by Janet Dailey
“It isn’t that bad.” But Dawn winced as his finger probed around the edges of it, his touch basically gentle although it imparted pain. He firmly held her hand so she couldn’t pull it away from him.
“Do you have any antiseptic with you?” he asked.
“In the first aid kit,” she nodded.
“Go get it for me, Randy,” he ordered. “Before we put a bandage on it, it needs to be cleansed and treated.”
As Randy trotted off again, Dawn didn’t want to pursue the subject of her blister, certain it would only invite a lecture from Slater. And if she chose to clean the yard herself instead of having it done, it was entirely her own business. But she wasn’t in the mood to argue with him over that point.
“Why did you stop by?” she asked. “Do you have the final papers ready for the house?”
“No, they should be finished tomorrow,” he said, then explained, “I had the afternoon free so I stopped by your parents’ house to see if Randy wanted to go out on the boat with me. I promised to take him snorkeling some time.”
“He’d like that.” As sticky and overheated as she felt, the invitation sounded heavenly.
“Do you mean he doesn’t have to work in the yard this afternoon?” There was a devilish twinkle in his gray eyes that laughingly mocked her.
“Regardless of what you think, I’m not so foolish as to work outside in the heat of the afternoon,” Dawn retorted.
“Why don’t you come with us?” Slater invited unexpectedly.
“No.” Her refusal was quick, perhaps too quick.
“Why not?” he challenged, deliberately argumentative to wear down her resistance. “With Randy along as chaperon, I’ll have to lay off the booze.” She stiffened self-consciously at the oblique reference to her, knowing full well it was what she had wanted to avoid when she had initially turned down the invitation. “Sorry. I guess that joke was in poor taste.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured.
“I’d still like you to come with us,” he said more quietly. “Being the father of a ten-year-old boy is still new to me. It gets a bit awkward between us sometimes. I’m never sure what I should say to him, or what we’re supposed to talk about. I think it would be easier on Randy if you came along to smooth out the rough spots.”
She listened to the run of his voice, hearing its calm reasoning and persuasive tone. It made sense. Plus it had been years since she had gone snorkeling in these clear waters. The combination made for an irresistible appeal.
“I’ll come,” she agreed.
Randy came trotting up, slowing to walk heavily the last couple of steps. “I brought the whole kit ‘cause I wasn’t sure which you wanted,” he said to Slater and opened the box to show him the contents.
“How would you like to go snorkeling this afternoon?” Slater asked as he removed a bottle of disinfectant to cleanse the blistered sore.
“Really?” Randy perked up with interest.
“Your mother’s going to come with us.” He doused the area as Dawn hissed in a breath at the burning sting it made.
“Great!” His enthusiasm at the news was a total endorsement of the plan.
Slater dabbed on some antiseptic before pressing the adhesive bandage over the sore. “Get all these tools put away and I’ll give you a ride home so you can get cleaned up and ready to go.”
In record time it seemed, the car was rolling to a stop in her parents’ driveway. The motor idled while Slater waited for them to climb out.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said.
“We’ll be ready,” Dawn promised, although it just barely gave them time to shower, change, and grab a bite of lunch.
As he backed out of the driveway, she curved an arm around Randy’s shoulders and turned them both toward the house. When the sound of the motor had faded away, Randy tipped his head back to look at her with an anxious frown.
“Do you think he likes me?” he asked earnestly. “I mean really likes me—not just because he should ‘cause he’s my father.” He didn’t pause for Dawn to answer. “I want him to like me so much, but sometimes I get all tongue-tied and can’t think of anything to say.”
Her expression softened. “I’ll bet he has that same problem, too.”
“I doubt it.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe in the gravel.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, though,” Dawn insisted. “After you get to know each other better, all the awkwardness will go away.”
Randy’s concern was almost an echo of the sentiment Slater had expressed to her earlier, and confirmed that her presence would be useful. It wasn’t something she was just pretending so she would have an excuse to spend an afternoon with Slater.
Chapter Seven
The class of boats tied up at the marina ran the full gamut from sport fishermen with fly bridges to catamarans to houseboats, and anything and everything in between. Dawn silently admired the sleek lines of the thirty-foot cabin cruiser they approached. Slater had already pointed it out as belonging to him.
When she was close enough to read the lettering on the side, she looked at it and laughed, “Homesick? What kind of name is that for a boat?”
Instead of being offended, Slater treated her to an indulgent look. “Whenever I get fed up with the business grind and wish I was back lazing around and living off the sea, I take the boat out for a couple of hours—or a couple of days. In other words, I get ‘homesick.’”
The explanation silenced her amusement at the name. She knew the drastic change his lifestyle had undergone, and the transition couldn’t have been an easy one. She was glad he hadn’t severed all ties with the sea. He had loved it so, familiar with its every mood. It was natural for him to miss it, and the Homesick would take him back to it whenever he wanted to go.
After they were on board, Slater glanced at Randy. “Do you want to cast off the lines while I start the engines?”
“Sure,” he agreed quickly, then snapped a salute. “I mean, aye-aye, sir.”
Slater saluted him back, smiling faintly, then headed to the cruiser’s bridge area. Dawn followed him, lifting the hair out of her eyes when the wind off the sea blew it across her face. Over her black swimsuit with its swirling tiger-eye pattern, she wore a white lace beach jacket, belted at the waist. She stood to one side of Slater, out of his way, and looked out at the vast expanse of water shimmering under a high sun.
“Whatever happened to the Seaspray?” The minute she asked the question, she regretted it. Memories of that boat were all tied up and intertwined with the memory of their romance.
There was a long second when he appeared to be preoccupied checking gauges. “Initially I was going to do something dramatic,” he said, looking out to see how Randy was doing but not glancing at her. There was no inflection in his voice that might have indicated he was disturbed by the question. She could just as easily have asked him about the weather. “—like towing her into deep water and sinking her to the bottom, hoping she’d take your ghost with her. In the end, I sold her to some guy from New York and used the money to buy a partnership in a shrimp boat. From there, I started building my little empire.” The last phrase was used wryly, managing to emphasize the smallness of his wealth in proportion to someone of Simpson Lord’s calibre.
“I’m glad you sold her,” Dawn said because she felt some kind of response was necessary.
“A month after he bought her, the guy ran her into a reef,” Slater informed her. “The Seaspray broke up and went to the bottom. But she didn’t take your ghost with her.”
Maybe it was the blandness in his announcement that made her suddenly so restless. Dawn really didn’t know. “I’ll go see if Randy needs any help,” she murmured and moved away.
The boat’s engines were kept a notch or two above idle speed until they had cleared the harbor, then Slater opened them up. The racing wind seemed to blow away Dawn’s tension and allowed her to relax and enjoy the ride.
After Slater pointed out their destination
on a nautical chart, she and Randy plotted a course to it. Each took a turn at the controls, and the hour it took to reach the spot on the map flashed by.
They anchored the cruiser in the deep water just off a coral reef and swam ashore. It only took Randy a few lessons to become accustomed to the use of the snorkeling equipment before he was initiated to the underwater beauty of a coral reef.
For Dawn, it was a matter of rediscovering all the little delights. It was a sport of wondrous beauty and serenity, the waters crystal clear and the colors of the fish and strange plant life displaying a rainbow brilliance. She was totally at peace—most of the time.
With a ten-year-old boy on the scene, there was bound to be some horseplay in the water. Usually it was between Randy and Slater but occasionally she was drawn into the playful fray. It just added to the fun of the afternoon.
All too soon it seemed, Slater was signaling them it was time to swim back to the boat. He was already on board when Dawn climbed the swimming ladder. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of her arm and hauled her onto the deck. Water streamed off of her as she looked up at him, smiling, a little out of breath from that last long swim, but blissfully contented.
His gaze glittered warmly onto her upturned face. “Enjoy yourself?”
“Yes,” she breathed out the very definite answer. “I’d forgotten how wonderful it is out there.”
She moved away so he could help Randy aboard. Exhausted but happy, she sank onto the aft deck, her legs curled to the side, and picked up a towel to towel-dry her hair. Randy was bubbling with enthusiasm over the adventure, talking non-stop from the second his feet touched the deck.
When he finally had to stop for a breath, Slater inserted, “It’s late. If you two are going to get home in time for supper, we’re going to have to get under way pretty soon.”
“I’ll help,” Randy volunteered.
Dawn didn’t even make an attempt to move, except to straighten her legs out and lie back to let the sun evaporate the salt water from her skin. When she heard the fore and aft anchors being raised, she smiled and settled more comfortably on the hard deck. With two males on board, her help wasn’t needed. She intended to simply lie there and soak up the sunshine.
The deck vibrated pleasantly with the purring throb of the engines. Her eyes were closed against the bright light of the sun. She was conscious of the boat’s movement and the warmth of the sun on her skin, tempered by the coolness of an eddying wind. For a time she’d heard Slater and Randy conversing back and forth, but now there was only the sound of the boat and the splash of the water.
Something—a sixth sense maybe—seemed to warn her that she wasn’t alone. She let her lashes raise just a crack and looked through the slitted opening. Slater was standing at her feet, silently looking at her. Her eyes opened a little wider.
A disturbing heat began to warm her blood. The way he was looking at her gave Dawn the uncanny feeling that in his mind, he was covering her. Without half-trying, she could feel the heat of his sun-warmed body against her skin and the pressure of his mouth on her lips, and the excitement building in her limbs.
It was a mental seduction, and all the more disturbing because of its intensity. It was like a spell being cast on her. Dawn knew she had to break it or it might cease to be mental.
She moved, shifting onto her side first to grab her beach jacket then rising to her feet. Without trying to make it seem deliberate, she turned her back to him while she turned out the jacket to locate the sleeves.
“Are we nearly there?” she asked to shatter the unbearable silence.
“About twenty minutes out.”
His hands touched her waist, then slid around to the front to draw her backward against his length. Her heart did a funny little flip against her rib cage as one hand slid low on her stomach and the other curved to the underswell of her breasts. Spontaneous longing quivered through her. He bent his head and nibbled at her bare shoulder, adding to the effects the arousing caress of his hands created. Her fingers curled onto his forearms and weakly attempted to pull his hands away.
“You swore off drinking, Slater,” Dawn reminded him in a voice that was all husky and disturbed.
“Yes, I swore off drinking,” he admitted, his mouth moving near her ear, stimulating its sensitive shell-opening. “But there’s no harm in caressing the bottle the wine comes in.”
She turned into him, using her arms to wedge a space between them. “What will that accomplish?” Frustration flashed in the blue of her eyes as she discovered it was no less stimulating to feel her hips arched against his hard, male outline.
“I don’t know.” He locked his hands together in the small of her back and eyed her lazily. “But you’re going to ache almost as much as I will.”
His mouth skimmed her face but didn’t taste her intoxicating lips. She guessed he was testing his self-control and tried not to let him see that hers was stretched to the limit. When he finally drew away, she had the satisfaction of noting he was breathing no easier than she was. But there was also no question that he had aroused an ache that was slow to fade.
After they had docked the boat at the marina, they trooped to the car, none of them talking very much—not even Randy. He squeezed into the back of the Corvette and slumped tiredly.
“Boy, am I beat,” he murmured.
“After working all morning and swimming all afternoon, you should be.” Dawn knew she wasn’t far away from exhaustion as she slid into the passenger seat. She was running on nerves, alert to every movement of Slater. “You’ll have to get to bed early tonight,” she told Randy. “It’s work again in the morning.”
“Don’t listen to her, Randy,” Slater advised and inserted the key in the ignition. “You don’t have to work in the morning.” Dawn opened her mouth to protest this usurption of her authority. Father or not, he had no right to countermand her orders without discussing it with her in private first. “Neither do you,” he glanced at her, a small smile showing.
“I wasn’t aware you had the authority to give me the day off,” she replied a trifle stiffly.
“Let’s just say that tomorrow you don’t have to work in the yard,” he said as if that avoided a confrontation.
“And why don’t I?” Dawn challenged.
“Because while you two were getting cleaned up this noon, I took a crew of laborers over and had them finish the yard this afternoon.”
“You had no right to do that!” Her stunned surprise was giving way to anger.
“Maybe I had no right to do it, but it’s done,” he stated. “If I had known you were going to try to clear that underbrush yourself, I would have done it to start out with—before you ever bought the house.” He sliced her a short look. “I don’t like the idea of either one of you handling all those sharp knives and blades. One careless mistake and you could cut yourself open to the bone.”
“You could have discussed this with me first.” She didn’t argue against his logic, because she had been leery about Randy handling some of the sharper tools.
“I remember what it’s like to argue with you when your mind’s made up about something,” Slater said dryly and shifted into reverse gear. “It’s easier to have the discussion after the fact.”
“I’m glad you hired those guys,” Randy yawned from the back seat. “That was hard work.”
“And it didn’t hurt you a bit,” Dawn flashed.
“I never said it did,” Randy defended himself. “I’m just glad I don’t have to do it again tomorrow morning.”
“If you want to teach him work ethics, have him scrub floors or wash windows,” Slater advised. “Going back to the basics is very noble, but there comes a point where it can be carried too far. A woman and a child clearing a jungle is taking it too far.”
“So maybe it was,” she admitted grudgingly, aware it had been a penny-pinching decision. “But since you took it upon yourself to hire those workmen, you can pay them, too.”
“I planned on it.” There was a t
race of amusement in his voice. “You never did like letting go of your money, did you?”
“No.” She turned her head to look out the side window, subsiding into silence.
Her mother looked around the front room with an approving nod. “It’s looking so nice, Dawn.”
“It’s really beginning to look like a home, isn’t it?” she said with satisfaction.
Half of their personal belongings had arrived by truck the same day Dawn received the deed to the house. The furniture and linen didn’t arrive until the following week, and it took nearly the whole of another to get everything unpacked and organized.
In retrospect, it probably would have been best if she and Randy hadn’t moved in until after everything was done. But Dawn had wanted them to be on their own, even if it meant living in the house while she was still trying to bring order to the chaos. Trying to juggle meals, dishwashing, bedmaking, and daily cleaning with the uncrating of boxes had only prolonged the day when it would all be done.
“And it’s all going to look so much better when these drapes are hung,” Dawn declared, walking over to the green and white sofa to pick up a freshly ironed panel. “They look beautiful, Mother.”
“That material didn’t turn out to be the easiest to sew, but I think they turned out rather well,” she replied modestly.
The windows in the front room were odd-sized. After several fruitless shopping trips, Dawn had been finally forced to accept the drapes in the front room would have to be custom-made. She was spared the exorbitant price a decorator would have charged when her mother volunteered to make them.
“Those windows have been bare for so long.” Dawn held the drape up, picturing the soft green color against the white walls. She looked at her mother and smiled. “Just imagine, I’ll have privacy tonight. No one will be able to see in.”
“Are you going to put them up tonight? Do you want me to stay and help you?” her mother offered.
“No, I can manage. You’ve done more than enough,” Dawn insisted.
“If you’re sure—” She didn’t persist in her offer. “—I need to get home and start supper for your father. Randy’s helping him in the garage. He’s welcome to eat with us so you don’t have to stop to fix him anything.”
