Читать книгу More To Love - Dixie Browning, Dixie Browning - Страница 8

To think she had actually considered slipping peacefully into a midlife crisis, never mind that according to one article she had read there was no such thing. She’d had all the classic symptoms. Worry about her looks, about broken relationships and career disappointments, about the waning importance to her family.

Besides, the alternative seemed so selfish. Wanting something for herself.

But a midlife crisis? At the age of thirty-six? Hardly. And Annamarie was still depending on her, which was the reason she was here. As for her new career, it looked promising, once the electricians and painters and plasterers got finished so that everyone could move in again. Being head housekeeper in an assisted-living home might not be the most glamorous career in the world, but then, Molly was nothing if not a realist. And she was finally doing something about her looks. As for the other symptom—the relationship thing—her one shot at happy-ever-after had given her a genuine distaste for fairy tales.

Only four days ago Molly had caught her first glimpse of the ocean. She had seen a sand dune that was almost as big as one of her own West Virginia mountains. She had collected a bushel of tourist brochures on her way down the Outer Banks, telling herself she would read every one and see everything that looked halfway interesting.

And it all did. The miracle was that for once in her life she had time on her hands. The only thing she had to do was feed and water a couple of birds and clean their cages, and look after one elderly cat.

The ferry ride from Hatteras to Ocracoke had been just the beginning. There was an observation deck, but as it had taken her about twenty minutes of the allotted forty to work up enough nerve to step out of her car, she had never made it up the narrow ladder. Instead she’d grabbed hold of the metal railing and waited to see if she was going to be sick. It had taken a few more minutes to get used to the gentle rolling motion of the deck, but there was so much to take in that she’d soon forgotten all about her queasiness. Flocks of seagulls following the ferry swooped down to catch scraps of bread tossed by three pretty girls standing at the chain across the stern. They passed another ferry headed in the opposite direction, and people waved. Feeling bold and adventurous, Molly released her grip on the railing and waved back.

It had to be fate, she remembered thinking at the time. First, the lightning strike that had caused Holly Hills Home where she worked to be shut down for repairs. Next, the fact that Stu and Annamarie had rented a cottage on Ocracoke Island and then decided to take a week off for a side trip and needed someone to look after Pete, Repete and Shag. Molly couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a real vacation. She hadn’t even had to think twice when Annamarie called to ask if there was any possible way she could come down and take care of the critters for just a few days. It was only a five-hour drive, one way. Ferry included.

Molly had gone right out and splurged on three new outfits suitable for a beach vacation in late April. If she could have found a T-shirt that said Live For The Moment, or Go With The Flow, she would probably have bought it, never mind that she was built more for tents and tunics than T-shirts.

She remembered singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” under her breath as she’d stood there on the ferry watching the water of Hatteras Inlet flow past. Where better than an island to adopt that attitude?

The teenage girls had giggled and postured. They were a bit underdressed for the weather, which was still cool. But then, if she’d had their figures she might have done some showing off, too. The ferry had been loaded with fishermen, some of them young and attractive. A few were asleep in their vehicles, a few more were outside comparing fishing gear. Most were watching the girls, except for one who was—mercy, he looked like a young Sly Stallone!—watching her!

Watching her?

Pretending she hadn’t noticed, Molly concentrated on a big black bird sitting on a post out in the water, his wings spread as if he were about to take off.

“Cormorant,” said the Stallone look-alike, edging closer along the railing. “Drying his wings.” Up close, he was only a few inches taller than Molly’s modest five foot two, and already he was showing signs of a beer belly, but he had a nice smile.

She glanced up at the cloudless sky, then back at Sleepy Eyes. “How did they get wet?”

“Diving for dinner.”

She remembered trying to look as if she knew precisely what he meant, but as the whole experience had been so new, she probably hadn’t been too convincing.

“First time down here?” he asked.

“Actually, it is.”

“Me, I come every year, spring and fall. Me and my buddies enter tournaments all up and down the coast. The weather can turn on you real quick this time of year, though. You shoulda waited a few weeks.”

“Fishing tournaments?”

He pointed to the small pennant flying from the antenna of his dark green pickup truck. “O.I.F.T. That’s Ocracoke International or Invitational, anyway you want to call it.” He went on to describe several such tournaments and his prowess at each while Molly soaked up the novelty of sunshine and seagulls, a moving deck underfoot and the full attention, for the moment at least, of a handsome young man. Could someone have waved a magic wand, turning plain, plump Molly Dewhurst into someone her own mirror wouldn’t recognize? Had the lumbering old ferryboat been a pumpkin in a previous incarnation?

“Cut bait’s what you want. Some like bloodworms, but me, I like salt mullet best.”

All right, so his charm was a little on the rustic side. No one had ever accused her of being a snob.

Reaching into the back of his truck, he took a can of beer from the cooler, offered it to Molly, and when she refused, popped the top and drained half the contents in one thirsty gulp.

Molly fingered a strand of blowing hair away from her eyes. Sunglasses. She should have thought to get herself a pair. Big ones. Then she could ogle all she wanted to without getting caught at it. She’d invested in a new lipstick, a new hairstyle and the new outfits, but spending money on herself took practice. She hadn’t quite got the knack of it yet.

“Where you staying?” he drawled. He had one of those raspy voices that went with his sleepy eyes.

Molly swallowed hard and tried to sound terribly blasé. “It’s a cottage. My sister’s. Actually it’s not hers. She’s only renting it.”

“So maybe I’ll see you around?” Was that an opening or a dismissal?

She took several mental steps back. She didn’t do casual flirtations. The old Molly had never had a chance to learn, and the new Molly needed to work on self-confidence first. “Maybe so,” she said airily. “If I don’t see you again, good luck in the tournament.”

“When it comes to fishing, I make my own luck.” He flashed her a lazy grin. “There’s sixty teams in this one, with a mile-long waiting list. If you’re a betting woman, put your money on ol’ Jeffy Smith.”

“Thank you. I’ll, uh—do that.” Molly remembered thinking at the time that men based their ego on the strangest things. Her ex-husband, for instance, made certain everyone knew he’d gone to Yale, never mind that he’d lasted only a single semester. Jeffy Smith evidently took pride in his prowess as a fisherman—or maybe in being a member of an exclusive group. But he’d been friendly. He’d seemed nice. He was attractive in a rough sort of way. And as she had recently cast off her old persona, determined to take a cue from a recruiting slogan and become all she could become, she’d responded with a smile.

And then Jeffy had tossed his beer can over the side, patted his belly and belched. So much for her ferryboat Prince Charming. He was obviously a man’s man. But then, she’d reminded herself, her ex-husband had been a ladies’ man. Of the two, she preferred the slob.

Correction. Of the two, she preferred neither. Still, it was a shame. Her very first shipboard romance, and it had ended before it even began.

“We’ll be landing in a couple of minutes. Now, remember, if you need any help learning how to hold a rod, you just call on ol’ Jeffy.” His eyes had twinkled. He had black eyes, black hair and a three-days’ growth of beard. Molly hadn’t known if it was a fashion statement or one of those things men did when they were off the reservation. With Kenny, it had been just the opposite. When he was home, he never bothered to shave or even comb his hair, but if he’d been going out anywhere at all, it was full-dress parade, from the fancy designer shoes he had charged to her account to the expensive cologne he splashed on his throat before he buttoned his designer shirt and knotted his designer tie.

Once when he’d gone on and on about designer this and designer that, she’d asked him who designed the clothes that didn’t bear a designer’s label. He’d given her a blank stare and asked for fifty dollars to tide him over.

That was another thing about Kenny Dewhurst. He was totally devoid of a sense of humor. He was equally devoid of any funds except those provided by his doormat of a wife.

Ex-doormat, Molly remembered thinking. Breathing deeply of freedom, diesel fumes and salt air, she had smiled at the semi-handsome slob leaning on the railing beside her while the heavy engines throbbed beneath her feet. Here she was, under a cloudless blue sky, off on an island adventure, and before she even set foot on the island, a friendly man had struck up a conversation with her while only a few feet away three really cute girls, size zilch, were flirting with his fishing buddies.

The engines had changed pitch as the ferry swerved into a narrow channel. Her Stallone look-alike had said, “Guess I’d better load up. So…I guess I’ll see you around, huh?”

“Probably. I understand it’s a small island.” Nice going, Molly. Not too eager, not too cool. She had climbed back into her car and watched through the rearview mirror as he rejoined his friends. There were some knowing grins, a few elbows to the ribs, and then they stowed their gear and climbed into their muscle trucks.

“Stowed their gear,” she repeated smugly now. Pretty nautical for a woman who had never before set foot on an island. Never even set foot outside West Virginia until four months ago.

She was going to like this new Molly just fine. She had…well, maybe not style. At least not yet. But she had attitude, by heck, and that was the first step!

That had been four days ago. That very afternoon Stu and Annamarie had caught the last ferry headed north, after writing detailed instructions on how to care for the two African Gray parrots and Shag the cat. The next morning Molly had introduced herself to the next-door neighbor, Sally Ann Haskins, who told her how to find the general store, the post office, and tried to tempt her into taking a puppy off her hands.

“Mama Dog’s plumb worn out. I’m going to get her fixed. She had seven this time. Last time it was eleven, poor thing. You sure you couldn’t use a nice retriever pup? Your sister said she had too many animals already, but she said you might be interested.”

“I’d love one, but—” Mama Dog flapped her tail lethargically, but didn’t even lift her head when Molly knelt and reached for one of her squirming babies. “But the place where I live has this rule about animals.”

“Reckon I could offer it as a prize in the fishing tournament? Biggest catch of the day gets a free puppy? Fishermen mostly drive pickup trucks, and every pickup has to have a dog to ride in the back. It’s a state law.”

So then Molly had told her all about the ferryboat encounter with a fisherman in a dogless pickup truck. “Just when I was starting to think he had real possibilities, he threw his beer can overboard.”

“You know the old saying, garbage in, garbage out.” Sally Ann worked for the ferry department, which Molly considered wildly exciting. “Maybe the jerk’ll hook into his own beer can and wreck his gear. They say there’s a big low headed up the coast. Last three years in a row, the weather’s been so bad, most folks left after the first day. You don’t want to try surf fishing in gale force winds—the sand’ll cut the skin right off your face.”

“Mercy. Why not schedule it for when the weather’s better?”

“You know anybody that can schedule the weather? They set it for when the fish are supposed to be here.” Sally Ann finished ironing a uniform shirt, unplugged the iron and plopped it on the kitchen range to cool. “Trouble is, if the weather closes in, they wait until too late to get off the island. Once the highway’s flooded, they’re stuck with nothing better to do than shoot pool and tell lies about the big one that got away.”

“Still, it doesn’t sound like good planning to me.”

Sally grinned. A strawberry blonde, she had a weathered face, perfect teeth and the biggest, bluest eyes Molly had ever seen. “Makes for some fun, though. Socializing’s a big part of these tournaments. If the weather shuts down and they get tired of baling hay, they head for the pubs. And let me tell you, if this low hangs around too long, there’ll be some hot old times down at Delroy’s Pub.”

One hand on the doorknob, Molly paused. “Uh—did you say baling hay? I thought they were fishing?”

“Catching eelgrass. With the water so rough, the bottom’s all tore up. Seaweed’s about all they haul in.”

The next day dark clouds closed in, bringing stiff winds that tore new leaves from ancient trees and set small boats to bobbing like corks at the wharf. It was raining, but not heavily when Molly left the general store with a sack of apples and headed back to the cottage. Rain or shine, she was determined to walk each day as part of her new regime.

Diet and exercise. Ugh! Traffic had tripled since she’d arrived only a few days ago. Idly she wondered what had happened to her ferryboat acquaintance. Had he left? Was he shooting pool and swapping lies, or fishing in the rain?

The fish wouldn’t know if it was raining or not…would they?

Remembering Sally Anne’s warning, that he might try to score a little something on the side just to make the trip worthwhile, she had to laugh. It was flattering to think a warning would even be necessary. The new Molly must be coming along faster than she’d thought, if she had to worry about men trying to pick her up.

“Hi there, pretty lady.”

Molly nearly dropped her apples as the familiar-looking dark green truck pulled up beside her. “Oh, hi. How’s fishing, uh—Jeffy?”

“Tournament’s over. We drew a lousy spot this year, but at least I didn’t get skunked. I’m staying on a few more days, long’s I come all this way—headed out now to look over conditions. With the wind like this, the beach’ll get cut up some. Might be a few promising new sloughs. Wanna come along for the ride?”

A small voice in the back of her mind whispered, “Watch it, lady, you might’ve shed a few pounds, but you’re not ready for prime time yet.”

The old Molly was aghast to hear the new Molly say cheerfully, “Well…sure, why not?” She accepted the callused hand and hauled herself up into the high cab. So he was something of a slob. So his grammar wasn’t perfect and he belched and tossed beer cans. Back in Grover’s Hollow some of the nicest people she knew probably did the same thing when no one was looking. But he was friendly, and after all, she wasn’t committing herself to anything more than a drive along the beach, which she certainly couldn’t do in her own car.

Rarely did Rafe Webber find himself in an awkward situation, thanks to excellent instincts and an impeccable sense of timing. On the few occasions when he blundered, he usually managed to finesse his way out with the minimum amount of damage. This time things might be different. His instincts had been signaling trouble ever since Stu had called to tell him he was getting married to the most beautiful, brilliant, wonderful woman in the world. Rafe had strongly advised a cooling-off period, meaning, wait until I have time to check things out, little buddy. Unfortunately Stu had been too charged up to listen.

Rafe had been on his way out of the country at the time. He’d been held up a lot longer than he’d expected, missing Thanksgiving and Christmas completely. Not that he was sentimental—no way! Still, he’d always made a point of getting together for holidays, just to give the kid a sense of stability. He’d read somewhere that establishing traditions helped ground rebellious adolescents, which Stu had been when Rafe had first got him. For the past ten years, Rafe always cooked his special turkey dinner, regardless of the holiday.

So he’d missed the wedding, too. By the time he made it back to the States, the deed was done. But tomorrow was the kid’s birthday, and regardless of the bride and an inconvenient nor’easter, he wasn’t going to miss that. He’d checked the weather when he’d filed his flight plan. Two separate low-pressure areas were due to join forces just off the North Carolina coast, but he figured he had plenty of time to slide on in before the weather closed in. What he hadn’t figured on was finding the whole damned island foundering under a load of surf fishermen. While it might be good for business, it was a damned nuisance when a guy got in late, needing a decent rental car and a room for a couple of days.

Before leaving Pelican’s Cove, Florida, Rafe had cleared his calendar for a week, even though he figured it would take only a couple of days to make things up to the kid and find out how much trouble he’d gotten himself in. Not to mention what it was going to take to get him out of it. Stu’s taste in women was notorious. From the time Rafe had taken over the care and feeding of a freckle-faced adolescent with too much money, too many hormones and too little common sense, Stu had been a target for every predatory female in range.

This one had waited until Rafe was headed out of the country on a little unofficial business for the government and then reeled in her catch. Stuart Montgomery Grainger III. Old family, new money. Gullible Grainger, green as his daddy’s billions. Rafe had dared hope that, with a college degree and a brand-new teaching job waiting for him, his half brother might have matured enough to be let off the leash. The lady had outsmarted him. She’d sprung her trap before any of the family had had a chance to check her out. Not that anyone besides Rafe would even bother, unless it was Stu’s father’s lawyers.

Ten years ago Rafe’s mother had dropped in out of the blue with a scared, resentful fifteen-year-old in tow and announced that as the two of them were half brothers, it was time they got to know one another. To say Rafe was appalled would be an understatement. The only thing that had kept him from flat-out refusing was the fact that the kid obviously felt the same way. Rafe could remember all too well how he’d felt at that age, being shunted between summer camp and boarding school so as not to cramp his mother’s lifestyle.

They’d spent the next five years getting to know each other, with Rafe trying his damnedest to instill a few survival instincts in a kid who hadn’t a clue.

Evidently he hadn’t succeeded. Those wedding pictures that had been waiting when he’d finally made it back to the States had pretty much told the story. Gorgeous bride wearing a knock-out gown, grinning groom wearing cake on his face. The kid still looked about fifteen. You had to wonder if the bride would have been so determined to tie the knot if his name had been Joe Jones instead of S. M. Grainger III of the shipping and banking Graingers.

About all Rafe could do at this point was damage control. Fly in unannounced, apologize for missing out on all the festivities and cook Stu his favorite holiday dinner, which happened to be the only family-style dinner Rafe knew how to prepare. It would serve as a birthday treat, a reminder to Stu that he had family standing squarely behind him, and a similar warning to the bride. It would also tell him a lot about this paragon the kid had married. If she could be bought off, he’d be better off without her.

Rafe wondered how much Stu had told her about his wildly dysfunctional family. There was the father who couldn’t be bothered to keep in touch. The mother who sent extravagant birthday gifts on the wrong date. Somewhere there were some half siblings who might or might not know him personally—not to mention a big brother who had invested a lot of years into keeping him on the right track.

At the moment Rafe was more concerned with the woman. On the way north he had settled on a test he used often in business: the element of surprise. Setting things up, then observing the way people reacted to the unexpected. Having a stranger drop in out of the blue with an armload of groceries to commandeer a woman’s kitchen might not be quite as effective a test as being stranded together in a leaky cabin cruiser, but it should do the trick. He could hardly come right out and ask the bride if she was more interested in the trust fund Stu stood to inherit at the age of thirty-one, or the shy, good-natured guy with a good mind, a heart of gold but damned few social skills.

While he secured the plane, taking extra precautions against the wind, Rafe ran through a few old chestnuts about brothers’ keepers and no man being an island in an effort to rationalize his guilty conscience for having dropped out of sight at a time when Stu had needed him. He didn’t do guilt well. When he’d found out the honeymooners would be spending a few months on one of the islands off the North Carolina coast, it had seemed like the perfect chance to mend a few fences and at the same time see how much trouble Stu was in with this bride of his and what it was going to take to sort things out. Happy marriages did not run in their family.

Unfortunately marriage did. Stella, the mother they shared, had been married four times to date. A six-foot-tall ex-Vegas showgirl, she was still a beautiful woman at age fifty-nine-and-holding.

Rafe’s father had been married three times to successively younger women, and was currently working out prenuptials with number four. Probably a high school cheerleader this time. Rafe didn’t know about Stu’s old man, but figured he was probably in the same league, marriagewise.

It was when Stella had been about to set out on honeymoon number three a few days before Thanksgiving that she’d turned up at the door of Rafe’s condo with the kid. Once he’d gotten over the shock of finding himself unexpectedly landed with the care and feeding of a half-grown boy, Rafe had scrambled like crazy not to blow it. He’d canceled a nine-day trip to Vancouver with Linda—or maybe it had been Liz. He had taken a crash course in basic cooking and started reading every book on adolescent psychology he could lay his hands on. Over the next few years they had weathered countless minor mishaps and a few major ones. He liked the kid.

Hell, he loved the kid.

He’d done a good job of raising him, too, if he did say so himself. Stu was no athlete—they’d both reluctantly faced that fact after half a dozen or so spectacular failures. He was a fine young man, smart as a whip when it came to books. Trouble was, he was dumb as a stump where women were concerned.

That was where Rafe had always come in. Sifting the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Unfortunately it had mostly been chaff up to now, but at least he’d managed to keep Stu out of major trouble until the call had come a couple of months ago. Rafe had been within hours of leaving the country on another unofficial fact-finding trip. As a small-time Gulf Coast resort developer with a modest charter boat fleet, he had the perfect excuse to explore the coastal regions of Central and South America. Having served a hitch in the Coast Guard before Stu had come to live with him, he was well aware of the fact that DEA was undermanned, underfunded and overwhelmed.

Which was how he’d happened to miss the wedding. Thanks to a small misunderstanding with a bunch of entrepreneurs in a little fishing village in Central America, he’d been out of circulation for the next several weeks, but at least he was going to make the kid’s twenty-fifth birthday.

What he hadn’t figured on was the size of Ocracoke Island in relation to the concentration of tourists. Wall-to-wall fishermen, according to the fellow who’d driven the rental out to the airport to meet him. He should have made advance reservations, in case the honeymoon cottage lacked a guest room.

The airport was little more than a paved landing strip with a phone booth and an open pavilion, all within a few hundred yards of the Atlantic. It was crowded and exposed, but adequate. He’d seen a lot worse. Knowing the weather was likely to deteriorate before the low moved offshore again, he took his time with the tie-downs and chocks. Hatteras Lows were notorious, even in Florida. Once he was satisfied, he slung his gear, which included several large grocery sacks, into the only available rental vehicle, an SUV with a gutted muffler and rusted-out floorboards.

He dropped the driver off at the rental place after learning the location of Yaupon Cottage and roughly how to find it, and toyed with the notion of checking into a hotel first. He decided against it. The turkey needed to go into an oven, or else they’d be lucky to dine before midnight. And while that didn’t bother him at all, Stu and whatsername might have other ideas.

Mission underplanned.

Traffic was bumper-to-bumper. Locating Yaupon Cottage wasn’t quite as easy as it had sounded. The village was laid out as if someone had tossed handsful of confetti into the air and then built something wherever a scrap of paper landed. With the low cloud cover, there was barely enough light left to see his way up and down the narrow, winding roads with vehicles parked haphazardly on both sides.

He managed to find the place, and then had to squeeze in between a picket fence and a tan sedan. By then the rain had started coming down in solid, wind-driven sheets. Hatless, coatless, he jogged up the path to the front door and knocked. And then he pounded again and waited. There was no light on inside. It might not be wise to walk in unannounced on a honeymoon couple, but dammit, his backside was getting wet. The grocery sacks were melting. So he pounded a few more times, then tried the doorknob. Finding the door unlocked, he opened it and called, “Hey, kids? Stu? Anybody home?”