Gray Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page B

and Ralph got in his boat and returned to the landing, where he trailered the boat and then drove over to Kate’s shop.
    He still thought of the shop as Kate’s, even though they had gone fifty-fifty partners a year earlier. They weren’t doing much better than breaking even. Calhoun didn’t care about making a pile of money, but he wanted the shop to succeed because it was important to Kate.
    When he walked in, she was behind the counter talking with a couple of customers, a white-haired man and a younger woman who seemed to be interested in some shirts. Calhoun caught Kate’s eye. She looked up, glanced at the clock on the wall, gave him a frown, then resumed her conversation with the customers.
    As always happened when he saw Kate, Calhoun felt a tightening in his throat that made it hard to swallow. He guessed Kate Bal-aban was the most beautiful and desirable and downright sexiest woman he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t look at her without feeling a twinge of fear and anxiety. He knew he didn’t deserve to have a woman like her love him, and he figured one of these days she was going to tell him that she didn’t anymore.
    Calhoun went back outside and sat in one of the rockers on the porch. Ralph found a patch of sun, sprawled beside him, and went to sleep.
    Pretty soon the customers left carrying plastic bags. A minute later Kate came out. She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt and sandals. Her black hair hung in a braid nearly to her waist. It was tied with a pink ribbon.
    Kate Balaban was half Penobscot Indian. She had a square jaw and black eyes and high cheekbones, and by September, her long legs and muscular arms and shoulders and smooth-skinned face were burnished to a deep coppery color.
    She just about took his breath away.
    She flopped into the rocker beside Calhoun and handed him a can of Coke. She had a Diet Coke for herself. “Didn’t know that was a half-day trip you had with Mr. Vecchio this morning,” she said. “I thought you planned to fish the whole tide. This another case of you crapping out early because you got sick of spending time in the boat with some client who wasn’t quite up to your standards?”
    Calhoun took a swig of Coke. “I liked Mr. Vecchio just fine,” he said. “He’s a nice guy. We had a good time.”
    Kate turned to look at him. “Well, dammit, anyway, Stoney. You can’t just do things like that. How in hell are we gonna stay in business if you aren’t nice to the clients?”
    “I was pretty nice to him. He wanted to take a break right in the middle of a good blitz. Said he needed to stretch his legs and take a leak, and I hardly argued with him.”
    “You stopped fishing in the middle of a blitz?”
    “Just trying to keep the client happy,” said Calhoun.
    Kate was shaking her head. “You know, sometimes—”
    “Mr. Vecchio caught the biggest striper of his life,” he said. “Big old cow, thirty-eight inches on my tape. She was lurking under a bunch of stripers and blues that were blitzing on peanut bunker, and she ate Mr. Vecchio’s Clouser when he let it sink down to her. He seemed pretty happy about it, actually.”
    “And then you quit fishing?”
    “You better talk to the sheriff about that,” said Calhoun.
    She turned and looked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Mr. Vecchio stumbled on a dead body out on Quarantine Island, honey, and Sheriff Dickman insisted I haul him out there so he could take a look at it.”
    Kate pulled her head back and looked at Calhoun. “This another one of your stories, Stoney?”
    He smiled. “Nope.”
    “You gonna tell me about it?”
    “Not now,” he said. “It’s a pretty long story, and right now I gotta go hose out my boat. Why don’t you come over tonight, I’ll grill us a steak and tell you all about it.”
    “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” she said. “And I told you a million times. Don’t call me honey at the shop.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    Kate was shaking