Her father looked up. “You’re a girl. How’re you goin’ to haul six packed coolers from the dock up to the house?”
“Daddy,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing him with a no-nonsense glare. “I been hoistin’ crates o’blues since I was littler’n the one inside Issy.”
Her father cocked his head to the side and took a long look at her, then chuckled. “Fair enough. I guess you have, at that.” He checked his watch. “It’s three now. Promised delivery for four thirty.”
“Then I’ll get going,” said Laire, her heart thumping with urgency and excitement. “Sound side or ocean side?”
“Sound. Place called Utopia Manor,” said her father, who explained the exact location of the house and that the blue crabs he’d caught today had been promised for a party that evening.
From his instructions, she knew approximately where she’d find the house. “Dock the boat and walk around to the front door?”
Her father shook his head. “There’s a kitchen entrance on the left side of the house. Caterer’s from the Pamlico House. Lady named Judith Sebastian in charge. Find her first, then bring up the coolers. They prepaid.” He raised his chin and looked stern. “No takin’ tips, now.”
“No, Daddy,” she said. “Anythin’ else?”
“That’s it.” He grinned at her, his tanned, weathered face handsome, even after a long day and covered all over with salt-and-pepper whiskers. “You’re a good girl, li’l Laire.”
“You take a nice hot shower and don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got it covered.”
Racing to the room she still shared with Kyrstin, Laire tugged off her white shorts and pulled on a pair of jeans. Earlier, she’d twisted her strawberry blonde hair into a messy bun, but now she brushed it out and secured it into a neat ponytail. She swapped her gray Corey HS T-shirt for a black, long-sleeved, button-up shirt she’d made for herself, and paired it with a black patent-leather belt. Plucking her shiny black Wellies from the back of her closet, she pulled them on over her jeans, up to her knees. Checking out her reflection in the mirror, she decided that she looked as fashion-forward as possible for someone hauling crates of fresh crab, and ran back down the hall.
Sparing a moment to wave good-bye to Kyrstin, she grabbed the spare boat keys from the hook in the kitchen and sailed out the door.
Chapter 2
Laire stood at the wheel of her father’s boat with the wind in her hair and six coolers of blue crab on ice behind her. Her father had been lean on details, but she gathered that the folks up in Buxton were having a fancy party and had requested fresh catch delivered same-day.
Blue crabs.
For as long as she could remember, blue crabs had been her family’s livelihood.
Both of her grandfathers had crabbed the Pamlico Sound.
Her father and his brother, Laire’s uncle Franklin, called Fox by friends and family, had been crabbing since they were old enough to walk.
But Uncle Fox had also been blessed with business savvy, and about ten years ago, he and Laire’s father had opened King Triton Seafood, a commercial fish house on Corey Island that sold fresh catch to restaurants, caterers, hotels, and locals. Because they were commercial fishermen themselves, they were trusted by local fishermen and outside buyers, and had built up a reputable business in short order. Most of their stock came directly from fishing boats every afternoon, and they were picky about what they sold, making them a favorite purveyor for posh hotels and inns in the mid Banks and even a few folks who came out from the mainland.
The Pamlico Sound, the largest lagoon in the Eastern United States, was the name of the body of water between the Outer Banks and the mainland of North Carolina. Three inlets, at Bodie Island, Hatteras, and Ocracoke, fed the Sound salt water from the Atlantic Ocean, and two rivers from the west, the Neuse and Pamlico, fed it fresh water, which meant that the Sound was a mix of both: water from the sea and water from the land.
Dotted along the eastern shoreline of the Sound were the towns of the Outer Banks: in the south, Ocracoke and Corey, which were close-set islands; then, moving north, Hatteras, Buxton, and Avon; the cluster of Salvo, Waves, and Rodanthe; and finally, up on the northern Banks, Nags Head, a crummy name for the crowning jewel of the Outer Banks.