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Ivan Rasmussen swirled the last of his coffeearound the bottom of his mug, looked past theprow of his ship to the sloping green lawn ofCamden Harbor Park, and wondered for thehundredth time in the past two hours what thedevil had happened to his cook, Lucy. She wasnever late. Until now. Now she was beyondlate, and because she was his friend as well ashis cook, he was worried.
He squinted at a flash of color and movementtoward the top of the hill, and unconsciouslylet his mouth fall open at the sight of ayoung woman rolling down the grass embankment.She came to a spread-eagled stop whenshe reached the cement footpath at the bottom,and she uttered an expletive that carried acrossthe short span of shoreline, bringing the firstsmile of the day to Ivan's lips.
Stephanie Lowe, the woman Ivan had beenwatching, struggled to her feet, adjusted herbattered backpack, and scowled at the grassstains on her knees. She was looking ahead to awhole week of cooking for Ivan the Terrible inexchange for free plumbing repairs to her bathroom.And if that wasn't awful enough, shewas the one who had to bring Ivan the goodnews that his usual cook was taking an impromptuvacation.
"Lord, I'm such a dope!" Stephanie muttered,smacking herself on the forehead, broadcastingher thoughts to all watching. Nothing likemaking a memorable entrance. If one morething went wrong, she was going home. Theheck with it all, she thought. She wasn't crazyabout this deal anyway. She'd seen Ivan onlyonce, but he'd made a lasting impression onher. He was over six feet with gray-green eyesand strawberry blond hair. And at the time oftheir meeting he'd been all packaged up in acustom-tailored, navy pin-striped suit that hadmade him look more like a chairman of theboard than the captain of a schooner.
Stephanie searched the crowded harbor forthe Josiah T. Savage, gasping when she realizedit was directly in front of her, tied to a floating dock at the end of the cement path. It would bethe last of the windjammers to leave the harbor,she thought with an inward groan—late toleave Camden because it was waiting for itscook. Unfortunately, its cook had suddenly decidedto get married. Double unfortunately, itscook was her cousin Lucy.
Lucy had provided her with a few vital statisticson the Savage. It was a windship. A tallship. A hundred-year-old, two-masted, coastingschooner with seventy feet of deck length,carrying twenty-two passengers and four crewmembers on six-day cruises along the islandstrewncoast of Maine. Lucy's description of hercaptain had been equally brief. Ivan Rasmussen,she'd said, was better known as Ivanthe Terrible because he was terribly handsome,terribly eligible, and terribly slippery. Stephaniehad her own reasons for believing he was terriblyrotten.
She took a quick survey of the ship and spottedIvan standing on deck, coffee mug in hand,looking at her as if she'd just dropped off theplanet Mars.
Get it together, Stephanie, she told herself.Life was filled with trade-offs. If you packedaway a whole bag of cookies, then you had to wash them down with diet root beer. This wasjust another of life's cans of diet root beer.Cousin Lucy worked as a cook on Ivan's windjammer.That morning cousin Lucy had decidedto run off and marry Stanley Shelton.Stanley Shelton was a plumber. Stephanie desperatelyneeded a plumber. Simple, right?Cousin Lucy got a honeymoon, and Stephaniegot a toilet. Okay, no problem. Piece of cake.There was no reason to be nervous. Ivan shouldbe happy to have her aboard, she reasoned.Where else would he get a cook on such shortnotice? She was actually doing him a favor.
Besides, after what he'd done to her, he deservedto eat her cooking for a week. Anyway,how hard could it be? She'd just whip up fortyor fifty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches andsend all the passengers off to an island in thedinghy. It might even be fun—a week on thehigh seas with the wind at her back and the saltspray in her face. It was going to be an adventure.A new experience.
She approached the boarding ramp andlooked up into Ivan's eyes, deciding theyseemed only mildly predatory, more curiousthan anything else, narrowed against the glare,shaded by thick curly blond lashes. His hair was longer and lighter than Stephanie had rememberedit, curling over his ears and alongthe nape of his neck. He'd grown a beard sinceshe'd seen him—very close-cropped, oddlydark compared to his hair, and overwhelminglymasculine. He wore faded, frayed cutoffjeans that Stephanie admitted were perfectlyproper but seemed sinfully erotic, molded toIvan's male contours.
She bridged the short span between wharfand ship, automatically taking inventory of hersurroundings, and plastered a hopeful smile onher lips. "Hello."
"Hello," he responded, contained amusementclear in his voice.
There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes,but Stephanie knew he hadn't placed her. Shewasn't surprised. He probably swindledwomen all the time. He probably couldn't keeptrack of all the people he'd stuck it to."Stephanie Lowe," she said. "We met twomonths ago when I bought your house." Thevery same house that had been falling apartpiece by piece ever since she'd moved in, shesilently added.
Ivan's brows drew together . . .
Love Overboard. Copyright © by Janet Evanovich. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich
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