Choke by Stuart Woods Page B

space on a boat.”
    “Well, there’s just the saloon, the head, and this cabin.”
    “No room for guests?”
    “Not unless they sleep with me.”
    “Somehow I have the feeling I’m not the first guest to share this berth with you.”
    “I confess,” he said. “Before you, there were other women.”
    “We didn’t exactly practice safe sex,” she said.
    He lifted his head from the pillow. “Aren’t you safe?” he asked, half alarmed.
    “Of course,” she said. “It was
you
I was wondering about.”
    He raised a hand. “Absolutely safe,” he said. “I swear.”
    “You’ve had a blood test?”
    “About three months ago,” he said.
    “And how many women since then?”
    “Only safe ones,” he replied. “Let’s not talk numbers.”
    “Would the numbers be embarrassing?”
    “Embarrassingly small,” he said.
    She snuggled up next to him and ran a hand down his belly. “Me too,” she said.
    “I should hope so,” he replied. “Married woman like yourself.”
    “Me, married?” she asked. “Not likely.”
    Alarm bells rang. “But what about Dan?”
    “What about him?”
    “You have the same last name.”
    “Our mother wanted it that way.”
    “He’s your
brother?”
    “Since birth.”
    “Oh, shit,” he whispered to himself.
    “What did you say?”
    “I said, and shipmates, too.”
    “Oh. Does it somehow bother you that I’m not married?”
    “Oh, bother isn’t exactly the word,” he said. Terrify
is the word,
he thought.
    “I don’t believe in marriage,” she said.
    “Well, that’s something.”
    “I guess you don’t believe in marriage, either.”
    “Only for the married.”
    “The way I look at it,” she said, “is if you suddenly come over all hot to get married, what you do is the two of you disappear for a few days, and when you come back you say to your friends, ‘We got married.’ And everybody says, ‘Congratulations.’ Then, when the relationship doesn’t work anymore, you disappear again for a few days, and when you come back to say to everybody, ‘We got divorced,’ everybody says, ‘Congratulations.’”
    “I think that makes a great deal of sense,” Chuck said. “You’re a very levelheaded woman.”
    “I like to think so.”
    “But what you’re doing down there is not keeping
me
levelheaded.”
    “I’m so glad to hear it,” she said, kissing him on the belly. “And when I’m through with you, you’re going to be downright
impractical.”
    And he was.

16
    C huck sent Meg back to her own boat after breakfast, and he was happy that Dan wasn’t around at the time. He had no particular desire to face her brother this morning.
    Driving to work, a new thought struck him. For the first time, he considered breaking it off with Clare Carras. God knew he loved being in bed with her, but he thought he liked being in bed with Meg better, and he liked Meg better. Meg was smarter, funnier, and more lovable than Clare, and she had the additional advantage of not having a husband who hired private detectives.
    And, speaking of private detectives, the Turk had vanished. He was nowhere to be seen around Key West Bight or around the Olde Island Racquet Club, and when, in the late afternoon, Harry and Clare showed up to play tennis, he did not follow them.
    There was something different about Harry, though. He was still affable enough, but edgier. Then he surprised Chuck.
    “You think you’re all finished choking in your life?” he asked Chuck.
    “Beg pardon?”
    “You choked at Wimbledon. Have you put that behind you? Is your head on straight these days?”
    “I think so.”
    “I think not.”
    Chuck glanced at Clare. She looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Why do you say that, Harry?”
    “I think you’re a born loser, Chuck. When the pressure’s on, you fold.”
    “What evidence do you have of that?” Chuck asked, surprised at the direction the conversation was taking.
    “My own intuition,” Harry said. “I think I know a loser when I see