Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(4)

As it was, at five six and one-sixty, she knew she wasn’t exactly a twig. But she’d kept herself around this weight for a couple of years now and realized she didn’t want to kill herself working out when she despised it. It was enough to be healthy. So she wasn’t a size two.

She didn’t need to be. She had well-rounded curves in all the right places, and while she ran into plenty of eligible men in her line of work, she never mixed business and pleasure.

Unfortunately, she really didn’t do much socializing, either. Hell, she’d gone out to eat with other people more often in the past several years while Tony lived with her than she had in the years before he moved in.

Most of the friends she had now were only because they’d been Tony’s friends, and she got to know them through him once he moved in.

I am f*cking pitiful.

Emotionally drained and mentally exhausted, she got up, with Carlo following close on her heels, and closed Tony’s bedroom door behind her. She would start again tomorrow.

How she’d make it past then remained to be seen.





Chapter Two


It was a great day to be alive, a gorgeous, picture-perfect southwest Florida Tuesday, the kind of day the county tourist boards loved to brag about.

Reed Hibbard stood at the wheel of his twenty-eight-foot Mako fishing boat. His five charter passengers held on while he blasted over the glassy Gulf rollers, up on plane, both outboard engines at full throttle.

They were heading in to the marina, right on time for him to reach the dock, refuel, get more bait, lunch, pick up his next charter at one, and head out again. Hopefully they wouldn’t have much in the way of summer storms today. The seafront pattern had moved east, toward the center of the state, and the afternoon thunderstorms were usually blowing up over land. If that same pattern held this afternoon, he wouldn’t have to cut the afternoon charter short.

Meaning happy customers.

Right now, he didn’t even need his GPS unit mounted on the dash. He’d made this inbound trip countless times over the past couple of years, had all the landmarks and channel markers embedded in his brain. Going out, yes, he needed to be right on the numbers, but coming home was easy once he was close enough to make out the landmarks on shore and the head marker.

His phone, which he had strapped to the bottom recorder bracket with a Velcro strap while underway, lit up with several text messages from Lyle as they ventured back into cell tower range.

I really need a new cell phone. And a new service provider.

It wasn’t uncommon for his customers to have cell coverage long after and before he did when heading offshore and returning again. But the cheap-ass plan had saved him hundreds of dollars every year at a time early on when he’d needed to cut expenses. Now that he was making money again, and out of the initial locked-in contract period, maybe it was time to look into switching to a company that was better than two tin cans and a piece of rotted string.

Hell, there were days he’d settle for two tin cans and a piece of rotted string when compared to his current cell provider.

He’d wait to respond to Lyle until he was safely docked at the marina he used as a home base. He was coming up on the head marker, and with it being low tide, he wanted his full focus on where he was going. The shallow channel could be treacherous to lower units and props if someone veered too far out of it and into the rock-strewn shallows surrounding it. He’d busted one prop in his time as a charter guide, and that was more than an expensive enough lesson to last him a lifetime.

Thirty minutes later, he was safely tied up at the dock, the passengers were unloading their stuff and happily heading toward a cleaning table to filet their catch themselves, and he could finally text Lyle back.

Just got in from morning run. Doing turnaround now.

Lyle replied.

Dinner?

Reed thought about it. He had a grouper of his own in the cooler that would easily feed both of them, but he wasn’t sure he’d feel like cooking after he got home tonight.

I’ll clean it if you’ll cook it.

Lyle responded a minute later.

:)

Reed headed in to the bathroom before refueling. He had an account at the marina, and they charged him automatically every week, so he didn’t have to worry about paying for it or his fresh bait right then.

One of the perks of using the place as his home base. Most guides who launched their boats from the marina’s ramp didn’t get credit accounts. Some of them didn’t even get discounts, if they were too cheap to buy a monthly launch pass from the office and instead paid on a per-launch basis.

He got it. Some of the guides only did it part-time and needed to save every penny they could. But he’d discovered the added benefit of free advertising, both from the marina’s referrals and from having his boat parked there in a covered slip near the fuel dock, meant it was worth the trade-off. He had his name and number on the side of the boat, and he had a full-color sign mounted on a piling on his slip, with a business card holder. Plus, he could deduct it from his taxes as a business expense.

Yes, early on, when he’d first started working as a fishing guide, he’d scrimped for every penny, too. He got it. If it hadn’t been for moving in with Lyle, he’d probably still be scrimping.

But at least he was happy. That was a hell of a lot more than he could say before his divorce and career change three years ago. Fifteen years as a financial advisor had burned him out, especially when layered on top of nine years married to a woman whom he’d discovered he was totally not compatible with.