Looking for Trouble
an excerpt

“Hello Missus.”

Beth’s eyes popped open at the startlingly nearby voice, belatedly reaching for the towel she’d left beside her on the deck. Her hand fell on bare fiberglass.

“Over here,” the voice came again. Beth sat up reluctantly, looking for the towel, her arms instinctively crossing in front of her bare chest.

“Be right there,” she called out, wishing she could avoid drawing attention to herself, although she knew that he knew she was sunbathing topless, he’d obviously seen her before calling out to her. At least he’d brought his small boat around to the stern of her boat, Trouble, rather than right along side where she was stretched out on the bow.

He was Ricky, the local fisherman with whom she and Terry had been doing business for the last four days. This morning she had ordered lobster, fresh caught and barbequed. He was probably here to deliver it.

She spotted her towel half hanging over the toe rail, saved from a watery grave by virtue of snagging on the cotter ring in a turnbuckle of the forward shroud – a ring she’d been meaning to tape before it snagged and ripped a sail. Shaking out the towel and wrapping it around herself, she thanked her own procrastination for preventing her from having to put on a show – more of a show – for Ricky.