The Sooner the Better by Debbie Macomber

a lengthy silence, “but I refuse to…clean any.” She turned her back on him. Disapproval radiated off her like sonar waves. Her nose was so high in the air, he thought with amusement, it was a wonder some bird didn’t land on it.
    â€œDo you have a problem with pulling your own weight?” he asked, not that he was looking for an argument. He was more interested in seeing how far he could push her.
    â€œOf course not. I’ll pull my own weight.”
    It was too early in the morning to argue. Besides, he was hungry. He missed his morning coffee and was in no mood to deal with an unexpected passenger, especially one who’d inconvenienced him as much as this woman had. Not only that, she didn’t seem to recognize that he was doing her a favor by saving her stupid ass from jail.
    â€œI want to know what you plan to do about our predicament,” she said next.
    Well, excuse me. All he needed now was for Her Highness to start issuing commands.
    â€œI already told you.” With his back to her, he worked at rigging up the first fishing pole. He secured the bait—the sardine was nothing he’d seriously consider eating himself—and locked the rod into place. Once he’d finished that, he set up the second pole. With two lines in the water, he doubled his chances of scoring breakfast. He hadn’t so much as caught a fish and already Miss Pull-her-own-weight was letting it be known that she wasn’t about to dirty her delicate fingers.
    â€œSight of blood makes you squeamish, does it?” he taunted.
    â€œHardly,” she said in a huff.
    He arched one eyebrow and finished with the second rod.
    â€œI find the idea of fishing barbaric.”
    â€œYou can have breakfast or, as I said earlier, you’re free to do without it.”
    â€œFine.”
    Unlike him, she’d enjoyed a decent dinner—the dinner he should’ve had over at Thomas’s place. Whether or not she ate breakfast was her choice. Jack couldn’t care less.
    â€œUm, I realize how that must sound,” she said, apparently reconsidering. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer….”
    â€œHey,” Jack said as he moved forward, “you go ahead and do what you’ve got to do.” He started the engines and the boat took off at a slow easy troll.
    Lorraine looked as if she was about to be sick again. Her face went from healthy pink to ashen, followed almost immediately by a faint tinge of green.
    Jack resisted asking her how she was feeling. That seemed too cruel, even for him. One look said it all.
    Her Highness staggered back to the chair and collapsed into it.
    Luck was with him, and in less than ten minutes he’d snagged his first fish. A red snapper, which made for excellent eating.
    Lorraine didn’t move from her throne the entire time it took him to reel in breakfast. Nor did she show any signs of interest when he took his catch below, gutted, filleted and fried it up in a skillet. The scent of the fish frying made his mouth water. It didn’t come any fresher than this. He could have eaten in the galley, and often did. Not now. With a good deal of ceremony, he dragged another chair onto the deck and placed it beside Lorraine’s. Then he carried up his plate, along with a cold beer, and settled down. She glanced once in his direction, and Jack recognized the look. Hunger. After insisting that she didn’t like fishing, her pride wouldn’t allow her to give in and enjoy a fine meal—even if he did say so himself.
    â€œI don’t mean to be a pest…” she began.
    â€œIt’s a gift.”
    â€œA gift?”
    â€œBeing a pest. You appear to have a real talent for it.”
    That shut her up for a few minutes, as he’d suspected it would.
    â€œWhat are we going to do about the lack of supplies?” she asked after a while.
    Jack could tell from the forced evenness of her voice that she