“Something will.”

She nodded again. “Something has to happen. When you mix ingredients together, the tastes start blending. Different flavors show up. Flavors that never existed before.”

“That’s what I need,” he said grimly. “Something to force…new information. To bring more out in the open.”

“Harm…” She couldn’t believe he had the nerve to go behind her back with his finger. This time she just motioned for him to remove his hand. He tried giving her a meek, apologetic look-but he couldn’t sell “meek” in this lifetime. “I heard something this afternoon. The fight? You heard it?”

He quit playing around. “What fight?”

“Two men. I don’t know which two, but they were really going at it.” She rinsed her hands, wiped them on a linen towel. “At first I thought everyone would have heard them. But then I realized, of course no one would have, below deck-or in the pilothouse, with those doors closed and the engines going. Still. You didn’t hear anything at all?”

He shook his head. “After lunch, I grabbed a catnap. Hadn’t slept in two days. I went down so deep I wouldn’t have heard a cannon.” He cocked his head. “You didn’t see who it was?”

“No. But, as you may have noticed, I’m not the shy, retiring type. A little argument wouldn’t have bothered me. I’d never have thought twice about it. But this fight…it was…wrong.”

She’d have said more, but the side door to the galley suddenly opened. Ivan popped in, his jaw dropping when he saw Harm in the galley with her. “Hey. You letting the guests get hors d’oeuvres ahead of me? Where is the justice in life?”

She shooed them both out, snapping her towel, warning they’d get no food at all if they didn’t let her get back to it. By then, she had to buckle under and get serious about her dinner prep. But her conversation with Harm still troubled her.

It was over, she supposed. There was nothing else she could have told Harm, beyond what she’d overheard. It was his problem, and he already knew he had a big problem. There was nothing she could help with or do anything about.