Her Name Will Be Faith (2 page)

"Footballer, eh?" he inquired.

"Why, yes, Mr White," Connors agreed.
"UCLA."

"I hate football,"
White informed him. "Kiley tells me you can forecast
the weather."

"That's my job, Mr
White," Connors said, refusing to be overawed.

"So tell me what sort of a summer we're gonna
have."

Kiley was back to his finger
twisting; he knew that JC never joked, and
would
remember whatever he was told.

"It'll be hot," Connors said.

"Yeah? That's easy. It's goddamned hot
already."

"It'll be hotter,"
Connors insisted. "And there'll be more hurricane
activity than usual."

"Now, how the hell can you tell that?"

"Because the ocean is much
warmer than is usual at this time of year,
Mr
White. Warm water spawns tropical storms."

"Richard is an expert on hurricanes, JC,"
Kiley put in, eagerly.

"We don't have hurricanes in
New York," White pointed out. "You're
not in Florida now. Have a good day."

Kiley was waggling his eyebrows,
and Connors nodded. "Thank you,
Mr
White," he said, and left the office.

"Seventy-five thousand,"
White remarked, and pressed his buzzer.
"Alice,
get me Mike Donnelly."

"Senior, or junior, JC?"

"For Chrissake, when I want
to talk to some kid I'll tell you," JC
growled and released the switch to glare at Kiley.
"Seventy-five thou
sand." He
pointed. "He'd better be as good as you say, Kiley."

The phone buzzed. "I have Mr Donnelly senior, Mr
White."

Calthrop White arranged his features into a smile, as
if hoping thereby
to influence his voice.
"Mike, you old son of a gun. How's it going? 
Yeah, damned hot. How's the boy? ... Already? I
thought the yacht-racing
season
didn't start until June? ... Is that a fact. Mike, I want to float a stock
issue." This time he had to listen somewhat longer before
he could speak again. "Oh, sure, sure,"
he said at last. "I read my papers.
But this has to be, Mike. There's a franchise coming up in England this
autumn... I reckon 125 million will do it... Sure,
Mike, sure. I can
swing my board, and
my stockholders. For Chrissake, most of them are
relatives anyway. Listen, why don't you come over and talk about it ...
Sure, bring Michael if you want, whenever he can
spare the time from
playing with his little
boat. But make it soon ... It has to be this summer,
Mike. Sure, sure, but in my book, nothing is
impossible if you really
get to it.
You come on over. Love to Babs and the kids." He replaced the phone,
leaned back in his chair, gazed at Kiley. "Goddamned Irish shit," he
remarked. "Can't be done, he says. What the hell is a stockbroker for,
Kiley? You tell me that. Racing goddamned little
yachts up and down
the coast?"

The automobile lights flickered
under Lawson Garr's hand, and the
rollover garage door lifted to allow the sleek white
Cadillac to slide into
place beside Belle's Lotus. They could hear the kitchen phone bleeping
as the key turned in the lock,
and Belle threw her purse on to the counter,
kicking off her high heels as she grabbed the
receiver. Blonde and
statuesquely
beautiful – she took after her mother, Barbara Donnelly –she moved
with an elegant grace even after several cocktails. "One of
your clients," she said,
passing the phone to her husband and grabbing
her purse and shoes back again.

"Okay, I'll be right behind
you." Lawson sat on a stool, pulling a pad open towards him. "Good
evening, Lawson Garr here. Can I help you?"
Tall, bronzed and athletic, he was the perfect mate
for the American
girl,
at least physically; the attraction had been instant and mutual,
parent-proof even if it meant
Belle being married to a Limey ex-colonial
and exiled two thousand miles from Bognor, Connecticut.
That Belle
shared
Lawson's extravagant tastes, which made them a very unstable
couple, financially – real estate in Nassau had
not exactly boomed since Independence – was a more serious cause of worry
to Mike and Babs Donnelly. But Lawson worked as hard as he played. "Why,
hello, Mr McKinley," he said. "Nice to hear from you ..."

Liar, Belle thought, as she closed
the bedroom door. Who the hell
wants to
hear from a client at 11.40 at night? Goddamn it, some people
have no consideration ... shit, what an evening!
Why the hell did Lawson find it necessary to entertain so much? The people
tonight had been gross.
Fat, moronic
slobs. How the hell did crumbs like that come to have
money enough for a
$400,000 holiday home, anyway?

She put her dress on a hanger and threw her undies
into the clothes hamper before smoothing cleansing milk over her face; the
weather was unnaturally warm for the time of year and she was a mess of sweat
– but she was too tired even to shower. Lawson was ages, and she was
nearly asleep when he came in, but one look at his face brought her bolt upright
in bed. "Sweetheart? What is it? You look as if you've just fallen off the
Empire State."

"I think I just did!" He sat beside her.
"That was McKinley."

"I heard," Belle said.
Fabian McKinley was one of the wealthiest men in the Bahamas. He owned land
everywhere, and in particular,
from her point of view, he owned most of Dolphin Point, the headland
on Eleuthera – the most
north-easterly of the Bahamian islands –
where the elder Donnellys had a holiday home; he was not the ideal
neighbor. "What's on his mind now? Josh been
pinching his limes
again?"

Josh was the Donnelly caretaker.

Lawson might not have heard her. "He wants to
sell," he said. Belle sat up. "Not Dolphin Point?"

"Every goddamned acre. Forty-two."

"But why?"

"Search me. It's not my business to ask."

"But he wants you to handle the sale?"

"Exclusive for three months. Because I know the
area, he says. The asking price is one million US dollars."

"Oh, boy," Belle said.
"Maybe he's not such a crumb after all. A
million ... you'll get twenty thousand, Lawson. Oh,
boy. We'll be able
to
keep the boat." Suddenly she was anxious. "Do you think you can find
a buyer? A million is a lot of loot."

"Listen, doll," Lawson said. "McKinley
may only want a million, and that is in line with current prices, sure –
for undeveloped land. But I am
damned sure
that I could triple that, by splitting it up into lots, laying
water and
electricity, having plans drawn up, maybe even starting building."

"You mean ..." Belle frowned at him.
"Develop it yourself?"

"Why not?"

"Two reasons. One, as you've been appointed sole
agent, it wouldn't be ethical. Two, we don't have a million dollars; last time
I checked the account we didn't even have a million cents."

"Granted. But your old man does. Or could raise
it."

Belle's frown deepened. "Big Mike?"

"Why not? Don't he and your brother claim to be
the biggest stockbrokers on Wall Street?"

"Not the biggest. Only the best. And that's open
to opinion. Anyway, stockbrokers handle a lot of money. They don't necessarily
keep it."

"Are you going to tell me
that your dad couldn't lay hands on a million
dollars if he had to?"

"Maybe. But he doesn't have to."

"Even if it means a quick million profit. One for
him, one for us. Fifty-fifty. A million dollars, Belle. God, think what we
could do with that! Pay off the mortgage, get those bills off our back, keep
the boat ... hell, we could buy a new boat. You know what I've always wanted? A
Hatteras. Goddamn, a 42-foot Hatteras ... they're the tops."

Belle allowed herself to dream for
a moment. Then she said, "But
would
it be legal?"

"What can possibly be illegal about it? McKinley
wants to sell, I find him a buyer. That's what I'm paid to do."

"Yes, but you know you can
get more out of the land than he does.
And
you're going to take that profit. I mean, it sounds a bit like insider dealing
to me. Shouldn't you be telling McKinley all of this?"

Lawson leaned forward and kissed her on the nose.
"McKinley isn't a
good listener. And
who's to know? The land goes on the market, and
some rich Connecticut
stockbroker snaps it up."

"Who just happens to be your father-in-law."

"So I told him it's worth
it. There's nothing illegal in that. It's my
business, for God's sake. And a million dollars, Belle. Just think of
it. A million dollars!"

Belle thought of it. "But what about Neal Robson?
Now he's actually bought down here."

"Forget it," Lawson said. "This has to
be kept strictly in the family.
Anyway,
Robson wants his set-up kept a secret until he can tell your folks
in
the grand manner. Silly twit."

Belle nodded her agreement.
"Think Dad'll go for it?" she asked.

"I'll be on the phone to him first thing tomorrow
morning," Lawson promised.

"This morning, you mean," Belle yawned.

The sky was clear blue, just a
little hazy with afternoon heat, and the
water flat calm; the bridge was perfectly mirrored as the
Mercedes sedan
crossed the river to
Newport after the four-hour drive up from New York.

Josephine Donnelly hadn't even
paused to drop off the bags at the
country cottage she and her husband maintained in Bognor,
Connecticut;
she'd
do that on her way back to Pinewoods, her parents-in-law's house:
she was in a hurry to welcome
Michael home from the first race of the
season – and try not to think about the rest of the
summer, when she
would hardly see him at
all.

A short, slender English girl in
her early thirties, Jo Donnelly wore her
wavy dark-brown hair cut very short, leaving her crisp,
handsome features
exposed and compelling.

Her children sat together in the
back, where they would distract her least by their constant wrangling; Owen
Michael was ten, and Tamsin eight. Now they bubbled with excitement as they
rolled into the yacht
owners'
car park near
Esmeralda's
usual berth; she had no sooner braked
than they were tumbling out to race along the
pontoons.

Jo followed more slowly, running
her fingers through her windswept hair, her grey-brown eyes searching the
close-packed yachts. She wore
slacks and a loose shirt and sandals, and still attracted glances from
the
various crews.
She had a slim waist and breasts that filled her B-cup bras
well, but her stomach muscles were
flabby – and little wonder; it was
years since she had played any serious tennis or squash,
and in fact she
had
found little time for any sort of exercise since returning to full-time
journalism.

And now her own heart was beating
pleasantly; Michael might only have
been away a few days, but it was the first race of the
season, and even if
she
dreaded and resented the next twenty weeks, he was a compellingly
attractive man. And not only
because he was her husband. All the Donnellys
were compellingly attractive, from Big Mike and
Babs, through their so
beautiful daughters, Belle and Marcia, to their so macho sons, Michael
junior and Dale. The family
bubbled, in a way her own had never done–her
father had been an officer in the British army and had
believed it weakness to reveal emotion of any kind. Which was probably why she
had been instantly
attracted to the handsome
American boy doing a year at Cambridge when
she was up reading English
Literature.

She sighed, as she spotted the
40-foot yawl; it had all been so different,
then.

Owen Michael had seen the yawl too. "There's
Dad!" he shouted.

Michael Donnelly, junior, tall and
powerfully built, waved to them,
and hurried across the intervening decks. He jumped on to
the pontoon
and swept
the kids up into his arms ... then turned to Jo. She slid her
hands round his back, feeling the
warmth through his shirt. His arms
hugged her, as his mouth found hers: whenever they kissed
she felt dizzy
with happiness.