ISLAND OF LOVE Page 2

  Jerry raised one heavy dark eyebrow, a habit Anne had come to deeply mistrust, and pursed his lips in a dubious expression of disbelief. “‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’” he quoted softly. “Come on, Anne, what’s going on here?”

  Anne didn’t know what to do. If she tried to speak, she knew she’d only end up sputtering, but she had to say something, anything to wipe that unnerving, smug, knowing look off his face. She opened her mouth, hoping something would come to her, but just then the telephone on his desk jangled.

  As he turned from her to snatch it up, annoyance etched in every feature, she slumped back in her chair, grateful for the reprieve.

  “Yes!” he snarled into the telephone. He listened for a moment, still frowning. “Oh, hell, I guess you’d better put her on.”

  There was a short pause. Anne watched in growing amusement as he tried to reassemble his features into something besides the annoyance he obviously felt at the interruption. It wasn’t a success, however, since his dark eyes remained narrowed, the firm jaw hard. One long leg was swinging back and forth—a typical gesture from a man with more pent-up energy than Anne had ever encountered in another human being.

  From his reaction, she knew the caller had to be one of the tall svelte blondes he was notorious for squiring around town. If office gossip could be believed, Jerry’s amorous adventures were as intense as they were short, and, from the signs, he was getting ready to bid farewell to yet another one. Anne got up to go, but he waved her back down in the chair, a sure sign that the conversation was going to be short.

  “Oh, hello, Claudia,” he said at last into the telephone.

  As he listened to the clearly audible squawk coming from the other end of the line, the frown deepened and the leg began to swing back and forth more rapidly. Anne was a little embarrassed at having to witness his discomfiture, but relieved that at least it got her off the hook so that she could recover her own composure. It was also rather entertaining to see him in action.

  “Listen,” he said, at last, obviously cutting Claudia short. “I’m tied up right now. I’ll call you back.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he broke the connection. He stood there for a few moments, slightly turned away from Anne, his hand still on the receiver, his gaze fixed on some point out of the window. He was rubbing his chin pensively, as though plotting his next move, and Anne had to feel a little sorry for poor Claudia, who was clearly about to get dumped. In Anne’s view no man was worth the kind of treatment Jerry dished out to his blondes, who still seemed to pursue him relentlessly.

  However, watching him now, she had to admit that he was an attractive man, if you liked the aggressive dynamo type. There was a kind of restless coiled energy in him that made it seem as if he was always in motion, even when he was sitting still. He couldn’t be called handsome—his features were too strong for that, and his thick unruly shock of dark mahogany colored hair always seemed to need cutting. His best feature was his eyes, a really beautiful deep liquid shade of brown, and he was well-built, in a lithe, sinewy kind of way.

  Just then he crossed over to her side of the desk and perched on the edge of it, his arms folded in front of him, a challenging look in his eyes.

  “Well,” he said.

  She eyed him warily. “Well, what?’.’

  He pointed a finger at her. “What’s that knowing smile all about?”

  She sobered instantly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to smile.”

  “You’ve got something on your mind, haven’t you?” He tossed his head toward the telephone. “About that.”

  She gave him her most innocent look. “Well, you’re wrong. It’s none of my business what you get up to with your blondes, although I must say“

  “See?” he crowed gleefully, waving a hand in the air. “I knew it.” He leaned over until his face was only inches away from hers. “What’s the matter, Anne? Don’t you approve of me?”

  She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth, ready to object more strenuously, but instead found herself gazing into those deep brown depths, held there by some invisible force. She could see the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his thick dark lashes swept the high cheekbones, and was suddenly speechŹless.

  His expression was dead serious, his eyes slightly widened, as though he was as much at a loss as she. Then he cocked his head to one side, smiled quirkily and gave her a cool, appraising look.

  “Little Miss Touch-Me-Not,” he murmured, leaning closer. “Actually, I think I’m getting a little tired of blondes.”

  While she stared up at him blankly, unable to move, he raised a hand, as though to touch her. But he drew it back quickly, just as though it had been burned. He jumped to his feet and began pacing around the room.

  “All right, where were we?”

  Still dazed, Anne stared at him for a moment, then gave herself a little shake. “I was just explaining to you why I couldn’t get that interview you wanted with Ben Poole,” she said slowly.

  A familiar sly grin curled on his thin mouth. “There’ll be a fat bonus in it for you if you pull it off.”

  Anne eyed him carefully. “How much?”

  He shrugged. “Let’s say in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars.”

  Anne shook her head. “No, Jerry. I’ve had too much sad experience with your famous ‘neighborhoods.’ I want a firm commitment—in writing—for one thousand dollars, to be paid on delivery of the article.”

  He threw up his hands. “Lord, you’re getting to be a hard case, Anne. What happened to the sweet cooperative girl I hired?”

  “I don’t know, Jerry. You tell me. Sheer instinct for survival maybe?”

  “All right. You draw up the agreement and I’ll sign it. But for God’s sake don’t tell anyone.”

  He glanced over at the glass partition that separated his room from the rapidly filling outer office, then slid off the desk and went over to the door and closed it. He came striding back to her, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up out of her chair.

  “Now, here’s the way we’ll work it,” he said in a low voice. “You can go on up there today“

  “No,” she broke in firmly. “Not today. The ferry traffic is impossible on Friday afternoon. Besides, I need the weekend to make arrangements.”

  “What arrangements?” he asked in honest amazeŹment. According to Jerry, all one had to do to prepare for any trip was walk out of the door, get in the car and go.

  She held up a hand and began to tick off on her fingers. “I need to get my clothes ready, pack, stop the paper, arrange for one of the neighbors to pick up my mail. I have to call my father’s lawyer, to let him know I’m coming…”

  He threw up his hands. “All right. Tomorrow, then.”

  “Monday.”

  Their eyes locked together in mortal combat. He hated to give in—it was against all his most cherished principles of management—but Anne asserted herself like this so rarely that when she did he had to know she really meant it. He’d conned her into doing the job, and she wasn’t going to budge on how she went about it. Once she let Jerry take control of the project, she’d be lost.

  He waved a hand in the air. “Whatever. In any case, as soon as you get the interview set up, give me a call and I’ll send up a photographer. You can have anyone you want.” He gave her a smug look that was meant to be magnanimous.

  “That won’t work, Jerry. Look, it’s just barely possible that for old times’ sake, as a personal favor to me, Ben might agree to an interview. But he’d never stand for a photographer. What’s more, I wouldn’t

  even ask. Jerry, the man is paranoid about his privacy. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Okay, then you take a camera up there yourself. You know how to use it, I hope?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll take it, but I won’t guarantee I’ll get any pictures.”

  “I have every confidence, Anne, that you’ll do your very best to earn that thousand dollars,” As usual, he was bent on gett
ing in the last word.

  Over the weekend, as Anne made preparations for her trip, tasks not nearly so onerous or time-consuming as she’d made out to Jerry, she already regretted the stubborn determination that had made her insist on extracting the leave out of him in the first place, much less agree to the interview with Ben. If she’d only let well enough alone, bowed as usual to his refusal to let her go for longer than a weekend, she would have had the perfect excuse.

  Now she was committed. She would have to face Ben again. Had he changed? Would he remember that awful night she’d blurted out her love for him? Thrown herself at him? Even now, ten years later, the memory of that scene had the power to fill her with hot shame.

  Every time she thought about the ordeal that lay ahead of her, the incipient dread at the prospect blossomed into full flower, her stomach would start to churn and she would curse the impulse that had tricked her into changing her mind.

  Early Monday morning Anne set off on the drive north from Seattle to Anacortes on the busy interstate in a vicious sleety rain that pounded on the front windshield so that she could scarcely see the road and

  had to creep along so slowly that she’d almost missed the ferry at Anacortes.

  And it wasn’t over yet. After she stopped at Arnold Pembroke’s office in Friday Harbor, she still had another drive ahead of her up to Roche Harbor at the northern tip of the island, where she would leave her car. She’d arranged to meet Patrick Fielding there to take her across the narrow channel to Mystic Harbor on his fishing boat. In the heavy seas, she wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was the only means of transport to the village except for seaplane.

  The ferry groaned its way out of the harbor, its bulk bumping against the wooden pilings, and through a steady chop began to wind its way around the smaller islands on its regular run to Friday Harbor, the metropolis of the chain, situated at the southern tip of San Juan Island and protected by a small sheltered bay.

  Once safely aboard, her car parked on the vehicle deck, the engine switched off, Anne climbed the inside staircase up to the upper deck and made her way to the stern. She stood there, her arms braced on the railing, the strong breeze tearing at her scarf, leaning over and staring fixedly down at the deep blue of the sea. No other body of water she had ever seen was colored that particular shade—a darkish, clear, somehow mysterious hue that seemed to be more an amalgam of every possible variation of blue than a distinct color.

  As she gazed, mesmerized, into its depths, she was seized by a sudden strange emotional state, as though she had stepped from one plane of existence to another in the blink of an eye, like entering a room expecting to see familiar objects, and finding instead that the

  furnishings, carpet, wall coverings—even colors-were strange, alien, perhaps dimly recalled from the distant past, even another life.

  The foaming wake, the screech of the gulls as they wheeled and dipped overhead, the salty tang of the chill air, the powerful rolling waves beneath the surface as they made their inexorable way to and from the shore, crashing against the huge holders that surŹrounded the island, filled her with a familiar shudŹdering thrill.

  From earliest childhood the sea had evoked in Anne both an odd feeling of melancholy and an exhilarŹating, heart-piercing joy, curiously joined into a tranŹscendent state whose power over her was irresistible. Now, after her long absence, there was superimposed upon it a feeling of nostalgia for what might have been, what never was, so strong that it rapidly grew into an actual physical pain.

  Then the first few drops of rain began to fall, patŹtering softly on her face and hair, settling on her mouth and eyelashes, and the moment passed. She looked up toward the horizon. Friday Harbor was dead ahead. She turned and went down to the lower deck and reached her car just as the blast of the ferry announced its arrival and the chains began to clank.

  After stopping at Arnold Pembroke’s office in Friday Harbor to pick up the keys to the house from his secretary, she drove north to Roche Harbor, where Patrick was waiting for her. They made the harrowing trip across the channel on his boat in a nasty squall, the waves washing over the decks in great torrents.

  As they turned into the sheltered inlet that led to the harbor, and Anne had her first glimpse of the village dead ahead, her heart started to pound so hard

  that her whole body shook. It was as though she had been dead and was now being brought alive again, panting and groaning, by an irresistible force.

  Apparently nothing at all had changed since the day she left. There was the little white church in the foreŹground, high atop the hill, the low storm-weathered shops and small fishermen’s cottages behind it, the one hotel. At least the rain had stopped, and a pale wintry sun was struggling to break through the reŹmaining clouds.

  She helped Patrick tie up his boat at the landing, and when it was secure he offered to drive her home, but she declined, partly because she knew he still had things on the boat to tend to after the choppy ride, but mostly because she wanted to arrive at the house alone. She didn’t need a witness to whatever emotion the sight of her old home, long abandoned, would arouse in her.

  After thanking Patrick, she walked up from the dock to the tiny village, deserted now in the off-season, slinking through the one paved street like a criminal, hoping no one would see her. She still had half a mile to go, and by the time she reached the unpaved road that wound along the ridge high above Smugglers Cove the early November dusk was beŹginning to fall.

  She plodded on, going farther inland now as the road turned away from the sea, lugging her one suitcase every step of the way, and it was dark when she reached her father’s house.

  My house now, she thought, and stepped inside.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE minute Anne crossed the threshold she was struck by a dismal sense of decay in the damp, musty air, even in the very shapes of the familiar furniture against the stark white walls, shadowed now in the gathering dusk. She stood rigid in the doorway for a full minute, like an animal who instinctively sensed danger in a lair long abandoned.

  Perhaps it was only the southerly wind gusting up from the Straits of Juan de Fuca, carrying before it the heavy black rain clouds so typical in these northern islands in the autumn, rain that was spattering now against the windows. Or the long, tiring trip. Or, most likely, her own precarious state of nerves at the prospect of having to face all the specters from the past which she had so foolishly imagined were long buried.

  She shook herself and took a step inside, closing the door behind her. She fumbled for the light switch in the entry hall, relieved to see that the power had been left on, and gazed around the old familiar room. There was her mother’s rocking chair by the window, her father’s worn leather easy chair in front of the stone fireplace, the old rolltop desk by the window where he’d kept his careful livestock records.

  It was pitch dark outside by now. Through the thin curtains at the window she could see the ghostly shapes of the leafless birch trees swaying black in the wind

  against the night sky. Shuddering, she ran over to pull down the shade against the depressing sight.

  Suddenly from behind her there arose a sudden loud jangling sound that reverberated eerily in the empty house. Shocked to the core, she clutched at her throat and gazed wildly around. Her head started spinning so crazily that she was actually afraid she’d fall in a dead faint any minute. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands, but still the sound kept coming.

  Then it finally dawned on her that the awful noise was only the telephone, still ringing insistently. Shamefaced at her cowardly panic, she opened her eyes, and ran to answer it.

  “Hello,” she said breathlessly.

  “Well?” came a familiar deep baritone voice.

  She sank down on the chair beside the telephone. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. Although she felt oddly comforted by the sound of his voice, she knew it wouldn’t do to let him know that. “What do you want, Jerry?”

  “What do I
want?” he asked in exaggerated surprise. “I want to know how you’re coming along with the interview. You must realize by now that I’m not so free with my two-week leaves that I’m just going to ignore you. I intend to check on your progress often.”

  “Jerry, I just now walked inside the door,” she said with a sigh. “Why are you calling me now? You knew I wasn’t even planning to come up here until today.”

  “Oh. Well. I guess I forgot.”

  She ground her back teeth together in sheer frusŹtration. This from a man who had never, since she’d known him, forgotten the slightest detail of anything

  remotely connected to his precious magazine. Then it dawned on her that there had been a distinctly sheepish quality to his voice that was totally out of character, and her eyes widened in amazement. Could it possibly be that his concern was actually for her personal welfare?

  “Jerry,” she said carefully, “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. This is not exactly the end of the earth, you know.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” he demanded sternly.

  She had to laugh. “You were worried about me, weren’t you? Come on, admit it.”

  “The only thing I’m worried about is my story,” he said in a stiff voice.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. If you’ll admit you were worried about me, I’ll admit I was feeling a little shaky right before you called—you know, coming all alone into an empty house this way at night—and was acŹtually glad to hear the sound of your voice. How about it? Is it a deal?”

  He gave a hoarse bark of a laugh. “Not on your life, lady. You said it yourself. You’re a big girl. You can take care of yourself. Why should I worry about you?”

  “No reason in the world,” she retorted dryly. “I just lost my head there for a minute.”

  “Well, that’s all right, then. Just don’t forget why you’re up in that godforsaken place and why I let you talk me into letting you go for such an uncon-scionable length of time.”