The Whiskey Tide (61 page)

     
"I want to make a difference in that, but I haven't the patience to be a lawyer like my father, or the skill speaking or the ease with people. And I don't want to teach. I don't know. I don't
know!"

     
"Something to do with treating people fairly and — and with dignity and helping them better their lot, then," Mrs. Cole said after a moment.

     
Kate nodded. Mrs. Cole actually understood.

     
"Because you see, there's been something I've been thinking about. I want my grandfather's name to outlive me. I want a director for my business enterprises, someone who'll keep me truly informed of them in my lifetime and see to their welfare after I'm gone. There's a boatworks, and a shipping company which used to be larger and perhaps could be again if someone took an interest, and warehouses here and in Boston, and — will you do it? Will you be that director?

     
"You could see that workers were treated fairly. You could create more jobs if the businesses prospered. You could be an example for all of Salem and beyond. A portion of profits each year could be used to — to help educate workers' children, or do research or whatever you deem important. Of course you'd be paid."

     
Kate was speechless. "People — the men who run your various businesses, and those I'd need to have contact with — would never stand for it, dealing with a woman."

     
"They'll kowtow to you for the sake of their business dealings. And say dreadful things behind your back, of course."

     
"Mrs. Cole... I'm overwhelmed!" There'd be tariffs and cargo and a thousand other things. But she could learn! She understood the ocean; understood boats; understood the paperwork done in a bonded warehouse.

     
"The shipping company has a branch in London," Mrs. Cole said slyly.

     
Kate laughed. "I would love to do it! I'm — honored. But before I could, I have to make one more trip north. It's complicated to explain, but I'm hoping it puts an end to my uncle's shenanigans. I'll be hauling booze, though, and I could get arrested. If I do, I doubt you'd want me as your director."

     
"Let me go with you. Not Tatia — just me."

     
Even as refusal sprang to her lips, Kate silenced it. The woman so eager beside her had just offered her the chance of a lifetime. How could she not reciprocate?

     
"Mrs. Cole, it will be a hard trip. And dangerous," she said carefully. "Last time out, we were shot up rather badly."

     
"If anything happens to me, I shall die happy. And I'm sure Mr. Santayna will prove splendidly clever in any emergency."

     
"Mr. Santayna won't be going," Kate said briefly. "I've hired another captain."

     
"Ahhhhh." Mrs. Cole exhaled the sound. "And when do we leave?"

     
Kate smiled in spite of herself. "Day after tomorrow."

Forty-four

     
Joe stalked into Finnegan's with his sleeves rolled up and his new suit jacket slung over his shoulder.

     
"So you haven't forgotten the way here," Finnegan grinned.

     
Joe glared. He hadn't been by in over a week; hadn't stopped in the afternoon since he'd tackled running a business. But the visit he'd had a couple hours back had left him nearly blinded by anger. When he'd caught himself snapping at Johnson, the man who'd first spoken to him the day he took over and had since become his valued right hand man, Joe had recognized the merit in taking himself and his bad mood elsewhere.

     
He dispatched the shot of whiskey Finnegan poured and picked up his beer.

     
"To hell with the eggs," he said as Finnegan tried to shove a chipped dish toward him.

     
He started toward a table, then spotted Rita watching him from one of the booths. She looked away uncertainly, looked up again, and gave a small smile.

     
What the hell, Joe thought? Might as well sit with her. Damn Kate anyway. Damn her! He wanted to shake her. To yell at her. What she was fixing to do was flat out crazy.

     
"Hi, Rita," he said. "Anyone sitting here?"

     
"Hi, Joe. How you been keeping?"

     
"Okay." He sat down feeling awkward. "You?"

     
"Okay. My dad's been sick. Doing better."

     
"I heard." Joe drank down half of his beer.

     
"I'm sorry things didn't work out for you," Rita said after a pause.

     
Joe nodded. Drank more of his beer. It would need replenishing soon. What was left of Rita's looked flat. She had a habit of making it last too long.

     
"Buy you one?" he asked rising. "For old time's sake?"

     
Rita smiled slowly. "Sure. Or new time's."

     
Her voice had a breathiness he'd forgotten. He picked up their glasses, draining his. Halfway to the bar he stopped in surprise to see Arliss standing there, newly arrived by looks of it. Finnegan passed her a beer and she laughed at something he'd said. She broke off as she noticed Joe.

     
"What're you doing here?" he asked.

     
"Same thing you are," she kidded. She looked younger these days. Not sad all the time. Her gaze moved beyond him and her expression hardened. "You sitting with Rita?"

     
"What if I am?" His anger leapt back to the surface and he was defensive.

     
Arliss turned it back on him like a mirror. "You might ask her what she told Kate Hinshaw about you."

     
"What are you talking about?"

     
"Rita went to see her."

     
"When?"

     
"I don't know. All I know is she did. And that after that last trip, you acted like your world fell apart. And every time Kate asks about you, there's pain in her eyes like she can't hardly stand it."

     
She'd smoked him out. Read his feelings in his reactions. Joe was briefly speechless. His cousin, whom he'd given advice so freely, was all at once the one in control.

     
"If Kate's so taken with me, howcome's she sailing off with Travis Gallagher tomorrow?" Joe asked bitterly. "The man's a drunk and a leering, unprincipled — hellsfire! He's been locked up twice for forcing himself on women!"

     
Arliss took a measured drink of beer. "Maybe she thought she had no other choice. Kate's so much like you I nearly laugh sometimes. Not just accepting things. Always thinking. Caring about right and wrong and other people. I made a joke about you the other day, and she almost took my head off singing your praises."

     
"Christ, she was only being polite—"

     
"Kate's not like that! And you know it. She doesn't blather. And she's decent — one of the nicest girls I've ever known. You've done so much for the rest of us. Do something for yourself, Joe! Don't let I-don't-know-what keep you apart when you're so right for each other. If you do, you're not nearly as smart as I've always thought."

     
Taking another neat sip of beer, her piece spoken now, she marched past him and sat at a table.

     
Joe stood for a minute feeling utterly lost. Angry, but no longer sure of the targets of his anger. Uncertain. Afraid. It couldn't be the way Arliss said. Could it? Without getting the drinks he'd come for, he walked back to where Rita waited.

     
"You went to see Kate." It was an accusation, not a question.

     
She eyed him warily, no longer as cheerful as a few minutes earlier. "What if I did?" Rita tossed back her hair. "I asked her to make sure she wouldn't ruin your life marrying you. I could have saved my breath. She laughed in my face. Said she wouldn't think of marrying someone like you. That she was 'fond of you'—" Rita's repetition was mocking. "—that you'd had some good times together, but you wouldn't fit in, the kind of life she lived."

     
Rita's face was attractively flushed with anger. She stuck her chin out. "So if you want to hate me, go ahead. It was you I was thinking about. Some day you'll thank me. That girl never cared two cents for you!"

***

     
Kate closed her bedroom door softly behind her and stood for a moment awash with love for those who slumbered behind the other doors along the hall. Mama, surprising them all with her tenacity. Rosalie, floating with happiness now that she'd set a wedding date. Aggie, still incorrigible yet filled with purpose now. Woody, apart from his legs a regular, healthy little boy. They had grown this last year, and survived, and deserved every scrap of security she hoped would result from the trip she was about to make.

     
She made her way silently down the back stairs, stifling a cry at the bottom as she nearly collided with someone.

     
"Kate, it's only me," came Aggie's whisper.

     
"You scared me to death! I didn't think you kept hours like this any more."

     
"I've been sitting outside a long time, it's so lovely. Utterly quiet. We did rather close things down, though, Theo and I. He wanted to show off his new leg. We visited all his old haunts. He's still a bit wobbly, but he said everyone would just suppose he was pickled."

     
Kate smiled. "I can hardly wait to see Uncle Finney's apoplexy when he's faced with having you as a daughter-in-law."

     
"Theo won't ask, you know. Propose, I mean. Not for a year. He says if I still feel the same way about him then, he will."

     
"Is Theo going to be okay over what we're doing to Uncle Finney?"

     
"Yes. I'm sure he will. I haven't told him, naturally. It wouldn't do to make him feel as though he had a hand in it. But he actually said once that Uncle Finney deserved to be thumped by the gods for the problems he'd caused us lying about that loan from Pa."

     
"He's likely to notice the mode of the gods is strangely like something we'd have concocted when we were younger."

     
Aggie laughed sofly. "Yes, but he won't say a peep." She grew suddenly serious, taking Kate's hands in the darkness. "Kate... be careful, won't you? I've never said how much you mean to me. It's lots, you know."

     
"No more than you mean to me, Ag."

     
They hugged each other as they hadn't since they were children.

     
"And, Kate," her sister teased, "do try to look halfway presentable when you come crashing in on Mama's dinner party."

***

     
Joe had arrived at the boat an hour before the scheduled time. Then Billy. Then Mrs. Cole. She was the one who had alerted him to this trip, mentioning it when she stopped in to talk about the order her boatworks had placed.

     
He roamed the schooner restlessly, checking masts, checking lines, then repeating it all a second and third time, while every thread of body and mind strained with the thought he'd soon see Kate. It felt good to be on the water again. He wondered whether his business would ever turn profit enough for him to buy a boat like this; whether Johnson, whom he'd made foreman in his absence, would skip town with the week's payroll left in his care. He thought of all he stood to lose by making this trip.