The Sea Star

by Nash, Jean

  “Then let me go,” she said, rendered helpless by his nearness.

  Her hips were molded to his. This was her first taste of passion, but instinctively she realized that she had greatly aroused him. The feeling was contagious. She wanted desperately to be free of him, and at the same time she wanted to throw her arms around him, to press her mouth to his, to stay locked in his embrace until the end of eternity.

  “Susanna, look at me,” he said, for she had lowered her eyes from his searching gaze. “You don’t want me to let you go, do you?”

  “Yes, I do,” she whispered.

  “Susanna.” His tone was gentle. One arm went about her waist. He lifted her chin with a finger. “I don’t think you do. I think you wanted me to kiss you as much as I wanted to do it.”

  “No,” she whispered, “no.”

  “Yes,” he said, “yes.”

  His voice was a warm persuasion. With his eyes he seemed to caress her. His body, still pressed against hers, both enraptured and enslaved her. She was a prisoner to his strength and to her newly discovered passion. She wanted to know him as she had never known a man, to belong to him, to be one with him. She wanted his mouth on hers again, kissing her, thrilling her, reawakening the need that only he with his sensuous touch had the power to fill.

  “Yes,” she finally admitted, her voice almost inaudible, “I did want you to kiss me.”

  She rested her head on his chest. She had never in her life felt so at peace and protected.

  “I knew it,” he said softly, his lips brushing her brow. “I knew this feeling I had for you was not one-sided.”

  She looked up at him abruptly. “You...care for me?” she asked. And even before the words left her mouth, she realized that she cared for him as well.

  “Isn’t that obvious, Susanna?”

  “But we don’t know each other.”

  “I know a great deal about you,” he contradicted gently. “I know that you’re proud and honorable and ferociously loyal to those you love. I know that you’re an intelligent woman who for the past two years has borne a burden that might have crushed many a man, yet you’ve borne it admirably.”

  Susanna’s heart swelled with gratitude. No one had ever thought to say that to her. She had worked like a lackey since her father died, and yet no one she knew had even noticed or cared.

  “It has been difficult,” she confessed, gazing up at him with newfound trust. “Sometimes I’ve wanted to simply get rid of the Sea Star, but then I remember how much my father loved it, how much I love it.”

  “You needn’t ever have those thoughts again,” Jay assured her. “I’m here to help you now, Susanna. You will let me help you?”

  “Oh, yes, yes!”

  Her ivory face glowed, her green eyes were fervent. Jay’s eyes, a deep dark blue, were half veiled by his lashes. He drew her closer in his arms and pressed her cheek to his heart, so that his suddenly troubled thoughts should be hidden from her view.

  Later, at the Brighton Hotel, Jay was with his attorney, Ford Weston, discussing plans for the construction of his new hotel on the Boardwalk. That is, Ford was discussing plans. Jay had had little or nothing to say for almost an hour. To Ford, he seemed uncharacteristically inattentive. In fact, when the attorney fell silent and remained so for several minutes, Jay merely continued to gaze out the window, watching the moonlit ocean as if it contained all the secrets of the universe.

  “Jay, what’s wrong with you? You haven’t heard two words I’ve said all evening.”

  Jay turned from the window, an odd expression on his face. “I’ve heard every word you said. It’s just that I have something else on my mind right now.”

  “More important than your new hotel?” Ford asked wryly. “That’s a first. You must tell me what’s so important that it’s taken precedence over the driving force of your life.”

  Jay scowled at him, then walked over and took a seat opposite him. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his hands clasped together. He paused for a moment before asking, “What would you say if I wanted to return the Sea Star to the Sterlings?”

  Ford, the consummate attorney, concealed his surprise. “Why would you want to do that? You’re the one who was so anxious to gain control of that old firetrap so that you could put it in good order.”

  “Yes,” Jay agreed. “But I’ve been having second thoughts. For one thing, the new hotel on the Boardwalk is going to take up a lot of my time. For another—”

  “It’s Susanna Sterling, isn’t it?” Ford said intuitively. “You’ve taken a shine to her.”

  Jay uttered a sound of disgust and rose to his feet. “Don’t be absurd. She’s twenty-four years old.”

  “So?”

  “What would she want from a man my age?”

  “Your age?” Ford echoed. “I wish to heaven I were still your age. I’d go after that little beauty so fast it would make her head spin.”

  “Shut your mouth, Ford! We’re not talking about some doxy here. Susanna is a—”

  “Jay, have you taken a fancy to that girl? Is that what this is all about?”

  “I haven’t taken a fancy to her. I barely know her. It’s just that she loves that damned hotel so much. It’s all she has in the world.”

  “She has a brother,” Ford reminded him.

  “She’d be better off having cholera,” Jay said contemptuously. “That little bastard is going to be her ruination. I should never have made that deal with him. What in God’s name was I thinking that night at Dutchy’s?”

  “You were thinking—and rightly so—of turning a hazardous, decaying, fifty-year-old building into a safe, substantial hotel. Jay, if you have feelings for the girl, go after her. You can still do what you want with the Sea Star.”

  “I didn’t say I had feelings for her,” Jay maintained stubbornly. “It’s just that she’s like no woman I’ve ever met before. And I will do what I want with the Sea Star. Whenever it’s in my power, I’ll make sure that no one is ever again trapped in a burning hotel. But....”

  Jay fell silent and returned to his post at the window. This was a side of him that Ford had never seen before. Hotels were Jay’s only passion. Everything else in his life took second place. But it was obvious that Susanna Sterling had changed that. Jay Grainger, Ford thought, was undeniably in love.

  “Jay, listen to me,” he said sensibly. “Whether or not you have feelings for Miss Sterling is immaterial. Gain full control of the Sea Star, as you had planned, then—”

  Jay turned abruptly from the window. “By God, you’re right!” he exclaimed. “If I leave Susanna’s half in her hands, that conscienceless brother of hers is going to bleed the hotel white. I must gain full control, or else she’s bound to lose the Sea Star. Once I do have full control and the hotel is out of danger, I can turn it back over to her.”

  “And how the devil are you going to explain all this to her?”

  Jay was silent a moment, recalling Susanna’s fierce devotion to her brother. For reasons that eluded his comprehension, she loved that unscrupulous scapegrace and would go to any lengths to protect him, perhaps even at the risk of losing her beloved hotel.

  “I’ll worry about that when the time comes,” he told Ford.

  “You’d better worry about it now, before things get out of hand.”

  “Leave me alone,” Jay said curtly. “I know what I’m doing.”

  But Ford, older and perhaps wiser in this instance, thought otherwise.

  Seven

  It was a glorious autumn, a shining season of sapphire skies, dazzling sunlight, and a crystal-clear sea. Everywhere on the island there was a flowering of yellow and crimson zinnias, violet gayfeathers, orange-red lion’s ears, and pure blue hydrangea that mirrored the azure heavens.

  Ordinarily, Susanna disliked the fall. It was a melancholy period, the harbinger of winter. But this year she reveled in it, in the chill bracing mornings, the warm afternoons, the soft golden twilights that preceded the argent splendor of star-brillian
t nights. This year there was Jay. She had never been so happy. He had filled the empty places in her hungry young heart.

  Jay’s first order of business was the safety of the Sea Star. He arranged to have the electrical wiring system completely updated, and he ordered the addition of fire escapes where needed. As well, the hotel’s balloon-frame construction was structurally sound, but because of the air pockets in the stud spaces of that type of construction, if a fire should start in the basement, it would reach the top floor in no time. To remedy the situation, Jay ordered the installation of firestops, pieces of wood hammered over the open spaces at each floor. This eliminated the problem, giving the Sea Star a measure of safety it had previously not had.

  Each step he took was first discussed at length with Susanna. If she was less knowledgeable than he in certain areas, he was never condescending. He was more than patient in explaining to her the differences between post-and-beam construction, wood trusses, hewn joints, and the like. He invariably gave her the impression that she was his equal in a profession they both loved. Susanna was both pleased and flattered by his thoughtfulness.

  Working with Jay, Susanna discovered, was even more exciting and satisfying than working with her father. Matthew had been an excellent hotelier, but he had been cautious, predictable, very set in his ways. Jay was a never-ending surprise to Susanna. Always impeccably attired, faultlessly groomed, his aristocratic good looks turned heads wherever he went. And yet he was totally without vanity, unaware of the stir he created among the hotel guests and staff.

  If the occasion called for it, he thought nothing of rolling up his shirtsleeves and taking a wrench to a balky boiler, or demonstrating to a nervous tyro bootblack how to coax the glossiest shine from a pair of leather boots. “In my lean years,” he told Susanna, “I had every job imaginable, from shining shoes to sweeping out stables. I even worked for a time in the morgue, but I won’t tell you what I did there. The school of hard knocks has served me well,” he added with a grin. “Far better than Harvard or Yale would have done.”

  There was no phase of the business in which he refused to involve himself. He enjoyed poking around the kitchen, sampling a sauce, seasoning a salad. In the laundry room one day, another of his favorite haunts, he disconcerted a young laundress by taking a soapy tablecloth out of her hands and saying, “Bring me some melted tallow. I’ll show you how to get the ink stain out of this piece.”

  One morning in the restaurant, he inspected the style of the menus and found them unappealing. Before noon, he had completely designed a new one, petal pink paper, flowing magenta script, with a single rose adorning the cover. This gave him the idea of changing all the lamp shades in the restaurant and lobby. “Let’s make them pink, too,” he suggested to Susanna. “They’ll be wonderfully flattering to the ladies’ complexions.”

  The entire staff adored him, from the lowliest linen maid to George Watkins, the concierge. George said to Susanna in an awed tone that amused her, “He’s a marvel, isn’t he, miss? Why, it’s just like working with your father again.”

  Susanna demurely agreed, but in her heart she thought differently. Working with Jay was like living in a dream world from which she wished never to awaken. Just being with him, working side-by-side with him, was enough to send the blood dancing merrily through her veins. He was tireless. He never stopped. Susanna had thought she was a compulsive worker, but Jay and his ceaseless energy easily put her to shame.

  Sometimes, in her office, he would be bent over the ledgers for hours on end. Susanna, busy with some task of her own, would stop what she was doing and watch him as if mesmerized, his dark brush of lashes, the provocative line of his stern handsome mouth. Once, he caught her watching him.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, curious. “Why are you looking at me?”

  “It gives me pleasure,” she said, too honest, too inexperienced, to play the coquette.

  Jay’s lids lowered lazily, and he gave her that special smile that always weakened her knees. “Come here,” he said.

  Heart thudding dimly, Susanna obeyed his sensuous command. As she approached him, he rose from the desk like a drowsy cat uncoiling, then he took her in his arms and just held her, saying nothing, for a very long time. Susanna’s head was on his chest. She could hear his heart beating, she could feel the heat of his body diffusing a languorous warmth through hers.

  “You’re very special,” he said, his low voice enveloping her like a gentle summer breeze. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  “Nor I you,” she murmured. “I’ve never felt like this before.” She gazed up at him solemnly. “I think I may be falling in love with you.” And as she gave voice to the thought she’d been nurturing for weeks, she knew that she did love him, more than she had ever thought it possible to love anyone.

  She had no chance to explore this astounding thought, for Jay’s eyes took on a shadowed, troubled look, a look Susanna had glimpsed once before but which now, as then, she couldn’t decipher.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Then, in sudden embarrassment: “Didn’t you want to know what I feel for you? Don’t you feel the same way toward me?”

  “I do,” he said in a low intense voice. “I love you more than you can even begin to fathom.”

  “You love me?” Her heart swelled with joy.

  “How could I not love you, you little sea-witch? But I’m years older than you, Susanna. Are you sure that you’re not just casting me in your father’s mold? Wouldn’t you be happier with a man your age, a man who thinks and feels as you do?”

  “You think and feel as I do,” she insisted. “Hotels are your life, as they are mine. Perhaps you’re the one who isn’t sure what he wants. Perhaps an older, wiser, sophisticated man such as yourself couldn’t possibly love a country mouse like me.”

  He pulled her abruptly into his arms and kissed her so long and so passionately that any doubt Susanna may have harbored about his feelings for her died an instantaneous death.

  She loved him! And he loved her. If she’d been happy before, she was a hundred times more so now. She wanted to sing with joy, shout her news to the world. But like a pauper turned suddenly wealthy, she hugged the secret to her breast, fearful that common knowledge might diminish her newfound riches.

  She said nothing to Dallas or her mother about her feelings. In fact, Susanna had hardly seen Augusta since Jay’s return to Atlantic City. This suited Susanna perfectly. Augusta went out a great deal, to where, Susanna neither knew nor cared. And like her son, Augusta had no interest in the operation of the Sea Star. This, too, suited Susanna. She wanted as little as possible to do with that woman. She hadn’t even told Jay that her mother had come home. And now that her heart was filled with her wondrous love for Jay, there wasn’t room there for anything else.

  Each morning, Jay arrived at the Sea Star promptly at eight in the morning. At six in the evening, he would return to the Brighton, where he was registered as a guest. Some days he would spend a few hours at the site of his new hotel on the Boardwalk, supervising construction (he had once worked as a hod carrier), and generally bedeviling the construction boss and crew. One day he took Susanna with him to watch the work. She was astonished at the size of the frame, which had already been raised.

  “I never saw anything so huge!” she exclaimed. “How big is this place going to be?”

  “Six stories high,” Jay said, leaning back against the Boardwalk railing, “with enough rooms to house five hundred guests. I have great plans for this hotel. Some of the guest rooms will have balconies overlooking the ocean. The carpets in the lobby and public rooms will all be Persian. There will be three restaurants, the principal one with a domed skylight. The grand staircase is to be of Numidian marble.”

  “How much is all this going to cost?” Susanna asked, her mind reeling.

  “A fortune,” he said, amused by the question. “But don’t worry, I’ll still have enough money left over to make improvements on the Sea Star.”

&
nbsp; “I wasn’t worried about that.” She was slightly wounded that he should think her so self-absorbed.

  “Forgive me,” he said at once, realizing he had hurt her. He gave her a quick hug, right there on the Boardwalk, in full sight of the construction boss, who tactfully averted his eyes. “Sometimes you take me too literally, Susanna. I was only teasing you.”

  “I know that now,” she said, chagrined. “It’s just that you once told me you always mean what you say.”

  “Yes.” He looked away from her. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  There it was again, that curious troubled look Susanna couldn’t identify. She was about to ask him about it when he said, “I haven’t seen your brother for a while. Where has he been keeping himself?”

  Caught off guard by the change of topic, Susanna answered, “He’s been spending most of his time with our mother.” And then could have bitten her tongue for having said it.

  “Your mother?” Jay looked puzzled. “I thought—”

  “She came back,” Susanna said in a tone of voice she might have used to say “She died.”

  “You don’t seem pleased about it,” Jay observed.

  “I’m not,” she said frankly. “She should have stayed where she was—wherever that was.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My mother won’t say where she’s been or what she’s been doing for the past eleven years. I find that suspect, don’t you?”

  “I can’t answer that question, Susanna. I’d have to know your mother personally before formulating an opinion.”

  “How diplomatic of you,” Susanna retorted. “A woman deserts her children without even a by-your-leave, and then, more than a decade later, she turns up on their doorstep like the proverbial bad penny. What more do you need to form an opinion?”

  “Quite a bit more than that,” Jay answered, surmising that Susanna’s sarcasm concealed a heart too sore to judge fairly. “Have you talked to your mother about this? Have you asked her why she left you?”