The Man Must Marry(6)

       
           



       

Thank God it came quickly. Willa took a large, throat-burning sip, then   opened her menu. She didn't recognize anything. She could see the words   shrimp and chicken and beef , but there were other, more ominous words   associated with them, which everyone pronounced competently as they   placed their orders.

The dinner from hell, that's what this was.

"Do you have plain lobster?" she asked the waiter when he looked at her. He nodded.

"What is today's price?" she asked, knowing it was rude but too curious   to care. He told her, and Willa's eyes nearly crossed. "Shrimp, then.   Just sauteed. With steamed rice."

The waiter nodded and left, and Willa looked up to see everyone staring   at her again. She gave them her most brilliant smile, no matter how   painful it was for her. "I buy lobster off the boat nearly every week.   Even during peak season, I don't pay more than five dollars a pound."

"Really?" Darcy commented.

"A hundred years ago inMaine , lobster was considered a poor man's food."

"You don't say," Darcy purred.

Willa sighed. A shallow dish, that one. She looked at Ben. "Abram tells   me you all like to sail and that he owns a Sengatti sloop," she offered   conversationally.

"That's right," Ben guardedly returned.

"I sail," she told him with waning brightness. "As a matter of fact, I grew up not far from the Sengatti Yacht Yard."

"Have you sailed on one?" Ben asked, looking interested despite himself.

"Oh, sure. My dad was a sea captain. We owned a schooner and plied the   tourist trade. Dad often took new owners out for lessons on the Sengatti   they'd just purchased, and I went along."

"Bram upgraded his sloop eight years ago," Jesse interjected. "She's   forty-two feet long and fast. I believe she was the last boat Emmett   Sengatti himself actually built."

Willa smiled at his enthusiasm. "What's her name?"

"Bram christened her the RoseWind , after Grammy Rose." Ben's face   sobered. "Until Gram died five years ago, the two of them loved to go   out sailing."

"Tell us about your father's schooner," Sam interjected.

"She was named Cat's Tail , because Dad said she sailed like a cat whose   tail had just passed over a candle flame. She was two-masted and   sixty-seven feet long. She slept ten, assuming a few couples didn't mind   cuddling. In the winter, we sailed her down to theCaribbean and hired   out for weeklong charter tours."

"What about school?" Jesse asked.

"Mom taught us."

"Us?" Sam asked.

"My sister and me. We crewed for Dad. Mom cooked."

"You must live fairly close to Prime Point, then," Ben piped up, looking pleased. "That's where Sengatti Yacht is located."

"Not that close," Willa shot back, shooting down his hopes of learning   where his grandfather was. The food arrived, and while Willa eyed hers   suspiciously, Darcy tried to continue the conversation.

"So you're a sailor? Is that what you do for a living?"

"No," Willa told her with anticipated relish. "I build caskets."

Bingo. Both Darcy and Paula choked on their first bites of food. The men   didn't bat an eyelash, so Sam must have told them already.

"Caskets?" Paula squeaked, her eyes wide in horror.

"Yup, and we do a lot of custom orders. We use local wood and carve   beautiful scenes into them." She beamed at her stunned audience, who had   set down their forks. "Our caskets hold the remains of some of the   world's most eccentric people. We ship all over the world. You'd be   amazed at some of the requests we get."

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Finally, Sam started to push his food around on his plate.

Okay. That had been a nasty shot, and she was a little ashamed of   herself. But dammit, they all deserved it. They all had been looking   down their noses at her.

"What do you do, Darcy?" Willa asked.

"Do?"

"For work?"

"Work?"

Willa sighed.

"I'm thinking of going back to school," the woman offered.

"School's important," Willa confirmed, smiling at Jesse, who suddenly started eating.

"I do charity functions," Paula piped up.

"That's important, too," Willa agreed.

Wow. And these intelligent Sinclair men were attracted to them?

"Shouldn't we be discussing Tidewater?" Ben interjected. "That is the reason we're here."

"No, it's not. We're here so I can get to know each of you better."                       
       
           



       

"We're not biting, Ms.Kent ," Sam said softly, leaning closer. "No   matter what Bram told you, you're trolling in barren water." "Fine,"   Willa shot back. "Then maybe I'll just draw straws tomorrow."

Sam snapped his brows together at Willa's not-so-subtle reminder of his   rudeness. If she was fishing, she wasn't baiting her hook. She didn't   talk like a woman trying to snag a husband; she talked as if she   couldn't wait to be done with the entire lot of them.

Sam repressed a shudder, imagining Willa on a ship full of ropes and   pulleys and sails. He wondered how often she unexpectedly went swimming   or how many guests she'd drowned. CaptainKent must have the patience of  a  saint or nerves of steel.

The dinner table returned to silence as everyone ate. Ben and Jesse   seemed to be realizing the truth of Sam's earlier warning that Willa was   not an easy mark. She had a disarming answer for everything and  refused  to be trounced on. She wasn't above hitting low, either. Had  Bram  realized that? Most likely.

Dinner was interrupted twice by acquaintances who stopped by the table   to say hello. Willa always quietly looked on with interest, assessing   all of them in that disconcerting way of hers. Finally, the waiter   brought over the dessert cart.

Willa eyed the cart with enthusiasm. "Oh, boy!Black Forest cake. I was afraid they'd only have strange

desserts."

Darcy and Paula looked askance when the waiter placed a huge, creamy, decadent piece of cake in front of Willa.

"You're going to eat that?" Darcy blurted, only to blush at her own rudeness.

"I sure am. Desserts did me a huge favor once. I owe them."

"What kind of favor?" Paula asked.

"They helped get me a divorce."

Sam, who had just taken a sip of coffee, nearly spit it out. Jesse and Ben set their cups down with a clank.

"Dessert got you a divorce?" Jesse asked.

Willa turned unreadable eyes on him. "I tried for more than a year to   talk my husband into a simple, amicable divorce, but he refused to go   down without a fight. Finally, though, I got him to give me one."

"How?" Paula asked, leaning over her plate and looking intrigued, not noticing that her scarf was trailing in her food.

"I got fat."

"Fat!"

"David was a rather superficial man," Willa explained. "I got so fat he   couldn't stand to be seen in public with me. Bingo. Divorce."

Paula blinked. Several times. "How fat were you?"

"What I am now."

"The man divorced you because of what you weigh now?" Darcy asked,   darting a frantic look at Jesse. Jesse was too busy staring at Willa to   notice. Ben had picked up his coffee again, and Sam figured that was to   hide his smile behind it; Sam, however, was purely amazed. The  partridge  had been married?

"Oh, no. I've gotten food on my scarf!" Paula cried. She stood up. "I have to go to the powder room."

"I'll go with you." Darcy offered, standing up.

The men looked at Willa. She stayed sitting.

As soon as the women left, Willa set down her fork. "I wish to clear the   air, gentlemen," she said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. "You   do realize your grandfather sent me here hoping one of you would  capture  my matrimonial eye? And that I might … interest one of you?" Her  smile  widened. "He was looking for a miracle, I'd say."

Sam snorted before he could stop himself.

"I explained to Abram that I never intend to walk down a church aisle   again. All three of you could crawl toMaine on your knees, your hearts   in your hands, and I wouldn't marry any one of you."

"I don't remember any of us asking," Sam snapped.

"As long as we understand each other," she returned simply, picking up her fork and returning to her cake.

"Then why in hell are you here?" Jesse asked sharply.

"Because your grandfather asked me to do this favor for him," Willa said with tired patience.