Patricia Potter (20 page)

He felt that curious split within himself again. Part of him wanting to stay, the other part warning him to leave.

“More coffee?”

The waiter was back, and Michael hadn’t even noticed him approaching. God, what was happening to him? He looked around for Hans, but thankfully he didn’t see him.

He nodded, and the waiter refilled his cup. Michael’s hand reached for it, his fingers accidentally brushing Meara’s. Or was it accidental?

Michael realized as skin burned skin that he no longer knew, that he no longer had complete control of himself. His eyes met hers, and once again he was lost in the swirling emerald brightness, in the soft plea that reached wordlessly out to him.

The tightness in his middle became a vise, and he felt life squeezing out of him, a life that could be restored only by touching her. But he dared not, not with the possibility of Hans lurking around, spying.

He could almost laugh at the thought. Almost laugh with pain, with the horribly poor and ironic joke. He exhaled deeply, trying to retain some sanity, some balance. Michael felt Meara’s hand move over his, as if she discerned the turmoil in him, the deep, biting hurt, the confusion.

“I have to talk to you,” she said softly. “Later, perhaps. Alone?”

Her voice was full of uncertainty, with an obvious fear of being rebuffed, and he understood what he had been doing to her these last several days. He had avoided her because he thought it best in the long run, but was it? Was there some way he could try to make her understand?

“You’re free this afternoon?”

She nodded, her eyes flaring with hope, and again he felt torn between what was right, and what was easy. Except nothing was easy. Nothing. Nothing was painless. Nothing would be painless.

There was no best thing. No right thing. Yet he felt a sudden buoyant hope that had no basis in common sense. It was just there, a sense of elation that he would again spend time with her, feel for a few more hours what it was to be loved and wanted. What it was to love in return. To feel the bright blast of sunshine in what had been a dark shadowy place.

Damning himself for every kind of fool, he nonetheless continued in his folly. “I’ll arrange for the motorboat this afternoon. We’ll go over to Saint Simon’s Island.”

Away from prying eyes. Hans’s eyes. Sanders’s eyes. Away from the island.

“Commander!”

He turned around to see a dripping Peter standing in front of him. He forced a smile at the expectant face. “Hullo,” he greeted the boy.

“I swam across the pool twenty times,” Peter said proudly.

“I noticed. A regular little shark.”

Peter puffed with pride. “Yes, sir. I was hoping you would race me.”

Michael considered the request gravely. He liked Peter very much. If he ever had a son…

“I think you might destroy my ego,” he finally said, quite seriously.

Peter flashed his wide grin. “I hope so, Commander.”

“That’s a challenge I can’t resist,” Michael said, pushing the chair from the table and rising. “I have to change. In ten minutes?”

“Me, too,” chimed Tara.

Meara laughed. “Why don’t you race me?”

“All right,” Tara said.

“The last one in is a dead duck,” Meara said as she glanced gleefully at Michael. The world was suddenly a wonderful place again. She would have this afternoon with Michael. Her heart pounded fiercely as she took several steps to the side of the pool and gracefully dived in, aware that he was watching.

But when she came up, his back was to her, and he was moving toward the clubhouse.

She heard Tara scream with delight as the girl paddled out to the middle of the pool, and she told herself it didn’t matter that Michael had left. He would soon be back. And there was this afternoon.

This afternoon. Her hands squeezed the water, throwing up handfuls in pure delight. This afternoon.

Hans stooped over a hedge and watched the girl in the pool. She was too thin for his taste, her hair too red, but she was striking. There was no question about that.

Something about her bothered him, and he wasn’t quite sure what. Perhaps it was the way von Steimen seemed to tense when she was around. Hans had asked his partner about her and received a curt answer. But then all of von Steimen’s answers were curt.

Hans would be glad when this business was finished. He hated his subservient pose, and he despised the people he met. The servants were groveling, the guests condescending, looking at him as if he were less than a man. And he worried about von Steimen. He had never trusted the man or his commitment to this job, and his uneasiness had grown during his few conversations with him. The man was deliberately keeping him in ignorance, answering his questions with short impatience and contempt.

But there had been nothing concrete he could pinpoint. He had his own radio in his room in Brunswick, a radio that von Steimen knew nothing about. Hans had, so far, resisted the temptation to use it, to double-check von Steimen. The U-boat was to surface every other night at midnight, but he had no proof that anything was wrong. Only a vague feeling. And that, he knew, might well be a product of his deep dislike of von Steimen. He did not want to look like a fool.

But he had watched von Steimen very, very carefully. The man seemed to be doing exactly as he was told, mixing with the other members. Von Steimen had already told him his party was set on the night of the raid, and that everything was going according to plan. There was no real reason to doubt him.

Until today, when he had seen the girl touch von Steimen’s hand and the way von Steimen had responded, the way his eyes had lingered on the girl.

His hands moved as he considered the incident at the pool and minutes later when von Steimen returned. He watched the man race the boy across the pool while the woman watched. Hans didn’t like the sound of laughter, not at all. Not from the woman, not from the boy. Particularly not from von Steimen.

His apprehension increased.

Yet, he told himself, he had been watching von Steimen carefully, and there had been no previous indication of interest in the girl, nothing more than what seemed accidental meetings. It probably meant nothing. Saturday, it would all be over. He would be on a submarine back to Germany, and probably to a Knight’s Cross and promotion. He could already see the pride in his son’s eyes.

Hans turned back to the roses he was trimming. He would keep an even closer eye on von Steimen all the same. Perhaps he would even arrange to stay on the island tonight without von Steimen’s knowledge.

Help was scarce on the island now, and an offer to work late and stay in the employees’ dormitory would probably be met with gratitude.

He looked back at the pool. Von Steimen had left. The girl and the two children were drying themselves, preparing to leave. Perhaps he was being overly concerned.

Perhaps.

Chapter Ten

T
HE BOAT BOUNCED
up and down the swells, splashing cold water on its two occupants as it darted through the pewter-colored water.

The day was cooling, the sun shadowed by increasingly ponderous-looking clouds. The water was frothing more than usual, its usual blue color gray with snowy caps.

But nothing could take the fine edge from the day for Meara. It could have been the most splendid, glorious day in all history. Her every nerve tingled with the nearness of Michael.

She leaned back in the seat and watched him with pleasure. He handled the boat with such easy competency, even through the choppy waves, that she could readily see him at the helm of a mammoth ship, guiding it into port.

She could, in fact, imagine him at the wheel of a two-hundred-year old sailing ship, his gold hair catching the sun as he pirated his way across the seas. There was something in that proud tilt of his chin, the icy blue eyes, and the lean strength of his body that summoned images of adventure and danger.

Meara silently scolded herself for such romantic fancy. She had never indulged in such nonsense before although she had read hundreds of historical novels, just as she read everything she could find.

Perhaps it was the giddy, joyous feeling his presence created in her. Perhaps the way he looked at her with tenderness. Perhaps the graceful movements of his body as he turned toward her and reached out a hand in reassurance after they bounced over a particularly contentious wave.

He hadn’t needed to take her hand. She felt very safe with him. She had felt safe with him from the beginning. Physically safe if not emotionally secure. But now she felt that too, because each time he looked at her he couldn’t disguise the sudden softening of his expression although she could tell he tried.

She had been bitterly afraid earlier in the day that he had changed his mind about the trip to Saint Simons Island. A servant from the clubhouse had presented himself at the Connor cottage with a note, and for a moment Meara feared that he had decided against their outing.

But no. The note merely asked her to meet him at the dock. He had an errand to run near there, he’d said. She hadn’t questioned the request but only felt a surge of delight that she would be with him. She’d known he was fighting something within himself, and that whatever it was concerned her. But she thought that if she had enough time she could convince him that she was indeed grown up and knew what she was doing, knew the risks, and was willing to take them without regret.

Michael had been at the dock when she’d arrived, and he wasted no time in handing her into the boat and shoving off. They had been there no more than two or three minutes. She hopefully attributed his efficiency to his desire to be with her, as she desired so much to be alone with him.

There was little conversation. The wind blew strong, and the waves were rough. Michael focused all his concentration on keeping the boat on course and as steady as possible. Meara didn’t need words; it was enough to be with him, to look at him, to share the warm pleasure that was always a part of his presence.

It gave her time to wonder about him. After Sanders’s interest, she had become even more curious, more intrigued. It continued to bother her that she knew remarkably little about him, although he had not appeared to avoid her questions. He was, she had realized, a master at deflecting them.

But she had today, and the cloudy day was magnificent, the sea spray invigorating, the wind intoxicating. There was only the sky and earth as boundaries. Her hand crept out to his, which rested on the wheel. His fingers entwined around her hand, clasping it tightly until another wave bounced them. His gaze returned to the sea in front of him, and then he released her.

Still, there was an intimacy between them, as if their thoughts were touching, if not their bodies. A quiet intimacy that needed no words, only each another’s presence.

Because he went slower in the rough water than the boat’s regular speed, the trip to Saint Simons took more than an hour. When they arrived, a car was waiting for them, and Michael directed the driver to the Cloister Hotel, which was located nearby on adjoining Sea Island.

Michael smiled when he saw her surprised look. “They told me about this place at the clubhouse and I phoned ahead for reservations for tea.”

Meara had heard of the Cloister, but had never been there. It was a public hotel, unlike the Jekyll Island facility, yet it had attracted some of the outstanding celebrities of the time, including actress Sarah Churchill, Eugene O’Neill, Sherwood Anderson, Lillian Gish, Bennett Cerf, and even Charles Lindbergh.

Meara looked down at her clothes, a casual sundress and sandals.

“You look lovely,” he said, interpreting her glance and taking her elbow. He helped her into a car waiting there to carry them the short distance to the hotel.

The next hours were pure fairy-tale magic. In some ways, the hotel was similar to the Jekyll Island clubhouse: elegantly comfortable, without pretension. A man played the piano while Meara sipped tea and Michael a brandy, and delicious sandwiches and pastries were served. Michael was, by far, the most striking man there, and his attention was completely on her, his dark blue eyes fastened intently on her face as if memorizing every detail.

Nothing was real. Everything was real, particularly the racing of her heart and the quickening of her blood, the elation she felt at being with him. All the questions she was going to ask fled her mind. She wanted nothing to shadow the raw desire in his eyes.

Then a twisted smile curved his mouth as if he realized his face was saying too much.

“I’ll miss you, Meara,” he said softly. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“Will you write?”

His eyes were bleak as he seemed to consider her request. “I’m not very good at that.”

“But I am,” she said impishly. “I can make up for both of us.”

“I’m afraid the mail’s very unreliable,” Michael replied grimly. “I don’t want you to wait and worry.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“I’ll keep up with you through
Life
.” A teasing note was back in his voice but, it sounded forced.

“Give me at least five months to make a name for myself,” Meara answered, her voice gently mocking herself.