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"Rats, rats, rats!"
  Jan squinted at me over our laptop screens and tilted her blonde head to one side, giving her a curious cocker spaniel look. "Rats? What's wrong, Hetta?"
  "E-mail from that rat, Jenks Jenkins. Your boyfriend is stealing my boyfriend."
  Jan giggled. "Well, you know, we do live near San Francisco."
  "Very damned funny. Did you know about this?"
  "This what?" Her baby blues didn't blink, but I wasn't sold on her innocence. After twenty years as my friend she had learned subterfuge from the maestra of deceit.
  "Kuwait. As if you didn't know."
  "Oh, that this. I know that Lars and Jenks are working on a bid package for a project over there, but you knew that."
  "Did not."
  "Did too."
  "Okay, so perhaps it was mentioned, but I didn't know they were going."
  "Well, then, neither did Jenks. You know Jenks never lies. So, they're going to Kuwait? Let me see that e-mail." Jan unfolded—others stand, she unfolds—to her full five nine and sauntered around behind me. I slid out of my chair at the dining table I use as an office, left her to read Jenks's annoying e-mail while I went outside to watch the sun settling over San Francisco Bay.
  A tug chugged by, creating a wake that rocked Raymond Johnson enough so that I had to steady myself on the rail. As I fumed, silently wishing plague and pestilence upon the tug's captain and Jenks alike, I heard Jan slide open the aft cabin door. Zigzagging slightly to compensate for the undulating deck, she carried a bottle of Shiraz in one hand and two oversized balloon wine glasses in the other.
  "Here," she said, handing off the crystal. I held onto the not-very-practical-for-a-boat-but-I-bought-'em-anyhow glasses while she grabbed a corkscrew from the outdoor bar and deftly popped the cork. The two delicate goblets readily handled an entire bottle of wine.
  I took a long drink. "Ah, that's good. But that Jenks! Damn him, you'd think he'd have the courtesy to call instead of dropping a bomb like this via e-mail."
  "A man with keen preservation skills, I'd say. Knows how to avoid verbal shrapnel. I didn't even get an e-mail from that lily-livered brother of his, who, by the way, is quickly climbing to the very top of my shit list, so consider yourself lucky. I don't know why we're surprised. I mean, we know Lars and Jenks do oilfield fire protection work and all the big money's in the Middle East right now."
  "Yeah, but we have plans," I said with a pout.
  "Yabbut, plans change. And you know damned well if we got an offer to make the big bucks we'd jump on it. Right?"
  I grudgingly agreed. We're both self-employed consultants, Jan in accounting software, myself in construction and engineering materials management. We are both our own corporations, so we do understand that you have to make hay while the sun shines, but dammit, we had made plans with those Jenkins brothers.
  My name is Hetta Coffey: CEO, CFO, president and sole employee of Hetta Coffey, SI, LLC. The SI is my little phonetic prank on the pronunciation of Civil Engineer. An engineer by degree, I specialize in material management and, like ole Ben Franklin, leave nothing to chance. As he wrote, "For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail." My job is to make sure no project nail is late or lost.
  But right now I had more than work on my mind. If Jenks Jenkins, my alleged boyfriend, didn't return in time for a timely departure on our planned trip to Mexico, I'd have a cash flow crunch in my future. We had to leave and return as scheduled or by mid-January I'd be scrounging for my dock fee and boat payment. By February I'd be sunk, not a word one who lives on a boat uses lightly. What to do? What to do?
  A freshening breeze made me thankful for the protection of my aft sundeck, or verandah, as I called it. Side curtains cut the wind, allowing us to drink our wine in cozy comfort. Furnished in fake rattan Brown Jordan with fashionably faded blue-and-white striped cushions, the deck sported a small table for outdoor dining, a gas barbeque, an ice maker and a wet bar stocked with blue and white plastic stemware for when we were underway and had the crystal battened down.
  Even an unusually warm late August day in the Bay Area didn't count for much after four o'clock when the wind whipped over the water. Jan and I grabbed blue and white Raymond Johnson windbreakers-two of a set of six given to me as a boatwarming gift-and blended into the deck decor. Tourists, shivering in their optimistic summer shorts, wandered around taking in the sights of Jack London Square, one of which seemed to be Jan and me. We smiled and nodded to those who spoke.
  "Wonder when they'll leave and for how long," Jan said.
  "These tourists?"
  "No silly, Jenks and Lars. I mean, they could be back in time for our trip to Mexico."
  "We'll soon know. I imagine Jenks will give me a few hours to calm down, then he'll call from Houston."
  "Smart man, that Jenks Jenkins."
  "You already said that. And besides, I'm not that bad."
  "Are too."
  "Am not."
  Jan took a swig of wine and rolled her eyes. "How about the time you dumped what's-his-name's car in the estuary?"
  I looked at the spot where Garrison's Morgan took its swan dive and shrugged. "He deserved it and you know it."
  "And how about when you emptied your .38 into that Brit's rubber dingy?"
  "Jan, that Brit was trying to kill me."
  "Well, that's true, but how about-"
  "Okay, okay, I get your point. However, I'm a reformed woman."
  "Sure you are. So, what are you gonna do to Jenks? Inquiring minds wanna know. I'd like to sell tickets."
  I ignored her impertinent question. I hadn't had time to come up with a suitable revenge for Jenks. Yet. "Jan, aren't you just a lit-tle pissed off at Lars? We've had this trip planned for months. You and I, at great trouble and expense to ourselves, put our careers on hold. Turned down a couple of lucrative projects. Now the brothers Jenkins up and decide to leave us in the lurch. Take off for some godforsaken part of the world."
  "I'm not thrilled, of course, but we still have a month until we're scheduled to leave. Maybe they just have to run over there and come right back. Don't be so negative."
  "Perhaps you forget that I've been in this engineering game for a very long time. If they say you're going to be stuck somewhere for a month, it's six. If they say a year, it's two. Remember when Baxter Brothers sent me to Japan for nine months? I got back two years later, practically in a body bag. Trust me, once our alleged boyfriends leave for the Middle East, we're screwed."
  Jan giggled. "Or not, as it were. Don't jump to conc&ldots;phone's ringing, Hetta."
  "I hear it."
  "Aren't you gonna answer it?"
  "Nope. It's yours."
  "How do you know?"
  "Because I turned mine off."
  "Oh. Maybe it's Jenks and Lars."
  "I am not here."
  Jan rushed into the main saloon and came back on deck with her cell phone stuck to her ear. "So," she was saying in a honeyed voice, "how's Houston, besides hot and wet?"
  Lars must have had a properly lewd comeback for her unfortunate choice of words, for her cheeks flared. She quickly swung away from me and whispered several somethings into the phone. When she turned back, I rolled my eyes and gave her a "gag me" finger down my throat. She stuck out her tongue, shot me an evil grin and purred, "Sure, Lars baby, put Jenks on. Hetta's right here."
  I considered pushing her overboard, but snatched the phone instead. "Who is it?"
  "You know it's me, Hetta." Jenks's deep voice set off a little twitch where it counts. He is difficult man to stay pissed off at, but I was giving it my best. I clammed up and let him talk. "I've been trying to call you, but I keep getting your voice mail. How's my little sea wench?"
  "Don't you sweet talk me, you rat. What's this about you deserting my ship?"
  "Now Hetta, don't be that way. Lars and I just have to go over for a sales meeting in Kuwait City, dazzle them with our software, and we're out of there. They're subbing out the hardware to someone else, so we should be back in Oakland in no time."
  "We leave for Cabo in a month," I said, sounding petulant. I hate sounding petulant.
  "I'll do my level best to be there."
  "Go ahead, break my cardinal rule and lie to me. Tell me you will definitely be here."
  "Can't do that, but I'll try. Meanwhile, you'll have to get Raymond Johnson ready to go. You can do it. You know your boat inside out. I'll send you lists of provisions and spare parts that I think we'll need, you add to it, and together we can get a good deal of work taken care of before I get back. I'll send you a schedule of what needs to be done, maintenance wise. That, you'll have to hire out."
  "You mean you're not even coming here before you leave for Kuwait?"
  "Sorry, no can do. Lars and I take off tomorrow morning on a Halliburton jet. I'll call you when we get to Kuwait City. And then from Baghdad."
  "Baghdad! Why are you going there?"
  "Just for a quick meeting, then back to Kuwait. Don't worry, I'll call every day."
  "Gosh, can't you work in three days and four nights in beautiful downtown Damascus? Jenks, I don't like this. Forget the contract, forget the money. We'll cancel the trip to Mexico. I'll get a new job of my own and we'll take our cruise later. You can get another contract here, where it's safe. Please." I was starting to sound needy and it did not sit well with my own independent self-image.
  "Wish I could, but we're committed. Can't let the company down."
  "You are the company."
  "See what I mean?"
  "Very funny, Jenks. I have to go now, I have a date with some stranger in a smoky bar."
  "Very funny, yourself. Bye now. Love you."
  "Yeah? Well prove it. Come home." I hung up and opened another bottle of wine. Jan gave me a wary look as I poured half of it into my glass. "Oh, relax," I said, "I've decided not to throw your devious, albeit skinny, ass into the estuary."
  "Gimme some of that wine. See, I told you they'd be back in time. You worry too much."
  "What's with you? I thought Lars was topping your shit list."
  "Oh, I don't know. I just think, that, well, maybe we aren't right for each other. Just a nigglin' I can't put my finger on. Don't mind me. And quit being so negative about them making it back for our trip."
  "I'm negative because I just know they won't. And what about this Baghdad thing? No telling what will happen to them, traipsing around over there."
  "Come on, Hetta, you've traipsed around all your life."
  "Yeah, and look what it got me. It's taken thirty someodd years to find a man who didn't disappear on me and look what happens. He disappears. I can outdo David friggin' Copperfield when it comes to making men vanish."
  "You are such a drama queen. Jenks has not vanished. He is coming back. Hell, even Hudson Williams came back. Sort of."
  "I'd hardly classify my ex-fiancé turning up floating face down in my hot tub as 'coming back.'"
  "Well," she giggled, "he did surface."
  I almost spit out my wine as her extremely tasteless joke struck my funny bone. After a good laugh we clinked glasses and watched the tourists watch us for a few minutes. I fought an urge to slap my fins together and bark for fish.
  "Wasn't your fault, you know."
  "What?"
  "That Hudson got mixed up with those Singapore mobsters and then crossed swords with that Brit, Alex, who murdered him. It was all Hudson's own fault. He jilted you, stole from you, broke your heart and then got himself killed. And for once, you were totally blameless."
  She was right, I knew, but it still rankled that I had been so gullible. The passing years had not completely erased the deep hurt I'd felt when Hudson suddenly disappeared one week before our planned wedding in Tokyo, and then turned up years later, at my house in Oakland. Parboiled.
  I sighed. "Hudson was indeed a victim of his own avarice, I suppose. It was one thing to double cross me, but quite another to take on the likes of Alex and his scum bag cronies. I wonder what became of Alex."
  "You shot him, Hetta."
  "Not officially. I shot at him, but they never found a body. I'm still pissed that I missed at that range. I've been practicing ever since."
  "So much for remorse. Forget about all that. Water under the keel, as it were. You have Jenks now, a wonderful man who loves you in spite of your, uh, difficult nature. Maybe even because of it. And we are taking that dream voyage down to Cabo and back. Think positive, girl. And don't forget, you always have me."
  "I know. I'm grateful." I raised my glass and dipped my head at my friend who'd seen me through so many challenges. "And, you are absolutely correct. We are taking that trip to Mexico."
  "Atta girl. That's thinking positive."
  Positive isn't the word for it. Determined, is more like it. I gave her a sweet smile, which, in itself should have alerted her to trouble. "That's not what I meant, Jan, me girl. We ain't GRITs for nuthin', you know."
  "You are only a pseudo Gal Raised in Texas cuz you've spent a lot of the time out of the country. But what does being Texans have to do with anything?"
  "We sprang from pioneer stock, borderers who never paled at new horizons. Our ancestors were trailblazers who knew when to draw the line in the sand."
  "Yes, and they got stars at the Alamo for it. How bright was that?"
  "Blasphemy! I'm gonna turn you in to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas for heinous sass."
  Jan gave me her, Ooooh, I'm scared look. "Would you please the hell tell me what being descendents of heroes has to do with our present situation?"
  "We, you 'n' me, are no shrinking violets. Adventure is in our blood. We can take this tub to Mexico and we do not need no stinkin' Yankee fellas to go with us."