After the Storm Read Online Free PDF Page B

café. You know, paninis at lunchtime and dishes in the evening. I’d do a Menu of the Day and offer a few good dishes.’
    ‘Sounds a good plan, hard work though,’ Anna said.
    She went back up the steps into the cockpit thinking that just as Owen looked at ease moving around the boat above so Kim looked completely at home in her tiny kitchen.
    Kim lifted the tea towel and picked up her knife. She made incisions in the skin of the chicken breasts and thighs and rubbed salt, black pepper and cayenne powder into the meat, then spooned brown sugar and squeezed the juice of an orange over it all. The orange was full of pits, not like the ones at home. Florida oranges were the best. She had worked as a waitress in Clearwater at one of the upscale restaurants and Manny, the chef there, had taught her this dish. He had been the kindest man and she would never have lasted at the restaurant without his friendship. Unfortunately he had fallen for her in a big way and wanted more. She was already in love with Owen, had been for years, although she was not dating him. She told Manny that, when he asked her out. They became good friends anyway. At the end of her shifts she would stay behind at the restaurant and Manny would teach her how to make sauces and how to cook fish and steak the right way.
    Kim brought up the spicy fried chicken with rice, the food already served up in four plastic bowls, and forks to eat it with.
    ‘This is so good,’ Rob said.
    ‘Yes it’s delicious, thanks Kimberly.’
    ‘Kimmie can cook,’ Owen said.
    ‘I worked in this restaurant back home and the chef taught me a lot.’
    Later she handed them glasses of rum and lime and they sat looking out at the distant lights of Belize City as the boat rocked gently.
    ‘It looks a lot nicer from here,’ Rob said.
    ‘I don’t want to go back there ever,’ Anna said.
    ‘It’s not that bad is it?’ Owen said.
    ‘Last night we were chased through the streets by this man with a knife!’ she said.
    Kim looked startled and darted a glance at Owen.
    ‘You were unlucky there,’ he said.
    Anna and Rob decided to turn in for their first night on board. They negotiated the cramped washing facilities and then discovered there was no room if they both stood up in their cabin at the same time to undress. Rob stripped off first and climbed onto the bed. Finally they were lying next to each other with the porthole curtains drawn, the sheet pulled over them and the cabin door closed. She whispered to him:
    ‘We won’t get much chance to have private conversations.’
    ‘We won’t get much chance to have sex either.’
    She dropped her voice:
    ‘Kimberly stole two magazines from the big store we went to.’
    ‘Oh well, you two spent a fortune in there.’
    ‘I know we did. I didn’t like the sneaky way she did it. She asked me to go get some stuff and took them then.’
    ‘Don’t brood on it. It’s not important,’ he said.
    He considered telling her about the package he had seen Owen slipping into his rucksack but he knew this would worry her. He had his suspicions about what it contained. He kissed her and rolled over and she snuggled into him and the boat rocked gently from side to side and they fell asleep.
    Kim washed the dishes and put them away, folded the table and made her bed up in the saloon. She stretched out and closed her eyes. She could see that Owen and Rob were already comfortable with each other but she wondered why Anna had agreed to come on the boat because she had looked ill at ease all day.
    Owen was up on deck lying with a blanket around him. He was thinking about how to organise the next day’s sailing. Living on a boat took some careful planning, and he knew Rob and Anna would need some time to adjust. They would do the short sail to Home’s Cay tomorrow so that he could teach them the basics of sailing the boat. He wanted to make sure they were up for the longer sail to Roatán. The island was 138 miles away and he intended to