For a soothing interval they leaned together like that, their arms around each other. Charlie felt rumpled and sweaty but too pleased to move. The firmness of Jake’s hands, the warmth of his skin against Charlie’s, was deeply reassuring. So was the soft, wordless noise Jake was making, almost a hum. He sounded happy. Charlie stroked his hair.
But even through their pleasant daze, they both heard the noise when Ducky started barking. They sprang apart. When Charlie turned, he saw flashes from an electric torch being waved around back toward the courtyard side of the parked cars. Obviously, someone was coming to search this area.
***
Charlie felt his eyes widen as he turned back to examine Jake. The evidence of what they’d been up to was unmistakable: rumpled hair, disarranged clothing, the spattering across Jake’s collar… Was Charlie’s fly still undone?
Once more, swift wits saved the day. Even as Charlie’s hands dropped to his trousers, Jake whirled, grabbed the decoy, took the few steps, and went into the swimming pool with a tremendous, graceless splash.
Charlie sputtered. Then he dashed pool water from his face before hastily kneeling on the pool’s edge. “Did you find it?” he called out loudly over all the thrashing noises, his hands busy.
“Yes!” Jake yelled back, splashing more water around. “Where the hell is the ladder?”
“To your right!” His suit was now officially ruined, but at least Charlie had managed to get his cummerbund back into place and run fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t you just fish it out? Or find the ladder before you went in the hard way? This is my good suit!”
“It was getting away!”
“How could it get away? It’s a wooden mallard! I mean, teal!”
Jake just splashed some more, deliberately this time, the monster.
Two of the attendants galloped up to the pool. The taller, the one he’d bribed earlier, anxiously asked Charlie, “Can he swim?” A nice youngster.
“Supposedly,” Charlie told him, sounding resigned even to his own ears. “But perhaps you could give him a hand getting out? He found Mr. Lowery’s antique decoy. It looks like the dog returned the counterfeit teal to its natural habitat, a counterfeit pond.”
The shorter attendant with the flashlight was the only one who snickered, but at least they both made haste to assist Jake. By the time he was out of the pool, Jake looked a lot less like a satiated lover and a lot more like a half-drowned sable.
“Help me dry off the decoy,” Jake told them as he emerged, and damned if he didn’t manage to tie up everyone for a few more minutes with a search for towels in the pool house. After the ineffectual dabbing, when they all trooped back onto the veranda at last, there was an air of the successful safari about their group that made trysting the last image that would come to anyone’s mind.
However, Laura seemed to be the exception proving that rule. After they sent the attendants inside with the decoy, she came out to speak with Charlie and Jake. She studied them in the light from the open French doors, and her eyebrows rose dramatically. But all she asked was, “Are you two coming in or do you mean to stand there dankly?”
“I think we’d better head back to your place, so we can change,” Jake told her. “Good thing for my upholstery that I keep a couple of driving rugs rolled up in the rumble seat.”
She shrugged. “It’s not as if the Lowerys wouldn’t provide a place for you to dry off more thoroughly, even considering the tooth mark. After all, your adventures added plenty of vim to their party.” They could all hear the laughter and lively conversation from inside as the attendants answered the guests’ questions.
Charlie said, “Nonetheless, I’d hate to squelch pool water across their parquetry, not to mention those rather fine carpets.”
“So you’ll be taking Ducky home instead of me?” Laura asked him.
“I’m afraid so.”
“As well as my errant brother.”
“That does seem to be what I’m proposing, yes.”
“Why not? He’s going to share my house, so he’ll eventually be stuck with me anyhow,” Jake said, and elbowed Charlie in the ribs. As Charlie eyed him balefully, Jake ignored the look to blithely ask his sister, “Will you give Fran a ride?”
“If she needs one. She may have other plans for her evening.” Laura studied them one last time. “I suppose you do, too.”
“Oh, you bet,” Jake said, walking right into it. “I want to get out of these clothes.”
Laura unmistakably smirked. “When it comes to gritty specifics, feel free to spare my nerves, Brother Dear.”
“What?” Jake was indignant. “I’m soaked. I think I lost a shirt stud in the pool, and I ruined my evening suit. Are you really implying--”
Even as Jake was speaking, Charlie took his arm and dragged him off toward the stairs to the garden. “Enjoy the rest of the party, Laura,” Charlie called back over his shoulder.
She only laughed, lovely and lyric as ever.
“And she calls me a stinker,” Jake said, still simmering. “See if I fetch any more wooden ducks for her.”
“Wooden teals,” Charlie told him. He let go of the arm to move in closer and put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Even with the wet fabric between them as they walked, Jake still felt warm and strong beneath his grasp.
Jake laughed. “You and teal, a match made somewhere or other. Am I looking at a house filled with fancy blue-green pillows? We could get a family discount from Tildon.” He paused. “Are we lost?”
“No, there’s the tennis courts. Just as well. I’m done with the out-of-doors for the evening. I want my bed.”
“That’s great. I want your bed, too.”
Charlie considered another elbow jab before shaking his head. You couldn’t blame anyone for desiring what you desired so very much yourself. “Oh, well. At least I didn’t make a hotel reservation.”
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The Retrieval Page 6