Sam wasn’t opposed to trouble. In fact, he was absolutely all for it.
When he was the one causing it.
But this woman was trouble in her own right. He’d been amused at catching her watching him from her window—several times—but it wasn’t amusement he felt now. Because this was the second time he’d been within touching distance, and it was now two for two that she’d sucked him in. It wasn’t her looks, though she was pretty in a girl-next-door way. Nor was it her feistiness and ability to laugh at herself.
Instead it was something else, something he suspected had to do with the singular flash of vulnerability he’d caught in her eyes.
She wasn’t quite as tough as she wanted the world to believe.
And hell. That drew him. Because Sam knew all too well what it was like to not be nearly as tough as you needed to be. Something he didn’t like to think about. “We doing this or what?” he asked the guys. “We have shit to decide.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a fun sucker?” Tanner asked.
Sam slid him a look, and Tanner blew out a breath. “Shit. Yeah, we’re doing this.”
Cole lifted a shoulder and nodded.
Neither of them liked these weekly business meetings, but if they didn’t have them, then all the hard decisions were left to Sam. He was good at making hard decisions in his life—he’d had to be—but this was about the three of them, equal partners. “So we agree,” he said. “We’re hiring someone to take over the crap none of us wants to do.”
“Told you,” Cole said. “Ad’s in the paper.”
“You get any calls yet?”
“Yes,” Cole said. “Lucille.”
Lucille was a thousand years old and the local gossip queen. She had a heart of gold, but a nose made for butting into other people’s business. “No,” Sam said. Hell no.
“Way ahead of you,” Cole told him. “Especially after she said she couldn’t wait to sit on the beach and take pics of us on and off the boat for her Pinterest Sexy Guys page. She thought she could manage our phones and scheduling in between her photography. She said something about hoping we go shirtless, and us signing something that allows her to use our images for—and I’m quoting here—the good of women’s mental health everywhere.”
“Christ,” Tanner muttered.
“I told her we had an age requirement,” Cole said, “and that our new admin had to be under the age of seventy.”
“How did she take that?” Sam asked.
“She was bummed, said even her fake ID showed seventy-five, but that she understood.”
Becca arrived with their pitcher of beer, except it wasn’t beer at all; it looked like . . . strawberry margaritas.
“You all decide on your order?” she asked, setting down three glasses.
“New Orleans,” Cole said, watching Tanner pour himself a strawberry margarita.
Becca looked startled. “What?”
“You’re originally from New Orleans,” Cole said.
She stared at him. “How did you know that?”
“You’re good, but I’m better,” Cole said. “I can hear it real faint in your voice.”
“Ignore him,” Tanner said, toasting her with his glass. “He’s a freak.”
“A freak who knows we didn’t order a chick drink,” Cole said as Tanner sipped at his strawberry margarita.
Becca gasped. “Oh, crap. This isn’t yours.” She nabbed the glass right out of Tanner’s hand. “I’m sorry. Don’t move.”
She snatched the pitcher as well and vanished.
“She is cute,” Cole said. “Not much of a waitress, though.”
“She’s not as bad as Tanya,” Tanner said. “She stole from you.”
“Borrowed,” Cole corrected. “I let her borrow some money for her mom, who was going to lose her home in Atlanta.”
“Did you ever get your money back?” Tanner asked mildly.
Cole pulled out his phone and eyed the dark screen as if wishing for a call.
Tanner rolled his eyes. “You didn’t. You let her walk with three grand of your hard-earned money. Oh, and by the way, I’ve got some land to sell you. Swamp land. It’s on sale, just for you.”
Sam shoved his iPad under their noses before a fight could break out. He didn’t mind a good fight now and then, but Jax and Ford, the owners of the Love Shack, frowned on it happening inside their bar. “If you two idiots are done, we’re in the middle of a financial meeting here.”
“You’re right,” Tanner said, and straightened in his seat. “Give it to us, Grandma.”
Sam gave him a long look. “It’s a good thing I’m too hungry to kick your ass.”
He’d been in charge of their money since their rig days. Back then, there’d been four of them: himself, Tanner, Cole, and Gil, the lot of them pretty much penniless. But thanks to his dad’s unique ability to squander his every last penny, Sam had learned to handle money by the age of ten. He’d been tight-fisted with their earnings, squirreling them away—earning him that Grandma moniker. He’d shut his friends up when, at the end of the first year, he’d shown them their savings balance.
They’d had a goal, their dream—the charter company, and their seven years at sea had been extremely profitable.
And deadly.