A Daughter's Story. Tara Quinn Taylor

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      CHAPTER EIGHT

      EMMA GAVE ROB a couple of extra hours to vacate her house on Saturday. She blamed her inability to get out of bed and leave the hotel room on her late night. It certainly wasn’t a man keeping her there.

      Her companion in crime was no more than a vivid memory. Sometime before dawn he’d kissed her one last time, told her to sleep, then, when she was more unconscious than not, he’d dressed and left. She hadn’t even known his intent until she’d heard the latch on the door click behind him.

      She’d risen then. In the restroom she’d found the note he’d left for her on the marble sink, telling her to stay as long as she liked. He’d arranged a late check-out. He told her to order breakfast on him.

      “I hope that our night together is a memory that will last you a lifetime,” he’d written. “I know that I will never forget you. Chris.”

      That was it. Just Chris. No last name. No phone number. No way for her to contact him. No request for a way to contact her.

      After reading the note half a dozen times Emma had told herself to dress, find her car and get the hell home.

      And then she’d remembered Rob’s deadline, which wasn’t yet past, and had crawled back into bed. What the heck. Chris had presumably paid for the room. She might as well get some rest.

      With the help of the wine she’d consumed the night before, she’d slept for several more hours—waking around noon to glasses half filled with stale wine and whiskey, the scent of lovemaking and her clothes in a neat pile on the table in front of the couch.

      The note Chris had written was still there, too, crumpled on the bedside table. Right where she’d left it.

      * * *

      WITH HIS FADED orange coveralls stripped down to his waist, Chris dropped the wrench and swore. He was stranded on his boat about ten miles out. And saw a flash of long legs in his mind’s eye.

      At his father’s insistence, he’d learned how to repair a boat engine before he’d pulled up his first trap. But there was only so much a guy could do to an engine with pistons that were done being overhauled. New rings weren’t going to do it this time. He’d had no black smoke warning this time. Only a rough idle when he’d taken the boat out.

      Maybe he’d have taken the engine coughs more seriously if he’d had any sleep. If he’d been able to wipe out the image of dark curls spread across his white pillowcase. He couldn’t afford to miss another day’s catch. And engine coughing could be healed after he’d brought in the haul. Usually.

      At least he’d brought in a better than average catch. More than seven hundred pounds. At only three dollars a pound—less than half of what he used to sell for—he was going to gross twenty-one hundred. He could get the catch in to Manny. With the cost of running a lobstering operation coupled with his living expenses, he was going to be lucky to make this month’s bills.

      Which was another reason he didn’t date. He couldn’t afford to wine and dine a woman. He couldn’t afford the time.

      Forgoing the radio—and the coast guard—Chris pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

      He couldn’t afford a new engine, either. Or a day off work. He damn well couldn’t afford to be distracted by thoughts of a woman—no matter how good the night before had been.

      “Jim, it’s Chris. I need a tow.”

      He gave his father’s best friend his coordinates. Jim wasn’t fishing anymore. He’d bought a new boat just before the economy failed and had lost it to bankruptcy a couple of years later. Now the sixty-seven-year-old СКАЧАТЬ