The Pirate & The Adventurer & The Cowboy

Hawthorne had widened the entrance so that a small boat could get through to the sea and then concealed the enlarged opening with a movable section of stone that blended with the lava.

    It is a very large opening, quite large enough to permit a boat to enter and dock at the small wharf inside the hidden chamber. I fear the room is not merely to be used as an emergency escape route. I believe Roger uses this secret place to unload his most valuable cargoes. I also fear these cargoes are not such as result from the honest shipping business in which he is supposedly engaged. I shall have to put a halt to such practices immediately. Roger Hawthorne is the son of an earl and I am a daughter of a respectable family. We do not indulge in this sort of thing. I will make that quite clear to him.

    "Attagirl, Amelia," Kate whispered. She closed the diary and wondered more than ever if Jared was following in his ancestor's footsteps. If so, she must be as firm as Amelia had been.

NINE

    « ^ »

    "W hat the hell do you mean, you can't repair that railing today? Tomorrow is Thursday, remember? By tomorrow this place will be crawling with cruise-ship people. We'll need all the extra bar seating we can get. I don't want to have to block off this area just because you couldn't get the damned railing fixed in time." Fists on his hips, Jared confronted the two workmen in front of him. They both shrugged.

    "Take it easy, boss," said the taller of the two. "Not much we can do without the teak. You know that. Hank said he checked over on Ruby this morning 'fore he left and it hadn't come in from Hawaii yet."

    "That teak was due two weeks ago."

    "Island time, boss," the second man said philosophically. "Hey, you know how it is out here. Two days, two weeks, two months. Don't make much difference. It'll get done one of these days. No hurry."

    "I don't want that railing repaired one of these days, I want it fixed by this time tomorrow. I didn't get this place built by running it on island time, and I'm not going to lose the seating capacity on that terrace tomorrow just because the damned teak didn't leave Hawaii yet." Jared studied the broken section of terrace railing. He was used to improvising. Out here in the islands, a man either learned how to get creative or he didn't survive in business.

    The two workmen stood on either side of Jared, examining the broken railing with grave concern.

    "Okay, Mark, I think I've got an idea," Jared finally announced. "Remember the lumber we had left over after we finished the new changing rooms?"

    "Sure. We stored it in the back of the maintenance shed." Mark's face lit up. "Think there's a piece that'll fit?"

    "Go check. It's not teak, but who's going to notice?"

    "Right, boss."

    The two men ambled off the terrace just as Letty and David came around the corner. Letty smiled.

    "Still waiting on the teak for the railing, Jared?" Letty surveyed the broken section.

    "Hi, Letty. Yeah, still waiting. Far as I can tell it hasn't left Hawaii. The usual story. It'll get here one of these days." He looked down at his son. "How was school?"

    "Same old thing. You seen Kate?" David's face was screwed up with concern. "I've been lookin' all over for her. We were gonna practice my kicks again today and then go snorkeling."

    "Haven't seen her since lunch," Jared said, deliberately quashing the memory of Kate's oddly distracted air earlier. It had irritated him because he was almost certain she was already starting to make plans for her trip back to Seattle. This was the final week of her stay and that fact was eating at him. Thus far, neither of them had brought up the subject of her imminent departure.

    "Maybe she went swimming," Letty suggested.

    "She wouldn't have gone down to the beach without me," David said, obviously certain of that much. "She promised she'd wait for me. She always keeps her promises."

    His son was right about that, Jared thought. If Kate made a promise, she would keep it. He wondered what it would take to get Kate to promise she'd wait for him.

    Then he wondered for the hundredth time how a supposedly intelligent, mature woman could entertain the silly romantic notion that she would recognize her perfect mate the moment he walked into her life. It was a particularly ridiculous and infuriating example of feminine logic and he intended to point that out to her again tonight. He himself was rapidly learning that the right person didn't always show up packaged as