“What is it about Hamlin that women like so much?” Charles demanded angrily.
Cassandra smiled sweetly. “Do you want the answer in inches or feet?”
“He’s a fucking carpenter, for God’s sake!” spluttered Charles.
“So was Jesus, darling. Don’t be bitter. Anyway, it’s his father who’s the carpenter. Billy just sticks to fucking. And boy, does he know what he’s doing.”
As gratifying as it was to hear Cassandra Drayton sing his praises, the truth was that for all her flirting, Toni Gilletti had yet to allow Billy to seduce her a second time. The longer she held out, the more Billy wanted her.
Toni was like no other girl Billy had ever met. Not only was she a wildcat in bed, she was funny and smart, not to mention a brilliant mimic and natural performer. Her impression of Mrs. Kramer, Camp Williams’s elderly proprietress, had her fellow counselors crying with laughter. Toni had balls. Way bigger balls than he did, for all Cassandra’s kind compliments about his attributes. To Charles Braemar Murphy, Toni Gilletti was a trophy, a toy to be enjoyed over the summer. To Billy Hamlin, she was everything. Though he’d admitted it to no one, Billy was head over heels in love. He was determined not just to seduce Toni again, but to marry her.
Toni watched as Billy dived into the water. Just look at that physique. She loved the way the muscles rippled across Billy’s broad swimmer’s back and the way his powerful arms cut effortlessly through the water like twin scimitars slicing through silk. Charles Braemar Murphy was good-looking in a preppy, chiseled sort of way. But he had none of Billy’s raw sensuality, none of that animal magnetism, that predatory, erotic hunger that oozed out of Billy’s pores like sweat.
What Charles did have was a trust fund the size of Canada. With each passing day Toni Gilletti found it harder to decide which she wanted more: Adonis the Love God? Or Camp Williams’s answer to Croesus?
Last night she’d fantasized about screwing Billy again while Charles was making love to her. Lying back on a cashmere blanket, with Charles diligently pumping away on top of her to a sound track of Todd Rundgren’s “Hello, It’s Me”—terrible song, but Charles had insisted on bringing along his portable eight-track to “set the mood”—Toni remembered what it felt like to be pinned beneath Billy ’s powerful, masculine thighs. If he kept pursuing her like this she was bound to give in eventually. Toni Gilletti could no more stay faithful to an unsatisfying lover like Charles than a lioness could become vegetarian. Billy had been a wonderful lay. She needed fresh meat.
“C’mon, Toni! You’re suppothed to be pothum. Try and catch the ball!”
Graydon Hammond looked up at her plaintively. He had his arm around Nicholas Handemeyer, another adorably geeky seven-year-old and the heir to a vast estate in Maine. Dark-haired Graydon and the angelically blond Nicholas were probably Toni Gilletti’s favorite boys at Camp Williams. For all her carefully cultivated bad-girl ways, Toni was a popular camp counselor and naturally maternal. Her own mother was so interested in shopping and vacations and spending Toni’s dad’s money, she’d have been hard-pressed to pick Toni out of a three-kid lineup. But in spite of this poor parental example, Toni warmed toward small children and found them a blast to be around: funny, energetic, loving. Best of all they didn’t judge you. Toni loved them for that more than anything.
Today, however, hungover and in serious need of a line of coke, she could have done without the noise, and the questions, and the endless sweaty little hands pawing at her.
“I’m trying, Graydon, okay?” She sounded grumpier than she meant to. “Throw it again.”
“Let me help.”
Billy Hamlin had materialized beside her, his sleek blond head emerging out of the crystal-clear water like an otter’s. After scooping up a giggling Graydon and Nicholas under each arm, he dropped them in the shallows, dividing the other boys up into teams and getting the game started. After a few minutes, Toni swam over, allowing her bare arm to brush against Billy’s as she retrieved the ball. Just that small hint of physical contract was electric.
“Thanks.” She smiled. “But go enjoy yourself. You only get a half day off per week, and I know you don’t wanna spend it with my kids.”
“That’s true.” Billy gazed unashamedly at Toni’s breasts. “Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Sure. If I find a freshwater pearl in the next fifteen minutes, you spend the night with me tomorrow.”
Toni laughed, enjoying the attention. “You’ve only found three pearls in the last month. You’re hardly likely to scoop one up in fifteen minutes.”
“Exactly. It’s hopeless. So why not shake on the deal?”
“You know why not.”
Toni glanced out to the harbor lanes, where the Braemar Murphys’ yacht, Celeste, glittered in the afternoon sunshine.
“Oh, come on. Live a little,” Billy teased. “You know he bores you. Besides, like you said, I’m hardly likely to find a pearl in a quarter of an hour, am I?”
“But if you do?”
Slipping an arm around Toni’s waist, Billy pulled her close so their lips were almost touching. “If I do, then it’s fate. We’re meant to be together. Deal?”
Toni grinned. “Okay, deal. But it has to be at least the size of a pea.”
“A pea? Oh, c’mon now. That’s impossible!”
“A pea. Now get out of here! I’ve got some serious possum playing to do.”
Billy swam out into deeper water, his shucking knife clamped between his teeth like a pirate’s cutlass. He made a couple of dives, emerging each time with a large oyster shell and making a great theatrical show of prizing it open, but with no success, clutching his heart and swooning into the water, all for Toni’s benefit.
Within a few minutes, a growing crowd of spectators had gathered to watch from the beach. The boy was an incredible swimmer and he was putting on quite a show.
Toni Gilletti thought, He’s funny, but he’s getting way too big headed. Turning away, she threw herself into the game with the boys, deliberately ignoring Billy’s antics.
Charles Braemar Murphy was feeling good. He’d enjoyed a delicious lunch of fresh Maine lobster rolls on his parents’ yacht, washed down with a couple of glasses of vintage Chablis. His old man had agreed to raise his allowance. And Toni had promised to wear the satin crotchless panties he’d bought her in bed tonight, a prospect that had had him in an almost constant state of arousal since daybreak.
Stretching out on a lounge chair on the upper deck, Charles felt his confidence returning. I have to stop obsessing about the Hamlin kid. Sure he’s after Toni. Everyone’s after Toni. But he’s no threat to me. She already had him and she tossed him aside.
Toni would be on the beach now, building sand castles with her group of little boys.
I’ll surprise her, Charles thought on a whim. Bring her some chocolate-dipped strawberries from the galley. Chicks love that sort of meaningless romantic gesture. She’ll be even more grateful in bed tonight than usual.
He clicked his fingers imperiously at one of the deckhands.
“Get one of the tenders ready. I’m going ashore.”
The boys had tired of possum and were hunting for crab claws in the shallows. A collective gasp from the beach made Toni turn around.
Oh my God! Idiot!
Billy had swum out beyond the barrier that separated the swimming and harbor lanes. There were three large yachts moored offshore, and a host of smaller boats between them and the beach. A lone swimmer was as good as invisible amid such heavy traffic. Diving for pearls out there was preposterously dangerous.
Toni waved frantically at Billy, beckoning him over. “Come back!” she shouted into the wind. “You’ll get yourself killed out there!”
Billy cupped a hand to his ear in a can’t-hear-you gesture. Leaving the boys on the shore, Toni swam a few yards farther out and shouted again. “Get back here! You’ll get hit.”
Billy glanced over his shoulder. The nearest
yacht tenders were at least fifty yards behind him.
“It’s fine,” he called back to Toni.
“It’s not fine! Don’t be a moron.”
“Two more dives.”
“Billy, no!”
But it was too late. With an effortless flick of the legs, Billy disappeared beneath the waves again, earning himself more gasps and claps from the beach.
Toni bit her lip, waiting anxiously for Billy to resurface. Ten seconds went by, then twenty, then thirty.
Oh, Jesus. What’s happened? Has he hit his head? I should never have taken the stupid bet and encouraged him. I know how reckless he is. He’s like me.
Then suddenly there he was, shooting up out of the blue like a dolphin at play, waving a huge oyster shell. The crowd on the beach whooped and cheered. Billy cut the thing open and pulled out a pearl, to even louder applause. But he shook his head sadly at Toni.
“It’s too small. My princess needs a pea.”
“Cut it out,” Toni shot back angrily. The game wasn’t fun anymore. Couldn’t those idiots on the beach see how dangerous this was? “Get back here, Billy. I mean it.”
Billy shook his head. “Two minutes left!” And with a deep gulp of air, he was gone again.
“Why don’t you let me pilot the tender, sir. You sit back and relax.”
Daniel Gray was an experienced crewman who’d spent the last twenty years working on rich people’s yachts. The Braemar Murphys were no better or worse than most of the families Daniel Gray worked for. But their son, Charles, was an entitled little prig. He’d clearly been drinking, and should not be left alone at the wheel of an expensive piece of equipment like the Celeste’s tender.
“I’m perfectly relaxed, thanks,” Charles Braemar Murphy drawled. “Just bring me the strawberries and champagne I asked for and let my mother know I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Very good, sir.”
Dickhead. I hope he runs aground and spends the next decade paying his old man back for the damage.
It took Billy Hamlin forty-five seconds to surface this time. He still seemed to think it was a joke, barely pausing before he went back down again.
Furious, Toni turned away—no way would she spend the night with him now, however big his damn pearl, or his damn anything else, might be. As she swam back toward the boys, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It was a rowboat, a tiny, old-fashioned wooden affair. What the hell is that doing out in the shipping lane?
No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she saw two tenders, one gliding sedately through the water, the other, a few seconds behind it, going dangerously fast, churning up a choppy wake as it roared toward the shore. The first tender saw the wooden craft and veered to avoid it, changing course fairly easily. The second seemed totally unaware of the danger.
“Boat!” Toni waved frantically at the second tender. She was in shallow water now and was able to jump up and down as she shouted and flapped her arms. “BOAT!”
Charles Braemar Murphy caught the flash of blond hair and the familiar white bikini.
Toni was waving at him.
“Hey, babe!” He waved back, speeding up to impress her, but found he needed to clutch the wheel for support. That Chablis must have really gone to his head. “I brought you something.”
It took a few moments for Charles to realize that people on the beach were waving at him too. Hadn’t they ever seen a yacht tender before? Or maybe they’d never seen one as powerful as the Celeste’s.
By the time he saw the rowboat, and realized the danger, he was seconds away from impact. Crouched inside, two teenage boys huddled together in terror. Charles caught the look of pure panic on their faces as he hurtled toward them, and felt sick. He was close enough now to see the whites of their eyes and their desperate, pleading expressions.
Jesus Christ.
He lunged for the wheel.
The two lifeguards looked at each other.
“Holy shit.”
“He’s gonna hit them, isn’t he?”
Grabbing their floats, they ran into the water.
Toni watched in horror as the second tender sped toward the rowboat. As it got closer, her horror intensified. Is that . . . Charles? What the hell is he doing?
She opened her mouth to scream, to warn him, but no sound came out. Thanks to Billy’s antics, she’d already shouted herself hoarse. That’s when she realized with chilling finality.
Those kids are going to die.
Deep beneath the waves, Billy Hamlin plucked a fifth oyster shell from the sand. It was cool and peaceful down here, and quite beautiful with the sun shining its dappled rays through the water, casting ethereal, dancing shadows across the bed.
The chances of him finding a pea-size pearl were almost nil. But Billy was enjoying showing off for Toni and the crowd on the beach. He felt at home in the water, confident and strong. In the real world he might be Charles Braemar Murphy’s inferior. But not here, in the wild freedom of the ocean. Here, he was a king.
Grabbing the oyster tightly in his hand, he began to swim back up toward the light.
Wrenching the wheel to the right with all his strength, Charles Braemar Murphy closed his eyes. The tender banked so sharply, it almost capsized. Clinging on for dear life, Charles heard screams ringing in his ears. Was it the boys’ terror he was hearing, or his own? He couldn’t tell. Salt spray doused him, lashing his face like a razor. The tender was still moving at a terrific speed.
How had it happened so quickly, the shift from happiness to disaster? Only seconds ago he’d been deeply, profoundly happy. And now . . .
Heart pounding, teeth clenched, Charles Braemar Murphy braced himself for the blow.
The crowd on the beach watched openmouthed as the tender careered uncontrollably to the right, farther into the shipping lanes.
At first the wake was so huge and the spray so high it was impossible to make out what had happened to the rowboat. But at last it emerged, bobbing wildly but still intact. Two boys could be seen standing inside, waving their arms frantically for rescue.
The relief was overwhelming. People cheered and cried and jumped up and down, hugging one another.
They made it! He missed.
Then, somewhere among them, a lone voice screamed.
“Swimmer!”
For Toni Gilletti, it all happened in slow motion.
She saw Charles swerve. Saw him miss the rowboat by inches. For a split second she felt relief, so powerful it made her nauseous. But then Billy Hamlin shot up out of the water like a tornado, directly in the tender’s path. Even if Charles had seen him, there was no way he could have stopped.
The last thing Toni saw was the look of shock on Billy’s handsome face. Then the tender cut off her view.
Someone on the beach screamed.
Charles cut the engine and the tender sputtered to a halt.
Billy Hamlin was gone.
Chapter Two
Charles Braemar Murphy was in shock. Slumped on the bench at the back of the tender, shivering, he stared at the water. It was calm now, silvery and still like glass.
The lifeguards splashed around, searching for Billy, taking turns plunging beneath the surface.
Nothing.
On the beach, people were crying. The boys in the rowboat had made it safely to shore, tearful after their own ordeal and confused by what was going on. In the shallows, the little Camp Williams boys from Toni’s group huddled together nervously, frightened by the adults’ panic.
In a complete daze, Toni swam back to them. Someone must have called for help, because the coast-guard officers were arriving from all sides, along with tenders from the other yachts moored offshore.
“Toni?” A shivering Graydon Hammond clung to Toni’s leg.
“Not now, Graydon,” she murmured automatically, her eyes still fixed on the point in the water where she’d last seen Billy.
He can’t be dead. He was there, just seconds ago. Please, God, please don’t le
t him be dead, just because he was playing the fool for me.
“Toni?”
She was about to comfort Graydon when she saw it. About fifty yards farther out to sea than the point where Toni had been looking, a dazed swimmer bobbed to the surface.
“There!” she screamed at the lifeguards, waving her arms hysterically. “Over there!”
She needn’t have bothered. As one, the rescue boats converged on Billy, scooping him out of the water. Watching from his speedboat, Charles Braemar Murphy finally broke down in sobs.
It was over. The nightmare was over.
Less than a minute later Billy was on the beach, smiling through the pain as a paramedic bandaged his head wound. Several people came over to shake his hand and inform him (as if he needed telling) how lucky he was to be alive.
“It was all for her, you know,” he told his admirers, nodding at Toni, who was striding over toward him, an Amazonian goddess in her tiny bikini, with her long wet hair trailing magnificently behind her. “My princess needed a pea. What could I do? Her wish was my command.”
Toni, however, was not in romantic mood.
“You goddamn fool!” she screamed at Billy. “You could have been killed! I thought you’d drowned.”
“Would you have missed me?” Billy pouted.
“Oh, grow up. What happened out there wasn’t funny, Billy. Poor Charles is in pieces. He thought he’d hit you. We all did.”
“ ‘Poor’ Charles?” Now it was Billy’s turn to get angry. “That dickhead was piloting his boat like a maniac. Didn’t you see how close he came to crashing into those poor kids in the rowboat?”
“They should never have been in the lanes,” said Toni. “And neither should you.”
Graydon Hammond had followed Toni out of the water and was tugging at her leg again, making whimpering noises.
“Graydon, please!” she snapped. “I’m talking to Billy.”
“But it’s important!” Graydon howled.
“Go ahead,” Billy said bitterly. “It’s clear you don’t give a damn about me. Go comfort Graydon. Or better yet, Charles. He’s the real victim here.”
Sidney Sheldon's the Tides of Memory Page 2
