The amusement in her voice when she spoke, warm and somewhat rueful, was not reassuring. "What about Skinner and Nordhoff?"

"Too soon to say, but they're in tight with Gault,"

Kate said. "They hardly talk to Andy or me outside of work."

"And Gault?"

Kate gave a short, unamused laugh. "For the health of every fisherman afloat on the Pacific Ocean, Harry Gault should shoulder an oar and walk inland until he finds someone who doesn't know what it is and stay there for the rest of his life."

"Umm," Jack said, who had never considered poetry necessary, and who was more interested in the way Kate tucked her hair behind her left ear anyway. "What did you pull down, this trip?" he asked idly, gaze on that left ear.

"The usual crew share. Eight percent of the gross."

'Which was?"

"Eighty-three hundred bucks."

His eyes widened. "Wow. Eighty-three hundred? For eight days work?" He gave a respectful whistle. "Hell, that's, what, that's almost eleven hundred a day, isn't it?" She nodded. "Wow," he said again. "Marry me and support me in the style in which I intend to become accustomed."

She stretched out her inconsiderable length in one long, lazy reach. She fluttered her eyelashes and patted the bunk. "Mmm, I don't know. Let me review your application one more time."

She didn't have to ask him twice.

THREE

THEY rose early the next morning, hungry from no dinner the night before, and went looking for a restaurant. Over breakfast at the Unisca Restaurant, equally beguiled by the eggs Benedict and the view of the old submarine dock, Kate said impulsively, "Let's fly out there."

"Out where?" Jack said around a mouthful of Canadian bacon.