Janet Evanovich - Love Overboard aka Ivan Takes a Wife

1989

Originally published as Ivan Takes a Wife

Dear Reader:

In a previous life, before the time of Plum, I wrote twelve short romance novels. Red-hot screwball comedies, each and every one of them. Nine of these stories were originally published by the Loveswept line between the years 1988 and 1992. All went out-of-print immediately and then could be found only at used bookstores and yard sales.

Im excited to tell you that those nine stories are now being re-released by HaperCollins. Love Overboards second in the lineup, and its presented here in almost original form. Ive done only minor editing to correct some embarrassing bloopers missed the first time around. And I changed the title because I thought the original title (Ivan Takes a Wife) was boring!

Love Overboards a romantic tale about a handsome ships captain; a wary wench from Jersey City; a hundred-year-old, two-masted schooner; and an entire town of shoemakers. Theres some getting naked, some blueberry pie, more getting naked, and at the endOkay, I wont tell you about the end, but its really good and itll make you feel happy.

I took my family on the road trip from heck to research this book. When we finally got to Maine it was all worthwhile because we fell in love with the boats and the people who sailed them.

Enjoy!

Ivan Rasmussen swirled the last of his coffee around the bottom of his mug, looked past the prow of his ship to the sloping green lawn of Camden Harbor Park, and wondered for the hundredth time in the past two hours what the devil had happened to his cook, Lucy. She was never late. Until now. Now she was beyond late, and because she was his friend as well as his cook, he was worried.

He squinted at a flash of color and movement toward the top of the hill, and unconsciously let his mouth fall open at the sight of a young woman rolling down the grass embankment. She came to a spread-eagled stop when she reached the cement footpath at the bottom, and she uttered an expletive that carried across the short span of shoreline, bringing the first smile of the day to Ivans lips.

Stephanie Lowe, the woman Ivan had been watching, struggled to her feet, adjusted her battered backpack, and scowled at the grass stains on her knees. She was looking ahead to a whole week of cooking for Ivan the Terrible in exchange for free plumbing repairs to her bathroom. And if that wasnt awful enough, she was the one who had to bring Ivan the good news that his usual cook was taking an impromptu vacation.

Lord, Im such a dope! Stephanie muttered, smacking herself on the forehead, broadcasting her thoughts to all watching. Nothing like making a memorable entrance. If one more thing went wrong, she was going home. The heck with it all, she thought. She wasnt crazy about this deal anyway. Shed seen Ivan only once, but hed made a lasting impression on her. He was over six feet with gray-green eyes and strawberry blond hair. And at the time of their meeting hed been all packaged up in a custom-tailored, navy pin-striped suit that had made him look more like a chairman of the board than the captain of a schooner.

Stephanie searched the crowded harbor for the Josiah T. Savage, gasping when she realized it was directly in front of her, tied to a floating dock at the end of the cement path. It would be the last of the windjammers to leave the harbor, she thought with an inward groan-late to leave Camden because it was waiting for its cook. Unfortunately, its cook had suddenly decided to get married. Double unfortunately, its cook was her cousin Lucy.

Lucy had provided her with a few vital statistics on the Savage. It was a windship. A tall ship. A hundred-year-old, two-masted, coasting schooner with seventy feet of deck length, carrying twenty-two passengers and four crew members on six-day cruises along the island- strewn coast of Maine. Lucys description of her captain had been equally brief. Ivan Rasmussen, shed said, was better known as Ivan the Terrible because he was terribly handsome, terribly eligible, and terribly slippery. Stephanie had her own reasons for believing he was terribly rotten.

She took a quick survey of the ship and spotted Ivan standing on deck, coffee mug in hand, looking at her as if shed just dropped off the planet Mars.

Get it together, Stephanie, she told herself. Life was filled with trade-offs. If you packed away a whole bag of cookies, then you had to wash them down with diet root beer. This was just another of lifes cans of diet root beer. Cousin Lucy worked as a cook on Ivans wind- jammer. That morning cousin Lucy had decided to run off and marry Stanley Shelton. Stanley Shelton was a plumber. Stephanie desperately needed a plumber. Simple, right? Cousin Lucy got a honeymoon, and Stephanie got a toilet. Okay, no problem. Piece of cake. There was no reason to be nervous. Ivan should be happy to have her aboard, she reasoned. Where else would he get a cook on such short notice? She was actually doing him a favor.

Besides, after what hed done to her, he deserved to eat her cooking for a week. Anyway, how hard could it be? Shed just whip up forty or fifty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and send all the passengers off to an island in the dinghy. It might even be fun-a week on the high seas with the wind at her back and the salt spray in her face. It was going to be an adventure. A new experience.

She approached the boarding ramp and looked up into Ivans eyes, deciding they seemed only mildly predatory, more curious than anything else, narrowed against the glare, shaded by thick curly blond lashes. His hair was longer and lighter than Stephanie had remembered it, curling over his ears and along the nape of his neck. Hed grown a beard since shed seen him-very close-cropped, oddly dark compared to his hair, and overwhelmingly masculine. He wore faded, frayed cutoff jeans that Stephanie admitted were perfectly proper but seemed sinfully erotic, molded to Ivans male contours.

She bridged the short span between wharf and ship, automatically taking inventory of her surroundings, and plastered a hopeful smile on her lips. Hello.

Hello, he responded, contained amusement clear in his voice.

There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes, but Stephanie knew he hadnt placed her. She wasnt surprised. He probably swindled women all the time. He probably couldnt keep track of all the people hed stuck it to. Stephanie Lowe, she said. We met two months ago when I bought your house. The very same house that had been falling apart piece by piece ever since shed moved in, she silently added.

Ivans brows drew together. Stephanie Lowe, his cooks cousin, the woman whod bought Haben. How could he have forgotten Stephanie Lowe? Early Alzheimers disease, he decided. He was suffering from premature senile dementia. Hed seen Stephanie Lowe only briefly at the Realtors office, but he should have remembered. Shed worn a SpongeBob T-shirt, and shed been disappointed to find he didnt own a parrot.

She was just as outrageous now as before, he thought. Her hair was short and shiny brown with wispy bangs. It would have been pretty if it hadnt been sticking out in all directions. He supposed she was one of those punk people. He did a mental calculation and put her at five- foot-seven, noticing she was slim and long- legged, wearing chunky silver, green, and white high-tops, bright pink socks scrunched down around her ankles, a pair of rumpled khaki walking shorts, and an orange tank top that was bright enough to get them through the best fogbank Maine could muster. She was probably there to complain about the house. Just what he needed to round out his morning. Lucy tells me youve been having some problems with the house