Renegade Player

by Dixie Browning

  Janette Cramer was all sympathy and wanted to take Willy to the cottage and render first aid, but Willy managed to convince her that it was only a scratch and that she’d look after it at home, and they left, with Matt all concerned support. She tried not to hobble, but to tell the truth, it was throbbing worse by the minute.

  Matt drove fast, faster than he might have had he not consumed several beers earlier, but she couldn’t be concerned with that now. Her own head was feeling the effects of a too-long, too-eventful day, plus the several glasses of wine she had imbibed. Impossible to believe that only this morning she had been lolling about on a ketch off Hatteras. Tonight’s party had been a mistake, for more reasons than one, she conceded tiredly.

  “Willy, I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world, especially not now,” Matt said, braking for a long line of theater traffic.

  “Thanks,” she gritted, “but now’s as good as any time, I guess. At least I’ll have a good excuse to be late tomorrow.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?” she sighed, wishing he’d be quiet.

  “Willy, I hate this like the very devil, but I’m going to have to let somebody go. There’s not enough work for two, much less for four, and— Well, I wanted to be fair about it, but I just don’t see how I can afford to be.”

  Oddly enough, she was almost relieved—lightheaded, for some strange reason. Matt had been carrying the weight of the world on his poor, sweet shoulders all night, and come to find out, it had only been this. “Well, of course, you must be fair, darling. I was the last to come and so I’ll be the first to go.”

  “No, Willy, that’s just it; you weren’t. Pete came in a week after you did, remember?”

  And she did. Remembering that, she could see the wretched problem poor Matt had been wrestling with all evening, and who knew how long before that? Certainly since that discouraging little meeting in his office. And now that she thought of it, she was aware of the meaningful little glances, the puzzling looks she had been getting from both Frank and Pete for at least the past week or so.

  Then, like a bag of water bursting on her head, she recalled that night at the Drake when Matt had sounded her out about her feelings on raising a family, and on one breadwinner in a family being enough. She had thought he was working his cautious, tedious way around to proposing to her. Lord, was the laugh ever on her! She had been the very last one to see the handwriting on the wall, and now, feeling more than a little illiterate, she said, “I’ll take off, Matt. Shall I work out my notice or just clear out my desk?”

  They were almost at the comer of Wimble Court and Willy saw that the streetlight was out again, making her glad she had remembered for once to leave on her own stair light. It was after midnight and it would have been as black as pitch, for everyone on the short street turned in early and the fickle moon had either set or gone behind clouds.

  Matt parked between the two houses and Willy saw that there was a faint glimmer of light from Kiel’s screened porch—the cork-based hurricane lamp, no doubt. She turned woodenly to hear Matt saying, “Look, Willy, I’d rather cut my tongue out for what I’m having to say, but Pete’s got Kip and Connie and she’s pregnant again and—”

  “I know, honey. They’re buying a house and paying for a car and I’m just a female, not the head of a household or anything so dramatic.” There was resignation in her voice, as well as a reluctant hint of indignation. After all, you’d think women didn’t have to eat or pay rent and living expenses, and besides, her foot ached like the very devil and she was beginning to feel just a bit sorry for herself! “Don’t worry about it, Matt. I was beginning to get slightly bored, anyway. Things haven’t been particularly exciting around there since the novelty wore off.”

  “It’s not as though you’d starve, or anything like that,” he said apologetically, and she gathered up her bag and sandals impatiently. “I mean, you can’t be hurting all that bad.”

  “Oh, sure! I’ll just pawn the family jewels or sell off a few blocks of stock,” she said brightly. “About my notice . . .?” Matthew Rumark, she thought silently, you have no idea how badly I’m hurting right now, in my head, in my foot and in my heart!

  “But your father— I mean, he’ll look after you . . . get you another job if you want it, surely?”

  “My who?” she repeated wonderingly, halted in the act of opening the door with the Rumark Realty logo painted on it in dark green letters. “Matt, what do you know about my father?”

  In the dim light of the interior, she turned to look at him with dawning realization, seeing the averted face, the guilt painted all over that thin, straight nose, the light gray eyes and the slightly sloping chin. “Matthew?”

  “Hell, Willy, I didn’t want you to have to know. Your father won’t be any too happy about it, either,” he admitted ruefully. It seemed that he had been in indirect contact with her father from the beginning of her employment at Rumark Realty.

  “But my letters, Jasper’s letters,” she faltered indignantly, remembering all the letters her father had sent with the checks that she had promptly torn up. “They were all sent through Cousin Fred.”

  “Who just happens to be in real estate in Edenton, who also just happens to be the contact that got you the job with me,” Matt interposed.

  “And you—you’ve been reporting to my father every time I made a sale, no doubt,” she accused belligerently. “Oh, you’ve no idea how great that makes me feel! Little Willy, making it on her own!”

  “No, Willy it wasn’t that way at all,” Matt exclaimed defensively. “Your father only wanted to know how you were getting on and you weren’t very forthcoming in your letters, from what I heard.”

  “Oh, you had a nice little setup going there, didn’t you? Every move I made was duly reported on behind my back!”

  “Dammit, Willy, he was interested, that’s all! I mean, you are his daughter, after all, and he is in real estate himself.”

  “Jasper? You must be kidding!” she crowed bitterly. “When you’re in real estate to the extent that my father is, then you’re not in real estate at all! You’re all the way out the other end!”

  She threw open the door and climbed out and almost crumpled to the ground when her injured heel touched the concrete. She had all but forgotten it in the ensuing discussion!

  “Let me come help you take care of that, my dear,” Matt said, hurrying around to slide an arm under her own.

  She tried to push him away, but there was no escaping the fact that she could use help in getting up the stairs, but that was all! When he asked if he could come in and look after her, after managing her lurching ascent, she shook her head. With each step she had felt her anger and indignation drain away, leaving only the bitter dregs of empty disappointment in its place. It wasn’t Matt’s fault, the relationship she had with Jasper, nor could he have ignored the Silverthorne style of coercion: subtle, smooth and inescapable.

  “No, thanks, Matt,” she said tiredly. “I can do it up just fine with a tad of iodine and a Band Aid. All in all, it’s been quite a party.” She tried for a smile, failed miserably and gave up, closing the screened door after him and leaning her head against its damp, acrid-smelling surface. Before she turned away, she saw the dim light on Kiel’s porch go off.

  Five hours and three aspirin later, Willy thought with painful amusement that had she been in her father’s house, there would have been at least one specialist in attendance, plus a stiffly starched nurse. She had never been allowed even to scrape her knee without its being made into a major production. Funny, she thought without much amusement, her father had never hid his disappointment that she had turned out to be a girl— and a not very attractive girl at that—at least not until she was too old for his disappointment to hurt very badly. Still, he had lavished on her every care money could buy, as long as it didn’t require his personal attention. She didn’t want to have to return ignomini-ously now, to see his good-looking, whiskey-flushe
d features assume that Father-knows-best expression. He might welcome her with compunction, but Breda would be less than hospitable.

  No, dam it, she had bought her independence dearly, even if he had been aware of every step she had taken, and she wouldn’t go back to that suffocating silken cocoon and wait around for him to buy her a suitable husband! Just because the real world held a few rude awakenings was no reason to turn tail and go crying back to Daddy!

  For some odd reason of association, she thought of a sugary drawl telling Kiel how Daddy had flown her to Manteo. It seemed that all in the world Daddy Fredericks wanted was for his little girl to be happy: maybe daddies had that in common.

  With a rude noise, she swung her feet off the bed and just as quickly swung them back again. It felt as if a ton of bricks had dropped on her heel, and now she twisted her injured foot up into a half-lotus position and frowned at the angry red puffiness around the thin, dark red line. She had soaked it in hot water and applied an antiseptic before she went to bed, but it looked as if stronger measures were called for.

  There was no question of her driving to work, and so perhaps it was just as well she didn’t feel any great compunction about clearing out her desk. It would be awkward at best for poor Pete, knowing that by all rights he should be the one to go—unless Matt had told them all about her background, in which case they were probably furious with her for taking a job away from some worthy breadwinner. Oh, drat! All she needed now to complete the picture was a load of guilt!

  All she needed now was help, she corrected herself. She looked in the direction of Kiel’s house and knew she could never ask him to take her to see a doctor, and Ada Willits would be asleep with her earplugs after having just got home from the nightshift at the convenience store.

  Dotty. She needed help right now and Dotty was the one to supply it with a minimum of fuss. She hopped across the gritty linoleum and dialed the Wanchese number, hoping she wasn’t too late. While the receiver buzzed in her ear, she strained to see the alarm clock, but it wasn’t running and Willy despised to wear a watch, especially as her one and only timepiece was a bracelet affair with more diamonds than good taste required.

  “Hello, Dotty? It’s me, Willy. Look, are you running late this morning?”

  It turned out that Dotty wasn’t and that she would be glad to stop by on her way to work, since it was practically on her way.

  Just what Willy expected of her, she wasn’t sure herself, but somewhere in the back of her mind was the ingrained feeling that at a time like this, someone else would just automatically step in and take over, making all decisions and arrangements. It had always happened that way in the past, but then this was the present. So far, she had been lucky, never having had anything more serious than a headache or an occasional touch of indigestion from some of her less successful experiments in the kitchen.

  “Ugh, that looks dreadful, Willy,” was Dotty’s comforting exclamation on being shown the wounded appendage. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “Well, of course not! It just happened last night— well, this morning, actually. Matt called after we got in yesterday and we went to a beach party at Southern Shores.”

  “Last night?” Dotty squawked. “I was flaked out by the time I got home! In fact, I wasn’t even sure I was going to make it all the way home. Being on the water always affects me that way, makes me drowsy as everything and I rock for days with my eyes closed.”

  “Sounds cozy,” Willy agreed sourly, wriggling her toes in an effort to get a better look at the sole of her foot. “I wish I’d had the good sense to stay home where I belonged. Who’s a good doctor in these parts?”

  Dotty named her own physician and offered to call, and Willy let her, wondering if she’d be able to drive. It was her left foot and she might have managed with an automatic transmission, supposing she didn’t need to brake, but with a clutch, it was out of the question. Still, she’d have to think of something.

  “Look, don’t even try to come to work today,” Dotty warned her, a frown giving her an unexpectedly mature look.

  Oh, yes, there was that too. Evidently Matt had not informed the rest of the staff of his plans to sack the most affluent member of the sales force. “Well, as a matter of fact, with things so slow around there, I thought I might try my hand at something else for a change. I mean, there’s no law that says I have to stick with my first job. I told Matt last night I probably wouldn’t be in today, under the circumstances.” She felt noble and martyred and sorry for herself, and then, hard on the heels of all those demeaning emotions, came a refreshing feeling of self-disgust.

  Here she was, young, unattached, healthy—well, relatively, anyway—and with enough security behind her to buy and sell Rumark Realty and all its assets, and she had the nerve to feel sorry for herself! The only thing she lacked was the one thing in the world she really wanted, but she wasn’t going to go breaking her badly bruised heart just because one arrogant, amoral, all too attractive man wanted to have his cake and eat it too!

  Dotty hung up the phone with the information that the doctor could see her at two-thirty today and, meanwhile, she was to keep her foot up and uncovered.

  Well, that ought to be easy enough to do, seeing as how she didn’t feel like doing anything else, though getting to the doctor’s office was another matter—but it seemed she had reckoned without Dotty.

  “Look, I know you can’t drive with that thing looking like a pink satin pincushion, so I’m going to come by at two and help you get dressed and drive you to see the doctor, all right?”

  With no choice, Willy was forced to agree. She said good-bye and promised to look after herself, and then wondered why, with all her problems solved so neatly, she still felt tears rising in her throat.

  It was Dotty, she supposed. Until she had come to work at Rumark Realty, she had never had a close friend—hardly a friend at all, only suitable acquaintances who enjoyed suitable pastimes, all of which bored Willy stiff.

  By one o’clock, Willy was utterly miserable. Her head was pounding and she felt hot and sticky and she was afraid to take a shower. She hobbled to the bathroom and sponged herself off, grimacing when the circulation increased in the leg she had kept elevated all morning.

  At one-thirty she pulled off her cool, cotton hip-length pajamas and tugged on a denim skirt and a flowered T-shirt. Her hair was brushed halfheartedly and pulled back with a scarf that didn’t match anything she was wearing, and she located a pair of rubber flip-flops and slid her feet in them. Not a very fashionable turnout, but then, this was hardly a festive occasion—not that she did a whole lot better when it was a festive occasion, she thought with wry self-deprecation.

  At a quarter of two, the door opened and Kiel Faulkner walked in.

  “Hi,” she greeted, having conveniently forgotten the last time she had seen him, when she told him rudely to RENEGADE PLAYER get the hell out of her house and out of her life. “Did you need anything?”

  He dropped down onto her only comfortable chair, looking unfairly cool and unflappable in white jeans and a dark green shirt. “Do you see a measuring cup?” he asked sardonically. “Do I have to have a reason to drop in on a friend?”

  “No, but. . .” Nothing to do but barge ahead; Willy was not one to indulge in equivocation. “But after the last time we parted I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”

  “Last night,” he mused. “Well, you were pretty outspoken with your advice for my future behavior, if I recall correctly, but then I’m here today as a favor to Dotty. She and I haven’t had a falling out and so I have no reason to refuse to help her out of a tight spot, have I?”

  Pushing back an unruly tendril of hair that had already pulled loose from the scarf, she eyed him suspiciously. This bland urbanity was even more unsettling than his outspoken anger.

  “No arguments? Good. If you’re ready, then, we’ll be off. Dotty said the doctor was going to try and work you in about two-thirty, but if we get there a little earlier, he may be abl
e to see you sooner.”

  “Hey, wait a minute! Dotty’s going to take me there,” Willy protested.

  Kiel explained with exaggerated patience that Dotty, as the one and only secretary at Rumark Realty, was far more indispensable than one engineer in a room full of engineers.

  “Somehow, I don’t think it works out quite that way over at CCE,” Willy gritted, trying to work up her nerve to lower her foot to the floor again. “How did you know about it, anyway?”

  He leaned over and scooped her up before she could get her balance, and when she started to argue, he simply tightened his grip in a meaningful way until she subsided. “When the men started getting restless wondering what had happened to you—your public, you know—I called over and asked. Dotty was a mine of information, and so I repaid her by offering to take you off her hands this afternoon.”

  He flipped the latch on her door to lock it behind him and descended the stairs easily.

  Funny, how you could distrust a man with your heart and still trust him with your very life, Willy mused wistfully as he tucked her solicitously into the front seat.

  Judging from the way they were greeted, you’d think the doctor had been waiting impatiently for their arrival. It just so happened that he could see her immediately, and she insisted on hobbling into his inner sanctum alone, leaving Kiel to pass his time leafing through back issues of North Carolina Wildlife and Woman’s Day.

  By the time she emerged, soaked, swabbed, bandaged and injected, she was too drained to complain when he swept her up in his arms again. She even managed a wicked grin at the offended woman with the sensible shoes and the flowered hat.

  Shouldering his way outside into the broiling sun, he paused and studied her with one eyebrow elevated expressively. “I know just what you need to put you back into fighting trim again.”

  Several minutes later she was ensconced at a picnic table in the shade of an enormous live oak while Kiel disappeared into the ice-cream parlor nearby. He emerged just as she was beginning to think he had deserted her with a pair of the gaudiest concoctions she had seen since her seventh birthday.