Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel (2 page)

"Renoir’s never been a favorite of mine. But this one is obviously from his early years where he was at his best, in my opinion. I'm not very fond of his later work after he returned to the classical style."
Ha. You didn't see that coming, did you? Unexpected? I'll give you unexpected.
I willed myself to keep my eyes on the painting. Perhaps it was irrational of me, but I wanted to drop that little tidbit as casually as possible for effect. I wanted to make sure that he knew I was more than a hash slinger. It worked.

Dylan positioned himself at my side and quizzically cocked his head. "Very perceptive of you. You're right, of course. Why don't you like his later works?"

"They lost their softness. I couldn't get into those bathers from his Venus de Milo period. I’m not a Renaissance lover, either."

"I think Renoir's early nudes are some of the most beautiful ever painted. Of course, the female form is such a worthy subject. A
real
woman's body is a work of art." Although his eyes traveled over my body, there wasn't much for him to see. What curves I had were hidden under a stiff jacket and baggy trousers. I had to believe there wasn’t much of me that struck him as a work of art.

His
proportions were much more accessible than mine. The half open shirt revealed a patch of dark hair and masculine angles of well-defined muscles. "The
human
form has always inspired great art," I answered. I resisted the urge to lick my lips.

"I've often wondered why the most famous nudes of men are sculptures but women are painted more than men." He turned his attention back to the nude and studied her.

"That's easy. The female body is soft and curvy and made for paint strokes. A man's body is hard. Stone and metal are better for the male physique." The thought of him modeling nude for some art class popped into my head. I immediately pictured a dozen females trying to paint while sliding off their stools.

"Where'd you learn all this?"

"My mother was an art history professor at FAU, and my dad taught English literature. By the time I graduated from high school, I was overly prepared and went on to ace my liberal arts education. No family vacation was complete without at least one trip to a museum."

"And yet you chose . . . just cooking?"

"There's an art to good food," I said more than a tad defensively. My parents considered cooking a 'trade' as opposed to an art or a profession. It still stung that my life choices had let them down. “Just a cook” was a phrase I’d heard before from the people who mattered the most.

"I agree. There's an art to
all
sensual pleasures." He said it to the painting, but it went right to my core. His eyes caressed the painting and then turned toward me. I felt as undressed and voluptuous as the woman in the painting. There was something in his eyes that was way different than simple ‘guy on the move’ eyes. It was as if he recognized me; as if he knew me somewhere, somehow before. The way he talked to me seemed so familiar, like he’d been talking to me forever. It was a little spooky.

"I'm looking forward to sampling your artistry very soon, Chef Waters." The voice was warmer now. Warm enough to soften butter but not quite melt it.

"Rene had quite a job in the restaurant scene," Stephen piped in. "But I'll let her tell you about that later, when we've got today behind us. Right now, I'm afraid the kitchen is top priority if you want to get to the Bahamas on schedule, Boss." He began walking toward the dining area and I had to follow. I would rather have stood at Dylan Cruz's side talking about art, attempting to convince him I was more than 'just a cook'. I didn't try to kid myself; I already wanted to impress the man. It was a matter of pride. I didn’t want some snotty rich guy brushing me off because of what I chose to do for a living. It didn’t hurt that he was about as easy on the eyes as it gets.

I wasn’t imagining the flash of annoyance on Dylan’s face as Stephen ushered me into the kitchen. He wanted to know more about me, too. Why, I hadn’t a clue.

"I'll give you the grand tour of the boat later," Stephen offered as we entered through the swinging doors "but, for now . . . Welcome to the galley." He made a little theatrical bow and sweep of his hand across the room.

The room was an amazing thing of beauty, if kitchens turn you on. They turn me on; I’ve devoted years to the alchemy of cooking.

"Shame about the stove." No matter how state-of-the-art or expensive, that electric piece of shit was going to be a challenge.

"Huh?"

"Electric."

"Oh, yeah. Gas just isn't practical for a boat. The walk-in is over here." Captain Stephen pointed to the heavy stainless door of the cooler I'd be expected to fill and maintain. "As I told you, there's sixteen of us plus Mr. Cruz. Very rarely do we take on guests. The most we'll ever be on the water is ten days. Even with a Pacific crossing, there's always a stop in Hawaii."

I arched my eyebrows at him in disbelief. "There's enough storage here for weeks. This kitchen is bigger than the one I worked in at Topanga. We did a couple hundred dinners a night!" Peeking into the gigantic pantry, I saw a huge supply of canned goods and several sacks of Purina Monkey Chow. I shot a glance at the Captain.

"You'll get to know Lady Delaney very well. She's extraordinarily well behaved and a real sweetheart. The Boss likes her a lot better than he likes most people."

Stephen draped his sturdy frame over a stainless stool and motioned for me to have a seat. I wasn’t sure I liked his physique. He was built a little like a fireplug. Hannah would have called him ‘undertall’. He was probably at least five ten, maybe eleven but he had lots of hard muscle that seemed like it should be stretched over longer bones. Or maybe I was just comparing him to the perfect male specimen I had just left. The one I needed to get off my mind.

"The Boss is particular.”
He
ran a hand through his close cropped sandy hair. "You noticed, I'm sure, that our last chef departed on less than friendly terms."

I laughed a little thinking about the furious little man cursing the monkey. "Will I be cooking for the monkey frequently?"

He chuckled. "No. The birthday soufflé was a rare request. Lady Delaney eats mostly monkey chow and fresh fruit. It was just the straw that broke Rodrigo's back. I'm glad to see him go. He was an unpleasant little sucker and had no sense of humor."

"Along with thick skin, a sense of humor helped me stay sane in the restaurant."

"That's good. You'll need it. I hope you can work fast because Mr. Cruz wants to shove off for a transatlantic as soon as you're ready. Can you supply the galley in a day?"

It would be my first test. I intended to rise to the challenge. It was only one o'clock and that would give me enough time to get an order to the various purveyors to be delivered in the morning. "I can do it," I told him with a bit more certainty than I felt.

Chapter 2—Dylan

I went back to my stateroom, flopped onto the bed and stared at the moulded ceiling. Sometimes days could pass without recalling the terror of my childhood but today was not one of those days. That chef had the same sweet face my small-boy self had treasured. It was a nice face, a warm face. But those words mean something much different to a person as messed up as I am.

The nurses were always the warmest part of my world. A few of them actually cared about me. More than once I tried to tell one of them that I
wasn't
sick, that I wanted to run and play and go to school. Something always stopped me from telling them the truth. I didn't understand then and I still don't understand what it was that made me play the game.  All I knew was that the only attention Dawn or I ever got was when we were sick.

There was that one in particular. The one who stayed for a long time and then just disappeared one day. I loved that nurse. That's why my mother fired her. No sharing of affection allowed. When Rene stepped up to shake my hand, Nurse Kelly came flooding back into my brain. It didn't happen often. But once in a while there'd be a trigger and then, bam.

It wasn’t my intent to come off cold and arrogant to Rene, but I was pretty sure that’s how I sounded. She just about knocked me flat by reminding me so vividly of that sweet lost crush.

When she came to care for us Kelly probably wasn't any older then than my new chef. The nurse’s eyes reminded me of the cognac my father swirled in his big snifter after dinner. Rene's big-eyed gaze had that same kind tawny liquid glow. Just the opposite of my mother's icy eyes. I’ve always hated looking in the mirror and seeing that cold blue of hers looking back at me. I don’t care what people say. No one knows how my own eyes mock me.

I was a little miffed at Stephen for hiring Rene. But of course, he couldn't have known how my twisted mind would react to her. Stephen knew me as well as anyone, but that wasn’t saying much. I'd told him about Dawn and me in only the most general terms, but I never really brought up Nurse Kelly and my little broken heart.

I never explained why every woman I've ever 'dated' has been precisely the opposite of that . . . girl in the kitchen. That fresh, pretty, brown-hair-in-a-bun, American beauty rose. The kind of girl who worked for what she wanted. The kind of girl who knew more than what she could learn from watching reality shows on TV. The kind of girl who was capable and competent at more than make-up and wardrobe. There was a reason I preferred plastic gold diggers. They were safe and utterly predictable. The only surprises I enjoyed were the ones that hit my baits when I trolled the depths of the sea.

Lady Delaney busied herself with the detritus strewn on my nightstand. She loved to rattle my keys and always enjoyed playing with the few coins I tossed there. At the beginning, I had worried about her swallowing something she shouldn't, but she was smarter than that. As much as she brought to mind a small child, she was wiser and more mature than her impish looks implied.

A monkey really isn't meant to be a pet. I knew this from the beginning. Inheriting her from my friend after his death was a responsibility I took as seriously as any I've ever undertaken. She had been trained by "Helpful Hands" for her role assisting Bill, who had been rendered paraplegic in a surfing accident in his teens. By the time I met Bill in my junior year at State, Lady D. was very much a part of his life. She had already been spayed, her canine teeth had been removed and she was completely acclimated to her life as a human companion.

I couldn't resist her from the start and she became nearly as dear a friend to me as her owner. Capuchins live by hierarchy. Bill was undoubtedly numero uno for Lady D. but I came in a solid second.

Poor Bill never believed he'd live to graduate from college and he barely did. He made me promise I'd take Lady D. and give her a good home. Returning her to a sanctuary was impossible. She couldn't protect herself and she no more knew how to live as a monkey than I did. And, at almost ten years old, it was unlikely she'd be a good candidate as a helper to another disabled person in need.

After Bill’s death, we mourned the loss together and the monkey and I grew even closer. Grief has a way of bonding beings, even if one of them is a monkey and one is a man.

She jumped up on top of the curtain rod and looked down at me. She knew I was thinking about her by the way I was watching her and it made her self-conscious.

"Ah, Lady D, I hope you've been happy with me." I'd done the best I could by her and she hadn't always made it easy. The potty training nearly killed both of us.  But I was damned if I was going to change diapers on a monkey for twenty or thirty years.

Thinking about Bill brought back the irony of our strange friendship. He had grown up as normal, active and wild as any kid in South Florida and wound up chained to a chair with a monkey to button his shirt. I lived my childhood as an enforced invalid and didn't begin to know life until . . . well, until the events that set me free. I was making up for lost time. I took risks, avoided commitment, and seized each day with gusto. I spent as much time outdoors as was humanly possible and it never lost its sweetness for me. No one loves sunshine more than someone who spent his childhood in a bubble.

I sprang up from the bed as if by leaving it I could leave my thoughts there on the mattress. I tapped my shoulder and Lady D. leapt up to her perch clucking and cooing into my neck as she hugged me.

"You can't flirt your way out of it." I told her as I scratched under her chin in a way that never failed to reduce her to a quivering ball of fur. "Time to go to your room for a while. That new female you just met is going to be staying. I hope you don't get jealous."

Lady Delaney always paid such close attention when I spoke that I almost believed she understood my words. She cocked her head at me and grinned.

"She's our new chef. So pretty it almost hurts to look at her. It's been a long time since I've been around a pretty woman. Remember the last woman I dated, the model? Drop dead gorgeous. But she wasn't pretty. She was too artificial to be pretty."

Lady Delaney had pulled the model’s perfectly coiffed hair and I had to put her back in her room. She rarely warmed to any female I brought aboard. Most of the time I didn't bring any of my dates on the boat. Lady D.'s happiness had always been more important to me than a causal relationship.

The contrast of my 'usual' to Rene was profound. I began to imagine what her dark-honey hair would look like freed from the knot she wore at the base of her neck. There wasn't much to see of her figure, dressed as she was in the shapeless chef's coat and baggy pants. But I could still make out the swell of her undoubtedly natural breasts and the tapering of her slim waist. She seemed impossibly small to do any kind of physical work. I can't be blamed for expecting someone much different. My mind's eye had had her built like a brick house with muscled arms and multiple piercings.

When Stephen asked me if a female was okay, I had said yes without thinking. It simply never occurred to me that some  . . .
beauty
would show up and knock the wind out of me just by being herself.

What I didn't conjure up was an angelic little face with cat's eyes that I could very much imagine locked with mine. I felt my groin stir in a very different way than I was used to. And I knocked Rene's image out of my head. Nothing good had ever come of my few attachments in life. I’d lost Nurse Kelly, Dawn and even Bill. I associated attachments with pain with good reason.

"Just what I don't need, Lady D.  Right?" The monkey cocked her fuzzy head at me. She sensed a disturbance. "We'll keep our distance. Don't you be making a best friend out of our new cook."

I left her to spend the afternoon in her room and went out on deck. It was after lunchtime and I was starving. I went in search of some sushi. I wanted the real deal, not those awful rolls that seemed to be everywhere. The last thing I wanted was ‘imitation’ crab wrapped up in way too much seaweed.

If Rodrigo hadn't quit on us, we'd be at Paradise Island by now. Instead of wandering around Lauderdale looking for decent nigiri, I'd be wolfing down some of Marley's conch fritters and heading for the blackjack tables.

Walking past the yachts swaying gently in their slips, I found myself getting annoyed and impatient. Killing time has never been easy for me. At least not on land. The sea was different. At sea, I felt peace. At sea, I was never bored.

I grabbed a taxi and told the driver to take me to the International Game Fish Association Museum. My father had endowed the museum generously every year for more than a decade and it was the only one of his accomplishments that I genuinely took pride in. The IGFA was a damn good organization with a cause I held close to my heart.

Wandering the various rooms I was struck, as always, with the magnificence of the sea creatures the association worked so hard to protect. The sport was a bloody one, but it didn't have to be deadly. Catch and release was saving the billfish from certain extinction. Gone were the days of proud snapshots with some lucky angler and a dead five-hundred pound marlin hanging by its tail at his side. The new rules made it possible for guys like me to still enjoy the sport. Man had tried, but he hadn't killed all the behemoths yet.

Idle thoughts don't always behave. My imagination began to conjure up a ripe little body in a skimpy bikini wrestling a rod taller than she was. I'd met plenty of lady anglers at tournaments and they were just as good as the guys and equally taken with the thrill of the sport.

I decided I'd like to share that unforgettable moment when your first big fish leaps out of the water with Rene.  I began to imagine what it would be like to teach Rene about the sport and wondered if she'd get as much of a thrill out of it as I did. The thought of her in a bikini, slick with sweat as she fought a fish was a tempting image. Hell, she was a tempting image I couldn’t seem to get off of my mind.

Bass Pro was next door, so I went over and milled around the store for a while. There seemed to be an unusually large number of brown-haired girls in there.

I didn't need any new lures, but the Black Barts were too pretty to resist. A few more plastic squid were added to my huge collection. I hoped I'd get lucky enough to lose one to a hungry fish real soon.

The sun was setting behind me as I walked down the pier toward El Loco. I watched her rock gently, bathed in the pink and orange of sunset. She was as beautiful a boat as ever cut through the Gulfstream. Tomorrow couldn't come quick enough. It was almost insulting to see her bumpers barely grazing the pilings on the dock. She reminded me of a thoroughbred horse at the starting gate.

I headed straight for Lady D.’s stateroom. She'd be itching to get out after a whole afternoon cooped up in there. She chattered in excitement on the other side of the door when she heard my approach and greeted me as if I'd been gone for weeks instead of hours. Her enthusiasm for me never waned. Her love was real and one of the best parts of my world.

I reached into my pocket before her quick little hands could get there. She knew I'd have gummi bears in there. I always picked up a good supply of them for any journey at the Bass Pro check out. She greedily popped the first one in her mouth and barely chewed it. "You know you're only getting three," I told her, "I wouldn't gobble them down like that."

But it was always the same. As smart as she was, the little white-faced animal always inhaled the first two bears and only slowed when she got the final one. Then she deliberately decapitated it between her sharp teeth and nibbled the body down to nothing.

"You're a cruel little girl, Lady D. A cannibal for bears." She tried her best to worm another piece of candy out of me, but I resisted. I had to laugh when she patted my pocket with her tiny hand and gave me 'the look'. "No way. You aren't supposed to have sweets at all. Let's go get some air. That's a lot healthier for you than sugar."

She jumped up on my shoulder, bobbing up and down in excitement. I headed out onto the deck and found Stephen playing with some lures in the cockpit. He was checking the leaders and making sure the big marlin hooks were rust free and ready to go.

"Practicing your macramé?"

"You know when I'm bored I have to pick up my knitting." It was a joke that Stephen occupied himself with the tying and re-rigging of tackle when he had nothing else to do. It wasn't necessary but he was a high energy man. I tossed the bag of Black Bart's beside his feet. "I bought some more toys at Anglers R Us."

Stephen peeked into the bag and whistled. "Just what we needed. Another thousand bucks worth of plastics."

"They'll give you something to do with your hands."

Lady Delaney saw an opportunity and made a dash for one of the big colorful neon baits. Stephen snatched it up and several others besides. The little monkey could easily impale herself on one of those monster hooks.

"I guess Lady D. is telling me to call it a day. Can I get you something when I go in, Boss?"

"A little Goose on the rocks would be great. Have one with me."

"Nah, the Grey's too hard on me. I'll stick to beer."

"That bunny piss you call beer is abominable. But grab one and let's watch the sun set over Lauderdale. God, I'm glad it's the last for a while. I am so sick of South Florida."

"You won't miss all the South Beach beauties?"