It’s
still
weird. And I know it’s weird for the guys I meet, too, because…well, look at me. I don’t even know how to act like a girl anymore.”

Kate’s frown darkened her whole face. “What are you talking about, ‘act’?”

“Oh, come on. I’ve never worn a pair of heels in my life and the last dress I owned was the one I wore to my first communion. I live in denim and wool; when I moved to the city, instead of a ‘normal’ job, I went to work down at the docks. I don’t have a group of girlfriends who get together all the time and the only make-up I own is this.” Jessie lifted her well-used tube of cherry ChapStick off the desk and waved it back and forth.

“Who cares?” Kate clicked her tongue. “You’re the most amazing chick I’ve ever met; you do things most men wouldn’t do, so I don’t care how cute this Sam Ross dude is, you deserve a good guy, Jessie, and if he doesn’t appreciate the real you, then he’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, well,” Jessie snorted quietly. “In his defense, he doesn’t actually know the real me.”

“What do you mean?”

Jessie groaned long and low before answering. “It’s so stupid, but I had no idea what I was doing. I mean here was this great guy who wanted to go out with me and I…well…I panicked, okay? All I could think about was this stupid interview I’d seen him give to one of those entertainment channels where they asked him what he looks for in a woman.”

“Oh God.” If Kate’s eyes had rolled any higher, they might not have ever come back. “What did he say?”

Jessie couldn’t have felt more idiotic if she’d tried. “He said he looks for someone who’s strong and confident.”

“You’re strong and confident.” Kate laughed quietly. “Most of the time.”

Jessie huffed out a sigh as she gave Kate a skeptical look. “Someone who likes the outdoors—”

“You love the outdoors.”

“—and someone who loves fishing as much as he does.”

“Oh. Wellll…” Kate drawled. “You like the
idea
of fishing. You like working in the fishing industry and you can fillet salmon almost as fast and clean as Finn can.”

“Somehow I doubt that’s what he meant.” Jessie fisted her hands and ran them hard down the length of her thighs. “This is a guy who surfs and kiteboards and goes white-water rafting for fun.”

“So what?” Kate’s confused frown didn’t last long. “Oh my God, did you tell him you do all those things, too?”

“Not exactly.” With a small tight grimace, Jessie rubbed the back of her neck slowly. “I was simply telling him stories about what it had been like to work here before Jimmy shut it down, and when I talked about where we took the guests on the boats, he sort of took that to mean that
I
was part of
we
.”

“You told him you were one of the guides.”

“No!” Jessie’s voice cracked as she hurried to defend herself, knowing it was a pathetic attempt at best. “I didn’t. I just didn’t correct him when he jumped to that conclusion is all, so he has no idea that I…that…”

“That you don’t do water.”

Jessie lifted her hands and sighed.

Kate seemed to consider the information for a few seconds. “Well, that’s okay, right? If it was just the one date, he can’t really hold it against you, so when he gets here, just work the truth into the conversation somehow.”

Jessie chewed her bottom lip for a second, then winced as she confessed more. “It was actually three dates. Plus he emails me once in a while, and he’s called twice.”

“He— Ugh, Jess.”

“I know, right? But when I first realized that’s what he thought, I was too embarrassed to tell him the truth. I mean, God almighty, I’ve lived at this fishing lodge out here in the middle of nowhere for most of my adult life but I don’t go in or on the water. That’s not normal, Kate, I don’t care who you are.

“And honestly, the first time he asked me out, I thought he only did it because Liam pretty much shoved me at him, so it didn’t occur to me that I’d need to tell him the truth because I didn’t expect it to go any further than that first date.”

“But then…”

“Yeah.” Jessie nodded. “But then there was a second date, and then a third, and…I don’t know. It’s not like we have this deep serious relationship going on, but he’s obviously going to figure things out when he gets here and I’m going to end up looking like the big fat liar I am. And what if it ruins things for the Buoys?”

“How could it ruin anything? So he finds out the truth—what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she scoffed. “He could pick up his show and take it somewhere else.”

“Not gonna happen,” Kate said, shaking her head. “The producer I spoke to said the Buoys was already on their list of lodges they were interested in because of the whole ‘family owned and operated for so many years’ angle.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm. And having Liam here full-time now was just icing on the cake.”

“Yeah.” Jessie nodded slowly. “Thank God for Liam.”

Liam might hate that they used his quasi-celebrity status as a marketing tool, but how many other fishing lodges could boast that one of their owners was a former major league pitcher? And with competition being what it was in this industry, the Buoys had to use whatever it could to lure guests in.

“Look,” Kate said. “This isn’t such a big deal.
Hooked
is coming next month regardless, and sure we need to do what we can to keep them coming back every year, but that has nothing to do with whatever is or isn’t going on between you and Sam. If your fear of the water is a deal breaker for him—which would be stupid if you ask me—then you can either kiss him goodbye or…”

“Or what?”

Kate hesitated, tipping her head from side to side. “Or maybe you should think about finally working through your fear so that you can eventually get in the water.”