Renegade Player

by Dixie Browning

  They walked around the tall frame house, with its oddly hopeful look, and Willy pointed out the cistern that was no longer needed for water and the Dorothy Perkins roses, their tiny leaves frosted with mildew, and tried to remember just what it was Matt told her to stress. They strolled through the empty house, their footsteps echoing hollowly, and when Mrs. Chiswick murmured something about the graciousness of high ceilings, Willy told her gently that the heating system was as old as the house itself, and when Mr. Chiswick remarked on the large, multipaned windows, she mentioned the winds that blew in off the sound in the wintertime, making storm windows almost a must.

  At twelve-fifteen, she left them at their motel. They thanked her for a lovely morning and she smiled at them warmly and kicked herself for being a fool.

  Lunch was a quick milk shake, and she stayed busy, both in the office and out of it, until almost six. When she let herself out the back door, locking up after herself, there was only one car left in the lot besides the station wagon. Kiel Faulkner stood talking to the woman who had been Randy’s secretary and was now his, she supposed, and as they were between the two vehicles, there was no way she could ignore them.

  “Willy, you know my secretary, don’t you?” Kiel asked blandly. “Claudia Dunn, Wilhelmina Silver-thorne. Claudia used to work for Collier before he left, as you might know.”

  As I might know, Willy repeated irritably in her mind. Her smile was slow in coming and probably not very gracious, but the sleek brunette, looking as flawlessly groomed as if she hadn’t been working eight and a half hours, didn’t even make the effort. They had never had much use for each other, since it was no secret that until Willy came on the scene, Claudia Dunn was all set to parlay a working relationship into something much more.

  “You mentioned the Drake,” Kiel said. “Is it any good?”

  Rolling down the windows of the station wagon to allow the steam to escape, Willy told him grudgingly that it was average.

  “I can’t see you settling for a place that’s only average,” he taunted, looking unfairly cool and unflappable in spite of the sultry heat that bore down on them through a brassy gray sky.

  “It does a pretty good clam chowder and I suppose their lemon chess pie is as good as any you’ll find,” she conceded.

  “Sounds promising,” he said to his secretary. “You interested?”

  Willy didn’t wait to hear the answer. She slammed her door and reversed smoothly out of the slot, thankful for once that she didn’t have any gears to grind because it would be just her luck to do something stupid with those two for an audience.

  Matt was late. Willy had been determined to meet him outside and insist on going somewhere else, but by the time he pulled into the crowded lot, she was starved, and he was so apologetic that she hadn’t the heart to suggest they go somewhere else. Besides, knowing Matt, he had made reservations in advance. He always played it safe.

  What the hell! The parking lot was jammed and there was no silver-gray Porsche; it would serve him right to come roaring up here only to find there was no room either inside or outside. And there, like a thumbed nose, would be her persimmon-colored Mercedes, and . . .

  Oh, Willy! How childish can you get? she ridiculed. As if it mattered one whit to Kiel Faulkner where she ate her dinner!

  The clam chowder was too peppery tonight, the hush puppies were dry, and they were out of lemon chess pie. Besides which, Matt was hinting around about one breadwinner in a family being enough and what did she think of raising a family while they were young enough to enjoy them instead of waiting until they thought they could afford them. She asked what was playing at the Colony House and then pretended an interest she was far from feeling. All she wanted to do now was to get out before Kiel and Claudia showed up, which she was sure they would do, and before Matt became more explicit.

  They almost made it. Willy was studying the geodetic survey charts on the wall of the minuscule lobby while Matt paid the check and they turned to go out just as Kiel opened the door for Claudia ... a Claudia, Willy noticed with intense distaste, who was clinging like a barnacle and laughing up in his face as if he were the cleverest man on the face of the earth.

  “Oh, hello, you two,” Kiel greeted. “How was dinner?”

  Irritated by his bland urbanity, Willy told him shortly that the chowder was too peppery and they were out of lemon chess pie.

  “I can’t stand clam chowder, anyway,” Claudia asserted, as if only a person of low breeding could, “and they’re sure to have vanilla ice cream.”

  Kiel, holding the door for them, said in a low voice as Willy brushed past him, “Personally, I enjoy a taste of spice, and as for dessert, well, I prefer to improvise . . . later.”

  “What was that all about?” Matt wanted to know as he saw her to her own car.

  “Oh, nothing, he was just passing a smart-aleck remark. Meet you at the theater, all right?”

  The picture was as dry as the hush puppies had been and completely lacking in spice, and by the time Matt saw her to her car again, Willy was yawning widely.

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to go for a drive,” he suggested wistfully, and Willy thought, For a drive or parking? Matt lived with a married couple and had no place of his own to take a date. So far, he had done little more than hint that he wouldn’t mind spending an evening at Willy’s apartment and she had put him off, instinctively shying away from a deeper involvement with a man she knew could never be more than a friend.

  “I’m bushed, Matt. Today was more than I bargained for, and unless you want me trailing in about noon tomorrow, you’d better let me go home while I can still keep my eyes open.” She grinned sleepily and, on impulse, leaned over and kissed him lightly on the corner of the mouth. “It was nice, Matt. I didn’t need the pie, anyway. Remind me to bring you a sample of my own lemon chess pie.”

  “You’re nice, ” he replied gallantly, “and if I weren’t your boss as well as your date, I might argue with you. Good night, honey. Drive carefully.”

  She did—carefully, slowly and far too thoughtfully, seeing Claudia hanging on to Kiel’s arms, her usually composed face alive with frank interest. There were no lights on in Kiel’s house when she pulled up close beside her own apartment and she wondered if he were home yet. Was he alone? Were they parked somewhere watching the moon rise over the ocean, laying out a silver carpet before it? Or were they over there across the way, lying on the cushioned lounge, having a dessert of wine and cheese?

  Willy was almost asleep when the first strains of music drifted through her open window, and when she recognized the haunting strains of an aria from The Pearlfishers, she pounded her pillow furiously and then pulled it over her head.

  Chapter Four

  For the next few days, Willy saw nothing of Kiel and she hated to admit, even to herself, how badly she missed him. That brief period when she had seen him several times a day could almost have occurred in another lifetime, so isolated did it seem now in the oppressive heat of summer doldrums. She found herself snapping at Pete and Frank when they teased her and even Dotty came in for her share of Willy’s ill humor.

  “I want to know what in the world has happened, Willy,” Dotty demanded one day when Willy spilled a folder and proceeded to tell the office at large what she thought of trying to manage without a file clerk. “Somebody’s put your nose out of joint and I’m warning you, honey, unless you come around pretty soon, you’re going to make the post office’s least-wanted list. Even Richy was complaining about your moping upstairs all the time.”

  “Oh, golly, am I as bad as all that?” Willy shoved her hair back from her face and grimaced. “It’s the heat. Dog days, isn’t it?”

  “Nope, not yet. We still have that to look forward to.”

  “Where’d you see Richy, anyway? I haven’t seen either him or Ada since she started working nights at the convenience store.”

  Dotty rolled a sheet of paper in her typewriter and adjusted it. “He’s signed on with Bill for
the Blue Marlin Tournament. They’ve gone to Hatteras for the duration and he’s probably going to work as mate until he goes back to school.” Dotty’s boyfriend, Bill Yancey, was skipper of a fishing boat that carried out sports fishing parties in the summertime and did commercial fishing during the winter. He was a nice-enough man but Willy had never heard him say more than two consecutive words.

  “You planning to go down to join them?” Willy asked.

  “Nope. I’m still determined to bone up and take my realtor’s exams whether I ever work at it or not. Just to prove to myself that I can. Then, and only then, will I settle down and raise a houseful of little Bills.” She grinned and Willy was struck by the thought that some people didn’t know how lucky they were.

  And then she shook herself out of her maudlin sentimentalism. Kiel Faulkner was no more husband material than she herself was wife material. She had seen little enough of marriage that appealed to her, and certainly not the examples closest home, where her father seemed determined to pick up where Ponce de León left off, using younger and younger mates as the magic elixir.

  The next morning she was thanking the Lord it was Friday as she descended the stairs, fumbling in her handbag for her keys, when Kiel greeted her with the news that his car wouldn’t start. “How about a lift to work?” he asked.

  Disconcerted, she nodded. “Sure. Hop in. What is it, the battery?”

  “Nothing so mundane, I’m afraid. I’ll check it out later when I have more time, but just now I want to finish up at the office in time to get off early and head down the banks.”

  She shot him a questioning look, concentrating on her driving with more difficulty than usual as she became aware of the subtle scent of his aftershave, the casual spread of his powerful thighs in the seat beside her.

  “Blue Marlin Tournament. I thought I’d take a break and go down to watch the start. I need an offshore breeze to blow the office dust out of my brain.”

  “You’re going in a boat, then?”

  He laughed briefly. “I don’t walk on water. You’re interested in boats?” He had heard the spark of interest in her voice, but it was Kiel she was interested in, not his mode of locomotion for a change.

  She acknowledged a slight interest as well as an even slighter knowledge. “Daddy was always certain I’d trip and fall overboard, or so he said, but I found out later he just didn’t want any big-eyed, big-eared little pitchers around,” she said ruefully, wondering immediately why she had volunteered anything about her past.

  “Your father sailed, then? Around here, by any chance?”

  Full stop. She didn’t intend to say any more about her home or her family and so she pointed out a hang glider getting ready to launch himself from the top of Jockey’s Ridge, and the moment passed.

  “Park it in the shade today,” Kiel offered with a glint of humor in his metallic eyes. “In case I need to catch a ride back down the beach with you later on, I don’t want to bake.”

  “Such selfless consideration overwhelms me,” she derided.

  Kiel walked with her to the place where the ramp split to go to the separate buildings. “Since I’m grounded today, may I take you to lunch?”

  “Why don’t you just ask if you can borrow my car and be done with it? Or is this more of your selfless consideration?” she gibed.

  “It wouldn’t occur to you to impute a higher motive to my invitation, would it?” he asked dryly.

  She regarded him skeptically for a minute, and then, surrendering to her own self-interest, she agreed. “All right, since you’re afoot today, I suppose it would be practical.”

  “Practicality wasn’t quite the motive I had in mind, Miss Silverthorne, but if you feel you have to rationalize, then be my guest. I’ll see you at about twelve-thirty.”

  He veered off with a brief wave and a sardonic lift of eyebrow and Willy instantly regretted her weakening. The man was infuriating! Smug, arrogant, utterly certain that all he had to do was snap his fingers and any woman within range would fall victim to his lethal charm! “I could always bring you a corndog and a Twinkie,” she called after him, and he turned without breaking stride and said, “Twelve-thirty!”

  She swore she wouldn’t. All morning long, between two-finger typing and answering the phone, she told herself she’d cut her losses and do herself a real favor; but when twelve-twenty passed, she stood up, stretched and strolled aimlessly to the rest room, where she scrutinized her image in the well-lighted mirror.

  Oh, Lordy, what kind of fool would try and match this against Claudia’s magnolia skin, her midnight-blue eyelashes and that irritating knack she had of staying perfectly groomed no matter what the weather? This being a perennial crop of freckles, a mop of hair that usually resembled a haystack, with matching brows and lashes, and a way of coming undone even before she got to work in the first place. Sure, there was nothing wrong with the actual shape of her face, or her nose, or her chin or her cheekbones, for that matter, and her eyes were large enough, even if their cloudy green color was half-covered by a positive hedge of colorless lashes, but her clothes. . . . Without a maid to direct her wardrobe from start to finish, Willy had rapidly deteriorated to the point where she threw on something cool and cotton and let it go at that, although lately she had tried to make amends, conscious of the fact that she wanted Kiel to look on her with favor.

  Oh, phoo! It was too much trouble and she wasn’t going to start going to a lot of trouble for any man! Certainly not for one who’d only laugh at her if he had any idea of how much it mattered to her. If she couldn’t attract a man without her father’s money glowing behind her like a twenty-four-karat-gold halo, then she’d do without.

  With a last half-mocking glance in the mirror, she pushed open the door and returned to the open office, to see Kiel leaning casually against Dotty’s desk chatting as if they were bosom buddies. He looked up and smiled blandly. “Ready to go?”

  She nodded, and as he held the door open for her, he turned to Dotty and said, “Think about it, will you? I’ll talk to you after lunch.”

  “What was that all about?” Willy asked as she fumbled for her dark glasses. In spite of an overall haze, the light was fierce.

  “Tell you over lunch.”

  She handed over her keys and told him to drive and he made a big show of being shocked, asking her if she was sure she trusted him.

  “With my car, yes.”

  “That one was below the belt,” he charged, and then added, “and that was no deliberate double entendre.”

  She shot him a swift look that almost immediately crumpled into a grin, disarmed by the amusement she saw reflected in his lean face. Lowering himself under the wheel after seeing her seated, he extracted the Mercedes from between its companions with an economy of movement that was a joy to watch and Willy reminded herself forcefully that if she didn’t look out, she’d be right back where she was before.

  She didn’t ask where they were going, content to feel the speed-induced wind comb through her hair, and to watch the beautiful precision of his hands as they handled the gears with a finger-light touch. Those hands, she thought with wry honesty, were as expert at directing a piece of machinery as they were at directing the reactions of a woman’s body, and heaven help her if she forgot that fact!

  They ate at the same small, unimposing beachfront place where he had taken her that day with Kip and they vied with white-haired surfers for space. Kiel ordered the soft-shell crab sandwiches with beer for himself and milk for her and he frowned as he replaced the spotted menu in its holder. “I don’t think Moses would have approved of your having milk with shellfish,” he told her.

  “Probably not, but let’s hope this place has better sanitation and refrigeration facilities than Moses did.”

  “As a health officer at a time when one slipup could be fatal, he did a first-class job of getting his people through safely, but I’ll bet he never saw a crab sandwich that could compare with these,” Kiel said, accepting their order from a waiter wh
ose T-shirt read simply, T shirt.

  They talked of food and its preservation in a variety of climates, and Willy gradually relaxed her wariness and found herself laughing wholeheartedly for the first time in a week, but when Kiel said, “If you’ll wipe off that milk mustache, I’ve a proposition to put to you,” she stiffened again.

  He reached across the table and wiped her mouth with his napkin, the sun creases around his eyes deepening. “On Dotty’s behalf, that is,” he added. He went on to explain that Dotty was down in the dumps because Bill was going to have to celebrate his birthday without her. “He’s registered in the tournament and he left for Hatteras this morning and won’t be home until next weekend. It occurred to me that since I plan to sail down for the weekend to watch the start, Dotty might like to come along as a passenger and then she and Bill could have a little celebration after he winds things up Saturday night. Of course, it all hinges on having another woman along. What about it, are you game?”

  “Who, me?” she asked awkwardly. “You mean leave today?”

  “Why not? Here, come on outside. I can’t hear a thing over that demolition derby they call music.” He steered her through the crowd around the jukebox and they paused on the sagging porch to gaze out over an empty lot that was aglow with yellow flowers.

  “What about it?” he murmured absently as he looked out over the flowers to where cloud shadows chased themselves across the solemn dome of Kill Devil Hill. “Looks as if the weather’s going to cooperate.” A nameless sort of excitement started somewhere down inside her and tightened up her throat so that she had to try twice before she could get her words out. “Does . . . does Dotty really want to go? I thought she was busy studying for her realtor’s exam. She and Bill plan to be married as soon as she passes.”