Return to Magnolia Harbor - Hope Ramsay Page 0,102
yacht club? Probably. It was the sort of thing the son of a rich man would do.
“Oh, look,” the waitress said, pointing. “They’re done for the day, and Bonney Rose is leading them in. Her skipper is a crazy man, but so cute. He’s got a chest to die for.” She giggled. “My friends and I sometimes refer to it as ‘the Treasure Chest.’” The waitress pointed at the lead boat with a navy-blue hull and crisp white sails.
The boat was heading toward the floating dock with the others behind it. The two sailors sat with their legs extended and their bodies leaning hard over the water in an impressive display of core strength. The guy in the back of the boat was shirtless with his life vest open to expose an impressive six-pack. His skin was berry brown, and his curly dark hair riffled in the wind.
Jenna caught her breath as a deep, visceral longing clutched her core. He resembled a marauding pirate. Dark and handsome with a swath of masculine brow, high cheekbones, and a full mouth. Like someone with Spanish blood and a little Native American or Creole mixed in. Or maybe African too.
Had they met before? Perhaps in a past life?
She watched in rapt attention as the boat came toward the dock at a sharp angle. He was going to crash. But at the last moment, the boat turned away, stalling in the water, allowing the second sailor, a man with a salt-and-pepper beard, to step onto the dock in one fluid motion, carrying a mooring line. The big sail flapped noisily in the wind as the shirtless sailor began pulling it down into the boat, his biceps flexing in the late-afternoon sun.
Five more sailboats arrived in the same noisy manner, and for the next few minutes, an orderly chaos ensued as boats arrived and dropped sail and got in line for the launch. Jenna had trouble keeping her eyes off the man with the too-curly hair and the dark skin.
It was probably because she’d spent the day thinking about her father and the way he’d sailed here, and died here. Had her father been like a dashing pirate ready to buckle some swash? She pulled her gaze away and allowed a wistful smile. She was doing it again. Inventing a father for herself instead of seeking the real one.
“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress, whose name tag said Abigail, asked.
“Yes. What’s his name? And why is the name of his boat misspelled?” She pointed to the man and the boat, where BONNEY ROSE was painted in gold letters along the stern.
“That’s Jude St. Pierre. And the boat’s name is a tribute to Anne Bonney, a female pirate from back in the day. It’s also a tribute to Gentleman Bill Teal’s boat, which broke up over near the inlet back in the 1700s. That boat was named the Bonnie Rose, after Rose Howland.”
“And who is that?”
“She’s the lady who planted jonquils all over the island in memory of Gentleman Bill, the pirate.”
“I sense a story.”
“It’s basically the town myth. Explains all the pirate stores in town. You can pick up a free Historical Society pamphlet almost anywhere. I’d give you one, but we’re out of them. It’s the end of the summer, you know. Things are starting to wind down here.”
“Do many boats go down in the inlet?” Jenna asked, a little shiver running up her spine. Is that what had happened to her father?
Abigail nodded. “The currents can be treacherous there if you don’t know what you’re doing or you get caught in a squall. Can I get you anything else?”
Jenna shook her head. “Just the check.”
As Abigail walked away, Jenna turned to study the man named Jude St. Pierre. Her skin puckered up, and her mouth went bone dry. She pushed the attraction aside. That was not what she wanted from him.
She wanted a sailboat ride to the place where her father had died. But since she didn’t know where that might be in the vastness of Moonlight Bay, maybe the best she could do was a sailing lesson so she could find it later herself.
“You’ve got an admirer,” Tim Meyer said, nodding in the general direction of Rafferty’s terrace. “Easy on the eyes, dirty blond, with big brown eyes.”
Jude didn’t follow Tim’s glance. Instead, he concentrated on the job of securing the mast to its cradle with a couple of bungee cords. He didn’t have time to flirt with tourists.