Sweet Fortune

eyed the broad shoulders and chest and wondered if he lifted weights as a hobby. With his breezy, all-American good looks and smile, he could have been any corporate pilot working for any private business anywhere. The name engraved on his name tag was Hoffman.
    “When does this famous tour begin?” Hatch demanded, glancing at his watch. “Haven't got all day, you know.”
    Jessie winced in embarrassment and shot another apologetic glance at Hoffman. “Please, dear,” she murmured, doing her best to sound like a placating wife, “don't be so impatient. It's a lovely day and I'm sure we're going to enjoy the visit.”
    “Enjoy myself? Don't be an idiot. If I wanted to enjoy myself, I'd have gone fishing. I wouldn't have agreed to waste my time up here.”
    “Yes, dear.” Jessie hid a quick smile. Hatch was putting on an act, of course. But he was awfully good at it and she suspected he was well and truly into the role. Probably because he really did think this jaunt was a waste of time and effort.
    It had been Hatch's idea to adopt the facade of a married couple. “It'll be sort of like playing good-cop/bad-cop,” he'd explained on the drive up from Seattle. “You'll be the gullible, easily influenced, weak-brained little wifey who buys into the whole save-the-world scene.”
    “Thanks. What part do you get to play?”
    “I will be the cynical, jaded, tough-minded husband who has to be convinced.”
    “You don't think it'll work if we reverse the roles?” Jessie suggested dryly. “I could play the cynical, jaded, tough-minded wife and you could play the gullible, easily influenced, weak-brained husband.”
    “Are you kidding? You're a natural for your part, already. You're the one who can't say no to anyone, remember? If it hadn't been for me, you'd probably own a couple of hundred shares of a company that makes fat-free cooking oil by now.”
    “You know something, Hatch? If that company's stock goes up in the next six months, I'm going to hold you personally responsible for reimbursing me for whatever profits I don't make.”
    He'd smiled faintly. “What happens if the stock goes down?”
    “Why, then, I'll be forever grateful, of course.”
    “I could live with that.”
    The trip had gone smoothly until this point, Jessie reflected as she watched two figures come down the path toward the cove. It had been almost like setting out on a mini-vacation with Hatch. She'd felt a flash of pure sensual anticipation as she'd watched him load their overnight bags into the trunk of his Mercedes. She was going off to spend a night with her lover .
    She was having an affair.
    “Affair” was the only word she could come up with to describe Hatch's role in her life at the moment. She refused to call their relationship an “engagement” as Hatch insisted on doing and she could not bear to think of it as a one-night stand. That left “affair.”
    “I'll introduce you to your guides,” Hoffman, the pilot, said cheerfully as a man and woman from the mansion stepped onto the bobbing dock. “This is Rick Landis and Sherry Smith. Rick, Sherry, meet Mr. and Mrs. Hatchard.”
    Jessie nodded politely. “How do you do? We really appreciate your taking the time to tour us around your facility.”
    “Glad you could make it,” Rick Landis said, smiling respectfully at Hatch. He had the same sort of open, easy charm the pilot displayed. His dark hair was trimmed in a short, clean-cut style and he was wearing the same blue slacks and military-style white shirt that comprised the pilot's uniform. He looked to be about the same age as Hoffman, somewhere in his mid-twenties, perhaps. And he appeared to be in the same excellent physical shape.
    “Didn't have much choice,” Hatch muttered, fleshing out his disgruntled-husband role nicely. “Wife insisted on this little jaunt. Had my way, we'd have gone to Orcas for a couple of days instead.”
    “Oh, I think you'll find our little island is even more lovely than Orcas Island,” Sherry Smith said earnestly. A young woman, no more than nineteen or twenty at the most, she seemed much more intense than either Hoffman or Landis. She was also quite attractive, Jessie could not help but notice. Her hair was long and honey-colored and the blue-and-white outfit she was wearing showed off her narrow waist and flaring hips.
    “It's certainly beautiful here,” Jessie gushed, as if anxious to make up for her surly husband. She made a show of surveying the scenery, which