Read Online Cooks Overboard by Joanne Pence - Free Book Online Page B

might as well go to the lounge with Mike and Andrew. She certainly wasn’t ready for bed. The only ones on board who were in bed this early were probably the Neblers, the Cockburns…and Paavo. She grabbed her tote bag.
    “Let’s go,” she said, pulling the door quietly shut as she stepped into the hall.
    They went down to the second deck, to the passenger lounge. In the ship’s brochure, the room had been referred to as the “Panorama Lounge,” even though there was nothing in the least panoramic about it. It had Formica tables, padded chairs, and large windows facing the sundeck, where the pool was found. Mike sent Andrew down to the galley, which was located below the main deck, to get some cold beers from the refrigerator.
    Mike found a table in a dark corner of the room where, he said, they could sit and not be disturbed by anyone. Angie wasn’t sure who might disturb them, since the other passengers had apparently gone to bed and the room was empty. As they made small talk about the chilly weather, Brown returned and put three cans of Budweiser on the table, without glasses. “We don’t have anything fancy on a ship like this,” he said. “Sorry.”
    “It’s okay.” Angie popped the top.
    “So,” Jones said, sitting back after drinking some of the beer, “tell us about cooking beefWellington. Just how do you get the meat to cook inside a pastry shell without burning the pastry to a crisp in the process?”
    Angie was amazed at the question. That wasn’t the sort of cooking tip she would have expected from beer-drinking freighter cooks. But if that was what they wanted to know…
     
    Despite Angie’s curiosity about how two such nice-looking young men had ended up working on a freighter, they had kept her talking almost nonstop, not only about beef Wellington, but about how to get the greatest height possible in a soufflé. How to make a dependable white sauce that could be counted on to work every time. How to apply the glaze to crême brulée.
    “Enough already,” she said with a laugh. “You’re giving me a headache!”
    “We’re sorry,” Jones said. “When we found out about your background, well…”
    “Tell me about yourselves,” Angie said. She turned to Andrew Brown. “You look very young to be working on a ship like this.”
    “I guess I am,” Brown said, then glanced shyly at Jones and bowed his head. “I only got the job because of Mike.”
    “He needed work,” Jones said matter-of-factly. “When I met him, he was eating out of the Dumpsters behind restaurants so that he wouldn’t get sent to another foster home. He was willing to learn, and I needed an assistant who spoke English. I got tired of trying to communicate inanything from Norwegian to Chinese on these freighters. Not many Americans are involved in shipping anymore. So I told Captain Olafson we were a package deal—an inexpensive package deal. He took us on.”
    Angie faced Andrew. “So, is Mike treating you well?”
    He gave a half smile. “Yeah, he’s okay.”
    “And I take it,” Angie continued, with sudden insight on how the young man would have had to escape the courts and child protective services, “Andrew Brown isn’t your real name?”
    Even in the dark corner, Angie could see Brown’s eyes meet Jones’s a moment before he looked down at the tabletop. “You could say that.”
    Angie smiled smugly as she turned back to Jones. “And you, Mr. Jones, how did you get started in this line of work?”
    He grimaced. “I guess it was because of a woman. My ex-wife. After the divorce, I was cleaned out. I couldn’t even get back on my feet because of alimony and child support payments—and they weren’t even my kids. So I joined the ranks of deadbeat dads, or in my case, deadbeat cuckolded spouses responsible for other men’s kids.”
    “Whoa, talk about a bitter speech,” Angie said, surprised at the man’s vehemence.
    “Talk about a bitter man,” he replied. “Say, Andy, maybe we should