Renegade Player (8 page)

“I want to know what in the world has happened, Willy,” Dotty demanded one day when Willy spilled a folder and proceeded to tell the office at large what she thought of trying to manage without a file clerk. “Somebody’s put your nose out of joint and I’m warning you, honey, unless you come around pretty soon, you’re going to make the post office’s least-wanted list. Even Richy was complaining about your moping upstairs all the time.”

“Oh, golly, am I as bad as all that?” Willy shoved her hair back from her face and grimaced. “It’s the heat. Dog days, isn’t it?”

“Nope, not yet. We still have that to look forward to.”

“Where’d you see Richy, anyway? I haven’t seen either him or Ada since she started working nights at the convenience store.”

Dotty rolled a sheet of paper in her typewriter and adjusted it. “He’s signed on with Bill for the Blue Marlin Tournament. They’ve gone to Hatteras for the duration and he’s probably going to work as mate until he goes back to school.” Dotty’s boyfriend, Bill Yancey, was skipper of a fishing boat that carried out sports fishing parties in the summertime and did commercial fishing during the winter. He was a nice-enough man but Willy had never heard him say more than two consecutive words.

“You planning to go down to join them?” Willy asked.

“Nope. I’m still determined to bone up and take my realtor’s exams whether I ever work at it or not. Just to prove to myself that I can. Then, and only then, will I settle down and raise a houseful of little Bills.” She grinned and Willy was struck by the thought that some people didn’t know how lucky they were.

And then she shook herself out of her maudlin sentimentalism. Kiel Faulkner was no more husband material than she herself was wife material. She had seen little enough of marriage that appealed to her, and certainly not the examples closest home, where her father seemed determined to pick up where Ponce de León left off, using younger and younger mates as the magic elixir.

The next morning she was thanking the Lord it was Friday as she descended the stairs, fumbling in her handbag for her keys, when Kiel greeted her with the news that his car wouldn’t start. “How about a lift to work?” he asked.

Disconcerted, she nodded. “Sure. Hop in. What is it, the battery?”

“Nothing so mundane, I’m afraid. I’ll check it out later when I have more time, but just now I want to finish up at the office in time to get off early and head down the banks.”

She shot him a questioning look, concentrating on her driving with more difficulty than usual as she became aware of the subtle scent of his aftershave, the casual spread of his powerful thighs in the seat beside her.

“Blue Marlin Tournament. I thought I’d take a break and go down to watch the start. I need an offshore breeze to blow the office dust out of my brain.”

“You’re going in a boat, then?”

He laughed briefly. “I don’t walk on water. You’re interested in boats?” He had heard the spark of interest in her voice, but it was Kiel she was interested in, not his mode of locomotion for a change.

She acknowledged a slight interest as well as an even slighter knowledge. “Daddy was always certain I’d trip and fall overboard, or so he said, but I found out later he just didn’t want any big-eyed, big-eared little pitchers around,” she said ruefully, wondering immediately why she had volunteered anything about her past.

“Your father sailed, then? Around here, by any chance?”

Full stop. She didn’t intend to say any more about her home or her family and so she pointed out a hang glider getting ready to launch himself from the top of Jockey’s Ridge, and the moment passed.

“Park it in the shade today,” Kiel offered with a glint of humor in his metallic eyes. “In case I need to catch a ride back down the beach with you later on, I don’t want to bake.”

“Such selfless consideration overwhelms me,” she derided.

Kiel walked with her to the place where the ramp split to go to the separate buildings. “Since I’m grounded today, may I take you to lunch?”

“Why don’t you just ask if you can borrow my car and be done with it? Or is this more of your selfless consideration?” she gibed.

“It wouldn’t occur to you to impute a higher motive to my invitation, would it?” he asked dryly.

She regarded him skeptically for a minute, and then, surrendering to her own self-interest, she agreed. “All right, since you’re afoot today, I suppose it would be practical.”

“Practicality wasn’t quite the motive I had in mind, Miss Silverthorne, but if you feel you have to rationalize, then be my guest. I’ll see you at about twelve-thirty.”

He veered off with a brief wave and a sardonic lift of eyebrow and Willy instantly regretted her weakening. The man was infuriating! Smug, arrogant, utterly certain that all he had to do was snap his fingers and any woman within range would fall victim to his lethal charm! “I could always bring you a corndog and a Twinkie,” she called after him, and he turned without breaking stride and said, “Twelve-thirty!”

She swore she wouldn’t. All morning long, between two-finger typing and answering the phone, she told herself she’d cut her losses and do herself a real favor; but when twelve-twenty passed, she stood up, stretched and strolled aimlessly to the rest room, where she scrutinized her image in the well-lighted mirror.

Oh, Lordy, what kind of fool would try and match
this
against Claudia’s magnolia skin, her midnight-blue eyelashes and that irritating knack she had of staying perfectly groomed no matter what the weather?
This
being a perennial crop of freckles, a mop of hair that usually resembled a haystack, with matching brows and lashes, and a way of coming undone even before she got to work in the first place. Sure, there was nothing wrong with the actual shape of her face, or her nose, or her chin or her cheekbones, for that matter, and her eyes were large enough, even if their cloudy green color was half-covered by a positive hedge of colorless lashes, but her clothes. . . . Without a maid to direct her wardrobe from start to finish, Willy had rapidly deteriorated to the point where she threw on something cool and cotton and let it go at that, although lately she had tried to make amends, conscious of the fact that she wanted Kiel to look on her with favor.

Oh, phoo! It was too much trouble and she wasn’t going to start going to a lot of trouble for any man! Certainly not for one who’d only laugh at her if he had any idea of how much it mattered to her. If she couldn’t attract a man without her father’s money glowing behind her like a twenty-four-karat-gold halo, then she’d do without.

With a last half-mocking glance in the mirror, she pushed open the door and returned to the open office, to see Kiel leaning casually against Dotty’s desk chatting as if they were bosom buddies. He looked up and smiled blandly. “Ready to go?”

She nodded, and as he held the door open for her, he turned to Dotty and said, “Think about it, will you? I’ll talk to you after lunch.”

“What was that all about?” Willy asked as she fumbled for her dark glasses. In spite of an overall haze, the light was fierce.

“Tell you over lunch.”

She handed over her keys and told him to drive and he made a big show of being shocked, asking her if she was sure she trusted him.

“With my car, yes.”

“That one was below the belt,” he charged, and then added, “and that was no deliberate double entendre.”

She shot him a swift look that almost immediately crumpled into a grin, disarmed by the amusement she saw reflected in his lean face. Lowering himself under the wheel after seeing her seated, he extracted the Mercedes from between its companions with an economy of movement that was a joy to watch and Willy reminded herself forcefully that if she didn’t look out, she’d be right back where she was before.

She didn’t ask where they were going, content to feel the speed-induced wind comb through her hair, and to watch the beautiful precision of his hands as they handled the gears with a finger-light touch. Those hands, she thought with wry honesty, were as expert at directing a piece of machinery as they were at directing the reactions of a woman’s body, and heaven help her if she forgot that fact!

They ate at the same small, unimposing beachfront place where he had taken her that day with Kip and they vied with white-haired surfers for space. Kiel ordered the soft-shell crab sandwiches with beer for himself and milk for her and he frowned as he replaced the spotted menu in its holder. “I don’t think Moses would have approved of your having milk with shellfish,” he told her.

“Probably not, but let’s hope this place has better sanitation and refrigeration facilities than Moses did.”

“As a health officer at a time when one slipup could be fatal, he did a first-class job of getting his people through safely, but I’ll bet he never saw a crab sandwich that could compare with these,” Kiel said, accepting their order from a waiter whose T-shirt read simply, T shirt.

They talked of food and its preservation in a variety of climates, and Willy gradually relaxed her wariness and found herself laughing wholeheartedly for the first time in a week, but when Kiel said, “If you’ll wipe off that milk mustache, I’ve a proposition to put to you,” she stiffened again.

He reached across the table and wiped her mouth with his napkin, the sun creases around his eyes deepening. “On Dotty’s behalf, that is,” he added. He went on to explain that Dotty was down in the dumps because Bill was going to have to celebrate his birthday without her. “He’s registered in the tournament and he left for Hatteras this morning and won’t be home until next weekend. It occurred to me that since I plan to sail down for the weekend to watch the start, Dotty might like to come along as a passenger and then she and Bill could have a little celebration after he winds things up Saturday night. Of course, it all hinges on having another woman along. What about it, are you game?”

“Who, me?” she asked awkwardly. “You mean leave today?”

“Why not? Here, come on outside. I can’t hear a thing over that demolition derby they call music.” He steered her through the crowd around the jukebox and they paused on the sagging porch to gaze out over an empty lot that was aglow with yellow flowers.

“What about it?” he murmured absently as he looked out over the flowers to where cloud shadows chased themselves across the solemn dome of Kill Devil Hill. “Looks as if the weather’s going to cooperate.” A nameless sort of excitement started somewhere down inside her and tightened up her throat so that she had to try twice before she could get her words out. “Does . . . does Dotty really want to go? I thought she was busy studying for her realtor’s exam. She and Bill plan to be married as soon as she passes.”

Kiel lighted a narrow cigar and blew a stream of smoke out into the sunshine. “She can always study aboard the
Good Tern
while Bill’s working.”

“The
Good Tern
. That’s your boat, I suppose.”

He ushered her down to where the persimmon-colored car held its own against a flock of rusty beach buggies, landscaped vans and neon-colored custom jobs. “My first one was named the
Royal Tern
. A bit ostentatious, but then, one’s first boat ...” He shrugged as if to excuse a perfectly understandable touch of pride.

“You traded it in on this one?” She winced and slid her hands under her as the hot leather branded her thighs.

“It was a casualty, I’m sorry to say. My ... my half-brother borrowed her for a cruise with friends and someone got careless with refueling. Fortunately, no one was hurt and Ra . . . my brother lost his taste for sailing. At any rate, I decided one good tern deserved another, thus the name, and if you say it’s cute, I’ll swat you where you’re sitting down.”

“Oh, definitely not cute. A bit glib . . . facetious, perhaps, but certainly not cute.” She gurgled as he reached out and made good his threat, catching her on the side of the leg.

By the time they returned to the offices it was decided that, Dotty being agreeable, they’d meet at Oregon Inlet at four and plan to be under way as soon after as possible, allowing them plenty of time to reach Hatteras and get a good night’s sleep. Then, early on Saturday before the boats went out, they’d contact Bill and make arrangements to get together after he came in that evening. They’d watch the beginning of the tournament, which officially began on Sunday, although there’d be a lot of activity on Saturday as well, and make their way back home late on Sunday afternoon.

It was just after two when Willy left the office. Kiel had called to say that he’d arranged for his car to be taken care of and would see her at home about three-thirty. Several times she had almost succumbed to second thoughts. Second and third and even fourth ones, but Dotty’s excitement was contagious; and when she asked herself, Why not? she carefully avoided listening for an answer.

The Porsche was miraculously cured of its ailment— something esoteric that Kiel explained away with a few words, none of which Willy understood—and they loaded it with two ice chests he had ready and waiting. Her own flight bag held a change of clothes plus a few incidentals, and Kiel evidently kept a supply of things aboard his boat, because except for the comestibles, he went empty-handed.

They parked her Mercedes in his garage before setting off and Willy’s feeling of exhilaration grew as they passed Bodie Island Light and headed on down toward the marina at Oregon Inlet. The campground on the other side of the highway was bustling with activity and the marina, with half its boats still out and others cruising in sight near the high, arching bridge, was a beehive. Dotty was waiting, looking out of place in a cotton dress and perfectly unaware of the fact. They moved on to one side where a small tender was moored, and after loading it, Kiel rowed them out to where a sleek handsome ketch of some thirty-five or forty feet was moored.

The
Good Tern
was glistening white fiberglass with a teak stern that designated her registry as Bar Harbor, Maine, a fact which caused Willy to reflect on how very little she knew about Kiel Faulkner, but he was busy preparing to get under way, and by the time the provisions had been stowed aboard and Dotty had finished exclaiming over everything in sight, the moment had passed.