The Schemer (Harbor City 3)

The cab was waiting for them just outside the airport with the Welcome to the Conch Republic sign meeting its arrivals. Without any bags beyond their carry-ons, they went straight to it. Still not speaking. This quiet wasn’t like Everly, and it was starting to drive him nuts.

She’d no more than closed the door on her side of the cab when he turned to her. “Is the silent treatment your game plan for the entire weekend?”

She stiffened but turned to face him, the smile on her face the one she used for clients at her gallery, not the real one she’d been wearing during bingo. He fucking hated that smile.

“I wasn’t aware I was being too quiet for your tastes,” she said, her voice even. “What would you like to discuss?”

“How about what happened the other night?” The quiet words popped out before he could stuff them back into the do-not-talk-about-even-under-extreme-duress box in a dark corner of his brain. Shit. He might as well turn in his man card. What was next, asking her intentions?

Her chin went up a few degrees, but she didn’t fluster. “That’s best forgotten.”

“Look, folks,” the cabbie said, turning around in the front seat to eyeball them both. “While whatever happened the other night, I’m sure, was a doozy, why don’t you tell me where you need to be going before I remember all eight thousand and forty-two reasons why I divorced my wife and moved here?”

Frustration marching through him like ants on their way to a picnic, Tyler took a deep breath and forced his voice to sound calm. “The Hemingway Marina.”

“All righty, then,” the cabbie said. “Now you two can go back to your fighting.”

“We aren’t fighting,” they both grumbled at the same time.

The cabbie scoffed. “That’s what my wife always used to say, too.”

The cab pulled out of the airport, driving along a single-lane highway that gave a breathtaking view of the ocean. The muscles in his shoulders ached from tension, his palms were clammy, and the urge to keep pushing Everly, to make her say what she wanted, continued to build inside him. This wasn’t how he should react to this situation. He’d always been excellent at stilling his emotions—a useful skill to have in a volatile house growing up—but it was one that always seemed to disappear around her. He became rash. Their little war over the parking spot, the kisses, stripping her down and fucking her until they were both senseless in the parking garage, were all symptoms of a far worse disease—that of falling into his parents’ bad habits. Maybe, in this instance, silence really was the better part of valor.

And that’s how he kept his mouth shut despite every instinct in his body being ready for a verbal throw down as the cab puttered its way through the tourist-lined streets to the marina where the private charter was waiting for them just as Alberto had promised.

Captain Hank was in board shorts, a bright yellow T-shirt with stay weird printed onto it, and a captain’s hat that covered his suntanned-to-a-nice-level-of-leather bald head. Tyler offered to take Everly’s bag aboard, but she declined with as few words as possible. He was half-tempted to kiss a few extra ones out of her, but even in his current condition he knew she’d be more likely to impale him with her stiletto in a very strong but vulnerable place than open her mouth and let him in. So he gave her her space during the short boat ride to Treble Key, which, according to the information he’d gotten out of Alberto, was a six-acre island, two of which were submerged, with a large solar-powered house sitting right in the middle. A four-wheeler would be waiting for them at the dock, and they’d use that to trek two miles inward to the house. It couldn’t be any easier, and the amount of cold coming off Everly would negate any need for air-conditioning during the trip.

When the captain pulled up to the dock, though, there wasn’t a four-wheeler waiting. There wasn’t even much of a dock. It was more like a set of weather-worn boards haphazardly put together and held in place by gravity and a prayer.

“This can’t be right,” Everly said, the dread in her tone matching his.

Captain Hank took off his hat and wiped his head with a red handkerchief bleached to a light rose by the sun. “Oh, sorry, forgot to tell you about the change. The other dock was a no-go, so I have to let you off here.”

Tyler took another look at the dilapidated dock. For a guy who hadn’t been outside of the Harbor City metro area until he was in college, this was way out of his comfort zone. Like at least three time zones out of it. Everly stepped closer to him, her fingers gripping the boat’s railing tight as she looked down at the sorry excuse for a dock.

“Will it even hold us?” she asked, looking up at the captain on her other side.

“Of course it will. Anyway, you can swim, right?” He winked at Everly and handed over an envelope to Tyler.

EVERLY AND TYLER,

SO SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, BUT YOU’LL JUST NEED TO WALK DOWN THE PATH TO THE HOUSE. DON’T WORRY ABOUT ALFRED. HE’S CURIOUS BUT HARMLESS. JUST DON’T FEED HIM OR PET HIM. HE HASN’T BITTEN ANYONE YET, BUT I’D HATE FOR ONE OF YOU TO BE THE FIRST.

CIAO,

ALBERTO

There was nothing about this that sounded good. Tyler hated surprises; growing up where there were emotional bombshells that usually exploded and sent shrapnel everywhere on a daily basis, he had a good reason for it. He handed the note to Everly, who read it with lightning speed.

She turned to the captain, who was off-loading their bags onto the dock. “Who’s Alfred?”

“Better question is what’s Alfred,” Tyler corrected, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

Captain Hank got back on board the boat, one hand on the rope tethering it to the dock.

“He’s a Florida Keys raccoon and a complete mooch, so if you’ve got any food in your bags, you should probably leave it on the boat.” He jerked his head toward the dock. “Now, stick to the path right there among the mangroves and you’ll be at the house in a jiff. You can’t miss it.”

A few minutes later and Tyler was standing next to Everly on the dock, watching Captain Hank head back toward Key West.