Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy
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Authors: Shaye Marlow
Two Captains,
One Chair
Shaye Marlow
Two Captains, One Chair
Shaye Marlow
Copyright © 2015 by Shaye Marlow
All Rights Reserved
This story is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.
Also by Shaye Marlow
Alaskan Romance
Erotic Sci-fi
Erotic Adventures of an Alien Captive
Firefighters
Contents
I had no idea how much hard work went into publishing a novel, until I wrote one. I’ve learned that when an author expresses her thanks to the army of awesome people that helped make it happen, she really, really means it.
One of the most important things, I’ve found, is encouragement. All of the people I name below have done me an incredible service: They encouraged me, and pushed me to keep going. And for that, I’d like to say thank you.
Also:
Sara King, thank you for your guidance, problem-solving, and advertising mojo. Thank you Karen Boehle-Johnson, for sticking with me, for all the extra hours and late nights, for your help, judgement, and opinions, and all of your editing. To my awesome family, thank you for believing in me, supporting me, and for all of the brainstorming and Photoshop lessons. To my beta-readers and Facebook friends, thank you for being there, being my sounding board, and helping me to improve the final product. And to all my fans, thank you, thank you for bugging me to keep writing!
It’s not just this awesome army, but also each and every reader that makes the whole thing possible (and worthwhile). So to you as well, dear reader, thank you.
Prol
ogue
T
hey’d put a bag over my head.
Then they’d picked me up, ignored my struggles, and carried me somewhere within the building. I now sat on a cool metal chair, my wrists tied behind my back.
I could still hear the cheering, the eerie sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The weave of the rough cloth across my face was loose, but I still couldn’t see a damn thing.
My heart thudded in my ears, and the rope they’d secured me with bit into my skin. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.
I was pretty sure I’d heard one of them walk out. The other was still here, making faint sounds as he shifted and paced.
He didn’t answer.
I was breathing fast, getting more scared now that I had an opportunity to think.
What the heck had I stumbled onto?
My imagination went wild, guessing at the things they planned on doing with me. Ransom? Sex slave? Organ donor? Hell, if kidneys and livers brought big bucks in Mexico, imagine what they might be worth in Alaska, especially nice healthy ones like mine.
“What are you up to? Why have you taken me?” I asked, trying again. My voice wanted to quaver, but I forced it level. I
would
keep my head about me, and I
would
find out what was going on. I would wait for my opportunity, and either talk whoever was doing this down, or I’d escape. Because like
hell
would I accept anything else.
The man still didn’t answer.
I sat there, my heart pounding, resisting my growing fear.
I just needed more information, and if they weren’t going to give it to me, then… I’d spend this time figuring it out for myself.
Who and why?
I thought back, quickly skimming through recent memory.
My life had been pretty routine, up until about a week ago. That’s when things had gotten interesting.
Chapt
er One
I
was searching for earrings to match my green dress when I realized my gold nugget was missing. It wasn’t next to my jewelry box, where I’d left it.
And before you ask, this wasn’t a jewelry-sized nugget. No, it was a big one. Softball sized. Large enough to have a name.
The previous owner called it Georgette. Three weeks ago, he’d given it to me. Then he’d died. But I don’t like to think about that, so let’s get back to the matter at hand. Or…
not
at hand.
Georgette was gone.
Earrings forgotten, I began to search. I combed the top of my dresser, opened every drawer. Wasn’t there.
I paused, thinking back. I’d last seen it, had had it in my hand, day before last. I thought I’d left it on the dresser, but it appeared I was mistaken.
Tripping down the stairs, I searched all the odd places I sometimes left things—on the bathroom counter and kitchen table, in my jacket pocket. It was none of those places.
I ripped the house apart, starting at the top and working my way back down. I opened every cabinet door, looked under the couch, and on the windowsills. I even looked in the damn fridge.
I found my lost set of keys, a remote-operated Passion Party bullet, a real bullet, and a dead mouse—
I know, ick!
—but no gold nugget.
I went outside. I traced my usual path along the dirt trail that led to the river. There were a lot of rocks on the beach, yeah… but none of them were gold.
Next, I checked my boats. I went out onto my little dock and jumped down into my sleek, 19’ outboard jet boat. I looked in the console, in the cubby with the life vests, and got my fingers greasy as I felt around in the damp, filthy cracks beneath the bench seats. I hadn’t ever brought the gold nugget onboard my 33’ river barge, but I combed it over, too.
Moving with increasing urgency, I walked along the path to my little generator house. I found a couple bent and rusty nails set on the 2x4 framing, and a coffee mug that looked to have been abandoned several days ago. But no Georgette.
I even checked in the outhouse, with the same results. No toilet paper, and no nuggets of the golden variety.
My really expensive chunk of precious metal was completely, utterly missing.
After almost an hour of searching, I sat down at my table, looked out at the mess I’d made as I searched the place, and I reviewed the facts.
Fact 1: I’d put the nugget on that dresser, two days ago.
Fact 2: Now, it was missing.
Fact 3: Gold nuggets didn’t have legs.
Conclusion: Somebody had kidnapped Georgette.
But… who? How do you catch a thief?
I looked at the tile floor just inside the front door. There were muddy footprints, but they were my own. I hadn’t noticed if there’d been any there before I’d trod back and forth a half dozen times. All of my windows were intact, closed, and latched, the screens in place. But the thief could have just walked in either the front or back door. I didn’t lock them.
I pushed back to my feet and went to re-examine the way down to the shore, looking closely for anything weird—strange footprints, a candy-wrapper, any clue.
Who was I kidding? I wasn’t a tracker. I could hardly tell where one footprint ended and the other began, let alone differentiate them. I couldn’t tell if there were any unusual scuff marks on my beach, either. Everything looked pretty much the way it was supposed to.
The shore, sandy and strewn with rounded beach pebbles, sloped up from the river. There were steps leading to the top of a three-foot bank, and then my well-worn path cutting through the grasses and bluebells.
What there
wasn’t,
was a clue.
In frustration, I went back to my cabin.
I was missing something probably worth upwards of $100,000. I’d been thinking about going to college with that sucker. Or Hawaii for a month. Or hanging on to it for when the stock market crashed. Or using it for a down payment on a house in town. Or paying for flight school. Or saving it for my grandkids. Or…
Where the hell had it gone? And who might have taken it?
My eye caught on my goat, Mimi, who was currently nibbling on the dish rag strung through the oven door handle. She was an Alpine goat, her coat mostly brown with black-and-white streaks along her head. She paused in her chewing, looking at me with one horizontally-slitted eye. Her tail flicked.
“You didn’t eat it, did you?” I asked.
She ignored me and continued to eat my towel. With a sigh, I got up and took it from her.
I had two choices here: I could stay home and search my house again—and I knew in my heart I wouldn’t find the nugget… Or I could go to the party I’d been getting ready for an hour ago. It was the annual potluck salmon bake at my parents’, and if I went, I could start asking around. Maybe the locals would know something. I could get my daily dose of gossip, and possibly collect a clue or two.
I opted for the party, figuring I could search for the nugget again when I got home. After washing the grime from my hands and the dust from my knees, I went back and found my dangly emerald earrings, and scooped up some pretty slingback sandals from my closet. I shoved my arms into my float coat—the bulky, sleeved cousin of the life vest, necessary for survival on the icy-cold river—and my feet into a pair of rubber boots.
Sandals in hand, I paused at the door and glanced back at my goat. “Don’t eat the cabin while I’m gone,” I told her. I was only half-kidding. She was standing with her front feet propped on a chair, lipping at a napkin.
Mimi spent most of her time outside, but had her own dog door. She was house-trained, but had never quite grasped that my belongings weren’t food. It wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility that she’d eaten my nugget, but it had been bigger than her mouth, and harder than her usual fare, so… probably not.
The boat ride was a short one. I lived almost across the wide, silty Kuskana River from my parents’ place, Clearwater Lodge. It was a fishing lodge, which they had built and now operated. There was a chalet-style main building with a deck that fronted the water, and eight cabins out back, scattered around a central bathhouse.
I was late, but still found a spot at their docks. I tied my boat off, tossed the unsightly army-green float coat into it, and quickly changed into my sandals.
As I moved along the dock, I spotted my dad at the other end. He was a retired Anchorage Police Department officer—and a black-and-white, by-the-book asshole if ever there was one. His name was Don, but everyone called him by his last name, Ramsey. He was short and belligerent, so it seemed to fit.
He was digging around in a boat—not his, I saw as I drew closer—and it sounded like he was hassling the guy standing next to it. The poor bastard probably didn’t have the prescribed number of float cushions, or something similar. My dad was retired, but he sure as shit didn’t
act
that way.
I put a little hustle in my step—if Dad saw me, he would pester me about my boat’s registration, or tell me I couldn’t fly my little pirate flag off the stern, or decide my dress was too short. I climbed up the couple stairs to the lawn and hurried into the throng of people, headed for the deck.
Helly was already there, her blonde hair shining bright in the evening light. She’d been my best friend since elementary school, and currently lived on a lake upriver. She was a rabid fisherwoman, erotica author, notorious introvert, and sister to some extremely yummy brothers.
She was perched on her boyfriend Gary’s lap, sitting sideways across his thighs at our usual picnic table. Her hair was loose—something that’d been happening with increasing frequency since Gary had exploded into her life—and she was smiling into his eyes at close range.
My heart was racing with the urgency of finding my missing property, but it still melted a little at seeing them together. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d told her they seemed to be on the same wavelength.
Her hand had snuck under his shirt, I noted as I got closer. And—wonder of wonders—she was wearing a dress.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey!” Helly replied, beaming at me.
And why shouldn’t she be cheerful?
I thought as my emotions tipped toward envy. She got to hit
that
every night, while I—the social one, the
friendly
one—was alone.
Gary smiled at me, and though I
had
finally disciplined my girly parts not to take notice, I could still acknowledge that he was a very handsome man. He had black hair, and sparkling green eyes, and even a dent in his strong chin.
My mental gossip catalog coughed up Gary’s details: He was the son of an old family friend, and was also an ex-sniper and ex-hitman—I’d made a mental note never to get into a gunfight with him. Also:
Plans on proposing to Helly, asked me not to tell.
I plopped onto the bench across from them, and leaned forward with my hands flat on the tabletop. “I have a problem,” I announced.
Helly looked interested, probably because I was never the one with problems. “What’s up?” she asked. Gary raised a dark brow.
“I lost the gold nugget.”
She tilted her head, the fingers she’d been stroking Gary’s neck with going still. “Your huge gold nugget? What do you mean, lost it? How do you lose a gold nugget of that size?”
“I don’t know,” I said, irritated. “It’s not where I left it, and I’ve turned my cabin upside down looking for it. I think someone stole it, and I need to figure out who it might have been.”
“Shouldn’t you call the Troopers?” Gary asked. “Report it missing, let them investigate?”
I bared my teeth in an expression I’d learned from my often-ornery best friend. “I hate law enforcement.” Probably mostly because of my father, but also: “I’ve been screwed by cops in the past, and I’ve heard of way too many people being good Samaritans, reporting things, and getting the shaft…”
Helly was nodding in agreement. It was a miracle, really, that the Troopers had let her and her brothers go as easily as they had last summer, after their firefight with drug dealers up from New Orleans. Gary had rolled over on a drug cartel he’d been working for, and the second-in-command, seeking revenge, had tracked him to Alaska. Guys with guns had found him up on the little lake he shared with Helly, and had attacked. Gary, Helly, and her brothers had defended. Quite effectively, too, considering they were all still alive.
“I don’t want to get the Troopers involved,” I said. “Besides, I honestly don’t think they’d do me much good. What are they gonna do? Ask around?
I
can ask around. I know this neighborhood, and these people, better than they ever will. Who better to investigate, than me?”
Helly slid off Gary’s lap, and I had their complete attention. “Well, okay,” Gary said. “So who knew about the nugget? Who knew you had it?”
“Well… I brought it to the Gundersons’ Memorial Day party and showed it around.”
Helly snorted a laugh, and Gary covered his eyes and groaned. “So our list of suspects is everybody,” he said.
“Yes,” I admitted, a little embarrassed. Seriously, though. I was a gossip. How could a gossip be expected to keep a secret of that magnitude?
“Who had motive?” Helly asked.
I blew out a harsh sigh. “That nugget was worth a lot. I can count on one hand the number of locals that are well enough off that they couldn’t use the money.”
“But we’re not just looking at locals,” Helly pointed out. “It could have been a fishing guide, or a housekeeper, or any of the dozens of guests in right now. Heck, if it was one of them, they could have already left with it.”
“When did you see it last?” Gary asked.
“Day before yesterday.” I was frowning, still thinking about my nugget in some tourist’s suitcase.
“Okay, so this happened either that night, yesterday, or sometime today before you showed up here,” Gary said. “We need to establish alibis.”
“What, for
everyone
?” I looked around the party. There were at least forty people here, and this was just a fraction of the population on the river right now. The numbers ballooned in summer, while only about a dozen of us were insane enough to stay through the winter.
“Or we could start with the people you think it might have been,” Gary said. He looked at me, and waited.
“Well… there’s Rick,” I said. I picked him out of the crowd, a fiftiesish, scruffy man with a beer belly. He’d spent five years in jail for robbery in his youth, which made him an obvious suspect. I’d also
heard
that his penis curved pretty impressively to the right.
“What about Ed?” Helly said.
I glowered at her. “Just because he had the hots for you once doesn’t mean—”
“No, I’m serious,” she said. “That gold nugget should have been his. It was his dad’s; the nugget was kinda his by right. And yet Ralph gave it to you. Maybe Ed decided he wanted it after all.”
