Going Overboard by Vicki Lewis Thompson

already mooring the boat.
    “Oooh, Bowie, let’s rent a houseboat,” Nicole said, mimicking herself. “It’ll be so cool. We’ll lie around in the sun, fish, and feel the gentle rock of the waves. Ha.”
    “We did that yesterday,” Andi said, giving her a hug. “You wanted two days of that? Greedy woman.”
    “I’m sorry I barfed, Andi. How gross.”
    “I’m sorry, too, but only for your sake.” She walked Nicole out on deck. “Nobody minds. Are you okay?”
    “Feeling better every minute. But I can hardly wait to put my feet on solid ground.”
    “Solid ground, coming up.” Andi called to the men, who immediately came over and helped Nicole to the sand. Andi handed down chairs and towels so they could establish a little camp.
    “Are you coming down?” Nicole asked.
    “In a minute. I’ll rustle up some beer and chips for our gallant lads first. Want anything?”
    Nicole swallowed. “Not yet.”
    “I’ll be there in a minute.” Andi walked inside and almost tripped over Chance’s laptop lying on the floor. She stooped to pick it up from where it had apparently fallen when the boat hit the beach. He must have been so concerned about getting the boat firmly anchored and Nicole on steady footing that he hadn’t even noticed.
    As much as she resented the darn thing, she didn’t want it to be broken and all the information in it lost She set it on the table and snapped it open. Everything looked fine, but she’d been around computers enough to know that looks were deceiving. The thing could be deader than a doornail. She flipped the switch and the screen began to glow. So far, so good.
    The operating program came up, but that didn’t always mean anything, either. She clicked the mouse and opened his list of files. If one of the files opened okay, then thelaptop was probably okay. She glanced over the cryptic list and picked one with the initials AL, just for the heck of it. She expected a report on Athletes and Litigation, or Assets and Liabilities. Chance wouldn’t have a file on her in his precious laptop, for heaven’s sake.
    But he did.
    Andi gasped, and then her eyes narrowed. Oh, he would pay for this. Nobody listed the pros and cons of making love to her on some spreadsheet and got away with it. He made an emotional choice sound like some sort of corporate decision.
    Andi skimmed down the pro side and read sentences like: She excites me more than any woman I’ve known and Touching her would give me intense pleasure. Now, that was sort of nice, even listed coldly in columns. It made her tingle. A lot. But there were less complimentary phrases on the con side such as: She’ll destroy my concentration and Her wacky view of life spells trouble.
    “Oh, I’m going to spell trouble, all right. And you won’t need a spell-checker to know when it’s arrived,” she muttered. After typing Who cares? next to the sentence about destroying concentration, she highlighted the wacky view sentence and switched it to the pro side. Then she changed wacky to unique and spells trouble to fascinates me.
    Apparently Chance was confused. He’d written, Her kiss blots out all reason in both columns. Andi deleted it from the con side. Kisses were supposed to blot out all reason. Otherwise there was no point in kissing. Boy, did he have a lot to learn. For good measure, she added another sentence to the pro side. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known looked very nice on the screen. It looked so good, she added another: Her intelligence is matched by her sweetness and charm.
    “Hey, Andi!” Bowie called from the beach. “Are you brewing the beer yourself?”
    She jumped. “Be right there!” She’d forgotten all about her errand. Quickly she saved the information on the screen, closed the file and turned off the computer.
    As she pulled beer from the refrigerator, she considered what Chance would do when he opened the file and discovered her changes. Then she smiled. He wouldn’t be likely to