Cinderella Search by Judy Griffith; Gill

Lissa returned, Steve had unfolded a canvas chair and set it up near hers. He had both his bare feet on the starboard rail as he looked out toward the entrance to the Cove. He smiled his thanks as she set his coffee on the deck beside him.
    Suddenly, she found she wasn’t quite prepared to look at Steve, though she couldn’t have said why it was so difficult. All she had to do was be friendly. Keep him entertained. Keep him from returning to his room while Larry did the job that had to be done.
    “I was admiring that big house over there on the point,” Steve said, breaking a silence that Lissa was beginning to find unbearable. Following the direction of his gaze, she looked at the sprawling, white-shuttered, brown-painted house set in a swath of grass that sloped almost to the water’s edge. It had its own wharf and boathouse, and was surrounded by well established shade and fruit trees. “It looks like a real home.”
    She eased herself into her swinging chair. “It was,” she said. “It was my home when I was a little girl.”
    He arched his eyebrows. “I thought you lived at the inn.”
    “My parents split up when I was ten and the house had to be sold. I spent summers here with Dad in the manager’s residence on the inn’s third floor. The room you first stayed in was mine. The one you have now, was Dad’s.”
    “It must have been fun, living in a hotel.” Steve sounded, she thought, wistful.
    “Didn’t you? You said your father owns resorts. You never lived in any of them?”
    He shook his head and changed the subject. Of course, under the circumstances, he wouldn’t want to talk about his father’s business.
    “I like the name of your boat,” he said, “Boss Lady. It’s exactly what I’d have expected—a feminist boat.”
    “I didn’t name her. Maria and Jacinta did. The Allendas? Your table mates?”
    He nodded, sipped his coffee, his eyes on her face as if he was waiting for her to go on.
    Feeling oddly compelled to do so, she continued. “They bought her, moored her here, had her converted from a tug to a pleasure craft. They took turns as captain, and whoever’s day it was to be in charge was referred to as Boss Lady. That worked all one summer, then realized they really didn’t like living aboard and would rather stay in one of the cabins ashore and fish from a runabout. So when I was looking for a place to live, she’d been on the market for several years and I got her for a fraction of her real value.”
    “You don’t mind fishing from a bigger boat?”
    “I don’t fish.” She hadn’t intended it to come out so coldly.
    He cocked his head. “And you sound disapproving of those who do.”
    “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. It would be sort of hypocritical, wouldn’t it, earning my living in a place that caters to sports fishing, if I disapproved.”
    “But you do,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
    Lissa knew she should deny it, but somehow, the bright sun, the fresh morning and the steady gaze of the man sitting beside her made equivocation more difficult than telling the truth. “To fish for food for yourself or others is okay within reason. It’s the greedy desire to catch your limit every day, whether you need the food or not, the insistence on getting the biggest fish, the trophy fish, that enrages me. I absolutely loathe fishing derbies, because they encourage people to toss out the smallest fish from their boat the minute they have a bigger one on board, in order not to go over their daily limit. It’s so wasteful, and before long, there won’t be any fish left, unless we start conserving them, caring for their habitat, and—”
    She broke off and took a hefty swig of her coffee. “Sorry,” she said. “That’s a hobbyhorse I try to stay off, especially with guests of the inn. But what I’d really like to do is offer them an alternative. With any luck,” she said, tapping her toe on the rail, “Lady here and I will be able to do that, starting next year. I