Hale's Point

by Patricia Ryan

  He sighed. “No. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Because there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  She crossed her legs, put both hands on her waist, and twisted back and forth. “He’s a very nice person, he’s been very friendly to me—”

  “I’ll bet he has.” Harley rolled her eyes. “You think he wouldn’t jump at the chance to get into your spandex?”

  Still twisting, she said, “Not every man on the face of the earth thinks about sex constantly.” Tucker just laughed. “Anyway, he’s not interested in me.” With every twist, her breasts strained against the white cotton of her tank top.

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “I am sure. He’s in love with the au pair. His stepmother told me. He just talks to me to make her jealous.”

  “Stepmother? What happened to Mrs. Tilton? The first Mrs. Tilton. Well, technically, the second Mrs. Tilton. There’d already been a first Mrs. Tilton.”

  “Well, now there’s a third Mrs. Tilton. No, she must be the fourth Mrs. Tilton, ‘cause there was an in-between Mrs. Tilton.” She stood, shaking out her arms and legs. “In answer to your question, Jamie’s father divorced the first, second, and third Mrs. Tiltons, each time in favor of a younger Mrs. Tilton. Jamie says it was his hobby, collecting wives.”

  “‘Was’? Has he finally found one he’s happy with?”

  “He died a year ago of a heart attack.”

  “Younger and younger wives will do that to you.” Tucker had liked the second Mrs. Tilton, but had thought her husband petty and self-important, and was not sorry he was dead. Back down on the Tiltons’ piece of beach, two young women and a fat toddler had joined Jamie. “Which one’s the Widow Tilton?”

  Harley squinted. “The dark-haired one. Mimi. She’s really nice, I like her.” She was very slender, with dose-cropped hair and delicate features. She stood ankle-deep in the water, holding up the skirt of her flowered sundress. The other woman—a copper-penny redhead in a yellow bikini—squatted next to the child and quickly undressed her down to her pink disposable diaper. When she stood, Tucker saw that she was no more than eighteen or nineteen, but very tall, with a nonstop centerfold body. She had pale, freckled skin, and her hair was a blazing mop of corkscrew curls. Jamie couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.

  “Is that the au pair?” Tucker asked, and Harley nodded. “Nice.” From the corner of his eye he saw her glance at him, then back at the au pair, who was folding the child’s clothes and looking around for a place to put them.

  Then Harley actually said, “If you like that type.”

  Tucker laughed. “I’ve got news for you, hon—Harley. Half of the human race likes that type. Very much.” Actually, Tucker, unlike some men, did not find redheads irresistible, no matter how buxom. Harley’s reaction to his interest, her obvious displeasure, intrigued him much more than the au pair herself. “What’s her name?”

  A slight pause, Harley shielding her eyes and scowling at the beach. “Brenna.”

  “Brenna. Irish?” She nodded. “Does she speak with a brogue?” She grimaced and nodded again. “Outstanding.”

  Down on the beach, Mimi called out, “Brenna, don’t let Lily eat sand!” The little girl sat on the damp sand at the water’s edge, cramming a handful of it into her mouth. Jamie hooted with laughter.

  Brenna dropped the clothes and ran to the child, shrieking, “Sorry, missus!” Lily, finding the sand less tasty than she had anticipated, was screwing up her mud-streaked face in preparation for crying. “Lily, Lily, Lily,” Brenna cooed. Lily jutted her lower jaw and looked up at the au pair with teary eyes. Brenna calmed her down, cleaned her off, and carried her through the water toward her half-brother.

  Jamie took the child, lifted her onto his shoulders, and held her by her chubby feet as he cavorted in the waves for her amusement. Even at this distance, Tucker could hear her delighted laughter. “Has the kid made his move yet?”

  “You mean has he told Brenna how he feels?” Harley shook her head. “She’s only been with the family for a month, and Mimi says he wants to give her time to get to know him better.”

  “Uh-huh. I can tell you right now, it’s not going to happen. He’s going to tough it out in splendid Hale’s Point fashion, giving her space, waiting for the right moment, not wanting to crowd her, and meanwhile every tomcat on Long Island will be howling on the fence by the back door.”

  “Mimi says they’re already howling.”

  He chuckled. “I can believe it.”

  Harley bent to swat the sand from her legs and feet. “If she’s so great, why don’t you take a shot at her yourself?” It was poorly feigned nonchalance. Some women were good at pretense, but Harley wasn’t one of them.

  “I’m out of practice,” he answered. “She’d hurt me.” Harley shot him a quizzical look, then smirked when she saw his grin. Still, he was only half joking. “I’ve spent most of the past year in and out of the hospital. Mostly in. Kind of took me out of circulation, you know?”

  “Weren’t there any attractive nurses?”

  “As a matter of fact, there was one I kind of liked. But a body cast tends to cramp your style. Our relationship never progressed beyond the sponge-bath phase.” He nodded toward the redhead on the beach. “That one scares me. A girl like that could put me right back in traction.” He smiled. “Of course… it might be worth it.”

  Harley brushed her hands together. “I say, take the risk. Go for it. Only, you might want to shave first.” Tucker’s hand automatically went to his face. His stubble felt like hundreds of little pins, even to his roughened hands. “Or else,” she continued, her expression smug, “the first kiss is as far as you’re going to get.” She picked her water bottle up off the grass and turned toward the house, saying, “I’m going to do some upper-body work. Catch you later.”

  Unwilling to accept the dismissal, he followed her.

  On the back outside wall of the house was a showerhead with a towel slung over it, and below it, a concrete slab with a drain. It hadn’t been there when he was a boy, but it would have been handy, considering all the sand he used to track through the house after visits to the beach.

  “Where do you work out?” he asked.

  She turned the water on and adjusted the temperature. “Your father had a gym put in upstairs, right off his bedroom. Used to be a sitting room, he said. Now it’s got weights, treadmill, NordicTrack, flywheel rower. Two whole walls are mirrored. He said he put it in after his first heart attack.” She rinsed one foot off under the spray.

  “He had… I didn’t know he had—”

  “Oh.” She looked contrite. “I’m sorry, I should have realized. I should have told you. He had two. They were mild, he said.” Shaking her head, she extended the other foot and rinsed it off. “Sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay. He’s… all right, isn’t he? I mean, he’s not an invalid, or—”

  “Hardly.” She took the towel and dried off her feet. “He’s spending the summer in the Caribbean with a friend, sailing. He couldn’t do that if he were an invalid.”

  “The whole summer? I didn’t realize that. I thought he was just on a two-week vacation or something. What about his law practice?”

  “He told me he retired three years ago.”

  Tucker had that off-balance feeling you get on the beach when an outgoing wave sucks the sand from beneath your feet. “Retired. Right. I should have known that. I should have figured—”

  Harley put a hand around his arm, and the ground stopped moving. “Why don’t you come upstairs with me,” she said. “I can really use a spotter on the bench press.”

  ***

  Stars materialized in the deepening sky as Harley, executing a languid backstroke, glided slowly from one end of the pool to the other and back again. This was her favorite part of the day, when everything was done and night was descending and she could relax a little bit.

  She tried to put the past twent
y-four hours out of her mind. Tucker Hale’s unexpected arrival had tossed a bomb into her orderly life, just as he had warned her it would. She still didn’t know when he would be leaving, and she doubted he had given it much thought, despite his abrupt departure the night before. He was both fascinating and irritating, and very hard to ignore, but she would try, at least for a little while. Right now he was inside—she saw lights on in the bathroom window of the maid’s room, and heard water running—and she had the evening sky to herself.

  She had killed the patio lights and switched on the pool lights, the underwater bulbs making the blue water glow from within. She usually took her evening swim in the nude, since the yard was so private. Of course, she couldn’t do that with Tucker around. But there was no need for the racing suit, so she wore a simple white maillot.

  She had backstroked several dozen laps when she heard the French doors open and close, and the sound of Tucker’s cane on the brick patio. Pausing in the deep end to tread water, she saw him, a dark figure standing on the deck at the shallow end. He kicked off his moccasins and sat down on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water, an awkwardly executed maneuver. After a moment there appeared a small red glow as he lit a cigarette.

  Abandoning the backstroke, she swam underwater to the shallow end, surfacing a few feet from the deck, and Tucker. She stood waist-high in the water, smoothing her wet hair off her face and pretending she didn’t notice his brown eyes swiftly appraise her. He never leered, but several times she had caught him discreetly checking her out. She knew that some men found her tight, athletic build unappealing, but she also knew that Tucker Hale wasn’t one of them.

  He exhaled a plume of blue smoke. “You’re a good swimmer.”

  “So are you,” she said.

  The frown lines between his eyebrows deepened momentarily and then vanished. “The trophies,” he said. “Yeah, once upon a time.” He glanced at his mangled leg. “No more.”

  Harley twisted her hair to squeeze the water out. “Did the doctors say you couldn’t swim anymore?”

  He took a drag before answering. “Actually, they said I should swim. Said it’d be good therapy.”

  She dropped her hair. “Why don’t you, then?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had enough physical therapy. Months and months of it.”

  “Swimming?”

  “No, there was no pool at the hospital. They had me do different things. It was a pretty grueling routine, actually. Machines, lots of weight work.”

  “Weights? I wondered about that.” In the gym that afternoon, although he hadn’t worked out himself, he had handled hundred-pound plates as if they were made out of foam rubber. That also explained his physique, so impressive for a man with such limited mobility. “You should stick with it.”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve gotten all the good I can out of that stuff. Months of it, and I still can’t get by without that thing.” He gestured to the cane next to him.

  Harley approached the edge of the pool. He looked different, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it was just an illusion created by the shimmering light reflected from the pool onto his face. “Hand me that towel?” He did, and she draped it over her shoulders, which made her feel less vulnerable under his scrutiny. “Was it painful, the weight work? I mean, considering the extent of your injuries…”

  He tensed, and that provided her answer. “It wasn’t the pain,” he said finally. “It was the lack of results.”

  “You might get better results with swimming,” she said. “And I’ll bet it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

  “Harley, listen, I don’t want to insult you or anything, but you really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know a little,” she said. “I was on the swim team as an undergrad, and my coach was this woman named Eve Markham. She was from Palm Beach, your kind of people— old money. She swam in two Olympics—’64 and ‘68—and then she did swim therapy with Vietnam vets. They were amputees and guys with paralyzed limbs—major injuries. Then, during the time she was coaching my team, she also worked with physically challenged kids, and I used to help her out. She taught me a lot. Sometimes we’d go out for pizza afterward. Eventually she’d always get to talking about the wounded vets. She said the hard part wasn’t knowing what kind of stroke or how many laps they should be doing, that was common sense. The hard part was motivating them, making them want to do it. Once they started swimming, really putting their hearts into it, they made terrific progress. Almost all the guys she worked with far exceeded what the doctors said was possible. She was famous for her results.”

  “That’s real inspiring.” he said dryly. “The key, of course, is the motivation part, making them want to do it. Apparently she was pretty good at it, and apparently you’re not. Too bad she never shared her secret with you.”

  “She did.” Harley said, and instantly regretted it. Quickly she added, “But it’s… not something I would do.” Her face felt warm. Rather than let him see her blush, she popped up onto the deck, stood, and pulled the towel over her head to dry her hair off.

  She could hear Tucker struggling to his feet. “What did she do, hold a gun to their heads?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter, I just wouldn’t do it her way. It’s not my style, I couldn’t pull it off.” She tossed the towel aside and, wet and chilly, looked around for her robe. Tucker had it. He was behind her, holding it open for her. She slid her arms into the sleeves, and he closed and tied it for her, from behind.

  “Double knot, right?” he asked.

  “I’ll do it.”

  But he did it himself. Even through the thick terry cloth, she felt his warmth. Her wet hair had gotten caught under the collar of the robe, and he pulled it out, his fingertips brushing the nape of her neck. Her heart was racing and she felt a little breathless.

  “Wow, you’re tense,” he said quietly. He worked his fingers gently along the muscles of her neck. “You just swam, you should be loose.”

  With one hand against her sternum to hold her still, he kneaded her neck and shoulders with his long fingers. His hands felt very strong, and they seemed to know just where and how to rub.

  “You’re good at that,” she murmured.

  “I learned how in the hospital. Massage is the only good part of physical therapy.”

  As he worked, Harley felt a band of tension loosen, and her eyes closed. She decided it was dumb not to tell him. “What Eve did, to get them motivated, she told them that she was going to swim from one end of the pool to the other, and they’d have to swim after her. And whoever caught her could… you know… have her.”

  The massage stopped, his hands resting on her shoulders. “Have her, as in… have her?” Harley opened her eyes and nodded over her shoulder. He turned her around so he could look her in the face. “Really? And she meant it?”

  “She always meant everything she said, and they knew it. She was just that kind of person. If she said she was going to do something, she’d do it.”

  “Kind of like you.” he said. “What is it you said? ‘I always do what I say I’m going to do’?”

  She pulled away from his grip. “Yeah, well—”

  “Did she ever have to… pay up?”

  “No. She was an Olympic swimmer, remember, and these were injured men. She said once a guy almost caught her. He’d been a competitive swimmer himself, before he got drafted. No one else ever got close, but they all tried real hard. She was a beautiful woman in middle age, when I knew her. She must have been spectacular in her twenties.”

  Tucker grinned. “I think it’s a great inspirational technique.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Draping the towel over her arm, she said, “Thanks for the massage. I’m going to catch a hot shower, then read in my room for a little while and turn in.” Tucker looked at his watch and frowned. “Yeah, I know, it’s early, but I want to get back on schedule with my six-o’clock swim tomorrow.” She was sorry she had said the word “schedule�
� when she saw the look on his face.

  “This regimen of yours blows my mind,” he said, picking up his cane. “You know, you really don’t have to drive yourself like that, just to stay in shape.”

  “I’m not driving myself, I just—”

  “Sure, you are. You don’t know how not to. Getting an M.B.A. is just one more example of it. M.B.A.’s are for people who want to spend their whole lives clawing up that ladder, maneuvering for the next deal, the next promotion, the next raise. What joy can there be in that? What satisfaction?”

  “The pay’s good.”

  “Money? Is that what it’s all about?” He looked grim. “Maybe this has managed to escape you, but it seems to me I’ve heard about a million times that money doesn’t buy happiness. Trust me, it’s true.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, isn’t it, with that silver spoon hanging out of your mouth.”

  “I earned my own way,” he said testily; she had touched a nerve. “I started from scratch at sixteen and I worked for what I’ve got, so don’t go tarring me with that brush.”

  “Well, earning my own way is exactly what I’m trying to do, so don’t go condemning me for it!” Her voice had risen, and now she struggled to control it. “I don’t deny that I’m driven. If you knew how I grew up, how I lived—” She stopped herself and took a breath. “It’s just that I want something better, and I don’t like people telling me I’m some kind of mercenary—”

  “I wasn’t saying that.” His raw voice adopted a quiet, conciliatory tone. He took a step toward her.

  She stepped back. “That’s exactly what you were saying, and I resent it. I know what you think of me. You’ve got me all sized up.”

  “If I do, it’s because you won’t let me near you. You grill me about myself, my past, but you won’t tell me a thing about yourself. I’d like to know how you grew up, how you lived—”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” The words quivered in her throat. He seemed about to speak, but then just stared at her, his expression sober. When she spoke again, her voice was softly grim. “You wouldn’t. And I assure you I don’t want to talk about it. Good night.”