Free Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) by Vanessa Grant Page B

Inlet.
    “We’ll go round once,” suggested George as they approached the wharfs. “If it looks easy to get in, we’ll go in. If not, we’ll steam back out and think it over before we try again.”
    The whole thing went like a charm. Jenny got the lines in her hand and hovered at the side of the boat until it came close to the wharf, then she stepped off just as if she’d been doing it all her life.
    Her smooth motions turned suddenly awkward and stiff as she sighted the big man in a floater jacket and captain’s hat.
    Jake! Here!
    He stepped up and took the aft line from her. She let go the line with a jerk, as if his hand had carried high voltage. She went forward to tie her line to the float while he tied the one at the back. George cut the engine and there was silence except for the sound of waves lapping against the wooden floats.
    Jenny fiddled with the knot she was tying, her fingers numb and her heart thundering. At one point, out in the pounding waves, she’d had a brief fantasy that he would be here to meet them. She’d discarded it as nonsense.
    Why was he here?
    A grizzled fisherman in high boots and a sou’wester stomped up to Jake and said something. Jake stood up and pushed a lock of wet hair back under the captain’s hat.
    In the city, in city clothes, he looked like he belonged there – if you didn’t look at his eyes and see the controlled hint of the untamed man; if you didn’t look too closely at the harsh lines of his face.
    Here, standing on a wharf on an island a few miles south of Alaska, talking to a tough-looking fisherman, Jake seemed to fit in perfectly.
    The two men exchanged a few words that Jenny couldn’t hear, then nodded at each other. Jake’s nod was as abrupt as the fisherman’s, but Jenny sensed somehow that they were friends.
    The man stomped on, staring at Jenny as he passed, saying gruffly, “See you made it all right. Crazy woman, tearing around in a plastic boat!”
    Jake walked towards her. He wasn’t smiling. She realized that she was. Her smile died nervously.
    “ Where in the devil have you been? “
    His anger had the effect of calming her. She spoke confidently. “We’ve been fine. Waiting for the weather. Sitting in a bay, perfectly safe.”
    His feet were astride, his hands half clenched. She got the feeling that he wanted to shake her as he growled, “Sam said you didn’t have a radio?”
    “Sam?”
    “The captain of the fishing boat that spotted you earlier today.”
    She rubbed her hands against the wet fabric of her cruiser suit. “The radio quit on our second day out.” She pulled on the string to untie her hood, but didn’t push the hood back.
    Jake snarled, “And George , of course, couldn’t manage to figure out what was wrong with it?”
    “George didn’t try. Radios aren’t George’s thing.”
    “I’ll bet they’re not.” He glared at her, then said grudgingly, “I’m glad to see you’ve got a cruiser suit on. At least George had the sense to get good gear for you. I was worried you’d catch your death in this cold wind.”
    “It’s not as if it were freezing!”
    “Don’t be an idiot, Jennifer! Even in Campbell River you must have learned about hypothermia. You don’t need to freeze to die of the cold!”
    He looked so much like a stern father that she couldn’t help laughing. “Stop being such an alarmist, Jake! I know when to come in out of the cold.”
    “Do you? I’m beginning to suspect you don’t have any sense at all.”
    She flared, “If I’m such a pain in the neck, why do you bother with me? Why don’t you just stay in Vancouver where it’s warm and dry, and leave me to my fate?”
    He looked past her, over her head at the other side of the harbor. When he answered, his voice had the exaggerated patience of a parent dealing with an aggravating small child. “In the first place, Vancouver was pelting down rain when I left and I—” He stopped, shrugged, and finished lamely, “And you may be a pain