A Woman with Secrets

by Inglath Cooper

  * * *

  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.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A little help is better than a lot of pity.

  —Celtic Proverb

  LESS THAN TWO minutes later, Kate found herself being lowered into the water on an inflatable life raft. She’d followed his directions, letting him fasten a life vest around her, then guiding her into the dingy, not caring that she wore nothing more than a thin cotton nightgown or that her skin probably had the hue of green cheese in the moonlight. She was just too sick to care.

  Once the raft reached the water, he buckled his own life vest and jumped over the side, tying the dinghy to the Ginny, then reaching a hand toward her and saying, “Come on, I’ll help you in.”

  “This seems kind of crazy,” she said.

  “It’s the only thing that will help until that medicine takes effect.”

  Intent only on escaping the nausea threatening to consume her once more, she shimmied over the side and into the arms of a man she’d known less than twelve hours. She forced herself not to think about what might be lurking in the inky depths below them.

  The water felt cool. Too lightheaded to hold on to the raft, Kate leaned against him, her back to his chest, his right arm around her waist, his left holding on to the raft. Her nightgown floated up and made a lily pad on the water, leaving her legs bare against his.

  She couldn’t find the energy to protest.

  “Give it a few minutes,” he said. “You should start to feel better soon, Ms. Winthrop—”

  “It’s Kate,” she corrected him, perversely annoyed that he’d continued to address her that way even though she’d never asked him to do otherwise.

  “You should feel better soon, Kate,” he amended, emphasis on her name.

  She breathed in the cool night air, willing the nausea to recede. Eventually, it did, enough that she could open her eyes and stare up at the star-dotted sky without that same wretched feeling of sickness. “This is horrible,” she said, the words weak and barely audible.

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding a shade more sympathetic than he had a few moments ago. “Never had it before?”

  She shook her head. A few seconds passed before she managed, “How did you know this would help?”

  “On my first ocean dive, we went out right after breakfast. Everyone on board was ill, including me. The dive master made us all get in the water even though we were too sick to move. Ended up with a sea full of cornflakes, but it worked eventually.”

  Kate moaned, an unexpected bubble of laughter breaking free from her aching throat.

  “Sorry for the visual.”

  “At least I’m still alive enough to laugh. A few minutes ago, I was beginning to wonder.”

  He chuckled beside her ear, the sound unexpected and somehow soothing. “You don’t seem the type to let a little seasickness get you down.”

  As the dizziness lessened, and the nausea remained at bay, she became aware of the arm around her waist, the chest to her back, the strong legs against hers beneath the water.

  Suddenly, she had the wherewithal to feel some embarrassment for her predicament. The situation felt intimate. As intimate as two people could be when one of them had just spent the last hour heaving her insides out.

  Reaching for the raft, she slipped free of his arm and turned to face him. “I feel a little better now, Captain—”

  “Cole,” he said.

  “Captain Cole,” she corrected with a half smile.

  He smiled then, too, a real smile. It beamed a shaft of awareness straight through her. Along with it came the knowledge that a sheet of paper wouldn’t fit between them in their current position. Sh
e kicked her feet to insert a little distance.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. “I don’t want you fainting on me.”

  Imagining herself unconscious in the ink-black ocean, she did as he said, despite her overly sensitized body. “Thank you. For helping me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The night hung dark and endless around them. They floated in silence for a long time while she battled with the desire to extricate herself from this awkward situation and the realization that getting back on the boat probably meant getting sick again. She chose what seemed the lesser of two evils and stayed where she was.

  “So how do you know Tyler?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “He’s my lawyer. And friend.”

  Cole didn’t say anything for a few moments. She sensed the unspoken question and said, “I’m also good friends with Peg. His wife.”

  “Ah. So what made him think you wanted a vacation like this?”

  She started to say she hadn’t wanted a vacation like this, but found herself being honest with him. “I actually talked him into selling me their tickets. I’m kind of at a crossroads. Some time away seemed like a good thing.”

  “And is it?”

  “I’ll file that under ‘remains to be seen’,” she said, a little surprised by the question. “I’ve taken up enough of your night. You don’t have to stay out here with me. If you want to get back on—”

  “And leave you to the sharks?” he said.

  She jerked her head up. “Sharks?”

  “Just kidding,” he said. “It’s rare to see one in this area.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  “And besides,” he added, “maybe we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot earlier, but do you really think I’d leave you out here by yourself?”

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “I’d be liable if anything happened to you.”

  “Of course,” she said, feeling suddenly deflated by the obvious explanation.

  * * *

  A LITTLE OVER an hour later, Cole helped Kate back onto the boat, wondering what had possessed him to put himself in this position. She’d been sick, and his only thought had been to help her. He’d then spent a half hour in the ocean with his arm around her waist, calling himself a select range of names for getting involved. He’d never known anyone to die of seasickness, and besides if Harry had woken up and found him in the water with her, he’d never hear the end of it.