Free Monterey Bay by Lindsay Hatton Page A

room. Ricketts turned back to Margot and her father.
    â€œOh,
Styela
.” He grinned. “Don’t know why I even bother anymore, to be honest with you. Can’t get the boys to bring me much else, so why should I be out there getting them myself?”
    In reply, Anders studied Ricketts and then helped himself to the seat behind Ricketts’s desk. Ricketts settled himself contentedly on the beer crate. Margot remained standing and watched as her father began eyeing the papers on the desktop. To anyone else, it might have looked like an idle perusal, but she could see its underlying intensity, assimilative and scathing.
    â€œAny new orders since last we spoke?”
    â€œA few,” Ricketts replied, stretching his legs out in front of him. His pants were rolled up to his knees and his shins were hairier than she remembered. The green visor made him look a little seasick. “But most of the universities ordered their supplies for the spring term in the fall. Which means I have more than a couple dogfish out back just begging for someone to buy them and slice them in two.”
    When he turned to smile at her, he looked like a clown, but not the funny kind.
    â€œA challenging business model, isn’t it?” Her father found a document that interested him and inspected it carefully, blinking as if his eyelids were camera shutters. “Flush one minute, broke the next. I don’t know how you manage.”
    â€œNot very well, I’m afraid. If it weren’t for my illustrious benefactor, I don’t know where I’d be.”
    â€œDon’t be so modest. I’m sure John knows a bargain when he sees it.”
    â€œJohn knows a story when he sees it. And I usually deliver on that front, I’m sorry to say.”
    â€œYes. His latest book was . . . unusual. Those peach farmers really had the worst of it.”
    â€œFunny. Most people sympathize with the pickers.”
    Her father raised his hands in the air. “A heartless capitalist! Guilty as charged!”
    â€œMaking something from nothing is what our society values, I’ll grant you that. Making nothing from something, though . . .” He gestured around at the lab. “Well, that’s the real trick.”
    â€œSadly enough, most people in this town seem to agree.”
    â€œWell, I suppose you’re as much of an expert as anyone,” Ricketts said amiably. “All those Methodists living in tents beneath the butterfly trees, singing the praises of the immaterial. It must have been extraordinary back then.”
    When her father looked away from the desk and toward Ricketts, it was with an almost audible snap.
    â€œI’ve overcome my youthful follies and I’m thankful for it,” Anders said, his voice controlled and toneless. “Some men aren’t so lucky.”
    â€œAre you talking about the Renoirs? Because your daughter hated them, too.”
    She flinched. This time, Ricketts had certainly gone too far. But there was something in his delivery—a self-deprecating, peaceable sort of humor—that seemed to neutralize the comment even as he voiced it. Her father, too, had been disarmed. She could tell by the way he smiled, shook his head, and reached down to straighten a stack of errant papers.
    â€œI enjoy our banter, Edward.” He sighed. “I truly do.”
    â€œThe feeling is more than mutual. Entertaining the Fiske family gives me great pleasure indeed.”
    â€œIn that case, I’ll be back for her at five. She gets Sundays off. Not on account of religious superstition, but on account of labor laws.”
    â€œOf course, of course.” Ricketts nodded and looked at Margot. “I’m not sure what I’ll be able to pay her, but once she familiarizes herself with the way everything operates she can decide what seems appropriate and then—”
    â€œNo payment is required,” Anders huffed. “Consider her