Heath smiled knowingly. “That, sweet April, could never happen.” His gaze glittered over her lips a final time, before he forced himself from his seeming trance, blinking and clearing his throat. “Ah … I’d better get to work. See what your machine has to say about this strange person I’m supposed to be!”
It was relatively easy and reasonably enlightening. There was, indeed, a Harley Evan Addison, named periodically in The Washington Post, as participating in one international conference or another during the past year.
“Looks like you’ve been involved in your share of diplomacy.” April delivered this on-the-spot commentary from a point in the vicinity of his right shoulder, a point with the advantage of serving up the clean, manly scent of him in tantalizing doses.
“Mmmm. Mostly in the Far East and the Soviet Union,” he mused, preoccupied. “The SALT talks … Russia …” His tongue explored the words as his mind searched for familiarity.
April urged him on. “You’ve only gone back a year. Try some more. See what the papers have to say for another year or two before.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” He paused, throwing a sidelong glance of wry amusement her way.
She grinned openly. “It’s like putting together a puzzle, piecing together a life. It’s not every day that a person gets to learn about himself in retrospect!”
“Hmph.” He grimaced his agreement. “That’s for sure. And I’m not sure I recommend it. The suspense is devastating.”
This time, her grin was more coy. “You don’t look terribly devastated. Devastating, but not devastated! And really, Heath, you have to be pleased!” She poked at his ribs in a bid for a smile. “You should feel proud; it seems you are a pretty well-respected fellow. I mean, to be named to governmental commissions right and left, to receive presidential appointments, to travel all over the world like that … Helsinki, Bonn, Cairo, the Hague …”
“You’ve traveled …”
“Not like that, I haven’t! Whew, imagine the responsibility …”
“Mmmm. Okay, let’s go on.” He was more cautious than she, undaunted by the facts as they seemed to emerge. When the Source brought forth media references to honorary degrees and further governmental involvement, he took it in stride. But when the five-year point was reached and the news of that year regarding Harley Evan Addison flashed onto the small, jade-hued screen, April gasped, clutching his shoulder as she read aloud.
“‘Georgetown University has announced the appointment of Harley Evan Addison to the faculty of the Institute of Strategic Studies. Dr. Addison comes from the State Department, where he served as under secretary of state …’” She took a deep breath. “Under secretary of state? My God, Heath! How did you ever manage that at the tender age of thirty-four?”
“Thirty-one, if you’ll continue reading. The fellow was with the State Department for three years, before leaving to teach and to write.”
Interpreting Heath’s third-person reference as an inability to so suddenly identify with his apparent position of prominence, she read silently on. “‘ … Advocate of world peace through negotiation … author of …’ Heath! This is amazing. Here I talk of writing, when it’s you who is the highly published one!” If he shunned a sense of pride, she had enough for them both. “You’re a very impressive person! What do you think?”
“I think,” he began, then paused with a low sigh, “that this is all very fine if I am Harley Evan Addison. Other than Jane’s word, we have no proof.”
“There’s the monogram—”
“Could be coincidence. Granted, a little hard to swallow, but coincidence, nonetheless.”
“I can’t believe that! And why would Jane Miller lie?”
He shrugged, as perplexed as she. “I don’t know that she is lying. I just feel skeptical. This is all so hard to believe. There’s something odd … I can’t quite grasp it … something’s missing …”
April recalled her own reaction to Jane Miller. It had been strong, instantly negative, and oddly puzzling as well. The woman’s emotions were strange. “She didn’t make much of an argument for sticking around here, did she?”
“No,” he agreed, absently passing a lean finger over the line of the slash at his temple. “As a matter of fact, for a woman who supposedly worried through a hurricane that I might have died, and then traced me all the way from Washington to this small island, she gave up rather easily. To have gotten where she is professionally, she had to have some kind of spunk. Where was it this morning?”
April straightened. “You’re sorry she didn’t fight harder for you, aren’t you?”
One eyebrow arched above his steady gaze. “Personally, no. I don’t know the woman. At least I don’t remember her. As a spectator to this drama, however, I’m more surprised than sorry. It would have been in keeping with her supposed character and its devotion to me had she fussed more. When she first arrived”—his gaze narrowed as he recalled those early morning moments—“she knew nothing of my amnesia. Therefore, I have to believe that I am who she says; otherwise, she would never have dared call me by name and throw herself at me.” He looked quickly up at April. “Am I correct?”
She had no time to answer, for the loud jangle of the telephone interrupted them. It was Paul Watson with a timely confirmation. Heath came to stand by her as she talked. When she hung up, he prodded. “Well … ?”
“I called him this morning, after Jane left.” Her voice bore its share of apology. “And gave him both of your names. I-I thought he might check it out—”
“That’s all right, April. What did he find?”
“A picture, for one, and a description. Harley Evan Addison is thirty-nine, about six feet three inches tall, and slim, with full, black hair.” Her eyes followed the enumeration. “Brown-black eyes, a straight nose, and angular jaw. No distinguishing physical defect—”
“Hah!” He threw back his head in what was not quite a laugh.
“He weighs one hundred eighty-five pounds and is right-handed, has all his teeth—”
“I think that’ll be enough,” Heath interrupted with a wry twist of his lip. “You’ve got his man, all right. What about Miller?”
“She is what she says, though there was less information on her than there is on you. When Paul called your office at Georgetown, he was told that you were on a temporary leave of absence.”
“Leave of absence? Sounds mysterious. The office said nothing else?”
“No.” She shook her head, her hair slithering back and forth in long ripples. “But, on a hunch, he made another call—”
“To—?”
“The State Department. The secretary of state, to be precise.” At Heath’s surprise, she reasoned accurately, “I told you that Paul Watson was the one to call. He has ‘ins’ to all the right places, and he wields some degree of power. I asked him to be discreet; I’m sure that’s why he went right to the top. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak—”
“And did he learn anything?” He interrupted her picturesque elaboration, standing back with his hands on his hips in an imperious pose, growing strangely anxious.
Again, April could only shake her head. “He really didn’t expect to. If his hunch was correct, given your history of government work your leave of absence may be related to some work with the State Department. All he could do was to casually drop the information that you’d had an accident, been caught in the storm, and been found up here. And that you’d been hurt and knew nothing about yourself until Jane showed up. If the State Department wants to find you, they’ll know where to look.”
“Odd …” He paced the room slowly, deep in thought.
“What’s odd?”
“There was no mention of this ‘leave of absence’ in the papers. If this was another of those ‘prestigious’ appointments,” he drawled in self-mockery, “why wasn’t it reported by the press? Most of the others appear to have been.”
April’s gaze grew clouded. “You’re right. I have no idea w
hy it wasn’t reported. It’s possible,” she said as an idea struck, brightening her face, “that this is a recent thing and just hasn’t hit the papers. The new semester would have begun around Labor Day; perhaps your leave took effect then.”
“Ummm.” Digesting this possibility, Heath resumed his pacing. Then he stopped abruptly. “I’d like to know what I was doing in that boat and what that boat was doing in the midst of the hurricane. And,” he said, reaching back to absently massage the taut muscles of his neck, “I’d like to know how Jane found me so quickly. She said she knew I was headed this way. But just where did I start from? And how could she know to find me on this one small island?”
April sensed the growing tension and saw the bottom line quickly. “There’s only one person who can answer your questions,” she began softly, then bit her lip at Heath’s nod.
“Jane Miller.” Her name flowed as smoothly off his tongue as did everything else he said, yet April instantly disliked its sound. She disliked everything about the woman, but there was no doubt that only Jane could answer the questions. When Heath approached, he spoke quietly. “I’ll take a drive into town to talk with her. May I use the car?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, April. It’s better that you stay here.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I’m coming!”
Heath glowered down at her. “Think sensibly about it. She’ll talk more freely if you’re not there.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m coming!” She turned to get her purse, but the strong fingers on her wrist stopped her progress.
“April …”
At his warning tone, she retaliated in kind. “It’s my car and you have no driver’s license—”
“Addison does.”
“On him?”
“ … No.”
“Then, where?”
A muscle worked at the line of his jaw. “At the bottom of the sea, I assume. With the rest of his identification.”
She shrugged with feigned innocence. “Sorry, Heath. You’ll have to take me along. I wouldn’t want you to be stopped …”
“Come on, April. The cops will never know …” He caught the direct gleam in her eye. “You wouldn’t …” He stared. “You would … ?” At her satisfied nod, he cursed softly and turned to leave. “Damn it. Let’s go then!” He hadn’t taken two steps, however, before he whirled back. “But I’m warning you, April. Behave yourself. Let’s not have any histrionics such as you demonstrated this morning.” “Histrionics.” She smiled softly, as she grabbed for her purse and joined him at the door. “Good word. Are you sure there was no mention of a professorship in literature … ?”
Heath took her arm with a deep-growled, “Let’s go!” then escorted her to the car and said no more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was April who did most of the talking during the drive into Nantucket center. Heath sat behind the wheel, brooding, concentrating on his driving and the road, his thoughts a mystery to her. There was tension in the air, a dark storm cloud between them, separating them, preventing their coming together to seek out its eye. In desperate effort to reach him, she tried light conversation.
“The island is recovering from the hurricane nicely,” she observed, scanning the scenic moorland, with its ground-hugging heather of rust and crimson splotching endless fields of aging grass. “The roads look drier; is the driving any easier?”
From the driver’s side and in staunch profile, Heath nodded, refusing to be roused from his preoccupation by her gentle prodding. It was her own apprehension that pushed her on.
“They tell me these lands were carved out by glaciers. There are freshwater ponds all over the island, left when the ice receded. Look …” She pointed to a distant lake of wine-red beauty. “A cranberry bog. Isn’t the color magnificent?”
Again, she darted a glance at Heath. In turn, he nodded.
“There’s a small cranberry industry here.” Her soft words seemed, to her, to drone through the car’s interior. “But, nowadays, the island survives on tourism. They say that the moors are peopled with Jeeps and bicycles at the height of the season …”
When no response was forthcoming she sighed, lapsing into silence. It seemed no use. The barrier was in place between them again, a barrier of time and place and circumstance destined to wedge them apart. Then she recalled her own advice. Keep the avenues of communication open. Her eyes a soft, chocolate brown of emotion, she looked across at him.
“Are you still angry at me, Heath?”
His lips thinned to a firm, straight line. “No, April. I’m not angry with you. Just uneasy. I have this very uncomfortable feeling.” He took a breath to go on, then swallowed it and any words that might have come. Frustrated, she tempered her prodding in gentleness.
“What are you thinking?”
The rattle of the car’s parts as the vehicle jolted over the rutted road dominated the sound space for a long time. Finally his deep voice, contrastingly smooth, filtered through. “I was wondering about my family. Why was Jane the one to find me? Why not my father or brother or sister? Surely they must have been as worried, knowing I’d been out in the storm.”
“Jane is—or claims to be—your fiancée. Wouldn’t it be natural for her to get here first?”
He lifted a hand to rub the line of his jaw. “It would be—particularly if no one else knew of my whereabouts just before I set out. But why wouldn’t they? If Addison is as prominent as he appears to be, why has Jane been the only one to make contact? Why was there no mention of his disappearance by the press?”
April had no ready answers. One excuse sounded more flimsy than the next. As the car ventured onto the streets of the town, she let her thoughts trail off to the realm of the unfathomable. There was no recourse but to hear Jane out. First, however, they had to find her.
“It was kind of her to call and tell you where she was staying.” April’s sarcasm was met by a stern glance.
“She seemed rather put out when she left. Perhaps she’s simply cooling her heels somewhere.”
Recalling the stylish shape of those heels, and the body they supported, April frowned, countering Heath’s indulgence with a pointed barb. “Most probably, she’s at one of the inns insisting that she be waited on hand and foot. She strikes me as the type.”
“Sheath the claws, April,” he said in quiet command. “Remember what I warned you about. This is no time for petty jealousies—”
“Petty?” she shrieked, then, at his glower, lowered her voice and her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this.” It was the truth. Waspishness was not her style; but then, she had never been in love like this before! “I’ll be on my best behavior,” she vowed, blinking skeptically. If he caught the thread of rebellion that lurked, barely leashed, behind her hooded gaze, his thoughts were too consuming to pay it further heed.
“Now,” he announced the first step, “to find out where she’s staying …” April’s sharp call took over.
“Pull over! Here!” Pointing to a street corner, she quickly lowered the window. “Mrs. Ingram!” An older woman, hair as gray as the cedar shingles of the houses on either side, looked up from her casual stroll. “Mrs. Ingram! It’s me—April Wilde!”
The woman squinted for a minute, then smiled and approached the car. “If it isn’t my friend, April! How are you, dear?”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Ingram. Say, I wonder if you could help us.” The woman squinted past her to Heath’s dark form as April continued, forsaking the pleasantry of introduction for the urgency of the hunt. “We’re looking for a woman who arrived here this morning. Tall, blond, slim, very attractive—?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” the older woman corrected, straightening her rotund form with pride. “She landed yesterday afternoon.”
Heath’s stirring beside her was ample encouragement for April to probe deeper. “You saw her?”
“No, no, my dear. Not me. Samuel did, though.” Her gaze darted again toward H
eath. “Samuel’s my husband. He works at the airport, though there’s not too much activity this time of year. So he’d be sure to notice any newcomers. They flew in and began asking questions about a man who might have found his way through the storm to the island …”
“‘They’?” April asked, then held her breath.
“She was with a man—kind of sour-looking, my Samuel said.”
“Do you know where they might be staying?” It was Heath who, leaning across April, spoke politely to the woman.
The native islander frowned. “No. I’m sorry. Samuel didn’t tell me that. Say.” Her weathered face brightened. “Why don’t you try John, over at the pharmacy. He often knows things like that. They may even have stopped in for his recommendation.”
April smiled her appreciation. “Thank you, Mrs. Ingram. We’ll do that.”
As he pulled the car to a proper parking spot, Heath acknowledged April’s insight. “You were right about the townspeople. They do have an ear to the ground, don’t they?”
But John, unfortunately, was no more help than Mrs. Ingram had been. He confirmed the presence of the two strangers—“Seemed kind of out of their element, if you know what I mean,” he quipped, scratching his bald pate in puzzlement—and the fact that they had made similar inquiries about a possible shipwreck, but he did not know where they were lodged.
“You the man they were looking for?” He eyed Heath with open curiosity.
Heath, the true diplomat, grinned winningly and offered his hand in a parting shake. “Most probably. Thank you, John. We’ll keep looking.”
The more they looked, walking the center of the small community, the more frustrated they became. It seemed that everyone had either seen or heard of the visitors, yet none could pinpoint their present location.
“This is absurd,” Heath scowled at one point. “Everyone has seen them, but no one has. Surely they can’t be that hard to find in a town as small as this!”
They kept up the search. Several of the townspeople, all of whom were warm and open to April, confessed to having mentioned her and her dark companion, so visible with her the day before.
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