by Janet Dailey
“Boy, it’s really something,” the lad exclaimed. “How fast will it go?”
This fascination with speed brought a brief twitch of amusement to Slater’s mouth. It was typical of the young, the demand for action and excitement.
“Fast enough,” he returned, aware the boy’s glance was continually darting to him. Something wasn’t quite right here. Although the boy was expressing interest in the sportscar, he seemed more intent on studying him. Slater observed a hint of strain and tension in the boy’s features. Did it come from excitement or the manifestation of nervousness?
“I’d sure like to have a car like this when I’m older,” the boy said in a voice that held a poignant ring of longing.
Bothered by something he couldn’t identify, Slater narrowed his study of the boy. Before he could reply, he was hailed by a voice coming from up the street.
“Hey, MacBride!”
He turned to observe the approach of his longtime friend and local fishing guide, Jeeter Jones. With the spry, rolling step of a seaman, Jeeter closed the distance between them. His leathered face was cracked by a greeting smile.
“How are you doing, Jeeter?” Slater felt a surge of impatience at this second delay and wished he had not stopped to speak to this boy. It wasn’t company he wanted. It was privacy to deal with the emotions meeting Dawn again had aroused.
“Thought I’d come by and see if I couldn’t talk you into buying me a cup of coffee,” Jeeter explained and glanced curiously at the boy, who was taking advantage of Slater’s distraction to stare raptly at him. “Who’s your young friend?” Something about the boy struck a familiar chord and Jeeter darted a quick look at Slater and found it repeated.
With the arrival of Jeeter Jones, Slater had forgotten about that earlier moment when something about the boy had bothered him. His mildly indifferent glance slid to the youth.
“He was admiring my car,” Slater explained, then addressed the boy, remembering his previous comment about owning a car like it someday. “Maybe your father will buy you one when you’re older.” Judging from the way the boy was dressed, his parents could afford it.
There was a sudden flood of red into the boy’s cheeks. “Yeah,” he mumbled the answer and turned quickly to his bike, hiding the betraying surge of embarrassment. Kicking the stand back, he hopped onto the seat and pedaled away.
The abruptness of his departure pulled Slater’s gaze after him. The boy didn’t travel far, stopping at the first street vendor he reached. As he looked over the assortment of cookies and cold drinks, the boy stole a glance over his shoulder at Slater and quickly averted his gaze when he saw Slater watching him.
A snorting sound, like a contained laugh, came from Jeeter Jones. “I knew you’d sown some wild seeds in your time, MacBride, but I didn’t expect to see the crop maturing so close to home.”
Slater swung his gaze around to subject Jeeter to his piercing scrutiny. “What are you talking about?”
“That boy,” Jeeter said. “He’s darn near the spittin’ image of you right down to the cowlicks in his hair. What is he? Some cousin of yours?”
Too stunned to reply, Slater stared at his friend for a blank second. Then his head jerked around to stare at the boy still hovering about the vendor’s cart. It wasn’t possible! Dawn had been lying. He would have bet his life on it. But—he had to find out. Whipping off his dark glasses, he jammed them into his shirt pocket so they wouldn’t shade something from his sight and prevent him from seeing something he should.
Turning away from Jeeter, he broke into a jog. “Hey! What about the coffee?” Jeeter protested in a startled voice.
“Another time.” The answer was thrown over his shoulder, his gaze not straying from the boy, who noticed his approach and appeared to tense up. Slater lengthened his stride and weaved through the few pedestrians in his path.
There was a pallor beneath the boy’s tanned face as he hurriedly dug into the pocket of his jeans to pay for the limeade he’d ordered. He was still trying to count out the money when Slater arrived at the cart.
Taking two dollar bills from his pocket, Slater laid them atop the cart. “I’ll buy his, Rufus,” he told the man. “Give me a limeade, too.”
After an interested glance that took in both Slater and the boy, the vendor gave a small shrug and turned to fill a plastic glass with the chilled, fresh-squeezed juice.
“I’ve got the money to pay for my own, sir,” the boy declared, suddenly very stiff and warily nervous with Slater there.
“I know.” His eyes were taking in the youth-softened yet strongly chiseled lines of the boy’s features, the trace of blue in his gray eyes, and the mop of dark hair that rebelled against any orderly style. “What’s your name?” He picked up the two glasses, but withheld giving one to the boy.
“Randy,” he mumbled, trying but not quite meeting Slater’s look.
“Your full name,” Slater prompted and offered one of the glasses.
There was a moment of indecision before the boy answered. “Randy MacBride Lord.” Then he looked up to watch Slater’s reaction, wary and defensive.
The answer confirmed what Slater had doubted all along. The sudden burden of it removed all emotion from him, wiping him clean like a blackboard.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked with a lack of expression that bordered on a deceptive nonchalance.
Again, he was subjected to a measuring study by the boy before Randy affirmed his knowledge with a slow nod of his head. It was followed by an equally hesitant—“You’re Slater MacBride”—as if Randy didn’t want to admit how much he knew.
“I met your mother today,” Slater said.
“I know,” Randy said, then explained, “I saw your car parked in the driveway behind hers when I rode by the house on my bike. Did she—” he faltered, lowering his gaze to nervously study the handlebars of his bike, “—did she . . . tell you about me?”
“Yes.” Slater released a bitter, laughing breath that held no humor. “It seems I’m the last one to know.” He noticed the moisture gathering in Randy’s eyes and his desperate attempt to hide the tears. It tugged at something in his heart. A new gentleness entered his voice when Slater spoke again. “I think it’s time you and I talked about a few things.”
“Yes, sir.” There was a hopeful tremor in Randy’s voice.
“Why don’t you lock up your bike in that rackstand over there?” Slater nodded to one positioned at the corner. “Then we’ll go walk somewhere and find a place to drink our limeade.”
“Okay.” Randy pushed his bike toward the stand with a betraying eagerness.
Chapter Four
Her shoulder-length red hair was tied atop her head in a short ponytail to keep the hot weight of it off her neck while she helped her mother fix the evening meal. Dawn dabbed at the perspiration beading in the hollow of her throat from the heat of the stove. She poked a fork into the potatoes to test whether they were done. It broke into pieces at the touch of the fork tines. She turned off the burner beneath the pan.
“The potatoes are almost mush,” she announced to her mother and turned. “Any sign of Randy yet?”
Her mother peered out the window above the sink where she was tearing lettuce leaves to make a salad. “I don’t see him. Maybe he’s in the garage with your father.”
“I’ll see.” Dawn moved away from the stove and walked to the screen door.
Outside, she made a quick scan of the backyard, looking for Randy’s bike. There were hammering sounds coming from the garage and Dawn headed toward the raised door. The garage was so crowded with pieces of wood, slabs of cypress trunks, and objects in various stages of completion that there wasn’t any room for a car.
Without attempting to work her way through the obstacle course of nails, sawdust, and the lumber-strewn floor, Dawn paused inside the opening and called to her father, raising her voice to make herself heard above the racket of his hammering. “Hey, Pop!”
He straightened from his workbench an
d turned, taking a mouthful of nails from his mouth. “Time for supper?” he guessed.
“Yes. But I’m looking for Randy. Has he come home yet?” she frowned.
“Haven’t seen him all afternoon,” he said with a shake of his head, then laid his tools on the counter and turned to walk through the maze on a path only he could discern. “I’m going to get all this cleaned up someday. Problem is, I’ve run out of friends to give all this stuff to.”
Dawn glanced at the cypress clock propped against a wall and a uniquely styled chair with a cypress slab seat, two of the rare pieces that were finished and now gathering dust. “Instead of giving them away, you should sell them,” she advised. The garage contained everything from handmade furniture to lamps to polished pieces of driftwood and sculptures made out of shells and carved wood.
“It wouldn’t be fair.” He shrugged aside the craftsmanship of the products. “It’s just something I do to pass the time.”
“Puttering or not, it’s better than some of the stuff I’ve seen in the shops,” Dawn declared, then turned her gaze toward the driveway. “I wonder where Randy is.”
Her father laid a hand on her shoulder in an affectionate gesture that also pushed her toward the house. “He’ll be here directly. He probably just lost track of the time. But don’t worry, that bottomless stomach of his will soon be reminding him it’s supper time.”
Dawn let herself be guided to the house, but she was still bothered by Randy’s absence.
A quarter of an hour later, all the food was ready to be dished up and served. Her father had returned to the kitchen from washing his hands and took his customary chair at the head of the table. Dawn was growing impatient and irritated at her son’s tardiness.
“Isn’t Randy here yet?” her father asked.
“No.” Her hands were on her hips, betraying the suppressed anger with her stance, as she looked out the rear screen door for the umpteenth time.
“It’s all right,” her mother insisted. “We can keep the food hot a while longer.”
“It is not all right, Mother,” Dawn retorted. “Randy knows what time we have supper. It’s rude and thoughtless of him to keep us waiting.”
“I’m sure he’s probably having such a good time playing with his new friends that he just hasn’t realized how late it is.” Her mother provided an excuse for the absent Randy. “It isn’t like him to deliberately stay gone without a reason.”
Once Dawn would have agreed with that, because Randy had always been well-mannered and considerate of others. But, since Simpson had died, there had been a couple of isolated incidents when Randy had been deliberately uncaring of the inconvenience he had caused others. She didn’t know whether it was a phase he was going through or if he was testing her authority now that Simpson wasn’t around to enforce the rules.
“We’ve already waited supper almost an hour for him,” Dawn reminded her mother. “It will be ruined if you try to keep it hot any longer. You two go ahead and eat. I’m going out to look for Randy.”
“There’s no need for that,” her father inserted. “Sooner or later, he’s going to come home. When he does, he’ll have to eat a cold supper. That will be a good lesson for a boy with Randy’s appetite.”
But if it was discipline he was unconsciously seeking by staying away—proof that Dawn cared enough for him—then the passive punishment of a cold supper would not accomplish anything. She couldn’t begin to guess the motive behind his absence, if there was one, but she intended to find out.
“Maybe so, but I’m going out to look for him just the same,” she stated.
“Aren’t you going to have supper with us first?” her mother protested as Dawn started out the door.
“No,” she paused long enough to answer. “And don’t bother to save anything for Randy and me. I’ll fix us something to eat when we come back.”
The three most logical places where Randy might be tarrying were the beach, the marina, or the area of Old Town. All of them were within walking distance, but Dawn decided she could cover the areas more quickly by car.
The first two were easy. She drove slowly past the public beach areas. Most of the bathers had forsaken the sand now that the sun was hanging low in the sky and the dinner hour had arrived. The same was true at the marina. The fishermen had already come in with their day’s catches and dispersed. Dawn didn’t find Randy among the few people still lingering in the two areas.
Old Town proved to be too congested with foot and wheel traffic. The sidewalk restaurants were crowded with customers combining the outdoor dining experience with people-watching. There were too many directions to look at the same time and still keep her attention on the road.
Giving up, Dawn parked the car and continued her search on foot. The more she looked, the more irritated she became. Always the thought was at the back of her mind that Randy might already be home while she was out here walking the streets looking for him. It didn’t improve her temper.
Intent on some boys Randy’s age engaged in horseplay across the street, Dawn didn’t see the tropically dressed pair of tourists until she had bumped into the man. At the last second, she tried to avoid the collision by stepping sideways, but she careened off the bikestand right into the man.
The impact staggered her. She stepped all over the man’s toes as she attempted to regain her balance. Finally his steadying hands managed to right her and get her sandaled feet off his toes.
“I’m sorry,” Dawn apologized profusely to the middle-aged man. “I’m afraid I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“No harm done,” he insisted with only a trace of a wince from the injury to his exposed toes in the leather beach thongs. The lovely sight before him seemed ample compensation for any harm she had done to him. His onlooking wife was forgotten as the male tourist got an eyeful of Dawn in her white shorts and clinging knit tanktop.
“Come on, Herb,” his wife snapped in irritation at the way he was ogling Dawn.
With a shrugging smile of regret, he stepped to the side to let Dawn pass by, stealing a glance at her rear view before his wife tugged him forward.
Her shin throbbed from its collision with the bikestand. Dawn paused to rub it and glance at the guilty object that had bruised it. Her gaze fastened on the old bike parked in the rack. It looked just like the one Randy had been using. Surely no two bikes would have matching dents and that funny rust pattern on the front fender. A closer look at the lock securing it to the stand confirmed that it was Randy’s. Her father’s initials were engraved into the base.
She straightened, looking intently up and down the street. Randy was around here somewhere, and not on his way home. But where? She’d looked in nearly every shop and walked all the streets.
Dawn had barely asked herself the question when she came up with the answer. “Mallory Pier, of course,” she murmured.
It had become the evening gathering place and center of activity until the sun went down. She struck out for the pier, certain now that she would find Randy there.
When she reached it, the pier was already crowded with people. There was an almost festival atmosphere about the place. Everyone came to watch the sun make its daily spectacular descent into the Gulf of Mexico. It was an ideal setting with a backdrop of all water and sky.
The mood of the revelers didn’t touch Dawn, too intent on finding her errant son to care about the party atmosphere. All sorts of amateur entertainers were displaying their talents to the assembled crowd. Passing a juggler, Dawn continued looking into faces. There were so many young people around that their features seemed to blur together, making her wonder if she’d be able to recognize Randy in this sea of teenagers and pre-teens.
Her patience had nearly worn thin when she finally saw him. He was standing at the end of a group, munching on a conch fritter and laughing at the antics of a mime. Randy said something to the man beside him, drawing the sparkling impatience of her gaze to him.
The anger drained from her with a rush a
s she recognized Slater. For an instant, he was all she could see. As if sensing he was being watched, his gaze suddenly scanned the crowd around him and came to a stop on her. She could almost feel the boring thrust of his gaze impaling her.
A thousand questions whirled around in her mind, all centered on finding the two of them together. There was only one way she could learn the answer. Dawn started forward, circling around the mime to approach them.
Randy wasn’t aware of her presence until he happened to look up and noticed Slater staring at someone. He turned, seeing her when she was nearly to him. Surprise flickered across his face.
“Mom. What are you doing here?” Randy voiced it, then seemed to suddenly realize who else was standing with him, and looked anxiously from one to the other.
The gray of Slater’s eyes was as hard as flint-stone. It was difficult for Dawn to reply normally when she was so aware of the bitter anger that had marked the end of their last meeting. There was a prickling sensitivity along her nerve ends.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, Randy. Your grandparents waited supper for nearly an hour,” she informed him, capable of only a mild rebuke now that she saw the reason that had detained him.
“Gosh, Mom,” Randy frowned in sincere contrition, and looked guiltily at the half-eaten conch fritter that had taken the edge off his appetite. “I didn’t realize it was that late. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure you are,” Dawn conceded. “The next time you need to keep better track of the time.”
“I will. It’s just that—” he paused to throw a glance at the silent man beside him, “—we’ve been talking. . . about things,” he finished lamely.
“I know.” It was a noncommittal answer, but it finally turned her attention to Slater.
All the while she had been talking to Randy she had been conscious of the angry vibrations emanating from Slater. She was conscious, too, of her slightly disheveled appearance. She wasn’t the picture of sophistication and confidence that she had been this afternoon.
