Stryker's Wife (Man of the Month)

by Dixie Browning

  A long time ago, back in his high school days, he and his two best buddies had organized something called the 3-H Club. Hooch, Horsepower and Hormones. Which translated into beer, fast cars and women.

  A couple of sips of champagne might qualify as hooch, and he had a pair of rebuilt Detroits that supplied more than enough horsepower, but when it came to women—

  “Oh, look at that,” cried the woman, who had just lurched onto the bridge again. Her camera case whacked him in his bum thigh just as her fist grabbed at his belt again. “Here, hold on to my case while I get out my light meter, would you, please?”

  He would. If she’d asked him to pose with a petunia between his teeth, he probably would have done that, too. Fortunately, she had better taste in subject matter.

  The sunset was a good one. Every shade of red, pink and orange was represented, with a wedge of gunmetal gray and a smudge of greenish blue at about three o’clock. Halfway through a thirty-six-exposure roll, a school of porpoise decided to escort them in past the bell buoy. Deke was ecstatic. Kurt beamed as if he’d personally arranged the show for her enjoyment.

  Hell, he was enjoying it himself. Usually he just ran the boat, looking for enough action to satisfy a bunch of beered-up fishermen.

  “Oh, I hate for it to end,” Deke said with a sigh as he cut the power and glided in past the breakwater. Standing beside him, her brown hair blowing untidily around her face, her shirttail hanging over her trim black slacks, she came all the way up to his armpit. For such a small package, she packed one hell of a wallop, he thought with reluctant admiration.

  A trio of gulls swooped hopefully over their wake, searching for scraps of leftover bait. The muffled throb of a wet exhaust vibrated sweetly through the soles of his deck shoes. On the whole, Kurt thought, it had been a pretty memorable charter.

  Now it was time to start forgetting it and looking forward to the next one. Storm permitting.

  Frog was waiting on the pier, eating peanuts and reading a comic book. He leapt to his feet and grabbed the line Kurt tossed him, his face flushing when he caught sight of Deke emerging from the cabin, struggling into the sweatshirt she’d discarded earlier.

  “How’d it go?” he called out.

  “Wonderful!” She spared another of her fivehundred-watt smiles. “We saw lots of porpoise and I almost saw a flying fish, and the sunset was really and truly spectacular.”

  Kurt grinned at that business about the flying fish. He’d told her about them, and she’d nearly popped a socket staring out over the water. If near misses counted, he’d almost seen her sprawled naked and waiting in his bunk instead of curled up there with a bucket in her arms.

  Surprisingly enough, Frog was at his most charming. He usually turned it on only when he was hoping for a big tip, which was hardly the case where today’s fare was concerned. He had a thing about women. A hard-boiled attitude that was discouraging to someone who was doing his damnedest to civilize the boy. Kurt had a feeling that his mother, whoever and wherever she was, had done a real number on him.

  “Hey, you guys wanna go grab something to eat? I’m so hungry my gut’s sucking wind.”

  “To put it politely,” Kurt muttered. He hadn’t figured on taking her out to dinner. He’d figured the sooner he wound up his business with Ms. Kiley, the better for all concerned. She was the kind of woman who came on slow and then struck like a force-five hurricane, and the last thing he needed at this point was another storm. He had a bad feeling about the latest tropical depression making its way west from Africa.

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Deke murmured.

  “Sure you could. You gotta eat, don’t you?” Frog hopped into the cockpit and handed her onto the wharf as if she were made of porcelain, leaving Kurt to shut down and finish tying up, things Frog was usually eager to do.

  “You can swab ’er down and gas up after supper,” he said.

  “Aye, sir!” Frog’s grin was a work of art, freckles, oversize teeth, ill-assorted features and all.

  “You young scamp,” Kurt grumbled fondly, watching as the two of them headed up the pier. Throwing a bowline over a cleat on the pier, he leapt up and followed along behind, watching the swish of Deke’s tidy little stern, the way she swayed, bumping against Frog’s skinny arm.

  It occurred to him that not all the swaying was due to having been aboard a rolling boat all day. Some of it might be champagne-induced.

  Ah, hell. He’d better drive her to wherever she was staying. As for dinner, he’d just as soon cut his losses and get out before he got in any deeper, but he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  Four

  Kurt insisted on driving her to her motel, although Deke protested that she was perfectly capable of driving herself. Frog was on the verge of climbing into Deke’s elderly car with them when a Jeep load of teenagers cruised past. He quickly backed off, pretended an interest in the ramshackle bulletin board that was covered with yellowed clippings and faded brochures, a look of utter boredom settling over his face.

  “You’re welcome to ride with us,” Deke offered.

  He shrugged a pair of wide, bony shoulders and said, “Ah, you guys go ahead. Meecha there, okay?”

  “You might want to change your shirt first,” Kurt suggested. “You’ve got about all the mileage you can get out of that one.”

  “Aw, man,” the boy cried plaintively, “this is my best shirt.”

  If that was his best, Deke would hate to see his worst. She allowed Kurt to take her arm and escort her around to the passenger side. Somewhat to her surprise, even though they were back on solid dry land, she was still having trouble with her balance.

  “You need a ring job,” he told her as they pulled out of the marina parking lot and headed toward the town’s only motel.

  “I know. By the way, I’m staying at a place called Montrose’s Motor Inn.”

  “I thought that might be the case.” The town of Swan Inlet consisted of one motel, a general store, two churches, a few dozen scattered homes, eleven bait and tackle shops, a garage, a marina and three restaurants of the greasy spoon variety.

  “Why do you call him Frog?”

  “Who, Frog? Because that’s what he calls himself. How long will it take you to get gussied up for dinner?”

  “Do I have to gussy?”

  “No, ma’am, not on my account. I only said that about Frog’s shirt because I was afraid it might put you off your feed. Those stains are a whole season’s collection.”

  “He’s sweet.”

  “Don’t ever let him hear you say so. He’ll go out of his way to prove you’re wrong. Sweet’s not cool.”

  She chuckled, and Kurt felt it down to the soles of his feet. He wondered what it would take to make her feel the same sensation, and then decided maybe it was time he changed the subject. “Swan Inlet’s premier dining establishment runs to a bottle of catsup, a bottle of Texas Pete and a can of evaporated milk on each table. If it’s all the same to you, we’ll pass up all that in favor of plastic plates, plastic forks and the world’s best barbecue.”

  “Will Frog know where to find us?”

  “Sure. When he chooses supper, we eat burgers. When it’s my turn to pick, we have barbecue.”

  “Don’t either one of you ever cook?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, our galley space is kind of limited. Basic, you might say.” He unlocked the door to her unit, which was one of five, switched on a light, glanced inside and gave her the all clear. Gravely, she thanked him, stepped inside and closed the door.

  Swan Inlet’s crime rate was in the single digits, and usually fishing-tackle related, but caution was an ingrained habit for a man who had spent his entire adulthood moving from base to base, some of them in pretty rough areas. Besides, Deke was the kind of woman who invited a man’s protection.

  Fortunately, she was not, he thought with wry amusement as he lifted the hood of her car, one of those women who took a swing at any man who opened a door for her. What she w
as was…

  What she was was here today and gone tomorrow.

  And he’d damned well better not forget it.

  She was quick as a minute. Kurt had just slammed the hood and was wiping a smudge of grease off with his handkerchief when she emerged, looking neat and feminine and surprisingly sexy in the same clothes she had worn all day.

  “I only brought one change,” she said apologetically.

  “You look terrific,” he said, and felt his face grow warm.

  Damn. Thirty-eight years old, tough as boot soles, and all it takes to throw you for a loop is half a pint of female.

  She wasn’t even wearing makeup. Or if she was, it wasn’t obvious. She still smelled of soap and shampoo, mingled with fresh salt air and what he figured might be hand lotion, since she’d come out rubbing her hands together.

  “We can leave your car here and walk, if it’s all right. It’s not far. Couple of blocks, if we had blocks.”

  It was all right with Deke. In fact, it was just dandy. As small as it was, her hometown of Church Grove, Virginia, no longer lent itself to walking since they’d started cutting a new highway through less than two miles away. There’d been three unpleasant incidents in the past year alone.

  They had gone only a few yards when she noticed Kurt’s slightly uneven gait. What she had thought of earlier as a lack of sea legs evidently wasn’t. She had a feeling it was something more than a pebble in his deck shoes, but it wasn’t her place to ask. He was practically a stranger, after all.

  Even if he didn’t feel like a stranger.

  That night Deke laughed more than she had laughed in years. The only other customers in the place were three teenage girls, the same ones, unless she was mistaken, who had driven past the marina in the pink Jeep. At the moment they were finding lots to whisper and giggle about, and Deke wondered if she’d ever been that young.

  Frog, in a faded but almost clean sweatshirt, made a point of ignoring them. Atrocious grammar and all, he kept Deke entertained until the proprietor blinked the lights in a broad hint that it was nearing closing time.

  Frog insisted on calling her Debranne, saying she “didn’t look like no Deke” to him. Kurt finished his barbecue plate and leaned back against the varnished pine bench, arms crossed over his chest. He offered little in the way of conversation, but Deke was acutely aware of every flicker of his thick, sandy eyelashes.

  The girls got up to leave. On their way out, they brushed past Kurt’s table and self-consciously avoided looking at Frog, who just as self-consciously avoided looking at them. More giggling on their part. Scowling on Frog’s. Deke wondered again if she had ever been so painfully young.

  For no real reason at all she was touched. But then, it had been a strange day, all things considered. She didn’t even feel like herself.

  “Frog,” she said brightly. “I told all my real names, the whole long list. It’s your turn. I know you weren’t christened Frog by your parents, so what is it really?”

  His freckles paled as his face turned red. “Weren’t christened a-tall, s’far’s I know. Named fer m’old man, though.”

  “And his name was?” she prompted. She smiled at Kurt, expecting him to tease, to join in or at least to smile.

  He didn’t.

  “Junior Smith,” Frog muttered, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask if he was Junior Smith, Junior, or Junior Junior Smith.

  “I like Frog,” she said thoughtfully. “Frog’s nice. It has a certain…ring to it.”

  “Yeah. It’s better’n what some kids call me,” he mumbled, and Deke immediately bristled. She was on the verge of demanding to know just who had called him what, but Kurt took her arm and led her outside.

  “Turning cold,” he observed. “We’d better get you home.”

  But they didn’t seem all that eager to get rid of her, and Deke wasn’t at all eager to be gotten rid of. After tonight, she would never see either of her new friends again, and that suddenly struck her as a real loss.

  There were no sidewalks. The combination of ancient oak roots snaking out into the path and a lack of streetlights made walking rather hazardous, but there was little traffic. Evidently, not much went on in Swan Inlet after dark.

  “Nice moon coming up,” Kurt observed laconically.

  “High tide,” Frog said.

  “Rain on the way. I give it about a day and a half.”

  “More like two,” said Frog, in what Deke surmised was an ongoing competition between the pair of watermen. She savored the warmth of two male bodies beside her, and the prosaic conversation. If either one of them had suggested strolling down to the marina to watch the moon rise over the water, she would have jumped at the chance. For reasons she didn’t even try to understand, what should have been the most miserable night of her life, after learning of her late husband’s infidelities, was turning out to be one of the nicest.

  Three abreast, arms linked together, they strolled into the ghoulish light cast by the motel’s green and blue neon sign. “You ever get down this way again, Miss Debranne, me’n Kurt’ll take you out after billfish. Won’t cost you nothin’ but gas money, neither, right, Cap’n?” The boy shot a cocky grin at his employer. “Man, I’d like to see you on the other end of a five hunnert pound blue!”

  Deke would have liked to thank Kurt for a wonderful day and an even more wonderful evening, but Frog wouldn’t hush up long enough. For some reason, even though the girls were no longer around to appreciate his social skills, he seemed determined to practice them.

  More competition? Reminded of a documentary she’d seen recently about how young male apes challenged the dominant male of the group, she wondered if Kurt realized what was going on. The pair of them did seem to have a special relationship, even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

  Outside her door, Frog pumped her hand and reminded her again that she was welcome any time she could get away from her birds and babies. She had described her jobs—all three of them. Frog had been more interested in the birds than either the books or the babies.

  Kurt smiled at her, and she thought, This is it. Oh, my.

  “Guess this is goodbye, then,” he said. “Drive carefully tomorrow, y’hear?” He looked as if he wanted to say something more. His gaze seemed to move over her face, and hers certainly moved over his.

  What was there about the man that was so fascinating? Other than the fact that he was probably a hero many times over but too modest ever to admit it.

  Other than the fact that he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, eye patch and all.

  Other than the fact that being with him lent her a sense of security—no, more a sense of completeness. It was strange. They hadn’t even talked together all that much, but she couldn’t recall ever being quite so aware of a man. A tingling, alive-all-over, under-theskin kind of awareness.

  Long after she went to bed that night, Deke wondered what they would have talked about if the two of them had been alone. Maybe nothing. Pass the salt. More catsup? The weather.

  She wondered if Kurt would have thought about kissing her good-night. It hadn’t been a real date. Just a part of the service.

  Still, she thought about what it would be like to feel his mouth on hers, which surprised her, because she’d never been the kind of woman who thought about that kind of thing. At least, not with strangers.

  It had felt so easy, so comfortable, strolling arm in arm under all those massive live oak trees, past white frame houses set back in the shadows, most with either boats or tombstones in the front yard. Some with both.

  It was that kind of a town, back behind all the sleek fiberglass cruisers and the rod-bristling 4x4s and the weekend fishing crowd. There was a sense of permanence about it that appealed to her. The same sort of permanence she had grown used to in her childhood, with Granna Anne and her great-aunts and the three-story house on Chesapeake Street.

  So much for permanence.

  * * *

  Kurt held the small, leather-cased instr
ument in his left hand and swore softly. He’d just stepped out of the head and was ready to turn in when he happened to see it under the shirt and cap Frog had tossed down when he’d come in from school.

  It was too late to go out again now. She’d be asleep. Besides, if she was smart, she wouldn’t open her motel door in the middle of the night in a strange town.

  Tomorrow, he thought. First thing. He didn’t have a charter, but he’d set the clock early.

  Frog was already snoring in the other bunk, long limbs sprawled out in all directions. They needed more space before the kid did much more growing. Kurt was used to close quarters. Coast Guard billets weren’t exactly known for their spaciousness, but a growing boy—a kid whose idea of security was having everything he possessed in plain view and within easy reach at all times—needed more space.

  At oh-eight-hundred hours, Kurt jogged out of the marina parking lot, freshly shaved and dressed in his best khakis. He hadn’t eaten breakfast—figured he might as well top off his last charter by taking his passenger out for pancakes at Joe’s. He’d left Frog sprawled on his belly on the bunk, one big foot hanging off the end, one long, lanky arm dangling to the deck. It was Saturday. The kid could sleep an extra hour before they started putting the rebuilt engine in the truck.

  She was already gone. He knew it before he even knocked on her door, but he knocked all the same. Her car was missing from the slot in front of her unit, but just in case, he dropped by the office.

  “Checked out about five. Nice woman. Car needs a ring job.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Kurt muttered distractedly. “She leave a forwarding address?”

  “Nope. License number. I pegged her for Tidewater, Virginia, from her accent.”

  Kurt nodded and left the cramped office. He still had her reservation letter. Somewhere. If Frog hadn’t tossed it out with the garbage. There were unseen hazards to trying to teach the kid to clean up his act.

  That evening he was invited out to dinner. The blonde in the sagging halter, whose name was Ashli— “That’s Ashli with an i, not a y,” had a hibachi on deck and was doing something to shrimp and pineapple, a cooking fork in one hand, a wineglass in the other.