Harlequin Heartwarming July 2015 - Box Set: The Hardest Fight\Man of the Family\Sailing in Style\Once Upon a Friendship by Amy Vastine

Author:Amy Vastine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Harlequin Heartwarming
Publisher: Harlequin

CHAPTER THREE

“PIPER!” CY RUSHED to the railing. He knew she swam like a barracuda, but in that wedding getup, in these murky waters? Stripping off his jacket, he prepared to dive, but a uniformed young man caught him by the legs, dragging him down to the decking.

“Hey, man, it’s not worth it. Things’ll look better in the morning.”

“I’m not suicidal. Two people just went overboard,” he said, shaking the kid off and leaping to his feet.

They both peered over the side.

“Piper,” the man called. “You all right?”

Piper shouted back.

“Yeah,” the young man said. “She’s got him by the waist, and she’s swimming around to the other side so they can climb up to the gangplank.”

Relief chugged through Cy.

The young man turned a suspicious glare on him. “Did you have something to do with this, pal? We’ve got a brig, you know.”

There was indeed a makeshift brig on the boat, Cy had discovered. It was a remnant from the days when the navy had commandeered the River King to serve as barracks for soldiers during the Second World War. They’d been constructing the underwater net that covered the mouth of San Francisco Bay to thwart submarines.

“It was an accident.”

The fellow did not appear convinced until Piper returned to the deck with her erstwhile groom, his black hair curling into wet tendrils around his face.

“I’ll grab some towels,” the uniformed man said as he dashed off.

Spooley studied Cy, dripping water as he did so. Cy’s stomach sank to his shoes. An apology was in order, most likely.

“Uh, Mr. Spooley? I’m not sure what to say.”

Spooley’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you the decorator?”

“Well...”

Piper stood next to him, glaring. “He was helping me.”

Cy closed his mouth and murmured, “Looked to me like he was hurting you.”

“That’s called acting.” She glared at Cy. “I’m wearing a wedding dress. Didn’t it occur to you for one split second that this might be a scene from a play?”

“My thinking powers were temporarily offline,” Cy said.

She grimaced and looked at Spooley. “I’m really sorry about this, Carson.”

Carson? Cy didn’t like the softness in her voice when she said his name.

Spooley laughed. “It’s okay. I’ll have a funny anecdote to share so I don’t sound so boring at parties.”

She smiled. Cy fumed.

The concierge raised a glistening eyebrow. “So, you know each other well?”

“A little. He’s...he was a friend.”

I was more than that. At least he’d thought so.

Piper put on a pitying face as she regarded him. “He suffers from a severe chemical imbalance that happens when he doesn’t get enough sugar.”

Cy huffed. “No, I don’t.”

She jabbed her elbow into Cy’s sternum. “I’ll take him someplace and make sure he has a Twinkie or two.”

Spooley considered. “All right. Why don’t we both get into something dry, and we’ll do the scene debrief in the salon in fifteen minutes? Unless you’re too tired? I know it’s late.”

“Not at all. That would be great,” she said, offering him a full kilowatt smile.

Cy watched Spooley go, wondering if this time he’d made a blunder of cosmic proportions.

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