Free Domesticated by Jettie Woodruff Page B

Nobody was this cheerful at five in the morning.
    “Um, just a splash of cream. What are you doing here?”
    “Waiting for the sun…and you.” He smiled. Damn. I should have taken care of myself like I always did. It was coming on strong already. I carefully watched Sam fill my cup, studying his face. He didn’t look anything at all like Garrison. Sam was sort of perfect, but all guys like him looked that way. Brains, good blood, and looks didn’t really coincide. Take Garrison. I didn’t know a smarter man than him. I don’t presume he got a whole lot of second glances, though.
    Garrison was tall and gangly-like. He had a long nose with a bump right in the middle. His hair was always slicked to the side with a sharp line showing his scalp. The black thick frames on his glasses drove me nuts. They were always at the end of his nose. I constantly wanted to push them up.
    Sam was sporting a shadow of a beard and his hair wasn’t kept at all. It actually looked like he’d just crawled out of bed. He wore khaki shorts with big pockets and an orange shirt. I was sure Garrison had never worn a pair of flip-flops like that, not even on the yacht. If he did come out here, it was one day, and like my father, he stayed in the air conditioning and worked.
    I sipped my coffee and smiled.
    “What?” Sam questioned my sudden happiness.
    “Mi Esperanza Coffee.”
    “Huh?”
    “Don’t say…huh. It makes you sound ignorant.”
    “No, it’s laid back way to ask what the hell did you just say?”
    I couldn’t help it. He was sort of infectious. I giggled. “It’s my favorite coffee. I would know it anywhere. My assistant, Olivia, must have had it delivered here.”
    “Say it again.”
    “Mi Esperanza Coffee. You can only get it in Honduras.”
    “Ah, coffee for the rich.”
    “What are you doing here already?”
    “I didn’t leave. I stayed.”
    “On the boat?”
    “Yeah, I mean I left for a while. Had a few beers on The Strip and a steak. What did you have?”
    “Really? We’re going to do this?”
    “Do what?”
    “Small talk about trivial nothings. You don’t care about what I ate for supper last night any more than I care about your beer and steak.” My head hurt already. I couldn’t do this. Sam needed to go back to being the navigator.
    “You are the most uptight bitch I’ve ever met in my life. Can we just have a normal conversation? Tell me about you. What do you do?”
    “What do I do when?”
    “Anytime. You obviously make very good money.”
    “What time is the sun coming?”
    “Six fourteen. So it’s your husband’s money?”
    “My husband paid for this yacht. I don’t need his money. I have plenty from my father.”
    “Oh, I see. A trust fund baby.”
    “What do you do?” I countered, betting he was nothing more than a bum, jumping from job to job. Why else would he do this?
    “I teach second graders how to add and subtract.”
    “You’re a teacher?” That surprised me. I wasn’t expecting that.
    “Yes, back home. I’m here for the summer working for my Uncle Fat.”
    “Uncle Fat?” I repeated the funny name.
    “It’s really Matt, but everyone calls him Fat Matt. I call him Uncle Fat. He owns the charter service you hired me from,” Sam explained unnecessary information. I didn’t care about Fat Matt. He was a school teacher?
    “You don’t look like a teacher,” I assured him.
    “Really? What do I look like?”
    I snorted with a laugh.
    “Watch it little girl. I’m bigger than you and we’re right close to hungry sharks,” he teased, looking out to the ocean. “What do I look like?”
    “Oh, a DJ, maybe,” I suggested, letting my eyes skim his body again. I was going to have to go to the bathroom soon.
    “Funny you should mention that,” he sang, clicking his tongue with a wink.
    “You’ve done that, too,” I stated. “Let me guess, you’ve done a lot of things.”
    “I have, but I always teach from August twenty-something to May twenty-something.