Hooked (A Romance on the Edge Novel) (7 page)

Focus. He needed to focus.

Then he heard Sonya’s name drift through the open window. He shook his head, figuring it had manifested itself because she was all he seemed to think about. When the voices lowered, and his second sense kicked in.

“I’ll be right back,” he told Judd, who could have cared less as he flirted with the clerk. Garrett doubled back around the building in the direction of the voices he’d heard. He smelled the bitter stench of cigarettes. By the shuffling of feet and flickering of a lighter, he estimated that there were two of them. He flattened himself against the wall, and waited. Sure enough, they started gabbing like a ladies Thursday night quilt circle.

“Seriously, the bitch never knew I was there. Sliced her hydraulic line while she slept. Easy as pie.”

“You sure she’s not going to notice?”

“Naw. Not until she tries to pull in her nets.”

“Bitch thinks she can throw in with the big boys. It’s bad luck, I tell ya. A woman drifting.”
The man gave a snort.
“We need to get her off the water and back on the shore where she belongs.”
The voices started to waft on the wind, and he knew they were on the move.

Garrett peeked around the corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of the vandals. They’d meshed into another, louder group of fishermen dressed in hooded orange and green slickers. There was no way to tell who the perpetrators were.

He hustled back to Judd. “We need to get a move on.”

Judd tore his love-puppy eyes away from the clerk. “Why?” He glanced at his watch. “There’s time.”

“Overheard a possible 10-59.”

Judd turned back to the lady behind the counter. “Guess our fun’s over, Davida.”

“Only if you want it to be,” Davida purred. “If you’re free later, come by, and we’ll see what kind of fun we can find.” Her smile didn’t leave much to the imagination.

“It’s a date.” Judd winked, and then signed his name to the receipt. Garrett grabbed the bag, hoping to get Casanova moving.

They left the General Store and made their way to the dock, where the
Calypso
was moored.

Skip greeted them with a grin as he spied the brown paper bag Garrett carried. “What did you get to eat?”

“Here.” Garrett tossed the bag to him, which Skip immediately rifled through. “Judd, cast us off. Skip, take us out into the bay. We need to find the
Double Dippin’
.”

With her crew aboard, Sonya weighed anchor and set a course for the mouth of the Naknek River. The Fish and Game had opened the river for fishing, hoping to limit the salmon escapement. As predicted, numbers of returning salmon were huge. Drifting in the river had the benefit of calmer waters, but with all the drifters jockeying for position, the fishing area would be tight, and that brought in another added danger.

It was called combat fishing for a reason.

Upon entering the wide mouth of the river, Sonya tamped down her nerves when she saw all the boats bumping and brawling for the best spot. Everyone was waiting for the clock to tick its way to nine-thirty, the time when fishing officially began. Tension and tempers were thick in the air in anticipation of the start of what was projected to be a record season.

Wes and Peter readied the net while Gramps kept her company in the pilot house. The windows were open, and she easily heard the normal insults and crass jokes—which came with men working together—traveling over the open water. It all mixed together and made a spicy soup.

Boats churned up the gray, silt waters, and engines rumbled. Diesel fumes permeated the air, while seagulls squawked like hecklers overhead. Sonya wasn’t the only one needing to catch a lot of fish. For some fishermen, this was their only livelihood.

The juggling of constantly moving her boat, watching out for the other boats, and gauging the strong tide flooding the river took every bit of Sonya’s attention. She barely had any left to keep an eye out for the troopers. They were everywhere, like gnats. Planes and helicopters flew above. The
Calypso,
and high performance RHIBs—rigid-hulled inflatable boats, or what Sonya referred to as sharks—patrolled the water. Planters were stationed on shore. All were outfitted with high powered cameras and binoculars, watching and waiting for the slightest mistake.

Garrett was out there somewhere.

Sonya locked the door on that thought and mentally tossed the key overboard. She had enough to concentrate on. She didn’t need another distraction, and Garrett had already distracted her too much. It seemed in her experience that most fishermen were written up by the troopers for a loss of concentration. Something got away from them. There were the few cutthroats looking for any opportunity to bend the law to their advantage. After all, fishing was all about advantage. The best vantage point, the best fishing hole, the best boat, and the best crew.

“Heads up,” Gramps said. “We have fish cops twenty feet off the stern.”

Sonya glanced behind them. Sure enough there was the
Calypso
, a former drift boat the state used to “blend in” with the other fishermen. Any fisherman with any fish sense knew the
Calypso
for what she was.

A spy vessel.

“Looks like they want to board us,” Gramps said.

Peter pointed at the
Calypso
. “Do you see that?”

“Yes.” She nodded. They hadn’t done anything. Hell, they didn’t even have their net in the water. She glanced at the instrument panel and noticed the time. They didn’t have time for this. “Wes, Peter, prepare to get the net in the water.”

The
Calypso
angled alongside them. She heard Garrett’s voice clearly as he yelled from the deck of the trooper’s boat. “
Double Dippin’
, prepare to be boarded.”

Damn it all to hell. If this had something to do with last night, Garrett was out of line. With no choice, Sonya did as the law ordered. A rope flew over the side of her boat and Wes caught it, securing the boats together. Garrett leaped over, looking lethal in his dark blue uniform, trooper hat, and sunglasses. He glanced around the deck, nodded toward Wes and Peter, then zeroed in on her up in the pilot house.

“I need to talk to you.”

Oh no, he did not
. “I’m busy here. You realize that we’re about to drop our net.”

He whipped off his sunglasses, his piercing eyes hard as ice. “Not before we speak. Don’t make me give you a safety inspection.”

Double hell!
He could hold them up indefinitely if she didn’t cooperate. “Gramps, hold her steady.”

“Give him hell, Sonya. We need to get fishing.”

“Plan to.” Sonya slid down the rail of the stairs and stomped her way on deck toward Garrett. “What do you want?”

“You have a problem onboard.”

“Yeah, I’m looking at it.”

The
Albatross
puttered by, and Chuck Kendrick yelled across the open water, “Yo, Double D, better treat that trooper right. Show him your titties, and he might be kind enough to let you off with a warning.”

She sent Chuck the finger, a message the dimwit would understand, and then caught Garrett’s narrowed look.

“Not afraid of making enemies, are you?” he said, with a cocked brow.

“Just speaking to Chuck in the language he understands.” She didn’t need to explain herself to him and resented the feeling to do exactly that. She tried to hand him a copy of her permit and fishing licenses for everyone onboard.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“Trying to speed up the process.” She flapped the papers at him again. “Come on, I’ve got fish to catch, and there has to be someone else you could be harassing.”

“I’m not here to check that your paperwork’s in order.” His eyes snapped with temper. “You’ve pissed some people off, Sonya.”

“That’s nothing new. I piss people off all the time.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He leaned into her, and she caught a whiff of that spicy mix of man and power. She didn’t like it. It took a moment to clear her head.

“Are you listening to me?” he asked, advancing a step.

“Yeah.” She waved her hands in front of her as though to scare off a pesky bug. “Say what you gotta say, and then get the hell off my boat.”

“I don’t know why I bothered trying to do you a favor. You’ll probably ignore everything I have to say on principle.”

“Probably.” She nodded. “Just spit it out, so I can get my net in the water.” His delaying her on the first day of fishing had better not be intentional.

“Check your hydraulic lines. I overheard someone say they’d sliced them.”

“What?”

“Just do it.” He turned and leaped over the side, back onto the
Calypso
. The man was in great shape to be able to do that so gracefully. Wonder what else he could do with such power and grace? Damn, she needed to get her mind off his body and back on the job at hand.

“What’d he want?” Peter asked, throwing the
Calypso’s
rope back to her. Boats all around them were throwing their buoys in the water and laying out their nets in a roar of diesel engines. Garrett had kept them from getting a prime position, and she was already behind.

“Let’s get the net in the water, and then we need to check the hydraulics.”

“Hydraulics? Why?”

“Apparently, someone’s tampered with our lines.”

“Damn ornery woman,” Garrett muttered as he made his way to the cabin on the
Calypso
.

“You know her?” Judd asked. “Seemed to me that was more than just informing someone of a potential problem. After all, you could have informed them over the radio.”

“Met her for the first time a few days ago.”

“Well, she obviously made an impression on you,” Skip added.

“That’s one word for it.” A few others readily came to mind. Hell, there she’d been spitting mad at him, actually wearing a t-shirt that said, “Have You Flogged Your Crew Today?” and he’d been doing her a favor. One that she’d probably ignore, because she didn’t want anything from him. Anything that is, since she found out he was a trooper. Before that, she’d wanted plenty, and he’d wanted to give it to her.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had gotten him so worked up, emotionally and physically. He didn’t need this kind of aggravation.

“Hunt, you got your head in the game?” Judd hollered, pointing left of the bow where a drift boat had just rammed another boat.

His head was somewhere else entirely. He grabbed the binoculars and focused on the boat. A few weapons were already being aimed between captains.

Someone was going to get killed this season.