Читать книгу A Woman With Secrets - Inglath Cooper, Inglath Cooper - Страница 11

Between the wish and the thing, life lies waiting.

—Proverb

WHAT WAS SHE thinking?

Standing on deck with the breeze brushing her cheeks, Kate had a sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh. Here she was with her feathers ruffled because Cole Hunter had assumed she couldn’t cook. Unfortunately, he was right. And she really hoped the other people on this boat were big fans of cereal.

She found a chair, deciding to take in the sunset getting ready to drop into the ocean. A stiff breeze blew across the open water, and the boat swayed gently from left to right like a child’s cradle.

Her stomach tipped slightly, but the sensation was fleeting. She was probably just tired from the trip. She’d driven straight through from Virginia to Florida with little more than stops for the ladies’ room and a gallon of coffee to keep her awake. That and the thought that Karl might be somewhere behind her kept her foot on the gas pedal.

Margo Sheldon came over and offered Kate a bottle of mineral water, her smile less than certain.

“Thought you might be thirsty,” she said.

“Thanks.” Kate waved a hand at the chair beside her. “Sit down, please.”

Margo sat on the edge, smoothing a hand across the Bermuda shorts that had replaced the dark skirt and stockings she’d had on earlier. The tweed jacket was also gone, but she still wore the white cotton blouse buttoned all the way to her neck. She pushed her thick-lens glasses up on her nose. Two seconds later, they slid back to their original position, forcing her to look over them more than through them.

“It’ll be interesting to see what comes of that,” Margo said, nodding in the direction of the grill and the string of fish now waiting to be cooked.

Her voice was at odds with her looks. It had a nice husky quality to it. Kate twisted the cap off the bottle and took a sip. “Yes, it will.”

Margo sent a covert glance at the two men huddled over the grill like two cowpokes over a campfire. “Interesting duo, don’t you think?”

Kate rubbed her thumb across the side of her water bottle. “That word would apply, yes.”

“My father arranged this trip, so I really had no idea what to expect, but—”

“It’s not exactly what you thought it would be?” Kate finished for her. “Me, either.”

They were silent for a minute or so, neither of them elaborating on what it was they had expected.

Margo’s gaze rested on Harry’s shoulders, and Kate wondered at the hint of longing on the woman’s face. There was no ring on her left hand, so Kate assumed she wasn’t married. She was on vacation with her father, who from all appearances, might fail to be the life of the party in most social settings. She had smooth, pretty skin, and her eyes, now and then visible above her glasses, were a soft blue. Her clothes and hairstyle made her look older than she probably was. Kate sensed a loneliness in her that made her want to reach out to her, even though she didn’t know her. “Tell me about your work,” she said.

Margo looked up in surprise, as if it wasn’t often that anyone wanted to hear her talk about herself. But she began to speak. And Kate listened.

IT WAS AN unusual turn of events. Margo was much more accustomed to being the listener than the one listened to.

She could not recall the last time she’d felt comfortable enough with a stranger to pass along personal information more relevant than “Yes, the bus stop is a quarter block away.” She once overheard one of her physics students say that she would have made a perfect Jane Austen character, buttoned-up as she was. She was fairly certain there was no compliment to be found in the assessment, although she didn’t mind the reference. She loved Pride and Prejudice and would have switched places with Elizabeth Bennet in a heartbeat.

But her life was in the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth, and therein lay the difficulty. She was an odd fit.

This was something that could not be said of Kate Winthrop.

She fit. In this century. This Caribbean movie set backdrop. The cover of InStyle magazine would not be a stretch.

It was this that made her wonder then why they’d spent the past forty-five minutes talking as if they had a bevy of shared interests to unearth. Most amazing was the fact that she really listened. Margo was far more used to the glazed-eye response she normally got from strangers. Admittedly, the finer points of quantum physics didn’t exactly make for mainstream conversation. But it was what she knew.

When she began to get a little too detailed about the specifics of what she did every day, Kate—unlike most people who simply looked at their watches, announced they had some to that point forgotten emergency and flew off to take care of it—steered her toward the personal. What was it like to be a woman in a field once monopolized by men? Did she ever want to do something different? Were there any cute guys who taught at Harvard?

This was the question that tripped her up, caused her to sputter her last sip of iced tea.

“Are you all right?” Kate asked, sitting up and patting her on the back with several resounding thwacks.

“I—yes,” she said, coughing again and clearing her throat.

“Was it something I said?”

“Ah, no. It’s just not a question I’ve been asked before.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” she said, stalling. “I’m not exactly an expert on the subject.”

“Because?” Kate posed, raising an eyebrow as if Margo had just thrown her an impossible to process piece of information.

“That’s just not my area of expertise,” she managed, wiping the spattered tea from her white shorts.

“Is there anyone who can claim to be an expert on the subject?” she asked. “Men are shape-shifters. No sooner do you think you have one variety nailed, than they morph to something different altogether.”

Margo laughed, surprising herself. “I wouldn’t know,” she admitted. “I’m not much for dating.”

“The pickings are slim in Cambridge then?”

“For someone like me, I guess so,” she said, adjusting her tone toward unconcerned and falling a notch or two short.

Kate studied her for a long moment. “So tell me. Who are you, Margo Sheldon?”

She’d been asked this question before. By teachers. Career counselors. But never in this situation. Never with what would make her interesting to a man as the subtext. “I have no idea,” she said in a moment of brutal honesty.

“Well,” Kate said. “Doesn’t this trip just seem like a perfect opportunity to find out?”

“HEY, SORRY I was late this afternoon,” Harry said, pulling a spatula from beneath the grill on deck.

Cole turned on the gas, then backed up a step as it poofed to life. “Didn’t have anything to do with that blonde who walked you to the boat, did it?”

“Maybe a little something,” Harry said, somehow managing not to gloat.

“And what’d you promise her?”

“There’s the beauty of it. I didn’t promise her anything. And she was okay with that.”

“You don’t think she was a little young for you?”

“I didn’t notice,” Harry said.

“Was that a Barbie backpack she was carrying?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “She wasn’t that young.”

“So what do you talk about with someone her age?”

“Actually, some subjects are intergenerational.”

“Even when you’re two or three ahead?”

“Ah, come on now. I’m not that far a stretch.”

“Let’s put it this way. If you two were an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, you’d be the dad and she’d be the daughter.”

“Ouch.”

“Those arrows of truth have sharp points, don’t they?”

“Yeah, and here’s one for you,” he said. “I’d rather be living out my time on this planet than enduring it.”

“I guess that’s where our points of view differ,” Cole said, putting a fillet of fish on the grill.

Harry’s gaze snagged on Kate Winthrop and Margo Sheldon where they sat talking at the far side of the deck. “I’m beginning to think you did me a favor asking me to come along on this trip,” he said. “Two attractive gals. And we just happen to be two single, available males. Couldn’t have set it up better myself. ’Course I’m starting to think the studious one is more your style.”

From the table next to the grill, Cole picked up a knife and began to slice a loaf of bread, hitting the cutting board with even, forceful strokes. “Nix the assumptions of commingling. You’re not Hugh Hefner, and they’re not Playmates.”

“You’d let an opportunity like this pass you by?” Harry asked, amazement widening his eyes.

“How good a swimmer are you, Harry?”

“Pretty good,” he said, “but—”

“If you don’t want to prove it by doing the breast stroke back to Miami, I suggest you drop the subject.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest, then wisely shut it.

IT WAS ALMOST dark by the time Harry Smith called out across the deck, “This way for the feast of your lives!”

The long, family-style table had been set up complete with a checkered cloth, real dishes and silverware. The two men had prepared quite a spread of food, platters of red snapper flanked by colorful grilled vegetables and several baskets of what smelled like fresh, home-baked yeast bread.

“A feast fit for a king,” Lily Granger declared.

“And a queen,” Lyle amended.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Lily said with a laugh. “Lyle’s a women’s-libber,” she added in an exaggerated whisper to the rest of the group. “Militant about it, really.”

Kate smiled, unable to picture either of the older ladies marching in front of the White House. They all sat down and began to eat, forks and knives clinking against white enamel plates.

From his seat at the end of the table, Cole looked at her and said, “Tomorrow, we’ll get to sample some of Ms. Winthrop’s cooking skills. She’ll be helping Harry with breakfast.”

“How wonderful,” the Granger sisters said in unison, actually sounding a little jealous.

“Indeed,” agreed Dr. Sheldon, pushing his black-rim glasses back up on his nose.

“I’m sure Kate’s a wonderful cook,” Margo said.

Kate’s earlier bravado disappeared along with her appetite.

The rest of the meal passed pleasantly enough, everyone sharing a little about themselves. The Granger sisters were from New York City. Neither had ever married, and they spent most of their time traveling. They’d just returned from an African safari.

Margo and her father were a little more difficult to figure out. She still lived at home and was obviously very much under his thumb. Kate saw something of herself in the other woman and wondered if she longed to break free of her father’s protectiveness.

“So tell us something about yourself, Kate,” Lily Granger said. “Is that a Virginia accent I hear?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “Richmond.”

“Beautiful city,” she said. “Lyle and I spent a summer there in our teens. Nineteen—”

“Fifty-four,” Lyle finished for her. “Did you grow up there, dear?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Winthrop,” Lily murmured. “That name does ring a bell.”

“It is familiar,” Lyle agreed, one finger under her chin as if flipping through the Rolodex of her memory.

“It’s gotten a bit chilly.” Kate pushed her chair back and stood. “I think I’ll get a sweater.”

She took her time going to the cabin, rummaging through her things for the single sweater she’d brought along. She’d just as soon not talk about her family. When you were the black sheep in the flock, it could get a little uncomfortable standing in the middle of so much white.

By the time she returned to the deck, the Granger sisters had forgotten all about her. Cole was currently in the hot seat, but he was even more sketchy with the details of his life than she had been. She knew no more about him when he’d finished than she had when he started.

After the meal, everyone lingered for a cup of coffee before retiring for the evening. They stood on the deck with a light breeze at their backs. Kate said good night first and went downstairs, taking a quick shower and then slipping on her nightgown. She climbed under the covers, only to realize she’d left her book upstairs. Hoping everyone else would be asleep by now, she shrugged into her robe and climbed the steps on bare feet.

She breathed in the fresh sea air, salty and warm, the smell now familiar and appealing. She looked up at the sky, awed by the vastness of it and the fact that it made the trouble she’d left behind seem a little less significant.

The book was where she’d left it, beneath the lounge chair she’d been sitting in earlier. She picked it up, then noticed someone standing at the railing several yards away, staring out at the dark ocean.

She recognized the rigid posture and stepped back into the shadows, not sure why she didn’t want him to see her. She should go, but something made her hesitate, take the unobserved moment to study his profile. Wavy and untamed, he wore his hair a little longer than most of the men she knew. His jaw was tight. One hand went to the back of his neck as though to smooth away some knot of tension there.

The light caught his face, and in that instant, she saw something in his expression that surprised her.

Sadness.

The emotion seemed out of place for him. And for a crazy instant, she wanted to know its origin. But then she barely knew Cole Hunter.

She backed away, her gaze lingering just a moment longer, before turning and making her way back across the deck and down the stairs.

IT WAS ONLY when he was alone that Cole let himself think about Ginny. Wonder how much she had grown, whether her voice still had the same sweet lilt to it, whether she had lost all of her baby teeth.

Each of these questions cut through him like a knife, and he closed his eyes against the instant pain.

Now, at just a little after midnight, he sat up and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He’d been sitting here for a couple of hours or more. This night was no different from most when he had to force himself to go to bed. Just as he sat up, Kate Winthrop appeared at the top of the stairs. She hesitated at the sight of him, then bolted to the side of the boat where she hung over the railing and promptly threw up.

She sank down onto the floor, head in her hands.

He walked over, pretty sure she wouldn’t welcome his concern. Her eyes were closed. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped.

“Sorry,” he said. “Seasick?”

She suppressed a moan. “Please don’t overstate the obvious.”

“How long have you been like this?”

“I just now woke up this way.”

She barely finished the sentence before she jumped to her feet and leaned over the rail again, gagging.

He went to the galley and wet a towel, returning to offer it to her along with a small bottle of pills. “Take one of these,” he said. “It won’t help for a while since you’re already sick, but it will eventually.”

He removed the lid and shook one into his palm, then held out a glass of water for her.

Hand shaking, she took it, forcing the pill down. “Can’t you just throw me overboard?” she asked.

He looked down at her for a moment, then said, “As a matter of fact, I’d be happy to.”