Again, Thom shrugged. “No idea.”

Deflated, Allie said goodbye to Thom and boarded the Dragonfly, dragging her now useless ice. She would have to hunt down another fishing boat and captain for the party she expected in a couple of hours. She felt terrible about disappointing some of her most loyal customers. It had taken Johnny many years to build a reputation as a quality, reliable charter service. Even when they’d downsized, they’d been careful to never promise what they couldn’t deliver.

It wouldn’t take too many canceled trips for word to get around that she was a flake and the business was down the tubes.

Allie put away the groceries, then headed down the long dock to find an idle fishing boat, her heart heavy. But only a few footsteps later, she skidded to a stop. Maybe there was another way. She would have to swallow all the vitriol she longed to hurl at Cooper Remington and make nice, but if it meant the difference between failure and survival, she’d do it. She turned around and headed for her car.

Normally she would just walk the seven or eight blocks to the Sunsetter B and B. But time was of the essence. So she drove through the sleepy streets of Port Clara. In another few weeks the place would be teeming with tourists. Front Street, which paralleled the beach, would be closed off to car traffic and filled curb-to-curb with pedestrians. She relished the relative quiet, when it was mostly just the locals and the snowbirds. But tourists were the lifeblood of this place, so she welcomed them, too.

The Sunsetter B and B was a beautiful yet quirky redbrick Victorian two blocks off Front Street on Magnolia Lane. Although it did not have a view of the ocean, it was a lovely place to stay, sheltered as it was by a grove of coconut palms and surrounded by bougainvillea.

When Allie was a little girl, she’d been scared of Miss Greer. But she’d soon learned that the stern widow had a soft spot for anybody who needed a cookie.