Free Bitter End (Seychelle Sullivan #3) by Christine Kling Page B

into his ears. He’s going to go deaf.”
    “Be careful,” I said. “You’re beginning to sound like your mother.”
    “Yeah, right,” she said disgustedly, turning her head away.
    B. J. set down the mugs of steaming tea and honey and was about to sit down while I remained standing, my arms straight, hands pressing down on the back of my chair. “I hate to be the party pooper here, but I really need to be getting back. Think you could just take a couple of swigs of that and we could get moving?”
    B. J. gave me a quizzical look that reminded me of Abaco when I talk to her. “Okay, if you’re in a hurry, we can do that,” he said. “I’ll just go finish straightening things up in the kitchen.”
    “Please, B. J., you’ve done enough,” Molly said. “Really. I can take it from here. If Seychelle has to leave, I understand.” She took his hand in both of hers. “Thanks so much for dinner and for the good company. I needed it tonight, but I’ll be fine now.”
    We didn’t say much on the drive to the boatyard, where I was to drop him off to pick up his truck. The zippered side windows did little to keep out the cold night air, but there were other reasons the atmosphere in the Jeep was so chilled.
    When I pulled into the parking spot next to his El Camino, I didn’t shut off the engine. The noise made conversation more difficult, and I hoped B. J. would get the hint.
    “What’s bothering you, Sey? You hardly said a word tonight, and that’s not like you.”
    I took in a deep breath and blew it out, staring at the Jeep’s overhead as though I might find the answer to his question written on the inside of the canvas there. “B. J., I think I just need time. You don’t know the whole story. Hell, I don’t even know what really happened. There’s still a mountain of hurt there between me and Molly. For eleven years—basically my whole childhood—we were the best of friends, more like sisters.” I turned and looked out the Jeep’s window. He sat there, knowing I wasn’t finished, waiting for the rest of it. “Then one day,” I said, turning to face him, “she just disappeared. She’d moved out of her parents’ house and got married to some guy I thought she didn’t even like. I’d been under the impression that we told each other everything, and yeah, she talked about him, but to me she’d always kind of made fun of him. She never even told me she liked him.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure a man could ever comprehend the immensity of that. “She never called, never made the slightest effort to reach out to me. I know I’m older now, and I should be able to get beyond this, but I just can’t. The way it ended back then, so abruptly, with no explanation, no communication, and now we’re just supposed to start up again as though the last thirteen years never happened? I can’t do that. There’s a whole lot that needs saying right now, and it’s not about tofu and taro.”

VIII

    I had several jobs lined up over the next couple of days. February is the busy season in Fort Lauderdale’s luxury yacht world. Hundreds of huge power yachts from all over the world converge on this little corner of South Florida, and, boats being boats, they always need work done. The parade of yachts headed up and down the New River, into the Dania Cut-off Canal, or down to the Miami River, appeared endless. In the winter there was always more business than I could handle, but I needed to work every minute in order to make it through the slow months from May through October, when the yacht crowd headed off to Europe or up to Newport. They left us here in the heat and humidity, swatting mosquitoes and trying to stretch our savings until the next season.
    By Wednesday morning the weather had warmed considerably after Monday’s cold front, and I was back in shorts and a T-shirt as I scrubbed down the boat from stem to stern. The wheelhouse VHF was squawking with the usual traffic, though these days it